The Minnesota Suspect's Radical Spiritual World

The Atlantic

4 hours ago

With the suspect accused of killing Minnesota's Democratic house leader and her husband now in custody, investigators will have a long list of questions to ask about what the alleged shooter believes. The emerging biography of Vance Boelter suggests a partial answer, one that involves his contact with a charismatic Christian movement whose leaders speak of spiritual warfare, an army of God, and demon-possessed politicians, and which has already proved, during the January 6 insurrection, its ability to mobilize followers to act.
Reporting so far describes Boelter, the 57-year-old man now facing murder charges, as a married father of five who worked in the food industry for decades, managed a gas station in St. Paul and a 7-Eleven in Minneapolis, and recently began working for funeral-service companies as he struggled financially. At the same time, Boelter had an active, even grandiose, spiritual life long before he allegedly carried out what authorities describe as a 'political assassination' and texted his family afterward, 'Dad went to war last night.'
To some degree, the roots of Boelter's beliefs can be traced to a Bible college he attended in Dallas called Christ for the Nations Institute. A school official confirmed to me that Boelter graduated in 1990 with a diploma in practical theology.
Little known to outsiders, the college is a prominent training institution for charismatic Christians. It was co-founded in 1970 by a Pentecostal evangelist named James Gordon Lindsay, a disciple of the New Order of the Latter Rain, one of many revivalist movements that took hold around the country after World War II. Followers believed that an outpouring of the Holy Spirit was under way, raising up new apostles and prophets and a global End Times army to battle Satanic forces and establish God's kingdom on Earth. Although Pentecostal churches at the time rejected Latter Rain ideas as unscriptural, the concepts lived on at Christ for the Nations, which has become a hub for the modern incarnation of the movement, known as the New Apostolic Reformation. NAR ideas have spread far and wide through megachurches, global networks of apostles and prophets, and a media ecosystem of online ministries, books, and podcasts, becoming a grassroots engine of the Christian Right.
Many prominent NAR leaders have connections to the school. These include Dutch Sheets, a graduate who taught there around the time Boelter was a student, and who went on to become an influential apostle who used his YouTube platform to mobilize many of his hundreds of thousands of followers to the U.S. Capitol on January 6. More recently, Sheets suggested on his podcast that certain unnamed judges—'including Supreme Court justices,' he said—oppose God and 'disrespect your word and ways,' and he prayed for God to 'arise and scatter your enemies.' Cindy Jacobs, an influential prophet who is an adviser and frequent lecturer at the school, was also in D.C. on January 6, praying for rioters climbing the Capitol steps.
During his time at the school, Boelter would have been exposed to the beliefs that motivate these movement leaders. He would have been taught to see the world as a great spiritual battleground between God and Satan, and to consider himself a kind of spiritual warrior. He would have been told that actual demonic forces can take hold of culture, political leaders, and entire territories, and thwart God's kingdom. He would have been exposed to versions of courses currently offered, such as one that explains how 'the World is in an era of serious warfare' and how 'the body of Christ must remember that Jesus has already won this war.' He may have heard the founder's slogan that 'every Christian should pray at least one violent prayer a day.'
On Saturday, Christ for the Nations Institute issued a statement that read, in part, 'We are absolutely aghast and horrified that a CFNI alumnus is the suspect. This is not who we are,' and 'CFNI unequivocally rejects, denounces and condemns any and all forms of violence and extremism, be it politically, racially, religiously or otherwise motivated.' The school clarified that the slogan refers to the founder's belief that prayer should be 'intense, fervent, and passionate, not passive and lukewarm, considering that spiritual forces of darkness are focused on attacking life, identity in God, purpose, peace, love, joy, truth, health, and other good things.'
Precisely what Boelter absorbed or rejected from the school remains to be seen. On an archived website, Boelter claims that he was 'ordained' in 1993. Tax documents from 2008 to 2010 show him as president of something called Revoformation Ministries. He claimed to be writing a book called Original Ability, promising readers 'a different paradigm on the nature of man' and warning that it 'may change the way you see yourself, other people, and God.' Boelter claimed that before the September 11 terrorist attacks, he had gone to Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank to 'share the gospel' with militant Islamists.
In recent years, Boelter traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where videos show him delivering guest sermons at a large church, chastising Christians who don't fight abortion and homosexuality, and saying that 'God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America' who will 'correct his church.' As law enforcement searched for the suspect across rural Minnesota on Saturday, a childhood friend of Boelter's told reporters that Boelter had texted him that he had 'made some choices.'
Minnesota authorities said that they'd found 'voluminous writings' in the suspect's vehicle and at his home, and that he'd kept a notebook that mentioned about 70 potential targets, including politicians, civic leaders, and Planned Parenthood centers. Boelter is now facing federal murder charges for the fatal shooting of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. State prosecutors have also charged Boelter with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder for allegedly shooting and wounding State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. If Boelter's beliefs were a factor in the shootings, the question is not exactly what radicalized him, Frederick Clarkson, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who has been tracking the NAR movement for years, told me: The worldview that Boelter appeared to embrace was radical, he said.
'Everyone brings faith to their life and the things they do—the question is, in what ways does your faith inform your actions and your decision making?' he told me. 'Without knowing exactly what motivated the shooter, we can say that being oriented into this kind of NAR thinking, to my mind, it's just a matter of time before an individual or group of individuals take some kind of action against the enemies of God and the demons in their midst.'