The Appeal to Heaven flag has a long history in the United States. Commissioned by George Washington, it has flown in front of government buildings. Today it is a major symbol and internet meme among Christian supremacists, as well as opportunists in and out of government. Right-wing politicians took up this symbol after its use in front of the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and only after it was given new life by a new wave of Christian supremacy.
The history of supremacy behind the flag
The Appeal to Heaven flag has a long history. Its affiliation with Christian supremacist politicians largely began in 2013 after being reintroduced as a symbol of supremacy by Dutch Sheets, a highly influential leader in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), today’s most powerful Christian supremacist movement. Sheets has discussed how one of his “spiritual sons” gifted him one of the flags in 2013 and it caused a spiritual awakening in him. He published a book titled An Appeal to Heaven: What Would Happen If We Did It Again in 2015.
The NAR is an anti-democratic Christian supremacist movement that seeks to control all areas of national life, from the halls of Congress to one’s living room, compelling all Americans to align their lives with NAR’s worldview. According to NAR leaders, those who oppose them are not just wrong but under the control of the demonic, and are even possibly demonic entities themselves.
Sheets has expressed his Christian supremacy clearly, defining America as a divinely ordained instrument and not a secular nation embracing diverse cultures and beliefs. “We know you raised up America to promulgate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the Earth,” he said. He has claimed that there is no separation of his church and our state, saying, “God combined civil and spiritual government when he established America.”
On religious pluralism, specifically Hinduism in the U.S., Sheets has said, “Lord, we refuse to give this nation to another God; we refuse to give this nation to demons.” By associating demons with those with whom they disagree, Sheets and other NAR leaders allow no compromise in politics or society at large. That creates an all-or-nothing fight for the soul of the country and the freedom of its inhabitants.
Social theorist Steven Foertsch and sociologist Christopher M. Pieper have used the term “Christofascism” for the fusion of authoritarian governmental forms with Christianity that Sheets advocates. In summarizing examples of Christofascism, they reference the dominionist movement championed by R.J. Rushdoony in the 1970s that was a precursor to the NAR, as well as the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, where the Appeal to Heaven flag played a central role for many attendees.
Sheets is a former executive director of Christ for the Nations Institute (CFNI), and it was in this role that he says he first encountered the flag. Sheets wrote that one of his “spiritual sons” presented him with an Appeal to Heaven flag upon returning to CFNI to give a commencement speech. Upon seeing the flag for the first time, Sheets said he “felt the presence of the Lord come on me very strongly,” and the flag ended up coming to “represent God’s next great assignment” for him by instilling in him what had been “within the hearts of the Revolutionaries at the founding of our great nation.”
The connection to CFNI is notable, as it has been called the “tap root” of the NAR. A laboratory of religious supremacy, the institute weaves together various threads of religious extremism to help form the steely cord of Christofascism today. CFNI was founded by Gordon Lindsay, who in the 1930s and 1940s participated in British Israelism, a precursor of Christian Identity. Vance Boelter, who is accused of assassinating a former speaker of the Minnesota House and her husband in June, in addition to wounding another legislator and his wife, attended CFNI as a student.
Sheets is not only a religious leader. He was central to organizing participation on Jan. 6 and a promoter of the lie that Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2020. Writing in Charisma magazine about Trump’s electoral loss, Sheets falsely stated, “We are in the middle of an evil attempt to overthrow the government of the United States of America.” Sheets and other key leaders in the NAR helped organize its members to attend Jan. 6 events. This was spurred in part by what Sheets says was a direct request from the White House after the presidential election “to gather a group of apostolic, prophetic leaders from around the nation … to go to all the contested states and host prayer meetings” in support of Trump’s failed election bid. Sheets used his network, including his devotional app, Give Him 15, which he claims has been downloaded over 600,000 times, to energize his hundreds of thousands of listeners around a political lie. According to reporting by Religion Dispatches, Sheets was even part of a secret meeting in the White House in the buildup to the insurrection.
Sheets and others relied heavily on social media, as well as in-person events, to spread support for Trump’s false claims of voter fraud — and in this, they were highly successful. The Appeal to Heaven flag became a symbol of those fighting valid election results and those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. As Matthew Taylor has argued, “It’s a meme that can travel, and it’s a symbol that many people can attach themselves to.” Individuals with different outlooks and opinions can invest their grievances into that open symbol, uniting what would otherwise be a fractious coalition.
While the flag’s acceptance on the hard right and by right-wing politicians comes from their Christian supremacist ideas and associations, it is also rooted in the antigovernment movement. A Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report article in 2014, for example, included a photo of the flag behind Larry Klayman, who called former President Barack Obama a “crypto-Communist Muslim.” This flag, often dismissed as a historic symbol, resonates with many across the extremist hard right. It was also used in the Modern Militiaman’s Internet Gazette, the purpose of which was to serve as a support to the militia movement in the 1990s. The militia movement was previously called the Christian Patriot movement.
The antigovernment use of the Appeal to Heaven flag makes sense, as the movement constantly tries to frame itself as the modern-day version of American patriots during the Revolutionary War. Before it was used on Jan. 6, the flag was a favored prop used by the Tea Party movement of the 2010s. Antigovernment agitators recycled it again during rallies against health precautions during the height of COVID. The flag is a modern symbol that has arisen today from extremist and supremacist roots to become a powerful standard and meme to advance Christian supremacy and political authoritarianism in the United States.
From marginal symbol to the U.S. Capitol
In 2021, the Appeal to Heaven flag flew before the U.S. Capitol in support of an attempted coup. Today, it flies inside the building as a symbol that once-marginal theologies have successfully found a foothold in federal politics in the United States.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito grabbed headlines in 2023 for flying the flag outside his house. In June 2025, the flag flew above the Small Business Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C. It has also been prominent in Congress, in front of the office of Mike Johnson, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who has been called “a polite extremist” for his mild-mannered demeanor and radical views. Johnson is closely tied to David Barton, a Christian supremacist and historical revisionist whose work has been denounced by other evangelical historians as polemical and inaccurate.
Johnson, as well as others, claim that they used the flag before the insurrection and that they had no idea about its authoritarian and supremacist inclinations. Johnson has said:
“I have always used that flag for as long as I can remember, because I was so enamored with the fact that Washington used it. … The Appeal to Heaven flag is a critical, important part of American history. It’s something that I’ve always revered since I’ve been a young man.”
Despite Johnson’s claims, researchers and reporters have yet to uncover evidence that he used the flag publicly prior to its prominent use on Jan. 6 and after it was repurposed by the NAR movement. Instead, he appears to have adopted the flag and its symbolism after its recent repurposing by NAR leaders and its use on Jan. 6. Despite downplaying the flag’s connection to the insurrection, Johnson himself is one of the most prominent politicians who backed Trump’s 2020 election lies, having led congressional support in a lawsuit attempting to throw out Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Johnson says he gives no more significance to the flag than any patriot. Yet, the flag Johnson hung outside his office was given to him by Dan Cummins. Cummins is a pastor and disciple of NAR leader and Trump backer Jim Garlow, who Johnson said has been a major influence on his spirituality.
Johnson and his wife, Kelly, have conducted seminars that emphasized the Christian nature of the country. According to Mother Jones, Kelly Johnson argued in one seminar that “biblical Christianity” is the only “valid worldview.” Nothing else, she said, “makes sense.” She has also compared being LGBTQ+ to “bestiality and incest” in her counseling practice. CNN reported that Mike Johnson himself “gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International,” a leader in the ex-gay movement, “and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens.”
The Johnsons and Justice Alito are not alone in displaying the flag. According to Baptist News Global, several members of Congress have used this symbol in the Capitol, including:
- Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)
- Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)
- Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)
- Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.)
- Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)
- Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
- Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.)
- Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
- Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.)
- Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
- Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
In 2020, Trump was pictured with a pastor in Las Vegas who held up the flag with Trump on stage, wedding the symbolism of Christian supremacy and political oppression with Trump right as the destructive lies about a stolen election began to take hold.
Antigovernment roots of a now extremist flag
Supremacist and anti-democracy ideas like Christian theocracy have fueled violent and authoritarian movements in U.S. history. The militia movement in the United States even used Christian Identity and older forms of Christian supremacy as its go-to theologies, shaping how its members saw the world. Political actors like Johnson may claim ignorance of the flag’s broader context, but the Appeal to Heaven flag is a symbol that, far from being an unvarnished symbol of liberty, is deeply enmeshed in movements and theologies that seek to restrict that liberty to a chosen few, connecting those who fly it to a terrible strain of U.S. culture, religion and history.
Image at top: An attendee at a February 2016 rally for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas holds an Appeal to Heaven flag at the Shrine Auditorium in San Antonio. (Illustration by the SPLC; original image by Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post via Getty Images)