A California church sparks a debate over faith, freedom and hate

One afternoon in late January, a crowd gathered with a purpose outside the Hotel del Coronado. The conservative evangelical Awaken Church was holding its first service in the city as part of a long effort to establish a church there, and some residents were protesting. “No place for hate,” they chanted, waving Pride flags and pointing to anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from church leaders.

Calling itself “fresh, real and powerful,” Awaken is known for charismatic pastors delivering commanding sermons that connect their personal experiences to Scripture.

It’s also known for its unabashed political advocacy. Its leaders have hosted prominent allies of Donald Trump, protested against transgender rights, and likened elected Democrats to evil biblical figures and the LGBTQ+ community to the devil. It partners with a right-wing organization that says it is building an “army” to “save” America.

Many opponents consider Awaken less a church than an extremist political group. They’ve shown up at City Council meetings, met with city leaders, written letters to local newspapers, circulated a petition seeking to keep Awaken off the island and created a dedicated Facebook group with more than 200 members.

Church leaders haven’t been dissuaded. Lead pastor Jurgen Matthesius has said Awaken will “drive out” the “demoniacs on Coronado” who oppose it. It calls opening new locations “taking territory.”

To residents like Mali Hinesley, that language is “very disconcerting.”

Awaken’s expansion isn’t new; the church already has six locations around the county, plus more in other states. But it has faced unusually fierce opposition in Coronado — something locals attribute to the city’s small-town, everyone-knows-everyone atmosphere.

“The more they were active around the island, the more concerned I became,” said John Pottridge, who has spoken to council members and written to the Coronado Eagle & Journal.

“My concern became even greater when the entire Christian nationalist movement became prevalent across the country,” he added, referring to the ideology that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should remain one.

Matthesius has explained the church’s position on its politics. “America was founded on biblical principles,” he says in a video on the church’s website. From his perspective, separation of church and state means the state should not interfere in the church — not the other way around.

Apprehension over Awaken has spilled out to the broader Coronado community, prompting discussions among the city’s Christian leaders about Christian nationalism, expressions of faith and religious liberty.

“There’s no faith community in the world or in history that has ever totally had the lock on God,” said J.T. Greenleaf, pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. “And I have to approach this with a great deal of humility. But that doesn’t prevent me from being able to see something like this that is … creating some pretty dramatic divisions, and only for political purposes.”

So far, Awaken has held an Easter service and three preview services in Coronado, along with prayer and interest nights at Village Elementary School. This month, it held a “Night of Christmas” event at the Ferry Landing and Rady Shell.

To Mike Yeager, the pastor who will lead its Coronado congregation with his wife, Katy, what they have planned is just spreading the good word.

“Jesus told His disciples to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel,’” Yeager said in an email. “Coronado is part of all the world and happens to be where my wife and I live and are committed to raising our family. We love this city and have a heart for everybody in the city to hear the life-transforming message of Jesus.”

He doesn’t deny that the church is politically active. He says Christians should advocate for what they believe in. But he rejects charges that Awaken’s politics amount to Christian nationalism, calling the term “a thought-terminating cliché used to bully and intimidate Christians.”

Matthesius did not respond to an individual request for an interview, and Awaken Church did not respond to questions emailed by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

‘Not officially associated’

Matthesius and his wife, Leanne, arrived in San Diego in 2005 from Australia, tasked with establishing a congregation of C3 Church Global. The megachurch is branded as youthful and modern, with casually dressed pastors leading services with a rock-concert feel. But the doctrine is traditional, opposing same-sex marriage and premarital sex.

The couple established five churches in San Diego County before branching out on their own in 2020 and rebranding them Awaken. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Awaken was catapulted into the limelight as it held in-person services in defiance of public health orders. The church soon became a center of a right-wing backlash, drawing the attention of Tucker Carlson, Eric Trump and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who all spoke at Awaken events.

But much of the Coronado opposition to Awaken comes from its ties to the RMNNT, an affiliated right-wing group that calls itself “warriors of liberty” and says its mission is to “raise up a bold and passionate army to effectively influence politics.”

Brad Willis, a retired foreign correspondent and one of Coronado’s most vocal opponents of Awaken, has written a five-part series on his blog about the church, the RMNNT and what he says are its connections to city leaders. “This is really an extreme threat to the future of our community, our county, our state and the nation,” he said, citing the church’s expansion in other states.

The RMNNT, which did not respond to requests for comment, often meets at an Awaken church and is promoted on the church’s website. Its voter guides promote candidates for elected office, including in Coronado, and this year they advised voters either to drop their ballots off in person with election officials or to bring them to an Awaken church “to prevent voter fraud.”

“RMNNT is an external organization run by a member of Awaken Church and is not officially associated with our church in any way,” Yeager said in an email. “They are a partner organization that we refer to for election information and activation.”

The group also holds candidate trainings to teach people how to run for office and has held events with local elected leaders, including two with Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey, one training and one candidate forum.

Bailey said he is not affiliated with the RMNNT but has spoken at its events. At its trainings, he said he has helped potential candidates orient themselves with the mechanics of running for office, attending as “an informed citizen,” not as mayor.

Earlier this year, the RMNNT’s founder, Alana Sorensen, now a member of the San Diego County Republican Party’s central committee, credited Bailey with encouraging her to run and thanked Awaken and its pastors for their support.

‘Who God calls us to be’

In March, Awaken held an Easter service at the city’s community center, which the church initially called its Coronado campus. Awaken calls all its locations campuses, but several residents raised concerns with city leaders over applying the label to a public facility.

Outgoing Councilmember Mike Donovan said the city asked Awaken to remove the phrase from its marketing materials. He said the church took more than six weeks to respond. “We told them verbally, we sent them a letter, and then we sent them another letter saying we’re going to cancel your reservation,” he said. “That’s what finally got them to take it down.”

Yeager said he had “no idea” why it took so long to change the language but found the request unusual. “It struck me as an odd request and an infringement on free speech that the city would require us to change a word on our website to be able to rent a public space,” he said.

Residents who oppose Awaken’s presence had also asked the city to refuse to rent to it and come to council meetings to warn of what they call its dangerous political rhetoric — but officials said Coronado cannot deny a group based on its views, citing free-speech protections.

Steve Mather is the former pastor at Coronado Community Church and the current president of the Coronado Council of Churches. The group formed in 1975 to show solidarity among local Christian churches but disbanded during the pandemic. It began to meet again this year — and Awaken has been on members’ minds.

Council members discussed the church at their meeting this fall, Mather said, including whether to issue a statement about it. “There was concern about all of the controversy,” he said.

In May, he attended a local screening of “God & Country,” a documentary about Christian nationalism, and spoke to attendees on a panel with other local faith leaders. Afterward, he hosted a group that met on Zoom for about a month to discuss “The False White Gospel,” a book about Christian nationalism.

Other local pastors expressed worry over Awaken.

When Greenleaf became pastor of Coronado’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church a little over a year ago, he says his predecessor told him about Awaken. Greenleaf says his own initial concerns about the church’s political activism and divisions over it in the community have been borne out. “That’s not who God calls us to be,” he said.

Eric Smith, the current pastor at Coronado Community Church, believes what Awaken offers is far outside the desires of Coronado’s faithful, who he says are already deeply involved in their community in other ways.

But at its fall meeting, the Council of Churches ultimately decided against putting out a statement about Awaken because it couldn’t reach a consensus — a decision John Roamer, the pastor of the Coronado Southern Baptist Church, supported.

“I do think that churches should address political issues from a biblical perspective,” Roamer said, though Awaken has “probably overdone it” for his taste. But whatever Awaken practices, “they have a right to religious freedom, just like everybody else does.”

Church leaders are still wrestling with how Awaken fits into the larger Christian framework, and what it means to identify as a church and Christian.

“Each of us has our own Bible that has certain parts underlined, (and) other parts don’t seem as important,” Mather said.

Awaken’s congregants defend their right to express their religious beliefs freely and say the church preaches love through an empowering message. Natalie, who lives in Coronado and declined to give her last name, has been upset by criticism she says is misguided, and she was bothered that a protester at the Hotel Del in January wore a shirt with the word “demon” on it.

She says Awaken sermons are only political when it helps to relate Scripture to people’s lives, pointing to opposition to transgender people’s right to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender. To her, that relates to her values of God, country and family.

“If it was something that was … mean and hateful and bullying — believe me, I wouldn’t be there,” Natalie said.

Hunting for a home

It’s not yet clear where Awaken will hold weekly services set to start next month. No venue has been announced.

“It leaves us scared,” said Geneva Lake, another opponent. “We were trying to do everything we could. But I think people are also a bit tired of fighting.”

Coronado has only so much property suitable for a church. Much of the island is zoned residential, and a state housing mandate requires it to add more than 900 homes in the coming years. Many churches were established before the city created its zoning plan, Mather said. And on Orange Avenue, the main thoroughfare, churches are restricted from the ground floor.

Awaken has already faced reluctance with private property owners. It contacted the Village Theater last year seeking to hold weekly Sunday services there. Lance Alspaugh, the theater’s owner, turned it down.

“We’re secular. We do not have charitable events or rentals for religious and political organizations,” he said. “You need to attract every single person into the building in order to make money, and you cannot alienate anyone.”

Beyond Coronado, Awaken’s efforts to secure rental spaces took a more litigious tilt.

Two years ago, its lawyers accused the San Diego Symphony of refusing to rent it the Rady Shell for its “Night of Christmas” show.

An email they cited in a demand letter showed the symphony denied the church’s request due to both a potential scheduling conflict and its lack of a policy for renting to religious organizations.

“Until we have time to consider this internally, we have decided we must pass on this rental and any other potential rentals to religious organizations,” its director of venue rentals wrote.

Awaken’s lawyers argued that refusing to rent to it because it is a church violated civil rights law.

In an email to the Union-Tribune, symphony spokesperson Craig Hall blamed the denial on a scheduling conflict and rental logistics.

“SDSO’s initial response was to decline the rental request based on the date conflict and to give the SDSO the opportunity to develop its approach for managing the limited number of available event dates at the venue,” Hall said in a statement.

Shortly after the demand letter, the symphony agreed to rent the space to Awaken.

The church held its “Night of Christmas” event there last year and again this month.

Mike and Katy Yeager, who will lead Awaken’s planned Coronado campus, invited attendees to ride the ferry with them to the venue, offering to pay their fare if they bought a ticket for the show. According to the invitation, more than 100 people took them up on it.