We already knew that Ted Cruz is trying to establish himself as the candidate of the religious right. After all, his main super PAC is helmed by the pseudo-historian of choice for that crowd, David Barton. His state co-chairwoman in Virginia is a veteran religious right activist who thinks her fellow Christianists should take over the public schools to prevent the “deception of the seed.” Now comes word that Cruz himself is due to headlining an event hosted by one of the leaders of a crowd that thinks it can bring about the Second Coming by taking over the world.
Late Tuesday morning, People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch learned that Cruz will the keynote speaker for a “National Security Forum” in Fort Mill, South Carolina. This event will be sponsored by the South Carolina chapter of Americans for Peace Prosperity and Security, a recently established group of national security hawks chaired by former Congressman Mike Rogers. At first glance, this would appear to be a boilerplate stop for any Republican wanting to establish his national security credentials.
But where this shindig will be held should raise eyebrows–MorningStar Fellowship Church, pastored by Rick Joyner. While Joyner may not be well known even to most news junkies, he’s very familiar to longtime watchers of the religious right, like yours truly. Joyner is one of the leading members of the New Apostolic Reformation, an offshoot of the religious right that believes Jesus can’t come back unless Christians take over the world and violently suppress anyone who dares to stand in their way. He is reckoned as a “prophet” in these circles.
To give you an idea just how crazy Joyner is, he suggested that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, that ruling could potentially prove to be the mark of the beast. He also laughed–that’s right, LAUGHED–about the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Sandy, suggesting it was divine punishment for New York and New Jersey legalizing marriage equality.
Indeed, this forum is co-sponsored by the Oak Initiative, a Joyner-led grassroots organization that seeks to mobilize “effective leaders” in the “dominant areas of influence” in our society–business, education, entertainment, media, education, the family, the church, and government. What this crowd is really pushing is the “Seven Mountains strategy”–the idea that Christians, in submission to self-styled “apostles” and “prophets,” must take over the “mountains” that influence our culture–especially the “mountain” of government–before Jesus can come back.
I’m very familiar with this type of talk. If you’ve read my work at Daily Kos–where I’m known as Christian Dem in NC–and here, you know that I was tricked into joining a campus ministry at Carolina that was an outreach of a church affiliated with one of the more notorious NAR groups, Every Nation. But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of one of the architects of this strategy, Oak Initiative board member Lance Wallnau. Watch here.
And here:
You can also take the word of another prominent NAR leader, Dutch Sheets, who oversees a network of “prayer alliances” in all 50 states. As I told you last year, Sheets thinks that once Christians realize that they are “God’s governing force on Earth,” it will be easy for them to take over the nation and the world. Simply put, this is fascism.
Joyner himself admits as much. He once wrote that the government he has in mind would look “a lot like totalitarianism” to most of us. And in 2013, he openly called for a military coup since he doesn’t think the voters will ever put the right kind of people in office on their own.
Joyner has played a key role in bridging the gap between the NAR crowd and the rest of the religious right. Most notably, Jerry Boykin, the nation’s most notorious “warrior for Jesus,” is not only a member of the Oak Initiative board, but is also executive vice president of one of the largest “mainstream” religious right outfits (if there is such a thing as “mainstream” in that crowd), the Family Research Council.
So there you have it. A sitting Senator and a major presidential candidate is hobnobbing with a guy who wants to turn this country into a Christian version of Taliban-era Afghanistan. That should send a chill down the spine of any fair-minded American.
