Bartholomew's Notes

From Charisma News, 24 November:

Prominent Lawyer Fights Election Fraud With Supernatural Discernment

Lin Wood, one of the most prominent and patriotic attorneys in America, joined the legal fight alongside President Trump’s legal team to save election integrity from fraud and political treachery, thereby, preserving the U.S. Constitution. However, according to his tweets, Wood, a man of deep faith and intimacy with the Holy Spirit, quickly discerned the spiritual battle of biblical proportions between God’s revelations and satanic influences fighting for control of the soul and future of America.

Then, the next day:

Prominent attorney Lin Wood also warns believers to be careful what information they choose to consume. Once-trusted sources of news and information may have come under the sway of globalists and compromised people who favor “The Great Reset,” a globalist initiative to rebuild the world economy after the COVID pandemic. It could open the doors wider for socialism and big government control, thus limiting people’s freedoms, including religious freedom and freedom of speech.

…Wood’s #FightBack Foundation Inc. was instrumental in recently raising financial support to post bail for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who was arrested and charged with alleged murder in Wisconsin, even though video evidence showed him defending himself.

And finally, on 3 December:

In a historic event in Atlanta, Georgia, almost entirely ignored by mainstream media, patriotic legal duo Lin Wood and Sidney Powell held a press conference Wednesday.

…’We the People’ will not let them steal our vote,” he said. “We will not allow them to steal our freedom. Every lie will be exposed.”

Then, as if the Holy Spirit had downloaded a prophetic word to him, Wood launched into a faith-filled declaration, “And on Jan. 20, 2021, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as president of the United States of America.”

Charisma News represents the neo-Pentecostal end of the Christian Right; the site is just one manifestation of Charisma Media, whose founding CEO Stephen Strang (in 2005 one of Time‘s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”) is the author of several books that ruminate on the spiritual significance of Donald Trump. One of these, God, Trump, and the 2020 Election, includes a chapter on “Why Trump Might Lose”, in which Strang pre-emptively lays out an election fraud narrative, citing the thoughts of Tom Ertl, the national director for Christians For Trump (1). As such, it is not surprising that Charisma News has embraced all kinds of election trutherism, the reality of which is supposedly blatant and self-evident.

Alongside the alleged mountain of evidence, there are also special signs from God – thus the site reported on 2 December that onlookers had “photographed and videotaped what could be an angel” above Independence Hall in Philadelphia during a post-election prayer event led by Pastor Dutch Sheets, who had been instructed by God to engage in spiritual warfare against “Valkyrie”, a supernatural and demonic “plan to take over the country”. In the case of Lin Wood (previously discussed here), the trilogy of articles about him (2) amount to an irrevocable investment. Wood speaks with “supernatural discernment”, and his prediction of Trump’s second term amounts to a prophecy. This is impossible to back away from without making a humiliating climb-down.

As such, Wood’s more recent discourses may be problematic. Following the failure of so many legal challenges, and ridicule of their shortcomings (a Freudian slip turned “penalty of perjury” into “plenty of perjury” in one filing), Wood is now lashing out wildly, and he includes none other than Mike Pence in a list of “criminals & perverts who threaten our freedom”. Here’s the context, from recent Tweets (the first is embedded in the second, making the connection clear):

It is time to shine red hot light of truth on Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Stephen Breyer, Joe Biden, Obama, Clintons, Bill Gates, VP Mike Pence, Mark Meadows, Pat Cippoloni, Bush 41 & 43, George Soros, Cocaine Mitch, etc. Man, where is Jeffrey Epstein when you need him? [here]

And this is just the TIP of the iceberg. We The People now demand TRUTH. We The People now demand ACCOUNTABILITY for wrongdoing. This is OUR country. It is time for American Patriots to prepare to take it back from the criminals & perverts who threaten our freedom. [here]

In further Tweets, Wood makes QAnon-adjacent insinuations about Roberts in particular, implying that a black eye has some occult ritualistic meaning and making vile insinuations about his motives for having adopted children. He has also now made an utterly bizarre link between his first name being “Lucian” (Lincoln is his middle name) and St Lucian of Antioch, which is supposedly significant because his client Kyle Rittenhouse lives in Antioch, Illinois, and the apparent Nashville bomber Anthony Warner lived in Antioch, Tennessee. It appears, then, that Wood is in the grip of a grandiose religious mania.

On social media, there is some disquiet over Wood’s attack on Pence, who of course has played an important role in making Trump acceptable to evangelicals. In all likelihood, though, Charisma News will simply ignore it while continuing to promote claims made by Wood that are more useful for its owner’s religious-political agenda.

Notes

1. The book comes with a foreword by Eric Metaxas, whose transformation from evangelical “public intellectual” to Trump loyalist and election truther was recently charted by the Religious News Service. There are also blurbs from a Christian Right Who’s Who of Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, Paula White Cain, Alex McFarland, Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jim Bakker, Kenneth Copeland, David Barton, David Lane, Michele Bachmann and Robert Jeffress (plus Dennis Prager, who is Jewish).

2. All three articles are by A.B. Petrucci, also known as Anthony Petrucci. Petrucci is a professional writer who “helps thought leaders tell the stories that will change the world”. He is particularly associated with Jorge L. Valdes, a former international drug dealer who had a conversion experience and is today a motivational speaker.

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