Before we get into any of this, I want to give you the book connected with this subject and the larger spiritual battle I believe is happening around us

And before you take my word for anything else in this article, read this one for yourself.

In 1944, America's Office of Strategic Services—the predecessor in the American intelligence lineage before the creation of the CIA—produced the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Today, the CIA itself publishes the declassified manual.

READ THE SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL ON THE CIA WEBSITE

The CIA also has its own explanation of the document:

CIA: THE ART OF SIMPLE SABOTAGE

Read it.

Seriously.

Because some of what is happening in the news right now becomes much more interesting when you understand the documented history of American intelligence and domestic surveillance.

Before I write, I want you to know. I love my government, the ethics of the Declaration of Independence which teach of Christ Jesus, who showed all the world that each human is made as an image of the creator, Jesus, the one who spoke it into existence, the one who died on a cross for our sin, rose from the grave and said "follow me"...that Jesus showed us the ethics that are in the founding documents of this nation. Those words mean something to me, because I believe in Jesus. America is a product of revival, specifically a Christian revival that spread across the globe.

I served our nation in the military, my wife served, my parents served my kids served, my grandfathers served, one of them served to get citizenship and they sent him to Korea. Most of us wore uniforms overseas in combat operations in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

This article Matters, and the only questions that matters is the last line of this article.

THE BREAKING NEWS: FEDERAL AGENTS WERE INSIDE CHURCHES

New federal court records released in August 2026 reveal a sweeping Department of Homeland Security investigation surrounding anti-ICE activity in Minnesota.

One operation was called:

Operation Puppet Master.

Another was:

Project Whipple Shield.

According to reporting based upon the government's investigative records, undercover federal personnel attended meetings while concealing their identities, entered Signal groups, secretly recorded activities, documented license plates, obtained financial information and examined organizations investigators suspected of being connected with efforts to interfere with immigration enforcement.

And some of this occurred inside churches.

The Associated Press reports that surveillance reached meetings at churches, schools, parks and other locations and that investigators compiled information concerning progressive organizations and labor unions.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: DOCUMENTS SHOW FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE OPERATION TARGETED GROUPS AND UNIONS

MPR News reports something even more specific.

An undercover federal operative entered University Baptist Church in Minneapolis on May 28, 2026, and secretly observed and recorded an activity taking place there.

That has now raised an additional legal question because a federal court had restricted immigration enforcement activity at certain houses of worship.

MPR NEWS: FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE OF MINNEAPOLIS CHURCH MAY HAVE VIOLATED COURT ORDER

Another MPR investigation describes undercover personnel attending community meetings and the larger controversy surrounding the scope of the operation:

MPR NEWS: COMMUNITY GROUPS DISTURBED BY SCOPE OF FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE

Whatever eventually comes out in court, one fact is already important:

Federal investigators conducted undercover surveillance that reached activities occurring inside American churches.

Now, before my conservative friends get too comfortable:

We've seen federal power pointed in the other political direction too.

DURING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: THE FBI AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES

This one should concern every Christian, regardless of denomination.

In January 2023, the FBI's Richmond Field Office produced an intelligence document concerning what it called:

“Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.”

The FBI document discussed possible connections between a subset of violent extremists and traditionalist Catholic communities.

But the methods contemplated in the document created a firestorm.

Congressional investigators subsequently revealed that the FBI proposed using religious organizations as avenues for “tripwire and source development.”

According to House Judiciary Committee records, the proposal included contacting Catholic parishes and diocesan leadership and potentially developing sources with “placement and access” inside religious communities.

Speaking of the conservative evanglical church, Hillar Clinton said,
“Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

-Clinton, H. R. (2015, April 23). Women in the World Summit 2015 keynote address [Speech]. Women in the World Summit, New York, NY. Vote Smart. Vote Smart transcript

Read the congressional documents yourself:

HOUSE JUDICIARY: FBI SOUGHT TO DEVELOP SOURCES IN LOCAL CATHOLIC CHURCHES

Congress later reported that the FBI had already interviewed a priest and a choir director connected with a Richmond Catholic church.

The investigation wasn't ultimately confined to one isolated office either. Congressional documents showed involvement or contributions from additional field offices.

HOUSE JUDICIARY: MULTIPLE FBI FIELD OFFICES COORDINATED ON THE CATHOLIC MEMO

Then, in 2025, additional congressional documents disclosed something even more troubling.

According to the House Judiciary Committee, after a priest declined to provide information about an individual under investigation, the FBI surveilled the priest and opened an investigative assessment concerning him.

The Committee reported coordination involving FBI Headquarters and other domestic and international offices.

HOUSE JUDICIARY: 2025 REPORT ON THE FBI'S INVESTIGATION OF CATHOLICS

That is not somebody's Facebook post.

Those are congressional oversight records concerning FBI documents.

The FBI withdrew the Richmond product after it became public, and the Justice Department Inspector General subsequently reviewed its creation.

So during Biden's presidency, legitimate concerns about violent extremism became entangled with a federal intelligence product proposing sources inside religious communities.

That should concern liberals.

That should concern conservatives.

That should concern Christians.

DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: DHS AND “RIGHTWING EXTREMISM”

Now go backward to 2009.

Shortly after Barack Obama became president, the Department of Homeland Security produced an intelligence assessment titled:

Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

The document was distributed to federal, state, local and tribal law-enforcement officials.

Congress itself subsequently investigated it.

Why?

Because the terminology was extraordinarily broad.

A House Homeland Security Committee report noted concerns about descriptions touching people who opposed things such as:

gun control,

abortion,

same-sex marriage,

and other political issues.

The report also generated enormous controversy because it discussed the possibility of extremists attempting to recruit returning military veterans.

And here's an important detail:

The House report says DHS had no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists were currently planning acts of violence when the assessment was produced.

Congress considered the civil-liberties implications serious enough to demand information about the assessment's source materials, drafting, clearance and dissemination.

Read the congressional record:

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT ON THE 2009 DHS “RIGHTWING EXTREMISM” ASSESSMENT

The government absolutely has a legitimate responsibility to investigate people planning political violence.

But opposition to abortion is not terrorism.

Supporting the Second Amendment is not terrorism.

Believing traditional Christian teaching concerning marriage is not terrorism.

Serving in the United States military is certainly not terrorism.

Criminal activity is criminal activity.

Political belief is political belief.

We should never confuse the two.

THEN THERE WAS THE IRS

The Obama years produced another major controversy involving conservative nonprofit organizations.

In 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concluded that IRS employees had used inappropriate criteria when determining which organizations applying for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny.

Those criteria included organizational names and policy positions rather than simply evidence of impermissible political campaign intervention.

The Treasury Department itself acknowledged the problem.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew called the criteria unacceptable.

TREASURY SECRETARY LEW'S OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Treasury later acknowledged that inappropriate criteria had remained in place for more than 18 months and resulted in significant processing delays and unnecessary requests for information.

TREASURY: IRS RESPONSE TO THE INSPECTOR GENERAL INVESTIGATION

And TIGTA's subsequent review states explicitly that the original investigation found organizations had been selected based upon names and policy positions.

TREASURY INSPECTOR GENERAL: FOLLOW-UP ON TAX-EXEMPT APPLICATIONS

Again, let's keep this accurate.

That was primarily a controversy involving 501(c)(4) political/social-welfare organizations, not evidence that Obama ordered agents to infiltrate Christian churches.

But it demonstrates why Americans should pay attention whenever government bureaucracy begins sorting citizens according to ideology.

And now go further backward.

Because none of this started with Obama.

1999 — PROJECT MEGIDDO

As America approached the year 2000, the FBI produced an intelligence assessment called:

PROJECT MEGIDDO.

Federal authorities were legitimately concerned about violent extremists who might interpret the millennium through apocalyptic ideology and use it as justification for violence.

But the report generated controversy because its discussion entered territory involving religious and prophetic beliefs.

Attorney General Janet Reno publicly addressed the controversy.

And this distinction remains essential:

Believing biblical prophecy is not terrorism.

Believing Jesus is returning is not terrorism.

Distrusting government is not terrorism.

If somebody plans violence, investigate the violence.

But religious belief itself is protected.

THE 1980s — YES, THE FBI ACTUALLY SURVEILLED CHURCHES

Now we get to something incredibly relevant to today's story.

During the Reagan administration, the FBI investigated the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador—CISPES.

The Bureau suspected possible connections between American activists and revolutionary organizations in Central America.

The investigation ultimately generated an enormous amount of information.

A later Senate Intelligence Committee investigation estimated that retrievable information had been added to FBI files concerning approximately:

2,375 individuals

and

1,330 organizations.

But here is the part pastors need to see.

The Senate report states that the FBI conducted physical surveillance at rallies and demonstrations, attended a Mass at a university and:

SURVEILLED CHURCHES AND CHURCH GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE SANCTUARY MOVEMENT.

The report says 22 FBI field offices used physical surveillance techniques in the CISPES and related investigations.

Don't take my word for it.

Read the Senate document:

U.S. SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: THE FBI AND CISPES

So when someone says:

“The government would never surveil a church.”

It already happened.

And the United States Senate documented it.

THE 1970s — CONGRESS DISCOVERS HOW FAR THIS HAD GONE

Eventually Congress started asking questions.

In 1975, Senator Frank Church chaired the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.

We remember it simply as:

THE CHURCH COMMITTEE.

Ironically, “Church” here was the senator's last name—not a reference to religious churches.

The committee examined CIA, FBI, NSA and other intelligence activities.

Its findings were extraordinary.

The Senate today summarizes the committee's conclusion this way:

The intelligence excesses were not the product of one political party, one administration or one individual.

That sentence may be the most important sentence in this entire article.

UNITED STATES SENATE: HISTORY OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE

The committee investigated more than a hundred thousand documents and hundreds of witnesses.

And among the programs it examined was one of the most notorious domestic intelligence operations in American history.

COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO was an FBI program.

It began in 1956.

The FBI targeted organizations and individuals it considered threats to the social order.

Eventually those targets included communist organizations, antiwar activists and figures connected with the Civil Rights Movement.

The Senate specifically identifies the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr. among targets associated with COINTELPRO investigations.

Read the FBI's own archived files:

FBI VAULT: COINTELPRO

This wasn't simply passive intelligence gathering.

COINTELPRO became notorious because intelligence operations crossed into attempts to disrupt and discredit organizations and individuals.

Think about that.

Government wasn't merely asking:

What are they doing?

Sometimes government was asking:

How do we disrupt them?

CIA OPERATION CHAOS — MHCHAOS

Meanwhile, the CIA had its own operation.

OPERATION CHAOS — MHCHAOS.

The concern was foreign influence over American antiwar organizations.

That is a legitimate intelligence question.

Were hostile foreign governments secretly controlling American political movements?

The problem was what happened as the investigation expanded.

The CIA eventually accumulated enormous amounts of information involving Americans engaged in domestic political activity.

Historical CIA accounts describe an index containing approximately 300,000 names, along with thousands of files involving American citizens and organizations.

And after this massive collection?

The investigation did not establish the sweeping theory that Moscow or Beijing was centrally directing America's antiwar movement.

NSA PROJECT MINARET

At approximately the same time, the National Security Agency operated:

PROJECT MINARET.

Watchlists ultimately contained American citizens and organizations.

Thousands of intelligence reports were generated from communications involving watch-listed Americans.

And this occurred without the warrant system Americans would normally expect today.

There was also the earlier NSA SHAMROCK program involving enormous volumes of international telegram traffic.

Different agencies.

Different presidents.

Different political targets.

Same warning:

Government surveillance authority can expand.

CIA HTLINGUAL — THEY WERE OPENING MAIL

Before Americans had email, Signal, Facebook or smartphones, intelligence agencies had something much simpler to examine.

Your mail.

The CIA's HTLINGUAL program examined mail traveling between the United States and the Soviet Union.

According to the CIA's own historical account, approximately 2.7 million letters were covered and more than 215,000 were opened over the life of the program.

Read the CIA's own historical treatment:

CIA: THE EVOLUTION OF U.S. SURVEILLANCE POLICY

THE CIA'S “FAMILY JEWELS”

Then there are the CIA's own infamous:

FAMILY JEWELS.

In 1973, CIA Director James Schlesinger ordered agency employees to report activities that potentially exceeded the CIA's charter.

What came back was a remarkable collection of controversial operations involving subjects such as:

domestic intelligence;

mail opening;

drug experimentation;

surveillance;

and other questionable activities.

The CIA eventually declassified the collection.

CIA READING ROOM: FAMILY JEWELS

Again:

You don't have to believe a conspiracy theory.

Read the government's documents.

NOW GO ALL THE WAY BACK TO 1944

And suddenly that strange Simple Sabotage Field Manual becomes fascinating again.

Remember:

This was an OSS wartime manual for sabotaging enemy organizations.

It was not a plan for infiltrating American churches.

But look at the organizational techniques it taught saboteurs:

Force everything through channels.

Make speeches.

Refer everything to committees.

Make committees unnecessarily large.

Introduce irrelevant issues.

Argue endlessly about wording.

Reopen decisions already made.

Advocate excessive caution.

Question whether leadership has authority to act.

Multiply paperwork.

Multiply procedures.

Require three approvals where one would work.

Reward inefficient workers.

Criticize effective workers.

Misfile important documents.

Delay correspondence.

Ask endless unnecessary questions.

Apply every regulation rigidly enough to obstruct the mission.

Read that list again.

Then think about churches.

Think about nonprofits.

Think about corporations.

Think about government itself.

The lesson isn't that every dysfunctional church has a CIA agent sitting in the third row.

Matt Capps made that joke beautifully back in 2015:

PASTOR, YOU MIGHT HAVE CIA AGENTS IN YOUR CHURCH!

The lesson is much more useful.

An organization doesn't always have to be destroyed from outside.

Sometimes it becomes so divided, bureaucratic, distracted and dysfunctional that it destroys itself.

SO WHAT SHOULD CHRISTIANS DO?

First:

Stop panicking.

And yes, my liberal friends, that includes you.

The current administration investigating activists you sympathize with doesn't suddenly make every federal officer evil.

Just as the Biden-era FBI controversy didn't mean every FBI agent hated Catholics.

Just as the Obama-era DHS report didn't mean every DHS employee considered conservatives terrorists.

I still believe in our constitutional government.

I believe the overwhelming majority of Americans working in law enforcement and government believe they are protecting this country.

And I'm sure investigators involved in these operations would tell us they had reasons for what they did.

That doesn't mean we stop asking questions.

We the people have both the right and responsibility to hold government accountable.

That's part of the American system.

And Christians have an even higher reason not to panic.

JESUS IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH

Not Washington.

Not DHS.

Not the FBI.

Not the CIA.

Not a president.

Not a political party.

Jesus Christ.

Paul says:

“And he is the head of the body, the church.” — Colossians 1:18

Jesus already knew His people would live under governments.

And Scripture doesn't teach Christians to spend their lives terrified of them.

Romans 13 teaches us to respect legitimate governing authority.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” — Romans 13:1

So obey the law.

Pay what you owe.

Live peacefully.

Do good.

Paul puts the Christian posture beautifully:

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” — Romans 12:18

That's where I want to live.

But obedience to government is not worship of government.

When government commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands, Peter and the apostles gave us the boundary:

“We must obey God rather than men.” — Acts 5:29

And Jesus gave us the posture:

“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” — Matthew 10:16

Wise.

Not naive.

Know your history.

Know the Constitution.

Know your rights.

Know who has access to sensitive information.

Have financial accountability.

Protect your people.

And remain:

innocent.

No secret violence.

No fantasies about attacking government.

No paranoia.

No hatred.

If you believe strongly in the Second Amendment, exercise that constitutional right lawfully, responsibly and openly. The American tradition provides lawful avenues for political organization, public advocacy, peaceful assembly, voting, petitioning government and lawful firearm ownership. We don't need shadows.

Because we the people are part of the government of this constitutional republic.

And especially those of us who believe that human beings were created by God should understand something deeper.

Government did not create your humanity.

Government did not give you your soul.

Government did not create the church.

And government is not the head of the church.

Jesus is.

So I am not afraid of the government.

I don't hate the government.

I don't want Christians hiding from the government.

I want Christians obeying lawful authority, praying for those in authority, participating openly in civic life, defending constitutional liberty through lawful means, telling the truth and refusing to surrender to fear.

Jesus told us:

“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” — Matthew 10:28

And He said:

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — Matthew 16:18

So stop worrying.

Liberals, conservatives, Christians—stop living in fear.

Be wise as serpents.

Be innocent as doves.

Know what your government is doing.

Hold it accountable.

Obey the law.

Exercise your constitutional rights openly and lawfully.

Pray for those who govern us.

And remember who is actually in charge.

Presidents come and go.

Parties come and go.

Intelligence directors come and go.

Governments themselves eventually come and go.

Jesus Christ remains.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” — Hebrews 13:8

We the people should never be afraid to watch the people we elected and the institutions we created.

And Christians especially have no reason to live afraid of earthly government.

Jesus is the Head.

Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is in charge.

Have you ever prayedalone with God while reading Read John 3:16, and Read Romans 10:9, and doing what it says...

John 3:16 (KJV)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Romans 10:9 (KJV)
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

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