Frightening Dominionist Nutjobs

[Galapagos]

Saw this posted up at Pharyngula, and figured this group was interesting enough to warrant a thread here.
This group has apparently been functioning near my area in central Florida for a few months, although I haven't heard anything(I'm completely uninvolved in all religious communities locally).

Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon | | AlterNet

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

"An end-time army has one common purpose -- to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. ... Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth."

Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army.

[...]
Joel's Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.
[...]
Notorious for endorsing the public execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, the Christian Reconstructionist movement is far better known in secular America than Joel's Army. That's largely because Reconstructionists have made several serious forays into mainstream politics and received a fair amount of negative publicity as a result. Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office.
[...]
The audience members behave as if they are at a psychedelic counterculture festival. One couple jumps up and down twirling red and silver metallic flags. Dyed-haired teenagers pulled in by the revival's presence on Facebook and MySpace wander around looking dazed. Women lay facedown on the floor, convulsing and howling. Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on. Strangers lay hands on those who fail to produce tongues or gyrate wildly enough, pressuring them to "let it out."

"Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office."

It's comforting to see that they are adopting a strategy so retarded that it seems destined for failure, but this mild assurance is negated after watching a video of Bentley doing his thing:

YouTube - WORST ASSAULT at Todd Bentley Raging...

There is another video in which he discusses kicking an elderly woman in the face and choking a man because The Lord instructed him to do so(and the crowed he is telling this to just eats it up). It makes me very sad for(and fearful of) my neighbors to see that they are buying into something so obviously dangerous and false.

These virulent and dangerous strains of religion seem to evolve just as quickly as they can be stomped out; less than a decade ago we were sharing a Central Florida community with Benny Hinn and his followers. The most alarming of common threads between these evangelist charlatans and the ideas of their flocks is not the militancy(Hinn's flock was not militant at all), but the unwavering acceptance of the magic show on stage. It exposes an utter and complete surrender of reason, which in the past, has only lead to uninhibited human suffering.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

Saw this posted up at Pharyngula, and figured this group was interesting enough to warrant a thread here.
This group has apparently been functioning near my area in central Florida for a few months, although I haven't heard anything(I'm completely uninvolved in all religious communities locally).

Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon | | AlterNet



"Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office."

It's comforting to see that they are adopting a strategy so retarded that it seems destined for failure, but this mild assurance is negated after watching a video of Bentley doing his thing:

YouTube - WORST ASSAULT at Todd Bentley Raging Revival part 3

There is another video in which he discusses kicking an elderly woman in the face and choking a man because The Lord instructed him to do so(and the crowed he is telling this to just eats it up). It makes me very sad for(and fearful of) my neighbors to see that they are buying into something so obviously dangerous and false.

These virulent and dangerous strains of religion seem to evolve just as quickly as they can be stomped out; less than a decade ago we were sharing a Central Florida community with Benny Hinn and his followers. The most alarming of common threads between these evangelist charlatans and the ideas of their flocks is not the militancy(Hinn's flock was not militant at all), but the unwavering acceptance of the magic show on stage. It exposes an utter and complete surrender of reason, which in the past, has only lead to uninhibited human suffering.

I have been watching these people for a long time or more accurately the slow march of groups leading up to these people. Each incarnation seems to be worse than the last and frighteningly bigger and more powerful. Religion unchained has no moral limits and and no check on it's hunger for power. I think they will eventually cause huge amounts of death and destruction and have to be met with the same level of violence. Sadly the more mainstream religious seem to be at best tolerant of these people and at worst in total denial of them and their agenda. I have asked more moderate Pentecostal types and the answer is always that they do not think they are as bad as the anti religious movement shows them to be or that these people are being demonised by the liberal community in the first step of some assault on religion in general. I think they are very dangerous and they should be stopped cold now before they get completely out of hand.

[juggernot]

I would have liked this article to be less biased. To actually interview members of this 'army' and ask them what they believe. Most of the negative stuff seems like opinion or is at the very least something I just have to take the authors word on. I'm only skeptical because I've heard of similar 'armies', however the ones I've heard of are not milatant or political at all. They refer to the war they are fighting as spiritual, and their main goal is evangilism. They don't push it down peoples throats.

What I don't have a problem with
- People refering to themselves as an army of God.(This idea is in the Bible. As long as they are an army of people who turn the other cheek, I'm not so frightened. The problem comes when and if they say the end justifies the means.)
- Praying for Armageddon (If your a christian than the rapture will be the happiest day of your life. It only makes sense that people pray for it. Of course others would face terrible tribulations.)

What I do have a problem with
-Fake Miracles and Healing...Magic Shows. I believe that if there is a God, he could heal people. However I also believe he would only do it according to his will, not everytime a preacher asked him too. It is hard for me to PROVE that some magic shows aren't miracles. To do so I would make sure they select a random member of the audience, and check with them afterwards. I However don't have this kind of time. Some things are obviously scams though. I once saw a late night commercial for miracle water. Blessed by Jesus himself. Cures everything. No joke.

- Judgement - I happen to know the Bible says we shouldn't judge others lest we be judged, look at the beam in your own eye before pointing out the stick in your neighbors, etc. I also know that judging others is not effective ministry. Whenever I see 'christian' groups that protest at funerals and say horrible things about homesexuals I get really angry, for several reasons. The first is that their behaviour is simply despicable. The second is that they are giving a bad name to actual christians who believe in the message of love preached by Jesus.

Note: According to the Bible Jesus will reign on Earth after armageddon. However it says nothing about an army setting up his kingdom. After all, If Jesus came back in his heavenly glory, and everyone knew it was him, I don't think he would have any problem setting up his own rule.

[pamela]

frightening is a good word for that guy. These creeps prey lonely, hurting people. In modern day Christianity, groups like these are on the rise. They fall into cultism, they have most certainly detracted from what is taught in the Bible.
They worship themselves and get a physical "high" from their self indulgence.Not too far off from the Jim Jones and the like.