Che Ahn, the senior pastor of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena California, said he woke up at night last year and felt called by God to run for governor of California to improve conditions in the state. He put up an official website, traveled the state and attended campaign events. But he failed to submit mandatory copies of tax returns by the deadline as part of his application for candidacy, disqualifying him from having his name on the ballot. So, he ran as a write-in candidate. Although it’s a longshot, he said he’s seeking “to bring about a spiritual awakening.”
The Roys Report said Ahn woke up at 2:22 AM and felt divine direction to read Isaiah 22:22, which he understood to mean that he should run for governor. The final, exact count will be certified in July, but Ahn’s name did not appear anywhere near the top of the list. His campaign didn’t secure endorsements from obvious ideological allies in California, but he received public support from Bill Johnson, Lou Engle, and Cindy Jacobs—all who are leaders within the NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation. One analyst said his chances of winning the election were at .01%, “a virtual impossibility.”
In the Roys Report article, Matthew Taylor, a scholar of charismatic movements and author of The Violent Take It by Force, said that the NAR is still trying to figure out how to get involved in politics. “It’s become a theological imperative… But they’re still trying to find tactics and strategies.” They don’t know how to win people who aren’t attached to their theology.
Taylor said Ahn may have lost, but that doesn’t mean an apostle won’t win in another race in another state. “And it doesn’t mean that Ahn himself won’t learn from his campaign’s failure and run again.” In fact, on a podcast in March he said if he lost God will use the loss for good (Romans 8:22).
Because I’m going to run again. . . And now I know how to build for a campaign. … I will have four more years to build correctly, raise the funds that are necessary. We’re getting the grassroots movement started now and we’re going to continue until I win.
There are specific theological beliefs behind this declaration by Che Ahn, who also considers himself to be an apostle called by God.
The Emergence of Modern Apostles
Harvest International Ministry (HIM) is an international Apostolic Network, founded by Che Ahn in 1996 after he received a “word of the Lord” from Cindy Jacobs that he was to “father” a new movement, a network of networks. HIM has more than 25,000 affiliated ministries and organizations in 65 nations, according to The Violent Take It by Force. Taylor said:
In 1995, Cindy Jacobs gave Che Ahn another prophetic word: “You’re not to join another network; I have called you to be an apostle. You will be like Abraham, a father of many. And you’ll have churches on every single continent. After that, Harvest Rock Church began calling itself a “new apostolic church.”
Peter Wagner is widely recognized as a leading authority on present-day apostles. He wrote of his belief that we are living in what he called the Second Apostolic Age in his book, Apostles Today. The First Apostolic Age lasted for around 200 years after the New Testament apostles concluded their ministry. Historically, he thought apostles operated “under the radar” without notice, after the first couple of centuries until recently.
However, “a growing number of Christian leaders now recognize, acknowledge and affirm both the gift and the office of apostle in today’s churches. The apostles have surfaced!” Supposedly, when we submit to the authority of apostles in the government of the church, there will be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our cities, leading to social transformation on a worldwide scale. In A New Apostolic Reformation? Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett said: “In other words, without the authority of today’s apostles, the church cannot fulfill its mission of transforming societies and advancing God’s kingdom.”
Taylor said Wagner wondered whether the churches could be governed by apostles and prophets. “He built upon the foundation of the Latter Rain ideas about the rebirth of the apostolic and prophetic roles (fivefold ministries) that had been kicking around for decades.” Not only was Wagner interested in the idea of new apostles and prophets, he also wanted to find a way “to have it all hang together organizationally.” Peter Wagner was not a scholarly theologian, but a social scientist who dabbled in Christian theology. “So while his NAR ideas have a theological dimension, and Wagner found his rationale [for them] in his interpretation of the Bible, the schema of the NAR is also organizational and pragmatic.”
In Wagner’s mind, if you could just get the apostles and prophets—these supernaturally ordained oligarchs—to work together noncompetitively, they could unite in seeking revival and also take over the whole landscape of churches, and the whole system would be stable and cooperative. Indeed, at a sociological level, that is what all the seemingly obscure and low-profile institutions that Wagner built after he retired from Fuller were about. Wagner was trying to create relationships and power-sharing agreements among the most talented leaders of the Independent Charismatic world so that they wouldn’t fight with each other over which church belonged to whom. Instead, they would work as partners. Wagner was building an ideology and an infrastructure for this charismatic spiritual oligarchy.
Dominion Theology and the Seven Mountain Mandate
Peter Wagner heard Lance Wallnau teach about an idea he called the 7 mountains of culture at a prophecy conference. This fateful encounter led to the formation of the Seven Mountain Mandate. Wagner invited Wallnau to teach on the Seven Mountains to the ICA, the International Coalition of Apostles, which included others in Wagner’s inner circle, including Cindy Jacobs and Che Ahn. Matthew Taylor said:
Wallnau’s mountain imagery, on the other hand, brought with it a whole new provocation to conquest and strategy for battle. Who will conquer and hold the top of each mountain of culture? Who will govern from the high places? As Wallnau once put it, “There are a remnant of people at the top of each sphere who control power over 90 percent of the influence that happens in their sphere. These people are called ‘kings.’ Jesus says the gospel goes to kings. For some reason, the church focuses on taking the gospel only to the poor and completely forgets about taking it to rulers and world authorities. . . The key here, if you can capture the high places, you can shape a culture.” If Cunningham imagined transformation from below, growing up through the grassroots, Wallnau proclaimed the need for Christians to assert control of society in a top-down, vanguard maneuver.
Around the mid-2000s, Taylor said there was an elaborate programmatic and theological entwining of dominion theology and Wallnau’s Seven Mountain concept in NAR leadership. Then there was a very intentional rollout of the ideas of the Seven Mountains and dominion theology. Wagner said: “Our apostolic movement is entering a new season that many of our older apostles could not have imagined. Rather than ‘building our own kingdom’ as critics might say, today’s apostles are intent on building the kingdom of God.” And they were willing to take the radical steps needed “to help make it happen.”
I think this theological belief is what motivates Che Ahn as he said he will again to climb the governmental mountain in the seven mountain mandate. This is a clear expression of Kingdom Now theology, the dominion mandate.
Bill Johnson and Peter Wagner have recast what has been known as the creation or cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 into the dominion mandate. Both saw Genesis 1:28 as God establishing a government on earth with Adam and Eve as its first governors. In When Heaven Invades Earth, Johnson said: “The backbone of Kingdom authority and power is found in the commission.” When discussing the commission or mandate of Adam and Eve, he said by having children, they would effectively extend the boundaries of the garden, which he referred to as “government.” This was supposed to lead to a greater impact of their leadership, presumably in government, “until the entire earth was covered with the glorious rule of God through man.”
In Dominion: Your Role in Bringing Heaven to Earth, Peter Wagner said he thinks dominion theology is more biblically comprehensive than kingdom theology. “The Kingdom of God is a New Testament theme, while dominion is both Old Testament and New Testament.” After quoting Genesis 1:28, Wagner said, “God not only created the earth, but He established a government for the earth, beginning with Adam and Eve as the governors. He gave Adam and Eve full authority to take dominion in His name.” This interpretation by Johnson and Wagner is a distortion of the cultural mandate, making it seem supportive of Kingdom Now theology and the seven mountain mandate.
For more information on Peter Wagner, the Latter Rain revival and modern day apostles, see “Bedlam in the ‘Postdenominational’ Church” Part 1 and Part 2. For more information on fivefold ministries and the 7 mountain mandate, see “The Road to the 7 Mountain Mandate” Part 1 and Part 2. For more information on dominion theology with Johnson and Wagner, see “Dominionism in Eden,” Part 1 and Part 2.
