CNN's upcoming Christiane Amanpour documentary on religious extremism in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, "God's Warriors," airs starting on Tuesday. Right here in the U.S. we have an example of one of those warriors, Ron Luce, whose call to action to retake America from the "virtue terrorists" (gays, pro-choice supporters, etc.) is "Battle Cry," a youth crusade that Amanpour visits at its stop in San Francisco.
Luce screams intolerance cloaked in nifty pyrotechnics, Christian rock music, and big-screen graphics to the teen-packed venue. The evils of secular society and pop culture have forced him to tell his young charges to be ready and "armed with faith, prepared for battle." Luce talks about "virgins being raped on the sidewalks."
Rolling Stone did a piece on Luce and his movement back in April, "Teenage Holy War."
They rise, heartened; the crowd, en masse, swears off "harlots and adultery"; the twenty-one-year-old MC twitches taut a chain across the ass of her skintight red jeans and summons the followers to show off their best dance moves for God.
Someone please tell me how delusional (or cravenly manipulative) do you have to be to put on a show this outrageous:
[T]hese 4,000 teens are about to become "branded by God." It's like getting your head shaved when you join the Marines, Luce says, only the kids get to keep their hair. His assistants roll out a cowhide draped over a sawhorse, and Luce presses red-hot iron into the dead flesh, projecting a close-up of sizzling cow skin on giant movie screens above the stage.
"When you enlist in the military, there's a code of honor," Luce preaches, "same as being a follower of Christ." His Christian code requires a "wartime mentality": a "survival orientation" and a readiness to face "real enemies." The queers and communists, feminists and Muslims, to be sure, but also the entire American cultural apparatus of marketing and merchandising, the "techno-terrorists" of mass media, doing to the morality of a generation what Osama bin Laden did to the Twin Towers. "Just as the events of September 11th, 2001, permanently changed our perspective on the world," Luce writes, "so we ought to be awakened to the alarming influence of today's culture terrorists. They are wealthy, they are smart, and they are real."
Even as he tells kids to swear off pop culture, Luce doesn't swear off capitalism, cashing in for Jesus by making money selling Battle Cry books, t-shirts, and videos.
When you have cult of personality BS going at this level, you know the power over these kids has likely gone to Luce's head. At this rate, how long will it be before he's caught with a hooker, or at a rest stop blowing some guy, or, heaven forbid, molesting an underage kid? It's only a matter of time with folks like this if the current trend holds.
