13 historic churches allegedly control DC’s church landscape — shocking revelation on ‘The Glenn Beck Program’

In 2019, Mercy Culture Church — a charismatic, conservative Christian church — was founded in Fort Worth, Texas. In the seven years since, it has planted numerous churches in Texas and elsewhere, the most recent satellite campus being in Washington, D.C.

Mercy Culture’s D.C. plant is pastored by none other than BlazeTV contributor Jaco Booyens and his wife, Philipa.

Sadly, getting Mercy Culture D.C. up and running has been something of a nightmare. On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Booyens pulled the curtain back on D.C.’s deeply entrenched spiritual battle, where historic churches allegedly function as gatekeepers against conservative biblical teaching.

Booyens explains that due to the Biden administration encouraging churches to sell their properties to developers, it’s been difficult to find a physical location for Mercy Culture D.C.

After much searching, they finally picked a building, but the nightmare was just beginning.

“We start getting complaints from the building. They’re saying … ’You’re very political … you’re saying you’re anti-abortion; you’re saying that there’s two genders; you’re saying that kids should not be trans-ified,”’ Booyens recounts, noting that he countered these complaints by arguing that these issues are “not political” but deeply “spiritual.”

Disturbed by the pushback, he started “digging” into D.C.’s long church history, and what he found was this: “There are demonic strongholds in [D.C.] that have been given right of passage, dominion — a home inside the church.”

He found the proof hiding in D.C.’s oldest churches.

“There are 13 churches in this city that are 200+ years old that run on the principle that they are — and they said it out loud to us in person — that they are the collective mind of the Holy Spirit, which is blasphemy,” he tells Glenn.

When he was touring the oldest of the churches (St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, founded in the 1700s), the man conducting the tour bragged that the church of Mariann Edgar Budde — the female bishop who gained national attention for her progressive sermon at the Washington National Cathedral during Trump’s 2025 inauguration prayer service — was “one of the 13.”

He told Booyens, “We all approved that speech because that’s how correction gets made in this city; that’s how things pass through to Congress. [It] comes through this collective mind of the Holy Spirit.”

Immediately, Booyens could see the demonic “strongholds” controlling the city’s church ecosystem, ensuring the true gospel cannot spread.

This nefarious 13, he tells Glenn, is why Mercy Culture D.C. is having such a difficult time finding a permanent building. To them, Booyens is a “radical” who must be stopped.

“We are at our fourth location now,” he says, noting how evictions keep rolling in because his church is consistently labeled “too political” for standing against abortion and gender-transitioning procedures for children.

“[D.C.] is different than other cities. In this city, that which is evil often is led by the church.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.