Matthew and Clara Trewhella
Before we get into this "Pastor," we first must understand the language of these Christofascists. The word "Pre-Born" and "Un-born" are relatively new words that have no purpose but to manipulate and encourage attacks (physical and emotional) on women. Carolina Abboud discusses this in her dissertation A Fetus By Any Other Name: How Words Shaped The Fetal Personhood Movement in U.S. Courts and Society (1884-1973) "The use of certain words nudged courts to grant additional rights to embryos and fetuses. In the 1960s, writers began describing the science of development, using words like "unborn child" and humanizing descriptions to make embryos and fetuses seem like people already born. That helped build an idea of embryos and fetuses as having "life" before birth. When people began asking courts to legalize abortion care in the 1970s, attorneys on the opposite side argued that embryos and fetuses were "human life," and that that "life" began at conception" (Abboud, 2021).
Militia "Pastor" Matthew Trewhella
Matthew Trewhella started his "church," Mercy Seat Christian Chuch, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1989s and has been a constant source of harassment for the women and the LGBTQIA+ communities in the area. In 1990, Trewhella founded the militant anti-abortion group Missionaries to the Unborn.
By 1992, Missionaries to the Unborn had been sued by the City of Milwaukee for blocking women from entering abortion clinics. In State of Wisconsin v Missionaries to the Unborn (1992), the state asserted that 32 members of the group had engaged in blockades and had harassed and intimidated women seeking medical abortions and the medical providers. The case bounced back and forth between state and federal courthouses. In the end, the case set limits for anti-anti-abortion activists, and Trewhella was sentenced to 14 months in prison for blockading abortion clinics.
By 1994, Trewhella was making headlines nationwide. During an August 17, 1994 meeting of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, according to the Virginia Pilot, presenters played a tape of Trewhella addressing the U.S. Taxpayers Party's Wisconsin state convention. In the videotape, Trewhella states, "Our government wants to disarm us... What should we do? We should do what thousands of people across this nation are doing; we should form militias." At the time, Trewhella was one of many other anti-abortion activists who were the focus of a federal investigation into whether a conspiracy existed to shut down abortion clinics nationwide.
Later, Mercy Seat Christian Church would lose its building on West Bluemound Rd in Milwaukee.
In The Doctrine, Trewhella argues that the federal, state, and local governments are growing too big and too powerful. Further, it argues that the governments are unjust and immoral, having infringed on natural law and "God's law." The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine states that when the superior or "higher civil authority" becomes "tyrannical," it is the right and duty of "lower authorities" to refuse obedience to the higher authority. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, state authorities across the nation imposed mask mandates in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. According to a Fox6 article, Trewhella argued in a Brookfield, WI city council meeting that mask mandates were a step to tyranny. "Tyranny is built plank by plank... The Jews didn't one day get called to the edge of the railroad and told to get into the boxcar."
Mercy Seat Christian Church is currently holding services at the Embassy Suites in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
In his sermon "Warning to America: A Look at the Dobbs Case (July 3, 2022), Trewhella ironically called the U.S. Supreme Court evil and their decision to overturn Roe v Wade "illogical idiocy."Trewhella Cements His Role as a Christofascist Leader
In August 2013, Trewhella published his book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. Based on the writings of the Lutheran Magdeburg Confession (1550). Confession "argued that the "subordinate powers" in a state, faced with the situation where the "supreme power" is working to destroy true religion, may go further than non-cooperation [violent uprising, etc.] with the supreme power and assist the faithful to resist. This work drew heavily on Luther, including his Beerwolf concept as one of the multiple conditions an evil ruler would need to fulfill before opposition to his rule could be justified. In other words, even though an evil ruler is acting as a private citizen, he may not be resisted unless all other conditions are fulfilled. One of them was that the evil ruler must show himself to be a true Beerwolf and servant of the devil" (Whitford, David, Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition).
Welcome hate preacher and domestic terrorist Matt Shea to the rise of Matthew Trewhella. Shea has a long history of armed standoffs against state and federal law enforcement agencies. He was a participant in the Bundy standoff and another in Las Vegas when a veteran has been red-flagged. Red-flag laws allow law enforcement agencies to remove any guns or knives from persons deemed by psychologists and law enforcement as a danger to themselves or others.
It seems Matt has discovered The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine.
Later, Shea invited Trewhella on his podcast introducing him to Shea's tens of thousands of listeners.
While Shea may have introduced Trewhella to his followers, we have more information for our readers.
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