As a lot of you know, I've posted a lot on dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation crawling into bed with several top Republican politicians. I take this very personally, given that I have an up, close and all-too-personal experience with this fascist brand of Christianity. As I've mentioned several times before, during my freshman year at the University of North Carolina, I was briefly suckered into joining an outfit that is part of one of the more notorious NAR outfits.
For the first six months of my freshman year, I was a member of Waymaker Christian Fellowship, a campus outreach of a church affiliated with Morning Star International, now known as Every Nation. That group, in turn, is comprised of most of the remains of one of the more notorious "campus cults" from the 1980s, Maranatha Campus Ministries. In fact, the church I was part of, King's Park International Church in Durham, grew out of Carolina's Maranatha chapter. Also, Maranatha's former leader, Bob Weiner, is a member of the board of Rick Joyner's Oak Initiative. I've been speaking out against this bunch for almost 14 years, and back in 2005 was one of several people interviewed about this church's ties to a Christian fraternity. This outfit still exists today, but is now known as UNC Every Nation Campus Ministries.
They hid a lot about who they really were so as not to scare anyone away--a tactic that allowed them to rope in a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have given them the time of day, including yours truly. I only found out about their true nature in bits and pieces. For instance, I only found out how hyperfundie they were when I first went to church with them and was flabbergasted by the phony-baloney enthusiasm (telling us when to raise our hands, shout, clap, etc.). The scales only started coming off my eyes when they tried to guilt-trip me into turning from a liberal Democrat into a Christian Coalition Republican. And it was only after I left that I found out--by accident--about their links to Maranatha.
In hindsight, I saw a lot of things in there that we're seeing now with the NAR. For instance, their tendency to use perfectly laudable goals to hide their real agenda. Waymaker was one of the few even remotely integrated Christian groups at Carolina--when I was there, the racial breakdown was something like 70 percent white, 20 percent black (including yours truly) and 10 percent other. One thing I will say for them is that they talked the talk and walked the walk on racial reconcilliation--in fact, the current youth pastors at KPIC are an interracial couple that was in Waymaker with me.
A truer picture of what these people are all about, though, comes from a message preached at Every Nation's 2004 conference by one of its top prophets, Jim Laffoon, entitled "To Reach and To Rule." A few years back, another EN walkaway transcribed the message. Some parts of it are very revealing:
- "I’m here to tell you today that God looks down from heaven, as much as He hates sin, He has a plan for the earth. He looks down at every movie mogul. He looks down at every empty educator. He looks down at EVERYONE stealing the values of our children, and says, 'You’ve got to be kidding if you think you’ll thwart my plan on the earth. I have a plan you don’t understand! I have a plan for every campus! Every school! Every specter of society! Every region of the world! I have a plan! And though it’s so dark you cannot see it, my plan is going to win.'"
- "I’m utterly convinced, as I stand here tonight, that God has raised up this family in the earth to reach 'every nation in our generation.' But the ultimate purpose of God is not for us to reach every nation, it is to raise up a generation long after my generation is gone who because they have reached nations can begin to rule nations! Have you ever wondered why the church has spent two thousand years reaching the same nations OVER and OVER and OVER again? It’s because we’ve only set a goal of reaching them and not understanding what it is to rule them, and one generation reaches them, and never transfers the burden of rule to the next generation, and we reached them over and over and over in a cycle! I’m here to tell you, the generation of Phil [Bonasso] and Rice and Steve [Murrell], our generation, will plant a church capable of reaching that nation, in every nation, but your generation, twenty-five and under, thirty and under, God wants to install something, God wants to do something, where we not only begin to reach nations, we literally begin to possess them."
- "Let me tell you, for all your might, and all your power, the thing the enemy fears is not you, it’s what you’re capable of birthing! The thing the enemy really fears in [?] for tonight, in Camp Morning Star tonight, in the students tonight, the thing the enemy fears is not Phil and Steve and Rice, it’s what the synergism of their lives can BIRTH and PRODUCE! What the enemy really fears, in the end, is not just another church plant. It was the fact that that woman was pregnant with something as you read on, that was not just going to reach nations, it was going to rule nations. That scared the enemy. You see, when the enemy finds an apostolic family under authority, when he finds a people who walk as family, with power over the enemy, filled with righteousness [builds] yet realizing their great destiny on the earth is not just to shine and not just to look good, that they are there to somehow birth a generation that once they’ve paid the cost to reach every nation they could hand those nations to their children and their grandchildren and say, 'NOW RULE THEM!'"
- "...before it’s done, God will give us hundreds of apostles and prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors, thousands of campus workers, but it’s only the beginning, for they are going to equip the greatest army of professionals, and lawyers, and doctors, and entertainers, and fashion designers, and politicians, and mayors, and congressmen, and congresswomen, and athletes, and entertainers that the world has ever seen. And that’s why I say tonight, movie moguls beware, ungodly dictators be afraid, anti-Christ political systems be worried, ungodly educators your day is coming. For we believe that the kingdom of God can come to the earth as it is in heaven. We believe that we are called to not only reach but to rule. We believe that we are called to change history. We believe that we are called to produce a generation that will rule. I believe that one day we will leave to our children NATIONS and REGIONS and CONTINENTS!"
Absolutely frightening. I thought what I saw in there was bad. However, reading this speech made me understand a lot of what I saw during that time, as well as when I pretended I'd "seen the light" and now thought just like them for a brief time in my sophomore year to get evidence of their deceptive and manipulative tactics. For instance, they thought it's perfectly acceptable to hector people about being saved. But in light of this speech, it makes sense--if you're not saved, you're an "evildoer." And in the world the Latter Rain crowd wants to create, being an "evildoer" is a capital offense.
And now, people of this ilk are propping up a guy who has a very real chance to win the Republican nomination for president.