I read this thread to make sure the author is coming from a good, or at least benign, place. He is. But something else. This is a book born from *annoyance* . Even though I don't possess a PhD (I'm a high school & college dropout) I also have an annoyance driven book to write..
https://twitter.com/DaelNorwood/status/1484155397028327431
The subject matter is at least as big as this author's subject. It concerns the fact that over the last 4-5 decades a movement, born in North America, has arisen that is reshaping global Christianity. Since 1999, it's been organizing into what, arguably, could be a new religion..
3) Further still, this movement has come to be perhaps the dominant religious impulse in the #GOP as the party mutates into a force for authoritarianism or even fascism. And, it was demonstrably the dominant religious faction behind the 1/6/2021 coup plot. What's more...
4)..it's existence is *beyond question* (details on that later in thread.) So why am I annoyed? Well, only a handful of academics talk about it in the slightest. And some of those are funded by the religious right philanthropies. But when I bring that up before academics in...
5)..the field of religion & politics, they act as if I had just defecated, publicly, at one of their precious academic conferences - they rapidly, silently absquatulate from the scene of the embarrassment.
It's pitiful. A movement is reshaping global Christianity & warping US..
It's pitiful. A movement is reshaping global Christianity & warping US..
6)..politics but these supposed authorities won't talk about it or, apparently, deign to study it. Which means, for my purposes, that despite their PhDs and despite their tenure (should they have it) *they are not what they profess to be*. They are *not* authorities. Because...
7)..when something so vast is going on that it is reshaping your entire field, regardless of whether you specifically specialize in it or not, you are *least* have a professional obligation to acknowledge it & have more than a passing knowledge of it. In the field of physics...
8)..this would be directly analogous to lacking knowledge of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics or even acknowledging that these scientific breakthroughs had happened in your field. How could you possibly do your job, of teaching students about the lay of the land? You couldn't.
9) I'm not saying that it's impossible to do useful work in religion and politics outside of work directly on the Christian (and Protestant) movement I'm speaking of. Not at all. What I am suggesting, however, is that academics who refuse even to openly acknowledge its existence
10)..are to some degree complicit in advancing, even passively, its agenda. And its agenda is, among other things, the destruction of American democracy & democracies across the globe. So this is a very serious matter. Now, I'll admit there have been a handful of books, mostly..
11)..the better part of a decade or more ago, on the subject. Some of those were more or less honest. One was by authors funded by a philanthropy that advances a religious right (and hence anti-democratic) agenda. But no academics I've noticed are actively doing in depth work...
12)..on it *now*. That's bizarre, because the movement's prayer warriors had encircled, on 1/6/2021, the Capitol Building and were calling, in coded terms, for the breach of the building's defenses. Young hothead men from it, pastors even, were on the front lines, in the fighting
13) One of the guys from the Oath Keeper "stack" seen entering the Capitol building, seen in the House chamber in tactical gear, with a helmet, carrying zip ties, had as recently as 2017 apparently attended the Texas megachurch that helped launch the movement's seminal...
14) organization of apostles. It's still around. The International Coalition of Apostles is a global dues paying organization. It has clearly defined organizational & legal structure. The leadership is public. But the membership is not public. Because this is a covert movement...
15)..and the academics who refuse to discuss and even acknowledge it are therefore helping to advance its agenda. Back to 1/6/2021 - some of its most prominent apostles & prophets were on the Capitol grounds that fateful day. One, Michele Bachmann, entered the building almost...
16)..at the very moment the attack commenced which happened, oddly enough, as the "prayer warriors" that encircled the building blew their shofars, the ram's horn trumpets that their movement has appropriated from Judaism & adopted as a fetish object signaling spiritual warfare
17)..and also *physical* warfare, because the two go hand in hand. To fight and vanquish the demonic forces of darkness, one must also confront and vanquish, neutralize, or kill the people who the movement associates with those demons & forces of darkness.
18)..so, at the moment the attack commences, Bachmann enters the Capitol building. As an ex-congress member she had the credentials to do that legally. What then? Well, she makes a beeline to confer with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Then, she makes her way to a small...
19)..room that serves as a chapel, for prayer. But conveniently, it is also almost right next to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Bachmann stood outside and watched as Pelosi's staff packed up key, sensitive documents before fleeing. Bachmann herself divulged these details..
23)..& prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation movement worked to sacralize Trump and his bid for power. Apostle Lance Wallnau ceaselessly toured the US charismatic movement church circuit, billing Trump as a "King Cyrus", in reference to the king who freed the Jews from their
24)..Babylonian captivity. Cyrus was not Jewish, nor did he follow the Jewish faith. But he was an instrument or agent for carrying out the will of god. Thus went the scriptural narrative. Wallnau sold Trump as a latter day Cyrus. And, he didn't so much deny Trump's wretched...
25)..character, personal life, and deeds, though Wallnau may have minimized them. But these things were irrelevant because Trump was the leader who would advance the will & agenda of god, and help establish his kingdom on Earth. That was the sales pitch. Of course, in the...
26)..background, a deal had been struck - Trump would advance the movement agenda, of blowing up the "wall of separation", stuffing his cabinet with "believers" like Betsy DeVos & Mike Pompeo, and so on. And these characters didn't specifically even have to be in the NAR movement
27)..maybe Betsy DeVos is, maybe not. Maybe Mike Pompeo is, maybe not. But they share the same Christian supremacist political agenda. As would the Catholics Trump would pick for the Supreme Court. Years ago, a grand political bargain had been struck between the two main branches
28)..of the Christian right. That was one of the pet projects for Nixon hatchet man turned "born again" Chuck Colson. Likewise, there were understandings forged with the Mormon church and with conservative Jewish factions. But except in the realm of law, the Protestant...
29)..hyper-charismatics of the NAR movement were the dominant political faction. Once, it would have been Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and perhaps Methodist whose members made up the bulk of US presidents for most of the nation's history. We have not yet had an NAR president...
30)..but with Sarah Palin, who was raised in the faith and, under the wing of an Alaska apostle/prophet Mary Glazier, would join an effort to pray an Alaska prison system employee, whom they accused of being a witch, to death. But Trump might as well have been NAR. He advanced..
31)..the agenda. If Ted Cruz runs for president in 2024, well - who knows what Ted Cruz believes (he's nominally Baptist) but prior to the 2016 election, Cruz' father Rafael Cruz was ceaselessly touring the charismatic church circuit across America, telling flock that his son...
34).."7 Mountains" that represent 7 key sectors of society, had been especially promoted by the NAR movement, especially by apostle Lance Wallnau, who spent years pushing the 7M agenda in churches including at Sarah Palin's NAR church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, in 2009...
35) The 7M project isn't at all fanciful. One of the businessmen C. Peter Wagner specifically refers to, in his 2008 book, as being an NAR "marketplace apostle" was Silicon Valley billionaire Ken Eldred, who made his first fortune in computer peripherals such as connector cables
36) Dominionist (or supremacist) "believers" are far more common in the IT sector than many in secular society believe. Ken Eldred has for years promoted the "God at Work" movement - in which "believers" use "the marketplace" to aggressively advance their faith - and leading up..
37)..a crucial role in the GOTV effort for Trump. Specifically, Eldred financed the effort which amassed a vast database on several hundred million America voters. This data was used for microtargeting individual voters using psychographic profiles derived from bits of personal..
39) Eldred's microtargeting operation was active in the 2018 election, helping elections campaign's of 6 #Republican senators. This means Eldred has helped prevent a 51 or more Democratic vote for Biden's "Build Back Better" legislation in 2022.
40) I'm going into this to underscore an implicit criticism, that the hyper-charismatic NAR movement cannot have am impact because it obsesses on demons and prayer warfare which, respectively, aren't real and doesn't work. Without "marketplace apostle" Ken Eldred...
41)..would Trump have ever become president? And, this isn't the 1st time the NAR movement has helped swing a presidential election. Besides Lance Wallnau, another of big NAR name at 1/6/2021 was Cindy Jacobs, who functions both as an apostle but also as a prophet. She heads...
42)..the "Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders", the NAR's top group of prophets. ACPE releases major, complex "prophetic" statements once a year or more. They are quite sophisticates & embody considerab;e geopolitical acumen. Anyway, back in 2000, one of the acolytes of Jacobs
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