This story originally appeared in The Stranger’s 2026 Queer Issue.
On April 19, 2026, Russell Johnson, the founder and lead pastor of the right-wing megachurch Pursuit NW, took to Instagram, as he often does, to deliver two important messages to his congregation.
He told them the church needed $52 million to purchase a building and parking lot, and that two luminaries in the Christian supremacist movement, Ross Johnston and Jay Koopman, would be joining as pastors.
To those of us who watch the world of the lanky man on screen—a Ballard boy reared on conservative Christianity who has not so jokingly likened his stringy, youth pastor appearance to the Waco cultist David Koresh—it made sense.
Johnson has a taste for prestige. For designer labels—particularly Louis Vuitton and Gucci—and, in a way, designer people. People whose names open doors on the extreme, grandiose, and chronically online side of the Christian right he is fast ascending. Both Johnston and Koopman are rising stars in this space—figures whose names function as currency, whose presence signals that something important is happening here. Their hires were strategic consolidations of power, experts say. Experts warn it is exactly the kind of consolidation of power that, in the current political climate, could invite police state overreach to anyone who opposes the church.
Pursuit is the Pacific Northwest’s fastest-growing evangelical empire, with campuses spanning from Seattle’s University District to Kirkland, Snohomish, and Spokane, 279 miles away; it also has a preschool, two elementary schools, and a ministry college.
I reached out to Johnson for comment over social media. He responded, “HAHAHAHAHAHA.”
Johnson runs in elite circles. In December 2024, John Hagee—a pastor who once claimed God sent Hitler to trigger the creation of Israel—flew in especially to name Johnson the Washington State director of his organization, Christians United for Israel. Johnson’s White House ties are equally tight. Paula White-Cain, Senior Advisor in the White House Faith Office, called Pursuit “the tip of the spear” in spiritual warfare when she spoke there in August of 2025. A month earlier Johnson was invited to attend a worship event at the White House.
Similarly, Johnston and Koopman are not mere peripheral figures on the religious right. They’re two of the most active street-level operatives in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), an enormous and highly influential evangelical movement led by self-appointed Apostles and Prophets who claim to receive fresh, divine revelation directly from God. These leaders teach that powerful demonic spirits control governments, media, education, and other key institutions, and that these spirits must be cast out of those institutions before Christians can seize control and remake nations under biblical rule. I reached out to Johnson for comment over social media. He responded, “HAHAHAHAHAHA” then posted the request and response to his Instagram Stories.
Johnston has built a rapidly growing ministry around California Will Be Saved (CAWBS), a Gen-Z-branded anti-LGBTQ organization he cofounded in 2020, which tries to make young people not gay or trans through Jesus. The group hosts pop-up-style worship events across California that regularly feature water baptisms in plastic tubs and makes claims of “miracle healings.” He also co-led Mayday USA revival events last year, including a Seattle stop at Cal Anderson Park on May 24, 2025, that resulted in mass arrests and prompted a federal investigation.
Koopman is leaving his job as associate pastor at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, California, where he is directly subordinate to one of the most powerful hard-right evangelical figures in the world, Ché Ahn, a key leader within NAR. He has also spent the last few years touring the country with Sean Feucht, a worship musician and self-described Christian nationalist who believes God should be in charge of writing the laws of the land, and has brought his deliberately confrontational “Let Us Worship” events to cities around the country, including to Gas Works Park last summer.
Both have taken spiritual warfare from the pulpits and into the streets, confronting LGBTQ-friendly and minority communities in a deliberate effort to claim public spaces for Christian dominionism, the belief that Christians are called to seize control of secular institutions and cities, or as the movement puts it, “take territory.”
As the old guards of the NAR and charismatic movements age, experts believe both Koopman and Johnston are reading the room and see Pursuit as the best place to grow their profiles and careers. It also signals that both men see opportunity in Seattle, one of the most secular cities in America. That may seem puzzling from the outside, but to those familiar with their tactics, it makes perfect sense: Successful Christian supremacists live oppositional lives. They are not simply building their reputations, or a church. They are preparing for “spiritual warfare.”
Their movement is built on provoking their “enemies” and filming their reactions for viral proof that the anti-Christian world is laying siege to them, the soldiers of God. In the face of this so-called persecution, they must rise up and fight in a “spiritual war.” They preach that, in an invisible world all around us, angels and demons are locked in constant battle over the earth. And, of course, living close to the enemy you can actually see—liberals, queer people, and anyone who does not subscribe to a version of Christianity most of the faithful could not recongize—saves gas.
Katherine Stewart, Author of Money, Lies, and God and The Power Worshippers, says, “Many charismatic churches and pastors at least implicitly promote a dualistic mindset that says there are two forces at work in the world: the force of good and the force of evil.” What makes this different, or dangerous, is how charismatics apply this concept to the political and culture sphere. “They may literally demonize political enemies, opposition political parties, or those who fail to conform in some way, and they see themselves as participating on the side of good in a spiritual battle, taking God’s side against demonic forces.”
Pursuit’s theology is rooted in two overlapping traditions: the prosperity gospel and the independent charismatic movement.
The prosperity gospel, promoted by figures like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland, teaches that strong faith and generous tithing will bring wealth, health, and success, as a sign of God’s favor. It allows pastors like Johnson to draw large salaries, wear designer clothes, and—as seen in recent months—hopscotch between four Sunday campuses by helicopter across King County and by chartered plane from Snohomish to Spokane.
The charismatic movement emphasizes the active presence of the Holy Spirit through intangible “spiritual gifts” such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and miracles. A decade ago, this movement was on the fringe. Today it’s one of the fastest growing movements in America with leaders positioned in the White House.
This is best represented by a belief common in both spaces: the “7 Mountain Mandate,” a theology that teaches Christians are called to take influence—or outright control—over seven major spheres of society: religion, family, education, government, media, entertainment, and business.
“The ideology is antithetical to the values of pluralism and equality that represent the best of the American promise. It’s very much an us-versus-them mentality, one that says ‘us’ should rule,” Stewart says.
Pursuit and its leadership are already deeply connected to the broader NAR and charismatic networks Koopman and Johnston come from, and these men have worked together many times before.
In March 2024, Johnson and Pursuit hosted the inaugural “Let Us Worship Firestarters Conference.” Co-led by Feucht, Koopman, and Johnston, the conference was designed to push Christianity toward a more radical, activist posture focused on youth mobilization and what organizers called “infiltrating culture,” or mobilizing young believers to embed themselves in those seven major spheres of society.
Matthew Taylor, visiting scholar at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University and the author of The Violent Take It by Force, sees Pursuit’s new leadership as deliberately choosing the Pacific Northwest for its oppositional potential, comparing their strategy directly to Mark Driscoll’s at Mars Hill, who relished in his opposition to Seattle culture.
In Taylor’s view, the region’s progressive, secular identity is uniquely appealing to leaders who thrive on conflict. “From their perspective, it is the most popular, most liberal, LGBTQ-friendly, and therefore the most spiritually bereft and even ‘dark’ place they can go to,” he says.
Taylor says he “would not be surprised to see [Johnson, Johnston, and Koopman] ramp up their oppositional stance and be hailed as heroes” by the right as a whole.
Ross Johnston’s origin story, which you will hear if you ever see him holding a microphone, is the cornerstone of his entire brand. He was born by artificial insemination, raised in a lesbian household, and says he never heard the name of Jesus until he was invited to church at 15, and was born again shortly after.
In a July 2023 interview with the right-wing podcast Red Liberty, he said that during a crisis of faith in 2019 and 2020, God told him directly: “If you don’t stand with me now, you never will.” He broke into tears, began repenting, and prayed, “Whatever you want to do with my life, use it, give me people.” Shortly after, he walked into a revival tent in Orange County, California, saw a worshiping Joel Mott, a Christian worship leader with deep ties to NAR, and knew immediately they needed to connect. The two then attended one of Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” events—a traveling charismatic revival that emerged during the early COVID-19 lockdowns as a response to restrictions on church gatherings in 2020—and the youth-focused California Will Be Saved (CAWBS) was born.
Mott serves as the musical lead while Johnston functions as hype man, crowd-worker, and public face, always centering his personal origin story. He’s been known to get the crowd going with a take on Digital Underground’s “Thuglife Party” replacing the words “thug life” in “Ain’t no party like a thug life party” with “holy ghost.”
Johnston uses his upbringing in a queer household to build credibility and trust with LGBTQ audiences before delivering the conclusion that homosexuality is “a sin and not the design of God,” but one that Johnston and Jesus can “save and heal.”
As he outlined in an 2023 YouTube video, he befriends queer people, earns their trust, and then convinces them they can be redeemed through Christ. “Does sin separate us from God? Absolutely. Is living in an LGBTQ lifestyle a sin? Absolutely,” he said.
His YouTube channel reinforces the message, with titles such as “Transgender man surrenders to Jesus,” “Does my lesbian mom support me as a Christian?” and “Can I be gay and Christian?” the answer to the last one, per Johnston, being a firm no.
Although affirming and queer-friendly ministry has grown steadily more mainstream over the years, with hundreds of congregations across nearly every major denomination now openly welcoming LGBTQ members and clergy, Johnston and co. radically oppose them and regularly call them out, which, in some cases, has resulted in harassment on social media.
His rhetoric extends well into politics. In one video on his YouTube channel, Johnston declared that since they couldn’t vote for Jesus himself, the only candidate aligned with “biblical design” and “God’s own law” was Donald Trump. In April of 2026, Johnston was invited to the White House to attend a worship event put on by the National Faith Advisory Board. He has also enthusiastically spread QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories, framing the “LGBTQ agenda” as a demonic force targeting children.
Johnston’s institutional standing received a major boost in April 2024 when NAR Apostle, and write-in candidate for Governor of California, Ché Ahn officially recognized him as an Evangelist, a title in the NAR world, at Harvest International Ministry’s global summit, unlocking access to a network of over 25,000 ministries across 65 countries. Ahn praised Johnston specifically because he “can speak to transgenderism” and “the gay community” as someone raised in that environment.
“He didn’t know a dad, and God radically saved him for such a time as this,” Ahn said.
By early 2025, Johnston had partnered with anti-LGBTQ activist and former multilevel marketer Jenny Donnelly for the multi-city “Mayday USA” tour, framed explicitly as spiritual warfare against queer people and abortion rights. The Seattle stop of Mayday resulted in mass arrests of counterprotesters and the so-called “Rattle in Seattle,” where Pursuit and Mayday claimed they were being persecuted by city leadership for being Christian while in Seattle and have since sued the cities of Seattle and Los Angeles.
At a February stop at Portland’s Collective Church to promote Mayday, he told the crowd, “You’re already known as a Christian white nationalist, so you might as well act like one and get out onto the streets with us.” Johnston has also begun targeting public high schools, boasting that thousands of students have come to Jesus through his school gym sessions. “We’ve prayed for decades to get into public schools,” he said, “and now we’re in them.”
I contacted Johnston for comment via social media for this piece—he responded by taking a dig at the pronouns in my bio and encouraged me to “figure out who you are first” before requesting an interview.
Jay Koopman’s relationship with NAR Apostle Ché Ahn is the defining fact of Koopman’s ministry, and he is deeply embedded in the NAR’s dominionist project to establish a theocratic takeover of American culture, politics, and institutions.
Ahn himself was active in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, taking the main stage on January 5, 2021, at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Freedom Plaza, Washington, DC. As associate pastor at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, California, Ahn’s flagship congregation, Koopman was his direct subordinate.
Koopman’s testimony, his redemption from addiction, is key in his work today, where he regularly does altar calls, asking people to surrender their cigarettes, vapes, and drugs in exchange for God’s approval.
Koopman rose through his partnership with Feucht, and joined his “Let Us Worship” tour in 2020. He was Feucht’s hype man—a crowd-energizing counterpart to Feucht’s musical lead, and a role he reprised on Feucht’s 2024 election-focused “Kingdom to the Capitol” tour. That working relationship continued through to 2025, just before a group of Feucht’s former staff launched a website alleging spiritual and financial abuse within his ministries.
Koopman’s activities extend beyond small local revival events. He was present at the NAR’s Hope Fest LA alongside Johnston and other key NAR figures, where Ahn led the crowd in reciting what he called the “Family First Pledge”—a public commitment to vote only for candidates who oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Ahn framed it plainly: “We are calling this the Family First Pledge and that you would vote righteously for family first candidates.”
I contacted Koopman for comment for this piece, again via social media. He did not respond—however, he posted my request to his Instagram stories with a joke about not being a “stranger.”
Taylor, the religious scholar, emphasizes that the legal landscape in this country has fundamentally changed, pointing to the Task Force for the Eradication of Anti-Christian Bias hosted at the DOJ, and a National Security Memo identifying anti-Christianity as a marker of domestic terrorism, noting that Pursuit’s leaders have “direct channels to DOJ, the FBI, and to the White House.”
He draws a parallel to the DOJ’s fraud investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center, the civil rights organization that monitors extremist groups. The DOJ indicted the SPLC on 11 counts including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, alleging SPLC defrauded donors. The SPLC has pushed back against the charges, stating, “We will not be intimidated” and framing the indictment as politically motivated. Taylor described it as “a completely concocted prosecution” that nonetheless has “real impact,” and warns that a provocative event that turns violent could “be leveraged into a new round of DOJ prosecutions of activist groups.”
Most sobering is his point that even dismissed cases carry a lasting cost: “It doesn’t have to be a really well-laid trap, either, because people would still be known as this anti-Christian domestic terrorist.” He urges extreme caution, stressing that Pursuit’s new leadership “are desperate for attention, that’s what they live off, it’s the playbook, that’s their lifeblood,” and that Johnson’s close ties to the Trump administration mean that “Todd Blanche or Kash Patel could be reached on the phone within an hour or two.”
Pursuit’s new leadership “are desperate for attention, that’s what they live off, it’s the playbook, that’s their lifeblood.”
Both Johnston and Koopman have already commenced their new Pursuit NW roles, leading worship at several campuses. Johnston has been seen traveling via helicopter in between campuses while Koopman has been building out Pursuit’s men’s ministry.
On Monday, May 18, two teenagers opened fire at the San Diego Islamic Center, killing three people before turning the guns on themselves. The attackers had glorified neo-Nazis and espoused antigay and anti-trans ideology.
The following day, Johnson and Pursuit’s official Instagram page collaborated on a post with the headline “Islam isn’t taking over WA state,” a direct reference to the Muslim Association of Puget Sound’s purchase of an eight-acre property for $45 million, located just two miles from Pursuit’s Kirkland campus. Johnson accused Muslims of following a false God and stated that the region belongs to “one true God” alone.
Three men. One organization. A post staking Christian territorial claim the morning after three Muslims were shot dead. This is not just poor judgment—it’s the playbook, executed in real time, at the intersection of grief and power, and their flock loved it.
Got something to say? Email us at [email protected].
Want to support this journalism? You can subscribe to The Stranger and get it delivered to your actual, physical mailbox. Or you can donate here!
