Rafael Cruz with his son Senator Ted Cruz
“When the pretended friends of religion lead infidel lives; when they carry religion to market and offer it in exchange for luxuries and honors; when they place it familiarly and constantly in the columns of newspapers, manifestly connected with electioneering purposes, and when they are offering it up as a morning and evening sacrifice of the altar of political party- these men are placing a firebrand to every meeting house and applying a torch to every Bible” Abraham Bishop in an oration at Wallingford CT on 11 March 1801
As a historian as well as a theologian I find the modern self-anointed "prophets and apostles" of the Dominionist, Christian Reconstruction or Seven Mountains movement to be quite troubling. I have written about them before, but since they continue to rise to prominence in both conservative Christian churches and the Tea Party movement it is time that I do so again. In reading the words of Abraham Bishop I cannot help but to notice how closely they mirror the self-anointed leaders such as Rafael Cruz, the father of the junior Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, a likely Presidential candidate in 2016.
The movement itself is profoundly dualistic in nature and prominent leaders include Dr C. Peter Wagner, Gary North, Rick Joyner, and a host of other leading Evangelicals including notables like Rick Scarborough, Pat Robertson and James Robison, political leaders Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz and finally Mike Huckabee who like a rancid peanut butter cup manages to combine his ministry with his perpetual quest for political power.
Larry Huch, a mega-church pastor and evangelist in the Dallas area hosted Rafael Cruz at his church in 2012 and made these comments about the election of Ted Cruz as a U.S. Senator:
“I know that’s why God got Rafael’s son elected – Ted Cruz, the next Senator. But here’s the exciting thing – and that’s why I know it’s timely for him to teach this, and bring this anointing. This will begin what we call the “End Time Transfer of Wealth.”
“And that when these gentiles begin to receive this blessing, they will never go back financially through the valley again. God is looking at the church, and everyone in it, and deciding, in the next 3 and 1/2 years, who will be his bankers. And the ones that say, ‘Here am I, Lord, you can trust me’, we will become so blessed that we will usher in the coming of the Messiah."
The elder Cruz, a leader in the Dominionist movement in his own right said at that meeting:
“The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur. God, even though he’s sovereign, even though he’s omnipotent, he doesn’t let it rain out of the sky – he’s going to use people to do it.”
How these men get this from scripture is beyond me but the late John Wimber who founded the Vineyard churches after leaving the very conservative Calvary Chapel which is basically fundamentalist in its understanding of scripture, but which under the direction of the late Chuck Smith was relatively politically innocuous, focusing more on evangelism and bringing people to Christ. Wimber said of the folks at Calvary Chapel:“Calvaryites are sometimes a little too heavily oriented to the written Word.” This should say something to any conservative Bible Christian about the people leading the Dominionist movement, they don't care about scripture and will pervert it into whatever they want it to say. That is why Latty Huch can blather on about God looking for his "bankers" who will "usher in the Messiah."
C. Peter Wagner is an exponent of this end time transfer of wealth, he wrote to his supporters in 2007:
“nine of the components of GAN {Global Apostolic Network} are on my heart, but especially those related to wealth and wealth transfer. I am in touch with 17 potential wealth transfer brokers, some of them expecting release momentarily. It is hard to comprehend, but some of them go to multiple millions, billions, and more. My task is to prepare a high integrity infrastructure for distributing these funds when they begin to flow. Zion Apostolic Network and The Hamilton Group are in place as agencies to carry this out. Our motto is “Sophisticated Philanthropy for Apostolic Distribution.” Letter from Global Harvest Ministries dated August 20, 2007
If the issue was just about Elmer Gantry type money-grubbing these people might be written off, but it is not. They are also about violent social and political revolution if they cannot get their way at the ballot box. Cindy Jacobs another one of these politically connected self-anointed prophets, who is still around pushing even more radical comments made this claim on the internet back in 2000:“For there is a radical sound that I have issued – there is a sound that has come from heaven, and it even now has come to earth. And the Lord says, these are going to be days where I am going to trouble the enemy through you. These are going to be different days than you have ever known, and I am going to require sacrifice of you that you cannot imagine. I am going to require a sacrifice of your children, says the Lord. And the Lord says, I’m going to shake everything that can be shaken…” and that “There are churches that will be command posts for revolution, and to these command posts I would say, I am going to bring a revolution. Look and see; I am calling radical revolutionaries to the church.”
Rick Joyner, who has continued to gain influence among these people and was one of the early exponents of this type of thought in his Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin wrote about what was going to happen to Christians that didn’t agree with his understanding of his prophecy threatening to change “the very definition of Christianity….for the better….”
“On February 23rd of this year I was shown for the third time that the church was headed for a spiritual civil war … the definition of a complete victory in this war would be the complete overthrow of the accuser of the brethens’ strongholds in the church … this will in fact be one of the most cruel battles the church has ever faced. Like every civil war brother will turn against brother like we have never witnessed in the church before … this battle must be fought. It is an opportunity to drive the accuser out of the church and for the church then to come into unity that would otherwise be impossible … what is coming will be dark. At times Christians almost universally will be loath to even call themselves Christians.Believers and unbelievers alike will think it is the end of Christianity as we know it and it will be through this the very definition of Christianity will be changed for the better.” Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin May 1996
Joyner is a close associate of former Senator and head of the Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint so he should not be taken lightly, and last year he advocated for a military coup to remove President Obama, a military coup to "protect the Constitution."
These are very dangerous and scary people whose goal is the establishment of their brand of theocracy. Thus they must be exposed for what they are, because the closer they move to political power the closer we come to real tyranny. This is not a benign movement led by peaceful people who want to mind their faith and get along with others, they are extremists and Christians who actually care about the faith and care about the Bible should flee from them.
As Thomas Jefferson so wisely noted:
“History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” (letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813)
