Veteran of MLM pyramid scheme leading movement to 'put America under bondage of the kingdom of God'
Far-right Portland, Oregon-based activist Jenny Donnelly is quietly using her experience as a multilevel marketer to recruit Evangelical women to the cause of Christian nationalism.
A recent Rolling Stone expose delved into how Donnelly —founder of the Her Voice Movement — has been working with pro-Trump pastors to organize a million-woman march in Washington, DC in October of 2024, close to Election Day. Donnelly's group is stridently against LGBTQ+ rights and seeks to outlaw abortion throughout the United States, and has ties to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) tradition. Followers of NAR churches believe that Christians have the responsibility to "subdue" the nations of the world to force Christian "dominion" as a way of bringing about the "end times" prophecy of Christ returning to earth. She warned in a recent speech that if Christians don't seize political power, it creates "a big vacuum for unrighteousness to take over."
"I looked [subdue] up in Hebrew; that word actually means ‘to take it under bondage,'" Donnelly said, quoting scripture that read "I commanded you to look at the Earth, and when it acts up, bring it under the bondage of the kingdom of God."
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Donnelly is a seasoned marketing veteran, and was once touted as a "hall of fame" earner for Texas-based multilevel marketing company AdvoCare. While Donnelly herself claimed to have made more than seven figures from AdvoCare, other sellers weren't as fortunate: Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had returned nearly $150 million to more than 220,000 people harmed by the company, claiming they were victims of a "pyramid scheme."
"To recruit people, the FTC alleged, AdvoCare and the other defendants told distributors to make exaggerated claims about how much money average people could make—as much as hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year," an FTC press release read. "The FTC alleged that distributors were told to create emotional narratives about how they gained financial success through AdvoCare and to instill fear in potential recruits that they would suffer from regrets later if they declined to invest in AdvoCare."
Donnelly went from selling AdvoCare to selling Christian nationalism with her company Teletestai Ministries. Rolling Stone reported that the company went from grossing $121,000 in 2018 to more than $1.5 million in 2021 as she became a leading figure opposing Covid-19n related restrictions. She's now recruiting women for her proposed DC march through a website dubbed the "Esther Network," which is named after a Biblical character who fought back against repression of Jewish people to the point where her chief enemy was impaled on a spike. The Esther Network solicits subscriptions for $40/month.
During a speech at the Portland convention center, Lou Engle — an NAR pastor allied with Donnelly and her group — railed against the "transgender demonic spirit," saying "tonight, I call forth Esther. For a time such as this."
