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Right Wing Christians Build Ties To Vladimir Putin's Inner Circle


Detailed in the new Twocare.org/Center Against Religious Extremism report U.S. Pro-Coup Evangelicals Ally With Putin Inner Circle, influential hard-right evangelical leaders - one who has openly called for a "military takeover" and "martial law" - have forged close ties with a Russian inner-circle leader considered by some to be Vladimir Putin's closest political ally.

That American evangelical leader, Rick Joyner, is part of the New Apostolic Reformation movement which gave us Sarah Palin and helped create the Tea Party. Joyner has allied with former Undersecretary of Defense Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William "Jerry" Boykin, whose impressive list of positions has included command of U.S. Special Forces.

Joyner's ties also include Lt. Col. (Ret.) Oliver North, of Iran-Contra fame - a man noted for his role in a secret operation that funneled profits from arms sale to Iraq to a covert operation to undermine the government of Nicaragua, and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, whose claims on an alleged tie between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America helped propel the United States towards the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Here is the executive summary:


Executive Summary: Cutting against growing tensions between the United States and Russia, influential and politically well-connected, Tea Party-aligned American evangelical leaders - including one who has called for a "military takeover" - who hold dominionist or even theocratic political leanings and are tied to former high-level U.S. military and intelligence community members, have over the past decade allied with one of Russian president Vladimir Putin's closest political allies, Vladimir Yakunin.

This investigation, by the Center Against Religious Extremism (CARE), demonstrates an extensive pattern tying evangelist Rick Joyner and his Oak Initiative political organizing front, and leaders affiliated with Joyner who have pledged their lives to implement biblical law in all sectors of society, to Vladimir Putin's inner-circle ally Vladimir Yakunin.

Last year, a September 30, 2013 a call for a "military takeover" of the U.S. government and imposition of "martial law" from well-connected South Carolina evangelist Rick Joyner - who boasts close ties to former high-level U.S. military and intelligence community leaders, earned significant media coverage and also strong words from Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder and head Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, who estimated that a significant fraction of officers and NCOs might be sympathetic to such an exhortation, a form of "sedition" that crossed a "red line" according to Weinstein.

MRFF defends the rights of U.S. armed forces members who have been victims of coercive evangelizing that, according to Weinstein's organization, is being inflicted mainly by dominionist "bible believing" Christian superior officers upon members of the military who are Christian but are deemed to hold incorrect versions of the faith (MRFF's work has been featured in numerous mainstream media venues including The Economist, Newsweek, and perhaps most thoroughly and vividly in journalist Jeff Sharlet's 2009 Harpers magazine story Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade For a Christian Military.)

Joyner's call for a "military takeover" and "martial law" did not lead major religious right "family values" (and ostensibly patriotic) organizations such as the Family Research Council (FRC), the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), or the American Family Association (AFA) to ostracize Joyner or distance themselves from his Oak Initiative organization. Rather, these groups signed onto a coalition that opposes Weinstein's MRFF and whose membership includes the Oak Initiative, whose president Rick Joyner in late 2013 stated, amidst substantial critical media scrutiny, that he "will stand by" his apparent call for a military coup.

The Oak Initiative - whose board is dominated by apostles from the radical New Apostolic Reformation movement - boasts organizational ties both to the Republican Party and also to leaders who have helped create the anti-government American militia movement.

Through its partnership with national hard-right, anti-gay groups such as FRC, ADF, and AFA, as well as Oak Initiative member Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin's role as Family Research Council Executive Vice President, Joyner's Oak Initiative has institutional links both to the elite group of hard-right, anti-LGBT rights billionaire evangelical funders associated with the annual event known as The Gathering, and to its parent organization The Fellowship (or "The Family"), which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast and whose longtime head Douglas Coe has expressed admiration for the ability of a small band of violent Bolshevik revolutionaries to take over Russia, in 1917.

Joyner's Oak Initiative itself promotes a style of factually-challenged anti-government conspiracy theories that have been deployed, since the 1980s by far-right evangelical operatives with former military and intelligence backgrounds, to undermine confidence in the U.S. federal government and stoke anti-government fear and paranoia among millions of American citizens. Joyner has repeatedly claimed that the Obama Administration plans mass imprisonment of American citizens.

But Joyner has also enthused over the coming of a Christian authoritarian regime that will seem "like totalitarianism" and will forcibly re-educate Americans. On September 16, 2014, Rick Joyner issued a "prophetic" statement that envisioned a massive state level revolt against the federal government led by militias which, speculated Joyner, might ally with U.S. county sheriffs. In Joyner's dream, that anti-government militia revolt led to violence and anarchy which, in turn, triggered the military takeover and imposition of martial law that Joyner had called for a year earlier, in October 2013.

Behind Joyner's carefully calibrated "prophetic" forecasts lie an elaborate strategy and infrastructure application of Fourth Generation Warfare theory, by the American Christian right, in a nonlinear approach to delegitimizing and destabilizing the federal government - a strategy that relies both on force of arms (at the local level), infiltration, and sophisticated information warfare techniques.

Joyner's dire predictions resemble those from Russian former KGB analyst Igor Panarin, whose forecasts of an impending breakup of the United States into six or more pieces have been promoted by the Putin regime. Since 2008, Panarin has repeatedly predicted the imminent breakup of the United States amidst economic chaos and societal decay. In 2012 Panarin announced,”There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur.”


read the rest of the Twocare.org Center Against Religious Extremism report, U.S. Pro-Coup Evangelicals Ally With Putin Inner Circle at: http://www.twocare.org/pro-revolution-u-s-evangelicals-ally-with-putin-inner-circle/

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/brucewilson/right-wing-christians-build-ties-vladimir-putins-inner-circle