Jonathan Cahn, one of the most prominent Christian speakers and authors in the country, gave the keynote address for the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America conference. He told an audience of over a thousand that God is working through President Donald Trump to defeat demons that hold sway over the country.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Jonathan Cahn, one of the most prominent Christian speakers and authors in the country, gave the keynote address for the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America conference. He told an audience of over a thousand that God is working through President Donald Trump to defeat demons that hold sway over the country.
For the 53rd year running, Messiah University’s campus near Mechanicsburg was the site of the annual gathering of Messianic Jews, a small but influential group that embraces a vein of Christianity that believes the world is in the Biblical end times.
Joel Chernoff, the CEO and general secretary of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, said followers believe God and Satan are real and that the battle between good and evil is manifested in modern politics, society and war.
Speaking to conference attendees on July 2, Chernoff said threats to Israel — from Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, or even the United Nations and countries that condemn Israel’s war tactics — are the work of demons who seek to prevent the full restoration and preservation of biblical Israel.
It’s his “personal opinion based on the scripture,” Chernoff said, adding that God is “giving the land back to Israel and that the Gazans are probably going to leave.” Later, Chernoff described the conference as a “pro-Israel conference” and said “we are great supporters of Israel, Zionists in every way.”
Chernoff and other ethnically Jewish leaders in the movement call themselves “messianic” because they follow Jewish law but believe Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, an adaptation of Christianity that provides a bridge between the two religions. The major denominations of Judaism don’t see Messianic Judaism as being part of their faith.
The most prominent speaker at the group’s conference this year, Jonathan Cahn, said people and politicians who support abortion rights are part of “America’s cult of Baal,” a reference to a pagan god whose followers practiced child sacrifice as described in the Bible. The reason society has become more accepting of homosexual or transgender people is likewise due to the demonic influence of a pagan god named Ishtar, Cahn said.
Cahn is “one of the most influential Christian leaders in the country today,” said Matthew D. Taylor, a scholar of Protestantism at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, Jewish Studies. That translates to real political impact. Though there are only an estimated 250,000 Messianic Jews in the United States today, they are part of a much larger charismatic Christian movement that has significant political pull in President Donald Trump’s administration, Taylor said.
“ There’s real world consequences to this stuff,” Taylor said. “It’s not just wild speculation at some obscure conference.”
By tying elements of evangelical Christianity to Judaism, Messianic Judaism sits at the center of a nexus of powerful Christian Zionist politics in America today, according to Taylor. By tying their prophecies to political figures, such as describing Trump as an imperfect figure anointed by God to advance a conservative brand of Christianity in America, Cahn and others are creating a mass of political support and propaganda for Trump, Taylor said.
Speakers like Cahn “ are radicalizing Christians around visions of spiritual violence that will lead to Christian power and Christian supremacy,” Taylor said, calling it “monarchic politics.”
The Trump administration is listening. Taylor said there is a direct line between Trump’s Middle East policies and the interests of his evangelical base, and the beliefs within Messianic Judaism are a hinge for the country’s policy toward Israel.
For their parts, both Chernoff and Cahn rejected the notion that their beliefs were in any way anti-democratic. Chernoff downplayed his organization’s influence but spoke of broad political connections.
“We do have friends in Washington, we do have friends on this current president’s faith council,” Chernoff said. “We do have friends in the political establishment in Israel, and they all like us because we do humanitarian work and it benefits their constituents.”
Cahn, who has prayed over Trump, led overtly political religious events on the National Mall and spoken at the United Nations, said his political influence and that of the Messianic movement is no different than that of any voter.
”What we are actually saying is what every American is actually called to do. Go to the voting box and then vote for policies which are going to affect your fellow neighbor,” Cahn said. “The difference here is we’re seeking to do it according to what we see in God’s word.”
From milquetoast to dangerous
John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University who studies Christianity in America, said he “strongly disagrees with everything that went on,” both politically and theologically, at last month’s Messianic Jewish Alliance of America conference.
Most Messiah faculty members would agree with him, he said, and that if the conference was held during the school year, there would be some outrage.
“ This is a college that comes from Mennonite brethren, what are called Anabaptist roots, very much rooted in social justice issues,” he said. “ I can’t imagine that anyone in the administration would kind of not wince that they’re still allowing this group to come on campus.”
Fea has “not been a fan” of Messiah hosting the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America’s annual conference since he came to the university 24 years ago. But both Fea and Taylor identified a shift in the messaging coming from the conference about 10-12 years ago. The once milquetoast gathering of a small religious movement where adherents cultivated piety and devotion became a platform for pro-Trump propaganda and Christian radicalization, Taylor said.
The shift has been signaled by adherents’ practice of mapping the beliefs about good and evil onto specific political figures or groups, both experts said. For example, Cahn said at the conference that Trump is a “trumpet” of God and that the president was anointed to rule “in the spirit of Jehu,” a biblical figure who ousted the previous rulers in Israel.
The reference to Jehu is not lost on Taylor.
“ What did Jehu do when he came to the capital city? He slaughtered anyone who supported Ahab and Jezebel, including slaughtering their children and piling their children’s heads up at the city gates,” Taylor said.
Cahn, who has compared Trump to Jehu since 2017, has also said Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, who ran for president against Trump in 2016 and 2024, respectively, were both part “of the spirit of Jezebel” — the Old Testament figure who led the Israelites to worship idols before being deposed and executed under Jehu’s orders.
Fea said this rhetorical strategy is politically useful, because anyone who disagrees with your view of Christianity is aligned with the forces of evil under the principality and power of demons. Literally demonizing people and groups is dangerous, Taylor said.
“ Calls for spiritual violence almost inevitably lead to political violence, especially in a highly polarized democratic environment where you have different parties contesting an election,” Taylor said.
He said Cahn is “one of the foremost perpetrators of this narrative in the United States today.”
Both Cahn and Chernoff rejected the notion that their views could inspire violence. Messianic Jews are bound by the New Testament, they said, which commands them to love their enemies.
Cahn said it requires intentional misinterpretation of his message to say his beliefs could contribute to violence.
“ When you talk about extremism, you know, that’s extremism right there,” he said.
Messiah University and the ‘respectful guest organization’
On the last night of the conference, organizers announced they would be back again next year over the July 4 weekend. Though that event is not yet officially scheduled with the university, spokesperson Danielle Ran said the Alliance “has been a respectful guest organization” and is expected to return.
She said external organizations “may include views that do not reflect the official positions of Messiah University.” The Alliance, based in a Philadelphia suburb, included its own caveat in its conference materials that speakers do not necessarily reflect views of the conference or organization.
The university “does not publicly share the financial terms of individual rental agreements,” according to Ran. The university hosts 30 to 50 external groups each summer. Event revenue goes toward facility maintenance, student programs, personnel, financial aid and other day-to-day expenses, Ran said.
“While Messiah University would not seek to rent facilities to an external organization whose mission is in expressed conflict with our institutional ethos or mission, we do not preview, vet or approve in advance an external conference’s individual speakers, sermons, session content or their religious expression,” she said.
Since Messianic Judaism overlaps heavily with charismatic or “neo-Pentecostal” Christianity, it’s hard to count how many followers there are, or how many identify as ethnically Jewish rather than as gentile followers. That said, Messianic Jewish leaders count a following of 250,000 in the U.S. and another 30,000 in Israel, which tracks with what relatively little research is available on the group.
Though there are a few Messianic Jewish organizations and affiliated groups, such as Jews for Jesus, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America claims to be the largest. According to a financial audit from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, MJAA raised $15.4 million in 2023.
Correction: Hillary Clinton’s first name is spelled with two l’s.
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