Tonight, Spokane City Council will consider denouncing Mayor Nadine Woodward for her appearance at Let Us Worship, the touring revival led by Christian nationalist celebrity worship pastor Sean Feucht, which also hosted Matt Shea, the former far-right Spokane Valley lawmaker who founded his own church after he was accused of domestic terrorism in 2020 and kicked out of the Republican caucus of the state legislature.
The mayor has been trying to distance herself from her attendance at the event for weeks, and on Friday, city spokesman Brian Coddington tried to spin the controversy as old news. "It's time to move on,” he told KHQ. “She's made the apology, she's accepted responsibility, this feels like it's a bit of a piling on at this point."
And while the City Council doesn’t seem to want to move on, neither does Woodward’s host at the event.
Feucht, famous for his public opposition to 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, told his followers across at least two communication channels on Friday that Spokane wants to “condemn me.”
Feucht is fundraising off this perceived martyrdom.
He sent an email to subscribers of Sean Feucht Ministries saying, “On Monday, the city of Spokane Washington will hold a vote to formally condemn me, calling me a ‘known anti-LGBTQ extremist.’” The ministry is an umbrella nonprofit for an array of political and worship campaigns helmed by Feucht that gleaned $5.3 million in income in 2020, the most recent year for which tax documents are available.
The email does not mention fundraising, but each of the three separate links he provided all lead to the same custom donation page, which hosts a promotional video documenting the Spokane event and prominently featuring Shea and Feucht praying over Woodward and asking people to give if they feel moved.
Feucht did not respond to a request for comment.
If approved by the City Council, the resolution would not condemn Feucht or even Shea. It aims squarely at Woodward, but Feucht still characterized it as an attack directly on him and, by extension, all Christians.
In addition to the fundraising email, Feucht tweeted an image of the resolution and called the City Council “anti-Christian,” claiming the denunciation is proof the council “now condemns public prayer by believers and calls us all ‘extremists.’”
And while Feucht places himself at the center of the controversy, he takes a back seat to Shea in the resolution itself, which spends most of its time describing actions taken by the former Washington state legislator that were portrayed by an independent investigation as “domestic terrorism.” It also points out that Shea, speaking to concertgoers just before praying over Woodward onstage, said “homosexual marriage” and “transgender issues” are social “problems” that only Jesus can solve.
The language of the two-page denunciation, which is sponsored by Councilmembers Zack Zappone and Betsy Wilkerson, has been softened from the original version, which was going to censure Woodward. “We changed it to denounce because there was concern that censure was too close to censor,” Zappone told RANGE, “and we wanted to make it clear that this has nothing to do with freedom or religion. Rather this is about the mayor appearing with Matt Shea and Sean Feucht.”
The text of the denunciation does not mention “believers,” “public prayer” or condemnation. It does call Feucht an “extremist” and Shea a “domestic terrorist” but does not mention Christian nationalism in general or any congregation, denomination or other group of believers.
The proposed denouncement mentions, but does not describe Feucht’s well-documented rejections of cultural acceptance of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in the United States. Feucht has organized a petition against Target department stores and parental protests against Disney for both corporations’ 2SLGBTQIA+-friendly activities. The post pinned to the top of Feucht’s Twitter account laments, among other developments, acceptance among young Americans of those identities: “Gen Z overwhelming (D+28) voted for: Abortion on demand, Mutilation of children’s bodies, Weed, LGTBQ+, Student loan forgiveness, Lockdowns crushing society, Open borders, Casinos/Strip Clubs essential over the Church. The left hijacked their minds. We need REVIVAL.” None of that information is included in the resolution.
Both Shea and Feucht are accused of advancing Christian extremism in the Inland Northwest and across the country, but the City Council’s resolution focuses on Shea and Woodward, mentioning the mayor eight times and Shea 13 times, compared to only four mentions of Feucht.
The worship pastor’s portrayal of the resolution reflects a broader perception expressed by some high-profile Christian nationalists of a concerted effort in the United States by governments and corporations to marginalize Christians and stop them from practicing their faith in the public square.
Feucht’s Let Us Worship concert tour, of which the Spokane concert was a part, began as a protest against public health measures restricting church gatherings during the worst parts of the pandemic. This perceived landscape of oppression spreads to many other arenas, including the federal charges brought against more than 600 people who participated in the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. That attack was orchestrated to overturn the 2020 election, but it was also carried out in the name of Christian nationalist goals former President Donald Trump had advanced, like collapsing the wall between church and state.
Grievance over such restrictions and prosecutions — alongside a bevy of other concerns, like schools teaching Black history — creates fertile ground for soliciting donations. Fundraising off felt persecution is a tactic used across the right wing of American politics. In June, Trump spoke at a fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort for people prosecuted for their participation in the January 6 attack, promising to make his own contribution.
The fundraising links in Feucht’s email take recipients to a Let Us Worship donation website. Receipts for donations come from Sean Feucht Ministries, which Rolling Stone reported has grown astronomically in recent years.
It’s unclear how much of those ministry funds go directly to Feucht, though tax documents filed by the nonprofit for the 2020 tax year say they paid $167,000 to “John Feucht,” which RANGE is reasonably certain is Sean’s legal name.
A news report from Redding, CA, where Feucht was worship pastor at the far-right Bethel Church, identified Sean’s given name as “John Christopher Feucht.” A separate blog outlined at least six properties in Pennsylvania owned by “John or John C,” some of which are co-owned by Katie or Katie Ann Feucht, a name shared by Sean’s wife.
Via the Assessor’s office of Cumberland County Pennsylvania, RANGE was able to independently verify the two properties tied to both “John C” and “Katie” or “Katie Ann”.
The Rolling Stone story says Feucht personally purchased at least $2 million in properties in Southern California and Montana.
The Spokane donation portal asks for several increments of contributions between $5 and $2,000. Feucht also appears to have benefactors who can give well in excess of those recommended sums. He recently tweeted a short video about purchasing a “brand new” tour bus that sleeps 14 people for his Kingdom to the Capitol tour using a single donation. Feucht did not disclose who the donor was.
Feucht’s national network depends partly on organizing by local Christian churches and activists. Some Spokane Christians believe the City Council’s denunciation would lead to general persecution of Christians and have rallied in protest at the two City Council meetings since the resolution was first introduced in the Urban Experience Committee two weeks ago.
Treating the actual or perceived denunciations of the secular world is a common rallying cry for conservative evangelicals, who often claim that being denounced is a sign of being a servant of God. Feucht used this tactic before sending people to his fundraising page.
Feucht writes [emphasis his], “I have no doubt they WILL vote to condemn me, but I'm unbothered. In 1st Peter 4, Peter says, ‘If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.’ Vote away, Spokane — your condemnation only validates the power of the Gospel!”
Additional reporting by Luke Baumgarten
