Christian Book On Manly Aggression Inspires Violent Mexican Fundamentalist Narco-Cult Leader
Bruce Wilson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 06:47:59 PM EST
Update, March 22, 2014: In early 2014, Nazario Moreno González - founder of the Mexican crime syndicates the Christian fundamentalist La Familia Michoacana - which established its reputation by mass decapitations, and Knights Templar, was killed in a gun battle with police.

As AP News noted, Moreno's group La Familia "reportedly took its inspiration from an odd source: the book "Wild at Heart" by American evangelical author John Eldredge of the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Ransomed Heart Ministries." Eldredge is a former leader at James Dobson's Christian "family values" nonprofit Focus on the Family.

Evidence has recently emerged that recruits to Moreno's Knights Templar "proved their loyalty through an act of cannibalism", reports the International Business Times, on Moreno's alleged practice of forcing recruits to eat children's hearts for initiation into his crime syndicate. The IBT story states that "authorities have reason to believe the hearts were mainly taken from local children who were kidnapped and had their organs harvested for trafficking purposes."

"My boys chew their graham crackers into the shape of handguns at the breakfast table." - John Eldredge, from Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul

What if your million copy-plus bestselling inspirational book calling on men to act more manly, aggressive, even violent became a key source of inspiration for a ruthless cultic Christian paramilitary fundamentalist crime syndicate that controls most of the Crystal Meth traffic in the US and is fond of tossing severed heads into Mexican discos ? You'd probably feel awful. Or at least a bit embarrassed.

As a June 25th column in the Colorado Springs Gazette that sounds like it could have been written by satirists from The Onion, originally titled "Local Christian author laments popularity of his book among ruthless Mexican gang", later given the milder title Mexican drug cartel co-opts Springs writer’s message, notes, "Writers can't control how readers interpret the words they write." Very true. But has La Familia really "co-opted" John Eldredge's paean to the glory of male aggression ?

We'll have a look at the book in question, Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge, in a moment. But first, a bit about the ruthless cultic Christian paramilitary fundamentalist crime syndicate fond of tossing severed heads into Mexican discos.

As Tim Johnson details, in a recent McClatchy News/Seattle Times story that's helped put La Familia back in the spotlight this summer, La Familia leader Nazario Moreno just came out with a 104 page booklet, Thoughts, with advice such as, "If you want to say 'I love you!' to those who surround you and to your friends, say it today." It's like a Hallmark card but, as Johnson details, a little incongruous too:

If it seems bizarre for the leader of a drug gang that beheads or quarters enemies to offer advice on Christian living, well, maybe. However, the gang known as La Familia Michoacana is a pseudo-Christian posse that mixes zeal and inspiring slogans in its pronouncements. Members are ordered to study the Bible and pray the rosary, even as they gun down police, dismember opponents and manufacture highly addictive crystal methamphetamine.
Here's how Time Magazine's As Saul Schwarz summed it up, in a June 28, 2010 Time Magazine story, "Mexico's Meth Warriors,"

Mexico's newest drug cartel, and certainly the most bizarre, is La Familia Michoacana, a violent but Christian fundamentalist narco-gang based in the torrid Tierra Caliente region of western Michoacan state. The group is infamous for methamphetamine smuggling, lopping off enemies' heads and limbs, and massacring police and soldiers... Yet La Familia's leader, Nazario Moreno "aka El Mas Loco, or The Craziest One" has written his own bible, and his 1,500 minions hold prayer meetings before doing their grisly work.

Nothing like a prayer meeting before hacking people's heads off with Bowie knives - which is exactly what La Familia did to five men, in a stunt that helped put the violent narco-cult on the media map.  

As Professor George W. Grayson, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Stu