Assassinations place Vance Boelter’s religion in the spotlight

JORDAN, MINN. – Vance Boelter’s home church meets in a suburban middle school cafeteria a few miles from Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store. The space is simple and unassuming: A plain 8-foot wooden cross stands on the side of the stage, jeans-clad worshipers sing contemporary Christian songs and pray for church youth on missionary trips abroad, Bible readings often allude to the end times they believe are coming soon.

On a recent Sunday, the sermon confronted the matter plaguing this little church in the two months since one of the most heinous acts of political violence in U.S. history.

“How many horrible things have been done in the name of Christianity?” fill-in Pastor Matt Adair asked. “The Bible is full of people who heard from God clearly and then go and not live out God’s moral will.”

Boelter wasn’t named in the sermon, but he weighs heavily on the Jordan Family Church community. The murders he is accused of committing have forced its members to question how one of their own — a prayer leader repeatedly praised in sermons for his missionary work in Africa and his devotion to his family — could allegedly resort to shooting two state lawmakers and their spouses.

The church has also landed itself in a broader debate roiling outside its doors.

To some religious scholars, Boelter has become a symbol of the politicization, some say radicalization, of parts of evangelical Christianity in the Trump era. They argue an us-vs.-them ideology is gripping even more mainstream churches and contributing to hardening divisions that have defined U.S. politics.

Until he was arrested in June, Boelter’s life was defined by Charismatic Christianity, a movement that emphasizes the active presence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life. At 17, Boelter burned his clothes and preached from the town square. He cashed out his family’s investments to fund missionary ventures in Africa. He spent time at a Texas school known to espouse Christian nationalism, the belief that the U.S. should be governed by Christian laws and values.

Charismatic Christians “have moved to the center of American politics in the Trump era,” said Matthew Taylor, who studies Charismatic Christianity and Christian nationalism at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. Taylor noted their beliefs differ widely and individual leaders and ideology can vary from church to church and leader to leader. “This is the wild west of Christianity,” he said.

Congregants and the pastor of Boelter’s home church defend their faith, saying that is not the Christianity they know.

“We don’t kill people,” founding Pastor Ken Krause said in a brief interview. Krause said he stepped down as the church’s pastor around the time of the shootings.

A Minnesota Star Tribune online review of the church’s sermons from the past year found none that advocate violence. They sometimes used imagery and language that evoke conflict. For example, they call Bible study for kids “sword training.”

Boelter has pleaded not guilty to a six-count federal indictment in connection with stalking and slaying DFL House Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and shooting DFL Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. He was also charged in Minnesota last week with first-degree murder and other charges.

Boelter, in a series of conversations with a Star Tribune reporter over the Sherburne County jail messaging system, declined to address the seeming conflict between the deeply held religious beliefs and the deadly predawn acts he is accused of committing.

Instead, Boelter described himself as a humble man of God committed to spreading the gospel. Still, he acknowledged, his family has “not always understood everything about my relationship with God.”

That relationship began nearly 40 years ago. Boelter was 17 and had just finished an evening shift at a vegetable canning factory when he was engulfed by a spiritual crisis. After praying and crying for 30 minutes, Boelter said in a sermon, “the presence of God came into that room. And I knew I was right with God.”

Boelter burned his personal belongings and began living in a town park to spread the gospel, eventually handing out thousands of pamphlets across the state.

“He just kind of went to the extreme,” said David Carlson, who has been friends with Boelter since childhood in Sleepy Eye, Minn. “It’s hard to talk Vance out of anything when he’s got a seed in his brain.”

Emerson was involved with a group of Charismatic Christians from Kansas City who were hacked to death in Zimbabwe in 1987 by rebels who opposed their attempts to dig wells for farmers suffering through a drought.

Emerson became an inspiration. After Emerson’s death, Boelter enrolled at Christ for the Nations Institute in Texas, which teaches “spiritual warfare” and has been linked to a movement emphasizing a religious takeover of the seven pillars of society, including government, education and the media.

The school and a related nonprofit played a role in the evolution of the modern evangelical movement, with ties to leaders who helped generate right-wing support for Donald Trump. The school claims it has educated more than 40,000 people from 170 countries.

Christ for the Nations officials denounced the shootings, saying its support of “violent prayer” has been misunderstood and their mission is to spread the gospel.

“These core Christian values and principles, which we highly esteem and embrace, are in stark contrast to the hateful beliefs, behavior and actions now being attributed to Mr. Boelter,” the school said in a statement.

“One of the things Christians are asked to do in the latter days is to evangelize and reach out to every group of people in the world, so they have trained missionaries to go everywhere,” said Daniel Hummel, director of a religious research center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Boelter told the Star Tribune that Christ for the Nations Institute introduced him to street ministry, where he helped people deal with “anything from homelessness to life controlling addictions.”

After graduating in 1990, Boelter returned to Minnesota and preached on college campuses, which he said led to his campus ministry in Marshall. Southwest Minnesota State University officials as well as leaders in Marshall’s faith community said they didn’t have documentation or any recollection confirming Boelter’s time there.

After getting married in 1997, Boelter focused more on family and establishing his career in the food business. He and his wife, Jenny, named their daughters after four Christian virtues: Faith, Grace, Hope and Joy. In honor of David Emerson, Boelter said they named their only son David.

Like many evangelicals, Boelter and Jenny homeschooled their children through high school.

Boelter’s religious journey seemed to reach a crescendo in Africa, where he spent the past six years on an audacious undertaking. He told the Star Tribune he was striving to solve Africa’s food crisis by turning the Democratic Republic of Congo into the continent’s “bread basket” while expanding the ranks of true believers.

Boelter said he put everything on the line for his African efforts, including quitting his management job. The business ventures ultimately failed.

“I cashed in my 401-K and we also downsized and sold our house,” Boelter said. “I have been ordained as a minister for about 30 years but pretty much 99% of the time I did ministry at my own expense.”

While in the Congo, he delivered a series of fiery sermons, at one point telling a packed church that when he dies and goes to heaven he wants to have his “own stories to tell.” He also emphasized his commitment to the Christian way of life.

“Some people, especially in America, say if you follow Jesus, everything will go good for you. That’s not in the Bible,” Boelter said. Most of Jesus’ 12 apostles, he said, “died horrible deaths serving the Lord.”

When the Star Tribune asked if God sent him to heal that divide, Boelter said, “No, I don’t think I have anything to do with the second coming you referenced.”

For years, the Boelters attended Bethany Church on Bethany Global University’s campus in Bloomington. In 2022, after discovering that the university was going to sell the campus, Krause — Bethany’s longtime pastor — established a new church in Jordan. The Boelters followed Krause to his new church.

Worshipers describe Jordan as a nondenominational, evangelical church where the Bible is considered the prime authority on how to live a Christian life. The congregation is unusually young and mostly white.

“It seemed really normal,” said Emma Fank, 15, who attended services twice with her mother after they moved to town two years ago.

Since the June shootings, the church has been mired in turmoil. Last Sunday, Adair told members Krause “is taking a break” as pastor, noting that may cause “anxiety” for some members. Krause confirmed the sabbatical to the Star Tribune but he did not address the reason.

Sermons are littered with references to the second coming of Jesus, which Krause predicted is “coming soon” and will result in “terrifying” punishments for those not on God’s “good side.”

While none of the sermons specifically called for violence, Krause and other church leaders condemned those who believe differently.

Speakers have blasted abortion rights, same-sex marriage, gender confusion and LGBTQ supporters. Wives have been told they should be submissive to husbands, with the pastor noting that women must ask themselves “if her career is keeping her from her primary duty as a wife and a mother.” In November, members of the United Methodist Church were called “apostates” for changing its rules to allow gay clergy.

“United Methodists is no longer a real church,” said one of the leaders at Jordan Family Church, according to a recording of the sermon. “It doesn’t adhere to the gospel. … It’s heretical. It’s gone over the top.”

“Boelter’s actions stem directly from decades of us vs. them rhetoric,” said Delaney Grace, who was raised far-right evangelical and briefly attended church with Boelter. (Grace asked only her first and middle names be used to avoid backlash.) “We were taught borderline violence toward anyone who disagreed. It was very much the end justifies the means.”

Krause said it’s “unfair” to suggest the church had anything to do with Boelter’s alleged actions, saying “whack jobs” on the fringes of the evangelical movement have politicized the rhetoric. He said he and the congregation prayed for Boelter’s capture when he was still at large the day after the shootings in June.

Some church members said they saw God’s hand at work on June 14, noting that Boelter was allegedly plotting to kill dozens of people — including politicians and abortion providers — but was forced to abandon his quest when a cop acting on a hunch allowed police to catch up to him at the home of his second set of victims. Churchgoers also point out how the Hoffmans survived despite being shot 17 times. The existence of modern-day miracles is a core belief among many Pentecostal Christians.

“I see two miraculous interventions,” said Bill Scott, 76, a retired electrical contractor who has attended Jordan and its predecessor church since 2016. “It was a bad thing, but I see God moving in and changing the outcome. It reinforces the validity of God’s presence.”

Since his June arrest, Boelter has been communicating with media organizations via a jail messaging system, where his comments are subject to official review.

He said one of the few friends who have contacted him in jail is David Sluka, who befriended Boelter when he started coming to Bethany Church in 2011. In an interview, Sluka said Boelter seems largely unaffected by his dramatic change in circumstances.

Sluka said he has encouraged his family to avoid speculating on why Boelter may have tried to kill so many people. But if Boelter cites his religious beliefs, Sluka said, he has “misinterpreted and misunderstood the teachings of Jesus.”

“I don’t want people to think I am siding with what Vance has allegedly done,” Sluka said. “I think something else is going on here. ... He is someone who has a story to tell. That is why it is compelling to hear what he believes is the truth.”

In responses to the Star Tribune, Boelter didn’t share any of the political conspiracy theories that he shared with the FBI and other media organizations. He also shied away from revealing personal information, instead echoing themes from his sermons. “The Bible says if we just break one of His commandments, it’s like we have broken them all, and we become a slave to sin,” Boelter said when asked about his religious epiphany as a teenager.

When asked how he can reconcile that statement with the violence he is accused of, Boelter begged off.

“I’ll answer your last question after I see how you report the information I have given you so far,” he said. “The Bible says if a person is faithful with a little, they will be faithful with much. ... My hope is you are a good steward with the information I have shared with you.”

But prodded again and again by the Star Tribune about how he could reconcile his faith with such heinous actions, and how these actions have rocked his church, Boelter chose to remain uncharacteristically silent.