Right-wing Christians who claim to have “prophetic” insight into America’s “spiritual warfare” are declaring Fox News’ decision to sack Tucker Carlson a victory for Lucifer.
The religious clamor around the ousting of the conservative prime-time host has provided further fuel as our divided country hurtles toward another combustible presidential election.
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Lance Wallnau — promoter of a seven-part plan for Christians to capture America — filmed a live video late Tuesday night in which he denounced demonic mischief behind Carlson’s departure from the network. “The devil hates [him],” Wallnau said, because Carlson has “the voice of the populace.”
Wallnau insisted that “Tucker is a casualty of war,” and added, “I don’t like it when the devil wins.”
Carlson is not deeply religious — “I’m literally an Episcopalian,” he recently joked — but he has mainstreamed noxious beliefs popular with conservative Christians, in particular against trans Americans and abortion rights. At a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, Carlson blasted the former as practitioners of sexual “mutilation” and the latter as “child sacrifice.”
Wallnau, who is famous for popularizing the idea that President Trump was God’s chosen heathen, referred to Carlson in similar terms. “I’ve talked about the ‘secular prophets’ like Rush Limbaugh, or [Steve] Bannon, or Tucker Carlson,” Wallnau said. “These are the people God has his hands on,” he insisted. “They’re actually used by God more powerfully than a lot of preachers,” Wallnau said. “The devil wants to silence these voices.”
According to Wallnau, Satan is moving to silence Carlson, whose existing contract with Fox News, he suggested, might be enforced in such a way as to pay to keep him off the air — and away from competitor news outlets. “He might not be coming back for three years,” Wallnau alleged, “because the devil has him on a contract for $20 million.”
Amid the fallout of Carlson’s exit from prime time, Wallnau is far from the only Christian voice denouncing satanic influence behind Fox’s decision.
Shane Vaughn, a Pentecostal preacher from Mississippi with a large online following, took to Rumble to declare that “Carlson is gone because of spiritual warfare.” In comments first spotlighted by Right Wing Watch, Vaughn asked his listeners to focus on the spiritual tug-of-war between heaven and hell over the fate of America. “We know that Tucker Carlson was a victim of demonic power,” he said. “And these demons are bringing America under attack.”
There have been a lot of theories floated about what prompted Fox News to abruptly fire Tucker Carlson, but MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn knows what really happened: “We know that Tucker Carlson was a victim of demonic power.” pic.twitter.com/9v1PpCa9ew
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 26, 2023
Vaughn also claimed that in his virulent Heritage address, Carlson had “a visitation by the Holy Spirit,” and that God “used his mouth as a prophet.” In the sudden firing of Carlson on Monday, Vaughn argued, the devil had worked to silence Carlson before he could spread the same message to his TV audience. “Satanic powers will never allow their true agenda to be exposed by such a powerful platform,” Vaughn insisted.
Other self-styled Christian prophets used the firing of Carlson as receipts — proof of their supposed gifts of heavenly foresight.
On the Christian-nationalist broadcast “FlashPoint,” Pastor Hank Kunneman cited a pair of past “prophetic words” he said came from God following Carlson’s exit. The claims were captured by Rolling Stone writer Nikki McCann Ramirez and posted to Twitter on Tuesday:
Similarly, popular “prophet” Julie Green appeared on the podcast of the ReAwaken America Tour alongside frontman Clay Clark to affirm that she, too, had received advance word of this week’s cable-TV shakeup.
“The Lord had talked about CNN; the Lord had talked about Don Lemon; the Lord had talked about Fox News [being] in a deep amount of trouble, along with other mainstream news media,” Green said. “And the Lord has talked about how he was going to silence them and bring them down.”
Green added of Carlson’s departure: “Prophetically, this is on point. I get excited when I start seeing these things happen, because God had already said this, before it happened.”
Such prophetic gloating left a bad taste in Wallnau’s mouth. He called out his Christian colleagues for putting self-promotion above the spiritual struggle. “I’m mad for a good reason right now,” he said. “I don’t like it when the devil wins, and I don’t agree with the prophets prophesying ‘Yeah, I said this would happen.’”
“It’s not a victory,” Wallnau continued on Tuesday’s video, “when you prophesy you’re gonna lose the Super Bowl. The object is to win it — not predict it. Win it!”
Wallnau then asked his followers mourning the loss of Carlson’s platform, “How do we win? How do we reverse this?”
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