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Rick Warren's Dissertation Advisor Leads Network Promoting Uganda Anti-Gay Bill
Wagner is the Convening Apostle in a movement of charismatic "relational networks" which has extended its reach from the United States to Uganda, and worldwide. Under its umbrella of authority are virulently anti-gay apostles in the United States and Uganda including Lou Engle of TheCall, who led thousands of young people in a twelve hour November 1, 2008 stadium rally in support of California's anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight.
The San Diego event closed with Engle, a member of Wagner's inner circle of "prophets," calling for Christian martyrs. Wagner's plans include reorganizing charismatic Christianity under the authority of these apostles and prophets. Both C. Peter Wagner and Rick Warren want to transform the world, and both [1,2] have proclaimed the advent of a second Reformation. Wagner claims the New Apostolic Reformation began in 2001. Rick Warren's "second reformation" is "purpose driven" and powered by his 2005 launch of a global P.E.A.C.E. Plan. In Uganda both visions for societal transformation appear to include the categorical elimination of homosexuality - by any means. Rick Warren wrote his 1993 dissertation for a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary under Wagner's supervision, titled New Churches For a New Generation: Church Planting to Reach Baby Boomers.It became the basis for Warren's book The Purpose Driven Church which preceded the blockbuster The Purpose Driven Life. Warren is undoubtedly the most celebrated pupil of C. Peter Wagner, a world renowned and controversial guru of "Church Growth." In C. Peter Wagner's 2008 book "Dominion", he describes the process through which this brand of Christianity can take dominion over government and society, and claims that this can be accomplished within a democratic framework. Wagner clearly states that Rick Warren's global P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an example of "stage one":
"I think the P.E.A.C.E. plan fits most comfortably into Phase One, the "social action" phase of strategies for obeying God's cultural mandate. The Phase Two emphases on strategic-level spiritual warfare and associated activities have not been placed front and center. And crucial to Phase Three, as I am defining it, are such things as apostolic/prophetic government of the Church, the Church (including apostles) in the workplace, the great transfer of wealth, dominion theology and the 7-M mandate."If Rick Warren is "phase one," what do Wagner's stages two and three entail ? The "7-M" or Reclaiming the Seven Mountains mandate encourages believers to take over key societal sectors such as government, and a leading Ugandan spokesperson for the theocratic 7-M paradigm has played a major role organizing and inspiring politicians behind Uganda's Anti Homosexuality legislation. On April 29th, 2009, as the Anti Homosexuality bill was first introduced in the Ugandan parliament, the Deputy Speaker of the House stated, "Let us hear from Hon. Bahati. In connection with the motion he is moving, we have in the gallery Apostle Julius Peter Oyet, Vice-President of the Born Again Federation; Pastor Dr Martin Ssempa of the Family Policy Centre; Stephen Langa, Family Life Network."Ssempa and Langa have received considerable media scrutiny and David Bahati has been exposed by Jeff Sharlet as part of "The Family," but who is Apostle Julius Oyet?
Tied to the top leadership of C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation, Julius Oyet organized charismatic prayer breakfast meetings which occurred in April 2009, shortly before the anti-gay bill was introduced, and again in November 2009, when the Ugandan Parliament was expected to vote on the bill. Oyet has served as General Secretary of Uganda's National Federation of Born Again Pentecostal Churches, and in March 2009, "deputized" the new "Presiding Apostle" of the Born Again Faith Federation, an organization representing millions of Ugandans. Transformations In addition to serving as the Uganda national director for Healing Rooms which operate under the authority of one of Wagner's U.S. based Apostles, Oyet's role in C. Peter Wagner's global initiative includes starring in one of the movement's Transformations video "documentaries" that depict cities and even whole nations supposedly transformed to earthly utopias when charismatic Christians take control of societal structures and government. The Transformations videos, produced by George Otis, Jr., teach that supernatural methods such as breaking "demonic strongholds," can quell riots, end war and poverty, eliminate corruption, cure diseases including AIDS, and reverse environmental degradation. The prominent role of female religious leaders in the Transformations videos adds a progressive gloss to this social activism, but the methods portrayed are conceptually medieval, and the agenda is theocratic and Christian supremacist. One Ugandan blogger labels the Transformations ideology as "political Christianity" and an import of the Western world. Scholars who have tracked the export of this distinctly American and charismatic version of demonology to other countries include Paul Gifford, author of African Christianity: Its Public Role, and René Holvast, who wrote the late 2008 Spiritual Mapping in the U.S. and Argentina: A Geography of Fear, a book on the emergence of the unusual methodologies used by Wagner ( Link to PDF link of Rene' Holvast's doctoral dissertation.) Transformations ideology has spawned interrelated organizations across the globe including International Transformation Network, Transformation Africa, and Transform World with branches including in Europe, Indonesia, Brazil, India, and the U.S. The first Transformations video, released in 1999, starred Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan leader in the movement who anointed Sarah Palin at Wasilla Assembly of God in 2005. The 2001 Transformations II, The Glory Spreads, portrayed the impact of supernatural transformation on governments in several locations including Uganda, and featured footage of a January 1, 2000 stadium event initiated by First Lady Janet Museveni which dedicated Uganda to Jesus Christ through a 1,000 year covenant. Transformations II claimed that reductions in the Ugandan AIDS rate were achieved both through abstinence only campaigns and thousands of cases of miraculous faith-healings of HIV. Oyet also claims miracle cures of HIV, which he showcases on his ministry website. According to the Carnegie Council, the abstinence-based Children's' AIDs Fund received PEPFAR funding against the recommendations of the USAID expert committee due to Children's' AIDS Fund's link to the Uganda Youth Forum, a faith based NGO founded by Janet Museveni. Human Rights Watch, Vol. 17, No 4 (A) confirms subcontracting by the Virginia-based Children's AIDs Fund to Museveni's Youth Forum for the production of abstinence only training material with U.S. funds. Human Rights Watch also cites a World magazine article indicating that 3 million dollars of U.S. funding has gone to the Youth Forum. Janet Museveni has publicly compared condom use to theft and murder and has promoted "virgin censuses," leading Human Rights Watch to state that the US funding "may constitute a violation of U.S. law." Apostle John Mulinde, a star of multiple Transformations movies and a "Transformation Associate Partner," reports that he serves on the board of Janet Museveni's Youth Forum. The 2005 Transformations video An Unconventional War, portrayed Julius Oyet as a hero who helped to end the suffering of Northern Uganda's Acholi people. The video shows Oyet, at the request of President Museveni, supernaturally breaking the power of the Lord's Resistance Army. When Oyet destroys the demonic altars which the video claims gave the rebel army supernatural powers, Acholi children the Lord's Resistance Army had kidnapped are miraculously returned to their parents.
But Robert Ochola-Lukwiya presents another view of Oyet in his Ph.D. dissertation on the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative - a multi-religious initiative that includes Christians and Muslims. Ochola-Lukwiya reports that Oyet almost provoke a riot, during a 2004 revival crusade Oyet held in the Acholi district of Kitgum, when he called for participants to bring forward their rosary beads and condoms to be burned. Beyond its anti-gay animus, C. Peter Wagner's movement is also virulently anti-Catholic. [See Killing Mother Teresa with their Prayers.] The College of Prayer Julius Oyet is head of the Uganda division of the College of Prayer, an Atlanta-based international leadership training ministry led by Fred Hartley III, for which Wagner and his Apostles have frequently taught courses. Oyet presided over a series of 2009 high-profile prayer breakfasts billed as having the participation of dozens of Ugandan MPs and hundreds of Ugandan leaders. An article on the College of Prayer website, titled "COP Comes To Parliament," describes an April 16th, 2009 event during which a College of Prayer team personally prayed and "prophesied" over each of 50 attending Ugandan MPs. On April 18th, at an even larger COP event that was broadcast on Ugandan national television, Julius Oyet urged the 248 attending members of parliament, and business and religious leaders to "seize the moment and forcefully pray for the advancing of Christ's kingdom throughout the nation." Nsaba Buturo, head of the Ugandan Ministry of Ethics and Integrity concurred stating, "I am encouraged that the College of Prayer is coming to Uganda at such a time as this." Toward the close of the event, COP leaders selected eight MPs, including David Bahati, to serve in a College of Prayer "servant leadership team" in Uganda's parliament. Both Bahati and Nsaba Buturo have been identified by journalist Jeff Sharlet as the key leaders in Uganda for "The Family," a Washington, D.C. based religious/political network which includes a number of U.S. politicians. Co-sponsoring the Anti Homosexuality Bill with David Bahati was Ugandan MP Benson Obua-Ogwal, who later attended a July 21-25, 2009 conference that the College of Prayer held in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, at which Julius Oyet played a leadership role. Obua-Ogwal described the experience, "It left a very big impact on me and I can assure you all that I am not the same Benson who left Uganda for Abidjan!" Julius Oyet states in a video originally posted at the College of Prayer website, "Transformation is happening in Uganda right from the Parliament....My vision for the College of Prayer is that we will have College of Prayer penetrate through the entire nation of Uganda... next year we take College of Prayer into Rwanda and Burundi and, of course, into Tanzania and into Kenya where already people have been attending the College of Prayer."
Transformation in Uganda goes beyond prayer, however, to systemic social engineering in an attempt to to impress the Transformations model for "biblical capitalism" upon the entire nation. The Seven Mountains Campaign and Marketplace Apostles Oyet is an spokesperson for the New Apostolic Reformation's "7-M" mandate that encourages believers to infiltrate and achieve influence over the "seven mountains" which represent key sectors of society such as government, business, education and media. Oyet speaks at events in Wagner's movement as a recognized expert in the 7-M mandate to take over the "mountain of government," and he also has taught at Wagner Leadership Institute Southeast, a Georgia-based branch of Wagner's international training network. Os Hillman, another of Peter Wagner's apostles leads a "marketplace apostles" initiative, to bring the Transformations model to the "mountain of business." Julius Oyet spoke at Os Hillman's 2008 Church in the Workplace Conference," in Atlanta. A March 8th, 2007 news release, hosted on the official web site of Republic of Uganda State House, reveals the extent to which the Transformations model is being integrated into Ugandan government policy:
"President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Mrs. Janet Museveni today hosted at State House, Nakasero 2 officials of California based Harvest Evangelism. Founder and President of Harvest Evangelism Mr. Ed Silvoso was accompanied by Mr. Graham Power."According to the release, the Musevenis discussed with Silvoso and Power "issues pertaining to investment opportunities in the country particularly road construction and the development of infrastructure." Ed Silvoso is an apostle in C. Peter Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles and is CEO of the International Transformation Network (ITN). Janet Museveni has spoken at several Transformation conferences around the world including one hosted by Silvoso's Argentina-based ministry. Silvoso's March 2007 newsletter details that Janet Museveni is working with Silvoso's International Transformation Network to conduct an on-the-ground experiment in one of Uganda's poorest districts to "develop a prototype for the elimination of systemic poverty through Biblically based social entrepreneurship." According to Ed Silvoso's December 2007 Harvest Evangelism Ministry newsletter, Janet Museveni is working to "disciple the nation of Uganda" and her efforts "have brought tangible change to the personal lives and marketplace environment of highly strategic government leaders who are now welcoming the kingdom of God into their areas and seeing awesome changes." Graham Power heads the Power Group, a construction and engineering firm with business in nations across Africa, and he is founder of Transformation Africa and the Global Day of Prayer.
The first Graham Power-initiated Global Day of Prayer, launched in May 2005, was advertised as "uniting 200 million believers." Rick Warren promoted the event to the 140,000 pastors and leaders he accesses through his Purpose-Driven ministry network, and together with Bob Bakke, chair of Global Day of Prayer, North America, Warren co-hosted the 2005 Dallas Global Day of Prayer event. Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation and Warren's Second Reformation
Peter Wagner introduced his distinctive demon-busting spiritual warfare ideology into the larger evangelical world through the massive missions effort of AD2000 and Beyond, an outgrowth of the Lausanne Movement. The Lausanne Movement In a recently released recording of a February 21, 1973 phone conversation between Billy Graham and President Richard Nixon, Graham told Nixon of his plan to "change the religious picture" by launching the first Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974. During the talk Graham told Nixon that the new entity would serve as a conservative counter to the World Council of Churches which, the two men agreed, verged on communism and, Nixon charged, was scripted "right out of Moscow." The resulting Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (LCWE) is an ongoing umbrella organization for worldwide evangelical missions including programs, such as the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, that target evangelizing efforts at specific societal groups such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Marxists. Wagner was an original member of the Executive Committee of the LCWE and served as chairperson of it’s Strategy Working Group to compile statistics and strategies for evangelizing “specific people groups,” as described in his biography in the Billy Graham Archives. Lausanne II held in Manila in 1989 included emphasis on “spiritual warfare” which sparked ongoing controversy on the role of the demonic in the missions field. AD2000 and Beyond emerged from Lausanne II and was part of a massive effort to evangelize the world in the decade prior to 2000. Wagner held a key position as the head of the "prayer track" which he accepted with the condition that he could utilize his existing "spiritual warfare network." George Otis headed the "spiritual mapping" track and the honorary co-chairs for AD2000 included Billy Graham and Bill Bright. Lausanne III will be held in Capetown, South Africa, in May 2010. Henry Luke Orombi, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, will serve as chair of the Africa Host Committee and Rick Warren is on the Advisory Council. Warren has supported the role of Archbishops Orombi, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, and Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda as leaders in the GAFCON/CFA realignment of the Anglican church on the issue of homosexuality. As reported in a March 29, 2008 story from the AllAfrica.com news service, in March 2008 Rick Warren attended a conference of Ugandan Anglican Bishops who were protesting the Church of England's tolerance for homosexuality. AllAfrica, reporting on his appearance, summarized Warren's quotes as "homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right," and directly quoted Warren as stating, "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all."
Archbishop Orombi has claimed that "rich" homosexuals were "doing whatever it takes to make sure this vice penetrates Africa." Rwanda's Archbishop Kolini spoke at a “peace crusade” gathering of participants from Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania at which he was reported in the Rwandan News as “calling on churches in the East African region to fight against homosexuality for the good of the society.” Rwanda was Rick Warren’s first declared “Purpose Driven Nation” and Kolini serves on the steering committee for Warren’s Purpose Driven/P.E.A.C.E. Plan in Rwanda and Saddleback Church’s Rwandan HIV/AIDS HealthCare Initiative. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has warned that “Kolini sets a dangerous tone for the discussion of homosexuality in the country,” and that threats of anti- gay legislation are increasing. AD2000 and Beyond and the The New Apostolic Reformation The AD2000 and Beyond effort ended with the close of the 1990s, but Peter Wagner's efforts did not. Wagner left his thirty year position in the Church Growth department of Fuller Theological Seminary, moved to Colorado Springs, and continued his missions effort from the World Prayer Center, a joint venture with Ted Haggard and George Otis Jr. Haggard writes in book The Life Giving Church, that in the midst of the global prayer efforts Wagner had "made the transition from seeing himself as a seminary professor to a person with an apostolic call..." In 2001 Wagner declared the beginning of the New Apostolic Reformation and in 2003 Haggard became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a position which he claimed gave him weekly phone access to the White House. In his books The Life Giving Church and Primary Purpose Peter Wagner's partner Ted Haggard openly outlined Wagner's charismatic demonology and plan for a radical restructuring of evangelical churches to rapidly expand the "kingdom." In his dissertation under Wagner, Rick Warren advocated very similar changes in church structure. By contrast, Warren's books The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life, which do not include such "kingdom" plans, can seem benign. But in 2005 Rick Warren publicly outlined, before thousands of his church members, a "stealth, secret mission" to achieve "the global expansion of the Kingdom of God." Warren's Purpose Driven Life training is being used around the world including as a mandatory component in a "Moral Recovery Program" used by the Philippine National Police Force and other Philippine government agencies in an attempt to reduce corruption. [1, 2, 3, 4] The Transformations movies depict the elimination of systemic government corruption through mass-conversion to charismatic Christianity, and the New Apostolic Reformation's latest Transformations video portrays the "transformation" of Sao Paulo's police force. The official Transformations video website advertises that Transformations movies are now being used for police training in "crime reduction strategies and police departments in US cities have also begun Transformations-inspired programs. Transformations marketing claims that viewers in 150 nations on six continents have viewed the videos, and they have been shown on television in nations including the U.S., Russia, Singapore, and India. This has spawned The "Transformations" entities in cities and nations around the globe, usually marketed as "ecumenical" prayer events or pastors' networks, often with exterior appearances as benign as Warren's books. Is Rick Warren's "second reformation" the same as C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation? Wagner is quite open about his goal of merging church and state - it is the core of his ideology. Warren's P.E.A.C.E. plan has been publicly characterized as altruistic public service but what is this "Purpose Driven" world that Warren envisions? On April 17, 2005 at California’s Anaheim Stadium, Rick Warren told approximately 30,000 who had gathered to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Saddleback Church,
"For the past 18 months we have been on a stealth, secret mission - project - around the world. We've been sending members out, actually over 4500 members somewhere overseas, over the period of the the last few years, going out to do what we're gonna call the PEACE plan...[More of the transcript is included at this link and audio and partial transcript are included below the article.] Warren continued by asking what his audience could accomplish if they had the absolute dedication of the followers of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, and told the crowd they must do "whatever it takes" for the "New Reformation" and the global expansion of the kingdom. In response the stadium audience, in unison raised thousands of identical banners printed with Rick Warren's exhortation: "Whatever it Takes." Hitler, Lenin, and Mao convinced their fanatical followers that by eliminating the "evil" which stood in their way, they could create utopias. C. Peter Wagner is forthcoming about the "evil" which must be destroyed to bring about his envisioned Earthly utopian kingdom. Wagner even assigns names to the demons which he claims control Roman Catholicism, Islam, and other fai | |||||||||||
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