"Just as the events of September 11th, 2001, permanently changed our perspective on the world," Luce writes, "so we ought to be awakened to the alarming influence of today's culture terrorists. They are wealthy, they are smart, and they are real."I mentioned BattleCry a while back. The militant theonomists like Ron Luce have been working hard to infuse the imagery of "spiritual warfare" into the minds of teens and kids. They want these kids to see themselves as "warrior for God," and we secularists as "enemies," or "fighting for Satan." ABC Nightline had a segment on Battlecry which I'm posting below.Luce is forty-five, his brown hair floppy, his lips pouty. On the screens above the stage, his green eyes blink furiously. "The devil hates us," he exhorts, "and we gotta be ready to fight and not be these passive little lukewarm, namby-pamby, kum-ba-yah, thumb-sucking babies that call themselves Christians. Jesus? He got mad!" Luce considers most evangelicals too soft, too ready to pass off as piety their preference for a bland suburban lifestyle. He hates what he sees as the weakness of "accepting" Christ, of "trusting" the Lord. "I want an attacking church!" he shouts, his normally smooth tones raw and desperate and alarming. He isn't just looking for followers -- he wants "stalkers" who'll bring a criminal passion to their pursuit of godliness.
Last year, Sunsara Taylor wrote an article on BattleCry, a ministry which uses military allegories and targets youth in rallies, entitled "Fear and Loathing at Philadelphia's BattleCry."
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...
...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.
Chillingly, when I confronted Ron explicitly about these passages, he refused to disavow them. During the afternoon preceding the May 12 rally, Luce and about 300 BattleCry acolytes (almost entirely youths) rallied in front of Philadelphia’s Constitution Hall—the location having been chosen because Luce wants to “restore” the Founding Fathers’ vision of a religious society (never mind that the Founders enshrined in the Constitution an explicitly secular framework of government).
I and about 20 people representing various anti-Bush, atheistic and anti-Iraq-war factions made our way into the rally and began interacting with the youths assembled. Some said openly that it was OK that George Bush’s lies have cost the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Why was it OK? Because “God put him [Bush] there.”
For more on that story, see two articles on DailyKos:
1) DailyKos 1
2) DailyKos 2
Technorati tags: God, Religion, Church-state, Politics
