Pentecostal Political Power: The New Apostolic Reformation, with Leah Payne and Caleb Maskell

What is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)? And what does it have to do with conservative political power in the United States and abroad?

Leah Payne and Caleb Maskell join Mark Labberton for a deep dive into the emergence and impact of the New Apostolic Reformation—a loosely affiliated global network blending Pentecostal Christian spirituality, charismatic authority, and political ambition. With their combined pastoral experience and scholarly expertise, Payne and Maskell chart the historical, theological, and sociopolitical roots of this Pentecostal movement—from Azusa Street and Latter Rain revivals to modern dominion theology and global evangelicalism. They distinguish the New Apostolic Reformation from the broader Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, and explore the popular appeal, theological complexity, and political volatility of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Episode Highlights

• “Isn't this just conservative political activism with tongues and prophecy and dominion?”
• “At no point in time in the history of these United States … have Protestants not been interested in having a great deal of influence over public life.”
• “You can be super nationalistic in Guatemala, in Brazil, in India, and in the United States. … It is a portable form of nationalism.”
• “They are not moved by appeals to American democracy or American exceptionalism because they have in their mind the end times and the nation of Israel.”
• “Charismatics and Pentecostals, unlike other forms of American Protestantism … do not have a theological value for democracy.”

Main Themes

• Pentecostalism’s history and global influence
• Charismatic Christianity versus Pentecostalism
• Defining and explaining the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)
• C. Peter Wagner, Lance Hall, and Seven Mountain Mandate
• Dominion theology, Christian nationalism, and the religious Right
• Pentecostals and Trump politics
• Zionism in charismatic theology
• Vineyard movement, worship music, and intimacy with God

Linked Media References

• About Vineyard USA
• God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music by Leah Payne
• The New Apostolic Churches by C. Peter Wagner
• This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti
• Atlantic Article: “The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows” by Stephanie McCrummen
• Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation, by Joel Looper
• Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity, by Joel Looper

Show Notes

• Leah Payne defines Pentecostalism as “a form of American revivalism”
• William J. Seymour
• Marked by interracial desegregated worship and spiritual “fireworks” like tongues and prophecy
• Mystical experiences of God
• Desegregation and physically touching one another in acts of miraculous healing
• The Azusa Street Revival (1906) identified as a global catalyst for Assemblies of God denomination
• There is no founding theological figure, unlike Luther or Calvin
• Caleb Maskell emphasizes Pentecostalism’s roots in “a founding set of experiences,” not a founding theological figure
• “Limits to what makes a church”
• Lack of ecclesiological clarity leaves Pentecostalism open to both renewal and fragmentation
• Leah highlights Pentecostalism as “a shared experience … a shared series of practices.”
• “Holy Rollers” and being “slain in the Spirit”
• “A different way of knowing”
• “Christians are made through an encounter with Jesus.”
• The global “charismatic movement” and how it has had cross-denominational Influence
• “Charismatic” was a mid-twentieth-century term for Spirit-led practices arising within mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions
• Charismatic means “gifted” or “being given gifts”
• “‘Charismatic’ has typically been a more inclusive word than ‘Pentecostal.’”
• Emphasis on personal spiritual gifts and intimate worship styles
• “They are not respecters of institutions.”
• Figures like Oral Roberts and Amy Semple McPherson were “too big” for denominational constraints
• “Too-bigness” as driven by both an over-inflated ego and spiritual mysticism
• Frederick Buechner: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
• Spellbound, by Molly Worthen (see Conversing episode 212)
• What are the origins and key ideas of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)?
• New Apostolic Reformation: “a form of institutionalized charismatic identity that builds on grassroots consensus.”
• “NAR” coined by C. Peter Wagner at Fuller Seminary in the 1990s
• Wagner promoted post-denominationalism and “reality-based” church governance centred on individual charismatic gifts
• Emerged from a “larger soup” of charismatic ideas—often practiced before being systematized.
• Closely tied to the “Seven Mountain Mandate”: that Christians should influence key societal sectors—family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government
• The role of dominion theology and political alignment
• “The convergence of egos, the convergence of ethos … is a natural thing to see emerging.”
• “Dominion is really just two or three logical steps from an obsession with cultural relevance.”
• Payne sees dominionism as a Pentecostal-flavoured version of a broader conservative political strategy.
• “Charismatics and Pentecostals are everywhere … so we should expect them on the far right.”
• Many deny the NAR label even as they operate in its mode.
• ”When Bob Dylan’s in your church, suddenly your church is relevant, whether you like it or not.”
• Defining “Dominionism”
• “Dominion is really just two or three logical steps from an obsession with cultural relevance. Cultural relevance says church should fit—not prophetically, but should fit all but seamlessly—into modes of culture that people are already in.”
• What are the “Seven Mountains of Culture”?  Family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government—”the world would go better if Christians were in charge of each of those arenas.”
• “At no point in time in the history of these United States and the history of European settlers in the new world have Protestants not been interested in having a great deal of influence over public life.”
• Trump, Zionism, and global Pentecostal nationalism
• Christian nationalism versus religious Right
• “They are not moved by appeals to American democracy. … They think the nation of Israel is the nation of all nations.”
• “Isn’t this just conservative political activism with tongues and prophecy and dominion?”
• Anti-institutional and anti-structural
• How Trump seeks power and ego affirmation
• Christian theocratic rule?
• ”It may simply be a part of what it is to be a Christian is to say, at some level, within the spheres that I’m given authority in, I ought to have the right kind of influence, whatever it is.”
• “ I think what’s scary about the moment that we’re in right now is in fact the chaos.”
• A book about Donald Trump—God's Chaos Candidate, by Lance Wall
• ”The beliefs in divine prophecy are so widespread that they transcend partisanship.”
• Black Pentecostalism: immune to the charms of Trump and populist conservatives
• Trump’s Zionist overtures strategically captured charismatic loyalty
• The rise of global Pentecostal nationalism in countries like India, Brazil, and Guatemala parallels US patterns.
• “They don’t actually care long-term about American democracy.”
• “They are not moved by appeals to American democracy or American exceptionalism because they have in their mind the end times and the nation of Israel.”
• Prosperity gospel
• Dominionism and the Roman Catholic “doctrine of discovery”
• The gospel of Christ as “sorting power”
• “It is a portable form of nationalism.”
• Concerns about power, order, and eschatology
• Mark Labberton reflects on Fuller Seminary’s controversial role in NAR’s intellectual development.
• Payne critiques the equation of widespread Pentecostal practices with far-right dominionism.
• “What’s scary … is the chaos. And a number of people associated with NAR have celebrated that.”
• NAR theology often prioritizes divine chaos over institutional order.
• Warnings against super-biblical apostolic authority and spiritual authoritarianism.
• Pentecostalism beyond politics
• “There’s a vivid essentialism—make everything great and all the nations will gather.”
• Vineyard worship as a counterweight to dominionism—emphasizing intimacy and mystical union with Christ.
• “That emphasis on Jesus as a friend … is a really beautiful image of God.”
• Vineyard music helped export a gentle, intimate charismatic spirituality.

About Leah Payne

Leah Payne is associate professor of American religious history at Portland Seminary and a 2023–2024 public fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). She holds a PhD from Vanderbilt University, and her research explores the intersection of religion, politics, and popular culture. Payne is author of God Gave Rock and Roll to You: a History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press, 2024), and co-host of Rock That Doesn’t Roll, a Public Radio Exchange (PRX) podcast about Christian rock and its listeners, and Weird Religion, a religion and pop culture podcast. Her writing and research has appeared in The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today.

About Caleb Maskell

Caleb Maskell is the associate national director of theology and education for Vineyard USA. Born in London, he immigrated with his family to New Jersey in 1986, at the age of nine.

Caleb has been involved in leadership in the Vineyard movement for twenty-five years. After spending a gap year at the Toronto Airport Vineyard School of Ministry in 1995, he went to the University of Chicago to study theology, philosophy, and literature in the interdisciplinary undergraduate Fundamentals program. While there, he joined the core planting team of the Hyde Park Vineyard Church, where he served as a worship leader, a small group leader, a setter-up of chairs, and whatever else Rand Tucker asked him to do.

After college, full of questions that had emerged from the beautiful collision of serious academic study and the practical realities of church planting, Caleb enrolled in the MDiv program at Yale Divinity School. For four years, he immersed himself in the study of theology, church history, and Scripture, while also leading worship and working with middle school and high school youth groups. After graduating in 2004, he worked for three years as the associate director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.

In 2007, along with his wife Kathy and their friends Matt and Hannah Croasmun, Caleb planted Elm City Vineyard Church in New Haven, Connecticut. That year, he also began a PhD program at Princeton University, focusing on the history of American religion, with an additional emphasis in African American studies. After moving to Manhattan for four years while Kathy went to seminary, the Maskells ended up in suburban Philadelphia, where Caleb completed his PhD while teaching regularly at Princeton Theological Seminary, and serving as the worship pastor at Blue Route Vineyard Church.

Since 2010, Caleb has led the Society of Vineyard Scholars, which exists to foster and sustain a community of theological discourse in and for the Vineyard movement. Caleb is passionate about developing leaders and institutions that will help to produce a healthy, courageous, and hospitable future for the church in the twenty-first century. Caleb and Kathy now live with their two kids, Josiah and Emmanuelle, in the heart of Denver, where Kathy pastors East Denver Vineyard Church.

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.