The day the 2024 election was called for Donald Trump, there was a palpable atmosphere of celebration at Awaken Church’s Kearny Mesa campus. Pastors at Awaken had been telling their congregations to pray — and vote — for Trump.
From the pulpit, congregants were encouraged to exchange high fives and say, “we won.” They had just shared an unfounded claim that election monitors in Pennsylvania had narrowly stopped what one speaker called a “wicked scheme” to steal the election with truckloads of fake ballots.
“We’re going to get our country back,” Pastor Jon Heinrichs told the congregation, preaching in front of a massive stylized red backdrop featuring Trump with his fist raised moments after an attempt to assassinate him in July.
This is a typical message at Awaken. Part of a group of evangelical churches with seven locations in San Diego, Awaken’s sermons invoke a spiritual battle for the country against demonic forces which at times veer into Christian Nationalism, a political ideology that says the United States is defined as a Christian nation and the government should work to keep it that way.
Awaken founder and lead pastor Jurgen Matthesius has long run the church with the explicit goal of influencing politics, asserting “there is a misconception that the separation of church and state was to stop the church (from) interfering with government.”
“The devil wants the church to just sit down and shut up, take a backseat, take a side seat. You don’t get involved in politics,” Matthesius said in a sermon posted two weeks before the November election. “God had always ordained there was always the priest that put the crown on David’s head, it was the priest that poured the oil on, it was the priest that set up kings.
“We are the king makers.”
For years, Awaken has flouted rules prohibiting 501(c)(3) nonprofits from intervening in political campaigns. The church has posted voter guides encouraging votes for specific candidates and had pastors endorse candidates from the pulpit.
This election was no different: Three voter guides posted on Awaken’s website promoted political candidates — the vast majority conservative, registered Republicans — across the county. The church also has a partnership with The RMNNT, a group led by a married couple who attends Awaken and seeks to train an “army” of conservative candidates to influence local politics.
Federal regulations prohibit 501(c)(3) nonprofits, a status the IRS gives automatically to churches, from supporting particular candidates or political parties. Four legal experts who were interviewed for this story said that Awaken appears to be violating IRS rules but is unlikely to face consequences.
David Samuels, an attorney at the law firm Perlman and Perlman and former deputy chief of the New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau, said that “the political activities of this church, including based on a review of the ‘Political Action’ section of its website and its various voter guides, appear to be inconsistent with IRS rules.”
Another attorney said the church’s posting of voter guides on its website would “clearly” qualify as intervening in a political campaign, in violation of IRS rules.
“Because of the lack of enforcement on this from the IRS, churches are feeling more and more emboldened, getting more and more brazen, and it’s only going to get worse until the IRS actually steps up and starts enforcing the law,” said Madeline Ziegler, an attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin group that advocates for the separation of church and state.
Experts say Awaken is far from alone. It’s part of a growing movement of churches that has embraced Dominionism, the idea that God has called Christians to take control of political and cultural institutions and reshape them according to biblical principles.
The movement coalesced into a key voting bloc for Trump, whom some characterize as anointed by God to bring Christianity back into government.
Evangelist Lance Wallnau, a key proponent of this ideology, has spoken at least four times in the last year at Awaken. His recent Courage Tour blended spiritual revival with a political rally supporting Trump in key battleground states, one of which hosted Vice President-elect JD Vance.
“Trump isn’t a perfect leader but my God his whole platform is put together by the Christians that put him in there,” Wallnau said during a September sermon at Awaken. “Trump actually gave us a seat at the table.”
André Gagné, professor of theological studies at Concordia University in Canada and a former pastor with a recent book on Dominionist evangelical support for Trump, said that extreme ideas from some of these churches have gone from fringe to mainstream in the Trump era.
“This new group of individuals is not the old Christian right, this is a new brand,” Gagné said. “It’s much more aggressive in terms of politics because it demonizes political adversaries.”
He referred to comments made at Trump’s October rally at Madison Square Garden, when a speaker referred to Democratic opponent Kamala Harris as “the antichrist.”
Gagné said some within the Dominionist evangelical movement “would like to see an illiberal rule. They are never going to admit to the fact that they are so anti-democratic.”
He added, “They are for using the levers of democracy to subvert it in the end.”
Absolutely prohibited
The three voter guides that Awaken posted on its website all endorsed mostly the same candidates, from Trump to down-ballot races such as school boards and water authorities.
A “Family First” guide, produced by a group known as Citizens for a Better East County, indicates which of the promoted candidates have signed a pledge to vote to “protect innocent human life from conception to natural death,” “defend the natural family and natural marriage” and more commitments.
Among them: Bill Wells, the El Cajon mayor who lost his congressional bid; Andrew Hayes, who was defeated by fellow Republican Carl DeMaio for the 75th state Assembly seat; and a host of school board candidates.
Citizens for a Better East County spent over $90,000 on the 2024 elections, contributing to the local Republican Party and the Lincoln Club. It also reported contributing a total of $38,000 in support of Grossmont Union school board candidates Randall Dear and Scott Eckert. Eckert went on to win his race, while Dear lost his bid for a separate seat.
Another guide is from Freedom Revival, a group that hosted events in the past at the Waterfront Park in downtown San Diego. Its guide says that it’s led by “biblical views of marriage, sexuality, life, religious liberty, and limited government.”
Awaken pastors also openly discuss their political beliefs. Jurgen Matthesius’ social media is full of pro-Trump posts. And in 2021, pastors Samuel Deuth and Sterling Pyle livestreamed from outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, spreading the false claim that the election was stolen and saying that media coverage of the event was exaggerated. Deuth also spoke at an anti-transgender rally in 2023 at the Santee YMCA.
Religious leaders are allowed to advocate for political candidates in their private capacity. But some Awaken pastors openly discuss their preferred candidates at church. In a sermon posted two weeks before the election, Pastor Marco Contreras claimed the Democratic Party was “aggressively pushing abortion” and told the congregation to “vote for your values and hence vote for President Trump, amen.”
“There is a flat prohibition on endorsing and opposing candidates for office … The rule is not ambiguous,” said Samuel Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University who writes about tax law for nonprofits. “This is probably the most blatant I’ve seen.”
inewsource made multiple attempts to contact Awaken leaders for comment but was unsuccessful.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Awaken is free to advocate on nonpartisan political issues and legislation but cannot support particular candidates or political parties. In exchange, it gets generous tax benefits and an almost absolute freedom from financial transparency that is unique to religious organizations. Nonprofits can have their status revoked and be forced to pay additional taxes by the IRS for not following these rules.
“Right now, there are reports of dark money in politics, including through contributions to some nonprofits, but the contributions are not tax-deductible because the recipients are not 501(c)(3) organizations,” Samuels, the attorney, said. “Can you imagine how people could use the funds of religious organizations if they were permitted to support or oppose political candidates? A person could set these up, give as much money as he or she wants without the contributions being publicly available, and get deductions for the donations.”
Despite the potential for abusing the privileges given to nonprofits, experts say the IRS has rarely taken action against religious organizations for electioneering.
Ziegler said the last such investigation she’s aware of was in 2007. Tiffany Carter, policy counsel at the National Council of Nonprofits, said that the government has enforced the rule “less than a handful of times in the last 70 years.”
She explained that 501(c)(3) nonprofits can’t support or oppose a candidate for office.
“And the vast majority of nonprofits understand that and wouldn’t even touch this as an issue to begin with,” she said. “We want to be the safe havens for communities to come together to solve problems, and we think that’s an important thing. So that’s why we support non-partisanship. We don’t want to lose the protections of remaining above the partisan fray.”
Daniel Blomberg, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit group that litigates to defend religious expression, said rules prohibiting churches from participating in political campaigns would likely be found unconstitutional if challenged in higher courts.
“A really good tell that the IRS doesn’t think that this type of restriction is constitutional is that the IRS refuses to actually enforce the rule against houses of worship,” Blomberg said, adding that the agency frequently sends warning letters with a chilling effect but ultimately dismisses cases that go to court.
Other legal experts say that the IRS is hesitant to take action due to political pressure.
“They are statutorily hamstrung because they have to jump through all kinds of hoops to even audit a church — someone high up at the IRS to sign off on a church audit. And who wants to sign up for that?” said Eric Gorovitz, an attorney who specializes in nonprofit and tax exempt law. “They are constantly dangling on the edge of strings held by Congress and that makes them cautious to do any enforcement that could be controversial.”
At his pre-election Madison Square Garden rally, Trump said he would “defend religious liberty” and “restore free speech.” He has claimed that he removed speech restrictions on religious organizations during his first term, but the executive order he issued ultimately had limited impact.
Spiritual warfare
While sermons often speak of spiritual warfare, some of the imagery promoted by Awaken and affiliates is militant. The church’s “Emerge Men’s Conference” in 2023 opened with a stage show of soldiers fighting Spanish-speaking gang members who had kidnapped a little girl.
One of its partners, a group known as The RMNNT, calls its members “warriors of liberty.” Its website homepage lands on a sleekly produced video featuring founders Alana and Scott Sorensen, also Awaken members, in a forest moving through clouds of theatrical fog brandishing a crossbow, a rifle and a large knife.
Their mission is to train conservatives to run for local office. A June Facebook post by Alana Sorensen promotes “Run Right,” a RMNNT boot camp held at Awaken’s Bay Ho campus. The group also has merchandise, including hats and T-shirts bearing the group’s logo for sale on its website, as well as subscription plans for activist training.
The group counts among its successes protests against sexual education policies at San Diego Unified, lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and what it called “Muslim curriculum” in local schools.
From Steve Garvey for Senate to John Duncan for Coronado mayor, The RMNNT’s voter guide also supports entirely conservative, mostly Republican candidates, and skips support in races in which the group has determined there is no good candidate. For its primary election guide, The RMNNT noted which candidates were Awaken attendees.
The guide notes that it’s not an “official endorsement” of the candidates, and that it’s “for educational purposes only to educate the public.”
The Coronado Times reported that several candidates requested to be removed from the voter guide, including Duncan and Coronado school board candidate Fitz Lee. Lee told the Times, “I am particularly disturbed by their promotional video, which irresponsibly distorts scripture to seemingly justify preparing for armed resistance against those who disagree with their worldview.”
Mark Fleming, who was elected to Coronado City Council and also requested he be removed during the campaign, told inewsource he never heard back from the group.
It is unclear if The RMNNT is incorporated and how. It does not claim to be a nonprofit, and the Sorensens don’t have a nonprofit registered to them in that name in California, according to state records. A San Diego spokesperson said no group under that name has a business tax license in the city.
Bill Scherkenbach, who has been attending Awaken for over a decade, back when it was still called C3, said Awaken really started to become political during COVID-19, when churches were shut down. “In the beginning of COVID they were following the rules. (Gavin) Newsom was going out to dinner with his family, (Black Lives Matters) could get together, but we couldn’t. It was like you have one set of rules for one group, one set of rules for another. They’ve always been a bit right wingy, most churches are in my experience, but this was really what pushed them.”
Scherkenbach said that while Awaken does push a message that the government should be run based on Christian principles, “remember what Christian principles are, you have to love everybody. You need to act like Christians, everybody doesn’t need to be a Christian. We’re supposed to be nice to each other, we’re supposed to help each other, that doesn’t mean we need to agree.”
He added that while he doesn’t like seeing so much politics at church, he thinks it is necessary. “We have to be able to talk about this stuff.” As for the militant imagery, he said it serves to get you emotionally engaged, pumped up and patriotic.
Despite the militant rhetoric and imagery, a Voice of San Diego article described the vibe at a RMNNT meeting as more like a “community center than a barracks.”
Mary Davis attended a meeting in 2022 after deciding to run for the Alpine Community Planning Group. She said she had no further contact with the group after that meeting, going on to win the race.
“As a first-time candidate, I was hungry for information and theirs was the only candidate education I’d found…The meeting gave some insight and details like filing info, Registrar of Voters info, etc.,” Davis wrote in an email. “I was already on my own path but consider RMNNT to be a neutral experience (neither good nor bad).”
The RMNNT doesn’t have a stellar track record of getting its endorsed candidates elected. In the recent election and in the primaries, just over half of endorsed candidates won. Three Awaken Church members won seats on the Republican central committee, including Alana Sorensen herself. Alana Sorensen also was recently appointed as a vice chair of the local Republican Party, Voice of San Diego reported this week.
The Sorensens could not be reached for comment.
“At the school board level there has been increased interest among some of these groups talking about parents’ rights or talking about social issues,” said Ryan Gardiner, a political consultant who worked on campaigns for Republican school board candidates in San Diego. He added that most of the successful Republican candidates focused on traditional issues like classroom success. “It doesn’t seem like you can translate the anger over social issues to winning school board races, at least here in San Diego.”
Awaken lists other partners on its website, such as Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based nonprofit that focuses on high schools and college campuses to “play offense” and “win America’s culture war.”
The church also includes on its website School Board Watchlist, a nonprofit that seeks to push back on a “circus of Leftist propaganda” in schools. Both groups are run by political activist Charlie Kirk, who appeared with Trump in at least four campaign events leading up to the election and has preached as a guest at Awaken.
Read the full article on inewsource.org.
This post was originally published on here
