An alarming profile here; an excerpt:
If you’ve been waiting to get alarmed until the Christian fascist movement started filling stadiums with young people and hyping them up to do battle in “God’s army,” wait no longer.
In recent weeks, BattleCry, a Christian fundamentalist youth movement, has attracted more than 25,000 people to mega-rally rock concerts in San Francisco and Detroit, and this weekend it plans to fill Wachovia Stadium in Philadelphia.
The leaders of BattleCry claim that their religion and values are under attack, but amid spectacular light shows, Hummers, Navy SEALs and military imagery on stage, it is BattleCry that has declared war on everyone else. Its leader, Ron Luce, insists: “This is war. And Jesus invites us to get into the action, telling us that the violent—the ‘forceful’ ones—will lay hold of the kingdom.”
BattleCry is a part of the evangelical organization Teen Mania, and you can learn a lot about the kind of society that Teen Mania is fighting for by reading up on its Honor Academy, a non-accredited educational institution that offers directed internships to 700 undergraduate and graduate youth each year. Among the academy’s tenets: Homosexuality and masturbation are sins. Interns are forbidden to listen to secular music, watch R-rated movies or date; men can’t use the Internet unsupervised; the length of women’s skirts is regulated. The logic behind this—that men must be protected from the sin of sexual temptation—is what drives Islamic fundamentalists to shroud women in burkhas!
Teen Mania and BattleCry are multimillion-dollar operations that send more than 5,000 missionaries to more than 34 countries each year. Their supporters and members are some of the most powerful and extreme religious lunatics in the country. BattleCry’s “partners” include Pat Robertson (who got a call from Karl Rove to discuss Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito before the nomination was made public), Charles Colson (who as President Richard Nixon’s lawyer was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal and who went to jail for obstruction of justice in the Pentagon Papers case), and Jerry Falwell (who blamed Sept. 11 on homosexuals, feminists, pagans and abortionists). BattleCry’s events have been addressed by former First Lady Barbara Bush as well as former President Gerald Ford. This weekend’s event will include Franklin Graham, who has ministered to George W. Bush and publicly proclaimed that Islam is an “evil religion.”
What most of these figures have in common is their insistence that the Bible be read literally and obeyed as the inerrant word of God. And, because Ron Luce leads youth to say in prayer, “I will keep my eyes on the battle, submitting to Your code even when I don’t understand,” it would be foolish to expect that there is any part of the Bible’s literal horrors this movement would be unwilling to enforce....
It began with fireworks so loud and startling I screamed. Lights and smoke followed, and a few kids were pulled up on stage from the crowd. One was asked to read a letter.
This was the letter that opened the event. Its author was George W. Bush. Yes, the president of the United States sent a letter of support, greeting, prayer and encouragement to the BattleCry event held at Wachovia Spectrum Stadium in Philadelphia on May 12. Immediately afterward, a preacher took the microphone and led the crowd in prayer. Among other things, he asked the attendees to “Thank God for giving us George Bush.”
On his cue, about 17,000 youths from upward of 2,000 churches across America and Canada directed their thanks heavenward in unison.
Throughout the three and a half hours of BattleCry’s first session, I thought of only one analogy that fit the experience: This must have been what it felt like to watch the Hitler Youth, filled with self-righteous pride, proclaim the supremacy of their beliefs and their willingness to shed blood for them.
And lest you think this is idle paranoia, BattleCry founder Ron Luce told the crowds the next morning (May 13) that he plans to launch a “blitzkrieg” in the communities, schools, malls, etc. against those who don’t share his theocratic vision of society.
Blitzkrieg.
Nothing like a little Nazi imagery to whip up the masses....
The first rock band that performed, Delirious, got the crowd festive and up on their feet with lyrics that were projected on large screens so that everyone could join in: “We’re an army of God and we’re ready to die.... Let’s paint this big ol’ town red.... We see nothing but the blood of Jesus....”
Between musical acts, Luce, the BattleCry founder, hammered away at the dominant theme of the night: his contention that “pew-sitters ... passive Christians ... the Christians who just want love, joy, peace ... ” were the problem, and that the world needed more radical and extreme God-worshippers—those who would be obedient and fully submit to Christ....
Luce used this critique of pew-sitting Christians to assuage the doubts of the youths at the rally who may have been feeling uncertain about their commitment to the Church. “Don’t worry,” he was telling them, “you’ve been amongst pew-sitters--watered-down Christians. Welcome to the reign of total submission to the Lord.”
It was a mantra Luce repeated all through the night: the need to submit one’s self fully to Jesus, to belong completely to Him.
“He doesn’t just want to be in your heart, He wants to own your heart.... There’s only one good reason to come to Christ: because He’s the rightful owner of your life.... You don’t have to know much about Jesus, just enough to surrender your whole life.”
Throughout this section, a loud crowd from the back of the stadium would periodically erupt, “We are warriors!”
After tugging at countless emotional strings, Luce insisted—with the humility of Taliban members who submit to Allah’s command to stone adulterers—“You are the one talking to God, I am just going to help you with the words.”
There was a session when, after a great crescendo, the stadium was brought to silence. Luce instructed individuals to stand up when they felt the spirit and cry out, “I want the cross!” The voices of hundreds rose up over the course of 10 minutes. These young people, declaring death unto themselves and rebirth in Christ, were called down to the floor of the stadium and directed to get on their knees and put their heads down and pray some more.
Luce put great emphasis on following every word in the Bible, treating it as an “instruction book,” even when a person doesn’t understand or agree. This is, of course, the logic that leads to the stoning of gays, non-virgin brides, disobedient children and much more—because the Bible says so.
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