This is an excellent article, and also shows how dominionists are more than happy to partner with the "evil secularists" when it suits them.  (One just wishes in this regard that the corporations in question had more info on just who they were dealing with.)

There is quite an amount of backgrounder material available on Luce at Talk2Action.  Posts which have focused on Luce include:

"Battle Cry" Youth Rally in Massachusetts, Summer '04 (gives a look at the massive rallies held, comments include a lively debate between Talk2Action regulars and a Luce apologist)
Christ's Righteously Equipped Warriors (discussion of the extensive use of "spiritual warfare" ideology, particularly the "spiritual warfare" symbolism promoted in dominion theology; comments detail Ron Luce's extensive links with "dominion theology" movements--more on this below)

As I've noted, Ron Luce has links with one of the scarier branches of "Christian Nationalism"--the "dominion theology" movement which had its origins in the Assemblies of God and has been promoted by both the Assemblies and various "neopentecostal" groups.  

The Assemblies in fact has directly promoted Luce's seminars multiple times--through its seminary, through its official  website, through Assemblies churches, through conference  which was almost entirely comprised of heads of Assemblies front groups targeting kids and the director of youth ministries for the Assemblies of which Ron Luce was a featured speaker, through promotion directly by Assemblies-linked youth ministries, through partnership with Youth With A Mission (an Assemblies frontgroup which has such a history of spiritual abuse targeted at its members that most exit counselors and experts on spiritual abuse consider it a "Bible-based cult), through international branches of the Assemblies (the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada is the name under which the Assemblies of God operates in that country), and through a dominionist conference with close links to the Assemblies.

The Assemblies aren't the only promoters of "dominion theology" that Ron Luce partners with (and the Assemblies are certainly dominionist and abusive--here's a short list of the many, many ways)--Luce also has connections with other figures in the pente "spiritual warfare" community.  Among them, Ron Luce has documented links with Ted Haggard (of New Life Church, a neopentecostal church in Colorado Springs that is now the de facto home of the National Association of Evangelicals and which has been documented by many sources as not only dominionist but specifically involved in the Brownsville aka Toronto "third wave" movement); this has included, notably, cross-promotion as Haggard himself has appeared at Luce's conferences.  Luce is heavily promoted by dominionist groups into the "spiritual warfare" movement, including "deliverance ministry" movements.  Another group Luce is linked to is the See You At The Pole movement, which has featured such charming examples of "Christian love" as nailing the names of "unsaved" classmates to crosses and praying over the crosses that their classmates become suicidal unless they become dominionists.

In the realm of more conventional connections to dominionists, as well as deceptive tactics they use themselves, there are still more links to Luce.  As it turns out, Exodus International--one of the major groups promoting bogus and potentially psychologically harmful "de-gaying therapy"--has one of its chief speakers as a Teen Mania conference regular.  (Yes, these conferences do tend to not only depict LGBT folks as demon-possessed but crazy to boot.)  

Luce's Teen Mania group--which, like so many other organisations closely linked to the Assemblies and the "dominion theology" movement that target youth--also promotes frank recruitment by deception; the same sort of "bait and switch" evangelism promoted by, say, the Seven Project (an Assemblies front-group targeting teenage kids and often promoted as a program for "at-risk youth").  In a copy of a manual published by Carman Ministries which is an instruction manual for dominionist youth groups on how to conduct "bait and switch" evangelism, Teen Mania is mentioned in chapter 3 specifically; the manual itself was published by Ron Luce himself, and promoted by "Christian Contemporary" singer Carman (popular in dominionist circles).  The book itself is a de facto publication by Teen Mania, as evidenced in the resource section.

The "R.I.O.T. Manual" can in fact be considered the operating manual for Teen Mania on how to target non-dominionists for conversion. Portions of the book also promote: frank harassment of targets who appear to be "depressed" or "on drugs" (literally advising them to have multiple people "chase down" targets to corner and prosyletise to); heavily promote "spiritual warfare" ideology, advise "mock funerals" as a bit of theatre to recruit members (shades of "Hell Houses"); advise kids to include mentions of God and Jesus in school papers even when completely irrelevant (noting specifically that students are a "captive audience"); advise mass prosyletisation in shopping malls (with instructions on how to avoid security guards when complaints are made re the dominionist kids harassing the customers!) and including littering stores and even store merchandise with tracts; advises literal "sheep-stealing" (in classic FGBMFI style of setting up "Charismatic Catholic" groups by having members join churches, and similar to how IRD sympathiser groups could have been seeded) including targeting of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in particular; advise literally having members fake choking (!) whilst another "plant" pretends to administer CPR and uses this to prosyletise; advises people to carry around a video camera and falsely claim they are interviewing people for a video program; advises people to join public schools for the sole purpose of stealth evangelism; advise leafletting of tracts including inside school lockers (many schools prohibit distributing any material not published officially by the school, including student-published magazines not linked with the school, and this is likely to get a kid suspended) and also encourages leafletting the cafeteria and even the toilet (!); and encourages the kids to get MTV removed from the local cable systems (firstly, not bloody likely as Viacom is one of the largest network companies; secondly, this was a very common tactic by dominionist groups especially in the 80's) and encourages kids to promote the idea of state-led and state-sanctioned dominionist prayers in schools.

One particular section (section 3) even advocates compiling a "hit list" of the "unsaved" and praying that these people become miserable unless they convert (in tactics very similar to those used at the "See You At The Pole" events) and in fact is included in a section that uses parallels to the literal arrest and prosecution of a criminal(!).  Part 5 includes a "Weapons and Tactics" checklist for young "God Warriors"

Of particular note, the group freely acknowledges that doing these things is likely to get one fired but advises people to do it anyways at their places of work.  (Obviously they don't seem too concerned about the real possibility of "hostile environment" lawsuits.  One would think that these kids, if they work outside the "ministry" at all, are best suited to some dominionist company like Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby.)

For those who want to read Luce's advise to kids in his own words, BARF's full archive is (unfortunately) no longer online at its site but the Wayback Machine has archived the full manual in six parts:

Intro and Table of Contents (intro, table of contents)
Part 1 (pages 5-33)
Part 2 (pages 37-64)
Part 3 (pages 68-117)
Part 4 (pages 121-136)
Part 5 (pages 139-143)
Appendix and Resources (showing that work is, in fact, a joint partnership of Teen Mania and Carman Productions, advises people who need further info or wish to get more involved to contact Teen Mania; of VERY specific note, the "Resources" section includes an application form to join Teen Mania).

by dogemperor on Tue May 02, 2006 at 12:46:51 PM EST

very interesting post. Very useful and well done site too.

by Frederick Clarkson on Mon May 01, 2006 at 02:01:36 PM EST

Luce's own words are plenty damning in and of themselves, and BARF (Biblical America Resistance Front) has been an invaluable resource in researching Luce.  (BARF operates acquiretheevidence.org as a sister site focusing specifically on Luce.)

One of the connections I was unaware of, but am not surprised at, is the link to the DeMoss Foundation (Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation is a major funder of dominionist causes in general, especially groups that use "bait and switch evangelism" as a recruitment tactic).  

I also do appreciate their mention (in the "Read More" section) a major concern I have--that this may be a dominionist group that has crossed over into being spiritually abusive as well.  (Sadly, Luce has many connections to groups that have well documented histories of being spiritually abusive.)

The Portland Mercury, as an aside, has written an excellent article on Luce, and there is an interview available with Sunsara Taylor, who successfully organised a large counterprotest of BattleCry in San Francisco.

by dogemperor on Tue May 02, 2006 at 12:56:39 PM EST

I have actually had co-workers that, while they are well into their adulthood (40 and early 50-somethings), they have bought into similar things to the "Teen Mania" events.  These people go so far as to get rid of all of their teenage childrens' books and music that they deem "filled with demons and devils."  Most of the books they deem bad are things such as classical mythology, fantasy and even sci-fi!  The music that they deem bad is usually anything in the hard-rock category.  They make their kids listen to nothing but gospel from there on out and only allow them to read the bible (often loudly claiming that "you only need ONE book and no others").
I think that there's a whole group of people being "zombie-fied" by this militant brand of fundamentalism.

by Heathen1 on Tue May 16, 2006 at 09:46:33 PM EST