They’re Doing MAGA Woodstock Twice A Week At Sheridan Church

It’s hard to know what you’re in for when you step through the doors of Sheridan Church. The building itself is a beige box, one story, squatting in the back of a generous parking lot. It has no windows. If the signage was different it could pass for a strip club. The security guards wanding the crowd as we funneled in did nothing to dissipate the strip club impression, although past that the vibe is more dentist’s office. 

I had turned up to attend an event titled The Case for Israel, taking place on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks. Jackson Lahmeyer, the pastor of Sheridan Church, was hosting Christian Zionist commentator Erick Stakelbeck. Joining them was Clay Clark, a serial entrepreneur and, I guess, church guy. 

Lahmeyer first came to prominence running for office against James Lankford in 2022 on a wave of opposition to COVID-19 pandemic health restrictions. He carried that momentum into the nonprofit Pastors for Trump. I went to this service to learn just what exactly a pastor for Trump believes, and what he tells his congregation. Just what kind of Christianity is going on here, exactly?

Tulsa has long been home to evangelicals with a hard-right streak. People like Oral Roberts and Billy James Hargis once used the city as a base of operations to maintain their ministries and donation networks. They lambasted their followers with warnings about communism, socialism, racial integration of public schools, the media, higher education, radical Islam, immigration, or whatever the boogeyman of the day was. They also implored them to donate to their ministries, usually with a breezy scriptural justification implying some kind of blessing in return. This practice is often referred to as the prosperity gospel.

Lahmeyer is the latest pastor in this tradition, updated for the age of MAGA. As The Pickup’s editor-in-chief Matt Carney observed when he visited Sheridan Church last year, Lahmeyer has fused MAGA political messaging with a modern evangelical style. In the same way that Oral Roberts once leveraged the latest in broadcasting technology, Lahmeyer streams his end times sermons directly to YouTube, and they often feature guests who are popular in MAGA world. 

I made my way through security at Sheridan, and, after grabbing my free American flag, shuffled into the next room. I passed a wall advertising books and T-shirts. Two women were hawking raffle tickets. Today the prizes were MAGA hats signed by Don Jr. and some other Trump flunkies. 

Take Me To Church

I stepped into the—what is it? It’s not a sanctuary. The walls are completely black. There’s a stage, a bunch of fold-out chairs, and several projectors. Onstage there was a guy imploring the crowd to buy raffle tickets. The screens showed a timer counting down in Impact font. It definitely isn’t a chapel. I guess it’s a “place of worship,” although it looked more like a community theater.

I stepped into the event space and found a seat near the back, watching the crowd mill in. They were almost exclusively older—in their 60s to 80s—although there were a few younger people peppered throughout. Two chairs in front of me, a kid of about 10 was sitting between two elders, politely interacting with an older man doing a Donald Duck impression. 

Finally, the timer hit zero and the service began. The praise band came out first; an adorable boy band-style lead singer wearing washed-out jeans and rocking curtain bangs led us in a quick worship medley. As a side note, the praise band also featured the only people of color I saw in the building all night. I closed my eyes and did a little Pentecostal swaying, hoping to fit in with the other vessels of the Holy Spirit. 

After about 10 minutes the music came to an end. Jackson Lahmeyer and Clay Clark took the stage, did a little crowd work, and chatted bro-ishly before bending the topic of conversation to something much more important: putting money in God’s hand. Lahmeyer pointed out that, since there were raffles for both online and in-person participants, the real MAGA fans could buy both and have twice the chance of winning. What a deal!

I noticed that every chair contained an envelope for donations. I have since been told that this is a common practice in many churches. This may be true, but I find it unlikely that other churches would ask for money as soon as the service starts. Nevertheless there was a great jostling as dozens of wallets and purses were rifled through. No cash necessary; there’s a spot on the envelope for your credit card details.

Lahmeyer is a fascinating specimen. I can best describe him as a human LinkedIn profile. He was impeccably dressed and coiffed, his teeth perfect, his smile never fading. His stubble is always exactly the same, a length acceptable at the country club. 

His eyes are devoid of warmth. His personality is a jocular mix of aging letterman and carny. He comes across more barstool conservative than principled Christian, although I think this is part of his appeal. 

Clark is basically the same guy without the stubble, although he plays up his “everyman” role a little more. He got his name in the news a few years ago for suing the City of Tulsa over mask mandates. His role at the service was something like an emcee, facilitating conversations, asking questions, and bringing the crowd in.

Most of the event itself consisted of Stakelbeck and Lahmeyer reacting to clips from conspiracy theory YouTube channels. At one point they implied that Elon Musk might be the antichrist. At another they played clips of other conservative figures, including Charlie Kirk, criticizing Israel and explained how the right needs to be united in solidarity. (Before playing the video Lahmeyer and Clark asked the audience not to boo at Kirk, who took a more critical stance on Israel before his assassination in September.) Clark told a story about some kind of prophecy that seemed to involve himself and Donald Trump and the audience seemed to know what he was talking about. 

I found it interesting that so much of the program was spent criticizing other folks on the right, particularly Candice Owens and Charlie Kirk. This may reflect a generational difference: Kirk's and Owens’ audiences skew younger, a demographic among whom approval for Israel has tanked in recent years. Contrast this to Lahmeyer’s aging audience, many of whom probably remember the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars, as well as the broader Cold War behind those conflicts.

I’ll give them this: Lahmeyer and Clark have their act down to a science. They riff off one another and bring the audience in, creating a safe space for paranoid right-wingers who feel besieged by real life. They referenced specific Bible verses without reading them out, instead paraphrasing them and interpreting them for the audience in the same breath. We heard about how great Trump is just about as often as we heard about Jesus. 

Woodstock For Right-Wingers

Finally, Erick Stakelbeck joined the show. Stakelbeck comes across exactly like the other two guys, except taller and with a New York accent. A skim of his online presence appears to show a pedigree as a post-9/11 culture warrior, and he pitches himself as a Christian Zionist. I guess he’s got a YouTube channel.

The main event of the evening was a meandering conversation about the Christian Case for Israel. More specifically, it was the MAGA case for Israel, as refracted through the prism of a mass-produced facsimile of Christianity.

Like a free-flowing podcast, the show consisted of a loose conversation around the topic without any real discourse. Bible verses were paraphrased, positions were stated, and ribs were gregariously elbowed. The message was that Israel was to be supported spiritually, materially, and, most importantly, financially. Any criticism of Israel is naked antisemitism, a sin of which every left-winger and even a few conservatives are guilty. If America stops supporting Israel, we will suffer God’s wrath.

I could have sat there and taken really careful notes on everything they were saying and refuted it point-by-point, or tried to turn this into a more nuanced conversation about the conflict in Gaza. I could have really dug into Lahmeyer’s theology and explained why the verses he chose don’t really mean what he says, or that they could be translated differently, or that he was misquoting them.

That would be totally pointless. What’s happening in that building is the same thing that happens at every Trump rally. It’s on Fox News and a dozen imitators every night. It’s right-wing Woodstock. It’s about the feeling of being there. Is it expensive? What? This is your opportunity to be part of the struggle against evil, and you’re gonna bail because the suggested donation is $25? Get the fuck out of here poser.

The audience for this event doesn’t give a shit what’s true, as long as it makes them feel good. To further the comparison to Woodstock, it now occurs to me that most of the audience would have been a part of that generation. Maybe some part of our country always believed that you, as an American, have the right to create your own reality around you. 

When the event was over, the hosts ran a quick question-and-answer segment, which produced an interesting array of people. One of the few young people in attendance asked for good news sources that wouldn't brainwash her. The hosts told her to watch Fox News and old Charlie Kirk videos. Another lady wanted to know when Stakelbeck thought the Third Temple would be built. He doesn’t know for certain, but knows it will be soon. One guy brought his Bible up to the microphone, which was pretty cute. There was a question about the “Khazarian mafia,” which Stakelbeck (accurately) explained was an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Clark kept trying to hurry them up. 

Finally they raffled off their MAGA gear, an event I assume was done last on purpose. People were already leaving the event during the Q&A segment, so I guess the half-life of the Holy Spirit is pretty short for heavy users. 

On my way out I stopped and picked up a few handouts from the Shofar International Foundation. Later, when I got home, I would realize they contained images purporting to be of the deceased Palestinian militant Yahya Sinwar. Accompanying these were an article celebrating his death.

This is not to say that I support Sinwar, or even know that much about him. But for a church service to begin with a sales pitch for lottery tickets and end with snuff handouts has got to be a sign of the apocalypse. If the devil himself started a church, he couldn’t do much better than Sheridan. 

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