MAGA Christians Are Split Over Iran

Brad Onishi: MAGA Christians are not happy with Donald Trump about his attack on Iran. They see this as a betrayal of America First. If you don't believe me, here's Megyn Kelly talking about it.

Megyn Kelly [Clip]: My own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don't think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel. And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel's war.

Brad: In addition to Megyn Kelly, there's been a number of others—Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and a host of theologians and faith leaders who have criticized this as a betrayal of what MAGA Christians stand for. However, there are some who remain steadfast in their support of Trump and his attack on Iran. The Christians who support this are those who see in his actions a welcoming of the return of Jesus. They see this as ushering in the End Times. I'll talk about how that split works, why different groups are on different sides, and what this portends for Trump and MAGA as we go forward.

So there are some Christians who are expectedly happy about what is happening in Iran. Notably, they're happy because they see this as part of end times prophecy. We've covered this for a long time on this channel, in this show, but it's worth going over again. For many evangelicals, Iran is a descendant of Persia, and the way that it's represented in the Bible, there's all kinds of various prophecies and pathways that lead certain evangelical Christians to see Iran as holding a kind of key for the end times—that a war with Iran, a battle with Iran, a conflict with Iran is really a conflict that's foretold in Scripture. And that by taking this action in conjunction with Israel, to the defense of Israel, in protection of Israel, the United States is playing a key role not only in global geopolitics, but in the enactment of God's plan for the end of the world.

Here's Lance Wallnau, a massively important prophet in the New Apostolic Reformation, an independent Charismatic Movement. Wallnau reaches millions of people every week, and this was his take on what's happening in Iran.

Lance Wallnau [Clip]: I believe—and I got the news from a pretty good source—Donald Trump was really trying to offer an olive branch to them before this happened. If I want to be theologic about it, I think the same way that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, God made the Iranians just recalcitrant. They refused to budge. The Jewish people will be celebrating Purim on this coming week. If you're not familiar with Purim, it's a Jewish holiday that celebrates the rescuing or saving of the Jewish people by Queen Esther from a proxy of the Persian king.

Brad: This was, of course, an ancient event, but what Wallnau is going to do is link it to the present day and say that because it's happening this week, Trump's attack on Iran is part of a larger divine plan and is part of the End Times.

Lance Wallnau [Clip]: Isn't it interesting that the ancient stronghold of the Prince of Persia that sought to exterminate all the Jews is now coming down again under the authority of another modern day Esther? Things are happening right in alignment with actual feast days. By the way, Hamas attacked Israel on October 11th, first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. There's always a feast day manifestation because Israel and the return of Jesus is back on the menu.

Brad: Now, Wallnau was not the only New Apostolic Reformation leader to make these kinds of observations and to draw these conclusions. Here is Sean Feucht and what he posted on Twitter.

Sean Feucht (via Twitter): When Purim, a blood moon, and war in Iran converge, there are moments when scripture and headlines seem to collide. Last night was one of them. At 3:33 AM on March 3rd, I woke up my three boys and pulled them outside to look at the sky. There it was—the moon, deep red at its peak during the total lunar eclipse. At the very same time, war continues to intensify around Iran, the modern successor to ancient Persia, as the Jewish people celebrate Purim, the feast recorded in the Book of Esther.

Brad: So Feucht is doing the exact same thing that Wallnau did. He's noticing that Purim is happening. He's noticing the attack on Iran. And he's going to add another element. Why not? He's going to go to the full moon, the blood moon. Let's see what he has to say about it.

So first he talks about Purim, and he does basically what Wallnau just did. He commemorates the story in Esther. He looks at how the Jewish people were saved from the Persians, and he considers the Persians to be the predecessors to modern day Iran.

Sean Feucht (via Twitter): Today, Iran occupies the territory of ancient Persia. As threats against Israel rise again from the same region, the historical echo is sobering. The same spirit of opposition, the same covenant people, the same delivering God.

Brad: This is Sean Feucht basically saying that what happened 3,000 years ago—there's like a direct correlation. Same spirit of opposition, same covenant people. He's glossing over 3,000 years of human history, just saying that modern day Iran is comparable to Persia in biblical times. And thus what's happening now is very similar to what happened before. So Purim is on the table now.

We get the blood moon—a heavenly reminder, he says. It's not astronomically aberrant, but in the Bible, celestial signs have often marked pivotal seasons. He then quotes Joel 2:31, which speaks of the moon turning to blood before the day of the Lord. "Not every blood moon signals judgment," he says, "but Scripture does teach that the heavens declare His glory."

Sean Feucht (via Twitter): Standing there with my sons under that red moon, I wasn't thinking about charts or timelines. I was thinking about sovereignty.

Brad: He then goes to the fact that all of this happened at 3:33 AM on March 3rd.

Sean Feucht (via Twitter): I couldn't help but think of Jeremiah 33:3—"Call to me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you don't know."

Brad: Now, Feucht says this isn't numerology, but this is what happens all the time with apostles and prophets from the New Apostolic Reformation. They do these number games where they're like, "It was 3:33, and I got my kids up at 3:33, and therefore I thought about Jeremiah 33:3." They sort of play these games as a dazzling spectacle of trying to convince you that what is going on is a divine plan for something really big—the day of the Lord.

Now, before I get into the MAGA Christians who are really upset about what's happening in Iran, I want to explain why Feucht and Wallnau represent the kinds of Christians, the kinds of MAGA Christians who are actually in favor and excited about what is happening. You have to understand about Feucht and Wallnau that they fall into a camp of Christians—evangelical Christians and charismatic Christians—who see Israel as really key to the coming of Jesus. And many of them—now there's some nuance here, but for the most part, many of them—see Jesus as coming soon and returning to Earth to claim his people.

And they fall into what's known as a premillennial understanding of the End Times. They believe that Jesus will come back, take all the people that are his—the people that have accepted him as their Lord and Savior—they will be raptured to heaven, and with that rapture, they will be saved from turmoil on earth that will last for a tribulation period of seven years. And then they will all return with Jesus for a millennial reign, a 1,000-year reign on earth. Now there are differences here, there are changes, there are wrinkles, but I want you to see something today: that if you believe that Israel is key to unlocking the returning of Jesus to earth, then you will be in favor of defending Israel, supporting Israel, going to war with and for Israel almost at any cost—even if it means six American service people have died already, even if it means our planes are being shot down from the sky, even if it means getting involved in another endless war.

Feucht and Wallnau represent that group of people who see Israel as so integral to the end of the world and God's plan that it doesn't matter geopolitically what it costs. They will support it so that the return of Jesus can be sped up. They see this as part of prophecy. They see this as part of eschatology.

Now, you may think of this as just the work of some fringe theologians, and you'd be wrong on two counts. One, they are theologians and leaders—Sean Feucht and Lance Wallnau—who reach millions of people every week. They are immensely popular. But two, we have reports that this kind of thinking is part of our military leadership's understanding of the current events in Iran.

This is from the Huffington Post by Brandy Zadrozny: "For some U.S. military commanders, the emerging war in Iran is part of a biblical plan to bring about the end of the world as we know it, according to complaints filed by over 100 service members. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received a litany of complaints about religious ideology seeping into military orders since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran."

Independent journalist John Larson first reported this. So basically, we have complaints from over 100 service people that this understanding of the end times and the bombing of Iran as part of an eschatology that will usher in the return of Jesus has reached high echelons in our military.

Now, on the other hand, we're going to get to those Christians who are not happy about what is happening with Iran. Here's Tucker Carlson talking about it on his show.

Tucker Carlson [Clip]: Americans are dead because of this. Show us, and maybe we'll find that there's really good intel that just absolutely shows that the government of Iran, run by the Ayatollah, tried to assassinate the President of the United States. That might have been a good reason for war right there. But maybe it doesn't show that, because this country has certainly been manipulated a lot by Israeli intelligence and other foreign countries' intelligence, but certainly by Israeli intelligence.

Brad: Another one is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia who has been on Tucker Carlson's side for quite a while. She responded to Laura Loomer, the racist, xenophobic activist who is often trying to get herself into Trump's inner circle, and Marjorie Taylor Greene responded this way. I'll put it on the screen and I'll read it.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (via Twitter): This bitchh is celebrating the death of American military members and thanking their families for their blood sacrifice. Sign up for the military, Laura. Go to the front lines, Laura. Maybe then they'll give you a gun. You don't love Trump enough unless you go fight Iran yourself.

Brad: Marjorie Taylor Greene is basically saying, "I don't want there to be any more American deaths." And anyone like Laura Loomer who is calling people who've died as part of this conflict American heroes—"God bless them and their families" and so on and so on—is basically a hypocrite and is giving cover for a conflict that is unnecessary.

Now you might be thinking, "Okay, it's one thing—Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson—that's great. They're nationalists. They're America First. They are isolationists. They're xenophobic. What does this matter?" There's another group that I think we really need to highlight here, and that is a group that has a direct influence and connection to JD Vance.

JD Vance is, of course, somebody who's come out against the endless wars, who says he fought in the Middle East as a young man and he saw it doing no good, and he doesn't stand with those kinds of foreign policy investments anymore.

JD Vance [Clip]: I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives.

Brad: Post-liberal Catholics are a group that Vance associates with and considers himself to be part of, and they are also a group of MAGA Christians who are against what is happening in Iran right now. One of them is the theologian Edward Feser, who responded to a report that some of the people that the United States considered putting in leadership in Iran died in the blast and were no longer alive. And Feser just tweeted, basically, "The bombing will continue until we can figure out why we're doing it." And then he called the group "the gang that couldn't bomb straight."

He's pointing out that there's been no good reasoning for why we did this, and the idea that the United States killed potential leaders or successors to leadership in Iran in their blast is not a virtue or a good thing, but it shows incompetence. It's a gang of leaders who just started bombing indiscriminately, not knowing who they would hurt. We could talk about the leaders. We could also talk about the girls' school that was bombed and where dozens of young girls were killed at a school.

Another Catholic voice that came out against this is the traditionalist Sohrab Ahmari. Now you may not know that name, but he's somebody who pals around with Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule and other post-liberal Catholics who are friends with and have the ear of Vice President JD Vance. Ahmari called what is happening in Iran embarrassing. He criticized the reasoning for Trump attacking Iran, and he said that in the interview that the President gave with the New York Times, it does not seem like the President has thought this through. That's a direct criticism of President Trump coming from a group of MAGA Catholics who largely support him but are willing to come out in a direct criticism of him right now.

Now I'll just add one more voice to the mix, and that is William Wolfe. William Wolfe is one of the 15 leaders who was invited to pray with the President and visit the White House a year ago in March of 2025. He's a Baptist leader, a Protestant, but he said this on March 1st:

William Wolfe (via Twitter): Yeah, this isn't good. The American people need to hear directly from President Trump why we did this, why we did it now, and why this was in our American interest beyond just, quote, "stopping Iran from a nuke." Again, I know that Trump has been articulating that he is anti-Iran since before he ran for president, but memories are short, and the American people, particularly the 77 million who voted for him, deserve to hear why this is good for us directly from him.

Brad: Now, I just finished writing a book about these groups—these post-liberal Catholics and these isolationist, ethno-nationalist Protestants—and they're not the same, and there's no way for me in a short video to explain all the differences between them. But I do want to notice a couple of things that they share and why this moment, this conflict with Iran, is a time when they're willing to criticize the President and to wonder if this is the best move for the United States.

You have a group of folks who are two things, and I want you to see both of them at the same time when it comes to their understanding of nationalism and government. They are America First Christians, and America First is, of course, a code word for xenophobia and isolationist foreign policy. They see immigration as bad. They see the UN and our entanglements with the global world order as bad. They want an isolated United States, and that means that they do not support, for the most part, interventions globally, whether that is in Ukraine and Russia, whether that is in Israel and Iran. The sort of hard-line stance here is that why should we get involved with foreign wars unless they attack us—and us directly? Unless our people are threatened, we should not get involved.

So they are nationalists. They are isolationists, and you can see that reflected in Megyn Kelly, who talked about how "I don't think anybody should die for a foreign country." That's a perfect expression of this kind of nationalism, or Christian nationalism.

Now, if you add to that their understanding of the end times, many of the folks in this camp—now not all, but many—do not see Jesus's return as imminent. They're not expecting Jesus to return and take all his people home. So they're not seeing Israel in the same way that Sean Feucht and Lance Wallnau and those others see Israel. They do not want to support Israel no matter what. They do not want to get into wars with or for Israel. They do not want to spend billions or trillions of dollars helping Israel. They see Israel kind of in the same boat as every other foreign country, which in their mind is something that Americans shouldn't care about. And so Israel doesn't get a special status just because it's Israel. In their mind, we should treat them like we treat any other nation that is not our own.

Now this, of course, leads—and I've talked about this previously on this channel and on this show—to antisemitism. There's a sense that because Israel is not a chosen people or a special player in God's epic drama for the globe, that Israel is not just any old country or just like all the rest, but the Jews in Israel are actually a problem because they killed Jesus and they didn't accept him as the Savior, and now they threaten the very identity of the United States. There is a Jewish problem in the United States. That is what many in this group would say.

The sense of detaching Israel from its special place in the world leads, sadly, often to an antisemitism regarding Jews in the United States and all over the world.

The takeaway for today is that there are many MAGA Christians who see what's happening with Iran as a fulfillment of the end times, but there are others who see this as a betrayal of America First. They see this as support for a foreign country in Israel that is not the United States. And the takeaway for those of us who are in neither of those camps is that this is a rift in the MAGA coalition, and this will get worse as time goes on. Those who are not for this war are generally those who are calling for the release of the Epstein files, willing to criticize President Trump on other fronts. And the louder those echoes grow, the more you're going to hear clamors for not voting in the midterms, for supporting other candidates, for thinking that MAGA is dead and something new is needed, for infighting within the group.