Mercy Ministries and Hillsong

According to Nancy's blog, she has gone over to Australia to visit a Hillsong conference. It would be nice if the Australian media would report on this. Apparently Nancy was hobnobbing with Philip and Holly Wagner. Does anyone have any information on these two individuals? I believe Holly was an actress, I don't know what Phillip does. But I have this nagging suspicion that I should know who they are. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, I'm sorry the blog has been going so slow this summer. I've had pretty extensive health problems, coupled with a dissertation, which has slowed the amount of entries I can make and has lessened the quality of those entries I do make.

Obsessed on A & E

Check out Obsessed on A & E. It's a show about people suffering from OCD. I have mixed feelings about it. It is bringing exposure to OCD sufferers, but on the other hand the format of the show seems exploitive. Worse, the program focuses only on CBT therapy and not on medication, which is at least as important, if not more so. Also, its format tends to be reality televisoin like, and tends to emphasize the strangeness, rather than the common humanity and suffering, of those afflicted with OCD.

Nancy Alcorn and patriotism

Nancy Alcorn's latest blog entry is a sickening panegyric to American patriotism and imperialism. She writes that she: "just can’t help but think about how thankful I am for all of the men and women in our Armed Services that we celebrate and thank God for on this celebration day of our freedom and Independence. Not to sound too serious, but really think about the fact that we live in America and I can actually get on a flight and fly all the way to Australia and not have to think about my safety because of all the people that have served to protect our God-given freedom.I hope that wherever you are today, you will take the time to say a prayer of thanks to God for all those who have laid their lives down for us and the families that are really missing them. In addition, I hope you will also take time to thank God that He gave His only son so that we could have eternal freedom"

Never mind that many of those Americans died in unjust wars. The 'brave' veterans of the Mexican and Spanish American wars were little better than butchering conquerors. Our dear Confederate veterans were slavedrivers. And oh yes, our brave veterans in Iraq, pointing to hooded figures penises as they torture them. Please. Nancy hates men in dresses, but loves men with guns. What kind of value system is that? Worst of all, Christ has died for our "eternal freedom", according to Alcorn. As if Jesus hasn't been draped enough in the American flag. Last I checked, Jesus favored no one people. But hey, what do I know . . . I'm just an ignorant agnostic.

Nazi analogies and Battlecry

Post 1945, one of the signs of an extremist group is continously comparing one's enemies to Nazis. I have one battlecry video where Battlecry members are literally being attacked by Nazis, one of the Nazis throwing a hand grenade into the handsome male lead's bed, another trying to make a girl commit suicide. Who exactly these Nazis are is undefined, but Luce's protests in San Fran and against MTV give some indication of what groups are likely to be targeted. The Nazi analogy is a favorite tool of the Christian right. Homosexuals have been compared to the Nazis (The Pink Swastika), as have abortionists (pro-life movement) and transhumanists (see Joni Eareckson's writings). Never mind the fact that many of the Nazis were Christians . . . one should never let the truth get in the way of a good mythology.

The Nazi ideology encourages teens to see the world in strict binaries, with secularists representing the demonized secular culture. Yet, is being branded by a God who orders genocide really any better than being branded by an MTV culture that is also complicit in such crimes. I don't know, and I expect most of you won't either.

Blog on Battlecry, Virtue Terrorism

I'd like to promote Recovering Alumni's blog, My Teen Mania Experience. It has some very interesting entries on Battlecry.
One concept that is core to Battlecry\Teen Mania\Honor Academy is virtue terrorism. To me, virtue terrorism is the most dangerous propaganda tool invented by evangelical Americans in many years. Basically, Battlecry founder Ron Luce argues that MTV and capitalist culture are virtue terrorists, corrupting the minds of youth. He then subtly extends virtue terrorism to cover every individual who is not an evangelical Christian, particularly LGBT individuals. In my classes at SUNY Binghamton, my students have commented on how slickly produced Battlecry propaganda is, even though it is easy to see this from the outside. By labeling secularists, Jews, gays, etc. as virtue terrorists, Luce dehumanizes these groups. And because Luce, unlike other evangelical Christians, as a coherent vision of the media industry, he is able to tap into teen anathema to the branding of their culture. As a quasi-Marxist I find this of real concern. Luce's critique of mass media as denigrating culture is not wrong, but his solution is to create an evangelical mass media that merely apes the 'world' and the global capitalist system. Teen Mania promotes a false revolutionary politics so teens won't be led to truly revolutionary movements, like Marxism, feminism, or even the growingly radical Emergent church. Please, guys, take Teen Mania seriously. Luce is the most skilled evangelical propagandist in a generation, and that makes him both intelligent and dangerous.

Honor Academy and Teen Mania

I just thought everyone should continue to be made aware of the group Battlecry (see linked article) and their Honor Academy. According to Jeff Sharlet of the Revealer, one of the smartest reporters on evangelical issues currently out there, "Intern days begin as early as 4:45 A.M. with an hour of group exercise on the court near the Academy’s swimming pool. Mornings are for classes: There's "Character Development," which focuses on "obedience" and "purity," and the "World View Module," in which one learns to see current events around the world through the lens of obedience and purity.
Further reinforcement comes from the Academy's required "Life Transforming Events," the most grueling of which is ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of a Lifetime). Luce was reluctant to share details about the "Opportunity," a fifty-to-ninety-hour sleep-deprived endurance test, but a short video of the 2005 ESOAL provides revealing glimpses: students weeping and dragging giant wooden crosses on their shoulders; a boy rolling and puking across a field while a senior intern "sergeant" in camouflage and a helmet urges him on; a platoon of weeping girls; a shell-shocked boy mumbling into the camera, "Don't know what time it is…. Don’t know what matters…. Don't even necessarily know who I can trust."

Teen Mania\Battlecry believes that individuals, rather than being branded by MTV and secular culture, need to be branded by God with his logos and trademarks. Therefore, Battlecry tries to attract teenagers and young adults to their camps, meetings through propaganda, music videos, secular-like marketing campaigns. Suppossedly, they also undergo persecution training where people pretend to be secular humanists and persecute them. I urge interested readers to visit Teen Mania's website to research this dangerous organization.

Political Reasons for Marginalization of Mentally Ill Evangelicals

The continued marginalization of mentally ill evangelicals by the rest of the movement is not accidental. Evangelicals feel that they must present a universally positive front to the secular world, and because mentally ill people are not normally considered 'positive', evangelicals have decided to suppress our existence. We represent the reality that neither evangelical faith nor evangelical practice are perfect. Evangelical fiction has participated in this marginalization, ignoring or downplaying the suffering mentally ill evangelicals endure under tyrannical church regimes. Only a few evangelical authors, notably Melody Carlson and Lisa Sampson, have protested the stereotyping of mentally ill individuals and psychologists in evangelical literature and as women their voices are marginalized by the church. The church needs an underground movement to protest discrimination against the mentally ill. It has yet to appear.

Some days I fear it never will.