Joel’s Army: The Call, The Cry at Bene Diction Blogs On

Joel’s Army: The Call, The Cry

This is an interesting place to find a comprehensive article on neo-pentecostalism.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre takes a look at the dominionist movement’s politicized youth wing which mixes it’s brand of end time theology with patriotism and militarism.

I take the point made that the key concerns and warnings about this gnostic cult of pentecostalism has clearly come from Pentecostal organizations and neo-pentecostal walkaways. ‘The Cry’, the Canadian counterpart to “The Call” held a rally on Parliament Hill last week which was not as well attended as organizers had hoped. (Joel’s Army is also known doctrinally as New Breed and Manifest Sons of God.)

The Canadian roots of this movement are acknowledged and well known by historians and theologians.
New Zealand has seen dominionist theology on the streets and in Destiny Church’s black shirted ‘ushers’ which morphed into Destiny Church foray in politics. Destiny New Zealand, the churches offshoot political party formed in 2003 deregistered in 2007 and supporters have moved to The Family Party.

Gnosticism:

Gnostics claimed to be Christians, but Christians with a difference. They said that Jesus had had two doctrines: one a doctrine fit for the common man, and preached to everyone, and the other an advanced teaching, kept secret from the multitudes, fit only for the chosen few, the spiritually elite. They, the Gnostics, were the spiritually elite, and although the doctrines taught in the churches were not exactly wrong, and were in fact as close to the truth as the common man could hope to come, it was to the Gnostics that one must turn for the real truth.

10 reasons to reject Kingdom-Dominion Doctrine

Dennis Gruending wrote a post about Canada’s Joel’s Army recently.

The Daily Kos walkawy diarist mentioned in The Southern Poverty Law Centre report is dogemperor.

The Miracle Channel Review complied a list of links about dominionist teachings (heavily promoted by The Miracle Channel) in 2006.

Some Canadian Joel’s Army proponents include Harvest Ministries International, Ignite Canada, Fresh Fire Ministries, Extreme Prophetic, 4My Canada, The National House of Prayer, The Miracle Channel, Watchmen for the Nations, Toronto Airport Fellowship and other itinerant independents.

As an interesting aside, Douglas Todd of The Vancouver Sun who is an astute religious reporter, took a look at Matthew Avery Sutton’s book; Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Sutton’s premise is Canadian McPherson was a godmother of the 20th century’s US religious right.

Published 4 months, 1 week ago

3 Responses to “Joel’s Army: The Call, The Cry”

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1 Mark Byron on Aug 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am

Interesting piece. The Southern Poverty Law Center made its name keeping tabs on and successfully suing the KKK and continues to keep tabs on various militant right wing groups, typically with a white-supremacist overtone.

The rhetoric of some of these Bentleyesque groups sound to the untrained ear a lot like the rhetoric out of some of the white-supremacist religious groups like Christian Identity that SPLC covers.

However, the vast majority of military imagery, including the John Wimber quote at the end of the piece, is of spiritual warfare, not of actual guns and missiles combat. For instance, Paul talks of the “whole armor of God” in Ephesians 6, but I don’t have actual shields and swords in my possession.

As far as actually turning “Joel’s Army” into an actual underground militia, I don’t see it happening. Some of the harder cases (Joyner, for instance) do talk about real military battles in the end times, but
I don’t see the Morningstar 1st Airborne quite yet; if it was starting, I’d be first in line to send in the National Guard to break it up.

Right now, it’s the anti-immigration groups that are more of a threat than some Pentecostals using juiced up metaphors, at least here in the US.
2 Bene D on Aug 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

“Those in this army will have His kind of power. … Anyone who wants to harm them must die.” John Wimber

Not exactly metaphor Mark.
The 1st Airborne will be over at Kenneth Copeland’s spread, he’s got the landing strip.:^)

I can’t joke about the harm Bentley and his apostle friends have done, will do.

The Military Freedom Foundation would question how much ’spiritual warfare’ being shoved down military personnel’s throats is metaphor or rhetoric.

You and I had grounded, emotionally mature Christians in our lives.

We didn’t go to Jesus Camp.
3 Mark Byron on Aug 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am

We can’t ask Wimber what he intended on that one, since he’s passed on. I’m reading a spiritual response from God a la Ananias and Sapphira rather than physical retaliation from believers. Remember that this is Mr. Signs and Wonders, so not all actions would be expected to be in the natural.

I’m also not sure what is in the ellipses; I see that quote used in a lot of the anti-Joel’s Army write ups, but no one seems to reference a verifiable source, so I can’t tell what was left out.

However, I hung my hat at a number of Vineyards over the years, and didn’t get a militant feeling. The two Vineyards in the metro Lexington area aren’t my cup of tea (one’s too Bentleyesque and one’s too post-modern, so I’m a Baptist for now) but none of the six Vineyards I’ve taken in multiple services at had a hint of actual militia activity or folks ready to take up arms. If anything, Vineyards tend to be apolitical.

That’s not to say that a lot of the other charismatic churches couldn’t go off the deep end. I’ve seen a few where I could envision a charismatic militia forming if a leadership team went over the edge.