The Seven Mountains Mandate by Matthew Boedy Book Review

About the Book:

Exposing the decades-long plan to radically transform America—how the Seven Mountains movement, prosperity preachers, and political operatives are destroying democracy under Trump’s second administration.

The movement to install a populist strongman in the White House with a game plan for enforcing right-wing policies and catering to evangelical Christians started well before Donald Trump’s first candidacy. For decades, a well-funded network of religious and political operatives has been quietly working to dismantle democracy and replace it with Christian theocracy. Their strategy? The Seven Mountains mandate—a plan to seize control of seven key pillars of American society and reshape the nation:

• Education
• Politics
• Religion
• Media
• Entertainment
• Family
• Business

Scholar Matthew Boedy exposes how this movement—driven by prosperity preachers, extremist politicians, and right-wing power brokers—laid the groundwork for Trump’s presidency and is now advancing its agenda under his second administration. From local school board elections to billion-dollar megachurches, this multipronged effort is reshaping the country in ways most Americans don’t even realize. Discover what has motivated the key players in this movement, how they’ve operated, and what is the unprecedented role of millennial “kingmaker” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and the new face of Christian nationalism and the Seven Mountain movement, who believes, “…we finally have a president who understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.”

Today’s news is so much more than the scattershot orders of an extreme administration. With Project 2025 policies in motion, the Seven Mountains movement is closer than ever to its goal of turning America into a Christian nationalist state. Leaders of this movement have been playing a long game, undermining democracy to establish a theocracy, but it’s not too late to halt their progress and reverse the tide. This book reveals what’s happening behind the scenes—and what you can do to stop it.

My Review:

As a Christian growing up in the 50s and 60s, I was in a society where Christians were content to live and flourish within a secular society. We had a Christian elementary school in our community along with the public one and we had Christian colleges alongside secular universities. Now it seems some Christians are not content with that situation and I wanted to know what changed.

I've known for some time of the existence of Project 2025 but I never understood why it exists. Boedy explained so much I now get it. Now I understand the concept of some Christians not being content to exist in a secular society but rather wanting to conform society and its institutions to be Christian.

He goes back to the origin of the concept, to Bill Bright in the 1970s, then Loren Cunningham and others, as the years went by. Some refer to Gen. 1:28 saying Christians are to have dominion over what was later identified as seven areas of culture. Rather than Christianity existing beside other religions or flourishing in a secular society, it was meant to dominate. The righteous minority would need to gain power to exercise the necessary control. That meant democracy (and the liberal majority) in the US would need to be destroyed.

Boedy goes through the seven areas and the work thought need to be done in them. Education is attacked because it indoctrinates kids against God and against America (as a Christian nation). It is no longer enough to have Christian schools and universities along with secular ones. All education must be Christian. With respect to government, democracy must be done away with in preparation for governing by a righteous minority, implementing “biblical” policies even if it is at the loss of constitutional rights. Churches are influenced by Satan, they say, and need to be purified. Regarding money, God wants capitalism free of constraining regulations, transferring wealth from the evil rich to true believers who will use it for God's agenda. Some promote a conspiracy where White people will be replaced with non-White by allowing open southern borders in the US, hence intense immigration work must be done.

For me, the most enlightening chapter was the one on the media. As a young person, we never gave a thought to the possibility of Walter Cronkite lying to us, We trusted the news broadcasters. Now, many Christians believe there is a general conspiracy against God, a conspiracy that has taken over all our cultural institutions, including the news media. (115, 116) Secular media is in the devil's hands and is a propaganda machine. People need to be kept from being brainwashed by it.

I found Boedy's book to be very enlightening, explaining much happening in the US today. I highly recommend this book.

My rating: 5/5 stars.

This book releases September 30, 2025.

About the Author:

Matthew Boedy lives in Gainesville, Georgia with his wife and two daughters. He teaches first-year writing and within the professional writing English degree at the University of North Georgia. He was targeted in 2016 by Turning Point and its “professor watchlist” after speaking up against allowing concealed guns on college campuses. He’s now one of the foremost experts on Turning Point and its Christian Nationalism. His first book, Speaking of Evil, examined the changing rhetoric of evil. He is a former journalist with an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in rhetoric.

John Knox Westminster Press, 226 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)