The AWARE steeplejackers and their deep connections to Joel's Army and American dominionists
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Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:33:03 AM EST
Thanks to a few Singaporean friends (who shall remain anonymous), I had become aware of a disturbing development--an attempted hijack of a major women's NGO. Through those same folks and Fred Clarkson's post on the AWARE EGM vote, I also found that the takeover of AWARE--something I describe as a "steeplejack" because of its similarities to hijacking-from-within of churches--would seem to have been averted for now. (Unfortunately, I've also read via various Singaporean sources that the same folks in question seem to be attempting to challenge AWARE's educational programs in the schools in a remarkably identical manner to how US groups like FotF operate.)

Several of us in the general anti-dominionist  community here in the States have founded a bit of a research group on "Joel's Army" groups (also known as "Elijah's Army" or "New Apostolic Reformation" or "Third Wave" groups), and we'd noticed something was odd in Singapore.

The AWARE steeplejacking scandal has brought some new, and distressing, info to the surface--namely, that a Joel's Army insurgency has been festering in Singapore for at least thirty-five years and possibly closer to 45...and it is being aided and abbetted primarily by groups from the US, South Korea, and Australia.
(Note: This article has also been posted in slightly expanded format at the Singaporean independent news site Wayang Party; commentary from experts on political "Christian nationalist" groups in the comments or guest articles are always appreciated.)

Some necessary backgrounder, or a brief Dominionism 101

A little backgrounder is necessary in discussion of these groups to understand the full threat. This is an area that even a lot of "religious right" experts in the US are not all that familiar with; those of us who focus on Joel's Army-related groups are a pretty small community. That said, let us begin.

The term that is increasingly in use regarding the "religious right" in the US is "dominionist"--referring to a specific theology that largely originated in Assemblies of God and Foursquare churches back in the 30s and independently in some "independent fundamentalist Baptist" groups.

Put very succinctly: These groups feel they have a literal mandate from God to take over the world--including governments and all institutions of society--by any means necessary. The reasons do vary--the groups descended from pentecostal and "charismatic" (more properly termed "neopentecostal") denominations and parachurches tend to couch it in terms of countries or nations being at risk of "losing God's blessing". Some groups go further than this--seeing themselves literally as proxies of God's will.

What we know now as "Joel's Army" or the "New Apostolic Reformation" has actually had multiple names (they don't even use the term "Joel's Army" very much anymore, preferring "Elijah's Army") and is part of a movement originally known as "Latter Rain" and "Manifest Sons of God" that originated in revival movements in the 30s and 40s. Some of the claims coming out of these groups were so ludicrous that the Assemblies of God officially disavowed any groups using the terms "Latter Rain" in 1948...after which most went to parachurch organisations and splinter groups, or simply promoted the same things in the Assemblies without using those terms.

As a result, we essentially have three different lineages of "Joel's Army" groups. The first, and the oldest, is a branch connected with the parachurch Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth With A Mission. Campus Crusade originated some of the initial strategies for taking over secular groups and other churches including the use of what I have termed "cuckoo churches" (so named after the breeding habits of cuckoos, who lay their eggs in other birds' nests and cause the young of the "foster parents" to starve and die as the cuckoo chick literally crowds the other chicks out of the nest)--"cell churches" set up in mainstream Christian churches like the Anglicans, meant to convert everyone from within until the church is a de facto neopentecostal church. YWAM also developed a fair amount of the "internal mythology" of these groups--including concepts regarding "spiritual warfare" and particularly a "fifty year plan" for takeover called the "Seven Mountains Strategy".

A second lineage consists of Assemblies of God-linked groups that promote NAR theology. One of the major groups promoting th