Thanks to a few Singaporean friends (who shall remain anonymous), I had become aware of a disturbing development--an attempted hijack of a major women's NGO. Through those same folks and Fred Clarkson's post on the AWARE EGM vote, I also found that the takeover of AWARE--something I describe as a "steeplejack" because of its similarities to hijacking-from-within of churches--would seem to have been averted for now. (Unfortunately, I've also read via various Singaporean sources that the same folks in question seem to be attempting to challenge AWARE's educational programs in the schools in a remarkably identical manner to how US groups like FotF operate.)

Several of us in the general anti-dominionist community here in the States have founded a bit of a research group on "Joel's Army" groups (also known as "Elijah's Army" or "New Apostolic Reformation" or "Third Wave" groups), and we'd noticed something was odd in Singapore.

The AWARE steeplejacking scandal has brought some new, and distressing, info to the surface--namely, that a Joel's Army insurgency has been festering in Singapore for at least thirty-five years and possibly closer to 45...and it is being aided and abbetted primarily by groups from the US, South Korea, and Australia.

(Note: This article has also been posted in slightly expanded format at the Singaporean independent news site Wayang Party; commentary from experts on political "Christian nationalist" groups in the comments or guest articles are always appreciated.)

Some necessary backgrounder, or a brief Dominionism 101

A little backgrounder is necessary in discussion of these groups to understand the full threat. This is an area that even a lot of "religious right" experts in the US are not all that familiar with; those of us who focus on Joel's Army-related groups are a pretty small community. That said, let us begin.

The term that is increasingly in use regarding the "religious right" in the US is "dominionist"--referring to a specific theology that largely originated in Assemblies of God and Foursquare churches back in the 30s and independently in some "independent fundamentalist Baptist" groups.

Put very succinctly: These groups feel they have a literal mandate from God to take over the world--including governments and all institutions of society--by any means necessary. The reasons do vary--the groups descended from pentecostal and "charismatic" (more properly termed "neopentecostal") denominations and parachurches tend to couch it in terms of countries or nations being at risk of "losing God's blessing". Some groups go further than this--seeing themselves literally as proxies of God's will.

What we know now as "Joel's Army" or the "New Apostolic Reformation" has actually had multiple names (they don't even use the term "Joel's Army" very much anymore, preferring "Elijah's Army") and is part of a movement originally known as "Latter Rain" and "Manifest Sons of God" that originated in revival movements in the 30s and 40s. Some of the claims coming out of these groups were so ludicrous that the Assemblies of God officially disavowed any groups using the terms "Latter Rain" in 1948...after which most went to parachurch organisations and splinter groups, or simply promoted the same things in the Assemblies without using those terms.

As a result, we essentially have three different lineages of "Joel's Army" groups. The first, and the oldest, is a branch connected with the parachurch Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth With A Mission. Campus Crusade originated some of the initial strategies for taking over secular groups and other churches including the use of what I have termed "cuckoo churches" (so named after the breeding habits of cuckoos, who lay their eggs in other birds' nests and cause the young of the "foster parents" to starve and die as the cuckoo chick literally crowds the other chicks out of the nest)--"cell churches" set up in mainstream Christian churches like the Anglicans, meant to convert everyone from within until the church is a de facto neopentecostal church. YWAM also developed a fair amount of the "internal mythology" of these groups--including concepts regarding "spiritual warfare" and particularly a "fifty year plan" for takeover called the "Seven Mountains Strategy".

A second lineage consists of Assemblies of God-linked groups that promote NAR theology. One of the major groups promoting this is the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International; another notable figure is Paul Yonggi Cho aka David Yonggi Cho who has been spreading "Third Wave Madness" since the fifties (and who ran the Assemblies worldwide through most of the 90s, and who is still a major figure in the denomination thanks to the fact he runs the world's largest megachurch). Still another link in the "Assemblies-NAR chain" is the Australian Community Churches (the renaming of the Australian Assemblies of God) and in particular Hillsong Community Church; essentially the entirety of the Assemblies in Australia has gone hardcore "Joel's Army", has its own political party, and (notoriously) has been connected to abuse of women in a "faith based rehab" chain it operates including reports that depression was attempted to be cured by lay "exorcisms". (This is highly irregular in most Christian churches, by the way.)

A third lineage--increasingly associated with Singapore's "religious right"--is that of a "postdenominational" movement linked to C. Peter Wagner and his International Coalition of Apostles. These folks are among the most hardcore of the "Joel's Army" folks; Wagner and fellow NAR promoter Rick Joyner coined the phrase "Joel's Army" (and abandoned it when mainstream and conservative evangelical Christian groups in the US picked up on the phrase and started warning folks about the NAR groups), attempt to convert churches from within even more aggressively than the Assemblies-linked groups and parachurch orgs, and outright see themselves as proxies for the will of God. Possibly the most complete resource that's been written so far for a secular audience is a major dossier composed by the research group I am a part of, the "New Apostolic Reformation Research Team".

And it is essentially this--and in particular the "Wagner branch"--that we're dealing with in regards to Singapore's growing "religious right".

In the case of Singapore, there is a minor complication in that a "Christian nationalist" group more associated with Southern Baptists here in the US also seems to be involved and partnering with Joel's Army groups; however, this does match a pattern seen in other countries, notably Australia.

The gallery of rogues

With this, we can now focus on the actual rogues who seem to be bringing this into Singapore.

Based on a list of megachurches in Singapore that was forwarded via a sympathetic contact, I was able to do some evaluations of these groups--and found (to my horror) that literally every megachurch in Singapore is connected to NAR groups. This is, of course, discounting the "LOVE Singapore" org, which in and of itself is linked to NAR promoter and Wagner "apostle" Ed Silvoso.

Interestingly, we can also discover a wee bit of a timeline with this. No less than three separate and distinct "NAR injections" seem to have occured in the past:

1) An early "invasion" (of which, so far, the earliest record I can find is 1963) involving groups linked to "nondenominational" neopentecostal churches. The "Patient Zero" here would be Church of Singapore; the church seems to have been founded from a number of ex-members of denominations that are not historically part of the pentecostal movement and generally have not had charismatic movements--indicating that there may have been an earlier attempt to target mainstream Christian churches from within. (In particular, Church of Singapore promotes a program called "Growing Kids God's Way" that has been linked to hospitalisations and even deaths of children and is pretty well only promoted in hardline Joel's Army and "independent fundamentalist Baptist" groups.)

2) The "big invasion" proper (and second wave of expansion) started in 1975 with a veritable flood of NAR-linked groups. Notable churches in Singapore and the parties they're linked to include: Covenant Evangelical Free Church (itself spawned from another "evangelical free church" and part of a parachurch/paradenomination group that promotes NAR theology in a wide variety of churches and is connected with the US-based NAR groups Navigators and Promise Keepers as well as LOVE Singapore); Victory Family Centre (founded in 1978 and connected with LOVE Singapore and Youth With A Mission; their head pastor is now head of LOVE Singapore per religious magazine articles); Lighthouse Evangelism (founded by members of a "cuckoo church" that had tried to steeplejack a mainstream Presbyterian church), and the founding of LOVE Singapore itself by Ed Silvoso.

3) Wave 3 started around the mid-80s and is a mix of Wagner-linked "postdenominational" groups and Assemblies-linked NAR groups-and particularly Australian Assemblies of God churches.

It's important to know why the "Aussie Connection" is particularly of interest. The home church of the Australian Community Churches (what used to be known as the Australian Assemblies of God) is Hillsong Community Church; it is the de facto denominational headquarters in that country, and the organisational setup is such that essentially all ACC churches are essentially satellite congregations of Hillsong. (This is quite common in NAR churches.)

Notable figures and churches include COOS itself (possibly steeplejacked during this period or later) and--disturbingly, considering that COOS is apparently a Anglican "in name only" church steeplejacked by an Assemblies-linked "cuckoo church"--Kong Hee of City Harvest Church. Hee himself would appear to have been recruited into Paul Yonggi Cho's network at about this time (Hee was formerly an Anglican but is not only head of a de facto Yoido Full Gospel satellite but is linked to a massive network of Australian A/G-linked churches throughout the East Indies; reportedly he was recruited by Bethany Christian Centre in Singapore out of http://www.charismanews.com/a.php?ArticleID=8559">general a dispute that led him to being an Anglican missionary and eventually an Assemblies youth pastor). This is indicative of something rather disturbing--especially in light of other things going on such as the steeplejack of HTB in England; namely, a concerted effort by NAR groups to specifically target Anglican churches for subversion from within.

Other notable NAR-linked groups that were established in this era,and the parties they're linked to: New Creation Church (founded 1985, and for all intents and purposes is a daughter church of Hillsong and maintains close partnerships with the infamous Australian church); Faith Community Baptist Church (founded in 1986 and not really Baptist in any sense of the word; its actual affiliation is small NAR denomination called G12 that is part of Wagner's network of "postdenominational" churches and whose pastor is listed as a member of Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles); Trinity Christian Center (founded by Naomi Dowdy who is mentored by C. Peter Wagner and whose main pastor is also an ICA member); Jesus Lives Church (founded 1986 and whose pastor is in the ICA directory--and who explicitly invokes NAR theology about Singapore being some sort of "spiritual gate" that must be secured, hence the probable reason for the country's targeting), and likely many, many others. (Reportedly no less than 40 churches in Singapore participated in the "Transformation 2009" conference.)

More damning info re COOS and Joel's Army

As if that weren't enough, the "feminist" solicitor now acknowledged as the "brains behind the attempted hijack" of AWARE may have thrown up the biggest signal yet of their Joel's Army allegiances.

Specifically, it would appear (as has been reported in Wayang Today) that Thio Su Mien has been published on the "Elijah List" website as claiming SARS was divine retribution and that an "intercessory prayer team" saved Singapore from the Boxing Day Tsunami.

This gets considerably more disturbing if you know anything about "Elijah List".

"Elijah List" is, quite possibly, the main conduit and online meeting place for Joel's Army and NAR supporters and promoters. (In fact, we researchers ourselves use it--as a method of intelligence on NAR groups.) The list was founded in the 90s as a mailinglist for NAR promotion by Steve Schultz; the mailinglist and its website serve as the semi-official mouthpiece for C. Peter Wagner's branch of Joel's Army and Wagner's "International Coalition of Apostles"--and certainly as a major advertising point for their conferences. In fact, they outright promote Wagner as well as Rick Joyner and a veritable "who's who" of the Joel's Army movement.

Generally, you don't get promoted or mentioned on Elijah List unless you are, shall we say, a veritable celebrity in Joel's Army circles and have friends among Wagner's buddies. The entire purpose of the list is to promote NAR plans and claimed "prophecies"; much of what scuttled Sarah Palin's political career here in the States was the revelation she was being actively promoted by a "prophetess" on Elijah List.

And it would appear that Mrs. Thio the Elder is quite deep in with Wagner's circle. In the very article noted on Wayang Party, it's noted that Thio Su Mien was speaking before a conference including representatives from the US Strategic Prayer Network--a Wagner/ICA frontgroup that came to attention in research circles due to connections with the "prophetess" who was promoting Palin. Much as other NAR-linked groups are want to do, the USSPN has since changed its name--to the US Global Apostolic Prayer Network--and is blatantly "NAR nationalist". In fact, the org is naught but a front of Global Harvest Ministries--C. Peter Wagner's "main group".

In fact, that Washington-state USSPN rep may be either Burdell Austin or someone closely connected to him; he's also made such lovely statements as bragging about essentially conducting an "exorcism" of the "Queen of Heaven" (which is actually a very anti-Catholic statement; the Queen of Heaven is a term used for the Virgin Mary).

It would also appear that she--and her daughter, an appointed member of the Singaporean Parliament--also have quite the history of this sort of behaviour. A pro-NAR blog (using yet another rebranding of "Joel's Army" common in use--"Joshua Generation") notes that she and her daughter were promoting Joel's Army theology in 2007 in Singapore itself:

Drs. Thio Su Mien and Thio Li-ann (a mother and daughter team that speaks powerfully of Malachi 3:24 in the Jewish Bible and Malachi 4:6 in Gentile Bibles, of the reconciliation and working together of 2 generations) both led the charge at the Prophetic School of Law and Justice at the Marketplace Bible Institute , urging Christians to boldly and wisely speak up in the public square. We must not vacate the scene, but rather pray for God's wisdom, and equip ourselves to speak up for the Kingdom of God. We must not be silent, or retreat into compromise and the cowardice of political correctness, when it is a time to speak up. Did not the Preacher say there is a time to be silent and a time to speak? It is also written that we are to be quick to listen and slow to speak, but we must still speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak, when there is injustice or when there needs to be correction or even rebuke. See how appropriately the movie "Amazing Grace" is showing now! William Wilberforce spoke up for the abolition of slavery and was encouraged by Wesley that if God is for him, who can be against him? We pray, however, for the mature fruit of self-control or temperance, and we are to be slow to anger, because a person's anger does not accomplish God's righteousness,

It would appear that Mrs. Thio the Younger is sufficiently infamous regarding her promotion of Joel's Army theology that this is specifically mentioned in her Wikipedia entry. One wonders how many generations of the family may be involved; it's worrisome to me that she's in the Singaporean parliament at all (and it could be potentially even a national security risk) seeing as to the love for political power by these groups; Joel's Army groups took over a major political party in the US in conjunction with other "Christian nationalists", have been increasingly engaging in paramilitary imagery and paramilitary activity including frank domestic terrorism in the States (and including to the point of promoting literal Holocaust revisionism to justify progroms against LGBT people), and historically have not been above the use of coups-de-etat to gain power if necessary (notably in Guatemala during the 80s and early 90s, and Fiji from around 2000 to 2006).

And Mrs. Thio the Elder's talk at the "Marketplace Bible Institute" gains new importance with AWARE's attempted steeplejacking...and the purpose of the "institute":

*Marketplace Bible Institute Ltd* was founded with a mission to equip ordinary people called by God to become annointed and competent Marketplace Ministers. Our courses offer a balance of biblical and theological study, with a focus on contemporary issues. To cater to the time constraints of the busy marketplace minister, a greater emphasis is placed on self-study, with classroom time devoted to teaching, clarification and impartation.

About that "Marketplace Ministry"...what they're describing, flat out, is setting up front businesses that outwardly appear to be secular, but are in fact recruitment fronts for NAR churches. (The Unification Church also notably does this, and even has a name for it--"heavenly deception".)

Also, a word about those "Reconciliation committees". In NAR-speak, "Reconciliation" typically means cultural appropriation of a particularly disturbing kind--stealing the outer trappings of another faith's worship style but with a "Joel's Army" core. An example is with Youth With A Mission promoting "Messianic Moslems"--keeping Moslem cultural practices but engaging in explicitly neopentecostal worship. (More well-known in the US are groups targeting Jewish people for conversion to "Messianic Jews"; there are also "reconciliation groups" targeting Native Americans that essentially hold Joel's Army powwows in the literal sense. Even martial arts aren't sacred; "Christian tae kwon do" (stripped of all the Korean historical and mythological background and replaced with Joel's Army imagery) is promoted as a form of "reconciliation" as well.)

Yet again, we're dealing with another frontgroup. The two main international advisors are Kevin Conner and Ravi Zacharias; Zacharias is by far the more famous, linked to the pentecostal Christian and Missionary Alliance (the parent denomination of the Assemblies of God) and is connected with Campus Crusade for Christ (Leadership U is a frontgroup of Campus Crusade by its own admission--in fact, it's pretty much a training group for Campus Crusade leaders). Kevin J. Conner is connected with a far-less-known NAR group called World MAP; World MAP is notable for being one of the innovators of the use of "cuckoo" cell-churches to hijack other churches from within, the fact that it has been long a conduit for promotion of Joel's Army theology, (under its "Latter Rain" branding), and that http://www.world-map.com/FWP_Interview.htm">it's a frontgroup of the infamous Joel's Army group Youth With A Mission (yes, the same one trying to "reconcile" Moslems into "Messianic Moslems").

(Yes, if you've been following along--this does, in fact, mean that Thio Su Mien is connected intimately with all three major branches of Joel's Army groups.)

To attend this "Marketplace Bible Institute" (which would appear to be wholly unaccredited and only offers degrees in ministry), you are not only required to sign a statement of faith but must be a member of a "local church" and have a recommendation from a pastor (of note, "local church" is a common euphemism in these circles for a cell-church).

Remarkably, she seems not to mention her connections to the "Prophetic School of Law and Justice" on her profile on her legal site's page, and it appears that her legal offices in fact operate as a subsidiary of the Australian firm Allens Arthur Robinson. (Perhaps she fears it'd be bad for business.)

An additional link to American "Christian Nationalists"

One area that the steeplejackers seem to be linked to which isn't obviously NAR--but which in and of itself has some disturbing implications--is the connection to Focus on the Family.

FotF is a primarily US-based "Christian Nationalist" org--most of their work involves stumping for various political "religious right" initiatives, promoting "degaying" of LGBT youth, and promoting James Dobson's books on religiously motivated child abuse (one of which literally starts out with the beating of a small dog as an example of how to "break the spirit" of a "willful child", and another book in the series has Dobson happily recalling being literally caned with his mother's girdle).

One particular oddity that has been brought up in other sources is the fact that FotF Singapore is apparently registered as a secular nonprofit--which is almost the exact opposite of its legal status in the US.

First, a minor primer on how nonprofits work in the US. It's my understanding that in Singapore there are separate registries for religious and secular nonprofit orgs; in the US it's a little different in that we have a general "nonprofit without lobbying" category (501(c)3) with a mess of subcategories and a "nonprofit with very limited lobbying over broad issues" category (501(c)4). Even 501(c)4 orgs are not supposed to lobby for specific bills or candidates (technically, only political action committees are allowed to do this), and only donations to 501(c)3 organisations are tax exempt; most groups tend to have both orgs.

Among 501(c)3 nonprofits here, the only real difference between churches and other nonprofits (including parachurches and nondenominational religious groups) is that churches are exempt from filing any forms with the Internal Revenue Service; others file a form called a "form 990" in lieu of the regular tax forms.

"Christian nationalist" groups in the US typically organise themselves as 501(c)3 orgs, with some having 501(c)4 divisions if they've been given warnings about electioneering; however, by and large, they incorporate as secular orgs (in part to hide the fact they're explicitly religious. (And yes, almost all of what they actually do politically is illegal under the tax codes and elections laws; sadly, however, these are rarely enforced here.)

Focus on the Family, at least how it operates here, is one of the rare exceptions. Specifically (and likely to take advantage of some very favourable laws in California when it incorporated), Focus on the Family gets its 501(c)3 exemption under sections for "historical" and "nondenominational religious" groups--in fact, in the 2004 form 990 for FotF (from page 31 on) it lists its formal incorporation papers as a "religious corporation" in California. (In the US, many states require you to either be a member of a recognised denomination or--for things like nondenominational ministries or churches not part of an established denomination--to formally incorporate as a religious corporation. California is probably the easiest state in the US to do this in; FotF started out in California then moved to Colorado in the 80s.)

VERY interesting indeed. (Of course, if you look at the rest of the article re FotF's "oddities" you'll notice they have a habit of "playing not quite fair" with tax laws.)

I expect that FotF may have been registered as a secular nonprofit largely to fly under people's radar--they knew from their experiences here in the States that people do actively resist "religious right" orgs, so they were "stealthing" a bit.

All in all, it looks like the NAR and even political dominionist groups are trying the same dirty tricks in Singapore as in the US--the difference is, Singapore seems to have had a major "teachable moment" with the attempted steeplejack of AWARE.

A few days ago, I had reported onhe steeplejacking of AWARE, a women's NGO in Singapore (which effectively operates as *the* major NGO that focuses on women's issues); the rough equivalent of what happened in the US would be if (for instance) the National Organisation for Women had been taken over from within by dominionists.

Even more disturbing, the particular group in question behind the steeplejack is an NAR church that was actively implementing the steeplejacking as early as December 2008 and also had links to the SG affiliate of Focus on the Family. (And as to how deeply they were into NAR stuff--well, in essence, it's a direct "granddaughter" of none other than the infamous Hillsong Community Church in Sydney and its direct "parent" church in Perth manages to be even more outwardly extreme re NAR promotion than Hillsong itself is.)

I do have good news to report on this, fortunately.

Thanks in part to not only international publicity about the steeplejacking but some good-old-fashioned group activism (including, largely, networking via blogs including Livejournal) the dominionists are out and the "old guard" of AWARE has seized its org back:

* Motion to remove new AWARE exco from office and elect new president has been passed. Ms Josie Lau and her exco have stepped down. Former President Dana Lam has been elected President. *

THE RESULTS

3(a) The Exco has lost mandate/confidence of the members of the Society because it has not acted or is acting in the best interest of the society.

Number of Votes IN FAVOUR = 1411 Number of Votes AGAINST = 761

3(b) The Exco has lost mandate/confidence of the members of the Society because they do not appreciate or share the values of the society.

Number of Votes IN FAVOUR = 1412 Number of Votes AGAINST = 762

3(c) The Exco has lost mandate/confidence of the members of the Society because they does not have requisite experience of carrying out the society's work or is otherwise inadequate to further the society's objectives.

Number of Votes IN FAVOUR = 1419 Number of Votes AGAINST = 755

Before a formal ouster could begin, the dominionists stepped down from the leadership--this means that AWARE is, finally, back in control by its members and not by the steeplejackers.

Dominionists tried to derail, and (fortunately) met with FAIL

In addition, more info has come out regarding the integral role of the NAR-linked "Church Of Our Saviour" in the steeplejacking--further pointing to an attempt to essentially turn AWARE into a COOS frontgroup. Per the Straits Times (which is actually a fairly conservative and pro-government paper in Singapore), reportedly COOS's pastor explicitly exhorted the church to support the "new leadership" after AWARE was steeplejacked. Amazingly enough, the sermon in question is still online (and part of a general anti-LGBT rant), and included such statements as "It's not a crusade against the people but there's a line that God has drawn for us, and we don't want our nation crossing that line." (Of note, COOS is known to have planned the steeplejack based on claims that AWARE is somehow "pro-lesbian"; in truth, they are unhappy the group doesn't exclude lesbians, or try to refer them to bogus "degaying therapy" of the sort that COOS explicitly promoted in its sermon.)

This was, of note, in direct response to folks opposed to the steeplejacking of AWARE joining the org and wishing to join the emergency meeting to such an extent that the site of the general meeting had to be moved to a larger venue. Even then, the AWARE steeplejackers tried to have it moved to the same venue as an NAR conference and was reportedly encouraging its membership to try to pack the emergency meeting with "yes" voters.

The Straits Times gives a little more info on that attempt to move the conference:

Meanwhile, The Straits Times learnt of other misgivings expressed over the Expo as a venue. Netizens and supporters of the old guard had pointed out that a two-day Christian conference, Transformation 2009, was also being held there.

They were concerned that people attending the conference would swamp the Aware meeting and outnumber supporters of the old guard hugely.

The Christian conference is being organised by LoveSingapore, an inter-church organisation founded by Pastor Lawrence Khong from the Faith Community Baptist Church.

Its committee members are pastors from different churches, including Pastor Derek Hong from the Church of Our Saviour in Margaret Drive, where several of Aware's leaders worship.

As we'll note below--this would appear to have been no less than an attempt to have the emergency meeting at the same location as an NAR revival/planning meeting (with a speaker notorious for promoting steeplejacks of businesses from within as a form of "taking back the world for Christ").

Fortunately, the Singapore police intervened--refusing to allow the permit to change the venue there, in part because of concerns re conflicts between the "old guard" and the dominionist steeplejackers.

Even after this, the dominionists didn't stop. A particularly damning bit of info showed a series of emails were sent directly tracable to Church Of Our Saviour explicitly encouraging women to join AWARE en masse and attempt to derail the emergency meeting on 17 April--to the same network of email addresses (presumably to cell church leaders) that the previous "organising the steeplejack" emails had gone to..

Of course, after the news came out regarding COOS's integral role in the steeplejacking, the church went into classic "damage control" mode--first trying to deny they were behind the steeplejack, then--when threatened with its outing as an NAR church in Anglican drag when tthe National Council of Churches of Singapore issued a statement condemning the mix of religion and politics (NCCS is the main ecumenical body for mainstream Christian churches in Singapore--including the Anglican church, the denomination NCCS (falsely) claims to be part of)--issued a very-much CYA "apology". In fact, the smackdown wasn't just by the Anglicans--literally every mainstream religious group in Singapore issued statements supporting NCCS's stand, including representatives of the mainstream Buddhist, Taoist, and Moslem faith groups.

(For the record, if anyone has contacts with the National Council of Churches of Singapore, I'd appreciate it if you'd forward them the info re COOS's actual theology, thanks. I think the legit Anglican church might want to know about the steeplejacking.)

An attempted diversion...to an honest-to-dog Joel's Army revival

As it is, AWARE (thanks to the intervention of the Singapore national police) may have dodged a potential cannonball--and the attempted move of the emergency meeting to the same expo center as the "Transformation 2009" conference gives a rare glimpse on just the sort of tactics Joel's Army groups like to use to solidify control once they have it and fear losing it.

Actually, to term the "Transformation 2009" conference (which would have been held, coincidentially, the very next day after the EGM of AWARE--as attendees would have been arriving, or would have already arrived, for the conference) as merely being a conference of evangelicals is not quite accurate.

In fact, it would be extremely inaccurate.

There's actually only one group I've seen that uses that phrase on a regular basis for conferences--namely, NAR-connected groups, and those closely connected to C. Peter Wagner at that. (Among other things, there's a series of videos called the "Transformations" series that is popular in NAR circles; fellow researchers have written some informative material on that series which essentially lays out the long term "game plan" for NAR groups to steeplejack society at large.)

My Spidey-sense on this is, as usual, (unfortunately) quite accurate in this; the main speaker is Ed Silvoso, who is not only a direct C. Peter Wagner (aka "Mr. Joel's Army") acolyte but also one of the major architects of NAR planning for taking over the world--particularly using cell-churches explicitly as "cuckoos" and in remarkably similar ways to Marxist "people's revolutionary cells":

"Silvoso bases his strategy on four fundamental principles: 1. [t]he spiritual unity of the churches of a city, 2. [p]owerful intercessory prayer, 3. [s]trategic-level spiritual warfare, [and] 4. [m]ultiplication of new churches. Peter Wagner says, 'The most sophisticated strategy for evangelizing a city we have at the present time is Edgardo Silvoso's Harvest Evangelism.' To see how spiritual mapping fits into the whole evangelistic design, allow me to summarize Ed Silvoso's six steps for taking a city... [Step] 4. Infiltrate Satan's perimeter. Launch the 'air attack' of specific and strategic intercessory prayer through hundreds of thousands of prayer houses (prayer cells), having the objective of weakening Satan's control over the unsaved, claiming instead a favorable disposition to the gospel. At the same time begin to plant embryonic churches ('lighthouses') in anticipation of an abundant harvest. [Step] 5. Attack and destroy Satan's perimeter. Begin the 'frontal assault.' Launch the spiritual takeover of the city, confronting, binding and casting down the spiritual powers ruling over the region... Disciple new believers through the established lighthouses." (Excerpt is from Victor Lorenzo's "Evangelizing a City Dedicated to Darkness," a chapter in C. Peter Wagner's book, "Breaking Strongholds in Your City" (Regal Books, Ventura, CA, 1993). The parenthetical comments are in the original.)

And, as we'll see, Silvoso is actually one of the nastier NAR promoters.

The group actually holding the conference, LOVE Singapore, is quite possibly the "mother ship" of NAR churches in the Singapore area, or at least its primary "five year planning committee"; along with the (extremely NAR, Latter Rain-derived) usual neopente 40-day marathon fasting (yes, people willingly deprive themselves of food for 40 days and are expected to on multiple occasions a year in these groups as part of their "name it and claim it" theology; even the fast of Ramadan does not cover nights, equivalent Orthodox and Eastern Rite Christian churches usually restrict themselves to vegetarian fasts or *short* fasts of 1-3 days (generally the Dewahedo Orthodox tend to have the strictest fasting outside of NAR churches, but even here they tend to be vegetarian fasts) and doctors note that fasting of over 10 days continuously is very dangerous) we have plenty of indications we're dealing with an NAR group and quite possibly among the most hardcore (the Wagner-lineage NAR promoters).

One of the things Silvoso likes to promote is the concept of essentially setting up front companies for the sole purpose of gaining "marks" for conversion, as well as redirecting funds towards dominionist groups. In fact, the Transformation 2009 brochure helpfully promotes his book on the subject--as well as noting his links to a number of American political dominionist groups with extensive linkages to C. Peter Wagner's network of NAR "apostles" (including Mission America) and his role in promoting NAR theology in Argentina.

In fact, a legitimate argument can be made that in fact LOVE Singapore is nothing but a Silvoso frontgroup--apparently he actually founded the org as essentially a very large "nest" for a whole mess of cell-churches and NAR-linked groups.

And I'm *not* kidding when I state Silvoso is a nasty bit of work. Among other things, he is in part responsible for not one but two major epicentres of NAR activity in the past 20 years in North America--namely, the Toronto Airport Fellowship and Brownsville A/G (in Pensacola, FL) NAR "revivals" which led to popularisation--and spread--of NAR theology outside of neopentecostal circles. It can be, quite literally, stated that Silvoso himself is one of the "generals of Joel's Army".

Notably, his group where he promotes the concept of front companies as "business evangelism" only has a transparency grade of "C" on ministrywatch.com--one of the worse ratings, at that (only a few, known, outright fraudulent televangelists tend to get worse).

And--notably for our discussion of the attempted steeplejack of AWARE--Silvoso does like to actively promote the idea of setting up "cuckoo" cell-churches in businesses if you can't set up a front business yourself:

The quote above comes from a chapter in C. Peter Wagner's book The Church in the Workplace, which is an account of the marketplace transformation movement. This book is an attempt to justify a new role for the church co-mingling with the corporate business world, based on the newly concocted doctrines of C. Peter Wagner, George Otis, Ed Silvoso, Dennis Peacocke, and a host of other Latter Rain and Reconstructionist leaders.

In a chapter entitled "Apostles in the Workplace," Wagner details the "strategy for war" for marketplace transformation, and puts out a plea for leaders to "standardize our terminology" for the "7 spheres" or "7 mountains" or "7 gates" of society that must be transformed. Wagner suggests "using a list that can be traced back to Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, and Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade." (p. 112)

(For the record, I've actually written quite extensively on the "Seven Mountains" fifty-year plan of NAR groups here and here.)

In addition, the "Baptist" (and there is a very specific reason I use that phrase in quotes) church in question linked to the conference is, just like Church Of Our Saviour, an NAR rabid dog in a non-NAR church's "sheep's clothing". In fact, it seems to have been set up explicitly as an NAR church from the very beginning and deceptively named a Baptist church; it's certainly not affiliated with any legitimate Baptist denominations. In practice, it's a typical NAR neopentecostal church of the sort that would be branded "nondenominational" here in the States; the *true* denominational affiliation would be with a small NAR paradenomination that recruits members primarily through cell-churches and "encounter weekends" (where people are isolated from outside contact and by their own admission subjected to a hard-sell via essentially a neopentecostal revival in a closed environment).

These are *incredibly* coercive in practice; Matt Taibbi has written about his own experiences at an "encounter weekend" and some evaluations indicate these "weekends" and the groups that hold them may be literally more abusive than Scientology (especially if the use of abusive "cell churches" is also considered--cell-churches and similar "shepherding" tactics being among the most documentably coercive and harmful tactics known to be in wide use in abusive religious groups).

Fortunately, the attempt to derail the emergency meeting by redirecting it to essentially the same location as a Joel's Army revival (ironically featuring a speaker who talks openly of setting up exactly this type of steeplejacking attack against legitimate businesses as a form of "evangelism"!) failed.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance

That said--the folks at We Are Aware will need to remain vigilant. Undoubtedly, the dominionists *will* attempt to fight the result of the vote and/or try to steeplejack again (and in fact the recently booted dominionists have in fact made a veiled threat to do just that). Fortunately the folks at AWARE have learned from this--one of the thing being proposed are changes to the NGO's constitution to try to make the org more steeplejack-resistant including having been an active volunteer for a year before running for high-level positions.

Still, though, the beatback of the steeplejack does prove one thing.

People *can* take back power, and they *can* stop the dominionists in their tracks.

It takes education and motivation to get to that destination--but the folks at We Are AWARE--and thousands of Singaporeans--have proven it's possible.

May we all be inspired by their example, and may they continue to successfully prevent a steeplejacking--and hopefully even us folks in the States can learn by example.

Just in case people thought dominionism was a problem restricted to the US or Australia or Canada:

Dominionism is unfortunately a global problem.

And a favourite tactic of dominionists--steeplejacking of churches and nonprofit orgs--has now come to one of the last places we'd expect:

Singapore.

A necropsy of a steeplejack--right down to the planning stages

Firstly, some backgrounder. Presently, the law in Singapore technically criminalises same-sex relationships (the law is a holdover from the British colonial period); there is an ongoing political debate in the country about revoking that law. In general, there's good public support for decriminalisation, but one major group is fighting it--dominionist groups in Singapore, which are typically linked to NAR/Joel's Army groups like Hillsong. This has included a particular church called Church Of Our Saviour, which has been especially politically active in trying to keep same-sex relationships illegal.

And apparently, dominionists in Singapore have been taking notes from the Americans and Aussies on steeplejacks of not only churches but NGOs and political parties.

So perhaps what occured, starting in December, was inevitable.

The women's group AWARE (which is roughly the equivalent of the National Organisation for Women in Singapore--they do lots of activism on women's issues in general) has been essentially steeplejacked and a major purge done of the former leadership by a group connected largely to an NAR-linked "Anglican" church (in truth, it's neopentecostal and NAR-linked; we'll be going into MUCH more detail on this)

Of note, this "Joel's Army in Anglican clothing" church is very anti-LGBT; not only do they extensively promote anti-LGBT info but have official policy statements condemning LGBT people and promoting de-gaying and promote bogosities about LGBT people being inherently mentally ill.

And in March of 2009, the NAR-linked Church Of Our Saviour effectively steeplejacked the major women's rights NGO in Singapore--a country that effectively is under one-party rule as is and has precious few groups able to lobby successfully.

The speed and level of the steeplejack is actually rather horrifying--from all indications, literally 80 members of the 102-member org joined between January and March of this year. In what may be a rare glimpse at the planning documents for the steeplejack, apparently the pastor himself was exhorting members and leaders of cell-church groups linked to the church to join and there is evidence from email archives that the steeplejack was planned as early as December 2008.

The reason AWARE was targeted? Because they acknowledge that there are specific women's rights issues that affect lesbians and don't deny lesbian women their services.

Even worse--this may be, quite literally, an attempt at a hostile takeover--by groups that are hostile to both LGBT people and women in general. This isn't just on the subject of LGBT rights, either.

An in-depth look at the church behind the steeplejack

The Church Of Our Saviour stands out in that--visiting their website one gets the impression one is not visiting an Anglican church's website (they claim Anglican affiliation)--but rather one of the "hip" websites run by many an Assemblies of God or "nondenominational" NAR-linked neopentecostal congregation.

There is actually a very good reason for this.

For starters, most CoE churches don't have long talks with Hillsong A/G operatives about "prophetic dance" or have extensive NAR/neopente buzzwording and discussions of "Brownsville Revival"-esque "gold dusting" in their church newsletters.

In fact, there's only one place I have EVER heard of that phenomenon--and that is within NAR-linked neopentecostal churches, and even a specific subset of the NAR (namely, Assemblies, Foursquare, and Vineyard-linked NAR churches).

In general, COE churches also do not have indoctrinations lists for the quarter for cell-church leaders or use Hillsong A/G recordings and other "Christian contemporary" artists in their hymnal or specific promotion of "health and wealth" gospel including sections on "maintaining your healing". (The latter is, shall we say, unique--apparently failures of faith-healing can literally be blamed on "thinking negative thoughts" and thus "opening doorways to Satan".)

In fact, this church is literally in the "Hillsong network" of NAR churches--the sole church listed in the "Churches to attend when you're away" section is a Hillsong satellite church in Perth that is one of the most extensively and openly Joel's Army churches I've seen--including the literal condemnation of non-dominionists and critics as "Jezebels" and invoking a party typically only referred to by Christian Identity promoters:

We are a Church that will build ourselves strong in the spirit man. We will not yield to the giants of the land but like Joshua, we will dare move out and possess. Like a David, we will dare take on the Goliaths of our time. Like an Elijah, we will dare confront the Ahabs and the Jezebels of our day. Like the zeal of Phinehas, we will stand for righteousness.

This...quite bluntly...is a LOT of Joel's Army Buzzword Bingo:

a) "David" and "Joshua" and "Elijah" have often been invoked in modern-day rebrandings of "Joel's Army" (particularly in the terms "Joshua Generation"--denoting the NAR concept of an "end-time generation" who will "Take the world back for the godly"--and "Elijah's Army").
b) "Ahab" and "Jezebel" are epithets for non-dominionist men and women respectively.
c) The Phinehas invocation is especially disturbing--as pretty much only NAR groups and Christian Identity "race warriors" use it, and both in a remarkably similar context--stating that it is ideologically acceptable to kill, if necessary, to establish purity. (I've written much more on this particular phrase's use in Joel's Army circles here. Cliff's Notes version: Phinehas was so much of a zealot he not only is infamous for shish-kebabbing a man and his fiance for the act of inflagrante delicto in the temple, but nearly caused the extermination of almost a third of the tribes of of Israel due to a misunderstanding over a temple being constructed outside of the one in Jerusalem.)

Not only does FCC promote cells openly, but they promote within "women's cells" a particularly horrific religiously motivated child abuse program (namely the Ezzo's "Growing Kids God's Way", linked starvation deaths and hospitalisations of children and which is essentially a program of religiously motivated child abuse and neglect). In addition, they are quite explicitly NAR in promoting the "fivefold ministry" concept as well as cells and the very Alpha Course invented by the steeplejacked Holy Temple Bradenton.

I expect that FCC is used as the "parent church" because of a large number of Chinese immigrants--COOS seems to target mostly the Chinese-Singaporean community, and FCC seems to be composed almost entirely of people of Chinese descent as well.

And--by their own blatant admission--they are targeting the East Indies as a whole, including not only Singapore but Timor Leste.

Back to COOS itself, among some of the other oddities that further confirm that it's an "NAR Assemblies church in all but name" include the promotion of essentially a diploma mill calling itself the School of Supernatural Ministry; literally all of the speakers at the conference where these bogus diplomas are to be handed out are linked to Bethel Church of Redding, CA; Bethel is a Joel's Army congregation which links to a veritable New Apostolic Reformation who's who--including, notably, Todd Bentley and many others associated with various neopente "Third Wave" "revivals".

There are other aspects that resemble the American NAR churches strongly (as well as the Aussie ones). Among other things, "Christian" alternatives to Scouting are promoted (unlike in the US, Boy Scouting in the rest of the world is not heavily religiously influenced)

Among other things, COOS targets (just like NAR groups in the US) military members, including cell churches targeted towards persons serving mandatory military service (like many other countries, Singapore has mandatory national guard/civil service periods).

Another of the "seminars" held is actually particularly revealing--a seminar on steeplejacking businesses and using them for "bait and switch" evangelism...something that becomes particularly relevant with AWARE's new head.

American dominionists helping things along too

As it turns out, it's not just the Assemblies that are actively helping out here. One of the partners in crime in regards to the Steeplejacking of AWARE is none other than the largest political group in the US promoting "Christian nationalism"--none other than Focus on the Family itself.

It may surprise people to know that a big part of FotF's activities have involved--as of late--international export of dominionism. But export they do, and it's big business--including schemes similar to the "funnel aid to the Contras under the claims of 'helping missions'" scams in the 80s (only now targeting insurgent groups in Colombia).

These include, notably, affiliates where you would not expect to find FotF affiliates--including Singapore as well as Malaysian, Indonesian, and Chinese affiliates. (Of note, I honestly don't see how the Malaysian or Indonesian affiliates are operating legally; Christian worship is tolerated but prosyletisation is prohibited as both of these countries officially have Islam as the state religion. Moderate Islam, yes--but it's not open season for prosyletisation.)

The fact that FotF has a Singaporean affiliate is bizarre enough, but this grows ever more interesting is the fact that Church Of Our Saviour is apparently the de facto headquarters of FotF in Singapore--and the new leadership has links to both groups.

Firstly, the person now acting as the head of AWARE (Josie Lau) was responsible for quite a controversy--namely, Mrs. Law was behind a campaign conducted at behest of COOS to set up donations to FotF via a "Christmas Credit Card" program by her bank DBS. (DBS is one of the larger bank and trust companies in Singapore.) Yes--pretty much the general "charity affinity" fraud scheme that dominionist groups here in the US are fond of--signing up for charity donation programs (meant more for Little League and Scouting programs) and encouraging their members to buy and use the "discount" numbers to funnel a good amount of money to their group.

Needless to say, DBS was shortly the subject of a boycott, and eventually DBS dropped mention of FotF in their "Christmas Credit Card" programme. Lau, interestingly, seems to have gone on--eventually ending up as COOS's point-woman in AWARE.

This is not the end of the FotF-Church Of Our Saviour partnerships, though. The chairman of FotF's operations in Singapore is also notably a member of COOS.

And the necessary backgrounder

For folks coming in new to the discussion of NAR churches, the best I can suggest on a backgrounder of what I mean regarding the NAR groups being Bad News is an ongoing series of articles by Talk to Action regulars Bruce Wilson and Ruth (full disclosure; I have a professional working relationship with both of these folks as a part of a research team based on essentially "Joel's Army-busting") as well as my own writing on the subject (as an ex-member and researcher) at Talk to Action, NewsVine, and a certain "orange site". (I do plan on mirroring most of the content here on Newsvine as well.)

Even shorter for readers who are in countries where it's been released: The NAR/Joel's Army folks are the subject of the movie "Jesus Camp" (specifically, an NAR group that promotes "child ministry"--in their theology, kids born after the legalisation of abortion are literally promoted as a "chosen generation" to "take the world back for God"). Yes, I pretty much grew up "Jesus Camped" (I got better, fortunately, in part because (thankfully) dominionist "homeschooling" was not yet in vogue and I did have *some* exposure to the outside world--I still live with the scars and probably always will, though).

One thing that hasn't been covered much in the media (well, outside of Australia) is the fact that the NAR does have characteristics of a coercive religious group in pretty much the same way Scientology does. In fact, NAR groups and Scientology have a disturbing number of parallels, up to and including paramilitary equivalents of the Scientologist "Sea Orgs" in the US.

NAR groups, especially those in completely-NAR-dominated neopentecostal groups, have been linked recently to some horrific hate crimes against LGBT people--up to and including assaults--as well as the promotion of literal calls to war against LGBT people and the documented use of literal Holocaust revisionism in justifying targeting LGBT people for harassment and desired extermination.

The use of cell churches (which is known to be in practice at Church Of Our Saviour) is particularly worrisome--not only are these used to infiltrate churches and political groups (and, as we've seen with AWARE, also NGOs), but are a major factor in how dominionist churches grow explosively and organise politically (as we have seen, interestingly, with AWARE's steeplejacking--in fact, this may be some of the best documentation of this tactic ever recorded) and in and of themselves are horribly coercive--to the point that Matt Taibbi (who infiltrated the NAR-linked Cornerstone Church in Texas for a segment of his book "The Great Derangement") literally documented personality changes occuring even though he knew what these groups did to rile people up.

In fact, cell-churches (as used in these groups) are well known among researchers to be one of the most documentedly abusive tactics in use in coercive religious groups in general; short-term and long-term personality changes are documented in members of cells and similar groups that are not documented in mainstream churches and religions that do not use coercive tactics. In combination with several other tactics, in fact, NAR groups can be considered as bad as the Moonies or Scientologists just on levels of sheer mind control and a good argument can be made that the really hardcore NAR groups--and COOS does appear to be one of these--are actually worse than Scientology and rank as among the most coercive groups ever documented outside of a North Korean gulag.

Another thing especially worrisome about COOS in particular is their association with the Australian Community Churches (and in particular Faith Community Church). For those unaware, the Australian Community Churches are what used to be called the Australian Assemblies of God; they had to change their name because of repeated revelations in the Australian press of highly abusive practices at their churches, particularly the "home church" of the denomination in Australia (Hillsong A/G in Sydney). In fact, the antics of the Australian A/G and Hillsong in particular became so infamous that most exit counselors in Australia consider the denomination as a whole as coercive (as well as at least one American exit-counselor who has dealt extensively with ex-NAR walkaways).

Hillsong has been particularly active in exporting NAR theology to countries in the Asian and Oceanic spheres, including Fiji and Singapore; they also have their own political party in Australia known as Family First, and have taken tactics very similar to those used by Scientology to shut up their critics--including trying to sue a walkaway for libel and intimidate their publisher into not printing a book that was particularly damning towards the group.

Hillsong has been noted for graft against its members, a sexual-abuse scandal involving multiple pastors (in fact, the founder of Hillsong is noted for having molested kids in New Zealand), and institutionalised abuse of women through a "faith-based rehab" chain funded through Gloria Jean Coffee. (Yes, Gloria Jean is--unfortunately--a major funder of this stuff.) In addition, just like Scientology and the Moonies, Hillsong runs a *lot* of "front groups"--including quite a number targeting kids.

A hostile takeover bid

This is all bad enough--but a disturbing prospect comes up, even as the AWARE Steeplejackers have admitted their major purpose was to purge people tolerant of helping out lesbians...there is a non-negligible possibility that the purpose may be even deeper than this.

Namely, there is a very real possibility this is, quite literally, a hostile takeover--meant to destroy the org.

Two major data points play up how this could be meant as a targeted attack against women's rights in general (and LGBT people in particular). The first is a letter from an Angela Thiang--now on the board of directors for AWARE post-purge--who sent a letter to the Singapore Times calling for abortion to be banned (and bringing up the "post-abortion syndrome" canard).

The second is potentially even more damning. At Church Of Our Saviour, membership in cell-church groups is mandatory, and their seminar notes for essentially an adult "Jesus Camp" have some very revealing information regarding their concept of a woman's place in the home and in society:

a) The husband is the head, and as such has to act as God's vice-regent, to govern not
according to his, but according to the divine will.
The authority put into his hands is from the Lord, and it is his to exert for Him, and it
cannot therefore be delegated to another.
First, don't allow your family (especially mom) to meddle in your marriage...it's
none of their (her) business.
. . .
b) The wife is in subjection to her husband, even as the Church is subject to Christ,
the husband on his part having to love his wife even as Christ loved the Church, and
gave Himself for it.
. . .
Divine order is an order of authority and responsibility that is spelled out in the Bible
1. Head of every man is Christ
2. Head of every woman is the man
3. Head of the children are the parents
. . .
But God has given her a role that is different than that of the husband and one that requires
submission to the husband for its proper fulfillment.
. . .
Illustration:
One lady stood up and said, "I'm so thankful for these lessons and what they've done for me! I'm so thankful that
God loves me! I'm so thankful for this relationship that I have with God in Jesus Christ!"
She started to sit down and Dr. Parker said, "Just a moment. Tell me, with this new relationship in Jesus Christ, how does that affect you in the home?
• Does this make you a better mother?
• Does it make you a better housewife?
• Are you sweeter to your husband because of your relationship with Christ?
• Has this really made you a better wife and housekeeper?..."
He felt a tug on his coat and the minister behind him said, "Press those points, brother! That's my wife!"
. . .
It's unfortunate that so many mothers are not at home with their children. Many women
have run off with another man at work (was it worth that extra income?). It's often a great
stress on the marriage when the wife is independent of her husband. Regardless of what we
think, God has declared to us that His will for a young woman is to do four things:
1. marry
2. bear children
3. guide the house.
4. not be a reproach to her husband
This scripture alone makes it clear that the Christian couple should plan to have children.
There will have to be a family in order for the young women to "love their children." Titus
2:4.

(Emphasis in original bolded; my emphasis italicised.)

There's much more where this came from--in essence, the entire workshop states that--quite literally--a woman's place is in the home, barefoot, and popping out litters of God Warriors. Not just this, but it also states that women who are outside of these roles are literally invoking the wrath of God Himself.

One section even quite blatantly promotes women as the weaker sex both physically and spiritually:

E. Submission a means of protection
1. Women are subject to being attacked physically and emotionally, therefore they need
man's protection
2. Women are also vulnerable emotionally, psychologically and spiritually
3. Women are subject to emotional attacks of her own children -She should not have to
ask for their respect. Husbands protect her from that
a. Protects her from discourtesies and abuses of children
b. Instills in them a sense of respect for womanhood
4. Subject to spiritual attack- husbands should shield her, women are easily deceived

(As an aside, the use of this material by COOS in and of itself presents further evidence of it being an NAR church; the seminar is originally from SOS Ministries, a Joel's Army church affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (this is the branding the Assemblies of God uses in the Great White North, just like they use "Australian Community Churches" in the Land Down Under) in Edmonton, Alberta. In fact, it's looking more and more and more like Church Of Our Saviour is just an Assemblies of God church in all but name.)

Do forgive me if I fear the "New AWARE" is NOT exactly going to be friendly towards women's concerns in Singapore.

The big news, obviously, in the blogosphere today is John McCain's surprise pick for the Republican veep nominee--a relative unknown by the name of Sarah Palin, whom--at least in the more conventional political circles--would appear to be a complete cypher.

Unfortunately, if one digs just a bit deeper, Palin is found to have some very interesting--and very disturbing--connections...among them, being potentially the first Assemblies-linked VP candidate, being a member of a "pro-life" group promoting itself as a feminist org, and having a number of links to dominionist groups targeting kids via "bait and switch" evangelism.
. . .
Sarah Palin's connections that McCain doesn't want you to know about

There are quite a number of extremely troubling links between Sarah Palin and neopentecostal dominionists--enough that, in truth, she may be ultimately as much of a "dream candidate" for the dominionist movement as Mike Huckabee was. Even worse, she's running in a manner that has been frighteningly successful for dominionist groups since the early 80's--specifically, as a "stealth candidate".

Palin's Assemblies linkage

The first link in and of itself is a doozy--and one of the most damning indeed. No less than the official newsletter of the Assemblies of God of Alaska promotes her proudly as one of the denomination's own, and she was actually feted at an official function of the Assemblies' Alaska District as recently as this year:

The opening night banquet of the 2008 Alaska District Council was honored to have Governor Sarah Palin address the delegates and guests. Governor Palin spoke of her appreciation for the Assemblies of God and requested that the Council pray for both her and the State of Alaska. Superintendent Ted Boatsman, who was Palin's junior high pastor at Wasilla Assembly of God, along with Pastor Mike Rose of Juneau Christian Center, where Palin presently attends church when in Juneau, laid hands on the Governor and led the Council in prayer.

Palin, who was elected Governor in 2007, is Alaska's youngest governor and the first female governor of the state. She just recently gave birth to her fifth child, Trig. Palin spoke of the faith challenge she faced when learning that Trig would be a Downs Syndrome child. However, she and her husband, Todd, believe that every child is a gift of God, deserving of life, and that God was asking them to accept His will for their lives. The Alaska District Council believes that the State of Alaska is blessed to have a woman of faith and courage as Governor.

A look at the home website of Palin's church tends to be revealing. Among other things, a particular Assemblies buzzword associated frequently with Hillsong A/G and New Zealand Assemblies churches shows up ("Destiny", here, is a buzzword for "Joel's Army", and is being preferred even as the phrase "Joel's Army" is getting enough negative spin that even the Assemblies is now having to do some rather massive spin control); cell churches are promoted (of the same sort that are linked to short-term and longterm psychological damage and are among the most coercive tactics ever documented in spiritually abusive groups). The church, like a number of other large Assemblies churches, is the center of a dominionist broadcast TV center whose programming is carried across multiple channels in Alaska.

In a trend that has been recently documented by no less than Southern Poverty Law Center (in its recent report on the Joel's Army movement), the church operates a Seven Project-esque targeted recruitment campaign aiming at teens (this is common across the Assemblies and across "Joel's Army" groups in general; fully a third of the documented national-level front groups operated by the Assemblies target teens).

And...believe you me, Palin's church is *definitely* "Joel's Army".

Mike Rose, pastor of Juneau Christian Center (Palin's church), is noted to be connected with the "Third Wave Movement"--a movement in neopente dominionist circles that is the major theological home of "Joel's Army". In fact, he's quite closely connected with Rodney Howard-Browne, a major (in fact, for some years, *the* major promoter) of "Third Wave" neopente dominionism, and actively promotes this insanity in his church:

1. Mike Rose

Mike is an AOG pastor in the largest city in Alaska, who had Rodney Howard-Browne minister in his church four years ago. At that time, they had a congregation of 200, but over the last 4 years, they have seen it grow to 600 in a community of 35,000.

The format that Mike uses is one which gives a balanced approach to church life, allowing for worship and the Word, ministry to the unsaved as well as impartation of the Holy Spirit.

To do this, he has followed a fairly traditional Sunday morning worship service with worship, communion and preaching of the Word, as well as all the other activities which occur in our morning services, such as dedications and so on.

If there are two or three people who are perhaps crying or laughing uncontrollably, the ushers will gently lead them into the prayer room where they can continue to enjoy the presence of Jesus without affecting those around them.

However, he is also open to the possible occasions when the Holy Spirit will just sweep over the service and the majority of the people will be either laughing, crying or worshipping at one time.

His Sunday evening service generally lasts for three to four hours, compared to the morning one of around two hours. At the conclusion of the evening evangelistic endeavour, people are invited to open up their hearts and hunger for a fresh touch of the Spirit. It was during these times that the powerful manifestations will take place and, having observed what has been happening in our Adelaide meetings over the last few weeks, these times have a great similarity to the old time Pentecostal camp meeting or tarrying services where people received a fresh touch of God.

Mike encourages his people to hunger and has taught them along that line. He helped them to understand and develop a new sensitivity to the ways of the Holy Spirit. His observations were:

* You cannot sustain a move of the Spirit without hunger.

* Corrections need to be made from time to time.

* Don't just get fascinated by the move of God, but rather keep your eyes on Jesus.

* Mission giving and outreach evangelism should be a prominent part of this move and the churches which don't reach out soon dry up.

He encourages us not to hype it up and that there needs to be a continual emphasis on holiness and that only qualified people should lay hands on those who have come for prayer.

Mike is also an adviser on Rodney Howard-Browne's Revival Ministries committee, along with three or four other AOG pastors in the USA. He informed me that he had sat in over 110 of Rodney's meetings and been impressed by the lack of pressure and hype, but by the powerful anointing of the Spirit which accompanies this young man.

As to *why* Howard-Browne's involvement is distressing--well, this previous article should give some pointers, but suffice it to say that another notable church he's had close connections with is the very church I am a walkaway from--hence how I know some of this up close and personal.

Some of the fun includes literal imprecatory prayers and curses against critics and literally accusing critics even within pentecostal circles of literal blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

Rodney Howard-Browne gave this 'prophesy' last year at New Life Center: 'Do not compromise. For if you compromise, you shall not only lose the anointing that I placed upon you, you shall lose your life.'" [T.A. McMahon, "Experience-Driven Spirituality," The Berean Call, May 1995, page 4]
. . .
"I'm telling your right now," [Rodney Howard-Browne] hissed, "you'll drop dead if you prohibit what God is doing!" Dramatically he gestured toward the crowd [at Melodyland Christian Center, Anaheim, CA, 1/17/95] and warned them
that those like me, who would dare to question that what he was doing was of God, had committed the unpardonable sin and would not be forgiven in this world or the next." [Hank Hanegraaf, "Counterfeit Revival" (1997), page 22]

Bad news...but it doesn't stop there.

Palin's links to "Feminists" For Life, a deceptive anti-abortion group

As if the Assemblies links weren't enough (and between this diary and the stuff that has been reported re John Ashcroft--much less George W. Bush's consistent support for Assemblies frontgroups--that should be a pretty big damn danger sign right there!), there's still more to indicate Sarah Palin may have been put in as a "stealth dominionist".

Among other things, Palin explicitly promoted "teach the controversy" by calling for the misnamed "creation science" to be taught in public schools (as now well documented in Kitzmiller vs. Dover School District, it's known that "creation science" is nothing more and nothing less than a method of putting young-earth creationism in public schools).

It also appears that Sarah Palin is a member of a misnamed group called Feminists for Life. FFL in fact engages in "cultural appropriation" of women's suffrage icons to promote a very woman-unfriendly agenda that--despite attempts to sound "not like those crazies in Operation Rescue"--would not only criminalise abortion but the IUD and hormonal birth control methods, and potentially everything outside the rhythm method (the term "abortifacient birth control" is a codephrase in the dominionist "pro-life" community for hormonal birth control--partly due to a unique urban legend claiming "the pill" and other hormonal birth control causes abortion and partly because of a unique definition of pregnancy beginning at conception rather than at implantation (the latter is what most mainstream OB/GYNs use) and thus making *anything* preventing implantation potentially "abortifacient").

FFL promotes such fun bogosities as "post-abortion syndrome" (the idea that having an abortion will inevitably lead to PTSD and insanity), and promotes mandatory waiting periods and misinformation guidelines that can be insurmountable for poor or rural women--even those forced to make the most heartbreaking choice because of a nonviable pregnancy. In fact, one of their biggest causes isn't feminist at all--they actively promote the idea that the best choice for women is to stay home as fulltime mothers, and it can be well argued that the only traditionally feminist viewpoint they really support is women's suffrage!

One of the big things FFL promotes is deceptive "pregnancy counseling centers"--where pregnant teens are forced to essentially listen to an altar call on how "abortionists want to murder their children" whilst a pee-stick test clears--and if she tests "yes", she gets a hard-sell to keep the child or to check herself into a dominionist-run "halfway house for teenage moms" where she will ultimately be forced to sign her kid over. (Yes, there is an entire private adoption industry in the dominionist community--mostly focusing on adopting out the infants of poor teenage mothers who have been forced to give their kids up and who have been either scared into it or checked into such facilities by their parents.)

Ironically, FFL itself is rather a "stealth" organisation in and of itself--yes, even the dominionists admit this. Interestingly, despite their claims of being more "moderate" than most anti-abortion groups, very few real solutions are offered on how they intend to fund such things (which can be boiled down to "CHOOSE TO BREED").

Palin's links with Campus Crusade frontgroups

Palin's linkages don't stop there. In Kaylene Johnson's book Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down (2008, Epicenter Press) it's mentioned that Palin was head of the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes branch in her school--up to and including leading team prayers.

It is helpful to know a bit of FCA's past history to know why this is a matter of concern. FCA is, in fact, a known frontgroup of the coercive dominionist group Campus Crusade for Christ--yes, the selfsame Campus Crusade that has such close links to the Assemblies of God that it can be described as a "conjoined twin" of the Assemblies and the same one documented as having links to an ever-widening prosyletisation scandal in our Armed Forces. FCA also gets quite a lot of cash from de facto Assemblies funding-front Hobby Lobby--a chain, of note, that has bailed out a neopente university and has even funded paramilitary "Joel's Army" groups targeting teens.

The links between FCA and a particular Hobby Lobby frontgroup, Bearing Fruit Communications, are particularly close. At least one member of Bearing Fruit's board of directors (T. Ray Grandstaff) is a former Senior VP for Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Regarding FCA itself, the group has been linked to dominionism in numerous ways; they are well known for "bait and switch" evangelism (in fact, they and Athletes in Action are among the two groups most frequently banned from public school campuses due to bait-and-switch "altar calls" marketed as anti-drug talks to the school administration). More info here. (Such tactics are a favourite of dominionist groups explicitly targeting youth.) It's also well known (and, apparently, explicitly by design) that Fellowship of Christian Athletes rather aggressively "dominionist-ises" any team they are let into (this tends to be bad even within the NFL, but even more so within FCA groups run in colleges and high schools).

Of particular note, FCA has close links with the US Air Force Academy religious coercion controversies (and is but one of *multiple* Campus Crusade frontgroups documented by Military Religious Freedom Foundation as involved in military religious coercion scandals), and the ACLU has had to fight them since the 60's because of religious coercion (in particular, Jewish people tend to be targeted, according to the anti-cult group Rick Ross Foundation); in addition, it is explicitly supported by dominionist groups, and explicitly partners with other dominionist groups targeting youth (including Chi Alpha (an Assemblies of God frontgroup), Campus Crusade for Christ, and even scarier groups like "See You At The Pole" (infamous for, among other things, nailing people's names to crosses and "praying" over them to essentially curse people in the name of Christ to convert or suffer) and Council for National Policy).

And finally, the dominionists themselves like her

As expected, many if not most of the dominionist groups in the US have given explicit approval for Palin on her anti-abortion bona-fides alone--including Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, and a pack of the more extreme dominionist anti-abortion groups.

I'm not the only one to have noticed the rather extensive dominionist bona-fides--Pastor Dan over on Street Prophets has noted this as well. Frederick Clarkson over on Talk to Action has also noted salutations from two other dominionist leaders--one being Kenneth Blackwell, who was the "dream candidate" of neopente dominionists in his home state (fortunately, he lost the gubernatorial election).

Chip Berlet has also noted on Talk to Action a further endorsement from Eagle Forum--the oldest dominionist political group aside from "The Family" and the Assemblies-linked FGBMFI.

In addition, it would seem she may well have quite a bit of approval from dominionists in general--that is, if the barometer of the Texas GOP Convention is to be believed. (The Texas GOP is one of the most thoroughly steeplejacked GOP conventions in the US; many of the official party platforms are indistinguishable from Constitution Party platforms.) The Houston Chronicle reports:

"It's a slam dunk. I think that people who are concerned about 'How conservative is Mr. McCain' are now going to say, 'If he can make a choice of Sarah Palin, then he can be trusted with our conservative ideals,' " said delegate Cathie Adams, Republican National Committeewoman-elect and president of the Texas Eagle Forum.
. . .
"I always thought he needed to pick a woman," said Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, former president of the Texas Federation of Republican Women. "I think Hillary Clinton's campaign stimulated a lot of interest among women voters, and I think this is going to hit a chord."

But Kaufman added: "I look forward to learning more about her." She also noted that Palin is considered to be against abortion rights, and McCain "thought he needed to satisfy that wing of the party."

Here's hoping this article starts shining a little bit of light on the subject--the last thing we need a literal heartbeat away from the Presidency is a ninja dominionist.