Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Ron Luce, founder of Teen Mania and organizer of the "BattleCry" campaign, appeared Monday evening, March 27, on "The O'Reilly Factor" program and again repeated the bogus claim that his organization, and by implication the "BattleCry" campaign are not political in nature. Clearly this is not the case.

According to the conference program distributed at the San Francisco "BattleCry" stadium event... Teen Mania's East Coast Regional Coordinator is a Republican politician from Maryland, John McKinnis, who is actively involved in the "Legislative portion of the BattleCry Campaign." McKinnis recently completed a failed bid for a Congressional seat, a political effort to which Ron Luce personally made a substantial financial contribution. The "BattleCry" legislative strategy is described as a "lobbying effort" to "pass legislation" in a new brochure just released by Teen Mania (on pages 9 and 10).

Earlier the same day of his appearance on O'Reilly's show, Luce spoke before the Vision America conference in Washington DC, run by a man whose latest work is entitled "Liberalism Kills Kids." The Washington Times, reporting on this conference, headlined their story "'Values voters' call for congressional action." One year before, Luce had been named as an Executive Committee member of Vision America's "Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration."

Vision America's list of so-called "legislative remedies," titled "The Values Voters' Contract with Congress," may serve as the framework for Luce's legislative agenda, given the close relationship between Luce and that organization. The "Values Voters' Contract" is also analogous in form and eventual purpose to the "Teenage [sic] Bill of Rights" presented at he "BattleCry" events. A previous version of this so-alled "Bill of Rights" that can be seen on the cover of their most recent "Acquire the Fire" event manual, includes the line, "We refuse to be led by those who are morally bankrupt."

According to an article by Elizabeth A. Castelli about the Vision America conference, published at The Revealer:

Perhaps the most explicit call to arms came from Ron Luce, the president and founder of Teen Mania, a Christian revivalist youth ministry, and the author of Battle Cry for a Generation, a multimedia campaign that deploys military images and language to recruit soldiers in Christ’s army. Toward the end of his speech, Luce invoked the biblical story of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19. (In the story, the Levite’s concubine is gang-raped by men who wanted to do sexual violence to the Levite. When the Levite’s host refuses to deliver the Levite to the assailants, he offers them his own virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine instead. When the assailants reject such an exchange, the Levite simply expels the concubine from his host's house, leaving her to be raped repeatedly throughout the night. The following morning, upon finding the concubine’s dead body on his host’s doorstep, the Levite dismembers her and sends her body parts out to the twelve tribes of Israel as a provocation to revenge.) “I kind of feel like the Levite,” Ron Luce confessed. And then he uttered a battle cry of his own: “CUT UP THE CONCUBINE! CUT UP THE CONCUBINE! CUT UP THE CONCUBINE!”

The Wake Up Call coming to your area is a high-level briefing for you and your church leaders. At the event, you will be advised on the status of teenage America and what must be done to rescue them. You will also be given tools and resources to protect the future of your church and to educate parents about the attack on their children. Top voices in the Christian community, including Ted Haggard, Jack Hayford, Tommy Barnett, I.V. Hillard, and Jerry Falwell, will present the hard facts facing our culture and what we must do... Alarm and outrage are not enough. We must fight back!

For all the hoo ha, these events are not likely to be big militarist rallies with young people standing and giving fascist salutes. The are being held in churches, and will probably be oriented to stirring-up young people into aggressive forms of evangelicalism; perhaps recuit them into the Christian Right to wage culture war; and perhaps recruit them into the GOP going into the fall election campaign. It will be worth people's time to check these events out, and sort out the hype from the reality.

Here are the details of the kick off event:

August 1, 2006
International Family Church
99 Concord Street
North Reading, MA 01864

Event Time: 8:30-11:30am
Speaker 1: Ron Luce
Speaker 2: Blaine Bartel

BattleCry.com

Fall 2006 Schedule

8/1 - North Reading, MA
8/31 - Jacksonville, FL
9/1 - St. Louis, MO
9/7 - Los Angeles, CA
9/7 - Phoenix, AZ
9/8 - San Jose, CA
9/8 - Las Vegas, NV
9/11 - Chicago, IL
9/11 - Atlanta, GA
9/12 - Toronto, ON
9/12 - Cleveland, OH
9/14 - DesMoines,IA
9/15 - Frankfort, KY
9/28 - San Francisco

10/2 - Albuquerque,NM
10/2 - San Diego, CA
10/3 - Fresno, CA
10/3 - Sacramento, CA
10/5 - Rapid City, SD
10/5 - Boise, ID
10/9 - Denver, CO
10/9 - Minneapolis,MN
10/10 - KansasCity,MO
10/10 - Indianapolis, IN
10/11 - Baton Rouge, LA
10/12 - Lansing, MI
10/13 - Portland, OR
10/13 - Seattle, WA
10/16 - Pittsburgh, PA
10/16 - Detroit, MI
10/17 - Baltimore, MD
10/17 - Philadelphia
10/18 - Houston, TX
10/19 - Washington DC
10/19 - Richmond, VA
10/19 - Vienna, VA
10/23 - Tampa, FL
10/23 - Nashville, TN
10/26 - Tulsa, OK
10/26 - Dallas, TX
10/30 - New York City