These guys seem almost too crazy to be true. I'm mostly going to let them speak for them selves.
In fact, what takes place onstage at the Florida Outpouring looks more like a pro wrestling extravaganza than church. On stage, Bentley and his team of pastors, yell, chant, and scream "Fire!" and "Bam!" while anointing followers.Not all that suprising to anyone who's been to a pentacostal church.
Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.
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Jesus Christ. The whole article is well worth the read. It is almost unfathomable to me that these people can actually believe this, but then I think back and realize I've been to churches like this back when I was a believer. I suppose it should come as no suprise that the people behind Jesus Camp are affiliated with these nuts.According to Joel's Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.
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"Everyone born after abortion's legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army," writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel's Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel's Army.
"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."
In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God's army "will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go." But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as "a coming civil war within the church." In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: "Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end."
Two years later, in his book The Final Quest, Joyner described a vision (taken as prophecy in the Joel's Army world, where Joyner is considered an "apostle") of the coming Christian Civil War in which demon-possessed Christian soldiers enslave other, weaker Christians who resist them. He also describes how the hero of the novel -- himself -- ascends a "Holy Mountain" in order to learn new truths and to acquire new, magic weapons.
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Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching "Serpent Seed" doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. "Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood -- the intellectuals, bible colleges," Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel's Army movement to this day. "They know all their creeds but know nothing about God."
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According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations -- foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation."
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one that is still frequently cited by Joel's Army followers: "Those in this army will have His kind of power. ... Anyone who wants to harm them must die."
One more quote:
"Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions," Joel's Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley's Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May.
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Howe’s Brooklyn
Painter, Mentor Brings Artwork of Disabled Adults To Brooklyn Museum
By Sam Howe & Friends
THE WORLD-RENOWNED BROOKLYN MUSEUM, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country, has permanent collections ranging from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, representing a wide range of cultures. Now and then, though, curators initiate more unorthodox exhibitions, drawing on the various talents of artists close to home. “Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition,” which ended last weekend, is one such idea. Another is “New York State of Mind,” opening Aug. 14, an offshoot of a four-year collaboration between the museum and Institute for Community Living (ICL), a non-profit agency that serves adults with serious mental illnesses and developmental disabilities.
Bed-Stuy resident DYLAN STANFIELD has been the arts and activities counselor for the disabled adult residents of ICL for four years, since the Art Enhancement Project was initiated to increase tenants’ quality of life. As his full-time job, Stanfield visits eight houses on a rotating basis, guiding residents in activities — painting, drawing, clay and photography — to help them express their interpretations of the world.
Stanfield takes requests for projects, but mostly makes it up day by day. Both Stanfield and his students draw inspiration from their twice-monthly themed fieldtrips to the Brooklyn Museum. For Stanfield those trips are learning experiences in other ways: How, for example, does one take a group of visually impaired adults to an art museum?
“Well, I’m learning that myself,” he says. “It is a lot of explaining art and the concepts that go into it. We might look at tribal masks, feel them, and talk about why they were made and the cultural significance in how they were used.”
The museum is also developing a touch garden, and on occasion holds special open houses where visitors can wear gloves to touch certain sculptures, which is otherwise not allowed.
Stanfield, who moved from Olympia, Wash. 10 years ago, was involved with non-profits before ICL, teaching art in schools and even once painting a mural for one of ICL’s buildings. He was between jobs when ICL had an opening for this position. The artistic growth has since run in both directions, as Stanfield has been pushed by his students and their various needs to increase the mediums he works with.
“I was excited to work with a different population, grow a little, expand my horizons. I had no expectations, and I think that has helped me to appreciate the art in a very art for art’s sake kind of way. Originally I am a painter, but the first day I started at the Jaslow house, where all the residents are blind, I thought ‘I gotta figure this out.’”
He is also the curator of ICL’s annual art exhibition at Brooklyn Museum. This year, three mediums will be featured: wire and clay sculptures to capture self-expression, and photography and paint in the themes of seasonal changes, light and life in the city. Go to www.brooklynmuseum.org for visiting information.
MORE NOTES ABOUT PEOPLE
ACTING TEACHER TO THE STARS PETER KASS, whose students included Faye Dunaway and Maureen Stapleton, died on August 4 at age 85. He was a lifelong Brooklynite. Although also an actor and director, Kass was best known for his work as a relentless acting instructor, serving from 1956 to 1960 as head acting prof at Boston University, and later at the NYU School of the Arts from 1965 to ‘82. Kass himself was a protégé of Clifford Odets.
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ROBERTA KARMEL, PROFESSOR OF LAW at Brooklyn Law School, was recognized August 10 for her path-breaking achievements by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. Karmel, with five other women in the legal profession, received the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, to recognize that they have excelled in their field and paved the way to success for other women lawyers.
Professor Karmel is a trustee of the Practicing Law Institute, a member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and vice-chair of the International Coordinating Committee of the ABA’s Business Law Section. She serves as co-director of the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she has taught securities law for more than 20 years.
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SIAN KILLINGSWORTH IS A MOTHER, WRITER, teacher and Park Slope resident who will soon be leading a poetry workshop to help poets with a range of experience to improve their craft. As a prelude, she will host two poetry readings featuring accomplished poets, with an open mic afterwards, on August 13 and 27 at First Presbyterian Church in the Peace Garden, 124 Henry St. Refreshments will accompany the poetry. The 10-week workshop will begin Sept. 10; some scholarships are available through the church. Contact Killingsworth at poetryclasses@gmail.com.
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BROOKLYN CAPTAIN MIKE MAYNARD led his volunteer firefighters to a first-place win for the second year in a row at the annual Atlantic Canada Vehicle Extrication Competition held in Windsor on August 2-3, reported NoveNewsNow.com. The exercise is education first, competition second, as the different teams all learn from watching each other.
“Over the years, we’ve learned how to free people from cars quicker,” Maynard told the news source. “And at the end of the day, when we’re out on the highway, it makes us better at getting victims out safely ... people don’t realize the amount of training hours it takes to do this.”
The teams have 20 minutes to extract patients from a vehicle. The Brooklyn team’s scenario was a vehicle that had hit a barrier, with one victim trapped inside, with a second car on the driver’s side of the hood and a truck against the passenger’s side of the trunk. From the Brooklyn team, BRETT TETANISH won the Top Incident Command Award, and JESSICA MURPHY, a medic with the Redneck ResQTec-nicians, won the Top Medic Award. The Brooklynites have the opportunity to advance to the national competition.
— Compiled by Caitlin McNamara
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net
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