A Fringe Movement That’s Gaining Momentum
A Review of
The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy
Matthew Boedy
Hardcover: WJK Press, 2025
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Reviewed by Stephen R. Clark
In 2016, Matthew Boedy had been an English professor for about a year at the University of North Georgia when his name landed on a “watchlist.” The list allegedly targeted professors who, it was claimed, promoted “leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
What had Boedy done to earn a place on this list? He explains, “months earlier I had written an opinion piece for the state’s largest newspaper arguing against a law that allows people to carry concealed firearms on college campuses.”
This was Boedy’s introduction to a then somewhat fringe organization called Turning Point headed by Charlie Kirk. In The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy, Boedy reveals what he has since learned about Turning Point and their intention for America and its politics.
In the introduction, Boedy traces the birth and fleshing out of the Seven Mountains Mandate (7MM), alternatively referred to as dominionism or reconstructionism. Its roots go back to ideas promoted by R. J. Rushdoony that crystallized in a reported vision from God seemingly shared by Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham in 1975.
Bright was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (now known as Cru). Cunningham was a missionary and founder of Youth with a Mission (YWAM). The vision centered on “seven influential areas of culture” that Christians were supposed to control or dominate. These “areas of influence” have also been referred to as “gates, pillars, channels” with most supporters settling on “mountains.”
The mountains are Education, Government, Religion, Family, Business, Media, and Entertainment. Later, C. Peter Wagner, Lance Wallnau, and others picked up the mantle and further popularized the ideas of 7MM. Wallnau, Paula White, and many others tied to the New Aposolic Reformation (NAR) and Christian Nationalism (CN) are strong advocates. Their goal goes well beyond mere influence with the intent of establishing Christian control and domination over each mountain.
In each subsequent chapter of the book, Boedy zeros in on one “mountain” and exposes how Turning Point USA, as well as other organizations, is developing programs and efforts to support and promote the mandate within the context of Christian Nationalism. One advocate is Hillsdale College in Michigan that offers free online courses promoting the CN/7MM ideologies. Watchlists, such as the one Boedy was included on, advocate the targeting of professors and others seen as “enemies” of Turning Point and the CN/7MM movement. Much of the activity gets framed within the context of spiritual warfare pitting Turning Point against the demonic. Anyone opposing Turning Point or the movement in general is seen as motivated by Satan.
Ironically, Boedy’s book was officially released twenty days after Kirk’s assassination.
Of the book and the assassination, Word & Way writer Beau Underwood says, “[Boedy draws] a line from its emergence in fundamentalist and conservative evangelical subcultures in the 1970s to the present day, where it had a new champion who was rising in fame and power. Charlie Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, were advancing an agenda that radically challenged how our nation understood the relationship between religion and politics. Following Kirk’s assassination on September 10, both the meaning and the purpose of the book have changed.”
It remains to be seen if Turning Point will continue to be the force behind the movement it was becoming under Kirk’s leadership. Even if there is a shift, the impact is already significant. The book remains important for bringing to light that this once “fringe” movement is becoming more central and consequential within our politics, even without the leadership of Kirk.
The one quibble I have with Boedy is his claim that, in addition to Bright and Cunningham, Francis Schaeffer played a key role in promoting 7MM. I believe he has misread Schaeffer, who cited these and other areas where Christians are rightly obligated to have influence. However, I do not believe Schaeffer would support the extremes of domination and control that the current endorsers of CN/7MM advocate. In his book, A Christian Manifesto, Schaeffer makes it clear that he is not calling for a theocracy or “confusing the Kingdom of God with our country.”
Boedy’s book is an excellent companion read to The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor which ties together Christian Nationalism (CN), New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), and Seven Mountains Mandate (7MM). Both books help bring to the fore important forces that have been quietly and nefariously working their way into the evangelical mainstream, forces that really have nothing to do with the true Kingdom of God.
Boedy’s book is an important contribution to the exposing of these “hidden” influences that are having an outsized and detrimental impact on our democracy and our churches.
Stephen R. Clark
Stephen R. Clark is an award-winning writer who lives in Lansdale, PA with his wife, BethAnn, where they are members of Immanuel Church. His website is www.StephenRayClark.com. He is a member of the Evangelical Press Association and managing editor of the Christian Freelance Writers Network blog. His writing has appeared in several publications including Influence Magazine, The Marketplace, Outreach, Bible Advocate, Christian Century, Publishers Weekly, The Alabama Baptist, The Baptist Paper, Ministry Watch, and others. He also served as editor at Christian Bookseller Magazine(now Christian Retailing), Wiley Publishing/For Dummies, and Bridge Publishing (now Bridge-Logos).
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