Donald Trump Met God In the Desert
How faith and politics — and the novel-coronavirus — collided at a Phoenix megachurch
by DAVID AXE
The Phoenix megachurch that hosted Pres. Donald Trump’s June 23 rally has close ties to the White House as well as to Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy group.
While apparently legal, the close relationship between Dream City Church, Trump and Turning Point USA underscores the intersection of evangelical Christianity and right-wing politics that is a hallmark of the Trump era.
It also raises questions about the evangelical community’s influence on Trump’s response to the novel-coronavirus pandemic. According to one Dream City Church staff member, church leaders advised Trump on his response to the pandemic, which has killed around 133,000 Americans and shows few signs of slowing down.
That advice apparently boiled down to, do very little and trust God.
Dream City Church’s leaders have advocated for an air filter, built by a member of the congregation, that the leaders falsely claimed would clear the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the air during Trump’s visit. At the same time, top church officials discouraged their staff from wearing masks.
“I was convinced, based on their convictions, that I would be protected by the air purification and covered by God’s protection,” the staffer said on condition of anonymity, as they fear retaliation from church leaders.
Dream City Church is a chain of Arizona megachurches. The flagship Phoenix congregation, led by pastor Luke Barnett and chief operating officer Brendon Zastrow, has a couple thousand members.
Barnett has ties to Trump. He was photographed with Trump at a rally in Florida on Jan. 3. He was among a group of 25 faith-leaders who met with the president at the White House on Oct. 29. Barnett was also one of around 200 top evangelicals who in December signed a letter slamming Timothy Dalrymple, the president of Christianity Today, after that magazine published an editorial calling for Trump’s impeachment.
“Leadership’s attitude has matched that of the president,” the anonymous staffer said. Dream City Church and church leaders didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Dream City Church is one of the bigger congregations in an Arizona evangelical community that is gaining strength amid a wider political realignment in the state. “It’s always been a pretty big connection between religion and politics” in Arizona, said Mark Ramirez, an Arizona State University political scientist.
According to Ramirez, the Mormon church historically dominated conservative politics in Arizona. Former U.S. senator Jeff Flake, current U.S. senator Kyrsten Sinema and the politically powerful Udall family all have Mormon ties.
But many Mormons have soured on Trump — most notably Utah senator Mitt Romney. As more Arizona Mormons have fled the Republican Party and become independent voters, evangelicals have gained power in the state’s GOP. Those evangelicals are “surely in the camp of Donald Trump,” Ramirez said. “They’re his people.”
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, reportedly attends Dream City Church in Phoenix. The institutions have their own strong ties to each other. “There is often a flow, from similar ministries, of staff or families between the two,” the anonymous staffer claimed. A representative of Turning Point USA declined to comment for this story.
Turning Point Action, the overtly political wing of the wider organization, rented Dream City’s Phoenix auditorium for its June rally. Despite the longstanding federal ban on nonprofits such as churches advocating for political candidates, there’s nothing illegal or unusual about a church renting facilities to groups that can legally endorse candidates, said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA legal scholar.
“A church is two things, just like a private university is two things,” Volokh said. “It’s an institution for spreading religious ideas. It also happens to be a property-owner. And as a property-owner, it can do all sorts of things.”
But it’s fair to say that Dream City Church is heavily invested in Trump’s presidency. And church leaders have worked hard to align their response to the pandemic with the administration’s policies, all while the church shapes those same policies via conference calls and meetings.
According to the anonymous staffer, Barnett participated in a White House conference call on pandemic strategy that took place shortly before Arizona governor Doug Ducey issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 31.
Dream City Church shifted to online services while the stay-at-home order was in place. When Ducey lifted the order in mid-May. Dream City Church quickly resumed normal services — and got busy preparing for Trump’s visit.
That meant more or less pretending the virus isn’t a big deal. “The push to reopen and return to in-person services was sudden and based on cultural and values choices,” the anonymous staffer explained.
Preparations for Trump’s rally coincided with the church installing CleanAir EXP filter units at the Phoenix facility. “It was technology developed by some members of our church,” Barnett said in a social-media post. “And it kills 99.9 percent of COVID within 10 minutes.”
In fact, no air filter can prevent infected people from shedding the virus as they breathe and speak. Barnett’s claim “is absurd and will not protect you,” said Matthew Scotch, an Arizona State University epidemiologist.
The company that makes the CleanAir EXP disavowed Barnett’s endorsement and the church eventually walked back the 99.9-percent claim.
But by then church leaders had already created an expectation within the organization that masks, social-distancing and other public-health measures were inconsistent with Christian values. This despite Arizona having one of the highest rates of new infections of any U.S. state.
Church leaders “implied that I’m somehow weaker spiritually for following what I know to be common sense,” the anonymous staffer said. Not only did the filters not work like church officials claimed, those same officials didn’t want people taking other measures to protect themselves from the virus.
Trump-supporters packed Dream City Church to listen to Trump speak on June 23. Photos from the event make it clear that very few attendees wore masks or made any effort to socially-distance.
The rally was the final straw for the anonymous staffer. They finally decided to go public. “My personal opinion is that Mr. Barnett has long since made an idol out of the president,” the staffer said.
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