Post by redstar2000GUEST on May 29, 2005 10:20:29 GMT -5
The May 2005 issue of Harper's Magazine has two excellent articles on Christian fascism. One of them, "Feeling the Hate with the National Religious Broadcasters" by Chris Hedges, contains this early warning against Christian fascism.
--------------------
I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists".
He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago...
--------------------
But more interesting than early warnings is the way Christian fascism organizes itself -- one might call it "Undemocratic Centralism". This and other aspects of Christian fascism are discussed at length in "Inside America's Most Powerful MegaChurch" by Jeff Sharlet.
--------------------
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....
No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted, and no church more than New Life....
Angels, ethnicities, hierarchy, employers and employees—each category must follow a natural order....
New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, “like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society.”...
Which brings us back to “Order.” Key to the growth of evangelicalism during the last twenty years has been a social structure of “cell groups” that allows churches to grow endlessly while maintaining orthodoxy in their ranks. New Life, for instance, has 1,300 cell groups, or “small groups,” as Pastor Ted prefers to call them...
From [Thomas] Friedman, Pastor Ted says he learned that everything, including spirituality, can be understood as a commodity. And unregulated trade, he concluded, was the key to achieving worldly freedom....
And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. “I teach a strong ideology of the use of power,” he says, “of military might, as a public service.” He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible’s exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because “the Bible’s bloody. There’s a lot about blood.”...
His point was that arbitrary small groups would make less sense than self-selected groups organized around common interests. Hence New Life members can choose among small groups dedicated to motorcycles, or rock climbing, or homeschooling, or protesting outside abortion clinics.
But Pastor Ted’s true genius lies in his organizational hierarchy, which ensures ideological rigidity even as it allows for individual expression. Not just anyone can lead a small group, much less a section; a battery of personality and spiritual tests must be undergone first, as well as an official background check. Once chosen, group leaders meet regularly with their own leaders in the chain of command, and members are encouraged to jump the chain and speak to a higher level if they think their leader is straying into “false teachings”—moral relativism, ecumenism, or even “Satanism,” in the form of New Age notions such as crystal healing.
Whether the system is common sense or heresy itself—the Body of Christ atomized—is beside the point; New Lifers have found it powerfully persuasive. Pastor Ted has instituted a semester system, so that no one needs to be locked into a group he or she doesn’t like for too long. And since New Life’s cell groups don’t limit themselves to Bible study, they function as covert evangelizing engines. In return, what Pastor Ted has given his flock are lifestyle choices.
--------------------
harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html
New URL: The Redstar2000 Papers
Revolutionary Left Forums
--------------------
I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists".
He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago...
--------------------
But more interesting than early warnings is the way Christian fascism organizes itself -- one might call it "Undemocratic Centralism". This and other aspects of Christian fascism are discussed at length in "Inside America's Most Powerful MegaChurch" by Jeff Sharlet.
--------------------
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....
No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted, and no church more than New Life....
Angels, ethnicities, hierarchy, employers and employees—each category must follow a natural order....
New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, “like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society.”...
Which brings us back to “Order.” Key to the growth of evangelicalism during the last twenty years has been a social structure of “cell groups” that allows churches to grow endlessly while maintaining orthodoxy in their ranks. New Life, for instance, has 1,300 cell groups, or “small groups,” as Pastor Ted prefers to call them...
From [Thomas] Friedman, Pastor Ted says he learned that everything, including spirituality, can be understood as a commodity. And unregulated trade, he concluded, was the key to achieving worldly freedom....
And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. “I teach a strong ideology of the use of power,” he says, “of military might, as a public service.” He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible’s exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because “the Bible’s bloody. There’s a lot about blood.”...
His point was that arbitrary small groups would make less sense than self-selected groups organized around common interests. Hence New Life members can choose among small groups dedicated to motorcycles, or rock climbing, or homeschooling, or protesting outside abortion clinics.
But Pastor Ted’s true genius lies in his organizational hierarchy, which ensures ideological rigidity even as it allows for individual expression. Not just anyone can lead a small group, much less a section; a battery of personality and spiritual tests must be undergone first, as well as an official background check. Once chosen, group leaders meet regularly with their own leaders in the chain of command, and members are encouraged to jump the chain and speak to a higher level if they think their leader is straying into “false teachings”—moral relativism, ecumenism, or even “Satanism,” in the form of New Age notions such as crystal healing.
Whether the system is common sense or heresy itself—the Body of Christ atomized—is beside the point; New Lifers have found it powerfully persuasive. Pastor Ted has instituted a semester system, so that no one needs to be locked into a group he or she doesn’t like for too long. And since New Life’s cell groups don’t limit themselves to Bible study, they function as covert evangelizing engines. In return, what Pastor Ted has given his flock are lifestyle choices.
--------------------
harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html
New URL: The Redstar2000 Papers
Revolutionary Left Forums