House Speaker Mike Johnson hangs an "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside of his office and has ties to the Christian nationlist New Apostolic Reformation.

To understand the contemporary meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag, it’s necessary to enter a world of Christian extremism animated by modern-day apostles, prophets, and apocalyptic visions of Christian triumph that was central to the chaos and violence of Jan. 6. Earlier this year we released an audio-documentary series, rooted in deep historical research and ethnographic interviews, on this sector of Christianity, which is known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The flag hanging outside Johnson’s office is a key part of its symbology.

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    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    He is a former constitutional lawyer and hardly the type of political figure who jeers during a State of the Union address, or gets caught in a Beetlejuice groping scandal, or shows up on cable news to take a victory lap after ousting the leader of his own party.

    He holds stringent positions on abortion, thinks homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that should not be recognized under legal protections against discrimination, defends young Earth creationism, blames school shootings on the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and questions the framework of the separation of church and state.

    In the mid-2000s, these NAR networks collectively embraced a theological paradigm called the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a prophecy that divides society into seven arenas — religion, family, government, education, arts and entertainment, media, and business.

    Since 2015, you can find these Appeal to Heaven flags popping up over and over: in the background of pictures of far-right politicians and election deniers like Doug Mastriano; as wall decorations in state legislators’ offices; at right-wing rallies.

    We make the case in our audio-documentary series that the New Apostolic Reformation networks were at the molten core of Christian mobilization for Jan. 6, with many NAR leaders in attendance that day, including a handful of C. Peter Wagner’s closest mentees.

    Carscadden’s Facebook profile page is a photo of him holding an Appeal to Heaven flag, and the Louisiana apostle posted his support for the gathering crowds of protesters on Jan. 6, 2021, writing: “We will be live in person and online as we stand with the million plus in Washington DC today.

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