==abby abildness======
Abby Abildness is the founder and president of Healing Tree International. HTI's mandate is to heal and restore God-ordained destinies of people and nations. To accomplish this they develop and teach Kingdom models in the areas of government, business, medicine, and justice in partnership with other ministries and marketplace leaders. Abby is also an ordained pastor with Life Center Ministries International and a marriage and family therapist. She is the Pennsylvania representative for the Cindy Jacobs' Reformation Prayer Network and John Benefiel's Apostolic Prayer Network, and was commissioned as an apostle by John Benefiel in 2011. Abby is a former behavioral science professor at Penn State University Hershey Medical Center, and pastoral care professor at Myerstown Theological Seminary.
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‘We appeal to heaven': A theologian helps explain a Christian nationalist rally in Harrisburg Another notable feature of the rally was the frequent mention of William Penn, the 17th-century English Quaker who founded the province of Pennsylvania. Early in the rally, a New Apostolic Reformation Apostle from Dauphin County named Abby Abildness took the stage. Abildness, who leads the Pennsylvania Congressional Prayer Caucus, is a mainstay at the state capitol. She holds guided tours and prayer sessions attended by conservative lawmakers, including state Rep. Dave Zimmerman, R-East Earl. Abildness helped produce a 2024 documentary about Penn’s “life and legacy.” “We are the state to shift the nation…and we stand on the promises of the covenantal purposes of this state, given to William Penn, who named this state, that will bring the holy seed of a nation,” Abildness said to the crowd, part of a cryptic monologue about the “Key of David.” “We take this key and we do what the scriptures said,” Abildness continued. “We bind the purposes of evil trying to stop what this nation is called to be. And we loose the purposes of heaven that the Lord God almighty will bring the shift in every branch of government in our state.” (Lancaster Inline 10/11/24) READ MORE>>>>> New Apostolic Reformation Prophet Calls Abby Abildness The Paul Revere Of Pennsylvania And the biggest prophet in the Christian Supremacist NAR movement, Chuck Pierce, has given Apostle Abby Abildness the mantle of being Pennsylvania’s “Paul Revere.” Abby’s job? To carry the message of a Great Awakening through her William Penn documentary until our nation changes to a land ruled by Godly leaders. Pierce’s directive for Pennsylvania aired on January 17 as the first Revelation call of his Surrounding the Nation 50 states. In addition to Abildness, 13 Colonies Council Leader & Apostle Sheryl Price and two Scranton pastors also appeared on the call to talk about Pierce’s Scranton appearance at Lackawanna College where 600 attended in August 2023. (Buck County Beacon 2/5/24) READ MORE>>>>> Who Is The Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus? Others in attendance included Senator Cris Dush’s Chief of Staff Joseph Foust, Abby Abildness and various preachers and members from her Prayer Caucus. Abildness is described as an “Apostle” in the New Apostolic Reformation movement and played a part in sowing doubt around the 2020 election results through her “Jericho Marches.” Abildness was pictured speaking to Perry following the event. (Sean Kitchen/Buck County Beacon 4/10/23) READ MORE>>>>> She’s a Theocrat. She’s the Most Powerful Lobbyist You’ve Never Heard Of. Every Monday, Abby Abildness leads her “Penn’s Sacred Challenge Tour,” a guided walk through the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. On the day I join, a group of stylish and well-behaved Christian homeschoolers trail her through marbled hallways, beneath mosaic ceilings, and past stained-glass windows, dissecting the early-20th century art for hidden meanings, like a Christian nationalist Da Vinci Code. “God’s message is on the walls,” she says, directing our eyes to Edwin Austin Abbey’s “Spirit of Light,” a fresco of semi-nude nymphs silhouetted against burning oil derricks, each holding their own flame. “Doesn’t this remind you of Pentecost?” she asks the students. (Emily Hoffstaedter/Mother Jones 2023) READ MORE>>>>> A Savior Will Arise from Gettysburg and His Name Shall Be Mastriano Douglas Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has faced much criticism for his Christian nationalism—the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that the purpose of politics is to reclaim this supposed heritage. The criticism is justified. Mastriano is a conservative activist and politician who manipulates the American past to promote his God-and-country agenda. There is perhaps no clearer example of Mastriano’s Christian nationalist view of American history than a recent video of him giving a tour of the murals in the senate chamber of the Pennsylvania capitol building in Harrisburg. In the video, which was filmed on April 13, 2022 and published earlier this month on Facebook, Mastriano is joined by Abby Abildness, director of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, an organization committed to “igniting an intellectual awakening about prayer and God’s role in America.” (John Fea/Current 7.22.22) READ MORE>>>>> |
April 8, 2023: Abby Abildness: Pennsylvania is united by a prophetic declaration. I bet you don’t have many states that have a prophecy from their founder. William Penn, his prophecy is written in large mosaic tile inside our capitol dome, and the prophecy was from 1681 when he got the land grant and then the writings that he did from them are what the destiny of Pennsylvania is still coming forth. We wrote a decree from this that has his founding words in it, and I just want to read that as we open. We, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, birthed by Almighty God, through the vision given to our founder, William Penn, of a government that fosters peace among the citizens, we declare a governmental shift and release a spiritual realignment starting from the grassroots to create a safe haven for peace and unity in Pennsylvania. From our position as the keystone state, we call the nation to return to the first frame of government established by Penn, who declared (and here’s his prophecy): My God will make it the holy seed of a nation, for the nations want a precedent that we would do the thing that is wise and just. We decree the awakening of our people to the voice of God in this hour, that they would hear and obey from the heart, that we might continue to walk in and enjoy the divine blessings of a nation whose God is the Lord. Penn’s precedent, his governmental precedent for the nation, developed a principle of governance that would enable people that have all different backgrounds to live together peaceably in the spirit of unity where justice for all would prevail. He left England at a time in 1681 when there was so much corruption and there was so much going against the people of God that he got the land grant territory from King Charles II. He wanted out of there, King Charles wanted him out of there, but it was a time in history when governmental authorities resorted to abuse and bloodshed in order to establish themselves, and where society hadn’t found a reason to accommodate the differences, which sounds like our time today. Penn founded the Commonwealth to be a safe haven for people of religious freedom, and he intended his holy seed precedent to bring hope for reversing the trajectory of tyranny and abuse of power, and he wanted brotherly love to heal trauma and division and establish healthy communities free of violence and bloodshed. And we pray the release of the Father God’s heart for healing of Pennsylvania and the people today. In his preamble he said man was created to have dominion in the earth, but it was because of the evildoers that he founded the law and the branches of government, and that was because of the transgression. And he said he was founding it because government is the means of justice, and justice is the means of peace. So he knew that the law — we didn’t need it for the righteous man who already had God in his heart. He meant it to protect all people from those that didn’t have that in their heart. So I proclaim over Pennsylvania, Father God, the enemy of our souls is conspiring to take over Pennsylvania leadership. We release the spirit of Elijah to deliver us from and counter this evil intent. Father God, thank you for the righteous alliances growing in Pennsylvania to release the holy seed of a nation. We decree and declare that righteous legislators who have God’s heart will rise up with constituent support, and only legislative actions will pass that align with God’s holy purposes. We thank you, Lord, for the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus. We decree and declare heavenly strategy and unity and a hedge of protection over the Freedom Caucus leaders. Father God, you declared that we know the truth and the truth shall set us free, and we declare deceptions be revealed and truth be good news to rally the citizens, including those right wing watchers that are being drawn to watch this grassroots movement and try to stop it. We worship you, Lord, we trust you. You will fight and triumph for us in the battle. Thank you, God. You render victory over the enemy’s ineffectual attempts at trying to stop this holy seed. And so our Pennsylvania state flag reveals our motto, which you heard: Virtue, Liberty and Independence. I don’t know another state that has virtue as its foundation. We proclaim that the governmental shift embossed on the Liberty Bell, which was cast 50 years (the jubilee year) after Penn’s first charter of liberty, and it proclaimed, and we proclaim today — “Liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof”. |
Pennsylvania’s Prayer Warrior: Abby Abildness And Her Dominionist Crusade In The Commonwealth
Apostle Abby Abildness is on a quest to claim the Keystone state for God. She’s a Pennsylvania-based leader in a worldwide network of neo-charismatic Christian leaders called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which promotes dominionism, the belief that Christians have a mandate from God to control all aspects of government and culture.
NAR leaders advance a supposedly divine strategy for achieving dominion called the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” which divides society into seven categories, or “mountains”, and encourages Christians to pick a mountain and then head into their community to conquer it for God. Abildness is focused on the government mountain. In a 2012 newsletter, Abildness instructed her network to “pray for and proclaim God’s dominion over your city councils, courts, state legislators, state courts, America’s leaders [and] the United Nations,” as discovered by NAR researcher @KiraResistance (whose research is featured throughout much of this piece.)
One of the organizations led by Abildness, the Pennsylvania Apostolic Prayer Network (PAPN), promotes the Seven Mountains on its website.
Another organization led by Abildness, the Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus, works with state legislators to promote biblically-inspired legislation.
A third organization led by Abildness, the Global Apostolic Prayer Network (GAPN) is in 115 nations. Abildness and her NAR colleagues see Pennsylvania as the cornerstone of their mission to take dominion of the nation, as well as other nations, for Jesus. It is Abildness’s job to make this vision a reality. Abildness’s involvement is evidenced by (among other things) her book bio, which says she’s “the Pennsylvania representative for the Cindy Jacobs’ Reformation Prayer Network and John Benefiel’s [Heartland] Apostolic Prayer Network, and was commissioned as an apostle by John Benefiel in 2011.” (Emphasis added.) As far as I’ve seen, Abildness does not claim to receive prophetic words herself. But she does claim that William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, received a “prophetic revelation from the Lord” that told him Pennsylvania would serve as a “holy seed” for “godly governance” throughout the nation.
Abildness has even made a video promoting Penn’s alleged prophecy. In the video, throngs of seemingly entranced believers drop to their knees as they face the Pennsylvania state capitol. Abildness calls herself “Dr. Abby Abildness,” rather than “Apostle Abby Abildness” on her website at Healing Tree International, an organization that she founded with her husband to “restore the God-ordained destiny of people and nations in collaboration with affiliate networks.”
The website doesn’t disclose where Abildness earned her doctorate or medical degree, if any, but describes Abildness as a “former Behavioral Science Professor at Hershey Medical Center/Penn State University and Pastoral Care and Counseling Professor at Myerstown Theological Seminary.”
Through Healing Tree and a book released in 2010, Abildness has encouraged “healing prayer” as an adjunct to medical care. She claims to have personally received miraculous healing from endometrial cancer.
This may sound benign in the abstract. But Abildness is closely affiliated with NAR Apostle Ché Ahn (founder of Harvest International Ministries) who claims to have cured a girl’s blindness by licking his thumb and putting it in her eye. Abildness also is the State Director of the Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus, a subsidiary of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF). In this role, Abildness meets with state lawmakers once a week.
Her caucus has collaborated with the state level Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus and with Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), who currently chairs the federal House Freedom Caucus in D.C. Abildness even attended the recent launch of the state level freedom caucus in Harrisburg, which Perry emceed, as the Beacon reported in April. (You may recall that Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, burned documents after meeting with Perry in the runup to Jan 6, 2021, per the testimony of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.) Abildness’s Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus also promotes state legislation using model bills from CPCF. Many of these bills attack LGBTQ+ rights. In 2013, when Project Blitz was still years away, Abildness championed a bill to require that Pennsylvania public schools post “In God We Trust” inside classrooms. Abildness promoted the bill with former State Representative Rick Saccone who once said that he was running for office because God wants Christians “who will rule with the fear of God in them to rule over us.”Their bill “was certainly a model for the [“In God We Trust”] model bill in the [subsequent] Project Blitz legislative playbook,” Clarkson told me. This bill “has been the most popular model bill in the playbook,” and thus “we might think of Apostle Abildness as the grandmother of the whole thing,” Clarkson added. Abildness made multiple appearances with Mastriano in 2020, as we previously reported, including an interview in June 2020. Abildness later supported Mastriano’s failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign. She even spoke during his campaign announcement, declaring that his candidacy would “bring a holy shift to the nation.” Last year, Abildness conducted a “William Penn Proclamation Signing Ceremony,” with help from Mastriano, State Representative David Zimmerman, and State Senator Cris Dush. The ceremony was promoted by Intercessors for America (IFA), which has recruited “prayer warriors” on the NAR-affiliated Elijah List.
Abildness had created and promoted a “Penn Proclamation” document, which approximately 60 lawmakers reportedly signed. Her website includes a PDF of the proclamation, but does not disclose who signed it.
State Representative Stephanie Borowicz participated in the Penn ceremony and has collaborated with Abildness on other occasions, as have Zimmerman and Dush. Dush and his chief of staff, John Foust, another Abildness ally, spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 5, 2021, as reported by Sean Kitchen. Abildness seems to have forged an alliance with State Representative Rob Kauffman as well.In April this year, Abildness hosted a prayer call with state lawmakers, as reported by NAR expert Clarkson. During the call, Mastriano and Abildness promoted Penn’s alleged “prophecy.” Borowicz, Zimmerman, and state judge Patricia McCullough participated in the call too. (McCullough lost her bid for the state Supreme Court in May this year.) Abildness’s Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus doesn’t publish its legislative priorities. But they likely overlap with those of the so-called “Concerned Women for America” (CWA) nonprofit, which “promotes Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy,” per its website. We found this link to CWA’s legislative priorities for Pennsylvania in 2023. It includes a descriptive list of CWA’s favorite bills, including bill sponsors, such as Mastriano, Borowicz, Kauffman, Zimmerman, and Dush.
Abildness met with CWA in October 2020. Abildness engages with her local community through Life Center Ministries International in Harrisburg, where she’s a pastor. Abildness and her husband have been “part of Life Center’s leadership team for many years,” according to Life Center. (FN1) Abildness also is the State Leader of the Pennsylvania Apostolic Prayer Network (PAPN), which states on its website that PAPN seeks to bring forth William Penn’s vision and to “Network positional relationships among seven mountain leaders … and impact the community.”
PAPN’s apparent plan is to create the statewide infrastructure for taking dominion of the Keystone state. Per its website, PAPN “is a statewide network established with leadership teams in the 67 counties of Pennsylvania.”
The website includes a state “spiritual mapper.” According to NAR expert André Gagné, “There are several practices tied to spiritual mapping, one has to do with ‘research.’ Mappers gather detailed information i.e., on the status of … demonic powers that pose spiritual opposition in a given region.” (Here’s a link to additional information on spiritual mapping.)
After spiritual mapping, believers strive to chase the demons away using spiritual warfare, which is what Abildness endeavored to do in Philadelphia after Trump’s 2020 defeat. Abildness’s influence also extends to other states. She’s involved, for example, with the 13 Colony Council (“Council”), which calls itself “a peer group of Kingdom minded Christian leaders … in each of the original 13 Colonies.” Abildness, Mastriano, and Zimmerman participated in a Council event two years ago. Abildness also is “the regional leader over the 5 middle colony states of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey for the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network and Generals International,” per Healing Tree’s website.
It can be tempting to dismiss Abildness and her colleagues as religious fanatics. Unfortunately, some of our elected officials (including former President Donald Trump) have embraced religious fanatics in exchange for political support. Below is a photo of NAR Apostle Jim Garlow with Trump at the White House. Fifteen years later (in 2019), Abildness declared in a Facebook video that she and her colleagues seek to “bring transformation — from Pennsylvania to the nations,” adding that, “We are what [NAR Apostles] Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets said, ‘we’re the governmental shift state, to bring this change in our nation.’”
She didn’t specify what this “change” might mean for ordinary Americans, but it can’t be good for LGBTQ+ people. When the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in 2015, Sheets wrote that America had taken “one step closer toward the death of our God-given destiny and greatness,” and that “we are now an apostate nation.” In May 2020, Abildness held an event in Pennsylvania titled “Restoring the Holy Seed of a Nation,” a reference to William Penn’s supposed prophecy. The event featured Abildness, Sheets, and Pierce.Abildness reunited with Sheets and Pierce in April this year when she hosted the final call of their 50-state prayer call series, as reported by Clarkson. During this event, Abildness again characterized Pennsylvania as a “‘governmental shift state,” declaring that “the way that government would be successful is if all the legislators were believers in God.”Abildness had previously collaborated with Sheets in trying to undo Trump’s 2020 defeat with spiritual warfare. In Dec 2020, Abildness conducted a pro-Trump prayer march around Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Sheets, who had conceived of the march in a dream, called it “Operation Valkyrie,” which also was the codename for the plot to assassinate Hitler during World War II. Abildness also hosted a series of Pennsylvania based, pro-Trump “Jericho marches.” (Jericho was an ancient town surrounded by high walls. According to the Bible, the walls collapsed after Israelites marched around Jericho seven times while priests blew on trumpets.)I’ve seen no evidence that Abildness traveled to D.C. for Jan. 6. But a week before Jan. 6, she tweeted: “Senators, Stand Your Ground and object to the fraudulent ‘results’ of the 2020 election.” She also led a group prayer for Vice President Mike Pence to “do the right thing.” Even if Abildness was not in D.C. on the 6th, her NAR colleagues were there, including Jacobs, Ahn, and Wallnau.
Despite failing to overturn Trump’s loss, Abildness and her colleagues remain focused on their dominionist agenda. And their efforts extend beyond the United States.
Abildness and her husband, for example, seek to establish a so-called “Penn United Nations Peace Council,” per Healing Tree’s website. Abildness reportedly met in London with “several European UN diplomats” last year, per Intercessors for America.
Abildness also leads the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, an international dominionist project founded by NAR Apostle John Benefiel. According to Abildness, Benefiel said that he wanted the “DNA of what Pennsylvania carries to go global,” and that’s when she was “named the Global Apostolic Prayer Network [GAPN] leader.” Last year, Abildness and other NAR leaders met with the president of Guatemala. Abildness also is a fan of Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.Abildness, however, is well aware of the handful of researchers and journalists who seek to expose the NAR. In April this year, during the Pennsylvania prayer call reported by Clarkson, Abildness acknowledged “those right wing watchers that are being drawn to watch this grassroots movement and try to stop it.” She nonetheless proclaimed that God would “render victory over the enemy’s ineffectual attempts at trying to stop this holy seed.”
-Jennifer Cohn; Bucks County Beacon; Pennsylvania’s Prayer Warrior: Abby Abildness And Her Dominionist Crusade In The Commonwealth 7.11.23
Apostle Abby Abildness is on a quest to claim the Keystone state for God. She’s a Pennsylvania-based leader in a worldwide network of neo-charismatic Christian leaders called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which promotes dominionism, the belief that Christians have a mandate from God to control all aspects of government and culture.
NAR leaders advance a supposedly divine strategy for achieving dominion called the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” which divides society into seven categories, or “mountains”, and encourages Christians to pick a mountain and then head into their community to conquer it for God. Abildness is focused on the government mountain. In a 2012 newsletter, Abildness instructed her network to “pray for and proclaim God’s dominion over your city councils, courts, state legislators, state courts, America’s leaders [and] the United Nations,” as discovered by NAR researcher @KiraResistance (whose research is featured throughout much of this piece.)
One of the organizations led by Abildness, the Pennsylvania Apostolic Prayer Network (PAPN), promotes the Seven Mountains on its website.
Another organization led by Abildness, the Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus, works with state legislators to promote biblically-inspired legislation.
A third organization led by Abildness, the Global Apostolic Prayer Network (GAPN) is in 115 nations. Abildness and her NAR colleagues see Pennsylvania as the cornerstone of their mission to take dominion of the nation, as well as other nations, for Jesus. It is Abildness’s job to make this vision a reality. Abildness’s involvement is evidenced by (among other things) her book bio, which says she’s “the Pennsylvania representative for the Cindy Jacobs’ Reformation Prayer Network and John Benefiel’s [Heartland] Apostolic Prayer Network, and was commissioned as an apostle by John Benefiel in 2011.” (Emphasis added.) As far as I’ve seen, Abildness does not claim to receive prophetic words herself. But she does claim that William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, received a “prophetic revelation from the Lord” that told him Pennsylvania would serve as a “holy seed” for “godly governance” throughout the nation.
Abildness has even made a video promoting Penn’s alleged prophecy. In the video, throngs of seemingly entranced believers drop to their knees as they face the Pennsylvania state capitol. Abildness calls herself “Dr. Abby Abildness,” rather than “Apostle Abby Abildness” on her website at Healing Tree International, an organization that she founded with her husband to “restore the God-ordained destiny of people and nations in collaboration with affiliate networks.”
The website doesn’t disclose where Abildness earned her doctorate or medical degree, if any, but describes Abildness as a “former Behavioral Science Professor at Hershey Medical Center/Penn State University and Pastoral Care and Counseling Professor at Myerstown Theological Seminary.”
Through Healing Tree and a book released in 2010, Abildness has encouraged “healing prayer” as an adjunct to medical care. She claims to have personally received miraculous healing from endometrial cancer.
This may sound benign in the abstract. But Abildness is closely affiliated with NAR Apostle Ché Ahn (founder of Harvest International Ministries) who claims to have cured a girl’s blindness by licking his thumb and putting it in her eye. Abildness also is the State Director of the Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus, a subsidiary of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF). In this role, Abildness meets with state lawmakers once a week.
Her caucus has collaborated with the state level Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus and with Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), who currently chairs the federal House Freedom Caucus in D.C. Abildness even attended the recent launch of the state level freedom caucus in Harrisburg, which Perry emceed, as the Beacon reported in April. (You may recall that Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, burned documents after meeting with Perry in the runup to Jan 6, 2021, per the testimony of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.) Abildness’s Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus also promotes state legislation using model bills from CPCF. Many of these bills attack LGBTQ+ rights. In 2013, when Project Blitz was still years away, Abildness championed a bill to require that Pennsylvania public schools post “In God We Trust” inside classrooms. Abildness promoted the bill with former State Representative Rick Saccone who once said that he was running for office because God wants Christians “who will rule with the fear of God in them to rule over us.”Their bill “was certainly a model for the [“In God We Trust”] model bill in the [subsequent] Project Blitz legislative playbook,” Clarkson told me. This bill “has been the most popular model bill in the playbook,” and thus “we might think of Apostle Abildness as the grandmother of the whole thing,” Clarkson added. Abildness made multiple appearances with Mastriano in 2020, as we previously reported, including an interview in June 2020. Abildness later supported Mastriano’s failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign. She even spoke during his campaign announcement, declaring that his candidacy would “bring a holy shift to the nation.” Last year, Abildness conducted a “William Penn Proclamation Signing Ceremony,” with help from Mastriano, State Representative David Zimmerman, and State Senator Cris Dush. The ceremony was promoted by Intercessors for America (IFA), which has recruited “prayer warriors” on the NAR-affiliated Elijah List.
Abildness had created and promoted a “Penn Proclamation” document, which approximately 60 lawmakers reportedly signed. Her website includes a PDF of the proclamation, but does not disclose who signed it.
State Representative Stephanie Borowicz participated in the Penn ceremony and has collaborated with Abildness on other occasions, as have Zimmerman and Dush. Dush and his chief of staff, John Foust, another Abildness ally, spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 5, 2021, as reported by Sean Kitchen. Abildness seems to have forged an alliance with State Representative Rob Kauffman as well.In April this year, Abildness hosted a prayer call with state lawmakers, as reported by NAR expert Clarkson. During the call, Mastriano and Abildness promoted Penn’s alleged “prophecy.” Borowicz, Zimmerman, and state judge Patricia McCullough participated in the call too. (McCullough lost her bid for the state Supreme Court in May this year.) Abildness’s Pennsylvania Prayer Caucus doesn’t publish its legislative priorities. But they likely overlap with those of the so-called “Concerned Women for America” (CWA) nonprofit, which “promotes Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy,” per its website. We found this link to CWA’s legislative priorities for Pennsylvania in 2023. It includes a descriptive list of CWA’s favorite bills, including bill sponsors, such as Mastriano, Borowicz, Kauffman, Zimmerman, and Dush.
Abildness met with CWA in October 2020. Abildness engages with her local community through Life Center Ministries International in Harrisburg, where she’s a pastor. Abildness and her husband have been “part of Life Center’s leadership team for many years,” according to Life Center. (FN1) Abildness also is the State Leader of the Pennsylvania Apostolic Prayer Network (PAPN), which states on its website that PAPN seeks to bring forth William Penn’s vision and to “Network positional relationships among seven mountain leaders … and impact the community.”
PAPN’s apparent plan is to create the statewide infrastructure for taking dominion of the Keystone state. Per its website, PAPN “is a statewide network established with leadership teams in the 67 counties of Pennsylvania.”
The website includes a state “spiritual mapper.” According to NAR expert André Gagné, “There are several practices tied to spiritual mapping, one has to do with ‘research.’ Mappers gather detailed information i.e., on the status of … demonic powers that pose spiritual opposition in a given region.” (Here’s a link to additional information on spiritual mapping.)
After spiritual mapping, believers strive to chase the demons away using spiritual warfare, which is what Abildness endeavored to do in Philadelphia after Trump’s 2020 defeat. Abildness’s influence also extends to other states. She’s involved, for example, with the 13 Colony Council (“Council”), which calls itself “a peer group of Kingdom minded Christian leaders … in each of the original 13 Colonies.” Abildness, Mastriano, and Zimmerman participated in a Council event two years ago. Abildness also is “the regional leader over the 5 middle colony states of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey for the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network and Generals International,” per Healing Tree’s website.
It can be tempting to dismiss Abildness and her colleagues as religious fanatics. Unfortunately, some of our elected officials (including former President Donald Trump) have embraced religious fanatics in exchange for political support. Below is a photo of NAR Apostle Jim Garlow with Trump at the White House. Fifteen years later (in 2019), Abildness declared in a Facebook video that she and her colleagues seek to “bring transformation — from Pennsylvania to the nations,” adding that, “We are what [NAR Apostles] Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets said, ‘we’re the governmental shift state, to bring this change in our nation.’”
She didn’t specify what this “change” might mean for ordinary Americans, but it can’t be good for LGBTQ+ people. When the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in 2015, Sheets wrote that America had taken “one step closer toward the death of our God-given destiny and greatness,” and that “we are now an apostate nation.” In May 2020, Abildness held an event in Pennsylvania titled “Restoring the Holy Seed of a Nation,” a reference to William Penn’s supposed prophecy. The event featured Abildness, Sheets, and Pierce.Abildness reunited with Sheets and Pierce in April this year when she hosted the final call of their 50-state prayer call series, as reported by Clarkson. During this event, Abildness again characterized Pennsylvania as a “‘governmental shift state,” declaring that “the way that government would be successful is if all the legislators were believers in God.”Abildness had previously collaborated with Sheets in trying to undo Trump’s 2020 defeat with spiritual warfare. In Dec 2020, Abildness conducted a pro-Trump prayer march around Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Sheets, who had conceived of the march in a dream, called it “Operation Valkyrie,” which also was the codename for the plot to assassinate Hitler during World War II. Abildness also hosted a series of Pennsylvania based, pro-Trump “Jericho marches.” (Jericho was an ancient town surrounded by high walls. According to the Bible, the walls collapsed after Israelites marched around Jericho seven times while priests blew on trumpets.)I’ve seen no evidence that Abildness traveled to D.C. for Jan. 6. But a week before Jan. 6, she tweeted: “Senators, Stand Your Ground and object to the fraudulent ‘results’ of the 2020 election.” She also led a group prayer for Vice President Mike Pence to “do the right thing.” Even if Abildness was not in D.C. on the 6th, her NAR colleagues were there, including Jacobs, Ahn, and Wallnau.
Despite failing to overturn Trump’s loss, Abildness and her colleagues remain focused on their dominionist agenda. And their efforts extend beyond the United States.
Abildness and her husband, for example, seek to establish a so-called “Penn United Nations Peace Council,” per Healing Tree’s website. Abildness reportedly met in London with “several European UN diplomats” last year, per Intercessors for America.
Abildness also leads the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, an international dominionist project founded by NAR Apostle John Benefiel. According to Abildness, Benefiel said that he wanted the “DNA of what Pennsylvania carries to go global,” and that’s when she was “named the Global Apostolic Prayer Network [GAPN] leader.” Last year, Abildness and other NAR leaders met with the president of Guatemala. Abildness also is a fan of Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.Abildness, however, is well aware of the handful of researchers and journalists who seek to expose the NAR. In April this year, during the Pennsylvania prayer call reported by Clarkson, Abildness acknowledged “those right wing watchers that are being drawn to watch this grassroots movement and try to stop it.” She nonetheless proclaimed that God would “render victory over the enemy’s ineffectual attempts at trying to stop this holy seed.”
-Jennifer Cohn; Bucks County Beacon; Pennsylvania’s Prayer Warrior: Abby Abildness And Her Dominionist Crusade In The Commonwealth 7.11.23