“Please, come join us,” insisted an attractive college student flashing her bright Aquafresh smile.
Before I was able to decline her friendly invitation I was gently pulled into a large prayer circle of thirty or so Charismatic Christians. “I’m sorry my hand is sweaty,” the girl said with a sheepish grin.
Those were the last words she spoke that I understood. We quickly surrounded a handful of young preachers who whooped and hollered before surrendering English for the unintelligible language of tongues. The manic participants sounded like a cross between a prayer service and a Native American tribe preparing for battle.
Eventually, they raised their hands toward the sky pointing to God, which allowed me to escape and enter the seating area at Ford Field, where Lou Engle, founder of The Call, had gathered 27,000 fundamentalist Christians from across the nation on 11.11.11, a date that came to him in what he believes to be a divinely inspired vision. The majority of the crowd was Caucasian, however a significant number were African American. There was a large youth component, but the age of participants reached across the spectrum.
While I can’t speak for the entire conference, which was a 24-hour call to fast and prayer, I did spend 14 hours at Ford Field watching sermons, surveying sideshows, videotaping the gathering, and interacting with the hyped-up crowd. So, my observations, while not complete, do offer a significant snapshot of the 11.11.11 Detroit rally.
In a press release prior to the event I wrote that I expected 11.11.11 Detroit to be a “gay bashing” and “Muslim trashing” extravaganza.After all, The Call had chosen Detroit as its rally site in an effort to convert the region’s estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims.
The Associated Press reported that Apostle Ellis Smith, Engle’s local “point person” for The Call, referred to Islam in a sermon leading up to the revival as a “false,” “lame” and “perverse” religion.
Engle had previously held an infamous event in Uganda that whipped up anti-gay hysteria. In 2008, the electrifying preacher organized a rally at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium in support of Proposition 8, a successful measure to prohibit marriage equality in California.
To my surprise, the festivities, which were aired on God TV, were appreciably toned down. Sure, there was red meat on the menu, but it was not the all-you-can-eat buffet that I had come to expect from Engle and other leaders of the 7 Mountains Movement (aka The New Apostolic Reformation) that he is a key part of.
Indeed, most of the aspersions on Friday evening and Saturday were deliberately cast though euphemism. Homosexuality was never explicitly mentioned, but was instead lumped together with other “sins” under the umbrella of “sexual immorality.” Other times, speakers camouflaged their anti-gay agenda by simply saying they supported “traditional marriage.” During the entire time I observed the event there was not one reference to healing homosexuality and no “ex-gays” were trotted up on the stage to tell tales of how they “prayed away the gay.”
However, the Detroit Free Press reported that Apostle Smith claimed that at the event, “a lesbian came from the homosexual community and said she has never experienced such love. And she is now working to change her lifestyle.”
(I’m sure this alleged lesbian was very stable and well adjusted because it is common for healthy and secure LGBT people to spend weekends attending revivals that consider them demonic.)
The conversion of Muslims was also downplayed and “Dearborn,” referring to the Detroit suburb with perhaps the nation’s largest Muslim population, euphemistically replaced the word “Islam.”
It took several hours to figure out what was really going on – but I gasped when the disturbing pattern finally revealed itself. This elaborate show had all the trappings of a modern religious revival – from the thumping music to the two gargantuan video screens suspended above the enraptured audience. But this ostensibly religious event was little more than a political front.
Its real aim was to peel African American support away from the Democratic Party in a swing state during a critical election year. Not only is President Barack Obama’s reelection at stake, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is locked in a tight race that includes social conservative and former GOP Rep. Peter Hoekstra. This cynical revival was not about “values” — it was about votes. It was not about worship, but winning office for Republicans by promoting what writer Ed Kilgore called in The New Republic, a “big-God, small-government creed.”
The amazing part was that the audience seemed totally unaware of the underlying motives and machinations. After all, the words “Democrat” and “Republican” were never spoken and there was only one local politician identified on-stage. It seemed that even some of the minor speakers might not have been privy to the overarching strategy. Nonetheless, a brilliant display of political subterfuge was unfolding as the oblivious crowd bopped to Christian rock with their hands swaying above their heads.
This is not the first attempt of white fundamentalists to lure black voters away from the Democratic Party. Immediately following the 2004 presidential election, social conservatives made a strong push to lure African-Americans. Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center hate group, The Traditional Values Coalition, hosted a right wing meeting of 70 black religious leaders in Los Angeles.
“In 2004, the religious right was concerned about re-electing George W. Bush,” said Al Sharpton at First Iconium Baptist Church. “They couldn’t come to black churches to talk about the war, about health care, about poverty. So they did what they always do and reached for the bigotry against gay and lesbian people.”
Unbelievably, at the Los Angeles meeting Sheldon played an anti-gay video featuring disgraced Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. Remember, Lott had to step down as Senate Majority Leader after he publicly pined over Strom Thurmond not winning the presidency as a Dixiecrat. African-American columnist Leonard Pitts put Sheldon’s power grab in perspective:
“Whether the issue was slavery, segregation, lynching, voting rights or housing discrimination, social conservatives have always taken a position that history later judged to be ignorant and flat-out wrong….which leaves me at a loss to understand why any African American possessed of a functioning brain would give this atavistic bunch the time of day.”
Still, the attempt was gaining some momentum until Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, which badly frayed the burgeoning unholy alliance. The effort was further hampered by the emergence of Barack Obama as the Democratic standard bearer.
In this renewed effort in Detroit, Lou Engle and his minions were smart. They wisely figured out that direct attacks on the Democratic Party would not fly, nor would all-out verbal barrages against President Barack Obama, who still has strong African American support. They also understood that the baggage surrounding white Evangelical racism would have to be addressed and surmounted before real progress was made.
To overcome these obstacles and recruit African Americans to vote for the GOP they devised what seems like a five-part strategy.
1) Pick a key swing state with a beleaguered city that had an economically disadvantaged African American population
2) Create an emotional spectacle where tearful white people pleaded for forgiveness and repented onstage for past racism
3) Sharply define new wedge issue(s) and create a racially-based conspiracy theory that could ultimately be used against the Democratic Party
4) Exploit these emerging wedge issue(s) to the point they become more important than fixing the economy
5) Redefine voting criteria so candidates are primarily judged by where they stand on these wedge issue(s) – with the ultimate goal of leading many African Americans to conclude that they are best represented by the conservative GOP.
Lou Engle understands that much of Michigan is conservative. If he were able to peel off fifteen or twenty percent of Detroit’s black Democratic vote, he might be able to turn the state solidly red. The main wedge issue he selected to accomplish his plan is abortion. For good measure, he helped weave a conspiracy theory: Sinister white bigots who run programs like Planned Parenthood were using abortion to reduce African American birthrates.
“What Birmingham is to the civil rights movement, Detroit is to abortion,” bellowed Engle at the event. “Detroit has a calling…blacks and Latinos could lead the parade of history.”
Engle’s message was aided by a parade of socially conservative African American ministers. One preached that black people must choose “BC (Biblical Correctness) over PC (Political Correctness).” The subtext was that the pro-life GOP is on the side of the Bible and thus should be the party of African Americans. Another pastor was even more explicit when he declared that African Americans had a choice: “God’s way or a political party’s way.” (Read More)
C. Peter Wagner says he gave the New Apostolic Reformation its name, and he has been a prominent leader in that movement for decades. He seldom gives interviews to non-friendly media, but he did one on Fresh Air yesterday. From NPR’s summary:
Among the topics discussed on Monday’s show are: Wagner’s explanation about a recent video that has been shown on television in which he claims the emperor of Japan had sex with the sun goddess, a power of darkness headed by the kingdom of Satan, and how that resulted in the decline of the Japanese stock market; how demons figure into the belief structure of NAR; the role of prophets and apostles within NAR; what Wagner means when he describes the NAR’s mission as taking dominion over business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family and religion; how he felt when he found out that Ted Haggard, his World Prayer Center co-founder, had used drugs and had sex with men; spiritual mapping; and the role of Jews and Israel in preparing for the second coming.
Dominionist hate pastor Lou Engle is bringing one of his shouty wingnut rallies to the city of Detroit in November:
Lou Engle and Rick Joyner will be working together in September to promote The Call: Detroit, Engle’s prayer rally on November 11. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since both are closely involved in the New Apostolic Reformation, or the movement which believes that God is ordaining a new generation of prophets and apostles. Both have prophesied that America is turning into Nazi Germany and have claimed to know the reasons behind natural disasters, with Joyner calling Hurricane Katrina God’s judgment for homosexuality and Engle asserting that the Joplin, Missouri tornado was God’s punishment for legal abortion. Engle and Joyner, who leads MorningStar Ministries and The Oak Initiative, are also strong proponents of Seven Mountains Dominionism, which posits that fundamentalist Christians should take control over the seven most influential sectors of society: government, family, media, business, education, arts and entertainment, and the church.
Bleeeeengh. For a closer look at what sorts of things Lou Engle says when he doesn’t think the media is watching, check out my investigative report from last fall, “The Stealth Bombers Meeting.”
Oh, and here’s a long video of Lou talking about his Detroit rally, emotionally lying like the snake he is, for the benefit of the already brainwashed and easily led. He is SUCH a creep.
Daniels to Bring Bizarre and Bigoted Views To Jacksonville’s Government, Says TWO
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out expressed alarm that extremist Kimberly Daniels narrowly won her race for Jacksonville City Council. Daniels is known as a “demon buster” and has offended many voters with her fringe views. The new public official is an “Apostle” in a radical religious sect known as “The Seven Mountains Movement,” which seeks to overthrow American society and turn it into a Christian theocracy.
“It is disgraceful that Jacksonville voters elected a radical extremist with offensive and outlandish views,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Kimberly Daniels is unfit for office and her election has brought great shame to the state of Florida and the city of Jacksonville. When people with backward views are elevated to public office, it inevitably leads to backwater policies that leave a region behind.”
“Through hard work and prayer I prevailed. I now have the opportunity to serve people in a greater capacity,” Daniels told Charisma magazine.
“There’s a reason [about] 93,000 people voted for me,” Daniels said to the Florida Times Union. “There’s more to me than has been presented.” According to the newspaper, 158 votes – 0.08 percent of the total – separated the council contenders after returns were totaled.
“I would agree that there is more to Daniels than has been presented and it is equally as shocking and repulsive as what the public has already witnessed,” said TWO’s Besen.
During the campaign, TWO revealed videos found by researcher Bruce Wilson where Daniels preaches to her flock: “You can talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews own everything.” Daniels also says, “I thank God for slavery. If it wasn’t for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa worshipping a tree.”
Daniels has also said that Halloween candy can be tainted by demons: “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season,” Daniels told Charisma magazine on October 27, 2009. “Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door-to-door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons can’t tell the difference.”
Additionally, Daniels is known as a “demon buster” who gives exorcisms to rid people of various maladies.
“We have experienced much success in one-session deliverances,” Daniels wrote in her book, Clean House, Strong House. “…However, there have been times when I have personally walked homosexuals, ex-witches, and drug addicts through sessions that took place over a couple of years.”
MC Hammer and controversial preacher John Hagee endorsed Daniels. She was also backed by two Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate groups: the New Black Panthers and the Family Research Council.
Daniels defeated Republican David Taylor who likely lost because he is under investigation for ethical violations. The Times Union describes him as “an attorney who has been embroiled in bar complaints, allegations of building homes without a license and most recently, mystery surrounding an alleged forged signature of a local judge.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism and the “ex-gay” myth. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
On April 1-2, 2011, the Harvard Extension Service and Learning Society will host, at the Harvard Northwest Science Building, the “Social Transformation Conference”. The upcoming event has already generated considerable controversy, and Truth Wins Out, a “Non-profit organization that defends the GLBT community against anti-gay misinformation campaigns”, plans to run a full page ad in the Harvard Crimson, on Thursday March 31st, protesting the event–which is being billed as advancing the “Seven Mountains” program. One of the scheduled speakers is linked (intimately) with a professed co-author of Uganda’s so-called “kill the gays bill”, and the 7 Mountains movement is already impacting US national politics. Below are 7 facts you should know about 7M movement and its speakers lined up for the Harvard conference.
Prominently featured on the Social Transformation Conference website is a professionally-produced video on the “Seven Mountains mandate”, which instructs “Bible believing” Christians to seek control of seven key sectors of society: education, government, media, business, arts & entertainment, religion, and the family. According to the video, the “church” must regain control of those sectors, which are now occupied by “darkness”. [below: Seven Mountains video]
The Seven Mountains concept is a vision for the total eradication of secular society and church-state separation. Os Hillman and Lance Wallnau, two of the scheduled Social Transformation Conference speakers, are in the vanguard of promoting the 7M idea, which Wallnau calls “a template for warfare.”
The ‘Seven Mountains movement’ is a newly formed global Protestant mega-denomination that has coalesced out of independent charismatic Christianity; Four of the speakers, Hillman, Wallnau, Pat Francis, and Bill Hamon, are all apostles within the biggest organizational body in this movement, the International Coalition of Apostles (ICA), launched in 2001 [see footnote #1], and three are on the ICA’s elite “Apostolic Council”.
7 Notable facts about the Social Transformation Conference speakers
—Three of the apostles, Lance Wallnau, Os Hillman, and Bill Hamon, are on record promoting virulently antigay rhetoric. Two have labeled homosexuality an “abomination” and one, Bill Hamon, advocates the death penalty not only for homosexuality but for all sex outside of marriage.
—Two of the apostles, Os Hillman and Pat Francis, are close colleagues of ICA apostle Julius Oyet, a professed architect and co-author of Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Bill–that would impose the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and require citizens, upon pain of three-year prison terms, to report all homosexual activity to police and government authorities. Hillman has played a role in the American evangelical financing of Oyet. In a March 2010 interview, Julius Oyet stated that the Seven Mountains movement was successfully “infiltrating” its ideology into the grassroots of Ugandan society.
—All four apostles promote the claim that witchcraft is a pressing contemporary societal problem.
—These same three apostles also serve on the ICA’s elite Apostolic Council, the ICA’s accountability agency, along with top founders of the movement who are on record (with books in-print) advocating the burning of native art, Catholic religious relics, and Books of Mormon. ICA leaders also have boasted of having helped to kill Mother Theresa, through prayer-warfare.
–One apostle, Bill Hamon, serves, along with The Call founder Lou Engle, on the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders (ACPE), the top prophetic body of the Seven Mountains movement, whose prophets profess to communicate directly with, and receive prophetic insight, from God. ACPE prophet Mary Glazier has suggested that believers will drive the unrighteous from “the land” and has has stated that at 24, Sarah Palin joined her personal prayer group which in 1995, according to Glazier, successfully hounded an alleged witch out of Alaska. In September 2008, Glazier released a prophecy suggesting that Sarah Palin, following a tragic death, would ascend, after a period of national mourning, to a higher national office.
—In November 2009, at a Hawaii conference event attended by Cam Cavasso, the Republican senate candidate running against Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, apostle and Harvard conference speaker Pat Francis told her evangelical audience, “We put our foot on Hawaii! And you said every place we put our foot, we will rule. So we are the Kingdom, the Kingdom is here!” Francis’ rhetoric dramatically contradicts apostle and and top 7M promoter Os Hillman’s claim that “The 7 mountains initiative is not an initiative to establish dominion over all the earth or in governments.” Footage from 2009 Hawaii event shows Francis inveighing against “generational curses” and “witchcraft”.
The New Apostolic Reformation / Seven Mountains movement
ACPE and the ICA are top organizational entities in the collective movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation–an attempt to remake Christianity that is as ambitious as was the original Protestant Reformation. Leaders and membership in this global, US-based movement are not waiting for the “Rapture”. They are seeking earthly power.
Leaders of the NAR/Seven Mountains movement are aggressively working to move from the fringes into the mainstream. While their underlying ideology is extreme compared to traditional fundamentalism, they have managed to re-brand as pseudo-progressive by emphasizing ethnic and racial inclusivity (towards the creation of a new ‘rainbow right’), and through the faith-based provision of social services. This protective facade allows ICA apostles to move within Democratic Party centrist policy circles with ease and one ICA apostle, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference Samuel Rodriguez, has helped write the “Third WayCome Let Us Reason Togethergoverning agenda.
Movement ties to national politicians
The Seven Mountains/NAR leadership is being aggressively courted by top-level Republican Party politicians including several who may run for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination (including Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann (see footnote #2)), and its leaders over the past two years have shared stages with many Republican senators and Congress members, including Senator Jim DeMint and former Senator Sam Brownback, now governor of Kansas, who was Lou Engle’s roommate for seven months, in a rented Washington DC condominium, as Brownback confirmed in September 2010.
The NAR / Seven Mountains movement organizes through “prayer warrior” networks and has launched dozens of ground-level political organizing efforts (see: Resource Directory for the New Apostolic Reformation) in cities across the United States. In some cases, as in Newark, NJ, Baltimore, MD, and Orlando, FL, these efforts, generally branded with the term “transformation”, publicly presented as benign citywide prayer initiatives against crime and social problems, are nonetheless tied directly to top New Apostolic Reformation apostles and prophets.
The movement’s top leaders, especially C. Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs, and Ed Silvoso, have developed novel theological concepts (see: Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare (SLSW) Glossary) that involve the need to fight demon powers, which are held to cause societal problems and crime, and prevent successful evangelizing efforts (see: Muthee and the Transformations Franchise (PDF file)).
“Spiritual Mapping” has been a key organizing tool for the movement. It involves squads of believers walking city and town streets to identify sources of demon-infestation, which according to spiritual mapping teaching are often associated with businesses, institutions, and even specific individuals. Spiritual Mapping ideas have inspired local initiatives, such as in Amarillo, Texas, which appear to be evolving into faith-based vigilante efforts. During the 1990′s methods for Spiritual Mapping (and its public euphemism, called “Prayer Walking”) were developed by C. Peter Wagner and Ted Hagard, at Haggard’s Colorado Springs New Life Church. This American Life journalist Alix Spiegel reported on Haggard’s church activities, in This American Life segment #77, “Pray”. One of the ICA’s apostles has taught that enemies/sources of demon infestation can be pinpointed on a map with colored pushpins.
“Dog Whistle” politics and faith-based health care
The movement has developed its own Biblical scripture-based lingo, through which its apostles and prophets can communicate political ideas in a manner that outsiders almost wholly miss. One example of this Bible-based code-talking, sometimes referred to as “dog whistle” politics, was Sarah Palin’s recent claim to be a victim of “blood libel”. Another example is the battlecry of the Seven Mountains movement, “The Head Not The Tail”.
The 7 Mountains / New Apostolic Reformation movement is developing an international network of miracle-healing centers under ICA apostle Cal Pierce, who describes his network as a “Kingdom Health Care System.” These centers, called “healing rooms”, purport to heal cancer and other serious illnesses, and drive out demons. The Lifeline Ministry of professed co-author of Uganda’s “Kill the gays bill” Julius Oyet runs one of Pierce’s healing room franchises.
Footnotes:
1. As of 2010, the International Coalition of Apostles removed its “short list” of ICA apostles from public circulation. Here is the 2009 members list [PDF file], courtesy of the Internet Archive, listing Os Hillman, Pat Francis, and Bill Hamon as ICA apostles. Lance Wallnau became listed as an ICA apostle in 2010 and now serves on the ICA’s elite apostolic council.
All four Harvard Social Transformation Conference speakers, apostles Pat Francis, Lance Wallnau, Bill Hamon, and Os Hillman, are also faculty members of the Wagner Leadership Institute (PDF file of WLI faculty members), which serves as the primary teaching institute for training evangelical leaders in the ideas and practices of C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation / 7 Mountains movement.
2. In the linked video, evangelist Rick Joyner describes a post-2008 election trip to Congress, where Joyner met with Congressional Representatives including Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Joyner is not officially part of C. Peter Wagner’s several NAR entities but serves as a key strategist of the Seven Mountains / New Apostolic Reformation movement, participates in numerous NAR events, and contributes writing to books by Peter Wagner and his apostles. In this 2008 video footage, Joyner can be seen together onstage with C. Peter Wagner, at a ceremony for the “former apostolic alignment” of evangelist Todd Bentley, who was covered in the Southern Poverty Law Center Fall 2008 report, ‘Armin’ For Armageddon.
This weekend, Harvard University is hosting the “Social Transformation Conference,” featuring religious extremists who are falsely billed as “leading voices for the faith-based social transformation culture.” Here are the views espoused by conference speaker Lance Wallnau, who said during an October 2010 webcast
“So you’ve got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you’ve got a financial collapse — all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don’t line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down”
Truth Wins Out will confront this conference by placing a full-page ad in The Harvard Crimson newspaper on Thursday, March 31. We simply can’t let these crazy ideas gain traction and must stand up and speak out.
Our Harvard Crimson ad will cost $1,000 – and we need your help today so we can fight back. Please become an Ad Sponsor with a tax-deductible gift of $100, or an Ad Supporter with a gift of $25. Any amount you can give to make sure our voice is heard and these charlatans are vigorously challenged would be greatly appreciated.
TWO will also co-sponsor a Join the Impact Massachusetts protest against this conference: 12 Noon, Saturday April 2, at the Northwest Science Building (52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA).
TWO believes exposing this conference, which demonizes entire groups of people, is important because prominent politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin, have courted it. The university’s ostensible stamp of approval will make it easier for these theocrats to appear respectable and create powerful political alliances in a presidential election year. We can’t let that happen.
Please help our robust efforts to confront and expose these dangerous demagogues by making a tax-deductible contribution today. If you are a Harvard alumnus and want to cover the entire cost of the ad – that would be amazing! If you want help our cause, please consider a donation of $100, $25 or even $15 today.
Truth Wins Out
Post Office Box 96
Burlington, VT 05401
Learn more about the extremists at this conference by watching this video
Truth Wins Out Confronts Divisive, Homophobic Event By Setting the Record Straight with Hard-Hitting Harvard Crimson Ad; Saturday Protest of Conference
BURLINGTON, Vt. – One week after spearheading a successful petition drive that led to Apple removing an anti-gay iPhone app, Truth Wins Out has turned its attention to confronting a bitterly divisive and homophobic conference at Harvard University. On April 1-2, the Harvard Extension Service and Learning Society will be hosting the “Social Transformation Conference,” featuring religious extremists who are falsely billed as “leading voices for the faith-based social transformation culture.”
Truth Wins Out will place a full-page ad (See Below) in The Harvard Crimson on Thursday, March 31, to educate the campus and the local community on the extreme ideas espoused by conference speakers who belong to the “Seven Mountains Movement.” The intolerant idea behind this radical plan is to “reclaim” and “hold dominion” over seven key spheres of society: education, arts, family, media, business, government, and religion. Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will be in Boston and available for media interviews for the duration of the conference, as well as TWO researcher, Bruce Wilson.
TWO will also co-sponsor a Join the Impact Massachusetts protest against this conference: 12 Noon, Saturday April 2, at the Northwest Science Building (52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA). There may also be a student protest on Friday evening, further details, TBA.
“This is a divisive conference that demonizes and dehumanizes entire groups of people,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It promotes religion-based bigotry in the guise of improving society. While these zealots have a right to speak, Harvard University has a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure it provides an appropriate forum where these dangerous views are vigorously challenged. To this end, Harvard failed. As a result, the university is aiding and abetting the dissemination of hateful, exclusionary, totalitarian views that are anathema to Harvard’s values of inclusion, pluralism, fairness, robust intellectual debate, and diversity.”
Once example of “red meat” rhetoric comes from conference speaker Lance Wallnau who said during an October 2010 webcast:
“You’ve got Islam invading the United States. So you’ve got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you’ve got a financial collapse — all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don’t line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down”
“These religious supremacists may attempt to tone down their radical views at Harvard in a deceptive effort to appear mainstream,” said TWO researcher Bruce Wilson, who has done extensive research for Truth Wins Out on the Seven Mountains Movement. “However, even a cursory glance at their rhetoric shows that they are dangerous demagogues and utopian extremists who dream of taking over America. We will shine a spotlight on this fringe movement to make it more difficult for them to use the prestige of Harvard University to legitimize their outlandish views and whitewash their radical agenda.”
TWO believes exposing this movement is important because prominent politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin, have courted it. The university’s ostensible stamp of approval will make it easier for these theocrats to appear respectable and create powerful political alliances at the expense of America’s future.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism and the “ex-gay” myth. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Bruce Wilson of Talk To Action – a veteran watchdog of the Christian Right — has created a very short documentary called “Transforming Uganda.”
Please share the video with friends or colleagues, and spread the word that the Uganda antigay genocide legislation is not an isolated incident. In fact, the “transformational” movement is working underground in several cities in America.
To my surprise, the festivities, which were aired on God TV, were appreciably toned down. Sure, there was red meat on the menu, but it was not the all-you-can-eat buffet that I had come to expect from Engle and other leaders of the 7 Mountains Movement (aka The New Apostolic Reformation) that he is a key part of.
It took several hours to figure out what was really going on – but I gasped when the disturbing pattern finally revealed itself. This elaborate show had all the trappings of a modern religious revival – from the thumping music to the two gargantuan video screens suspended above the enraptured audience. But this ostensibly religious event was little more than a political front.
On April 1-2, 2011, the Harvard Extension Service and Learning Society will host, at the Harvard Northwest Science Building, the 
Our Harvard Crimson ad will cost $1,000 – and we need your help today so we can fight back. Please become an Ad Sponsor with a tax-deductible gift of $100, or an Ad Supporter with a gift of $25. Any amount you can give to make sure our voice is heard and these charlatans are vigorously challenged would be greatly appreciated.
