Why it's important to expose the NAR
The NAR doesn't need, or seem to want, much if any publicity as a distinct movement. It is to their advantage to remain under the radar, to continue to be treated by the mass media as just ordinary "evangelicals" rather than as a distinct movement. The publicity already given to many of their leaders as just "evangelicals," or as allegedly "nondenominational" Christians, is all the mass media publicity they need. It is to our advantage to expose them as a distinct movement. Why? Because, once exposed as a distinct movement, the NAR has a major Achilles's heel: its many supernatural claims, which can be examined and disproven, exposing its many "apostles and prophets," one by one, as false prophets and/or false miracle-workers -- and exposing specific exaggerations, or outright lies, in the NAR's claims of dramatic societal "transformation" of the places where NAR groups have led prayer-walking campaigns. To that end, we will need an army of debunkers to examine the movement's many "apostles and prophets" and to expose them, one by one, as false prophets, as fraudulent miracle-workers, and/or as closet sexual "sinners" of one kind or another. It won't be enough to expose just one or two major leaders. The NAR has already survived the fall of at least one major leader, Ted Haggard, and has continued to thrive. The NAR could probably survive and continue to thrive even if no less a leading light than C. Peter Wagner himself were to be caught in some scandal. But the exposure of too many of the NAR's leaders, one by one, would probably kill it. And the NAR's many supernatural claims mean that all of its leaders are low-hanging fruit -- but only if we have enough people to investigate the many specific alleged "prophecies" and other specific supernatural claims of each individual leader. A sufficiently large army of debunkers will be motivated to watch the NAR's leaders only after the NAR's very existence -- and the threat that it poses to the separation of Church and State -- has become widely known. Even without such debunking, publicizing the existence of the NAR as a distinct movement will help to diminish -- not increase -- the NAR's influence within the evangelical Christian subculture. That's because those non-NAR evangelical leaders who are aware of the existence of the NAR are likely to regard it as heretical. Already, if you Google "New Apostolic Reformation," most of the pages you will find are pages by non-NAR evangelicals and fundamentalists criticizing the NAR. (See also the current fight between Janet Porter and Discernment Ministries, as discussed here, here, and here on Right Wing Watch.) That's one reason why it's to the advantage of the NAR's leaders to keep the NAR under the radar as much as possible, and to present themselves to the mass media as just "evangelicals" or as "nondenominational" Christians. Another reason why NAR leaders commonly present themselves as just generic "evangelicals" or "nondenominational" Christians is that they aim to unite all Christian churches under their own leadership. Thus, for example, they try to involve Christians of all kinds in their prayer-walking campaigns. The NAR itself is a network that includes some people who are formally a part of other branches of Christianity as well. Obviously, they would be less successful at attracting ordinary Christians into their prayer-walking campaigns, or at getting politicians' endorsements for same, if it were more widely known just who the NAR is and how weird their doctrines are. If the NAR does not get massively exposed soon, serious trouble lies ahead, as documented in detail in Talk To Action's collections on Sarah Palin & The New Apostolic Reformation and Resource Directory for New Apostolic Reformation. The NAR will probably not succeed in achieving its ultimate goals. But, in their efforts to attain their goals, NAR groups can harm a lot of people, such as by cozying up to high-ranking police officials and then using the power of the police to harass people they don't like. Already, in the Philippines, cops are required to study Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life (see documentation of a government-sponsored "moral recovery seminar" on a Filipino government website) and Ed Silvoso has bragged (here and in the "Ed Silvoso intro" video here) about his International Transformation Network's many connections with the Philippine government. Closer to home, in Orlando, Florida, a local "prayer-walking" campaign was organized by police department chaplains. (See the local news story Orlando Police Chaplains Kick Off "Operation Armor All", WFTV, October 10, 2007. See also Movement Behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill Organizing in Newark here on Talk To Action.) And the NAR does seem to have an agenda of eliminating people they don't like, as exemplified both by Uganda's kill-the-gays bill and, closer to home, by Ted Haggard's bragging that he had driven "witches" out of town. (See Soldiers of Christ: Insider America's Most Powerful Megachurch by Jeff Sharlet, Harper's Magazine, November 2, 2006.) Therefore, dear reader, please do everything you can to help publicize the existence of the NAR. If you happen to know anyone in the mass media, or if you happen to know any religion scholars, please tell them about the NAR, after first reading up on it yourself.
Note to the owners of Talk To Action, on another subject: Quite a few times over the past few weeks, I've tried to look at a page here on Talk To Action but was unable to connect to it. Each time, the problem eventually went away, but it seems to be happening more and more often. Maybe this site is just getting more popular and can't accommodate all the traffic? Whatever is happening, I hope you can look into it and fix it.
Why it's important to expose the NAR | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden)
Why it's important to expose the NAR | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden)
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