On Super Tuesday, it wasn’t just President Donald Trump that won big.
Candidates on an obscure social media platform that props up a fringe movement of far-right Christians took home primary victories—and could end up in Congress.
It’s the technological arm of a once-fringe but increasingly mainstream Christian movement that aims to take over every branch of society, and it’s gaining significant foothold with Republican politicians running in 2024.
Three candidates for Congress, a candidate for lieutenant governor, three state House candidates, a county commissioner, a school board trustee, and a handful of former candidates for elected office are all members of the Nexus Mountain Network, a social media platform created by proponents of the Seven Mountains Mandate.
Two of the three congressional candidates won their primary elections and will be on the general ballot in November.
Critical religious scholars describe the Seven Mountains Mandate as a program for Christian supremacy in the country.
Also known as Seven Mountains Dominionism, or simply 7M, the Seven Mountains Mandate calls for Christians to conquer the seven domains of family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government.
Its most ardent supporter proclaims that Jesus was promised a nation to lord over. And that nation is America.
Midwifed out of the New Apostolic Reformation, a network of self-appointed prophets and apostles founded in the late 1990s that gathered around the late C. Peter Wagner, the Seven Mountains Mandate is championed by Lance Wallnau, a self-described Christian Nationalist prophet in Keller, Texas who was one of Wagner’s mentees.
Wallnau brought the idea to prominence through his 2013 book “Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate.” Various religious scholars and journalists say that Wallnau was among the earliest Christian leaders to support Trump and remains his most ardent defender. They’ve also observed that believers of the Seven Mountains Mandate participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attempt to overturn the 2020 election: several New Apostolic Reformation luminaries spoke at the Jan. 5 Freedom Plaza rally and at least two defendants arrested at the riot shared posts about the Seven Mountains.
Now this Christian Nationalist movement has its own social media platform, the Nexus Mountain Network, to spread the Seven Mountains Mandate and serve as the digital connective tissue for acolytes working to establish God’s Kingdom in America.
Launched in 2022, the Nexus Mountain Network is a project of Nexus Mountain Mission, a 501c3 nonprofit in North Carolina whose public tax filings remain hidden thanks to a church exemption, according to IRS data. It was founded by Chad Hawley, a former pharmaceutical industry executive and longtime associate of Wallnau who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
According to Hawley’s biography on the website, he and his wife Wendy were mentored by Wallnau. Posts on Hawley’s Facebook show him with Wallnau at the 2023 New Era conference organized by Morningstar Ministries, a New Apostolic Reformation organization led by a man who believes a second civil war is inevitable, and interviewing Wallnau’s wife Annabelle on his podcast.
Hawley did not respond to requests for comment, but he did post about our inquiries on Nexus Mountain Network.
“A left-wing news outlet, The Daily Dot, is doing a hit piece on me, the NEXUS Mountain Network, and teachers like Lance Wallnau,” Hawley wrote on February 29. “Their investigative journalists are contacting politicians in NEXUS with the intention of misrepresenting them and NEXUS.”
In a post saying Hawley had told him about media inquiries, Wallnau posted a video saying the Seven Mountains weren’t a “theological formula” but a “blueprint for how the left took over America.”
The Nexus Mountain Network
“Jesus was promised nations for His inheritance,” Wallnau said in a 2022 video. “Not just churches!”
Wallnau’s quote gets to the core mission of the Seven Mountains Mandate, which serves as the foundation of the Nexus Mountain Network. It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which the platform emphasizes the Seven Mountains: It’s written into the mission statement and anyone who creates an account on the platform is asked to specify which of the mountains they consider to be their primary and secondary mission fields.
The site provides examples of modern-day influencers who have conquered their mountains, such as right-wing Daily Wire personality Candace Owens and Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in media and David Green, the CEO of Hobby Lobby who has donated millions to Christian causes, in business. Whether it’s family life or public office, the goal is for Christians to be on top.
For those that have a hard time choosing their mountains, they can complete a quiz to guide their decision. They can also take a course called “Purpose Will Save Your Life,” which has a section about the Seven Mountains featuring one of Wallnau’s videos.
There are around two hundred users who list “government” as their primary mountain to conquer on the Nexus Mountain Network. Out of those accounts, thirteen of them have either run for office in the past, are actively running, or are currently elected officials. Eleven out of the thirteen politicians are in either North Carolina or South Carolina.
Three of them have been interviewed on the Nexus Mountain Network podcast hosted by Hawley. Hawley has also interviewed North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who just won the North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary.
Robinson doesn’t have an account on the platform. Nevertheless, Hawley introduced Robinson as a “good Christian government mountain leader” during the interview.
“This is a Judeo-Christian country founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” Robinson told Hawley. “And in order for us to keep this nation strong I believe that Christians have to be at the forefront of leading in the nation.”
There are also long-time right-wing activists with ties to Christian advocacy organizations on Nexus Mountain Network, including Janet Porter, the self-described architect of the pro-life Heartbeat bill; and Tonya Shellnutt, a one-time Montana state Senate candidate who currently serves as the Senior State Government Director for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group designated an anti-LGTBQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Even if the Nexus Mountain Network membership may be small, the influence of the Seven Mountains Mandate—which serves as the conceptual grounding for the social media platform—has spread to some of the highest offices in the land. Several members of Congress, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.), have connections to pastors and activists who preach the Seven Mountains Mandate.
The consequences of the spread of this ideology are difficult to exaggerate. One justice on the Alabama Supreme Court who supported the decision that ruled frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children was Tom Parker. He was found to have espoused support for the Seven Mountains Mandate.
Matthew Taylor, among the foremost religious scholars of the New Apostolic Reformation, describes the Seven Mountains Mandate as “a political theology of Christian supremacy, which uses prophecy to claim that God is commanding all Christians to strategically take over the high places in society so as to Christianize that society.”
The Seven Mountains’ strategy often focuses at the national level, but state and local institutions are also important. Hawley described in one episode of Nexus Mountain Network podcast how the platform helped them organize to influence the school board in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Here at Nexus Mountain Network, we took a major stand against the promotion of pedophilia, rape, and incest at a local high school and because we were networked together in all seven mountains,” Hawley said. “We were able to get access to Media Mountain, Government, and Education and we had the initiative stopped within 48 hours.”
One local outlet reported parents swarming a May 2023 Charlotte meeting with complaints, quoting a Moms for Liberty activist and “Chad Holly” [sic] as representative examples.
“I’m calling for an investigation into the principal, the librarian who are promoting this pedophilia this rape and incest,” Hawley said.
“Many Seven Mountains thought leaders have urged their followers directly to target local school boards as a key arena of cultural combat to displace the demons they believe are infecting children’s minds through secular and/or LGBTQ-affirming curricula,” Taylor told the Daily Dot. “It’s remarkable to see how an ideological Christian strategy that did not exist 25 years ago, and then was distributed through diffuse charismatic networks, is now getting assent from more than 1/5 of all Americans.”
According to a study conducted by religious scholar Paul Djupe, more than 20% of Americans agreed with the statement that “God wants Christians to stand atop the ‘7 mountains of society,’ including the government, education, media, and others.”
“The Seven Mountains Mandate concept started on the true fringes of American Christianity,” Taylor said. “When Wallnau formulated it, he was a run-of-the-mill pastor in Rhode Island, but through the … entwinement with Christian Trumpism, it has rapidly moved from the margins to the center of religious right organizing in the U.S. and globally.”
Politicians on Nexus Mountain Network
Out of the six active political candidates the Daily Dot identified accounts for on the Seven Mountains Mandate-themed website, three are running for Congress in North Carolina.
Pat Harrigan, a U.S Army Veteran and CEO of a gun distribution company, just won the Republican primary election for North Carolina’s 10th congressional district. His candidacy has drawn big donors and an endorsement from the Koch brothers network as he faced four other hopefuls in the Republican primary. He previously ran for Congress in a different district in 2022.
“I followed the Lord’s calling into this race,” Harrigan wrote in November 2022 after he lost to Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.). “I learned long ago that when God calls, you answer that still small voice, no matter the cost to you personally, or professionally. I am grateful to Him for His guidance, His blessing of protection over my family, and His divine hand over the outcome of this race.”
Harrigan was featured as a guest of Hawley’s on the Nexus Mountain Network podcast in November 2023 and won an award at the second annual Nexus Awards show in December 2023.
“If you don’t know who Pat is, and I’m especially talking to the people in the Carolinas, get behind this man because this is going to be a special opportunity to put someone that we know we love and we can connect with in a position of influence,” Hawley said during the podcast interview with Harrigan.
Harrigan’s wife, Rocky, who helps manage his campaign’s social media accounts, responded to the Daily Dot’s inquiry via Facebook Messenger.
“I am Pat’s wife and I help run Pat’s social media (because he does not do social) and I personally signed Pat up on Nexus [Mountain Network] because I know Wendy, [the founder’s] wife,” Rocky wrote. “I think it would be best if I scheduled a call for you with Pat. What is your availability tomorrow during business hours?”
When the Daily Dot followed up to schedule the interview the next morning, the messages wouldn’t go through due to being blocked by Harrigan’s account.
Another congressional candidate with a Nexus Mountain Network account is Addul Ali, who won North Carolina’s 12th congressional district primary by default. A veteran and entrepreneur, Ali described himself in social media posts as “Black, Republican, God fearing, America loving” and “the radical left’s worst nightmare.” He’s also been vocal about his belief in the widely debunked claim that Joe Biden didn’t fairly win the 2020 election. “There is clear evidence that this election was a sham,” Ali wrote in a December 2020 Facebook post.
Ali did not respond to requests for comment.
There’s also Don Brown, an attorney, author, and Navy veteran who unsuccessfully ran in the 2024 Republican primary for North Carolina’s 8th congressional district. Brown has been featured as a guest along with Hawley and Wallnau at Morningstar religious conferences—including in 2022 where the Seven Mountains concept was the topic of one speaker—and has written in opposition to the separation of church and state.
Brown, whose account on the Nexus Mountain Network remains inactive, did not respond to requests for comment.
The highest-ranking elected official on Nexus Mountain Network is Nancy Jenkins-Arno, a county commissioner in Lewanee County, Michigan. A former member of the Michigan House of Representatives, Jenkins-Arno is once again running to be a state representative in the August 2024 primary election.
Then there’s Leah Whatley, a school board trustee in the Charleston County School District in South Carolina. Since Whatley won her seat in 2022, she has supported a new school board policy that would require prayer before the beginning of each board meeting and tried to ban a local pastor and activist from attending board meetings after they made an outspokenly critical post about Moms for Liberty, which endorsed Whatley.
Whatley did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition to Jenkins-Arno, who is running for a state house seat in Michigan, there are two other state-level candidates who have accounts on the Nexus Mountain Network.
Rivera Douthit, a Bible teacher and former critical care nurse, unsuccessfully ran in the 2024 primary election for North Carolina lieutenant governor.
Douthit was at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and attended the Jan. 5 Freedom Plaza Rally where New Apostolic Reformation luminary Ché Ahn spoke alongside the Q-Anon promoting former general Michael Flynn and Alex Jones. Per a video Douthit posted to Facebook, she was in the VIP area.
“My life has been an adventure with the Lord,” Douthit said during an interview on the Nexus Mountain Network podcast about her candidacy for the second-highest office in North Carolina. “This is no different. He’s asked me to run specifically for office and for this office in particular.”
Douthit did not respond to requests for comment.
Perhaps the most active member is Dr. Elizabeth Enns, the senior pastor of Antioch International Church who is running in the Republican primary for a South Carolina state house seat in June. She was described as a “good friend” of Hawley and his wife in an interview. She’s no stranger to the Seven Mountains Mandate.
“Which ones am I missing?” Dr. Enns asked Hawley when Hawley introduced her on the podcast and noted Enns was working on “five of the seven mountains.”
On Nexus, Dr. Enns has promoted her campaign, highlighted her connections with activist groups such as Moms for Liberty, and praised Donald Trump.
“This man is an amazing man and I thank God for him,” Dr. Enns wrote in a post sharing Trump’s speech at the 2024 International Christian Media Convention.
Dr. Enns did not respond to requests for comment.
Small but growing, the app showcases a strain of extreme Christianity, one that, merged with Trumpism, has the potential to push a stark theocratic vision across the land if its candidates win office come November.
