Perry, Wilder argues, is venturing into new territory for an aspiring presidential candidate by courting pastors who are followers of the New Apostolic Reformation. The NAR apostles, he writes, have "bizarre" beliefs, including "some" who "consider Freemasonry a 'demonic stronghold' tantamount to witchcraft" and one who thinks the Democratic Party "is controlled by Jezebel and three lesser demons." These unusual beliefs, says Wilder, wouldn't be so remarkable except for the NAR's "growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government." NAR adherents want to "not just take 'dominion' over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the 'Seven Mountains' of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an 'army of God' to commandeer civilian government."
None of that, though, is new. Taking dominion of government and other social, cultural, and political structures has long been the overtly stated goal of the religious right, long documented by scholars and journalists from Sara Diamond to Fred Clarkson to Michelle Goldberg. The NAR might have coined the "Seven Mountains" terminology, but it's just a different way of presenting what the religious right has wanted all along. As John Turner, University of South Alabama historian and author of Bill Bright and the Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America, told me recently:
To me, it's [Seven Mountains] just a catchy phrase that encapsulates what Bright and many other evangelical leaders were already doing -- trying to increase Christian influence (they would probably use more militant phrases like "capture") in the spheres of education, business, and government. Hence, Bright tried to start a Christian university, started a "Christian Embassy" in Washington (at about this time), and started ministries to businessmen. I think he had a sense that broad-based evangelism alone wouldn't "restore America to its Christian roots." Campus Crusade had been converting scores of students and others for more than two decades, but he lamented that society was nevertheless becoming "less Christian." Therefore, Christians should target the key leaders of society, evangelizing them and trying to change the culture of these institutions by electing more Christian politicians, etc.
Nor is the Republican dance with spirit-filled, demon-casting-out, laying-on-of-hands Pentecostals new. Bright, incidentally, played a crucial role during the Reagan era of bringing Pentecostals--you know, those spirit-filled people with all those bizarre beliefs and worship practices--into the political fold. As I wrote [ http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fundamentalist_022008 ] in 2008 after Virginia Beach Pentecostal pastor John Gimenez died of a stroke at the age of 76:
Gimenez was not well known outside Pentecostal circles, but he was an instrumental figure in bringing together prominent evangelicals and charismatic Christians in the political movement to install Christian dominion in government. At the event last spring, Gimenez talked about how he worked with Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright to organize the April 1980 Washington for Jesus rally, which he credited with bringing out evangelical voters for Ronald Reagan. Gimenez subsequently organized hundreds of America for Jesus rallies as well as additional rallies in Washington, intended to spark an evangelical revival in politics.
Gimenez talked about how Bright dismissed the supposed rift between charismatics and other evangelicals. "I heard he didn’t like people like me," Gimenez said to laughter from his tongue-talking audience. "That’s what the propaganda was." But, Gimenez recounted, Bright believed that God had willed them to work together, and he canceled his own rally to merge it with Gimenez’s. According to Gimenez, Bright later told Ronald Reagan, "Mr. President, you were elected on April 29, 1980, when the church prayed that God’s will would be done."
In the Pentecostal world, and accordingly in the political world, there is a lot of that there is a lot of cross-pollination and sharing and borrowing (and in some cases, plagiarizing) of ideas and strategies. There's a lot of money to be made in conferences, books, CDs and DVDs of conferences, tithes and offerings, and so forth. Having a "new" prophesy about what God is telling you to do can be very lucrative.
The NAR roots are also firmly within the boundaries of the historic Pentecostal movement. Foundational to NAR beliefs are spiritual warfare and dominion over social ills. These beliefs were influenced in part by two English authors, Smith Wigglesworth [ http://www.smithwigglesworth.com/ ] and Jessie Penn Lewis [ http://jessiepennlewis.com/ ], who wrote extensively on spiritual warfare, and were read avidly by some early Pentecostals.
Their books, still in print today, focused on demonic possession, deliverance, and powerful spiritual encounters. In the 1940s the movement that would give these beliefs further impetus was the Latter Rain Movement, which arose out of revivals in Canada. Focusing on extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit, with spectacular spiritual manifestations, believers and leaders in the movement like William Branham believed these manifestations would usher in the second coming of Christ. The movement also caused splits within several Pentecostal denominations, most notably the Assemblies of God. Unlike the Word of Faith movement, the Latter Rain Movement [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_Rain_Movement ] and its subsequent iterations relied on “extra” revelation outside of the Bible, given to a special group of leaders that God had appointed.
The focus on "apostolic" leadership would reappear in the Shepherding moment of the 1970s, a movement that quickly died after several scandals in leadership. Not long after, in the early 1980s, the star of C. Peter Wagner began to ascend in what was then called the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary. Wagner, who for a time taught at Fuller Seminary alongside other "power encounter" teachers John Wimber (founder of the Vineyard denomination) and Charles Kraft, began there to hone his ideas about spiritual mapping, spiritual warfare, and power encounters. Leaving the seminary in the early 1990s to establish a ministry in Colorado Springs, Wagner began to build his empire, founding the NAR in 2001.
The 21st century, for Wagner, is the beginning of the "Second Apostolic Age." Those in the NAR believe that in order to bring about the coming of Christ, Apostles must be recognized, and the government should be run by Christians in order to cleanse the world for Christ’s coming. Power encounters such as exorcisms must be done to cleanse not only people, but cities and communities; and those who participate in this will also lead in the new Reformation.
As a result, you will see someone like Rod Parsley [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/2125/ ], who is generally thought of as a Word of Faith preacher, discussing his own spiritual debt to Wigglesworth and affirming his adherence to the "five-fold" ministry offices -- people are anointed as prophets, apostles, teachers, evangelists, or pastors (an interpretation many Christian critics say is a false teaching). And talk about "bizarre" beliefs: Parsley and the other Word of Faith adherents think that if you give them money for their private jets and luxury houses God will make you rich!
This is someone who Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, in a 2005 appearance on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, called a "new general" in a Christian army bringing a revival to "every realm of life." This was around the same time that Perry wrapped [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4620/rick_perry%2C_the_christocrat_favorite_for_president/ ] his arms around Parsley, too, inviting him (and The Response host Don Wildmon) to a controversial bill-signing ceremony. In a church. On a Sunday. The battleground, in other words, is not new, and the NAR isn't the only stream of Pentecostal or evangelical thought giving politicians spiritual warrior ideas.
The cross-pollination plays out in the political sphere as well. Gimenez's relationship with Bright, and the ongoing relationship between Pentecostals and the Republican Party was further cultivated by Bush family advisor Doug Wead, as I detail in my book [ http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Profits-Republican-Crusade-Values/dp/0979482216 ]. (Wead is currently an advisor to the Ron Paul campaign.) James Robison, who has played such a key role [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4828/the_real_story_behind_rick_perry%E2%80%99s_secret_meetings_with_pastors/ ] in the current rallying around Perry, was one of 12 prominent religious leaders Wead suggested, in 1985, that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush should court. Wead noted how Robison's fellow Southern Baptists were "offended when he recently claimed to have experienced 'deliverance' from an 'evil spirit.'" But many prominent Southern Baptists appear to have moved past such concerns. At The Call [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/654/ ] on the National Mall in 2008, hosted by Lou Engle, one of the NAR-influenced instigators of Perry's prayer rally, Mike Huckabee and Perkins (both Southern Baptists) were featured guests. In the 2005 appearance on the spirit-filled, prophecy-laced TBN, Perkins joked, "don't let my Southern Baptist friends see me dancing."
In an example of how fortunes rise and fall, others in Wead's Top 12 included Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Still others, like Word of Faith televangelist Kenneth Copeland, demonstrate longevity: in 1998 Wead told Bush advisor Karl Rove Copeland was "arguably one of the most important religious leaders in the nation;" Copeland was out raising money for Mike Huckabee in 2008, and was included in Robison's recent "supernatural gatherings." Unlike the "apostles" who boasted of their impact on Perry, Copeland has long been more discreet: how many people know that when George W. Bush was governor of Texas, Copeland thought it was "very urgent" that Bush have a book that claimed to prophesy events in the West Bank based on the Book of Ezekiel? (I have much more on Copeland in God's Profits.)
Religious movements don't come out of nowhere; that there is a lot of cross-pollination and sharing and borrowing (and in some cases, plagiarizing) of ideas and strategies. If you watch the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or GOD TV [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/250/god_tv%3A_televangelism_2.0 ], for example, you'll see the cross-pollination of the Word of Faith and the prophesying of the self-proclaimed prophets of the NAR. Yes, the NAR has had a ripple effect through the charismatic world: last year I traveled to the small town of Henderson, Kentucky, where I saw the Women, Weapons of Warfare conference [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/3056/pat_robertson%E2%80%99s_women_warriors_leading_spiritual_warfare_in_zimbabwe_/ ] that centered on spiritual warfare and prophecy, and included, from some speakers, homages to NAR-ers like Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets. But when I asked one of the WWW founders, Vicky Mpofu, who were her greatest spiritual influences she named not the NAR, but Word of Faith godfather Kenneth Hagin. That's not to say that the NAR isn't important, just that it's a movement in a stream of intertwining movements, which have become intertwined in our politics, that borrow and play off of each other.
In other words: yes, Perry's event is deeply problematic [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4710/to_pray_or_not_to_pray/ ], as I've argued before. Some of his apostles, it is true, have a penchant for the most outlandish prophecy. But if you see it as a bolt of lightning through which Rick Perry has created something weirdly new, you're missing the larger picture. He's being more bold and unabashed in courting some of the lesser known (and therefore less politically astute) figures than some of his predecessors have been, and that might be a strategy that backfires on him. But he's following a long legacy, as is the NAR.
UPDATE, 7/19/11: Just as Perry is claiming [ http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20110718-rick-perry-says-he-doesnt-endorse-extremists-participating-in-prayer-meeting.ece ] that he can't help it if early endorsers of The Response say the darndest things, the event is gaining traction [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4886/perry_prayer_event_%22getting_traction%22_with_religious_right_elites/ ] with religious right elites. This is yet more proof of their willingness to be (in Francis Schaeffer's parlance) co-belligerents alongside people with whom they have (what they perceive to be) theological disagreements but with whom they share political goals. It's also evidence of the Bill Bright strategy stretching into the 21st century. As Turner documents in his book on Bright, the Washington for Jesus rally he organized with Gimenez in 1980 had a goal of being "a twelve-hour prayer rally, focusing on the need to restore God's favor to the United States through repentance." Sound familiar? The only religious right hot shot who didn't show support for that one was Jerry Falwell, because, according to Turner, "he was hesitant to cooperate with charismatics and Pentecostals." Later in his life, though, that changed for him and the religious right generally.
It's also evidence, incidentally, that John McCain's 2008 decision to reject endorsements from John Hagee and Rod Parsley because of their inflammatory statements (but not their careers of questionable ethics and war mongering) was an aberration for a GOP presidential aspirant. Perry, in his comments to the Dallas Morning News this week, suggested that some of the co-sponsors and participants in his prayer rally are like endorsers of a political campaign; he can't help it if they compare gay people to Nazis, for example. But obviously this is more than an endorsement; it's a collaboration. And it's a collaboration that is gaining not just more endorsers, but the imprimatur and participation of the religious right elite. At this point the more interesting development to watch is how much traction it gets with the grassroots.
Rick Perry’s Jesus Imperative: A Report from Saturday’s Mega-Rally
All photos by the author.
At The Response, a “non-political” event, participants are commanded to obey Jesus to save America from ruin.
By Sarah Posner August 7, 2011
By the time Texas Governor Rick Perry took the stage at his scheduled time at The Response on Saturday, the crowd had been softened to receive him. Perry, as scheduled, emerged from behind the prayer and worship band shortly before 11:30, his coiffed hair and toothy grin filling the enormous television screens behind him. The audience, still aglow and groggy, almost, from a frenzied prayer session devoted to individual repentance had been called upon, through the throb of the praise music, to “lay yourselves bare” for Jesus, your “first love,” and to “repent for putting other things before Jesus.”
This was no idle command—in fact “command” and “obedience” were the day’s chief buzzwords for many speakers; as repentance was required on behalf of yourself, your church, and your country for having failed to commit yourself to Jesus, for having permitted abortion and “sexual immorality,” for failing to cleanse yourself of “filthiness,” and to repent for having “touched what is unclean.” As the individual repentance portion of the day reached its climax, just before Perry’s remarks, people lay flat on the floor; others raised their arms in charismatic receipt of God’s word. Others danced. Some spoke in tongues. A woman wearing a fatigue green “M.A.S.H.” t-shirt (that’s Mobile Army Spiritual Hospital) prostrated herself on the floor.
“Like all of you, I love this country this deeply,” intoned the governor who once publicly mused about his state seceding. “Indeed the only thing you love more,” he added, as the audience held its collective breath, praying he wouldn’t say something that fell short of expectations, “is the living Christ.” A collective exhale for him getting it right; the governor was exalted.
The people who gathered at Reliant Stadium are not just Rick Perry’s spiritual army, raised up, as Perry and others imagine it, in the spirit of Joel 2 [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4747/the_view_from_a_jew_at_a_%22solemn_assembly%22_like_rick_perry%27s/ ] to sound an alarm and prepare the people for Judgment Day. They are the ground troops the religious right set out four decades ago to create, and duplicate over generations, for the ongoing culture wars. One part of that army is people like Perry himself, supported by religious right political elites who aimed to cultivate candidates, advocates, and political strategists committed to putting God before government.
That a sitting governor would laugh off charges that his “instigation” of an exclusively Christian (and, more specifically, a certain kind of Christian) event is proof of the success of the cultural and spiritual warriors, who believe they are commanded to “take dominion” over government and other spheres of influence. Perry is their man in a high place, in this case an especially courageous one, willing to rebuff charges from the “radical secularists” that he’s crossed the line between church and state. That makes him something much more than just a political or spiritual hero; he is an exemplar.
Jim Garlow, the California pastor who was heavily involved in the Proposition 8 fight in California in 2008, and now heads Newt Gingrich’s nonprofit Renewing American Leadership, insisted, despite the obvious, that the event wasn’t political. When I asked him if The Response would nonetheless serve to mobilize people politically, he replied, “It will cause people to be more biblical, and by being more biblical there is an impact that splashes out on all arenas, including the body politic.”
God’s “agenda is not a political agenda,” said Perry, “but a salvation agenda.” Hallelujah, and onward to Iowa and South Carolina.
All photos by the author.
“Only The Lord Has All The Answers”
Not everyone at Saturday’s event was convinced Perry is presidential material, but what matters is that The Response has put a glow around him. Rachel Robbins, who had traveled with her family from Fort Worth, told me she didn’t know much about Perry, but that she decided to make the trip because “the government tries to do all these things. It doesn’t have all the answers. Only the Lord does.”
Joyce Thompson, who came to Houston from San Antonio with a friend, echoed a persistent theme to me over breakfast at our hotel: that Christianity is somehow under siege from enemies. Thompson, who described herself as a 66-year-old Tea Partier, tearfully said, “I can’t understand people who want to destroy our country.” When I asked her who those people might be, she replied, “It’s a Muslim thing. It’s Satan against God. It started years ago, and it’s gone on and on.”
Her friend, Virginia Klingeman, interjected that the “agnostics” want to “quiet my tongue”—an observation that led Thompson to point to the abolition of school prayer as another root cause of America’s problems. This, again, is a common religious right talking point. Late in the day, when members of the old guard—James and Shirley Dobson, Don and Lynda Wildmon, and Vonette Bright, the widow of Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright—were honored on the stage, Bright, to the delight of all ages in the audience, called for the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms and the restoration of school prayer. (Her late husband was instrumental in organizing Washington for Jesus and America for Jesus rallies in the 1980s, which focused on similar themes to those behind The Response.)
Thompson added, “There are so many deep things we don’t understand. We don’t understand really what put this president in place… it’s been layers of it, but we really don’t know what’s going on.”
Spiritual Warfare, Signs Wonders, and Heretics?
The lineup of speakers at The Response reflect the impact of new charismatic and Pentecostal movements, especially those emphasizing spiritual warfare and round-the-clock prayer and worship, and which have produced another sort of army. That one is not particularly intrigued by the horse race of politics, but rather focused more exclusively on the supremacy of Jesus and preparing for his return.
That caused some controversy for the organizers of Perry’s event, which included speakers and endorsers who follow the New Apostolic Reformation [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4874/rick_perry_and_the_new_apostolic_reformation/ (above)]. The NAR’s strident language of spiritual warfare and emphasis on prophecy, signs, and wonders, has drawn scrutiny. But it has the same dominionist aims of the old religious right, even while employing some new rhetoric.
The NAR has also drawn criticism from conservative evangelical “discernment” ministries that consider it heretical—a criticism that Response organizers dismissed. A week before The Response, Marsha West, a conservative writer and editor of the website Email Brigade [ http://www.emailbrigade.com/ ], wrote a scathing blog post; which she published on the website of Response host the American Family Association [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/3443/former_employees%3A_racism_%26_abuse_in_leading_religious_right_org/ ], and which was subsequently taken down. West complained that the NAR, which she considers unbiblical, was involved in The Response.
West told me in an email that she was “thoroughly disgusted with Christian Right leaders who have joined forces with a group that is, by definition, a Christian cult. Because of CR leader’s lack of discernment, the NAR is now becoming mainstream.” (According to her website, West also considers Mormonism, the emergent church, new age spirituality, word of faith, homosexuality, and more to be unbiblical.) In the NAR, she particularly identified Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer, who played a big role in The Response. “[T]hese people are what the Bible calls ‘false prophets’... not true Christians,” West wrote. When I asked Garlow about West’s complaint, he shrugged it off, saying that he was not familiar with the term New Apostolic Reformation, even though he knew its founder, Peter Wagner. “I have a lot of confidence in him spiritually,” Garlow said of Wagner.
“There are a lot of theological differences here, but we’re focusing on one issue: Jesus,” Garlow added. “It’s not about whether Perry becomes president, it’s about making Jesus king.”
Jesus = Obedience
Mike Bickle, who runs an organization that seems less interested in the rough and tumble of politics, and more in capturing young people in the thrall of his 24/7 prayer room, spoke at length about what he claims is Christian failure to obey the First Commandment: to know Jesus, to love Jesus, and, most critically, to obey him.
In his sermon at The Response, Bickle complained, “In the humanistic culture, people are talking about love without reference to Jesus Christ.” It is impossible, Bickle insisted, “to love him without pursuing a life of obedience.” Love, he added, “requires that we have allegiance to Jesus,” asserting that we have a “crisis of truth” because “in the name of tolerance, we are redefining love that is not on God’s terms.” Jesus alone, Bickle concluded, “is the standard of truth. He defines morality. He defines life. He defines marriage.” (That is, the way that Bickle does.)
I met up with a woman who used to be a religious right activist until she had an “epiphany” at a Republican National Convention, when she “wondered how serious everyone is about thinking things through.” The RNC was a “two-issue show,” she said (opposition to abortion and gay marriage), and her epiphany led her to “look at scripture differently.”
This former activist said that her erstwhile colleagues—and the people attending The Response—are fed a message from their pulpits that America is a Christian nation and God is angry about sin, namely abortion and homosexuality. “They don’t have friends outside church who think differently,” she said. Still, “I don’t want to vilify or demonize. These people are sincere in the faith tradition I follow. But there needs to be a conversation.”
Back on the floor, Bickle remained onstage while Misty Edwards, a popular IHOP musician and worship leader, told the audience that Jesus would be pleased they came. “Jesus saw you here,” she exclaimed, and he’ll know “you took a stand in Houston!”
Christian Reconstructionism is the older of the two movements (though the NAR has its roots in Pentecostalism that pre-dates both). There are two of the core aspects of Christian Reconstructionism that are relevant here. First is the view that the Kingdom of God was established at the resurrection, that its establishment is progressive through history and Jesus will return at its culmination when Christianity has transformed the whole world (a view known as post-millennialism). Second, all knowledge is based in one of two sets of assumptions: the God of the Bible is the sovereign source of all authority or human reason is autonomous from God. Reconstructionists drew this dichotomous view, known as pre-suppositionalism, from reformed theology, and pushed it beyond being a merely philosophical critique to develop a thorough strategy in response. That strategy, broadly speaking, was to cast secular humanism and pluralism as being in conflict with Christianity, conferring a duty on Christians to transform earthly institutions in order to combat non-Christian influence. In other words, establishing the kingdom on earth to prepare for Christ's return required Christians to transform the world, or take dominion, a view that became an article of faith for the religious right, which popularized versions of post-millennialism as dominion or "kingdom now" theology. The pre-suppositionalist view became the basis for attacks on secular humanism and pluralism, which positioned the "biblical worldview" as being on a collision course with the others. Despite recent comments [ http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/julieingersoll/5021/the_pundits_and_the_dominionists/ ] by journalists, the term "dominionism" has a history within these movements and is indeed, a real thing—not the imaginings of some "leftists."
The New Apostolic Reformation is one of many strands of neo-Pentecostalism that draws on dominion theology and the critique of humanism/pluralism. There was a good bit of cross-fertilization between representatives of Reconstructionism and Pentecostalism in the 1980s. Though Pat Robertson has said [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/it-dominion-we-are-after-world-conquest-and-we-must-never-settle-anything-less ] he doesn’t know what "dominionism" is, Rushdoony was, more than once, his guest on The 700 Club. People like Jack Hayford (of the Pentecostal Church on the Way-Foursquare) were reading Reconstructionists (for example, David Chilton’s Postmillennial Paradise Restored). Gary North was in conversation with several charismatic leaders, perhaps thinking that the energy and vitality of those movements made them a more promising vehicle for spreading Christian Reconstrutionism than the "frozen-chosen" Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). North even dedicated his book Unholy Spirits (Dominion Press, 1986) to Bob Mumford of the Shepherding Movement and 75 Bible Questions (Dominion Press, 1984 and 1986) to Bob and Rose Weiner, founders of Maranatha Campus Ministries.
The Pentecostals never really embraced post-millennialism but blended dominion theology with their pre-millennialism. Less explored, though, is the way that the critique of pluralism functions. As I wrote last week, Reconstructionists "hold a view of knowledge that says that there are really only two possible worldviews (a biblical one and a humanist one that comes in several varieties) and that both worldviews are in a conflict for dominion," a point that engendered some discussion among RD readers. This framing is derived from pre-suppositionalism. In Reconstruction, the original sin in the garden of Eden occurred when Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree of knowledge, substituting their own reason for obedience to what God had commanded. From then on all systems of thought (philosophies, religions, worldview, ideologies, etc.) not based in God's word as revealed in the Bible were really just variations on the decision to claim autonomy for human reason ("humanism" is defined as making "man" the measure of all things). For Reconstructionists, those two worldviews are inherently mutually exclusive, thus real pluralism is impossible (see for example, Gary North's "Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism [ http://www.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/gnpp.pdf ]"). And in fact, in their view, the two sides are engaged in a battle for dominion. Throw in the militant spiritual warfare, Christians-versus-Satanic-forces rhetoric, and you see how the battle for "dominion" is, for those who believe they are engaged in such a battle, a cosmic showdown between good and evil.
For some in these movements that have cross-pollinated with one another, their opponents (i.e. the rest of us) literarlly are the spawn of Satan.
When Anders Breivik slaughtered over 70 people in Norway last month, he did so in the name of the Knights Templar. Known for their extreme violence, this was the Roman Catholic crusading fraternity dedicated to the protection of Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Medieval military orders do not commonly hit the headlines, but oddly—as was noted [ http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/0725/Knights-Templar-In-Mexico-like-Norway-criminals-look-to-past-for-legitimacy? ] in the Christian Science Monitor in late July—the Knights Templar were also implicated in another context, in another country, the same week that Breivik’s Manifesto began to circulate.
In Mexico a group of narco-traffickers now identify themselves in the Christian tradition, calling themselves the Knights Templar of Michoacan [ http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2011/07/22/knights-templar-mexicos-newest-drug-cartel ] (KTM), an organization that morphed from the fragments of an earlier incarnation, La Familia Michoacana (LFM). This born-again gang (members were initiated as if they were joining a church, asked to accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior) was headed by a man who called himself “El Mas Loco,” or the Craziest One, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez.
Gonzalez penned his interpretations of the Bible in what he called “Pensamientos,” or “Thoughts.” In this theological effort, he was hugely influenced by the work of Colorado Springs-based Christian author John Eldredge, a former board member for James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and founder of a men’s ministry called Ransomed Heart [ http://www.ransomedheart.com/ ]. Eldredges’ 2001 book, Wild At Heart: Discovering The Secret of a Man’s Soul, was required reading for La Familia.
While Eldredge has expressed “sorrow and anger [ http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15386378 ]” at the news that his book has found such devoted readers in La Familia, his unique theological focus on male bonding and heroism was evidently just the thing for a gang of “knights” in search of a chivalric code.
“Very Dangerous Men”
The best-selling Christian author received his master’s degree in counseling from Colorado Christian University in 2000, and Eldredge’s Wild at Heart is a self-help book for Christian men. It teaches that a polite Christianity has castrated men, turning them into “nice guys” and “posers.” As a result, men have lost their “heart,” and he aims to help them rediscover it. The plumb line of the text is that a man’s heart is untamed, adventurous, fierce, even violent—fraught with a penchant for danger. Masculine heart recovery or “restoration” mandates a connection to wilderness, and to other men; Eldredge argues that masculinity can only be conferred or bestowed to men by men. Hence, central to his work is a benevolent misogyny and a radical homosociality.
Ransomed Heart ministries hosts men’s retreats into the wilderness. Homosexuality results, he claims, when the need for masculine bonding is confused with sexual desire. Eldredge’s popular theology turns at once on the machismo [(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66679244 ]of Jesus (though he explicitly rejects this term), and a narcissistic male identity that participates in the absolute sovereignity of God. He correctly points out the multiple stances toward violence exhibited by the Jesus of the gospels. Christ appears conflicted, referring to himself as the Prince of Peace and advising his followers to turn the other cheek. Yet, in other canonical places Jesus is capable of great anger and even violence: he upsets the tables of money changers at the Temple, whipping them while in a frenzy (this is a pivotal reference for Eldredge).
Jesus also demonstrates a destructive response when piqued, what with cursing (and killing) a tree that bore no fruit. In his telling, Jesus was not a nice guy; on the contrary, he was a warrior who took justice into his own hands for his version of God’s righteousness. Eldredge draws his argument about Christian masculinity from Old Testament scriptures. He points especially to King David’s massacre of the Philistines for no other justification than that they were on the wrong side of the Lord’s random mercy. Another of Eldgredge’s heroes, Samson, boasts
a pretty impressive résumé: killed a lion with his bare hands, pummeled and stripped thirty Philistines… he killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. Not a guy to mess with… All those events happened when ‘the Spirit of the LORD came upon him.’
Eldredge’s theology positions a deity who is very near, literally a “friend.” As he sees it: “God is intimately personal with us and he speaks in ways that are peculiar to our own quirky hearts.” Hence, there is no universal principle or vision of human flourishing to which God is devoted. Instead, submission to Jesus involves sharing God’s glory, enabling the adventure and thus allowing the unique mission of every Christian man to emerge.
Toward this end Eldredge admonishes his readers: “Get some guys together. You need brothers. Allies. Not a gathering of nice men—a band of very dangerous men.”
The Death, and Rebirth, of Violence
In Mexico, these words fell upon fertile ears. When God spoke to the quirky heart of El Mas Loco he must have been filled with rage. On September 6, 2006, twenty masked desperados stormed into a night spot in Uruapan, Michoacan, and tossed five severed heads onto the dance floor. They also deposited a note, reading: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.”
La Familia took the severing of human heads as their signature ritual: all across Michoacan decapitated corpses litter the landscape while testifying to the transformative power of the Holy Ghost. La Famila was in line with other Pentecostal movements throughout Latin America insofar as they prohibit the usage of drugs and alcohol, condemn homosexuality, and require that their members become born-again Christians, attend enthusiastic worship ceremonies, prayer meetings, and Bible study groups. The drug cartels have set up evangelical recovery homes across Mexico for backsliders in the style of U.S. rescue missions.
La Famila personalized Eldredge’s gospel, wedding it to the narrative of justice and redemption for Mexico—but especially for the chosen ones who constituted the membership of La Famila. El Mas Loco was killed by police in December 2010 and his congregation fell into disarray, suffering schism. And interestingly, evolving from a Protestant movement into a distinctly Catholic lay fraternity. On March 8 of this year remnants of La Familia were reconstituted as The Knights Templar of Michoacan (Los Caballeros Templarios de Michoacan) or KTM.
They have been denounced by the official Knights Templar organization in Mexico, a group dedicated to charitable work. Nonetheless KTM boldly proclaims itself to be in the chivalrous and bloody tradition of Christian crusaders. It seems no coincidence that the group emerged during the Lenten season, which occasions Christian self examination, control of appetites, and spiritual devotion: sacrifice. KTM emphasizes sacrificing for honor, country, and God, and especially for the state of Michoacan. They require that members exemplify these virtues and many others including humility and, remarkably, religious freedom for those who believe in God.
KTM claims to live by a code of ethics that is published in a small illustrated booklet entitled “El Codigo de los Caballeros Templarios de Michocan [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyQCeoqoMkg ]” (The Code of KTM). The often baroque twenty-two page Code contains fifty three precepts, many of them redundant, and a pledge at the end. A final admonition declares that breaking the Code will result in immediate execution. The Code is illustrated with images pulled from a website promoting the 2007 Swedish film Arn: The Knights Templar. This past spring, copies of the Code were mysteriously distributed across Michoacan. Like La Familia, members of the Knights Templar must refrain from drugs and must commit to routine drug testing, but unlike La Famila they are allowed to drink alcohol, providing they avoid becoming drunk “in an offensive manner.”
Living by a Code
While emphasizing personal honor and community service they also preach a rejection of materialism and a reverence for tradition and the sacred. Their Catholicism stands in sharp contrast to their evangelical predecessors. La Familia was based on the Protestant model wherein the individual is the prime unit of spiritual and moral agency. KTM’s creed does echo that of La Familia, particularly in its absolute theism, but their model is communitarian, and focused on obedience.
The opening of the Code makes it clear that it is meant to be recited. In fact, according to the Mexican press, initiation is marked by an elaborate ritual involving flagellation. There the initiate is made to swear by the code, including its provision of death if the pledge is broken—a caveat that is repeated several times throughout the recitation. Among the earliest pledges is that God exists, and God is Truth, and therefore Knights should commit themselves to the pursuit of Truth because there they will find God. They also quickly note that a Knight’s responsibility is to set an example for all Mexico of “disinterested service to all of humanity.”
Mostly, however, the Code declares a commitment to protect the “free and sovereign state of Michoacan,” making clear its four goals: “love, fidelity, equality, and Justice.” Precept fifteen declares that the KTM promote democratic freedoms: expression, conscience, and religion. Precept sixteen states that Knights need to understand “how others get close to God.” Credo sixteen extols the virtue of patriotism. Number nineteen advises humility and nobility, while twenty-two announces that no woman should fear a Knight, but, rather, should feel protected by him. Twenty-nine reiterates that every Knight should be “firmly and truthfully in the just cause of God.” Numbers thirty-four through thirty-eight prohibit drugs, kidnapping, and mandate drug testing. Forty-three requires members to become cultured through learning. In forty-eight, their philosophy on divine justice is unpacked: “no one should kill for pleasure (gusto) nor money.” Each murder should be considered carefully to determine if there exists sufficient cause. Forty-nine reminds that their war is against both flesh and spirit. The fifty-third and final precept sums it up poetically: “where there is weakness bring strength,” give a voice to the mute, and to the “poorest KTM brings generosity.”
That these expressed goals produce sacred violence is not new under the sun. When disbelief is suspended in favor of absolute thinking there is no teaching too fantastic for the believer. Thus all manner of sociopathic beliefs are licensed and unleashed, from Norway to Mexico and beyond.
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