Speaking as someone who is an Assemblies walkaway--yes, the Royal Rangers (and its alternative to the Girl Scouts/Girl Guides, the "Missionettes") are heavily promoted as a "Christian alternative" to Scouting and Guide programs.  (Yes, even the Boy Scouts--who will not allow an out atheist or gay person to be a Scout, much less a Scout leader--are considered not Christian enough by the Assemblies.)

The groups have been promoted at least since the sixties (my sister, who is pushing her 40's, was in Missionettes) and is one of the big ways in which the Assemblies targets kids in their youth (and begins indoctrinating them into the coercive tactics of the group).

Anymore, traditional Girl Scouting and Guiding is condemned by dominionists in general (there is at least one other dominionist "parallel economy" alternative to Girl Scouts, "Heritage Girls of America") and Assemblies churches in particular push parents to put their kids in Missionettes, claiming that the Girl Scouts are actively un-Christian.

One of the more disturbing facets of the Royal Rangers and Missionettes programs is that they are starting to be promoted outside of the Assemblies of God proper.  Ted Haggard's New Life Church (which, to the best of my knowledge, is not technically an Assemblies church, though I'm not going to be one bit shocked to find connections because the theology taught at New Life Church is identical to that of many Assemblies churches) has a Royal Rangers post, and per the Wikipedia article on the Royal Rangers reportedly the group has been promoted in "many other denominations"--largely neopentecostal "independent" churches, but occasionally to mainstream churches as well who are not aware of the fact that the Royal Rangers and Missionettes are Assemblies of God frontgroups .

by dogemperor on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 08:32:32 AM EST

One of the other things that is disturbing to me--as a walkaway from the Assemblies, and in regards to a general trend--is the fact they're willingly pairing up with Phelps.

This is probably a trend I should not be shocked at--the Assemblies actually has promoted involuntary exorcisms of gay youth (some of which I personally witnessed growing up--the outing of, and involuntary exorcism of, several gay youth in the very Assemblies church I am a walkaway from).

The particular Assemblies church I am a walkaway from has the state head of the American Family Association as one of its head deacons--a person (Frank Simon) whose anti-gay rants (which have included mailings of softcore gay BDSM porn to households claiming this is representative of the "homosexual lifestyle" and including the stinger in one mailing "Remember what the homosexual priests did to the children", and in a previous mailing and flyer distribution implied that the Fairness Ordinance (which would prohibit discrimination against LGBT individuals in housing and hiring, and which actually had exemptions for religious groups) was supported by NAMBLA) are so infamous locally that they led two conservative Catholic members of Louisville's metro government to give the swing votes for renewal of the Fairness ordinance.  

Two separate Assemblies groups (an Assemblies front group called "International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem", which focuses on converting Jewish people to "Messianic Jews", and a separate Assemblies church) are tied with a Holocaust-revisionist book called "The Pink Swastika" which claims that not only were LGBT people not killed in the Holocaust but were the actual instigators and architects of it (and the very group I am a walkaway from promoted it, and Frank Simon's groups still promote both that and Paul Cameron's discredited work which has included calls for actual concentration camps and execution of LGBT individuals).  

Kids in Assemblies churches are quite often referred to "de-gaying" camps like Love In Action's unlicensed facilities in Tennessee if they're thought to have "caught the gay".

It's still distressing, though--even being a survivor of it, even knowing that I'm never going to be able to be out to my folks because of this--it's still really, really distressing to see it, and to see the church essentially give their official stamp of approval to Phelps.

Then again, Phelps tends to say out loud what the people in more "respectable" dominionist circles--like the Assemblies--are privately thinking.

(My husband's commentary on hearing this--"Good God, they really know how to pick their whackjobs, don't they?"  When I pointed out this is part of a pattern, he noted "Yeah, but Phelps is the alpha whackjob, you know?"  This is one reason it's hard to talk as a walkaway.  People don't realise the private face of dominionism if they've not been in it :P)

by dogemperor on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:05:31 AM EST