Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youths for "Spiritual Warfare"

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youths for "Spiritual Warfare"

Posted by Eleanor Bader, RH Reality Check at 8:40 AM on November 16, 2009.

"Life is not a playground," says Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas in The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual. "It is a war zone."




Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas, Assistant Director of Operation Save America, is worried. According to studies by the Barna Research Group, California pollsters specializing in tracking religious and spiritual attitudes, only nine percent of teenaged Christians believe in moral absolutes. What’s more, Barna reports that the vast majority of kids raised Christian will abandon all or part of their faith by the time they finish high school. "Assembly of God leaders estimate between 65 and 70 percent will depart, while the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life estimates roughly 88 percent will leave," Thomas writes.

To remedy this, Thomas' Elijah Ministries has started the Kingdom Leadership Institute, a weeklong ideological boot camp for home-schooled Christians between the ages of 14 and 21. His recently released book, The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual, is a roadmap for their training and a fascinating -- if twisted -- look at the concerns of far right evangelicals, complete with a game plan for action.

There's no pussy-footing in Thomas' screed. For him the battle between God and Satan is at hand, pitting True Believers against Sinners. Common ground? Impossible since there are only two sides, one resulting in heavenly salvation and the other ending with the earth’s destruction.

"Life is not a playground," he rails. "It is a war zone -- a clash of ideas, philosophies, values, and worldviews. It demands leaders who do not shrink back in the day of battle." He calls it "spiritual warfare" and repeatedly summons images straight out of the Middle Ages, with gallant Knights protecting grateful maidens, and courtliness trumping gender equity. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/143975/christian_bootcamp_seeks_to_arm_home-schooled_youths_for_%22spiritual_warfare%22

[RC]

1. Just another right-wing B/W thinking paranoid schizophrenic

It is people like this that make the world a dangerous place to be.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I would think the homeschool Christian soldiers would go directly into Blackwater.

[Union Yes]

3. Catastrophic collapse of consensus- the greatest fear of all religion. knr

[yellowcanine]

4. "Christain bootcamp for homeschooled kids between 14 and 21" sounds like a recipe for child abuse.

I am sure sexual predators are taking note and honing their Christian bona fides.

[Golden Raisin]

5. How do you spell Taliban?

The blind zealotry and fear of the other is the same.

[juno jones]

6. How is this different from a Madrassa?

I mean other than the name of the 'God' involved.

[JoeyT]

7. This isn't very surprising.

Fatwa envy has been going on for quite a while.

[Kerrytravelers]

8. "Kids" age 21 are still homeschooled?

Maybe it is just me, but when I was 21, I was a junior in college and had a job. What are these 21 year old kids doing still being "homeschooled"? :shrug:

[Seldona]

9. Wasn't that the general message in "Jesus Camp" as well?

Kids in camo and war-paint dancing with some sort of dowels, at other times fawning over a cardboard cutout of George Bush, praising him, and touching it like it held some sort of holy power?

Granted she may not have had them using guns, they were pretty young after all. But I will never forget the chill that ran down my spine when she screamed "Will you give your life for Jesus?" Of course there was a resounding "YES!"

But god loves you.

[Shallah Kali]

10. kicking since I can't rec. End Timers like these need an eye kept on 'em

so they any of their followers aiming to follow through on their teachings get caught before they actually do anything...

[bertman]

11. Too late to rec. I was raised in an environment that was less militaristic but no less

fanatical in the religiosity. The militaristic part was taken care of by my cultural surroundings in the U.S. of the 50's and 60's. The Southern Baptist revivals and summer camps and bible schools were all tools for brainwashing us kids into blindly accepting what they were offering.

When you combine this religious fanaticism with "patriotism" you do get the BlackWater types and the military types. I know because I was one. It took living the lie in Vietnam to make me see the light.

This is dangerous stuff. I have a co-worker who is an evangelical christian who wears his "Another Crusader for Christ" t-shirt with a bloody sword on it. He just doesn't "get" the disconnect between believing in the Prince of Peace and swallowing the rantings of a red-neck fundamentalist preacher.

[fhaye]

12. Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youths for "Spiritual Warfare"

"Life is not a playground," he rails. "It is a war zone -- a clash of ideas, philosophies, values, and worldviews. It demands leaders who do not shrink back in the day of battle." He calls it "spiritual warfare" and repeatedly summons images straight out of the Middle Ages, with gallant Knights protecting grateful maidens, and courtliness trumping gender equity. ............(more)

A grateful mind-set regarding life. We do usually go in a battle through walks of life. Guidance with some Christian Boot Camps are your path to take a journey through life, seeking your inner self as a person.

__________________
Fhaye Jones
Kids Boot Camp

[winyanstaz]

13. The U.S. Air force now belongs to the born agains.....do some research...

There has been a lot of trouble with the Air force pressuring all soldiers to join the religious right or get out already.
They are starting them young in these schools and camps to program their little heads to "kill for God."
Like a book out of the pages of the teachings of the Taliban...
They want to bring these kids out of their propaganda boot camps and right into the military..which is waiting for them to be "God's warriors"...and so they can program them for the "holy war".
This "Holy war" will be against Satanists and liberals of course. I am sure they will be throwing us Pagans in there too along with the Muslims, Catholics, Mormons and anyone else that is not Born Again.
These are some mighty sick people and they mean to teach these kids to "Kill for God."
I think it is absolute child abuse and they should be shut down and lose their tax exemption because they are fully planning to influence politics and are already working on that on many levels already.

[Joanne98]

14. Christianity is a dying faith. They made the decision to defend capitalism

Now they're nothing but a joke! They sold their religion's soul to the devil and they try to cover it up by creating wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. But they took the good out of Christ now nobody's interested in him anymore. He's just another bankster!

The only way to revive the faith is to do the right thing and attack the money changers but they're to cowardly. One of the few things they said that I kinda still believed was that their faith was important to them. Now I don't even believe that. They're pathetic!