In June of 2021, far-right social-media evangelist Sean Feucht was walking down the aisle of a Target big-box store somewhere in California with his young daughter. Feucht, who has heavy ties with Bethel Church, noticed something that triggered him. In recognition of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Target was selling related merchandise, including T-shirts with the word “Pride” spelled out in rainbow-colored letters. One Target display featured a large rainbow cutout with the words “take pride.”
Feucht pulled out his camera, aimed it at his then-10-year-old daughter, and pressed record. He would later share the video on his Facebook page.
“God says I’m fearfully and wonderfully made just like I am,” Feucht’s 10-year-old said. She was obviously emphasizing that she identified as a girl, and that to be anything other than cisgender was wrong and against God’s word. That’s heavy-duty material for a 10-year-old to digest, let alone act out for her father while being recorded on video in a Target aisle. Feucht’s daughter went on to say that she prays for all of her friends and for all of the children in her generation, so they will not identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Amen! Take that Target!” said Feucht at the end of the video.
“Strolled by this on date with Turah and had to blast out IDENTITY OVER HER GENERATION!! She’s prophesying!” said Feucht in the Facebook post. “No more confusion, no more chaos!! We are going to see the greatest revival among Gen Z.”
That Facebook post attracted nearly 10,000 “likes” and “hearts” and nearly 730 comments, most of which approved of the queerphobic commentary shared by Feucht and his daughter. The video attracted more than 65,000 views.
Screenshot of the video Feucht recorded in Target that does not include his daughter (top left) and other queerphobic content he has shared on Twitter and Facebook. Source: Facebook
Feucht’s daughter also preached on stage with him at the recent anti-LGBTQ protest held in front of the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.
Feucht has repeatedly attacked the LGBTQ+ community and its allies in hateful queerphobic fashion for “grooming” America’s youth. It turns out Feucht is the real predatory groomer. He’s willing to brainwash his children and use them on his social-media platforms to impart queerphobic and anti-social justice perspectives.
But Feucht has plenty of critics. A TikTok user with more than 140,500 followers who goes by the name of MostlyMature challenged Feucht. She called him a hypocrite for claiming to protest against Disney to protect his children, despite the fact he boasted on Facebook that the video featuring his daughter praying in front of the Walt Disney Studio received 245,000 views. Scores of people commented under the TikTok video in agreement with MostlyMature.
@mostlymature Stop saying you aretrying to “protect your child” #disney #seanfeucht #boycottdisney
Feucht plays favorites
The “MAGA preacher,” as Rolling Stone magazine writers recently called him, is actively targeting Gen Z, the generation of Americans born between the late 1990s and 2010s.
Feucht has found inroads into Gen Z despite the fact that it’s the most racially and ethnically diverse and politically progressive generation in U.S. history.
The big question revolves around whether or not Gen Z’ers can see the hate, resentment, violence, and support for systemic oppression that Feucht is selling. Will Gen Z donate their money and dedicate their attention and social media clicks to a phony grifter, or push for change that really tackles the problems our society faces?
Expo ’72 & Christian Woodstock
Fifty years ago in the summer of 1972, an evangelical Christian conference known as Expo ’72 took place over the course of five days in Dallas. The event was organized by Campus Crusade for Christ, a group founded at UCLA in the 1950s with a penchant for attacking the imaginary threat of communism in the U.S. It attracted more than 100,000 people. One attendee described the various classes and conferences that made up Expo ’72 as providing training designed to win the world over for Jesus. Evangelist Billy Graham spoke several times during Expo ’72. He referred to it as part of a “Jesus revolution.”
A common practice among attendees at Expo ’72 was to raise their index fingers in the air to express that the worshiping of Jesus would open the “one way” to heaven. Venders sold T-shirts with the “one way” logo, which included a hand with an index finger pointing up to a Christian cross inside a circle with the words “one way.”
A vast majority of attendees at Expo ’72 were white, middle-class members of the baby-boomer generation. Some reports described attendees as “militant Christians.” The event culminated with an 8-hour-long music festival held at the Cotton Bowl, nicknamed “Christian Woodstock.”
Expo ’72 came at a time of great chaos, especially for white right-wing Christian conservatives, as their world had been shaken to the core by the social movements designed to secure rights for people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Cover of Life magazine with photograph taken during Christian Woodstock (top left) and other photographs from the music festival and Expo ’72.
One attendee at Expo ’72 was a 15-year-old named Michael Dale Huckabee, a future far-right politician who would go on to serve as governor of Arkansas two decades later and make unsuccessful runs for the presidency. Huckabee, to this day, is against LGBTQ+ rights. In addition, after the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting in 2021, Huckabee blamed school shootings on the removal of God from the classroom.
Sean Feucht is a big fan of Huckabee. Huckabee endorsed Feucht in his wildly unsuccessful carpetbagger run for Congress in California’s 3rd district in 2020. Feucht also appeared on Fox News network’s Mike Huckabee Show in 2020. Huckabee wrote the forward in Feucht’s 2020 book Brazen: Be a Voice, Not an Echo.
Poster for Feucht’s campaign to run for Congress that featured Huckabee and screenshots from Feucht’s appearance on the Mike Huckabee Show. Source: Facebook
Expo ’72 occurred around the same time that the Jesus movement took off in Orange County. The Jesus movement attracted disaffected hippies and “beach-bum-types.” Pastors involved in the movement held larger events at various beaches and baptized attendees in the ocean. Expo ’72 and the Jesus movement gave rise to the modern Christian music industry that Sean Feucht is part of today. Feucht has copied elements of Expo ’72 and the Jesus movement and merged it with his militant Bethel Church-inspired search for a New Apostolic Reformation world order.
Feucht’s call for a new “Jesus people movement”
In the summer of 2020 Feucht called for a new “Jesus people movement in California”. He was fresh off his run for Congress and looking for new issues to leech onto to remain relevant and make money. That issue was COVID-19 mandates that ordered the closure of businesses — including churches — across the state. Feucht took the church to the street with a series of pandemic concerts known as “Let Us Worship.”
On July 22, 2020, a mob of Shawn Feucht fans and believers crowded beneath Redding’s famous Sundial Bridge for Feucht’s first “Let Us Worship” concert. Many attendees were from The Stirring and Bethel Church. Photo by Steve DuBois.
Since then, Feucht has held anti-pandemic-mandate concerts in more than 200 cities across the U.S.
He recently hosted his first international show in South Africa – where he killed another kudu to add to the collection of animals he’s killed and mounted for his man cave.
Part of Sean Feucht’s large collection of mounted animals.
As the “Let Us Worship” movement took off, Feucht shared a picture of himself on social media wearing a shirt with the “one way” logo while holding a 1972 issue of Life magazine featuring a picture of a man wearing the same shirt at Christian Woodstock. A few months later, Feucht, the ever-grifting Christian hawker, was selling the T-shirts. He said all proceeds would go to his “Let Us Worship” movement, which is part of his tax-exempt nonprofit religious organization Sean Feucht Ministries Inc. that made millions of dollars in 2020.
Feucht holding the 1972 edition of Life Magazine while wearing he reproduction of the “One Way” T-shirt. Source: Facebook
Feucht wearing his reproduction “One Way” T-shirt at a protest rally at the California State Capitol building and his Facebook post advertising he was selling the T-shirts. Source: Facebook
Feucht may not have predicted that he would go on to make millions of dollars with his tax-exempt religious-nonprofit organizations, and he may not have imagined he’d eventually own two homes in California and one in Montana worth a combined value of approximately $3 million.
But Feucht — who is backed by the Council for National Policy, a powerful organization with deep ties in the far-right portion of the Republican Party — did know what he was tapping into when he called for a new Jesus-people movement.
Some of Feucht’s many Facebook posts where he compares what he is doing with the Jesus people-movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Source: Facebook
Grooming of Gen Z
Feucht is grooming today’s youth to adopt his far-right anti-COVID-19 vaccine and safety mandates as well as anti-racial social justice, anti- LGBTQ+ and anti-women’s rights agenda.
Feucht hides his far-right hate with a laid-back “California casual” hipster vibe that’s attractive to many in the Gen Z generation. He calls Gen Z the most pro-life generation in U.S. history. He makes this claim despite the fact that a vast majority of Gen Z supports abortion rights.
Feucht on the Golden Gate Bridge. Source: Facebook
Like the Jesus-people movement of the 1960s and ’70s, Feucht has attracted followers to his cause at a time of great chaos as the nation is being rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fight for racial justice and LGBTQ+ and women’s rights.
“Satan overplayed his hand targeting Gen Z with depression, suicide and anxiety,” said Feucht in a tweet following a 2021 concert in South Carolina. “Tonight we saw hundreds of Gen Z-ers run to the altar laying their addiction, heaviness & compromise at the feet of Jesus!”
But unlike the crowd that took over Dallas at Expo ’72, the Gen Z-ers following Feucht are a multi-ethnic diverse population representative of young Californians today.
Sean Feucht’s No. 1 Gen Z fan
Joel Mott is one Gen Z-er who idolizes Feucht. The 20-something Mott was raised in a biracial household. His father is white and his mother is of Japanese descent. Mott is tall and has shaggy black hair. He sports a slight mustache. Like Feucht’s parents, Mott’s mother and father traveled the world as missionaries. They are currently the directors of Ekballo Pasadena, a discipleship training school modeled after the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.
Mott attended his first Feucht concert in 2020. By 2021, he was hooked, following Feucht across the country to attend Feucht’s concerts and even perform with his idol. In December of 2021, Mott solicited donations on social media to attend Feucht’s New Year’s Eve concert in Miami. He asked for $975 to pay for his flight, an Uber driver and a hotel room. .
At a July 2021 concert overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, Feucht’s right-hand man Jay Koopman told attendees he had helped Feucht find the perfect band for the event.
“I called up these young people from Southern California, Generation Z, who after we started doing this across America, they got inspired … these young people right here.” said Koopman, a pastor at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, as he pointed to the musicians. One of them was Mott. Koopman gave props to Mott and the other musicians for performing with Feucht and bringing his message to Gen Z.
Joel Mott, wearing a backward white baseball hat, performs with Feucht in San Francisco. Source: Facebook
Mott’s 21st century Southern California Gen Z Christian hipster vibe is a mirror image of Feucht’s style. Mott has also adopted Feucht’s far-right politics as represented by his views on abortion and the pandemic. Mott believes there is an agenda against young people “because we were made to slay Goliath.” Like Feucht, he doesn’t delve too far into specific details.
“The same people that were in an uproar over the death of ‘innocent’ George Floyd are losing their minds because the lives of innocent babies can’t legally be murdered anymore,” said Mott in a recent tweet.
California will be saved?
Mott’s idol worshiping of Feucht, however, goes even further. In 2021 he founded the religious organization California Will Be Saved with his friend Ross Johnston. As stated on its website, the goal of the organization is to help God save California. As California goes, so goes the nation and world, they say. Their mission statement could not echo Feucht’s message more clearly regarding his attempt to save the Golden State. They’re calling for salvation, healing, deliverance, and baptisms.
Sean Feucht, Joel Mott, and Ross Johnston pose for a picture in Miami last January. Source: Facebook
Mott and Johnston host outdoor events all over Southern California modeled after Feucht’s anti-pandemic-mandate concerts. They’ve directly thanked Feucht on social media for being a pioneer, and for believing in members of Gen Z like themselves. Mott’s and Johnston’s fans clearly adore them, and attendees at their concerts are much younger and more racially and ethnically diverse than those seen at Feucht’s events. In fact, the 38-year-old Feucht is nearly old enough to be their father.
Mott sings, plays guitar, and preaches like Feucht. Johnston mostly sticks to preaching. Like Feucht’s concerts, some of Mott’s and Johnston’s concerts take place on outdoor stages, while some are impromptu and held in public places.
In addition to preaching, Johnson also leads healing events, even those involving children.
Copying the copycat
Feucht copied Christian Woodstock and the Jesus movement of his parents’ generation, and Mott and Johnston are coping Feucht. Like Feucht, Mott and Johnston share aesthetically pleasing pictures and videos of themselves performing on social media. While Feucht, however, is a full-blown social-media evangelist with hundreds of thousands of followers, Mott’s and Johnston’s followers number only in the hundreds – at least for now.
Mott (top left) and Johnston (top right) and the crowd at a California Will Be Saved Event in Hollywood. Source: Facebook
At a concert Mott and Johnston held on the sidewalk beside Hollywood Boulevard across from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre earlier this summer, Johnston shared that he was conceived by artificial insemination. He also said he was raised by two lesbian moms, and that “nobody ever shared the real Jesus with me.”
As Johnson spoke, Mott and another musician lightly strummed their guitars as Johnston, dressed in black Nike basketball shorts and a T-shirt that said “Generation Z” across the back, preached. It resembled a miniature version of a Feucht concert.
Mott & Johnston say God is calling on them
Like Feucht, Mott and Johnston say God called on them to save California. When they started touring, Mott and Johnston’s plan was to take their act to the beach cities in Southern California and then head to inland cities. They got as far as Bakersfield.
Screenshot of pictures Mott and Johnston shared on Facebook taken at their Jul. 5 concert in Hollywood. Source: Facebook
Mott and Johnston’s short tour to save California looked more like a vacation than serious work. But maybe that’s the point: play music on the beach, preach, collect donations, and buy a lavish home in Orange County. It’s certainly part of Feucht’s far-right California dream. Their most recent concert took place July 5 in Hollywood.
Mott and Johnston were contacted for this story and asked about Feucht’s influence on Gen Z and about their personal views on Feucht. They declined to comment.
Fallout after Feucht and followers invade gay neighborhood
Last April Mott and Johnston joined Feucht for a “Jesus march” that targeted gay bars on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. Mott performed music before the march while Johnston preached. Both chanted “We’ve got the joy of the holy ghost” and “Jesus!” while Mott also played guitar as they led the march past several gay bars with Feucht. The march on West Hollywood came only four days before his anti-LGBTQ protest at Walt Disney Studios.
A TikTok user named Kevin Garcia, who describes himself as a spiritual coach, harshly criticized the hateful march that targeted Santa Monica’s gay community.
After sharing a portion of the video that Feucht livestreamed of the march on Facebook, Garcia created his own video in which he unabashedly criticized Feucht and expressed how negatively many LGBTQ+ people view Feucht specifically, and Christianity in general.
@thekevingarcia_ Hey seanfeucht, plz kindly fkuc off. #exvangelical #deconstruction #exmissionary #christian thanks to @Rev. Brandan Robertson for sharing the footage.
“How many times do we need to say, ‘No thank you’?” Garcia asked. “How many times are we going to have to say, ‘We don’t want that’ until you stop? Nobody asked you to come into our neighborhood and do anything for any of us. Do you know why? Because we don’t need anything from you, Sean.”
Garcia added that it was because of people like Feucht that many queer people resist Christianity.
“People have told you time and time again that you are hurting us,” Garcia said in his video message directed at Feucht. Furthermore, Garcia asserted that Feucht does not love the LGBTQ community, so Feucht and his followers should just leave the LGBTQ+ people alone. Garcia said that many LGBTQ+ people’s live are already difficult enough without Feucht’s interference.
Johnston’s ties to the far-right
At a pop-up worship event in downtown Los Angeles last month, Johnston got in the face of an independent journalist to prevent her from approaching former fringe-gubernatorial candidate Sarah Stephens. Stephens ran as a recall candidate to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, garnering only 0.1% of the vote. Johnston attended the event to help lead the worship.
Ross Johnston praying over children while dressed in a “Let Us Worship” hoodie at a recent event. Source: Facebook
The journalist approached Stephens to ask her why she drove a getaway car for a far-right extremist who viciously attacked her friend filmmaker Rocky Romano, hitting him over the helmet with a heavy baton-like weapon at a transgender rights protest in Los Angeles in September of 2021. Aaron Kareem Simmons, 30, was charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon for the attack on Romano.
Stephens’ run for governor was as nutty as they come. Her campaign slogan was “Make California Gold Again.” In one campaign commercial Stephens wore a gold-hued evening gown while walking down a dry and dusty gun-range path. A group of people carrying assault rifles followed her as the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flag waved in the background. MAGA hats sat on the tops of the heads of a few of the men who followed her. The commercial featured several quick close-up shots of hands cocking a pistol and people shooting guns.
Screenshots from campaign commercial for Sarah Stephens. Source: YouTube
At the end of the commercial, Stephens takes aim with a pistol and fires away while she pledges in a voiceover to support God, the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment.
Sean Feucht & Bethel devotee seen at Proud Boy rally
On July 9 Proud Boy Chris Reyes organized a march and rally in Santa Monica known as “Babies Lives Matter” to protest abortion rights. The rally was attended by members of the Proud Boys and other far-right violent extremists.
Chris Reyes in Babies Lives Matter T-shirt with Proud Boys at a protest in Sacramento (top), a poster for the Babies Lives Matter march and rally in Santa Monica, and a Proud Boy holding a banner in front of the Planned Parenthoodfacility in Santa Monica. Source: Facebook and Twitter
When the march ended at the Santa Monica Pier entrance, a series of far-right pastors and aspiring politicians delivered short speeches through a small public-address sound system on a platform. Throughout the day’s events far-right attendees — many of whom were armed, wearing tactical military gear and masks to conceal their identity — acted aggressively toward independent media journalists, counter-protesters, and observers.
Through the far-right haze of hate at the Babies Lives Matter event, came a man dressed in a light blue hoodie with the word “Bethel” printed across the front. A camera was strapped around his chest and he appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest under the hoodie. He also wore a mask that obscured his identity.
A News Cafe learned that the man in the Bethel hoodie is 20-something South Asian American Justin Abraham. During the Babies Lives Matter event, Abraham was aggressively confrontational, and got into the faces of members of the independent media.
Justin Abraham at the Babies Lives Matter event in Santa Monica. Photography by Kelly Stuart.
Screenshot of Bethel Store webpage featuring the hoodie worn by Abraham. Source: Twitter
A disguised Abraham at the Babies Lives Matter event in Santa Monica. Source: Twitter
Abraham is an aspiring preacher. His Facebook profile lists him as a writer, motivational speaker, and prophetic artist. He’s a bigtime Trump supporter. He sells his own Christianity-themed merchandise, and he self-published a book. Sounds a lot like Feucht. Abraham also shares a wide variety of material on his Facebook page that shows he believes in such far-right conspiracy theories as Agenda 21.
Abraham is indeed a supporter of Feucht. He’s shared several pictures on social media that depicts Abraham wearing “Let Us Worship” merchandise, and photos that show he’s attended Feucht’s concerts.
Abraham at a Feucht concert (top left), two pictures of him wearing a “Let Us Worship” beanie (one with Derrick Gates, a far-right Republican who ran for Congress), and a request by Abraham posted on Facebook to help his friend attend the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Source: Facebook
Last month Abraham, who lives in metropolitan Los Angeles, went on a road trip to Redding to visit Bethel Church. He told Kelly Stuart, an independent photographer contacted by A News Café who uses the handle “Sky Spider” on Twitter, that “healing rooms” at Bethel Church cured him of partial blindness in one eye and a lazy eye.
Pictures shared publicly on Abraham’s Facebook page. Source: Facebook
Pictures shared publicly on Abraham’s Facebook page. Source Facebook
Abraham was contacted for this story. When asked by A News Cafe to share his perspectives about Bethel Church, he denied ever being there.
“I’ve never been further north than Sacramento so idk where you heard I went to Bethel Church” wrote Abraham.
In fact, Abraham had tagged himself on Facebook at Bethel Church when he attended a service there on June 5. Abraham has since blocked A News Café from his Facebook page.
Shortly after Abraham blocked A News Café’ access to his Facebook page, he made a video on his YouTube channel titled “Redding Road Trip 2022,” that featured shots of Bethel Church, private. Abraham also made several other videos of himself giving short talks at Los Angeles-area churches he had shared on YouTube private.
Abraham’s YouTube page (top) and a screenshot from the “Redding Road Trip 2022” video he created and shared that features a picture of the front of Bethel Church. Source: YouTube
Screenshot from Abraham’s Facebook page that shared that he had attended a Bethel Church service on June 5, 2022.
Abraham carrying a flag with far-right messaging at the Coachella Freedom Fest on March 13, 2022. Photograph by Kelly Stuart.
The seamless transition from Bethel Church and Sean Feucht to a far-right rally attended by violent extremists is not shocking. It’s par for the course. Bethel and Feucht are important ingredients in the recipe that makes up far-right extremism, and it’s being marketed to members of Gen Z like Mott, Johnston, and Abraham.
Stuart, the indie photographer contacted for this piece who captured Abraham on film, said she sees a lot of Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” clothing at the various events she attends to document far-right activities.
“Lots of the people involved in previous antivax protests later got baptized by Sean [Feucht] or Ross [Johnston’s] group,” said Stuart.
Feucht’s done his homework, and he’s guilty of plagiarizing the past. He’s all smiles on social media and acts like he’s a chill California dude, but it’s all part of his tax-exempt nonprofit money-making show.
Like any good marketer of a product, Feucht has shown he’s invested in profiting from the next generation. He’s grooming members of Gen Z to be his foot soldiers now and in the days to come. Mott, Johnston, and Abraham are a sure signs that Feucht’s extremist and militant far-right version of the California dream is making inroads with some members of Gen Z.
