An affiliate radio station of the Moody Network in East Texas, KBJS-FM canceled David Barton’s Wallbuilders Live radio program during the show yesterday while Barton was discussing Glenn Beck’s religious beliefs. Randy Featherston, KBJS manager, said the show was dropped due to Barton’s failure to distinguish between Mormon theology and Christianity.
“When David Barton said it doesn’t matter whether you are a Mormon or a Baptist or a Methodist, we felt we had to do something,” Featherston explained.
On the Tuesday program, Barton played audio of Glenn Beck saying that “the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer.” Then Barton said he believed that Beck was a Christian based on his statement of belief and “his fruits,” meaning his good deeds. Based on Beck’s statements, Barton then asked co-host Rick Green, “Glenn says he’s Mormon. Ok, that’s fine. Based on what you heard, if you heard a Baptist say that or if you heard a Methodist say that…what would you say?” After Green answered that Beck’s testimony indicated a real conversion, Barton responded, “Why is it not a real conversion because of the label he wears?”
Throughout the program, Barton dismissed Beck’s Mormonism, saying at one point, “I don’t care what label Beck wears. I don’t care what Glenn thinks Mormon means.” Barton also asserted that Beck uses the same Bible, but added, “Now he may use the Book of Mormon, we never talked about the Book of Mormon.”
Featherston added that the station received many calls during the broadcast with callers who objected to Barton’s views. All but two callers supported the decision of the station to drop the show.
Some callers also complained that Barton misuses history and “takes facts out of context” to create a false impression about the Constitution and founding of the nation, according to Featherston.
Featherston said the station did not take the action lightly, saying “I like a lot of what Barton has to say, but we don’t want to confuse listeners into thinking that Mormon doctrine and Christianity are the same.”
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Scott Krus wrote to say that KBJS-FM is an affiliate of the Moody Network but not one of the 36 stations owned by Moody. Mr. Krus added that Wallbuilders Live is not carried by the Moody Network.
Category: dominionism
David Barton again defends Glenn Beck as a Christian
David Barton is feeling the criticism from Worldview Weekend founder Brannon Howse. Today, Barton responded to some of those criticisms as he framed them.
Howse is particularly concerned that David Barton’s partnership with Glenn Beck leads Christians to believe that Beck is a Christian or that Mormonism is just a form of Christianity.
Barton’s approach was to call Beck a Christian because Beck says that Jesus is his savior and redeemer and point to Beck’s deeds to validate his faith. You can read essentially what Barton claimed on the air here on his Facebook page.
This post is mostly news with little analysis but I will say that Mormon and Christian theology about Christ is different and Mormons speak very similar words as do Christians when it comes to Christ. It appears that Barton is not aware of this or does not want to explore this in any depth. He seems to have no problem with Mormonism’s use of the Book of Mormon as Scripture and assumes that because Mormons also use the Bible, they are speaking the same confession.
A bit more of an aside: Given the way Barton treats history, I am not surprised that he treats theology in a similar manner.
Barton doesn’t “care what the label is” he is trying to influence policy which makes it fine. In the SevenMountain teaching of taking dominion over the mountains of culture, personal redemption is less important than societal salvation. Even if Beck is a Mormon, it is appropriate for Christians to recommend him and promote him because he is helping the Christians take over the cultural mountains.
Near the end of the program, Barton addresses the charges of dominionism. He dismisses dominionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and reconstructionism as terms he doesn’t know.
Barton and Green revealed that Howse’s criticisms are having an impact in that Barton’s supporters are calling and writing about them.
Generally, I don’t like to make a big deal out of religious differences when it comes to how you treat people and how we all need to get along despite our differences. Here, however, Barton is again calling on people to obscure obvious distinctions as if they are not real. He does it in history and he is also doing it over these theological differences.
Is South Korea an Example of Dominionism in Action?
Che Ahn is a one of the leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation. Ahn is Chancellor of the Wagner Leadership Institute and co-founder, with Lou Engle, of The Call. He was an endorser of GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry’s prayer meeting in Houston last month. He also believes the President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak illustrates how government apostles can fulfill their dominionist duties. Ahn says President Myung-bak is “an apostle on the government mountain.” Watch this clip at Bruce Wilson’s You Tube page:
Among other things in this clip, Che Ahn said, “Once we do get to the top, we can make decrees and declarations that shift and influence that whole mountain.” Ahn also referred to South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak as an apostle on the government mountain. While mayor of Seoul, Myung-bak offered the city to Jesus Christ, angering the countries Buddhist community. The tensions continued when Myung-bak became president, leading to a rare public protest from Buddhists.
In this clip, Ahn referred to the unhappiness of the Buddhists, but dismissed this, saying, “When you get to the top, you can start doing some radical things for the Lord.”
One of the radical things you can do is bring other apostles into the top:
With 11 million believers, Buddhism is Korea’s largest religion, but Buddhists have accounted for only 7.7 percent of Lee’s Cabinet appointments, 12.5 percent of his appointments to senior presidential secretary, and 4.8 percent of his other Blue House secretaries. Meanwhile, in the view of Buddhists, members of Lee’s Somang Church look like they have taken up all the important positions in government.
Not long into his term, President Myung-bak sent a video supporting a large Christian youth meeting. During that meeting, a prayer leader prayed that the Buddhist temples would crumble. Understandably, this upset the Buddhists and Myung-bak offered an olive branch to the Buddhists later.
These tensions continue in Korea and sound extremely similar to tensions here at home when one religion seeks political dominance.
In this country, GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry conducts a rally calling on his God to save the nation and religious minorities became uncomfortable. A prominent spokesperson for the organizer of the rally has publicly declared that no more mosques should be built. New Apostolic Reformation leaders get behind this event in a big way. Other organizers have various nasty things to say about religious and political opponents.
I think anyone with their eyes open can see what New Apostolic Reformationists hope happens with the 2012 election. As mega-Apostle C. Peter Wagner suggests, they want to gain the “necessary influence” to eatablish dominion. They want an apostle at the top of the government mountain, because when “you get to the top, you can start doing some radical things for the Lord.”
David Barton: Evil spirits make Congress "think really goofy"
I knew it was someone’s fault.
Read the whole thing at Right Wing Watch, but for now listen to historical document collector David Barton tell Kenneth Copeland about why Congressional Democrats “think really goofy.”
Partial transcript:
And I can tell this in the U.S. Capitol. When I walk from the House side to the Senate side, I cross the middle line of the Capitol, I can feel a different principality because they have jurisdictions over different things. And there are principalities that sit over different government entities that cause them to think really goofy and you can’t get prayers through, they get delayed twenty-one days because the principalities are up there fighting in the Heavenlies.
Because we’re not fighting flesh and blood. And if you don’t understand this is a spiritual battle, and if you don’t understand there are really big principalities and powers sitting over places of power, whether it be banking, or education. There’s principalities that sit over schools to keep those kids from getting knowledge, there’s principalities that sit over financial institutions. They sit over households. That’s why you have principalities in powers, that gradation, you have the corporals, and you have the sergeants, and you have the lieutenants, the captains and the generals, and the generals have a bigger principality and those little corporals may have control over the house but it’s a spiritual battle.
It’s a spiritual battle and we’ll never win until we understand that.
I’ll bet those Generals that used to sit over the House were ticked when the Republicans won back control from the Democrats. Probably some of those Generals lost rank or got reassigned to sit over some low performing school or somebody’s residence.
The 21 day disabled prayer list is a new one on me.
Seems pretty clear, if it was in doubt, that Barton is not a Christian Reconstructionist but right in the thick of the New Apostolic Reformation.
Christian reconstructionist warns of threat from New Apostolic Reformation dominionism
Note to dominionism deniers: Not only is dominionism real, there are at least two types alive and well within evangelical circles. In the category of it-takes-one-to-know-one, American Vision’s Joel McDurmon spells out the differences between the theonomy of Christian reconstructionism and the dominionism of the New Apostolic Reformation. In all seriousness, if you want to understand the two movements, this is an important article to read. I bring the highlights with some supporting information; you should read the whole thing.
Let me begin at the end of McDurmon’s post. He concludes that the Seven Mountain teaching of the New Apostolic Reformation is a dangerous top-down power grab.
Can you imagine John Hagee as Secretary of State?
This is exactly the threat—top-down threat, totalitarian threat, eschatological holocaust threat—that 7MD presents to us.
American Vision is not that; they are not us; we are not them.
Perhaps more should be written on these guys and the threats they pose to society. They may have a few better political ideas, but they are just as dangerous in degree as the most radical of the left.
Perhaps I am wrong about them. Perhaps I have misread them as national-power grabbers when they are not. If not, they should disavow everything I have quoted here clearly and unequivocally in print, and provide their viable limited-government, free-market alternative.
McDurmon, who openly believes that national civil law should be the same as Old Testament law, quotes several NAR writers, including the driving force behind the movement, C. Peter Wagner. He does not offer this quote but I want to point out what Wagner says about dominion from his book Dominion: How Kingdom Action Can Change the World. FIrst he says that “if a Christian majority wants to allow praying to God in the name of Jesus, the minority should follow the basic rules of democracy and attempt to prohibit such a practice. If a majority feels that heterosexual marriage is the best choice for a happy and prosperous society, those in the minority who disagree should conform — not because they live in a theocracy, but because they live in a democracy. The most basic principle of democracy is that the majority, not the minority, rules and sets the ultimate norms for society.” (p. 17)
If Wagner’s movement is ever successful with this view of democracy, the 14th Amendment will need to be repealed. Having defined away minority rights, Wagner then describes how dominion might work in a society:
In light of this, taking dominion or transforming society does not imply a theocracy. Taking dominion comes about by playing by the rules of the democratic game and, fairly and squarely, gaining the necessary influence in the seven molders of culture to ultimately benefit a nation and open society for the blessings, prosperity and happiness God desires for all people. God rules those who are faithful to HIm. Such people, filled with God, are the ones who I believe will govern the transformed societies of the future. This is not a plea for a theocracy. (p. 18)
Rick Perry’s The Response prayer meeting last month was full of New Apostolic Reformationists which is the kind of thing one would expect. Play the game, fair and square; get your people elected and then the majority will make rules to which the minority should conform. McDurmon calls this a threat.
McDurmon agrees with some tenets of NAR dominionism, saying:
Before my critical remarks, however, let me note a couple of great acknowledgements and key teachings associated with the 7MD movement. First, there is generally an emphasis on making disciples and not just converts. The church has too much focused only on “saving souls” and not enough on training those souls in obedience to all the teachings of Christ. This I affirm and applaud.
Second (and based on the first point), the leaders almost all make a point to acknowledge that the gospel and the Great Commission are so much greater than just the visible church itself. Rather, the gospel applies to every area of life, and the Great Commission is a renewal of the dominion mandate of Genesis 1:28. Thus, we should apply God’s Word to things like business, economics, government, family, media, art, etc., with the goal of dominion throughout the earth.
With these things—generally stated—I wholeheartedly agree.
However, he then notes that NAR dominionists propose getting control of the various segments of society “by any means necessary” which he asserts is at odds which reconstructionist thinking. In contrast, reconstructionists believe that government should be decentralized with local governments making rules for local entities. He favors implementation of Mosaic law but believes anyone who doesn’t like it could leave and go elsewhere. He adds that reconstructionists believe that such a reconstructionist society would come because a majority of people convert to Christianity without any top-down enforcement.
For anyone interested in what is shaping up to be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign, McDurmon has clarified some theological issues of importance.
Hat tip to Right Wing Watch for the McDurmon link.