Category: Religion

Lost and found: Members of the New Apostolic Reformation

Recently, Apostle C. Peter Wagner wrote to his followers about the attention the New Apostolic Reformation is getting in the media. In it, Wagner downplayed the organization structure of the movement saying:

I am rather fascinated at the lists of individuals whom the media glibly connects with the NAR. I’m sure that some of them wouldn’t even recognize the term. In many cases, however, they would fit the NAR template, but since the NAR has no membership list they themselves would need to say whether they consider themselves affiliated or not.

and…

Some of the authors I read expressed certain frustrations because they found it difficult to get their arms around the NAR. They couldn’t find a top leader or even a leadership team. There was no newsletter. The NAR didn’t have an annual meeting. There was no printed doctrinal statement or code of ethics. This was very different from dealing with traditional denominations. The reason behind this is that, whereas denominations are legal structures, the NAR is a relational structure. Everyone is related to, or aligned, with an apostle or apostles. This alignment is voluntary. There is no legal tie that binds it. In fact, some have dual alignment or multiple alignment. Apostles are not in competition with each other, they are in cahoots. They do not seek the best for themselves, but for those who choose to align with them. If the spotlight comes on them, they will accept it, but they do not seek it.

I think I found some members of the New Apostolic Reformation.
The NAR as a ideological movement does not have a list, but Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles does. Here is a link to it.
However, if you click it you will find a 404 Error page that says:

I’m sorry, but the page or file appears to be missing!
An out-of-date bookmark/favorite.
A failed search from the searchbar (try another search query).
A search engine that has an out-of-date listing for this site.
A mis-typed address.

One can no longer get to the list of 200+ people who are considered apostles by Wagner’s organization. You can however click the member section and find this page to sign in.

That is to say, if you are a member, you can sign in.
I don’t know when this changed but it was within the last year. Here is the 2009 list via Internet archives. These people are added by invitation only and are members of this elite group. There is a conference for ICA members in November.  Wagner says there is no leadership structure or statement of faith but this page has a statement of faith and this one describes a structure. Wagner says there is no leadership team but the website lists an “Apostolic Council.” 

The Presiding Apostle appoints an ICA Apostolic Council to give advice and accountability. ICA members are free to bring any concerns which may arise to any or all council members.
The Apostolic Council includes: George Bakalov, Mark Chironna, James Chosa, Ron Cottle, Naomi Dowdy, John Eckhardt, Pat Francis, Bill Hamon, Dan Juster, John P. Kelly, Joseph Mattera, John Macknamara, Mel Mullen, Dennis Peacocke, Mark Pfeifer,  Ed Silvoso, C. Peter Wagner, Doris Wagner, Lance Wallnau, and H. Daniel Wilson.
Contact information is available to Members only in the Member section.

 So there is an organization of apostles with a statement of faith, a conference and structure for entrance into the organization by invitation only. Remember that Wagner said this about the New Apostolic Reformation:

The reason behind this is that, whereas denominations are legal structures, the NAR is a relational structure. Everyone is related to, or aligned, with an apostle or apostles. This alignment is voluntary.

 Each apostle has his or her own network and organization, some of which are quite large and organized (e.g., Cindy Jacobs, Generals International). These organizations and churches follow the organization of the apostle who fits into the movement via membership in the ICA. It may not be tightly structured but to avoid mentioning the members of the ICA is to obscure a critical element of the movement.
Hallelujah! They once were lost, but now they are found!
 

What Michele Bachmann's strategy for evangelical outreach might look like

After Michele Bachmann took the Iowa Straw Poll on August 13, Bachmann’s press secretary Alice Stewart credited Peter Waldron with a job well done, saying, “Michele’s faith is an important part of her life and Peter did a tremendous job with our faith outreach in Iowa. We are fortunate to have him on our team and look forward to having him expanding his efforts in several states.”
Waldron first came into the spotlight in relation to the Bachmann campaign when The Atlantic published a story on August which detailed Waldron’s 2006 deportation from Uganda after 37 days in jail following charges of terrorism. Those charges were dropped but the expose has led to interest in the background of one of Bachmann’s staffer’s responsible for keeping the evangelical vote away from Texas Governor, and fellow evangelical, Rick Perry.
The Bachmann campaign is by far not Waldron’s first. His resume listed on websites now only accessible through Internet archives claims positions in campaigns of Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, Gary Bauer in 2000 and John McCain in 2008. While it is not clear what Waldron did for other candidates, he provided a detailed look at his strategy for Gary Bauer in 2000. Bauer had worked in the Reagan administration and clearly identified with evangelicals and the religious right. Just after Waldron left a failed youth program in the St. Petersburg area of FL, he went to work for Bauer, with the aim of securing the GOP nomination. Perhaps, Waldron used elements of this plan in Iowa.
Bauer’s campaign never caught on but the strategy mapped out by Waldron involved a good showing in the same Iowa straw poll event that his new boss, Michele Bachmann, recently won.  In 2000, Bauer took fourth place in the poll which, according to Waldron, inspired some momentum:

The August 14, 1999 Straw Poll was a good test of the Iowa organization and an opportunity to lay the foundation for success in the Iowa Caucuses. The strong showing gave the campaign a positive boost going into the final quarter of the year. The Ames success was built on the deployment of several key tactics, all of which can be used for the Caucuses.

One of those key tactics was the “Deployment of a concentrated church outreach program to recruit votes in sectors not being touched by other candidates.” Apparently, they used churches for political organizing:

One of the most successful aspects of the Ames effort was the collection and use of Evangelical church lists. Through the course of the Ames effort, over 30,000 such names were collected; they yielded over 600 committed Bauer supporters. Among such Evangelical church-goers, the candidate ran second to George Bush as the first choice for the GOP nomination. More importantly, that second place standing improved substantially when mail was used to raise the candidate’s I.D. and favorable rating.

Waldron’s 2011 straw poll strategy may have looked like 2000 but the newer version was more successful. So successful, that candidate Bachmann wants to expand his role in other states. Waldron’s Bauer plan provides some insight into what such an expansion might look like. Here are the keys to a successful evangelical campaign outreach:

The key components to a successful Evangelical organization program are the following:
Intercession
The candidate needs prayer and must develop a prayer network in each state. The prayer network secures the candidate’s position as a “legitimate” Evangelical and a member of the faith-based community. All people of faith respect prayer and its supernatural power. Everyone can pray and each person must feel a part of the candidate’s effort to receive the nomination. Prayer does not require money, fame, and position of influence or power to achieve a sense of importance.
Identification
The Campaign must identify the individual spheres of influence in the state. Sub-divisions include Congressional districts; metropolitan areas; churches (large to small); para-church organizations; minority congregations; elected civic leaders from the faith community; pastors; etc.
Mail surveys (if time permits) and telephone calls permit the Campaign to identify supporters from within available lists. ID phone calls are invaluable to the overall strategy to deliver voters to the polls.
Individual
The central organizing unit is the “Church Contact.” The Church Contact is the candidate’s local organizer within a congregation. The Church Contact’s primary functions are to recruit, maintain, and deliver supporters to Gary Bauer. His/her job performance is enhanced by distributing campaign literature to family and friends, answering questions regarding the candidate, making announcements regarding Gary Bauer’s scheduled appearances, and collecting names and addresses (church directories). Registering new voters is another critical task performed by the Church Contact.
The Church Contact becomes the critical mass around which support for Gary Bauer grows concentrically. The Church Contact helps identify others within different congregations who support the candidate and will volunteer to be a Church Contact in that congregation. The challenge to the State Director (or local church coordinator in metropolitan areas) is to connect all the Church Contacts/congregations within a community. When the individual parts of the Church Contact program are connected the cumulative results is the beginning of a “movement.”
Inventory
The Campaign must collect and maintain accurate names and addresses of current Evangelical Protestants in the targeted State. The lists are sub-divided into leadership, para-church, churches, pastors, and lay people. The Campaign is well served when it has representation in each of the Churches.
Information
Communication to one’s database is critical to recruitment, maintenance, and growth. Timely and effective delivery of material into the hands of one’s constituency is imperative. Political literature is the ammo of a successful campaign. One cannot mail too much. Mail provides direction, recruitment material, and motivates one’s constituency.
The Evangelical community, in particular, and the broader faith-based community, in general, is a sub-culture with its own value-system, vocabulary, and vision for the future. Within this “sub-culture” is a distinct communication system that circumvents the main-line media, establishment elite, and high-profile political leadership.
Arranging for appearances on Evangelical broadcasts on religious radio and television networks is equally important. There are hundreds of call-in talk shows on Christian radio and television. An earnest effort must be made to arrange opportunities for the candidate to address his base via religious broadcasting.
Involvement
The faith-based community wants to help. A message within the context of the Evangelical belief system is volunteerism and service. There must be a sincere effort to develop volunteer organization within each State. Each person brings three gifts to bear on the candidate’s success – time, talent, and treasure. Each State Director must set-up a volunteer program to cultivate the time and talent.
Staff
A critical component of the Church Outreach program is the hiring of a statewide Church Outreach Coordinator in each Tier I state. The Church Outreach Coordinator must be hired by local state leadership in consultation with the national Church Outreach team, and should be trained by the national team. All necessary staff must be in place by September 15, and all training must be completed by October 1.
Conclusion
The strategy for success outlined herein is dependent upon extraordinary grassroots organizing in Tiers I, II and III; appropriate levels of message mail, phone banks and earned/paid media; and the candidate’s grassroots appeal as demonstrated in personal appearances and the rise and fall of the candidate’s competition.

My guess is if you are involved in any kind of an evangelical church in South Carolina, you will be getting a call from Waldron or someone associated with the Bachmann campaign. Clearly, his strategy relies heavily on bringing out the evangelical vote. Currently, a real problem for this plan is Rick Perry. As a fellow evangelical, Perry is competing for the same voters. Perhaps, that is why Waldron likened Perry to King Saul and Bachmann to King David in a recent description of the two, saying that Bachmann has been anointed by God. Saul was initially popular and was attractive to the masses, whereas David was a less likely but eventually more successful King.  Such imagery fits right in with the Waldron plan:

The Evangelical community, in particular, and the broader faith-based community, in general, is a sub-culture with its own value-system, vocabulary, and vision for the future. Within this “sub-culture” is a distinct communication system that circumvents the main-line media, establishment elite, and high-profile political leadership.

Waldron’ analogy might be questionable, but, if it catches on, could be good politics.
UPDATE: Waldron is deploying the strategy in FL now, appearing with Bachmann at a Baptist church there. The write up mentions Waldron’s FL youth basketball program but is a little kind in the description.

Bachmann staffer accused of mismanaging public funds in 1999

Peter Waldron, Michele Bachmann’s evangelical organizer, was accused in 1999 of “mismanagement of public funds” in connection with a youth program he founded in St. Petersburg, FL. Waldron founded Rising Stars Education and Sports Foundation in the mid-1990s and claimed to serve thousands of inner-city youth in the St. Petersburg area. However, according to reports in the St. Petersburg Times, city officials said the charity served far fewer young people than Waldron claimed, only about 400.
Waldron abruptly shut down the foundation in June, 1999 after questions surfaced about the management and financial practices of the group. According to a July 21, 1999 op-ed in the St. Petersburg Times, Waldron received over $600,000 of state and local grant money, but spent 83% of that on overall administrative costs. During his tenure with Rising Stars, Waldron purchased homes in Florida and Wyoming.
In a February 5, 1999 St. Petersburg Times editorial, Waldron was credited for his innovative program but the paper concluded:

Waldron had a good idea for helping children, one praised by participants, parents and juvenile justice officials. But his mismanagement of public funds taints that success. St. Petersburg should take over Rising Stars, and city and state officials should set up a means for overseeing the program, as they should have been doing all along.

Waldron was arrested in Uganda in 2006 and charged with illegal possession of weapons. After 37 days in jail, Waldron was released and the charges dropped. The Bachmann campaign credited him with part of the reason for their win in the Iowa straw poll on August 13.

NPR on the difference between dominionists and evangelicals

Check out this report from Fresh Air with guest Rachel Tabachnick.
There is much of interest in the report but here is some money that caught my eye:

A ‘Different’ Evangelicalism

Tabachnick, who has been researching and writing about the apostles for a decade, says her own religious background has helped her with her research. She grew up as a Southern Baptist and converted to Judaism as an adult.
“Having the Southern Baptist background and growing up in the Deep South has helped me to be able to do this research and has also helped me realize something that might not be apparent to some other people looking at the movement,” she says. “This is quite radically different than the evangelicalism of my youth. The things that we’ve been talking about are not representative of evangelicalism. They’re not representative of conservative evangelicalism. So I think that’s important to keep in mind. This is a movement that’s growing in popularity, and one of the ways they’ve been able to do that [is because] they’re not very identifiable to most people. They’re just presented as nondenominational or just Christian — but it is an identifiable movement now with an identifiable ideology.”

Recently, some evangelicals have reacted strongly against accusations of dominionism, even going so far as to deny it exists (e.g., this Christian Post op-ed). It exists for sure but as Tabachnick says, many evangelicals wouldn’t recognize it as being “them.”
What has been concerning to me is the marriage of traditional evangelicalism with the New Apostolic Reformation through right wing politics. For instance, Cindy Jacobs speaking at Liberty University’s Awakening conference was an odd combination of beliefs. The focus becomes societal change as opposed to proclaiming the religious message of the gospel.
I think Tabachnick’s critique is valuable and her distinctions helpful.

AFA takes a stand on religious freedom

While this is not a perfect statement (see this post for a critique), the AFA decided to oppose Bryan Fischer’s narrow view of the First Amendment. Earlier this week, the AFA issued the following statement.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOR ALL 
An American Family Association Policy Statement 
The American Family Association celebrates Religious Freedom for all people and for all beliefs as one of the foundational values that make the United States of America a great nation.  
Historical Background 
America’s Founders disagreed how broadly the First Amendment extended Freedom of Religion.  Since James Madison, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights, insured that the Congressional debates over the Bill of Rights were conducted in secret, Americans must look to later sources to understand the positions taken by their Founders.  Thomas Jefferson and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, whom Madison appointed to the Supreme Court and who later founded Harvard Law School, openly debated over the place of Christianity in American law.  Jefferson advocated a broad view that that all religions, not merely variations of Christianity, were to be protected.  In his autobiography Jefferson wrote: 
[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom… was finally passed,… a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it should read ‘a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.’ The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination. 
Joseph Story stated a contradictory view in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States:  
The real object of the [First] amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”  
Jefferson’s position has ultimately prevailed; under American law all religions enjoy freedom from government interference.  However Joseph Story’s view continues to have proponents, including Bryan Fischer, one of American Family Radio’s talk show hosts.   However, the American Family Association (“AFA”) officially sides with Jefferson on this question.   AFA is confident that the truth of Christianity will prevail whenever it is allowed to freely compete in the marketplace of ideas.  

In other words, on one of the fundamental issues the AFA speaks about, they have a spokesperson who takes the anachronistic view with which they disagree.
Now I would like to see the AFA come out and issue a statement regarding Bryan Fischer’s position on the nobility of displacing and eradicating indigenous people from the land. It appears that they now understand a little better that silence communicates consent. So now there are several statements they need work on.