Saturday, February 1, 2014

#898: Ron Luce


Ron Luce is the founder of Teen Mania Ministries, one of the scariest organizations in the US, its BattleCry Campaign and the Acquire the Fire (ATF) youth conference. TMM is an evangelical youth organization that promotes fundamentalist Christianity and theocracy by focusing on the more feral, aggressive elements of Christianity: “You guys are freaks of a whole different breed ... You guys are a bunch of wild animals. Man!” as Luce is fond of telling his disciples (the idea is apparently that adrenaline rushes are appropriate substitutes for being possessed by the Holy Ghost). Nonetheless, Luce views his organiztion as a counterforce to modern popular culture (pornography, violent video games, sexual content on television and in the media, gay marriage, and the secularization of America and so on), and as a combat force against the “purveyors of popular culture,” who he deems to be “the enemy ... terrorists, virtue terrorists, that are destroying our kids,” who are “raping virgin teenage America on the sidewalk, [while] everybody's walking by and acting like everything's okay.”

TMM’s mission is “To provoke a young generation to passionately pursue Jesus Christ and to take his life-giving message to the ends of the Earth.” The group has been actively involved in various political issues, especially in opposition to various atni-discrimination and civil rights measures. TMM is also heavily involved in blatantly racism-fueled missionary campaigns targeted e.g. at the violent barbarians that count as indigenous people in South America, and in blatantly dishonest and sexist abstinence-only purity programs.

The ATF and BattleCry producers have accordingly adopted a militaristic tone, accompanied by the display of military imagery and, at one such event, the use of simulated weapons (it is really, really hard to avoid doing a Godwin here). The BattleCry Coalition includes, or has included, prominent Christian Right leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, Chuck Colson, Joyce Meyer, Jack Hayford, Kay Arthur, Jack Graham, Greg Laurie, Josh McDowell, Tommy Barnett, Bob Reccord, Kirk Franklin and John Maxwell. Its official allies and supporters count Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum (the connection is described in some detail here), Sean Hannity, Benny Hinn, Gary Bauer, Hank Hanegraaff, Dennis Rainey, the American Family Association, Trinity Broadcasting Network, the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition.

The TMM Honor Academy is an internship program for high school graduates and college students run by Dave Hasz to recruit youths for theocracy.

There is a fine TMM resource here.

Diagnosis: Absolutely rabidly deranged madman with a lot more power and influence than is good for him or civilization. One of the most dangerous and unabashedly evil persons alive today.

2 comments:

  1. Actually, the Honor Academy is much more dangerous than ATF. It's not run by Dave Hasz anymore (he left about 2 years ago.) But leadership hasn't changed much since and while Dave was very influential, the other leaders were pretty horrible too.

    Check out www.recoveringalumni.com for many personal accounts of abuse within Teen Mania and other stories of the crazy happenings over the years.

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  2. Yes, you can say these things, please don't write off everything underneath him. Many people have questioned and quite often doubted his militaristic campaigns. The people there both serving and leading aren't just stewing about thinking of ways to hate people. Most (not all) are genuinely trying to love people as they are and who they are.

    ^ Actually the Honor Academy isn't more dangerous. The person who wrote this and the person who writes that blog seemingly are self victims to humans - people have tried to reconcile their issues, but that has apparently continued to be difficult. It's a weird place (really weird at times), I know cause I went, but it's under the same social pressures any organization has. You can blog about all the bad all you want because it's not perfect there. I loved it there. I wouldn't go back and I did have to "recover" a bit after it, but I'm happy I did it.

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