According to New Apostolic Reformation doctrine, objects to be destroyed include those associated with Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hinduism, eastern religions, Christian Science, native religions, and Baha'i.

[image, right: One of the The New Apostolic Reformation's conduits for spreading its ideology are the Transformations videos of George Otis, Jr. Transformations IV, "Let The Seas Resound" (2004) shows the burning of Fijian native art]

NAR theologians, including C. Peter Wagner, sometimes cite, as a Biblical justification for the destruction of artifacts, an incident described in the New Testament's Book of Acts in which the magicians of Ephesus, under the influence of Apostle Paul, gathered together and burned their books of magic (thus weakening, according to Wagner, the hold of the goddess Diana over the city of Ephesus.) But Wagner also provides a more contemporary model.

In books from 1994 up into 2008, C. Peter Wagner has repeatedly cited, as a model for societal "transformation", the efforts of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in late-15th Century Florence, Italy.

Savonarola is credited with instigating the mass-burning in Florence of books and cultural objects deemed to incite sin (including by some reports several paintings by the Renaissance master Botticelli), in an event that has become known to historians as the "Bonfire of the Vanities."  

On page 96 of his book Changing Church: How God Is Leading His Church Into The Future (2004, Regal/Gospel Light), bemoaning the lack of significant city `transformation' in the U.S., Wagner notes that, while evangelists have invested "huge amounts of time" and "large sums of money", "Even after 10 years, we cannot point to a single city in the United States that has undergone a sociologically verifiable transformation!" In a subsection titled "Hope Giving Examples", Wagner then writes,
   

"The lack of examples of cities that have been transformed is not to imply, however, that social transformation through God's power is impossible. We may not have many examples, but we do have some.
        Florence, Italy. Girolamo Savonarola's powerful ministry in Florence, Italy, back in the fifteenth century gives us a historical case study. Here is one description of what happened to the city after Savonarola prayed and prophesied:

  "The wicked city government [of Florence] was overthrown, and Savonarola taught the people to set up a democratic form of government. The revival brought tremendous moral change. The people stopped reading vile and worldly books. Merchants made restitution to the people for the excessive profits they had been making. Hoodlums and street urchins stopped singing sinful songs and began to sing hymns in the streets. Carnivals were forbidden and forsaken.
        Huge bonfires were made of worldly books and obscene pictures, masks, and wigs. A great octagonal pyramid of worldly objects was erected in the public square in Florence. It towered in seven stages sixty feet high and 240 feet in circumference. While bells tolled, the people sang hymns and the fire burned."  "

    In his 2008 book Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change The World (2008, Chosen Books), Peter Wagner again cites the same passage, introducing it, on page 166 of his book, with "To show that it [transformation] can be done, I love to go back in history to Florence, Italy, where Girolamo Savanarola [sic] led a notable example of transformation. I have told the story in other books, but it is so encouraging that I want to repeat it again".

During his short-lived period of political influence in Florence, Savonarola's overriding obsession, which Wagner fails to note, was legislating burning at the stake for sodomy. Wagner's apostles have been in the forefront of organizing against LGBT rights in the United States and have numerous, close ties to one of the professed authors of Uganda's internationally condemned, so-called "kill the gays" bill, apostle Julius Oyet.

Both Wagner and Cindy Jacobs explicitly refer to the destruction of books, and cultural and religious artifacts, as "book burning" and "spiritual house cleansing";  believers are encouraged to purge personal possessions, that allow demonic intrusion into their lives and which represent "witchcraft" and "idolatry", and gather up these objects to bring to collection points, for incineration--with the help of gasoline if necessary.

[video, below: at 54 seconds into this three-minute compilation of Cindy Jacobs video, Jacobs tells pastors in her audience to encourage their church members to burn items associated "witchcraft" and "sorcery"]

Underscoring the point that this is a current objective for New Apostolic Reformation leaders, during a worship service that Jacobs held on October 7, 2008, at Ed Silvoso's 18th International Institute on Nation Transformation, in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Cindy Jacobs called on [video link] assembled local area pastors at the conference,

  "Pastors, sanctify your people! You go and you tell 'em, if you have any idols in their homes we're gonna to burn 'em! If you have any witchcraft items in your homes, you bring 'em Sunday and we're gonna burn 'em! We're not gonna have witchcraft in this church!"

Wagner's apostles Chuck Pierce and Tom Schlueter (who anointed presidential candidate Rick Perry in a 2009 ceremony, as covered in a 2011 story from the Texas Observer) have been described as performing ceremonies, to break collective curses over entire Native American tribal groups that were allegedly incurred through Baal worship, which involved the ritual smashing of antique Native American pottery.

According to an account formerly posted on the website of Trinity Apostolic Prayer Network (then headed by apostle Schlueter), Tom Schlueter participated in an April 27, 2007 ceremony at which, as the report described,

"John Benefiel then informed the gathering of the history of Baal in the region. He shared the story of the Baal caves in the panhandle of Oklahoma where cave drawings depict the presence of those who worshiped Baal... Jay [Swallow] taught on the unholy trio of Baal, Asherah and Leviathan. He spoke of their proliferation into the land. His teaching led us up to the prophetic act of smashing pottery that depicted Baal and Leviathan. Knowing that this authority lies with those who dwelt on this land first, it was necessary that it be carried out by a Native American.

[...]

Jay then proceeded to lead Mark in the smashing of vessels. One vessel depicted the snakelike features of Leviathan and the other depicted the Sun god - Baal. They were placed in trash bags and Mark used a dogwood rod presented to Jay by Chuck Pierce to destroy the pottery. It shattered into many pieces at the joyous shouts of the body of Christ. Tom Schlueter, as an apostolic leader of the region, was invited by Jay and John to lead the group through the Divorce Decree."

On page 440 of his book The Book of Acts: A Commentary (1994, Regal/Gospel Light), Wagner estimates the cash value of the "huge public book burning" described in the Book of Acts, at Ephesus, to have been US$ 4 million. "Quite a book burning!" gushes Wagner, who then recounts,

"A similar modern-day book-burning initiative in which the Word of the Lord grew mightily was the three-year evangelistic strategy implemented in Resistencia, Argentina, by Ed Silvoso's Harvest Evangelism organization not long ago. The evangelical community in Resistencia in those three years, and two more years following, grew some 500 percent-remarkable church growth in any nation! As part of the series of evangelistic rallies held at the end of the three-year period, a book-burning ceremony was held every evening, the first such activity I have been able to find on record in any part of Latin America.
    Silvoso describes the event as follows: "In anticipation of an Ephesus-type response, a 100-gallon drum was set up to the left of the platform for the new converts to dispose of satanic paraphernalia. As people came forward, they dumped all kinds of occult-related items into it, many of them wrapped in newspaper. Before praying for the people, gasoline was poured on the contents of the drum, a match was struck and every evil thing inside went up in flames. Many times, spontaneous deliverances occurred when a specific fetish was burned and the spell was broken." "

In his  book The Church In The Workplace: How God's People Can Transform Society (2006, Regal/Gospel Light), on page 40, Peter Wagner again identifies `Savanarola' [sic] as a model Christian reformer: "Let's look back to Florence, Italy, before the Protestant Reformation. Girolamo Savanarola [sic] was a reformer before his time. He was a precursor of things to come. He prayed. He prophesied. He preached. He had an apostolic anointing to influence large numbers of people."

Wagner then cites the same glowing account, of Florence's "transformation" under Savonarola, that he references in his work The Book of Acts. In a subsequent book, Apostles Today: Biblical Government For Biblical Power (2007, Regal/Gospel Light), Wagner identifies Savonarola [misspelled as 'Savanarola'], as having been an "apostle" (page 7).

In his book Hard-Core Idolatry - Facing the Facts, (1999, Wagner Institute For Practical Ministry) C. Peter Wagner describes the Resistencia, Argentina incident in greater detail, on pages 39-40, in a subsection titled "Burn The Idols!":

   Burn The Idols!
    Doris was preparing to travel to Argentina with Cindy Jacobs for the climactic evangelistic campaign. As she was reading scripture the morning she was to leave, the Holy Spirit told her that in Resistencia they must burn the idols, like the magicians did in Ephesus. Ed Silvoso, Cindy Jacob and the Resistencia pastors agreed.

Like Cindy Jacobs, Wagner terms the immolation of such demonized objects a "spiritual housecleaning", and provides a substantial list of these things which "might be bringing honor to the spirits of darkness":

"pictures, statues, Catholic saints, Books of Mormon, pictures of former lovers, pornographic material, fetishes, drugs, Ouija boards, zodiac charms, good luck symbols, crystals for healing, amulets, talismans, tarot cards, witch dolls, voodoo items, love potions, books of magic, totem poles, certain pieces of jewelry, objects of Freemasonry, horoscopes, gargoyles, native art, foreign souvenirs, and what have you."

Believers at the Resistencia evangelizing crusade were encouraged to gather up the evil things (even "expensive items" notes Wagner), from their homes, bring them to a rally wrapped in newspaper, to protect privacy, and cast them into a 55-gallon drum. As Wagner exults,

"The drum was heaped to overflowing! They poured gasoline on it and set it on fire. This was a major power encounter, because the witches and warlocks had surrounded the area and done their occult sacrifices, killing animals, burning incense, and sending the most powerful curses they could muster toward the evangelists. When the flames shot up, a woman right behind Doris screamed and manifested a demon, which Doris immediately cast out!"

New Apostolic Reformation leaders also symbolically target individuals. Peter Wagner, Ed Silvoso, and Cindy Jacobs each describe in their books the magical incineration of an animist leader named "San La Muerte", during their early 1990s evangelism crusades in the Argentine city of Resistencia.

According to Rene' Holvast, author of Spiritual Mapping in the United States and Argentina, 1989-2005: A Geography of Fear (2008, Brill) Resistencia, Argentina was the crucible for the development of many of the spiritual mapping/spiritual warfare ideas and practices peculiar  to Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation.

In a subsection of Hard-Core Idolatry titled "The Fall Of San La Muerte" (page 39), Wagner writes,

   "Many unbelievers came to Christ that night, and each one was instructed to go home, do their own spiritual housecleaning, and bring their objects to the bonfire the following night. As this went on, night after night, San La Muerte's power diminished...

        As if to headline how the aggressive onslaught against idolatry had succeeded, God permitted a spectacular event to occur one week before the evangelistic campaign. Resistencia's high priestess of San La Muerte had been smoking in her bed. She fell asleep, and her bed caught fire. The only things that were consumed by fire were the bed, the woman, and her idol of San La Muerte located in the next room! No wonder the city was ready to hear the word of God!"

In his bookThat None Shall Perish: How To Reach Entire Cities For Christ Through Prayer Evangelism (1994, Regal/Gospel Light), Ed Silvoso provides a similar version of the alleged incident:

"San La Muerte's priests declared war on the Church. However, God was in control, and He showed it. At the height of the conflict, San La Muerte's high priestess died in strange circumstances--the mattress she was sleeping on caught fire and burned her to death. Nothing else burned except her, the bed and the idol of San La Muerte in the room next door! The fear of God fell upon the city."

Silvoso's subsequent account of the mass-evangelizing campaign in Resistencia references Ephesus and describes the same mass-burning incident covered by Jacobs and Wagner:

In anticipation of an Ephesus-type response, a 100-gallon drum was set up to the left of the platform for the new converts to dispose of satanic paraphernalia. As people came forward, they dumped all kinds of occult-related items into it...  gasoline was poured on the contents of the drum, a match was struck and every evil thing inside went up in flames. Many times, spontaneous deliverances occurred when a specific fetish was burned and the spell was broken.

"Deliverance" is a common New Apostolic Reformation shorthand expression for "deliverance from a demon spirit." But, per Silvoso's account, the realm of Christian conquest was not merely in the spiritual realm but also in local politics:

"The mayor acknowledged Jesus Christ as his Savior. Later on, two of the candidates for governor prayed to receive Jesus into their hearts. Also, medical doctors, journalists, one senator, aldermen, politicians and lawyers responded. At one point, we found ourselves inside the Provincial Court of Appeals with seven appellate judges, five of whom confessed Christ as their personal Savior. The city had indeed heard the voice of God!"

Photos from his Global Harvest ministry in the past several years have shown Ed Silvoso meeting with Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni, Former President of the Philippines Gloria Arroyo, and Former Lt. Governor of Hawaii James "Duke" Aiona (who ran for governor and was defeated in the 2010 election).

Wagner's Texas apostle Alice Patterson, who stood alongside presidential candidate and Texas governor Rick Perry at The Response, calls Silvoso her "spiritual father." Ed Silvoso wrote the forward to Patterson's 2010 book Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: Ho