Ellington

I only heard bits and pieces of NPR's "Fresh Air" episode this week but it brought up some interesting thoughts, especially after I noticed a flurry of Facebook post on Tuesday claiming that Virginia's earthquake signaled the end of times.

In the episode Gross discusses the growing New Apostolic Reformation, a christian movement that seeks to seeks to influence politics in anticipation of the end times and return of Jesus. It's a movement Texas Gov. Rick Perry has embraced. The movements wants to take back "mountains" of demonic influence. Those mountains include: arts and entertainment, business, family, government, media, religion and education.

"They teach quite literally that these 'mountains' have fallen under the control of demonic influences in society," Fresh Air guest and author Rachel Tabachnick said on the show. "And therefore, they must reclaim them for God in order to bring about the kingdom of God on Earth. ... The apostles teach what's called 'strategic level spiritual warfare' because they believe that the) reason why there is sin and corruption and poverty on the Earth is because the Earth is controlled by a hierarchy of demons under the authority of Satan. So they teach not just evangelizing souls one by one, as we're accustomed to hearing about. They teach that they will go into a geographic region or a people group and conduct spiritual-warfare activities in order to remove the demons from the entire population. This is what they're doing that's quite fundamentally different than other evangelical groups."

Previous Comments

ID

164729

Comment

They teach that they will go into a geographic region or a people group and conduct spiritual-warfare activities in order to remove the demons from the entire population. This is really scary stuff. Of course, so was the crazy-right stuff Sarah Palin and her hubby were all up in.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2011-08-25T14:12:48-06:00

ID

164731

Comment

So was the crazy talk coming out of Jeremiah Wright's mouth. The right doesn't have the market cornered on crazy.

Author

RobbieR

Date

2011-08-25T14:31:21-06:00

ID

164732

Comment

The right doesn't have the market cornered on crazy. No one said it does. But I haven't seen Rev. Wright show up as a serious candidate for either president or vice president. And he and the president he used to support have even split. So not really seeing the parallel in your argument there to the Republican nominee for vice president and the man who will likely be the Republican nominee for president.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2011-08-25T14:55:26-06:00