Inside America's most powerful megachurch (GWB'S)

[dutchdemocrat]

Truly Frightening. Thenewamericatheocracy.

Soldiers of Christ
Inside America's most powerful megachurch
Harpers Magazine

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“Church” is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life’s various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex’s western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life’s founder. Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life’s “free market” approach to the divine.

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When Bush invited him to the Oval Office to discuss policy with seven other chieftains of the Christian right in late 2003, Pastor Ted regaled his whole congregation with the story via email. “Well, on Monday I was in the World Prayer Center”—New Life’s high-tech, twenty-four-hour-a-day prayer chapel —“and my cell phone rang.” It was a presidential aide; “the President,” says Pastor Ted, wanted him on hand for the signing of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Pastor Ted was on a plane the next morning and in the President’s office the following afternoon. “It was incredible,” wrote Pastor Ted. He left it to the press to note that Dobson wasn’t there.

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He was always on the lookout for spies. At the time, Colorado Springs was a small city split between the Air Force and the New Age, and the latter, Pastor Ted believed, worked for the devil. Pastor Ted soon began upsetting the devil’s plans. He staked out gay bars, inviting men to come to his church; his whole congregation pitched itself into invisible battles with demonic forces, sometimes in front of public buildings. One day, while he was working in his garage, a woman who said she’d been sent by a witches’ coven tried to stab Pastor Ted with a five-inch knife she pulled from a leg sheath; Pastor Ted wrestled the blade out of her hand. He let that story get around. He called the evil forces that dominated Colorado Springs—and every other metropolitan area in the country—“Control.” Sometimes, he says, Control would call him late on Saturday night, threatening to kill him. “Any more impertinence out of you, Ted Haggard,” he claims Control once told him, “and there will be unrelenting pandemonium in this city.” No kidding! Pastor Ted hadn’t come to Colorado Springs for his health; he had come to wage “spiritual war.” He moved the church to a strip mall. There was a bar, a liquor store, New Life Church, a massage parlor. His congregation spilled out and blocked the other businesses. He set up chairs in the alley. He strung up a banner: SIEGE THIS CITY FOR ME, signed JESUS. He assigned everyone in the church names from the phone book they were to pray for. He sent teams to pray in front of the homes of supposed witches—in one month, ten out of fifteen of his targets put their houses on the market. His congregation “prayer-walked” nearly every street of the city.

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The Iraqis come up often, particularly with regard to their conversion: Despite the efforts of the news media, believing soldiers and others testify to the effective preaching of the Gospel, and the openness of so many to hear of Jesus. Pray for continued success! Another prayer request puts numbers to that news—900,000 Bibles in the Arabic language distributed by Christians in Iraq . . . And one explicitly aligns the quest for democracy in Iraq with the quest for more Christians in Iraq: May the people stand for their rights, and open to the idea of making choices, such as studying the Bible... The most common Iraq-related prayer requests, however, are strategic in the most worldly sense, such as this one: Baghdad—God, press back the enemy . . .

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His favorite was the Ukraine, where, he claimed, a sister church to New Life had led the protests that helped sweep the pro-Western candidate into power. Kiev is, in fact, home to Europe’s largest evangelical church, and over the last dozen years the Ukrainian evangelical population has grown more than tenfold, from 250,000 to 3 million. According to Ted, it was this army of Christian capitalists that took to the streets. “They’re pro-free markets, they’re pro-private property,” he said. “That’s what evangelical stands for.”


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http://www.harpers.org/

[cornermouse]

1. Falwell revisited.

[dutchdemocrat]

4. Interetesting Article

It's almost 11,000 words - that's what I enjoy about Harpers, The New Yorker, and Atlantic Monthly - the articles are long and exploratory so you feel you have come away learning something. We live in a world of snippets, sound bytes and movie clips these days.

[cornermouse]

9. I'm sure it is interesting.

However, time constraints were severe this morning. Your synopsis did indicate a distinct similarity to Falwell.

I was not putting you or the article down.

[ClintonTyree]

2. Oh man.....

"One day, while he was working in his garage, a woman who said she’d been sent by a witches’ coven tried to stab Pastor Ted with a five-inch knife she pulled from a leg sheath; Pastor Ted wrestled the blade out of her hand. He let that story get around".

I'll bet he let that "story" get around. I bet he even made up that "story" to further bullshit his paranoiac parishioners. Every thing not acceptable to them is "demonic". :eyes:

And THIS is where our not so bright pResident gets his guidance. Not History books, not by studying current affairs, not by consulting experts (other than his fawning toadies), but from some paranoid apocalyptic loonie. Makes perfect sense to me. :eyes:

His god squad of deranged, deluded sheep have run people out of town, ruined their businesses and taken it upon themselves to cleanse everyone and everything that doesn't conform to their narrow view of good and evil.

This last sentence just about says it all; "according to Ted, it was this army of Christian capitalists that took to the streets. “They’re pro-free markets, they’re pro-private property,” he said. “That’s what evangelical stands for.”

That's what evangelical stands for. A majority of Christians would disagree with him there. He apparently has no qualms about his good friend, george bush, murdering tens of thousands of innocent people because they''re obviously not evangelicals. He has no qualms about sacrificing over 1,600 American lives for bush's lies. This man needs to find Jesus, and quickly. I hope he meets his maker much sooner rather than later. What a twit. And THIS is whom bush consults on a regular basis! :banghead: What is WRONG with our fucking country? Have we all gone mad? :grr:

[leftchick]

3. I read this last month. Very disturbing indeed.

So disturbing in fact I could not finish it. I had several pages to go and just could not finish.

I have since read in LBN that the Chaplain who exposed this, Melinda something, has been sent to Iraq! CNN actually did a fairly good report about this a couple weeks ago and interviewed her and her fundie superiors.

This is very frightening. :scared:

[personman]

5. Frightening on a number of levels.

"“Well, on Monday I was in the World Prayer Center”—New Life’s high-tech, twenty-four-hour-a-day prayer chapel"

High tech eh?
Cause God can't hear you if the fiber connection goes down.

[HeeBGBz]

6. I really shouldn't read DU first thing in the morning

I get so appalled by the oppression of the regime and all the new adventures of the freedom thieves. Part of me wants to go back to bed and wait for the meteor strike.

Instead I go to work with new resentment burning in my soul toward my many fundie/neocon customers. The clueless enablers of Antichrist, Inc.

I wonder how those who support the current administration are going to live with themselves when their eyes are finally opened to the fact they support Hitler, Jr. The Heavenseekers shall surely be scorched by the hell of their undoing. Beware of False Profits/Prophets.

[roguevalley]

7. I am so tired of people like this.

[AnnInLa]

8. "Just what every Iraqi needs...a bible"

the following is from http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11955&s2=23

May23 , 2005

"Just What Every Iraqi Needs...a Bible"

Enough is enough for the Christian community in Iraq. The head of Iraq’s largest Christian community, Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, recently scathingly attacked the evangelical Christians who have taken their crusade to Iraq since the illegal U.S. invasion of March 2003. Delly told Al-Jazeera News on May 19 that Iraq did not need Christian missionaries because its churches dated back long before Protestantism. He objected to the aspect of trying to convert Muslims and said, "You can’t even talk about that here."



According to Delly, the evangelicals attract poor youths with displays of money and then "take them out in cars to have fun. Then, they take photos and send them here, to Germany, to the United States and say ‘look how many Muslims have become Christian.’"

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To me, it is problematic that Christian evangelical organizations from the United States are now flooding Bibles into Iraq when, prior to March 2003, few knew the location of the country, and fewer still could point out Iraq on a map. In fact, many cheered on the March 2003 invasion. Pat Robertson was openly hostile toward Iraq. He accused the U.S. administration of being soft on Iraq. Yet, his group had thousands of Bibles to take to the country once the U.S. destroyed it. By the autumn of 2002, various U.S. groups had placed orders for thousands of Bibles, in the anticipation of an invasion. Robertson bragged about how many thousand he had on hand to use when the time came.

snip



snip....conversation with George Galloway....go read





Campus Crusade for Christ is an outfit based in Orlando, Florida. The name is fairly well-known and little-criticized because most people assume they do good work. The name of the organization sounds benign, however, its work is far from harmless. On its website, you can see dozens of pictures of Bible-thumping in Iraq. Also, there is the mandatory "Send us your money" message. Let me highlight a few statements made from its "Bibles for the Middle East" section:



* People in this part of the world are desperate for such materials. 2004 was declared the Year of the Bible throughout the Arab world and interest is high. Thousands of people are seeking to receive a copy of the Bible.
* So, with a new year before us and so many opportunities on the horizon, would you consider a gift of $50 to get 25 Bibles into the hands of people in spiritually dark countries? Whatever you could do would be a tremendous blessing during a time of great spiritual hunger.
* People in these nations are hungry for God’s Word, our staff are willing to risk their lives to deliver it.
Another section called "Iraq Schoolbags" offers the following statements:

much more at http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11955&s2=23

[Johonny]

10. When

is one of those things coming to my town. It looks like a great place to hit on stupid chicks.