# The Violent Take It by Force (Taylor) Matthew D. Taylor's academic history and analysis of the [[New Apostolic Reformation]], tracing its lineage from the mid-century Latter Rain movement through [[c-peter-wagner|C. Peter Wagner]] to the Christian actors who framed the January 6 attempt to reinstate Donald Trump. Taylor is a religion scholar (not a rival theologian), so the book maps the movement's networks and politics from the outside. This page indexes the first substantial batch of highlights (15) synced 2026-07-23; earlier passes deferred it while only one highlight existed. (Source: `Readwise/Books/The Violent Take It by Force.md`) > [!note] Source caution > These are Readwise highlight excerpts, not the full argument. Taylor's focus is the *politicized* wing of the NAR (Christian nationalism, the 2020 election, January 6); it is not a comprehensive survey of every network or a neutral both-sides account. Read as scholarly critique with a documented point of view. --- ## Key claims 1. **Wagner is the "intellectual godfather."** Tracing the leaders and theologies that pushed thousands of Christians toward the illegitimate reinstatement of Trump leads back to [[c-peter-wagner|C. Peter Wagner]], a renegade evangelical seminary professor (Fuller) whom Taylor names the NAR's intellectual godfather. (Source: Location 322) 2. **"New Apostolic Reformation" was coined casually, at a lunch.** Wagner's team brainstormed names until someone — not Wagner — proposed "New Apostolic Reformation." Kay Hiramine, present at the table, quips they "banged that name out… in less than a lunch." The movement's brand was improvised, not the product of a founding council. (Source: Locations 1069, 1192) 3. **The NAR grows out of the [[Latter Rain]] revival stream.** Latter Rain theologians read Israel's former/latter rains typologically: the charismatic early church was the former rain; they believed they were living into an end-times "latter rain" deluge of the Spirit. Frustrated with slow denominational bureaucracy, they fixated on Ephesians 2:20 ("built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets") — the seed of the [[Five-Fold Ministry]] model centered on apostles and prophets. (Source: Locations 614, 660, 665, 671) 4. **"Spiritual father/mother" language substitutes for structure.** In Independent Charismatic circles — lacking denominational hierarchies or seminary credentialing — ambitious leaders adopt familial "spiritual father" models of apprenticeship and deference. This is the relational scaffolding of [[Apostolic Authority]]. (Source: Location 580) 5. **Paula White as Trump's faith gatekeeper.** On White's advice, Trump kept faith talk private and offered the public only vague platitudes, making his personal spirituality "a Rorschach test" that different Christian audiences could read as they wished. White became his spokesperson on faith and the gatekeeper for religious-leader access. (Source: Location 850) 6. **Christian nationalism tracks with patriarchy.** Observers "frequently draw an explicit connection between Christian nationalism and patriarchy" — a link this wiki also tracks through Du Mez and Barr. (Source: Location 202) --- ## Notable quotes > "the 'intellectual godfather' of the NAR." — Taylor on [[c-peter-wagner|C. Peter Wagner]] (Location 322) > "we banged that name out—the New Apostolic Reformation—in less than a lunch." — Kay Hiramine, quoted by Taylor (Location 1192) > Trump's personal spirituality became "a Rorschach test, of sorts, which different Christian audiences could interpret variously." (Location 850) --- ## Definitions worth keeping - **Continuationist / cessationist.** Continuationist = charismatic: the belief that the New Testament's extraordinary gifts continue today. Cessationists are not anti-miracle in principle but hold that those gifts largely ceased after the early church's founding. Taylor frames this as the fault line running through modern Catholicism, mainline Protestantism, evangelicalism, and Historically Black Protestantism. (Source: Location 1008) — useful shared vocabulary for the wiki's [[The Passion Translation]] critic cluster, whose critics are pointedly *continuationists*. --- ## Connections This is the wiki's first dedicated source page for the scholarly NAR treatment already cited three times on [[start-here-new-apostolic-reformation|Concerned About the New Apostolic Reformation? Start Here]] (the beginner entrance links it as the "researcher, not a rival theologian" resource). It corroborates, from an academic vantage, claims the wiki previously held mostly from evangelical-cessationist critics like [[readwise-nar-pivec-geivett|A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement]]: - The Wagner-as-origin claim and the [[Latter Rain]] → [[Five-Fold Ministry]] lineage that [[readwise-pentecostal-nar-origins-critique-cluster|Readwise — Pentecostal / NAR Origins Critique Cluster]] traces from the critic side. - The accountability-and-structure gap named in [[Apostolic Authority]] — Taylor supplies the *why* (no denominations, no seminaries, so "spiritual father" deference fills the vacuum). - The [[Dominionism]] / [[Christian Nationalism]] politics the start-here risk section cites Taylor for directly. > [!question] Open thread — Wagner entity update > The [[c-peter-wagner|C. Peter Wagner]] page can now gain Taylor's "intellectual godfather" framing and the origin-of-the-name anecdote (Hiramine's lunch). Deferred to a directed synthesis pass rather than done drive-by here.