Did Religion Motivate Assassination of Minnesota Lawmaker?

Beyond the headlines, Boelter may have a singular place in the history of bombings, arsons and assassinations that have marked the era of legal abortion in the United States: He is (allegedly) the first to kill a public official.

When Boelter was indicted on federal charges (to which he has pleaded not guilty), The New York Times reported, “Nothing revealed by the prosecutors suggests that the shooter was motivated by religious fervor.” The Times offered no other motive, but Boelter’s past, and his own words, point to a likely religious motive—like those of every other anti-abortion assassin.

The rest of us needn’t turn a blind eye to the obvious. In fact, the preservation of democracy in our time requires that we don’t.

Available evidence suggests that Boelter was thwarted early in a campaign he had been planning for as much as two years—to assassinate pro-choice Democratic elected officials, abortion providers and abortion rights advocates. No other professions or viewpoints have surfaced from among the 45-70 names reported in various media to have been found in his car and in other of his writings.

In addition to Hortman and Hoffman, the list includes other Minnesota state and federal legislators as well as U.S. Representatives from Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. It also included Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with former Minnesota State Rep. Ruth Richardson, now president of Planned Parenthood of the North Central States.

Boelter was identified by police when he had to abandon his car at the murder scene. He was on the lam for several days before he was arrested near his home in Green Isle, a town of 556 in rural Sibley County.

Academy for the End Times

The key part of Boelter’s religious history is his attendance at Christ for the Nations Institute (CFNI) in Dallas, Texas, from 1988-1990. He graduated with a Diploma in Practical Theology in Leadership and Pastoral. The school, founded in 1970, is best known for training missionaries, and for its founder Gordon Lindsay who was part of the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement, which was inspired by William Branham in 1948 in Canada. Lindsay founded the ministry Voice of Healing that year to promote Branham’s work. As Kari Lardner reported in Religion Dispatches, they were also part of the British Israelism movement:

According to this movement, White people were the true Israel of the Bible, a belief that was pivotal to the mid-century Latter Rain revival Lindsay helped organize … In fact, Branham had been ordained into ministry by the National Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and Lindsay had strong connections with white-supremacist networks throughout North America.

Lindsay later distanced himself from Branham because of his violent antisemitic views, “though it’s unclear,” Lardner writes, “whether Lindsay ever actually recanted his views on British Israelism.” The Christian Identity movement in the U.S. informs some of the most violent white supremacist groups.

Lindsay’s post-Branham ministry became an early training school for the formation of apostolic networks—a feature of what came to be called the New Apostolic Reformation.

End Times war in the here and now

As I reported last year in Barn Raiser, the term New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) was coined in the 1990s by the late C. Peter Wagner, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. He and his colleagues had observed that Pentecostal and charismatic churches that operate outside of denominational structures, were the fastest growing sector of Christianity in the United States and worldwide. In this movement, Wagner saw a trend, an emerging new paradigm, that he and his close associates eventually sought to shape, organize and lead.

The NAR movement comprises loosely organized, often international networks of independent or nondenominational churches and ministries. NAR leaders believe that Christian institutions have mostly gotten it wrong for the last 2,000 years. They have sought to replace historically democratic church governance in Protestant churches with what they call “apostolic governance.” They are trying to do the same in government. To achieve this, they seek the restoration of modern-day apostles and prophets and the church of the first century, as they imagine it.

The NAR vision draws on beliefs and practices from earlier religious movements, such as Latter Rain, as well as Christian Reconstructionism, which emerged from Calvinism and helped shape the theocratic trend of the Christian Right in the 1980s and 1990s, and has become prominent in the persons of Idaho pastor Doug Wilson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The NAR is spearheading an increasingly politicized movement that seeks religious and political “dominion” in the U.S. and the world. In the view of Latter Rain/NAR, many existing churches, church offices and doctrines are obstacles to advancing of the kingdom of God on Earth. In a guest sermon when he was a missionary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Boelter’s prophecy that God will send apostles and prophets to correct the churches is consistent with this idea.

C. Peter Wagner called this obstacle the “spirit of religion.” Some apostolic leaders express this idea forcefully. Apostle Greg Hood of Franklin, Tennessee, for example, sells a T-shirt emblazoned with the quote: “We are here to put a knife to the throat of religion.”

These movements generally see themselves as part of an emerging global army engaged in an End Times war. The theater of this war is first a matter of “spiritual warfare”—organized collective prayer against demonic forces in heaven and on Earth. But important apostolic leaders warn that the theater of the war may expand—and become physical at any time.

This final force features the rise of what is variously called the “Manifest Sons of God” and “Joel’s Army”—an elite mobilization of Christians who will acquire supernatural powers and ultimately defeat Satanic forces. Accounts vary as to exactly how and when these things will unfold. But many believe it is already underway.

Heroes know which villains to kill

There’s a relationship between “spiritual warfare” and physical warfare. NAR leaders increasingly refer to Democrats, liberals, feminists and LGBTQ+ people—basically anyone with a different political, religious or gender identity—as demonic, and blame them for society’s problems. There are potential consequences for this kind of thinking.

“Social science since World War 2 and the Nazi genocide has shown that under specific conditions, virulent demonization and scapegoating can and does create milieus in which the potential for violence is increased,” Chip Berlet, a former longtime researcher with Political Research Associates, wrote in 2014. “What social science cannot do, is predict which individual upon hearing the rhetoric of clear or coded incitement will turn to violence.”

Berlet’s essay was titled “Heroes Know Which Villains to Kill: How Coded Rhetoric Incites Scripted Violence.” Indeed, villain identification has been going on for a long time, and NAR leaders have been increasingly featuring scripts for contemporary violence and religious war.

Prosecutors are so far saying Boelter acted alone. However, scholars report that those said to be “lone wolves” rarely, if ever, act entirely alone. Thus, it was intriguing when Boelter texted his family while he was on the lam: “Dad went to war last night … I don’t wanna say more because I don’t wanna implicate anybody.” Given that NAR leaders understand themselves to be in a war with secular government and other established institutions, it would not be surprising if it turns out that Boelter is not a lone vigilante warrior.

Boelter’s war

Boelter apparently kept his violent intentions to himself over the months, and perhaps as long as two years of planning his assassination campaign.

His friends have described him as religiously and politically conservative, but reserved about it.

He was less reserved while serving as a missionary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2021 and 2023, where he is known to have given three sermons at La Borne Matadi, a Pentecostal church in the Atlantic seaport city of Matadi, in which he expressed views consistent with NAR thought.

In one sermon Boelter preached:

They don’t know abortion is wrong, many churches. They don’t have the gifts flowing. God gives the body gifts. To keep balance. Because when the body starts moving in the wrong direction, when they’re one, and accepting the gifts, God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.

When Boelter speaks here of the body, he is evidently referencing the Body of Christ, meaning the church. In the general Latter Rain/NAR view, the Body of Christ is being transformed into an End Times army, led by apostles and prophets. Boelter added:

God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America, to correct his church. … Many churches in America didn’t listen to Jesus. … They’re divided. This little group here, this little group here, this little group here. … And the enemy, the devil, comes through and rips everything apart. The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong, many churches.

In another sermon, he tells the audience that “people don’t know what sex they are” because the devil “has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.”

The idea of God sending apostles and prophets to “correct his church” is significant because of the Latter Rain/NAR idea that traditional Christian denominations, doctrines, and officers are seen as obstacles to advancing the Kingdom of God as they see it.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

CFNI (Christ for the Nations Institute) has remained a key institution in the NAR movement. Dutch Sheets, a leading apostle, graduated from CFNI and later became its executive director. According to Matthew D. Taylor of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, “No Christian leader did more to mobilize Christians to be in DC on January 6th than Dutch Sheets,” who Taylor says helped develop “strategic-level spiritual warfare programs to mobilize charismatic evangelicals to do spiritual warfare on Trump’s behalf.” Apostle Cindy Jacobs—who helped develop the NAR’s distinct style of intercessory prayer and was present at the Capitol on January 6 guiding the nation in prayer—teaches at the Institute where she received an award in 2025. That said, this doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone involved in CFNI believes exactly the same things. What’s more, like NAR itself, CFNI’s student body has always been multiracial, multiethnic and multinational, its roots in Latter Rain/British Israelism notwithstanding.

And in fairness, the institutions with which Boelter has been affiliated have denounced and distanced themselves from his alleged crimes. These include Christ for the Nations Institute, La Borne Matadi (the Congolese Pentecostal church where he gave several sermons) and Jordan Family Church in Jordan, Minnesota, a town of 5,000, 40-miles southwest of Minneapolis where he is a member. Since Boelter’s arrest, his church has removed its sermons from the web.

It is also important to note that while Boelter’s acts may not represent those organizations, nor of the broad conservative, anti-abortion wing of Christianity, they are definitely not representative of Christianity at large. In fact, mainstream polling consistently shows that many American Christians, including most Catholics, are pro-choice. What’s more, leading denominations of mainline Protestantism have been officially pro-choice since the 1970s. These include The Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church (USA).

Nevertheless, the religious origins of Boelter’s alleged criminal, and arguably revolutionary, mission is clear, even as some tiptoe around it. This squeamishness is typical when Christianity of any kind informs the motives of violent criminal suspects. We can assume, however, that law enforcement, politicians and the media would have been far less demure if Boelter was a Muslim.

The past is prologue

There is precedent for an anti-abortion hit list that includes government officials. Two decades ago, a web site called the Nuremberg Files listed abortion providers alongside pro-choice celebrities, government officials from both parties and federal judges, including members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

It was named for the city where the German war crimes trials were held after World War II. Site proprietor, the late Neal Horsley explained, “A coalition of concerned citizens throughout the USA is cooperating in collecting dossiers on abortionists in anticipation that one day we may be able to hold them on trial for crimes against humanity.”

Originally, the Nuremberg Files listed only abortion providers, but the list grew to comprise several hundred others who were called “abortionists” because of their political support for reproductive rights or their efforts to enforce the law to protect women needing an abortion.

“Judges and politicians who pass or uphold laws authorizing child-killing or oppressing pro-life activists: These classes of individuals,” among others, Horsley declared, “are all committing various crimes to which they should answer. We regard them all as ‘abortionists.’ ”

The site was regarded as a hit list after he began crossing out the names of murdered doctors and clinic staff after their demise; and graying the names of those who were wounded.

Pointing to the crossed-out name Dr. Barnett Slepian on his computer screen in one scene in the 2001 HBO documentary “Soldiers in the Army of God,” Horsley recalled his reaction to the murder: “When I drew a line through his name, I said ‘See, I told ya. There’s another one. How many more is it gonna take?’ ”

“The evidence is at hand,” Horsley declares. “There are people out there who [will] go out and blow their brains out.”

As I reported for Salon at the time, Horsley was involved in the Army of God, the largely underground network in whose name antiabortion violence had been carried out since the early 1980s.

In an essay titled “Understanding the Army of God,” Horsley described the enemy as a culture and a country that have fallen away from God’s laws. He therefore saw the Army of God as holy warriors engaged in “terrorist actions” because “the government of the USA has become a godless and apostate body.” Therefore, he declared, “the people who rise up in arms against such idolatry deserve the name ‘The Army of God.’ ”

The Army of God splintered in the wake of a wave of arrests, prosecutions and a massive monetary judgement by a federal court against some of its leaders. Its website is currently under construction but promises to be back. One feature of the site is a list of people incarcerated for their anti-abortion crimes, called Prisoners of Christ. It would not be surprising to see Boelter added to the list when the site is relaunched.

In any case, the idea that the government has fallen away from God’s laws and needs to be overthrown, lives on. Boelter’s inclusion of elected officials on his hit list suggests that he shares Horsley’s view of the complicity of government and government officials in abortion and tolerance of homosexuality.

Like all other known anti-abortion assassins, Boelter’s Christianity informed his alleged crimes. Here are three of his predecessors.

• James Kopp assassinated abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian at his home in Amherst New York in 1998. Slepian had just returned from his synagogue where he had said kaddish in remembrance of his father. Kopp was a member of the itinerant Catholic-led antiabortion group, Lambs of Christ. He is also a suspect in a series of shootings across Canada.
• Paul Hill assassinated abortion provider Dr. John Britton in Pensacola, Florida in 1994. Hill was an ordained minister in the evangelical Presbyterian Church in America (later defrocked) and was a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.
• Scott Roeder assassinated abortion provider Dr. George Tiller while he served as an usher during Sunday service at his Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas in 2009. Roeder had no known previous antiabortion involvements. However, at his sentencing he read aloud from a book by Paul Hill titled, “Why Shoot an Abortionist?”

What is different about Boelter is that while abortion providers were also on the hit list, like Neal Horsley, he targeted elected officials as well. This suggests that when he texted his family that “dad’s gone to war,” his war was not just with abortion care, but the system of government that allows and protects it. Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston, Sr., of FBI Minneapolis, correctly characterized Boelter’s alleged crimes “an attack on the rule of law.”

Others who have committed violence against abortion providers have held to revolutionary theocratic views of various sorts, but Boelter was allegedly the first to strike government officials. He may not be the last.

Frederick ClarksonMore by this author →

Frederick Clarkson is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, Massachusetts. He has written about politics and religion for four decades and is the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy and editor of Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America.