R&R Revival and Revolt

[NOTE: For important background information on this article, read “The Coalescing of the Christian Right with Apostolic Dominionism” by Dr. Orrel Steinkamp, posted on Herescope, 4/8/10 here.]

Initially The Tea Party was populist, libertarian, limited government, anti-socialism and lower taxes, etc. But the first ever National Tea Party Conference in Nashville in February revealed that there has always been an overlap with Christian Right social issues. The Tea Party movement is in danger of being co-opted by the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and its radical agenda. Do the Tea Party folks realize what they are getting into?

Three very prominent Christian Right activists were not only invited to Nashville but had a very public presence. Rick Scarborough, former Southern Baptist minister and founder of the Texas-based Vision America,[2] who also is on the committee for the upcoming May Day event,[3] went to the conference with the purpose to unite the Christian Right with the Tea Party movement. Judge Roy Moore, who gained fame when he was removed from the bench for posting the Ten Commandments in his courthouse, and Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily were also invited speakers. Jonathon Kay, a critic[4] who covered the National Tea Party Convention, reported:

I think the one thing that really did surprise me was the high level of explicitly Christian social conservatism on display here. One of the “breakout sessions” featured a speech from Pastor Rick Scarborough — who is most famous for trying to get America’s preachers more politicized. (“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christocrat.”[5]) After his speech, a middle-aged female delegate with a twang stood up and said, during the Q&A, “All the media types are asking us why we’re here. Here’s what I say. We’re all here for a little R&R — revival and revolt. If you’re not a Christian, and a person of faith, you just can’t understand what we’re doing!!” She got a standing ovation.

That same evening Joseph Farah, the Christian conspiracy expert extraordinaire, also underscored the Christian identity of the Tea Party. (For my part this rings true, for in my little town I attended a Tea Party recently and everyone there was a Christian because I knew them all.) Farah’s remarks about Christians taking over the cultural institutions of society sounded very like the 7 Mountain Mandate of the New Apostolic Reformation which is about taking over the governments, economies, and social systems of our nation and the rest of the world. The LA Times reported on Farah’s remarks at the Tea Party Convention:

Farah went on to urge tea party activists to think beyond winning congressional elections in November and “take over not only the political institutions, but the cultural institutions, like the press, the entertainment industry, the universities, and yes the churches.”[6]

Shortly after the Tea Party Convention Rick Scarborough launched his own Religious Right version of the Tea Party Movement,[7] changing the Tea Party’s “Taxed Enough Already” acronym to “Truth Exalts America.” He also used the Tea Party convention to unveil something he is calling the “‘Patriot Pastors’ Tea Party.” [8] This is a national call to pastors to come to San Antonio, on July 7. This will be held at the 7th largest city in America on the 7th day of the 7th month for 7 hours at the plaza of the Alamo. (Apparently Scarborough has copied the NAR for esoteric numerical symbolism.) Scarborough asserts that there are 7000 pastors who haven’t “bowed the knee to Baal” and calls for these pastors to use the next 17 weeks leading up to Election Day to “work towards national revival” and to go on a “seven day chosen fast.”[9] This focus on the number seven is connected to the 7 mountains (“spheres”) agenda to take over culture. Scarborough is very connected to this Dominionist agenda.[10]

Scarborough’s National Patriot Pastors’ Tea Party is being billed as:

The Tactical Goals of the NAR

As stated in my previous article,[12] C. Peter Wagner, chief “apostle” of the New Apostolic Reformation, made a decision some time ago to try to integrate his Dominion Mandate into a democracy paradigm. That was a tactical decision. But Wagner’s strategic goal remains unchanged. The tactical plan is to infiltrate in order to dominate.

The upcoming MAY DAY mainstream evangelical rally at the Lincoln Memorial represents a major tactical coup for the NAR by selling the 7 mountain scheme of dominion to the broader Conservative and Evangelical Right. Even more significantly a number of the NAR’s false apostles and prophets will share the limelight with other well known Evangelical cultural warriors and gain an equal seat at the evangelical political table. As stated in my last Plumbline article,[13] this will enable the NAR to continue to build their influence nationally. This will give them a continued voice in the Christian Right and also with elected political operatives.[14]

The Newt Gingriches and Mike Huckabees may only see votes and a path to political power. But the NAR sees all this as getting people into the 7 Mountains of the culture paradigm, and can then employ spiritual warfare techniques that they have honed under the tutelage of Wagner’s Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare techniques. I wonder if the Tea Party activists are now willing to sign up for Wagner’s spiritual warfare courses?

Just the other day I listened Wagner teach about the 7 Mountain Dominionism on GodTV. The NAR will never be satisfied to become a political action committee and share power with more generic cultural warriors on the Christian Right. They want absolute control no mater how long it takes to gain apostolic control of each of the 7 mountains/spheres. They believe the powers that now control these mountains are demonic to the core. NAR Dominionists intend to confront and destroy not just the demons at the top of the 7 mountains of culture on Earth, but to destroy the related principalities and powers that are related in the heavenlies. All of this is based on a fraudulent understanding of the so called cultural mandate, based on their heretical teachings of Genesis 1:22-28 and the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20.

Its unbelievable that Dominionists get their only biblical authority from just two verses in Genesis 1:28-29. Indeed the Genesis passage suggests that mankind is the highest order made in God’s image, and has been given dominion. But dominion over trees, herbs, fish, foul and animals. It does not give men dominion over men and human institutions. Dominionists have also misapplied the Great Commission and suggest that the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 is biblical authority for their dominion teaching. They suggest that “to disciple” suggests the Dominion Mandate.

But the Great Commission is to preach the Gospel of salvation, and baptize those who believe, teaching these converts to continue in the teaching of Jesus. Let’s just conclude this by saying that one can only baptize individuals and one at a time. Its pretty hard to baptize the media and government institutions. These few truths seem to fell the giant of the so called Dominion Mandate.

The Truth

“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:4-8)

What the First Reformation taught about man’s dominion over the Earth differs considerably from what the New Apostolic Reformation is teaching. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on these verses explains the traditional Christian view of dominion:

(2.) [Man] is endued with noble faculties and capacities: Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour. He that gave him his being has distinguished him, and qualified him for a dominion over the inferior creatures; for, having made him wiser than the beasts of the earth and the fowls of heaven (Job 35:11), he has made him fit to rule them and it is fit that they should be ruled by him. Man’s reason is his crown of glory; let him not profane that crown by disturbing the use of it nor forfeit that crown by acting contrary to its dictates. (3.) He is invested with a sovereign dominion over the inferior creatures, under God, and is constituted their lord. He that made them, and knows them, and whose own they are, has made man to have dominion over them, v. 6. His charter, by which he holds this royalty, bears equal date with his creation (Gen. 1:28) and was renewed after the flood, Gen. 9:2. God has put all things under man’s feet, that he might serve himself, not only of the labour, but of the productions and lives of the inferior creatures; they are all delivered into his hand, nay, they are all put under his feet. He specifies some of the inferior animals (v. 7, 8), not only sheep and oxen, which man takes care of and provides for, but the beasts of the field, as well as those of the flood, yea, and those creatures which are most at a distance from man, as the fowl of the air, yea, and the fish of the sea, which live in another element and pass unseen through the paths of the seas. Man has arts to take these; though many of them are much stronger and many of them much swifter than he, yet, one way or other, he is too hard for them, Jam. 3:7. Every kind of beasts, and birds, and things in the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed. He has likewise liberty to use them as he has occasion. Rise, Peter, kill and eat, Acts 10:13. Every time we partake of fish or of fowl we realize this dominion which man has over the works of God’s hands; and this is a reason for our subjection to God, our chief Lord, and to his dominion over us.

Endnotes:
1. Janet (Folger) Porter interviewing Rick Scarborough on April 5, 2010 about the upcoming May Day event at the Lincoln Memorial: http://www.f2a.org/radio/Download%202010-04-05.htm. Also see: http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-radio/episode.php?episodeid=15511%20and%20http://www.worldviewweekend.com/%7Ejanetfolger/2010-01-06.mp3. Sound byte posted here: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/may-day-saving-america [emphasis added].
2. Rick Scarborough’s official bio can be found at his Vision America website: http://www.visionamerica.us/about-us/about-dr-scarborough/. Vision America’s stated mission posted here, http://www.visionamerica.us/about-us/who-we-are/ , is “all about empowering the ‘shepherds’ to lead their ‘flocks’ back into being salt in our nation” and assisting them in their “congregation’s citizenship responsibilities.”
3. See May Day Committee members listed here: http://www.mayday2010.org/
4. Jonathan Kay, FrumForum, 2/5/10, emphasis added: http://www.frumforum.com/getting-religious-at-the-tea-party-convention
5. Scarborough is quoted as saying: “I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christ-ocrat. My allegiance is to Jesus Christ. Whenever there is a party that presents itself as a party of values, they’re going to benefit from what I do.” This “Christ-ocrat” statement can be found transcribed at a website that is critical of the religious right: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/08/gods_warriors_r.html
6. “Joseph Farah, to cheers at Tea Party Convention, again questions location of Obama’s birth,” 2/5/10, LA Times, emphasis added: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/02/joseph-farah-to-cheers-at-tea-party-convention-again-questions-location-of-obamas-birth-.html
7. This was described by Religious Right critics as “Rick Scarborough’s Blatant Hijacking of the Tea Party Movement,” and posted at http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rick-scarboroughs-blatant-hijacking-tea-party-movement
8. The National Patriot Pastors Tea Party official website is here: http://www.patriotpastorsteaparty.com/
9. See description posted here: http://www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org/pastorsteaparty.htm. The plan of action is described here: http://www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org/plan.htm and the goals are stated here: http://www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org/goal.htm. The stated mission at http://www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org/index.html is: “Our Mission is to educate our pastors, legislators, educators, students and all citizens as to the truth about America’s Christian Heritage and the role of fundamental, Biblical Christianity in the establishment and function of our legal, legislative and educational systems; and to work towards the successful reestablishment of these values in our society today.”
10. Scarborough is connected to Restore America. See http://www.restoreamerica.org/CategoryDetail.aspx?CategoryID=2. At the 3rd Annual Restore America Conference they addressed “the Seven Spheres of Influence that shape and manage our communities and our nation’s culture” [emphasis added] (original url dated 2007 had this text: http://www.restoreamerica.org/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=24). Further validation of this agenda can be found at http://www.crosstalkamerica.com/shows/2007/12/how_christians_can_restore_ame.php where David Crowe, Director of Restore America interviewed Crosstalk’s Vic Eliason: “David then discussed a Restore America conference coming up in February near Portland. The conference will deal with the 7 spheres of influence that shape and manage our communities and our nation’s culture. They include: Family, Religion, Education, Media, Entertainment, Business and Government” [emphasis added]. Crowe is currently listed on the Committee for the upcoming May Day event. http://www.mayday2010.org/
11. See: http://www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org/index.html The scriptural error is in the original. This reference to “King Jesus” hearkens back to the Coalition on Revival’s call for Dominion: https://herescope.net/2005/09/cor-and-compulsory-salvation-are-you.html
12. Rev. Dr. Orrel Steinkamp, “The Coalescing of the Christian Right with Apostolic Dominionism,” Herescope, 4/8/10: https://herescope.net/2010/04/coalescing-of-christian-right-with.html
13. Ibid.
14. It is highly likely that many of the Tea Party grassroots activists, including many from the Christian Right, have no idea of who their bedfellows from the NAR are, and what they actually believe. Take note that the leaders of the NAR are aggressively engaging in popular issues such as pro-life and pro-Israel in order to garner further credibility and gain momentum for their radical Dominionist agenda. This writer has followed these NAR leaders, and The Plumbline newsletters can be found at this webpage: http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/plumblinearchive.html. To learn more about the New Apostolic Reformation and its heretical teachings, read archived materials found at these websites http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/ and http://www.discernment-ministries.org/. Be sure to follow the links in this article and the previous one.