Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the concurring opinion in last week’s explosive Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children, recently appeared on a show hosted by a self-anointed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist.
Parker was the featured guest on “Someone You Should Know,” hosted by Johnny Enlow, a Christian nationalist influencer and devoted supporter of former President Donald Trump. Over the course of an 11-minute interview, Parker articulated a theocratic worldview at odds with a functioning, pluralistic society.
“God created government,” he told Enlow, adding that it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.”
Media Matters, the liberal media watchdog group, was the first to report on Parker’s appearance on the program.
That a state’s chief Supreme Court justice would associate himself with Enlow is a cause for alarm. Enlow is a prolific conspiracy theorist, often weaving QAnon apocrypha with prophecies he claims to receive directly from God.
As reported by Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that Trump “is on assignment” from God to work with the angels Michael and Gabriel to take down George Soros and Bill Gates, among others; he has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is fighting “Luciferian pedophiles” in Ukraine in a battle to stop them from deploying vaccines and 5G cellular technology that would turn people into trans-humanist semi-robots; and he has claimed that the majority of other world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices.”
Enlow’s interview with Parker was uploaded to Rumble, the alt-tech video platform, on the same day the Alabama Supreme Court issued its opinion that sent shockwaves throughout the reproductive rights community. The ruling, which makes fertility clinics liable in wrongful death lawsuits for harming or destroying an embryo, has already imperiled access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state.
“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” wrote Parker, a longtime anti-abortion advocate sometimes credited with building the legal framework to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Even before birth,” Parker added, “all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Parker used similar theological language in his interview with Enlow, thanking Enlow for promoting the “Seven Mountains” on his show. As HuffPost has reported before, the “Seven Mountains Mandate” is a doctrine at the core of the New Apostolic Reformation, an evangelical movement that believes in the supernatural, including the existence of modern-day apostles and prophets, and which is characterized by a belief in Christian dominionism. The Seven Mountains Mandate is the belief that Christians must conquer the “seven mountains” of societal influence — education, media, religion, family, business, entertainment and government — and force fundamentalist Christian values onto every part of American life, in order to pave the path for Christ’s return.
“As you’ve emphasized in the past, we’ve abandoned those Seven Mountains and they’ve been occupied by the opposite side,” Parker told Enlow, suggesting the chief justice is familiar with Enlow’s show. Enlow is a big proponent of the Seven Mountains Mandate, and maintains a far-right website with his wife called “Restore Seven.”
Parker also told Enlow that God is “equipping me with something for the very specific situation that I’m facing” as the Alabama chief justice.
Enlow, as noted by Media Matters, praised Parker and appeared mindful of not dragging the judge into even more controversial topics. He told Parker that he’s “in such a key place that we don’t want to have any conversations that hurt you in any kind of way, but we appreciate who you are, who you are in the kingdom.”