For those not familiar with NAR lingo, please persevere.  This is a story that is worth the trouble and will hopefully answer questions about some of the unexpected alliances that are providing the Religious Right with political clout.

The first graphic below is part of a banner for SWAT, (Strategic Warrors At Training), described as "a Christian military training camp" led by Jay Swallow for teaching strategic level spiritual warfare. The second is promoting a mini-camp held by SWAT. To attend one must be a "Spirit-filled" or charismatic Christians and "have approval from your spiritual covering (pastor, elders, husband)."

Swallow claims apostolic "oversight" over Native American tribes and to be representing these tribes in Reconciliation ceremonies held around the nation. He is a regular speaker and teacher for International Transformation Network which has been featured many times on Talk2action.org in relation to Uganda's anti-gay bill, Hawaiian gubernatorial candidate James "Duke" Aiona, and Pray Newark, with Swallow credited for playing a role in the latter. Swallow is founder of Two Rivers Native American Training Center and also serves on the board of directors of Chuck Colson's  Operation Starting Line, the National Prayer Committee, and the Native American Resource Network.

Sen. Brownback has claimed his work with Engle as being limited to the apologies to Native Americans and African Americans.  According to Brownback,

"They're good things. Those were the substantive items I worked with him on.... It has not been about other agenda items alleged."

Like many activities of the NAR, the idea of reconciliation does indeed sound good... until you take a closer look.

Sen. Brownback and the Apostles

Sen. Brownback has participated in Reconciliation events with NAR apostles since at least as early as 2003.  That year Brownback met in Washington D.C. with Apostles  Cindy Jacobs, John Benefiel, Jay Swallow and others.  Jacobs and Benefiel are authorities over prayer warrior networks which are organized by states, the Reformation Prayer Network and Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, (HAPN) respectively.  NAR leaders describe the event with Brownback as a major breakthrough for spiritual warfare in the country and for a 50 state tour taken by top tier Apostles Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce. Subsequently Brownback sponsored a U.S. Senate resolution and hearings were held in 2005.

A video concerning the Senate and House resolutions is on the HAPN website.  Much of the historical narrative would meet the the approval of Howard Zinn and social-justice minded, but it also provides glimpses of the way in which the NAR links abortion and "bibles in schools" to the suffering and bloodshed of Native Americans, and their authoritarian response which in no way resembles social gospel or liberation theology. With the exception of Sam Brownback and John McCain, most featured in the video are NAR leaders, including Apostles Jay Swallow and Nigel Bigpond, who are nationally known inside the movement.  The website also includes a link titled Divorcing Baal, which includes documents used in Reconciliation ceremonies held around the country with Native Americans, and prayers for release from freemasonry.  (This will be explained in more detail below.)

In 2005, Brownback appeared in a  2005 Transformations movie on Uganda which starred Apostle Julius Oyet on a mission to destroy the altars claimed to be the source of the power of  the rebel group, Lord's Resistance Army. (Oyet was recognized by the Ugandan Parliament when the "kill-the-gays" bill was introduced.) The Transformations are a series of pseudo-documentaries produced from 1999 to the present, used as a promotional tool for NAR's strategic level spiritual warfare techniques.  Uganda is claimed as one of the leading prototypes demonstrating the taking of  "dominion" or control by charismatic evangelicals over government and society. The movies promote the ultimate faith-based initiative - they claim that once dominion is achieved, communities achieve reductions in societal evils including: corruption, crime, poverty, illness, and even miraculous healing of HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation.

On March 1, 2007, Brownback sponsored a resolution in the 109th Congress apologizing to Native Americans.  Resolutions were finally passed as S.J. 14 and H.J. 46 and signed by President Obama in December 2009. .

Brownback participated in at least five of Lou Engle's The Call events, including one on 7/07//07 in Nashville.  Dutch Sheets introduced Brownback to the packed stadium, who then stated that "as a U.S. Senator" he was repenting of the sins committed against Native Americans and African Americans.  The apologies were accepted on behalf of these groups by Apostles Jay Swallow and Harry Jackson, respectively. (See second embedded video on page at Right Wing Watch) Later, at the same The Call Nashville event, 300 men representing Gideon's Army marched into the stadium with shofars (ram horns used in services of atonement during Jewish High Holiday services) and were led by Ricky Scaggs in blowing them simultaneously. (See video here and here.)

Right Wing Watch has video and an explanation of the NAR- led "kettle tour" mentioned in Brownback's 2009 Senate testimony on an apology for slavery.  This tour was led by Apostle Dutch Sheets and was described as an effort to "redig the wells for revival" and  to "release a multiplication of power for spiritual breakthrough."  A  Charisma magazine article describes these reconciliation events in the benign terms of healing of the nation, as does the Senate testimony.  However, in their own books and media, NAR leadership clearly states their intent  - not just proselytizing individuals, but taking Christian dominion over government and society.

What do Reconciliation ceremonies mean in the context of the NAR, and why are these congressional resolutions so important to them?

Identificational Repentance and Reconciliation

As defined by NAR leaders, the term "Identificational Repentance and Reconciliation," refers to a spiritual warfare tool with the purpose of overcoming the resistance of ethnic, racial, and religious populations to converting to evangelical belief.  NAR apostles claim that the resistance is caused by a demonic "stronghold," meaning demons have control over these populations, due to either sins that their ancestors committed, sins committed against their ancestors by others, or both. Names have been given to the demons that they believe control various ethnic or religious groups.  For instance Native Americans are claimed to be under the control of Baal, Leviathan, and the Queen of Heaven. This last principality is claimed to also control  Roman Catholics (non-Charismatic) and Muslims. Despite this literal demonization of Roman Catholicism there are Catholics working with the NAR apostles including Brownback and Hawaiian Gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona.

In order for the demons to be removed and to allow for mass conversions and the "taking of territory," there must be ceremonies of "corporate repentance" and reconciliation.  The  goals are clearly defined  in the writings of those who popularized these strategic level spiritual warfare techniques.

The term "Identificational Repentance and Reconciliation" was coined by John Dawson, an international leader of Youth With a Mission (YWAM).  He founded International Reconciliation Coalition in 1990. Alaskan Apostle Mary Glazier, who founded the prayer warrior network which Sarah Palin joined at 24 (according to Glazier) and continues to meet with Palin, is an advisor to International Reconciliation Coalition.  In a 1996 article in Renewal Journal, C. Peter Wagner announced that there was finally a text on  Identificational Repentance - John Dawson's Healing America's Wounds - and that he (Wagner) required his Fuller Theological Seminary students to read it.   Wagner was one of the leaders of a massive worldwide missions effort in the 1990s to evangelize the world by 2000.  In honor of Dawson's book, their 1996 efforts were labeled   "Healing the Land" and  included spiritual warfare initiatives that would begin taking place all over the world including: repenting for massacres of Indians; repenting for slavery; and  a "Reconciliation Walk" in the Middle East to apologize to Muslims and Jews for the Crusades.  

The latter initiative began in 1996 under the leadership of another YWAM leader and was modeled after John Dawson's book. As Wagner describes, the purpose was to tear down the "primary stronghold to blind the minds of Muslims and Jews to the gospel for centuries." It ended with a triumphant finale in 2000 in an amphitheater in Ephesus, Turkey.  Ted Haggard helped organize the closing event at which "5,000 believers from 62 nations" including a 100-person choir from Korea celebrated "breaking the power of the Queen of Heaven" and a participating group proceeded to build a seminary nearby, as reported in Wagner's book Confronting the Queen of Heaven.

These campaigns in the 1990s against the Queen of Heaven included a 1997 spiritual warfare excursion titled Operation Ice Castle, which NAR leaders later reported perhaps successfully resulting in an earthquake, hurricane, and the death of Mother Teresa. (This testimony is still posted on Transforming Melbourne's website. Also see my previous article Killing Mother Teresa with their Prayers.)

Wagner concludes the Renewal Journal article:

"As the Body of Christ agrees to pull down strongholds of corporate sin, the way will be opened for revival of churches and a harvest of souls greater than anything previously imagined."

Dawson is also an executive of  founders of Toward Jerusalem Council II, an organization which advertises itself as "Repentance and Reconciliation Between Jews and Gentiles" but is actually reconciliation between Messianic (converted) Jews and Gentiles.  This group of Charismatic leaders, NAR apostles, and Messianic Jews teach that if Christians befriend Jews and repent of the Holocaust, Jews will convert in large numbers, necessary "in order to hasten the coming of the Lord Yeshua."  The group promotes Christian Zionism and has close ties to The Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem founded by Robert Stearns, a director for Christians United for Israel (CUFI).  Brownback has been a regular speaker at CUFI events.

From an Oct. 5 Kansas Health Institute article,

Brownback said his interest in pushing through the Apology to Native Americans developed after talking with Senate colleague Ben Nighthorse-Campbell of Colorado, who is Native American, and reading books such as "Healing America's Wounds," by John Dawson, a New Zealander who founded the International Reconciliation Coalition, a group of Christian leaders with the goal of easing and redressing long festering societal wrongs.

The ceremony seen in The Call Nashville video with Sam Brownback, Jay Swallow, Nigel Bigpond and Harry Jackson is quite tame, but other ceremonies around the country led by the apostles, shed light on the meaning of the ritual and what they expect as results.

Expelling Baal and Leviathan

In 2007 a a "war council" was convened in Georgia including Apostles Jay Swallow, John Benefiel, Nigel Bigpond, and Diane Buker, head of Battleaxe Ministries.  

From the report titled Taking Down the High Places,

While a team of 40-50 worshipping warrior intercessors gathered at NE Metro Christian Fellowship to stand watch and engage in intercession, a team of state, regional, national and international leaders went on-site to fulfill the mandate of the Lord to wage war against the ancient powers that had been imbedded in the land as places of worship to Baal, Queen of Heaven, and Leviathan. The first stop was at the Cherokee's "Center of the Earth" monument near Hartwell, Georgia, where Ap. Jay led out in a prayer of repentance for the ancient iniquities of the Cherokee people who had inhabited the land in previous times and in intercession for the ensuing curses to be broken.

Apostle John Benefiel gave insight into the ways of Baal, and to the legal process
of filing the declarations of divorce against the defendant (Baal) by the plaintiff
(the Church), and the necessity of the writ of divorce being decreed by the court
of heaven for the divorce to be finalized.

The report included a reference to the progress of the resolution of apology to Native Americans:

Additional reports came on the progress of the Resolution of Apology to Native Americans from the government of the United States.  The House of Representatives has passed the measure as an amendment to the Native American Health Care Bill, which coincidentally, does not allow for any the affiliated federal funding to be used to perform abortions!  This bill still must pass the US Senate, and remains a point of intercession.

In Texas in 2007, the Trinity Apostolic Prayer Network Glory of Zion posting:

January 15, 2003   Dr. John Benefiel, Chairman and Mobilizing Apostle of OCOP, along with Dr. Jay Swallow, Dr. Neigel Bigpond, Jim and Faith Chosa, Gabriel and Vi Medicine-Eagle, Jean Stephenson, Sandy Grady and Mike and Cindy Jacobs met with Senator Sam Brownback in Washington, D.C. Dr. Benefiel explained to the Senator the curse brought upon our nation because of the 381 covenants the United States Government broke with the Native Americans. The Senator repented to the Native Americans right then and there. As a result of these events, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 37, (which will provide a formal apology from the United States Government to Native Americans), was written and is currently on General Order in the U.S. Senate awaiting a full Senate vote.

...Dutch Sheets began to speak and said that God had also spoken to him on his plane and told him 3 things to speak on that he had never spoken anywhere before... Then he said the starting of the 50 State Tour could not have happened until what happened in D.C. took place with the broken covenants and the repentance of Senator Brownback.

...Prophet Cindy Jacobs commissioned Dr. Benefiel and Dr. Swallow to go to Arkansas and deal with the political spirit of this nation that hides out in Arkansas. In obedience to that word they led a team of Oklahoma apostles and Oklahoma and Arkansas intercessors on a strategic prayer journey April 12-14, 2004. They went to Little Rock, were they visited the state capitol building and took authority over Leviathan, Jezebel and political spirits. The team also went to an historic cemetery (where Albert Pike's family is buried) and the Clinton Library (which overlooks the Arkansas River). Then journeyed on to Hot Springs and addressed the spirit in the "springs." Lastly they visited a Jewish cemetery located at the beginning of the Albert Pike Highway and prayed and made prophetic declarations.
...We are praying and believing that all of Oklahoma (all the homes of the Red Men wherever they reside) will be saved and transformed.

Sen. Brownback has strongly stated his objection to the healthcare reform law and says he will continue to fight it. In an effort to kill the bill, Brownback participated with Rep. Michele Bachmann, Sen. Jim DeMint and Rep. Randy Forbes in a "Prayercast" whose leaders included NAR Apostles Lou Engle and Harry Jackson. ( See Rachel Maddow's coverage of the Prayercast.) Most Native American organizations in Kansas support the healthcare reform law, nevertheless, in the first month after the Resolution for the Apology to Native Americans passed, Brownback's gubernatorial campaign received 14,000 dollars from tribal leaders in Kansas and New York, and many continue to support him.

One has to wonder how many Native Americans in Kansas and elsewhere understand exactly what Brownback's friends have planned for them. The NAR apostles have organized national resistance to the healthcare bill through their state prayer warrior networks, but have several hundred faith healing and demon deliverance centers waiting for those are willing to have their demons expelled.

Related articles:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/10/12/192218/65/