Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries

[Joanne98]

By R. M. SCHNEIDERMAN
MEMPHIS — In the back room of a theater on Beale Street, John Renken, 42, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer.

“Father, we thank you for tonight,” he said. “We pray that we will be a representation of you.”

An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.

Continued>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02fight.html?hp

I'm reading the book "The Family" by Jeff Sharlet and this manly man Jesus is coming from them. The Founder of the National Prayer Breakfast, Abram Vereibe, thought Jesus was weak so he decided to remake his image.

This idea of his came about when he was helping rich business owners fight unions. The stereotype of union members were manly and tough so Abram wanted his Christian warriors to be manly too.

The family's sole purpose in the beginning was to bust unions and put in a "free market capitalism" system in this country. Abram just didn't think workers were even human beings and they had to be made to bow to Jesus/Owners because Gawd had picked rich people to rule.

Now that his ideas are dominate in the Christian churches we can see why the economy is in such bad shape. They are creating desperation and poverty everywhere they go which is mostly why they have to be the INVISIBLE NETWORK.

But this year it's different. On Thursday everybody will be able to see exactly who destroyed the economy on PURPOSE.

Another clue that this is "The Family" Abram started his ministries in Seattle.....

“Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”


It's hard to explain just how completely evil these people are. You have to read the book.

[dkf]

1. So perverse. Scary.

This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if someone up there feels like he needs to clean house.
Yikes.

[thunder rising]

2. "predominantly white"? I wonder if this is a recruitment tool for the supremacists?

[Joanne98]

3. They were very racist in the 40's. They stopped the Machinists Union from admitting blacks

Blacks and reds (communists) were the same thing as far as they were concerned. The Family also supported Hitler for a while.

I doubt that they still have a racist policy because they've gone global and they need people of all races and ethnic groups to represent them. But they probably still impose harsher behavior policies for blacks then whites.

[thunder rising]

5. I guess their new evil manifestation is the gay community. Why are these a$$holes in the WH?

[Joanne98]

4. The Family's attitude on blacks can be found on page 140........

Abram and the bosses fight with the aero mechanics union in 1941. The union admitted blacks and The Family got even by beating the people who voted for it. It went on for two years..

It's a pretty good picture of what they really are.

EVIL

[msongs]

6. same thing that is driving record gun sales = racist fear nt

[juno jones]

7. The local christian summer camp

has an entire military-style obstacle course and excercise circuit on their premise. It looks far more like a boot camp than a day camp.

I came across it whilst hunting mushrooms behind my property a few years ago.

Creeped me the hell out, it did.