The
Precipice
The New Evangelical Youth Movement Fusing
Nihilism, Rap, Hip-Hop, and Fundamentalism
Swallowing a Generation Whole
There
is a new movement afoot in this country. Its
a counterculture fusion of politics and pop, and
its taking over a high school near you.
Like the waves that came before it, its got
passion, music, and antiauthority, posturing, but
more than anything else, this one has God.
flyleaf of Lauren Sandler, Righteous: Dispatches
form the evangelical Youth Movement. New York:
Viking, Penguin Group, 2006.
Theyre
engaging their peers with startling success,
fusing pop culture, politics, and religion as
they preach from the pulpit of the skate park,
bar, and rock concert
rap preachers
are
merging hip hops love of money with old-fashioned
Bible-beating fundamentalism
dressed up in
punk-rock garb. Flyleaf of
Righteous.
10,000
Teens Rocking Out
Here
is the picture of one of their Acquire the Fire
revival gatherings at a stadium: Ten
thousand teens rocking out to a catchy power pop,
their hands raised to the doomed roof, their eyes
closed, their faces ebullient. The band was,
indeed, loud, and the lights were impressive
The
lyrics on the giant prompters framing the stage
proclaimed what they were there for: the
magnificent, unifying, unconditional love of
Jesus Christ. Righteous, 2.
New Cavalry:
Millions of Teens Attend Acquire the Fire
Revivals
Millions
of teens have gone to these Acquire the Fire
revivals. The author describes it as
our new Christian cavalry, (Righteous,
4), terrifying and alluring as anything
Orwell predicted. (p. 5). There are freshly
shaved Mohawks and three-piece suits in this
subculture, and tattoos, it exists in
opposition to all culture and history that
excludes Evangelicalism. (p. 6).
Believe that
When Jesus Comes Back He Will Be Fronting a Hard-core
Band
These
new disciples have ripped down their parents
white steeples and torn apart the lumber to build
a half pipe. Christian youth is
deinstitutionalizing the American church for the
first time in about four hundred years
the
difference between them and the unsaved is
invisible
In rural Illinois, a guy in a T-shirt
with BODY PIERCING SAVED MY LIFE on the front and
an image of the stigmata on the back told me [Sandler]
that he had no doubt that Jesus would come
back fronting a hard-core band. In Denver, a
crowd of skate punks disagreed-the Lord was
surely returning with a skateboard in hand. In
Seattle, a father-to-be in his early twenties
grinned as he described the Christian world his
child would be born into. Its gotten
to the point that when I see someone covered
in great tattoos, I assume theyre Christian,
he told me
Ye
shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the
dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:28.
The
Evangelical culture is in place, and its
expanding every day to swallow a generation whole.
(p. 7) It is a population that wants
liberation from liberation. (8).
A Significant
Precipice
It
seems to me [Sandler] that growth of the Disciple
Generation, a movement of staggering demographic
diversity united by an intensely shared faith,
suggests weve arrived at a significant
precipice. We are poised before the next
Great Awakening in American history. And
considering the nations metastasizing-intellectualism,
the crumbing wall between church and state, and
the relative absence of community and meaning in
the secular world, Ive got news for you:
this awakening aint so great. (11).
The
abyss beyond the precipice is syncretistic
religion, the principle of fusing popular Baal
culture with religion.
Millions of
Adherents Fuse Hip-Hop and Tattoos With
Fundamentalism
A new
movement is being born with millions of adherents.
New myths are born, and codes of behavior
and values are set
.To hit critical mass, it
takes a youth movement. (11,12).
This
movement is using the grass roots modus
operandi of the 1960s, fusing Hip-Hop
from the gangs of New York and Kingston, Jamaica,
conservative politics, fundamentalist religion,
tattoos, and skate boards. This movement is one
with the president and views the military as
its mission tool. Dreadlocks ally with
buzz cuts. Some of the borderline fascists, all
of them are revolutionaries.
The Jesuit
Left of the Sixties Created a Blueprint for
the Right
It
appears that they are the youth movement of the
theocons and neocons, a youth movement of
political evangelicalism. The Left of the Sixties
created a blueprint for the right.
(14). Tattoos have replaced love
beads, skater-punk and hip-hop have replaced folk
and psychedelic rock, and the down-and-dirty
politics of the far right have replaced the
visionary idealism of the New Left. But the
infrastructure of the New Great Awakening is a
model thats pure sixties, organizing
and inspiring through youth culture, active and
intense community groups, and the melding of
music and meaning, pop and politics. (15).
Following the
Model of Germany
This
is happening exactly on the model of what
happened in Germany. In the 1920s the Weimar
Republic was extreme far Left. Immorality and
Left wing culture dominated Berlin. Things were
done in Berlin that surpassed Paris. The
meaningless nihilism of the culture spawned a
great yearning to belong. Then came the Wandervoegel,
the German Hippie Movement of 1928, where
Bohemian German youth wandered throughout Germany,
reading Nietzsche beside the camp fires at night
in the forest. Later, in the 1930s, the youth of
the Wandervoegel joined the extreme right Frei
Corps, and everything swung to the Far Right,
with fascist, Nazi Hitler Youth replacing the Wandervoegel.
Now nihilistic Germany had what it craved-belonging
to something big. Nazism, with a Fuhrer, a
leader with a strong will, a great vision, which
offered the security of belonging.
Meaningless of
Nihilism Leads Directly to Fascism
The
same tinderbox has been created in America now in
the Twenty-first century. A culture of nihilism,
with its meaningless, alienation, and
disconnectedness, leads directly to fascist
movements. It did in the 1930s it is now.
Only
a deep experience of actual communion with
Christ in living union by faith provides the space
the soul needs to press back the demonic
influence of our culture, and provide the soul
with nourishment, strength, power, and freedom
under the kingship of Christ.
At
Acquire the Fire events preppie kids lay hands on
pierced Goths and vise versa-literally by the
tens of thousands. Unlike any other Youth
movement in history, at least that I can think of,
the Disciple Generation integrates kids across
well-defined cultural boundaries in a single
unifying bond, a dominant ideology without a
dominant aesthetic. (Sandler, 15).
This
Christian Army Aims to Destroy Everything That It
Is Not
This
Christian army
aims to destroy everything
that it is not. Maintain no illusion: they are
wide-awake. They are ready. (16). It is a
new Crusade. They have the Life Transforming
Experience Weekends, where they fast and pray
silently for two or three days. They have Emotionally
Stretching Opportunities pf a Lifetime, when they
undergo army-style physical training. These ESOLs,
as they are known, include Persecution Training
courses in which interns are allowed little sleep
or food, and run drills like crawling through
sandy trenches and watery pits behind a team
leader bearing a huge cross-literally-while
facilitators representing the secular sphere
verbally abuse them and try to shake their faith
in God.
White
House Support
Luce,
who heads Acquire the Fire, is filling
stadiums where the Detroit Lions and Washington
Redskins have a hard time selling out seats
Luces
Branch Davidian-style training camp and creepy
militant motivational tactics may sound like the
work of an extremist and marginalized holy roller,
but in fact, his supporters include George W.
Bush, who in 2003 appointed him as a White House
advisor.
Christian
Woodstock
On a
stretch of farmland in Illinois, Cornerstone, the
annual Christian rock festival draws 50,000. The
band sets up at the Rock for life tent. Dread
locked and pierced young women set out the buffet.
The tents stretch for miles, with grubby vans
housing tens of thousands of people who camp for
five days of peace, love, music, and right-wing
organizing. Deafening bands like the Blood of the
Martyrs, and the enormously popular Haste the Day
weave their music with antiabortion declarations.
(23). It is the Christian Woodstock. Now there
are dozens of them. Here at Cornerstone there are
over a dozen massive tents that will see over 400
bands. Sandler describes how she sought some
quiet in her car as The Passion of the Christ
plays deafeningly after midnight. Earplugs do not
help. Thousands of sweaty torsos bearing tattoos
of Jesus troop by at 3 am to their tents. Rock
for Life joined up with the Virginia
offices of the American Life League, a Catholic
organization. Righteous 26.
False
Christs
False
Christs-rock concert Christa. Nihilistic Christs,
rapper Christs, skateboard Christs, tattoo
Christs, taking over a generation, all fused with
militant Evangelicalism, and it appears that its
wake may well be spilling over into the Structure.
All preparing the world for Satans
appearance as Christ in the last great delusion.
Kingdom
of God: Biblical or Jesuit Conception
It
has been extremely critical to understand where
the kingdom of God is, for Satan, through
Jesuitisms Liberation Theology is seeking
to present his kingdom as if it were the kingdom
of God in religion in general and also in the
heart of the Structure. Let me crystal clear:
The Jesuit conception of the kingdom, based on
Jesuit Liberation Theology, is now ensconced in
the Structure.
The
Difficulty of Extricating Oneself from a Culture
That Has a Wrong Conception of the Kingdom
At
the time of the coming of Christ at the First
Advent, the professed people of God had a wrong
conception of the kingdom. So powerful is the
influence of culture, that even John the Baptist,
who took the most extremes measures to protect
his spirit from the surrounding culture by living
in the wilderness was so influenced by the
culture around him that he questioned at one
point whether Jesus was the Christ. Even the
disciples of Jesus had an enormous amount of
unlearning to do.
Like
the Saviors disciples, John the Baptist did
not understand the nature of Christs
kingdom. DA 215. To the
desert prophet all this [the problem that Jesus
did not seem to meet the popular cultural
expectation of His kingdom and kingship] seemed a
mystery beyond his fathoming. There were hours
when the whisperings of demons tortured his
spirit, and the shadow of a terrible fear crept
over him. DA 216. But John the
Baptist did not surrender his faith in Christ.
The memory of the voice from heaven and the
descending dove, the spotless purity of Jesus,
the power of the Holy Spirit that had rested upon
John as he came into the Saviors presence.
And the testimony of the prophetic scriptures,
all witnessed that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Promised One. DA 216.
Rapidly
Mushroom New Conception of the Kingdom
Now
a wrong conception of the kingdom, and of the
King is happening again. Before we enter the
absolute mindbender of what is transpiring in the
Structure to try to justify the Jesuit conception
of what is now being called kingdom culture,
first, let us consider what the Biblical Christ
said about the kingdom.
Repent!
The Kingdom of Heaven Is At Hand!
Repent!
The Kingdom of Heaven Is At Hand; Repentance is
Necessary to Enter the Kingdom
First,
John the Baptist came preaching the arrival of
the kingdom:
In
those days came John the Baptist, preaching in
the wilderness of Judea,
And
saying, Repent [metanoia, change your mind, turn
around] ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand
[Has drawn near and now stands at hand].
Matthew 3:1,2.
Jesus
had the same message: From that time Jesus
began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17.
Repentance
Means a Resolute Turning Away From Satanic
Culture
Repentance
is necessary to enter the kingdom of God.
That means a resolute turning away from all
the satanic cultures that confront and
surround us.
Make
His Paths Straight
Then
John the Baptist explains what is necessary to
enter the kingdom of heaven, what this repentance
means: prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
His paths straight. Matthew 3:3. Straight
means there is to be no crookedness, no
perversity, no sin, no rebellion, no wickedness,
and no deviousness. The paths of the Lord are to
be made straight, direct, plain, honest, is what
the Greek word means. No Marxism, no
spiritualism, no pantheism, no post-modernism, no
rapper culture, no rock n roll, no
Spiritual Formation.
The
Kingdom of Heaven is Completely Different From
the World
John
came dressed in austerity, wearing camels
hair, with a leather girdle about his loins, with
an austere diet his meat was locusts and
wild honey. His dress and diet were designed to
utterly rebuke the sensuality and worldliness
of his time. The kingdom of heaven is not
amalgamated with the world, its lust, its
sensuality, its rebellion. It is completely
different from the world.
Repentance
the Gift of Christ
Repentance
is the gift of Christ: Him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior,
for to give repentance to
Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Acts 5:31.
Repentance, metanoia, a change
of mind wrought by the Holy Ghost, opens up the
soul for entrance into the kingdom of God. From
the time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent
[Metanoete]: for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17.
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