There is a massive cat fight going on right now among evangelical and Pentecostal Christians that mainstream religion reporters have all but ignored.

Other than one story by Religion News Service — that ran mainly because famed Southern Baptist Bible teacher Beth Moore has gotten involved — there’s been little coverage on the schism between two evangelical camps as to whether President Donald Trump won or lost last month’s election.

Wait, you say. The electoral college voted Monday that Trump decisively lost, right? And all evangelicals love Trump. Right?

Not so fast.

Turn your attention to the folks attending a “Jericho march” in Washington DC last Saturday where a mix of evangelical Protestants, Catholics and Messianic Jews claimed that President Trump had indeed won the election (but it was stolen) and that somehow, miraculously, God would see to it that he, not Joe Biden, will be inaugurated next month. This might require use of military force or militias.

Every religion reporter should have watched this rally; if not all of it, at least in part to see the most poisonous marriage of religion and politics I’ve seen in 40-plus years on the beat.

I don’t usually lead with an opinion piece, but veteran religious-liberty activist David French, a #NeverTrump evangelical, sums it up best here at The Dispatch:

This is a grievous and dangerous time for American Christianity. The frenzy and the fury of the post-election period has laid bare the sheer idolatry and fanaticism of Christian Trumpism.
A significant segment of the Christian public has fallen for conspiracy theories, has mixed nationalism with the Christian gospel, has substituted a bizarre mysticism for reason and evidence, and rages in fear and anger against their political opponents — all in the name of preserving Donald Trump’s power.

I’ll explain the “bizarre mysticism” part in a moment. It has to do with the Pentecostals and charismatics, starting with the president’s pastor, the Rev. Paula White, who have prophesied Trump’s victory in 2020. I wrote about this trend a few weeks ago here and it’s basic reading for anyone trying to understand this movement.

Back to the French essay:

Pentecostal Christians who believe in modern-day prophecy and support President Donald Trump gathered more than a year ago in Washington, D.C. That should be enough to frighten anyone braced for battle against theocracy.

Worse still, they gathered at the Trump International Hotel, so you know that here is something deeply menacing to the future of America.

Ruth Graham ofSlate wrote about “The Turnaround: An Appeal to Heaven,” drawing in part from an on-site report filed Jan. 18, 2018, by Peter Montgomery of People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch.

Here’s the strange twist. Montgomery’s report for the activist group surpasses Graham’s report for the more journalism-oriented web daily.

The key difference is that Montgomery’s report conveys a more nuanced picture of this melodramatic gathering, whose leaders are clearly outliers in the evangelical subculture.

Montgomery writes:

Joining [Dutch] Sheets at the conference — called “The Turnaround: An Appeal to Heaven” — were Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, Lou Engle and other leaders of the “intercessory prayer” movement, along with 1,300 attendees who filled the Trump hotel’s presidential ballroom to capacity for hours of music, prayer, speaking in tongues, and prophetic decrees. Many of the conference leaders have been working together and supporting one another’s ministries for decades, and they joked and teased each other on stage. But they were utterly serious about their mission in Washington, D.C.

Right Wing Watch’s video shows a small rock outfit in the background, including a saxophonist, so we can at least presume that the music was engaging.

Montgomery clearly knows the gold to be mined when a writer can sit in on a gathering of like-minded people and listen carefully to what they say.