CNN’s upcoming Christiane Amanpour documentary on religious extremism in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, “God’s Warriors” airs starting on Tuesday. Right here in the U.S. we have an example of one of those warriors, Ron Luce, whose call to action to retake America from the “virtue terrorists” (of course gays fit into that category) is “Battle Cry,” a youth crusade that Amanpour visits at its stop in San Francisco.
Luce screams intolerance cloaked in nifty pyrotechnics, Christian rock music, and big-screen graphics to the teen-packed venue. The evils of secular society and pop culture have forced him to tell his young charges to be ready and “armed with faith, prepared for battle.” Luce talks about “virgins being raped on the sidewalks.”
Rolling Stone did a piece on Luce and his movement back in April, “Teenage Holy War.”
They rise, heartened; the crowd, en masse, swears off “harlots and adultery”; the twenty-one-year-old MC twitches taut a chain across the ass of her skintight red jeans and summons the followers to show off their best dance moves for God.More after the jump.
Someone please tell me how delusional (or cravenly manipulative) do you have to be to put on a show this outrageous:
Even as he tells kids to swear off pop culture, Luce doesn’t swear off capitalism, cashing in for Jesus by making money selling Battle Cry books, t-shirts, and videos.[T]hese 4,000 teens are about to become “branded by God.” It’s like getting your head shaved when you join the Marines, Luce says, only the kids get to keep their hair. His assistants roll out a cowhide draped over a sawhorse, and Luce presses red-hot iron into the dead flesh, projecting a close-up of sizzling cow skin on giant movie screens above the stage.
“When you enlist in the military, there’s a code of honor,” Luce preaches, “same as being a follower of Christ.” His Christian code requires a “wartime mentality”: a “survival orientation” and a readiness to face “real enemies.” The queers and communists, feminists and Muslims, to be sure, but also the entire American cultural apparatus of marketing and merchandising, the “techno-terrorists” of mass media, doing to the morality of a generation what Osama bin Laden did to the Twin Towers. “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.”
When you have cult of personality BS going at this level, you know the power over these kids has likely gone to Luce’s head. At this rate, how long will it be before he’s caught with a hooker, or at a rest stop blowing some guy, or, heaven forbid, molesting an underage kid? It’s only a matter of time with folks like this if the current trend holds.
Hat tip, Justabill.
52 Responses to “God’s Warriors and the homegrown ‘Battle Cry’”
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Ok. You have to be very, very delusional. WTF is this nonsense about the military?
And do you suppose he really believes this shit or is he just milking it for cash? It kind of looks like Televangelism: The Next Generation.
Thanks for the post, Pam.
Followed the “God’s Warriors” link to the CNN website, then watched some of the footage from the Battle Cry thing. Reminded me of Triumph of the Will.
Oooo, just had an idea: I’ll tape the CNN show then do a double feature with Triumph of the Will for the Sunday school class I teach.
Blaspheme, indeed.
And do you suppose he really believes this shit or is he just milking it for cash?
I think it’s a little of both, by which I mean I think he started off as a true believer and has seen just how rich it can make him. The one comforting thing that came out of the Rolling Stone piece was the sense from the reporter that a lot of the teens at the shows were there for the same reasons they go to regular rock shows–to chase members of the opposite sex (or same sex, I imagine). They weren’t there for the believer part primarily.
Well, god does like it when you shake your booty for him! Anyway, yeah, whats up with the whole militarization thing? I really think they’re descending back into paranoia-mode, worried about the next election. I’ve been hearing a lot more about the whole North American Union lately (not to say that brown people and gays still aren’t the top 2 bringers of Armageddon or anything).
Man my wife got mailers for “BattleCry” last summer at her Wesley Foundation. Or was it by the other name - “Aquire The Fire”? Once both of us picked our jaws up off the floor, it was in the waste bin.
It struck me as being sold as cross between Promise Keepers and the new militancy that the GOP overlords would like us to adopt.
Jebus MaryJane, I hope no one tells him about the Netherlands and Dutch Hedonism . .
And blockquoted just for the Pandagonians:
OMG, my husband went to this thing in Detroit a year back or so. He was sort of hoodwinked into helping out the youth director at our reasonably liberal mainline church.
We were talking about it yesterday, and I would have walked the eff out, had I been there. I’m pretty sure none of the parents of the kids were real comfortable with this either, but the youth director provided as little information to the parents as he did for my husband and I.
W taped a special message for the crowd, it’s all super militaristic. I believe the main speaker makes his stage entrance in a Hummer.
Virtue terrorist is a terrible term. It sounds like the “terrorist” are supporting virtue, not destroying it. Someone should tell him that.
Wow… that totally reminded me of the concert scene from The Wall.
This strikes me as a Very Bad Thing.
The kids in the audience seem to still have a deep investment in that pop culture they are supposed to be fighting. Lots of tight low ride jeans, tight tshirts, fake tans, suspiciously fake looking blonde hair.
All of that is the same pop culture machine they are supposedly out to destroy. That and what this pop culture style show is feeding them is just another version of pop culture consumerism. Convincing someone they are doing gods work sure makes a dedicated consumer.
The real terrorists here in America are the wingnut Christians. Ron Luce and the rest of the Christofascist bunch that support the GOP are our enemies and we must defeat them. Failure to defeat the wingnuts is NOT an option.
Are those red flags??!!! OH MY GAH they’re christian commies!!!!
I find it very telling that Luce is concerned about the U.S. becoming more like Sweden.
This is the same Sweden that has some of the best parental leave policies in the industrialized world, along with the one of the lowest rates of teen pregnancy, rate caps on healthcare costs, and tax-funded education up to and including unversity.
Oh by all means…let the (non)apocalyptic adoption of those heathenish Swedish ways sweep over the United States. I, for one, could use the break from the overblown rhetoric of the intolerant, hate-spewing religious reich.
So this how the christian corporatists will fight the seriously declining younger population church? Branding cowhide? Pyrotechnics? Big video screens?
This is a desperate attempt to grab some market share. Plain and simple. It’s nothing deeper than that.
Christ, rapture your little fuckers already. Haven’t we suffered enough? It’s gone from amusing to flat out annoying, like party favors in the hands of a drunk.
What is Simon Cowell doing imitating Satan at a fake rock concert anyway? Am I high?
What the hell, Pam? As creepy and power-hungry as this guy might be, how about we skip the ridiculous insinuations - “blowing some guy” “molesting an underage kid” “It’s only a matter of time with folks like this.”
Let’s not stoop to spewing the kind of baseless vitriol we so often receive from the neo-cons.
How is it baseless or ridiculous — we have a quite long list of fallen stars of the moralist sect to review as examples. Basically, it’s not if, but when the fall from grace comes at this point.
As creepy and power-hungry as this guy might be, how about we skip the ridiculous insinuations - “blowing some guy” “molesting an underage kid” “It’s only a matter of time with folks like this.”
Er, you don’t follow the news much, do you? We’ve been having at least two or three “upstanding citizens” caught doing such things. Bob Allen and Michael Flory are just the most recent to spring to mind, but there’s always the new all-time classic, Ted Haggard.
Sorry, meant to say “two or three a week“
No movement can survive if its musical basis is “Christian rock”.
the crowd, en masse, swears off “harlots and adultery”
For some reason, I’d bet they’re not swearing off male sluttery much at these rallies. Women are such wanton temptresses, you know. Especially when they’re emcee-ing in tight pants.
The American Taliban. I’m a lot more concerned about this group than I am the homegrown terror cells like the Sea of David paintballers from FL or the pizza delivery plot at Ft Dix.Pam,
Three things …
1. Your asumption of scandal is “baseless and ridiculous” because the association of a few instances of an event with a given demographic category does not prove that the occurrence of the event is an essential feature of the category. Some men have been observed to enjoy watching football; by your reasoning, every man therefore necessarily will. But many do not. Correlation does not prove causation.
2. Your blithe assumption of hypocrisy makes it easier to paint we humanists as prejudiced, demagogic, and irrational; it’s a poor debating or public relations tactic to make this argument, especially since I suspect you are really trying to pass off a hunch as certainty. A more modest assertion may be appropriate, such as that some features of Luce’s worldview make it more likely that he lives a sex- or drug-oriented double life than that the average person does, but even that scaled-down assertion would need to articulate which features you believe cause this likelihood and why, in order to be persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already share your worldview.
3. I’d recommend reading Lauren Sandler’s fascinating 2006 study of a new generation of Christian subcultures, “Righteous: Dispatches from the Youth Evangelical Movement” (out in paperback Aug. 28). It suggests that many leaders and participants in these movements are sincere, and come to their dedication from having profound cathartic experiences in concert-type gatherings that offer them a sense of community and a coherent worldview. It’s not just a cult of personality that is in operation here, though that’s often part of the story. Sandler maintains that secularists must be genuinely innovative, must come up with our own ways of speaking to these affiliative and intellectual needs, and of defending our values to outsiders, if we are to compete with the hip new evangelists, most of whom seem to be cultural and political conservatives. Saying the leaders are a bunch of hypocrites or criminals is understandable, given the constricted and dogmatic features of their value system, but ultimately it’s a way of avoiding rather than engaging the cultural challenge we face in an America where competing visions of salvation or the good life are never in short supply.
Pam,
Three things …
1. Your asumption of scandal is, I’m afraid, “baseless and ridiculous” because the association of a few instances of an event with a given demographic category does not prove that the occurrence of the event is an essential feature of the category. Some men have been observed to enjoy watching football; by your reasoning, every man therefore necessarily will. But many do not. Correlation does not prove causation.
2. Your blithe assumption of hypocrisy makes it easier to paint we humanists as prejudiced, demagogic, and irrational; it’s a poor debating or public relations tactic to make this argument, especially since I suspect you are really trying to pass off a hunch as certainty. A more modest assertion may be appropriate, such as that some features of Luce’s worldview make it more likely that he lives a sex- or drug-oriented double life than that the average person does, but even that scaled-down assertion would need to articulate which features you believe cause this likelihood and why, in order to be persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already share your worldview.
3. I’d recommend reading Lauren Sandler’s fascinating 2006 study of a new generation of Christian subcultures, “Righteous: Dispatches from the Youth Evangelical Movement” (out in paperback Aug. 28). It suggests that many leaders and participants in these movements are sincere, and come to their dedication from having profound cathartic experiences in concert-type gatherings that offer them a sense of community and a coherent worldview. It’s not just a cult of personality that is in operation here, though that’s often part of the story. Sandler maintains that secularists must be genuinely innovative, must come up with our own ways of speaking to these affiliative and intellectual needs, and of defending our values to outsiders, if we are to compete with the hip new evangelists, most of whom seem to be cultural and political conservatives. Saying the leaders are a bunch of hypocrites or criminals is understandable, given the constricted and dogmatic features of their value system, but ultimately it’s a way of avoiding rather than engaging the cultural challenge we face in an America where competing visions of salvation or the good life are never in short supply.
IMHO this is the American Taliban grooming future Eric Rudolphs, James Kopps, Paul Jennings Hills, Michael F. Griffins, …
These people scare me A LOT more than the Sea of David paintballer terrorists in FL or the pizza delivery terror cell at Ft Dix. If DHS/FBI are spying on anti-war groups like they are I hope someone is watching this group.
OK, and to imagine that people were flipping out over Marilyn Manson in the 90s. Man, MM was about dressing weird, being a little challenging to norms, and electric guitars. He sure wasn’t trying indoctrinate anyone into anything, nevermind going out and telling young people to hate gay people, women, and those who happen to enjoy sex.
Tiny ‘umie warboss tinks ‘e’s got a buncha grotz to get up in a WAAAGH? Dat ain’t a WAAAGH. Ghazghkull Thraka, now ‘E got a WAAAGH goin.
dey got some good grot banna wavas, tho. Da Red Onez go fasta, afta all. Fast banna wavas. Not bad, ‘umie.
One of the more trivial things that’s been really depressing me about the country lately is how much it’s come to resemble the dystopic/science fiction stories and movies I enjoy so much. It’s like John Carpenter has been put in charge of reality. They Live is starting to appear more and more like an accurate depiction of the way things really are.
Cliff Robertson’s fundamentalist President from Escape From LA moves the White House to Lynchburg, VA. Today I saw a briefing from Crawford, Tx with the words “Western White House” emblazoned on a plaque behind the spokesman. I’m getting freaked out.
Anyway, these guys remind me of that fanatical church from Stranger in a Strange Land. I couldn’t remember their name, so I looked it up on wikipedia and found the perfect description:
For some reason I find it hard to get past “the twenty-one-year-old MC twitches taut a chain across the ass of her skintight red jeans”.
IIRC, the notion of dancing for god goes back to David, in Samuel I or II, and didn’t he get into trouble with Bathsheba?
So let me get this right: “God” is powerful enough to create trillions and billions of universes, galaxies, solar systems, suns, planets, beings, creatures and as well as 6 billion human beings on earth, but when it comes to defending himself, he needs Christians and moslems to do that because he is suddenly too weak to do so himself? When will the foolishness and madness of human beings end?
Maychic
Because it’s what’s under their hair that they are after.
Their brains are like their genitals–they get to keep them provided they don’t use them, or if they do, they’d better be very sneaky and if at all possible, perverse, about it.
I think my comment disappeared into mod. Too bad; it was short and to the point for once, and didn’t involve any of my usual left-wing-dogmatic trigger words or concepts either.
Anyway,
Well as Pam pointed out, such expectations as she has are hardly “baseless;” we have quite a big statistical database, do we not?
And in addition to mere accumulation of data, the underlying causes of whacked-out and vicious behavior, abhorrent by the alleged standards these people trumpet (and in many if not all cases, abhorrent to any reasonable person, because of the violence and coercion as well as hypocrisy involved) are pretty evident.
This kind of extremism is, at least from my perhaps hell-bound point of view, a form of lying. The whole movement is a vast fraud that misrepresents the nature of humanity and life; therefore it is only reasonable that its adherents, especially its kingpins, are either driven nuts or cynical to a sociopathic degree (or both, they are two great flavors that go great together.) I won’t wax all tiresome about theory of dominator society again; with examples like this before us such theory should be common wisdom.
So, the often-repeated examples of right-wingers who turn out to be either nuts or lying hypocrites or both are pretty much what we ought to expect, if in fact their world-view is wrong and ours is right. We believe in living sensibly and honestly, with some sense of balance and forebearance, and lots of self-criticism (the very foundation of healthy humor); they believe in being Pure Good at war with Pure Evil that they have no part of; how odd is it that they turn out to be the best examples of the kind of evil they say they are at war against that we can find? And that their reaction to our holding up a mirror, however politely, is likely to be a scream followed by calls to burn us at the stake?
I mean, just read some history. The “grown-ups” are in charge, still.
I’m a youth group leader at my church. I might have to tape this program and show it to the kids (High School Youth Group) to demonstrate the dangers of cults!
This is really sick and very Hitler Youth.
One of my youth actually told me a story about going with a friend to one of those Christian Fundamentalist Rock Concerts and how scary and possessed the others seemed. So self-involved in their self-righteousness, hatred, and obedience to “the message” (and the organizers). The music sucked too.
Luckily, the parents of the kids I work with stress questioning authority and compassion, not obedience and hatred. We may very well use this program to talk about issues forming identity and developing a following mentality. The moral implications of “just following orders” and so forth. Thanks for the posting!
Hmmn, the older comment has not yet appeared. It’s still early ET to be sure, but I probably will not see it as I will get busier later, so, leaving out the bot-bait:
That’s because Luce et al aren’t after the hair, but what’s beneath it.
(Then I said something about how the inductees’ brains, along with certain other body parts, can be left in place on condition they don’t use them–or at any rate, be sneaky and wracked with guilt and shame if they do.)
I think there must be some mod-bot bait embedded in the bits of Luce’s own remarks I tried to cite. Sorry about 2 very similar comments that may appear eventually; I thought there was a different reason the first disappeared.
Just in case anyone else is trying to find this on their TiVo, look for “CNN Presents.”
Hysterical Woman: ‘Virtue terrorism is a terrible word?’ What about what’s going on here: HOMO-FASCISM is a far worse creature.
Hysterical Woman: ‘Virtue terrorism is a terrible word?’ What about what’s going on here: HOMO-FASCISM is a far worse creature.
The glimmer of hope I took away from the Rolling Stone article mentioned above (I read it when it came out) was that it seemed a good percentage of the attendees were there simply because they were trying to hook up, chastity vows aside. They weren’t all that into the rhetoric of the show itself.
These things are dangerous, no question, but just like most strict movements, the hard core fundies have trouble holding onto their kids once they’re grown. And that’s a good thing.
@ Trinity:F#*K OFF!
Yes, homo-fascism is a better word, Trinity. But seeing how there rallies bring to mind “Triumph of the Will”, you might not want to mention fascism, lest people see to beam in your eye.
I mean, the beam. But some people will want to beam you.
oooh, hysteria vs. three personalities. This could be fun. My money’s on the hysteric, though.
Just out of curiosity, is “virtue terrorism” anything like, say, having a virtue police to make sure that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to? Or is it more freelance, like blowing up abortion clinics like other Christian terrorists?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Two quotes come to mind:
“Onward, Christian Soldiers!”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our main element is fear, fear and surprise. Our TWO main elements are fear and surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope……hold on, I’ll come in again….”
I saw a video the other day about a man in Alabama recruiting teen-agers to be skin-head Nazis. This Battlecry group is a cult, just like the skin-heads in Alabama. The children have the same bright eyes and thrill at being part of a group and of having someone tell them they are worth something-not a bad thing to hear, but the children are being seduced into a cult. No doubt, they are also told that if they leave the cult, they will lose their worth.
Because it’s what’s under their hair that they are after.
there’s a scalp-payment bounty on gullible teenagers I wasn’t aware of?
HOMO-FASCISM
DO YOU HAVE ZEE PEPAS? VEE REKVIA EVIDENCE YOU HAVE HAD THE SEX VIF A MAN. or, if you are a voman, vif a voman you actually like. SLEEZY LOW SELF-ESTEEM PORN IS UNACCEPTIVLE!
Failing zee sex, eef you haf proof you haf vorked vif your local theater company for a seazon, vee vill be satisfied.
HUMAN REPRODUCTION VILL NOT BE TOLERATED!
@ karpad:You haff made me spurt ze koffee on ze keeboard vif laffter!
@karpad 40,000 props for the earlier reference.
One of the steps of my deconversion was donating money at a concert very much like this one. Donating was for the oppressed Christians in Bosnia. Somedays I wonder if the money I gave was simply stolen (hopefully) or if I ended up contributing to a genocide.
there’s a scalp-payment bounty on gullible teenagers I wasn’t aware of?
I’m in. Where do I send them?
Wait - karpad was only *joking*?!? Shit, I wish I had read that before - um, never mind.
And on the front gate of the orgy camp: Freiheit macht Freude
Brains, dear Karpad. They want to eat the kids’ brains.
In the holy name of Great Zombie Jesus, of course.