A few months ago, dogemporer wrote a series of excellent diaries on John Hagee and his links to "Joel's Army", an offshoot of the Christian Reconstructionist movement. A chilling article posted today by Casey Sanchez of the Southern Poverty Law Center throws the true goals of this apocalyptic organization into stark relief. This article is currently linked on the Fark home page, so hopefully it will receive some attention.
Update: Thanks to Catte Nappe for this info - it seems that the "enemy" has struck at Mr. Bentley in the midst of his triumph, and he has been asked to step down from his ministry for a season.
Led by charismatic preacher Todd Bentley, the Joel's Army movement believes its members have a divine mandate to "physically impose Christian dominion on non-believers." The 32-year old Canadian has been drawing crowds in the tens of thousands in Central Florida where he has been conducting a continuous "supernatural healing revival." His followers dress in camo, indulge in military-sounding rhetoric and refer to their pastors as "commander" or "commandant".
Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel's Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah's List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called "The Warrior Nation -- The New Sound of the Church," in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers "freedom fighters."
"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."
In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God's army "will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go." But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as "a coming civil war within the church." In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: "Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end."
During the Republican primaries, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's occasionally made references to his beliefs in Christian dominionism over secular law. Compared to the members of the Joel's Army movement, Huckabee looks like a moderate.
Bentley has even justified physical abuse of some of his followers:
On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face ... with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."
Bentley has also advocated the public stoning of gays and adulterers. The Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, has officially disavowed the organization.
**Note**
The article mentions that a DailyKos diarist has been blogging about the movement for two years as a walkaway. I did search on the topic and found no mentions since May, but I don't want to step on any toes, and will gladly delete this if need be. Before reading Sanchez' article, I had no idea of the scope of this movement or the sheer insanity of their beliefs. My own religious beliefs are ambiguous at best, but this kind of organization is far more frightening to me than anything else I've seen out of the Right and, so far, seems to be underestimated as a credible threat to the country and our system of government. We've seen militia movements for years, and companies like Blackwater are certainly scary on their own, but Joel's Army surpasses them all in size and fanaticism.