All the violent innuendo and wink-and-nod references to 'watering the tree of Liberty with blood' are not quite so imagined after all. How many times just this year have we lost people to Right-wing violent wack-jobs, usually drooling fans of the likes of Beck, Hannity, Savage, and Limbaugh.
A couple years ago, my youngest sister made me watch the film Jesus Camp. In it, you see children taking part in various rallies and training sessions on how to 'combat' the other side. The children even play mock war games and are taught about taking a stand as 'a soldier of Christ.' I think the climax of the film was when they were interviewing the woman leading Jesus Camp talking about how she wants our children to be just as devoted and radical as the kids who are willing to 'strap bombs on to themselves'.
I grew up in a Christian household. For us, the term 'soldier of Christ' was understood as a metaphor: we all go about our daily struggles and so the term holds well to the mundane. (It might also be argued that the term 'jihad' means about the same thing to the typical Muslim, rather than some violent compulsion to wage full on war against those who believe otherwise).
These folks seem to basically all go back to a Fundamentalist Christian Youth organization you've probably heard of called BattleCry (I won't link directly to them, but they're easy to find). However, if you take a look at Battlecry on Sourcewatch:
"BattleCry’s 'partners' include Pat Robertson (who got a call from Karl Rove to discuss Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito before the nomination was made public), Charles Colson (who as President Richard Nixon’s lawyer was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal and who went to jail for obstruction of justice in the Pentagon Papers case), and Jerry Falwell (who blamed Sept. 11 on homosexuals, feminists, pagans and abortionists). BattleCry’s events have been addressed by former First Lady Barbara Bush (via video) as well as former President Gerald Ford." The May 13-14, 2006, weekend event includes Franklin Graham, "who has ministered to George W. Bush and publicly proclaimed that Islam is an 'evil religion'," Taylor wrote.
Nothing surprising. But then you take a look at this video:
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The Ron Luce book "Rise Up:Basic Training for Warriors (Operation Battle Cry)" starts looking scary, like this, with Christian Metal Band blaring, and no one owning-up to their connection to BattleCry: