The Power Worshippers

by Katherine Stewart

  “I want to stop and thank the Catholics and the Orthodox who have led the charge in ways that many times the evangelicals should have,” Garlow said, referring to the growing global movement to defend the “natural family” against the supposedly corrosive forces of feminism, liberalism, and LGBT equality. “We often are oblivious to the fact that the Scripture speaks to the civil government’s principles.”

  In Drollinger’s mind, burrowing into the upper reaches of the federal government is just the first part of God’s plan. Drollinger seeks to institute similar Bible study groups in all fifty state capitols. And he claims to have already established or contributed to satellite ministries in over forty centers of state politics. “A movement for Christ amongst our nation’s political leaders will only occur to the degree we establish strong, fruitful ministries in the federal and state Capitols of our nation and in addition, in the thousands of local city and county government offices throughout our land,” Drollinger writes. “It can be achieved only by healthy Bible-believing churches taking up the cause of founding and building (for starters) weekly Bible studies in these public buildings.”23

  And the United States is just the beginning. Drollinger aims “to create 200 ministries in 200 foreign federal capitals.” In the fall of 2018, Drollinger held a training conference for some eighty international associates at the newly created Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., on the topic of “creating and sustaining discipleship ministries to political leaders.”24 By 2019, CapMin claimed to have “birthed ongoing outposts for Christ” in dozens of countries throughout the world, adding Latvia, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, and Brazil to the list.

  Drollinger has long had his eye on eastern Europe and Russia and it appears they have their eyes on him. In 2015, his group was invited to “plant a discipleship Bible study ministry” in Belarus for the benefit of that nation’s political leaders. His wife, Danielle, attended as a representative of the Museum of the Bible, with a promise that the museum’s Bible curriculum would soon be translated into Russian. In 2017, following Drollinger’s visit to eastern Europe, CapMin’s director of the “Eurasia Affinity Sphere,” Oleg Rachkovski, urged members to “please pray that God will bless our efforts to establish new ministries this month in the countries of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.” Rachkovski translated Drollinger’s 2012 book, Rebuilding America: The Biblical Blueprint, into Russian; it was retitled Building a Nation.25

  In May 2019, Capitol Ministries reported that a Ukrainian politician who had “linked arms” with the organization over a decade ago had established Bible studies to the Ukrainian parliament and members of the Ukrainian president’s administration, and was planning a similar group for the Cabinet of Ministers. Similar initiatives, according to CapMin, “are continuing to multiply as word of them spreads and catches fire.” Speaking of a member of the Romanian parliament to the journalist Mattathias Schwartz, Drollinger said, “One of the reasons he’s so close to me is, I give him access to the cabinet in America.”

  Political leaders in numerous Caribbean and South Pacific nations have joined the network, too, establishing affiliated ministries in their own corridors of power. Capitol Ministries has placed ten “global directors” around the world and hired a director of international ministries to help manage and direct its explosive growth.

  “A German conservative theologian came to America last week, met with me, brought an entourage, and long story short he says the way to start ministries in foreign federal capitals throughout Western and Eastern Europe is to first start at the EU,” Drollinger tells the assembled gathering in Tulare. “There are 600 parliamentarians in Brussels that come from 26 Eastern and Western European countries. And if we can … have a discipleship Bible study with full-time ministry there, chances are we can disseminate that ministry throughout European capitals.”

  Under the VIP tent at the Ag Expo, Drollinger continues to bring people the happy tidings of his progress toward world conquest. “It’s amazing how fast we are expanding overseas,” he says. Exulting over new outposts in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and the Congo, he says, “Because England colonized sixty-eight countries of the world, a lot of Caribbean nations, a lot of South Pacific nations, these nations have a link to Protestantism that makes for fertile soil to plant the Capitol Ministries vision.” He informs the crowd about alliances forged with believers in Muslim-majority countries, “going into enemy territory, spiritually speaking.”

  “I just got an email from our director in Beijing and the South Pacific island nations and he just sent me a nice picture of him and the prime minister of Papua New Guinea; he wants to start a discipleship in the capitol there,” he chortles. “And I’m not even sure where that is!”

  The opening act in Tulare is Lincoln Brewster, a onetime member of the band of former Journey vocalist Steve Perry; Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain is presently married to Trump faith outreach adviser Paula White. Punk-rock skinny, with a hipster haircut, Brewster has, like Cain, remade himself as a contemporary Christian musical artist. He plays a few bars of the Journey hit “Lights” before launching into Chris Tomlin’s ubiquitous Christian music hit “Our God.”

  “I have so much gratitude about the people who are leading our country,” Brewster ad-libs. “To know that if you look at a dollar bill and it says, ‘In God We Trust,’ that we are so firmly getting back to that!”

  The first speaker to take the podium in Tulare is Congressman Jeff Denham, Republican of California’s 10th Congressional District. Denham celebrates the large number of cabinet members attending Drollinger’s study groups and claims that 10 percent of the members of the U.S. Senate attend the groups, too. “This is a special type of ministry that I don’t think we’ve seen before,” he says. Praising the organization and its expansion “across the world,” he says, “You can worship with other members, build relationships, and really interpret these decisions that you are making for your state from a Biblical perspective.”

  Michele Bachmann takes the stage in a long coat and a pinch-me-to-make-sure-this-isn’t-a-dream expression of wonder on her face. As a Republican primary candidate in the 2012 presidential election, she was derided by progressives as a stilted speaker and criticized both for her own anti-gay activism and for that of her husband, Marcus Bachmann, who offers “gay conversion therapy” through his counseling service. But to sympathetic audiences she is relaxed and uplifting, at times exuding a campy charm. “We’re from Minnesota; we put on our coats in October and don’t take them off until June!” she quips, and the room laughs along with her. Bachmann seems overjoyed with the Trump presidency and the opportunity it presents to Christian nationalists. “It is a new day in Washington, D.C.,” she enthuses. “Think of this: you have a man in the Oval Office who is not ashamed of prayer. Who is not ashamed of the gospel. And in the vice president’s office. And in the cabinet. And in the Senate. And in the House of Representatives. In governors’ offices. In our state capitols. Is this amazing what is going on in our day?”

  To enthusiastic applause, she adds, “And the trajectory of growth is like nothing we have ever seen before!”

  Praising the Capitol Ministries program as “the highest quality material I have ever seen,” Bachmann explains, “Every week it plumbs deep into different biblical issues, which incidentally tend to intersect with the decisions we are making every day in Washington, D.C.” The Drollingers, she says, “are trying to cover the government offices at the beginning levels, which would be your city, your school board, your county offices, all the municipal elections, they want to see Bible studies there. Because they know the people who start at that level tend to want to move up and serve in their state senate and serve in your state house.” From there, she says, “people tend to go on to serving in Congress and in the Senate.”

  Bachmann wants to assure the crowd that Drollinger’s ministry is not just ceremonial, nor intended merely for the private spiritual edification of its participants. “I can tell you from personal experienc
e that members of the House, members of the Senate, members of the cabinet, are transformed by this word,” she says, and those “transformed lives” are leading to “a transformed nation.”

  Ralph Drollinger takes the stage in an exuberant mood, thanking state and regional directors and attributing his success to support from California’s Central Valley. “Capitol Ministries really grew up, I think, on carrots and milk,” he says, a reference to Central Valley businessmen such as Rob Hilarides, a prosperous dairyman who sits on the board of Capitol Ministries, and conglomerates like the Bolthouse Foundation, which got its support from the former owners of Bolthouse Farms, one of the largest carrot producers in the region. For at least four years, starting in 2001, the Bolthouse Foundation made donations to CapMin of up to $200,000 each year.26

  Onstage, Drollinger swiftly communicates how close to power he has become. “All of a sudden Trump got elected, and Pence chose the best out of our House and our Senate Bible studies,” he said, “to where we have twelve, I think now, twelve of the Cabinet members are strong believers, and they said, ‘Come with us, we’d like to start a ministry in the White House cabinet.’ ” Clearly he sees his focus on Trump as biblically righteous. “The strategicness [sic] of fulfilling the Great Commission relative to reaching political leaders with the gospel is easy to see throughout the pages of the New Testament,” he says. “One-third of the New Testament is written to try to convert one political leader for Christ.”

  Drollinger is keen to assure the crowd that their donations will be put to good use. “Most of the money that we raise here goes to expansion overseas,” he says. “Because the fields are wide-open, it’s amazing how fast Capitol Ministries is growing overseas. And our biggest limiting factor is really our ability to resource. So that’s what this partnership with you can be all about.”

  What is the difference between Bible study and policy advocacy? In the curriculum that Drollinger offers to powerful officials through Capitol Ministries, it isn’t clear that there is much difference at all. He lays it all out in Rebuilding America: The Biblical Blueprint, and he fills in many of the details in publicly available manuals for his weekly Bible study sessions. Copies of his book are available here in Tulare, and Drollinger helpfully touches upon some of the main themes at his dinner speech.

  The expansiveness of Drollinger’s positions on domestic, economic, and foreign policy hits home the fact that Christian nationalism is a political movement, not merely a stance in the “culture war.” Like his fellow radicals at the forefront, Drollinger strives for an ever-widening domain of control. According to Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way who has been studying and writing about the religious right and right-wing movements for two decades, Drollinger instructs public officials “that the Bible mandates adherence to right-wing policy positions on a wide range of issues, including environmental regulation, the death penalty, abortion, LGBTQ equality and more.” The Bible, for example, has a very clear message on United States fiscal policy. Just a few weeks prior to the Tulare event, Drollinger published a Bible study titled “Solomon’s Advice on How to Eliminate a $20.5 Trillion Debt.”27 The study guide makes clear that God believes in deregulation. “Leaders must incentivize individuals and industries (which includes unencumbering them from the unnecessary burdens of government regulations),” Drollinger writes.

  Drollinger has words of wisdom for laborers, too. In a Bible study titled “Toward a Better Biblical Understanding of Lawmaking,” he cites 1 Peter 2:18-21, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.” Here Drollinger explains, “The economy of Rome at the time of Peter’s writing was one of slave and master. The principle however, of submitting to one’s boss carries over to today.”28

  This is all music to the ears of agribusiness leaders. Major issues confront managers of agricultural concerns these days, among them government policy with respect to labor, foreign trade, water access, subsidies and other regulation. It is not surprising that industry leaders may look to a certain kind of religion for answers—not in the sense of praying for rain (although speaker Sonny Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, has done that, too) but in the sense of working with religious nationalists to elevate the policies and politicians that work to their benefit.

  Of course, those policies, which favor low regulation and minimal workers’ rights, may exacerbate existing wealth inequalities in the Central Valley. But this is a feature of the system, not a bug. That’s the way inequality works. On the one hand, it creates concentrations of wealth whose beneficiaries are determined to manipulate the political process to hold on to and enhance their privileges. On the other hand, it generates a sense of instability and anxiety among broad sectors of the wider public, which is then ripe for conversion to a religion that promises authority and order. Drollinger is just one particularly successful example of the kind of religious entrepreneur that such times invariably call forth.

  In keeping with this line of logic, Drollinger’s Bible has strong views on compensation for lawmakers. “If Congress passed a balanced budget and policies that lead to a 7% increase in GDP, then every legislator should receive a 7% bonus the following fiscal year,” he says.29 Thus, for godly civil servants, getting right with the Lord involves the accumulation of personal riches under the right circumstances.

  Drollinger’s Bible is also firmly on the side of the wealthy. “God is pro private property ownership,” he writes, asserting that a flat tax is “God-ordained.” When one individual earns more than another, he says, “it is not just or fair for the Government to tax that person at a higher percentage.” Illustrating the point, he writes, “If a couple earns a joint income of under $16,700 they pay the lowest rate of 10% of their income, whereas on the other end of the progression, if one makes over $372,000 one pays the highest rate of 35%. This is not how God taxed Israel. All paid 10% no matter what they earned.”30 And he declares his “growing personal conviction” that “if there is not a change to a flat tax soon, citizens who are now both on government subsistence programs and paying no income tax should have the privilege of voting curtailed until their case proves otherwise.”31 So much for democracy.

  While politicians and business leaders are free to increase their own pay packets, according to Drollinger’s Bible, they may turn a cold shoulder to the less fortunate. Mr. Drollinger believes that social welfare programs “have no basis in Scripture.” “The responsibility to meet the needs of the poor lies first with the husband in a marriage, secondly with the family (if the husband is absent) and thirdly with the church,” Drollinger stipulates. “Again, nowhere does God command the institutions of government or commerce to fully support those with genuine needs.”

  I glance at my tablemate Jeff Taylor and wonder what members of his clan, including Steve, think of the proceedings. It’s not a stretch to imagine that they bring an economic agenda to involvement with the ministry, consciously or not. Taylor Farms has come under scrutiny for its labor practices. According to a report by the California-based investigative journalism outfit Capital & Main, first published in 2014 and updated in 2017, “Taylor represents the platinum standard for corporate industries that seek to maximize profits by treating their workforce as someone else’s problem—whether they be the temp labor contractors or the taxpayers who must pick up the tab when it comes to providing workers’ medical care, food stamps and other social services.” Possibly Mr. Taylor finds something spiritually uplifting in the theology of low taxation and minimal regulation. But he can be quite confident that it is economically uplifting for him and his family firm.

  Drollinger insists that “Lawmakers must be men and women who are willing to be informed by Scripture.”32 To be clear, Drollinger does not mean to include those whose understanding of Scripture happens to deviate from his. “The Social Gospel movement, which infiltrated and captured many mainline Protestant denominational seminaries an
d subsequently their pulpits,” he says, is an expression of “aberrant theologies.”33

  Drollinger also anchors an ardent passion for male supremacy in his reading of the Bible. Women, he has maintained, should not be allowed to teach—or be placed in positions of leadership over—men in church. “If you look in the Bible all the leaders are male. It may not be what I would choose,” he says with an air of feigned helplessness, “but that’s what God wants.”34

  Women, or at least the right kind of women, may be allowed in the halls of power, according to Drollinger, but they must be handled with extreme caution. “If I need to follow up with, say, Betsy DeVos, it’s better that my wife Danielle is with me or that she follows up with Betsy DeVos,” he told Welt Am Sonntag. “I would not write Betsy DeVos emails about her issues and whatever. It’s just safer in terms of the integrity of the ministry and the optics of the ministry that Danielle handles the female workload rather than me. Like I’ll never go into an office, shut the door with a female member and talk about her marital issues, you know. That’s just asking for trouble.”

  Drollinger’s Bible is also unflinchingly pro-natalist. Government policy should “incentivize population growth,” he argues, quoting Psalm 127:5, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” The same passage is a favorite among conservative Christians who eschew birth control in their pursuit of very large families.