The Battle Cry Campaign is the organizing initiative of the now dead parachurch organization known as Teen Mania Ministries. This initiative, started in 2005 and led by Teen Mania founder Ron Luce, has an evangelical Christian orientation; he primarily attempted to influence American and Canadian social and political culture. Key supporters include leading evangelist Joyce Meyer, Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, Josh McDowell, and Jack Hayford.
Video Battle Cry Campaign
Goals and goals
The basic purpose of Cry Cry Campaign, as described in promotional and event material, is to ensure that Christianity survives in America by redefining society:
- "Christianity in America will not last another decade... unless we do something now."
- "Our nation is at the crossroads. The current US route is the future of [ sic] where Christianity can not survive."
- "You are invited... to join in an effort to redirect America's way.
The urgency of this "Wake Call" is based on the assertion that the current trend among teenagers will result in an inevitable decline in the number of "Bible-based believers:"
- "The evidence shows that if the current evangelistic trend holds, only 4 percent of them [American youth] will stand firm for Jesus as they become our nation's decision-makers."
The fundamental target of this campaign is the recruitment of 100,000 churches to conduct diverse campaigns to promote youth commitment and involvement in church programs.
- "The goal is that 100,000 churches are fully involved in reaching this generation by doubling and discipling their youth groups every year for the next 5 years."
Another important aspect of the Battle Cry Campaign involves other church and political leaders as "BattleCry Partners," an existing arena event and other programs offered by Teen Mania Ministries, the battlecry.com website, and "a legislative strategy involving members of parliament for protect our teenagers. "
Maps Battle Cry Campaign
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The Battle Cry Campaign maintains that "for the first time," "sexual culture," "porn dots and clicks," and young people "saturated with media influences" spelled disaster for Christianity in America. It also cites gay marriage and other "cultural war" issues as a matter of concern for the moment and the future:
- "Our current society with 35% baby boomers as Bible-based believers: TV, movies, music and video games are becoming increasingly distorted, the proliferation of Internet pornography, the emergence of government officials actively promoting gay marriage, Ten Commandments from public buildings and trying to get rid of God from the Pledge of Faith. "
- "What does a nation do with 4% evangelical Christians? Euthanasia endorsed by the Netherlands, nudity in a newspaper in England, the age approved by Scotland is 14 years, a priest who was arrested for preaching a biblical perspective on homosexuality."
The campaign focuses on companies and media outlets to target young people with ads and programs that describe content often labeled by evangelical leaders:
- "The hidden enemy has infiltrated our country and preys on the hearts and minds of 33 million American teenagers.Corporations, media conglomerates and popular culture suppliers have spent billions to seduce and enslave our youth." li>
- "This generation watches 16 to 17 hours on television every week and sees an average of 14,000 sexual and reference scenes each year That's over 38 references daily."
- "This generation spends three hours a day online and is the first to grow with point-and-click pornography.Almost 90 percent of adolescents have seen online pornography on one of 300,000 adult websites, mostly while doing homework."
- "More than 25 percent of adolescent-targeted radio segments contain sexual content; 42 percent of top CD sales contain sexual content"
When interviewed at the Battle Cry show in 2007, Ron Luce condemned "popular culture suppliers" as "enemies," which Luce says are "terrorists, terrorists of virtue, who destroy our children... they raped American youth virgins on sidewalks, and everyone is passing by and acting like everything is fine and that is not good. "The Battle Cry material contains allegations that" sexual culture "is a product of" media people "who are" wholesome terrorists "responsible for sexual content, naming examples such as MTV, "VH 1, Desperate Housewives, and movies like Broken Back Mountain [ sic ]."
Other encouraging teachings include submission to several types of authority:
- "We will respect the authorities placed in our lives, although some may not live as pure as they should be."
- "We refuse to be led by morally bankrupt people."
Some critics argue that the statistics used by Teen Mania to support the cause are suspect and exaggerated. Rick Lawrence, who for 18 years previously edited the Group Magazine, a publication for young priests, created the label "panic attack 4 percent" as an editorial title in his magazine where he called directly. This statistic is a "lie:"
These undercover statistics/lies read like this: "The percentage of young Christians who believe in the Bible continues to decline, and it has now dropped to the lowest level of 4 percent." The 4 Percent Warning has entered the opposite into the accepted fact church vocabulary. But every time I hear it, I cringe because it's so silly on it.
Lawrence goes on to point out that the "4 percent" statistics come from a 2003 report by the Christian statistician George Barna, based on a very narrow definition of what defines an "evangelical" or "Bible-believing Christian." Barna's press release issued in December 2003 announced a study that "shows only 4% of adults have a biblical world view as the basis for their decision-making." Lawrence challenges Barna's efforts to measure the number of adolescents who apply the "biblical principle" to "any decision" they make:
I teach an adult Sunday school class, and my guess is that half of the people in my class are still struggling to understand the Bible well enough to apply its wisdom to their "every decision" they make. The point is that some of these "Bible faith" standards are ridiculous when you consider how they apply to children.
Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a specialist in the study of American evangelist, said he was skeptical of the statistics "4 per cent" and that the figure is not consistent with the research he had done and pillowcase.
Demonstration of San Francisco, the city and the noise problem resolution
Two weeks before the event's first Cry War stadium in San Francisco, Teen Mania announced a pre-event rally to be held on the steps of City Hall on March 24, 2006. In a cover letter, signed by Ron Luce and sent to registered participants in the stadium event, City Hall as the location where a gay marriage has been held two years previously is explicitly pointed out:
Please prayerfully consider coming early and gathering for the Battlecry Rally before this event at San Francisco City Hall and get your teenagers to participate as we pray for our northwestern region, our country, and this generation (These are the steps of the hall the city where a few months ago) a gay marriage is celebrated for the whole world to be seen).
City Hall is very important to many San Francisco residents for different reasons: this is where the first open gay overseer, Harvey Milk, and Mayor George Moscone, was murdered in 1978. Ron Luce said that, during a rally, he did not know the historical relevance and social sites from City Hall.
Local activists organized a counter-demonstration of about 50 people to welcome Battle Cry participants. State Councilor Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, spoke to the protesters, saying that while "fundamentalists" may be small, "they are hard, they are annoying, they are disgusting, and they have to leave San Francisco." Teen Mania then clearly quotes Leno as part of a postcard sent to San Francisco churches to promote the 2007 Cry of Battle stadium show.
Earlier in the week, the city's Supervisory Board issued a resolution "condemning an upcoming rally to be held by an anti-abortion group in front of City Hall." The resolution called the rally "an act of provocation when right-wing Christian fundamentalist groups carry their anti-gay and anti-choice agenda of intolerance to the steps of San Francisco City Hall" and that the attendance of Battle Cry participants at City Hall "No one should do it official or semi-official sanctions on their rally or their message by elected officials of San Francisco. "
The resolution was later quoted by various commentators, including Bill O'Reilly of the Fox News Channel and the city's leading newspapers, as evidence that the city itself is intolerant of Christians or trying to silence Battle Cry participants. Elizabeth Creely, a San Francisco activist with the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights, explains the purpose of this resolution in this way:
... no one in the city government made an effort to silence anyone. The resolution is only a proverb of a two-centennial progressive community thrown into the Battle Cry debate began when the group gathered on the steps of City Hall.
Complaints of noise from nearby residents received by the city due to early Saturday morning time began to be a problem during preparations for the comeback of the Cry Battle show to AT & amp; T Park in March 2007. According to the minutes of the municipal entertainment committee hearing in connection with the application of Teen Mania for the required loudspeaker license, the show's production director for AT & amp; T Park had advised Teen Mania earlier that noise had been a problem and "advised them to start any musical component after 10:00 am because of a year complaint." The Commission approved the permit provided that the reinforced music was not used before 10:00 am. on Saturday. In notices sent to Battle Cry participants, Teen Mania described this act as a "last minute voice rule" imposed by the City Board of Supervisors, and while notices begin by saying "we want to respect and honor our MPs" it offers sample letters to be sent to the Board which includes the following:
The envy of the Council [the Watchdog] is actually a smooth jab in one of our nation's core values ​​... the Council's action will be remembered as an ineffective act of one-step intimidation removed from the prohibition of our Constitutional right to free speech.
The event started on Saturday morning as the original schedule, with no reinforced music, through the use of radio throughout the audience tuned to a live broadcast on the local Christian radio station.
Other critics
The Hamilton, Ontario "Obtaining Fire" event in October 2006 prompted several comments about the methods and messages of Youth Mania in the regional media. Toronto star author, Jen Gerson, started his account of the event in this way:
They enter unconscious, outstretched hands, fat cheeks and watery eyes looking up into the sky to God.
They had to leave the soldiers. Convinced by the arguments made from statistics and fear, these children of God are told that they will be the salvation of a declining generation, overwhelmed by the dangers of pop culture, advertising and corporate greed.
They absorb those lessons, squealing in joy whenever a speaker mentions the truth of Jesus.
Then they head to McDonald's.
In an interview with CBC Television reporter Bob Shantz, a former Chapel of the University of Toronto, commented on the militarism inherent in the Teen Mania program:
To feed them the military language makes it a campaign, making life an aggressive campaign in which the evil must be handled properly... I do not think there is enough trust placed in teenagers to differentiate and let them discover their own authority without piercing authority they.
In an interview with Bob Garfield in On the Media, Jeff Sharlet described a Battle Cry ad in which replicated teenagers marched to the battlefield:
That is - and I use this word very aptly - it is the aesthetic of fascism. Ron Luce is not a fascist, but a fascist aesthetic. And one of the weird things about Ron Luce is also the aesthetics of Stalinism, that red flag they waved - and you are not a member of this movement - you are a moat friend. It's designed to draw very sharp lines and to degrade the people who are on the other side.
Mark Cox, a pastor at Bethel Christian Church in the Mission District of San Francisco, told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter that he attended one "Getting the Fire" event and would never return, commenting:
BattleCry has a lot of hype with not much substance to it... This [the Acquire the Fire event] left a bad taste in my mouth. My main concern is its effect on teenagers. They think of adrenaline for the Holy Spirit... They seek high emotions rather than faith that will survive through tough times, not just on the mountain tops.
See also
- Teen Mania Ministries
- Ron Luce
Notes and references
External links
- the Battle Cry website
- The company website of Teen Mania Ministries
- Teen Canadian Mania
- Get Proof - Site "responds to Campaign 'BattleCry' Teen Mania"
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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