Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous “supernatural healing revival” in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don’t bat an eye when he tells them he’s seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. “He was looking very Jewish,” Bentley notes.
Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read “Joel’s Army.” They’re evidence of Bentley’s generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that’s gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other “hyper-charismatic” preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel’s Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian “dominion” on non-believers. […]
Joel’s Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.
Dominionism’s original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to “get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”
(thanks Bill!)
September 2, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Having grown up in the “Born Again” movement.. this isn’t surprising. Yes, they are a militant group.. but Christians really do pray for the Apocalypse on a regular basis.. the Rapture, the end of the world.. the burning and torture of all humanity. I have been knee deep in the Christian world, earlier in my life, this is no joke. Why do you think so many Christians are proIsrael? It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, it has to do with the Apocalypse. It’s good to see some people are noticing.
September 3, 2008 at 11:59 am
I’m way, way more concerned about the current VP candidate who’s praying for the Apocalypse.
This dude is just another small-time businesman…for now.
September 4, 2008 at 1:51 am
Why doesn’t the media ever spin this shit? I know since September 11th, the vast majority of the US claims to be christian, but don’t most christians think this is fucking INSANE? To me, the very fact that Sarah Palin associates her self with this movement makes her un-eligible to hold ANY kind of position in a government that at least pretends to keep church and state separate.