A Holy War against Entertainment
Posted on April 11th, 2007 by catalyst into the Conferences categoryRolling Stone has an article on two Christian Conferences called Battle Cry and Acquire the Fire. These are events for Evangelical Teenagers who want to get fired-up and violent for Christ.
They're about to accept "the mark of a warrior," explains Ron Luce, commander in chief of BattleCry, the most furious youth crusade since young sinners in the hands of an angry God flogged themselves with shame in eighteenth-century New England.
The rhetoric of these conferences is a little different than most in that they tend to glorify violence. But after reading the article, I was like, this is no different than any of the youth conferences I attended as a teen in the 90's.
At Acquire the Fire, Luce tells the kids to make lists of secular pleasures they'll sacrifice for the cause. Hanneh starts with Bow Wow and Usher, bites her pen, and then decides to go big: "Music," she writes, then "Friends" — the nonfundamentalist ones — and "Party." This, she explains, is a polite way of saying "sex." Not that she's had any, or knows anyone her age who has, but she's learned from Luce that "the culture" wants to force it upon her at a young age. "The world," he tells her, is a forty-five-year-old pervert posing as another tween online.
I realize that documenting fundamentalist Christians is the new black in journalism. But I wish the journalists would focus less on the fundamentalism and more on the greed. Delve into how much it costs to go to these conferences, and where the money goes. I'm betting a lot of it goes to Ron Luce's pocket.
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April 11th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Wow. As I was reading page 2 of the excerpt, I thought to myself “how long before we see Christian teenage suicide bombers?
And then on page 3 was this:
Luce is a nutjob.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Greed? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
April 11th, 2007 at 8:00 am
The article online skips all the best parts of the actual article.
Ron Luce is crazy, but maybe after seeing the ticket prices I should say crazy like a fox.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I did attend the SF gig and must say Ron Luce pushes so much of his product its scary. He’s looking to recruit an army of young people to do a lot of his dirty work. Interns who basically end up setting up for these events and making tons of cold calls trying to rally up youth groups to attend these conferences, along with a big push for his missionary trips.
In regards to money, they held the SF conference at SBC Park–where the Giants play– and that has to cost a pretty penny to rent that place for a few days. Throw in a performance by POD and a few other groups, fireworks, and your looking at some serious dough. Ticket sales had to have brought in around a million dollars–attendance was around 20k-25k at $40 to $50 a pop.
It was this email that I received two weeks after the event that made me cringe:
CALLING ALL BATTLE-READY TEENS!
“The registration and merchandise sales do not even begin to cover the costs of these events. In fact, Teen Mania has invested so much money for this Battle Cry movement to create this momentum, that we have a great financial need. We need significant help to raise $3.5 million right now in order to keep moving forward. 150,000 of you will be impacted in the next 2 months by our perseverance today, and to reach YOUR GENERATION, we must have your financial help now.
If only half of the teens receiving this email would respond with a gift of $10 or $20 (the cost of a dinner or a movie), we can reach our goal of $3.5 million to fill this need! Every other time Teen Mania has faced a great need, it has been the young people who have led the way. Can I count on you to talk to everyone you know, to beg your parents, to plead with your pastor, in order to help us today? We can’t back down in reaching your friends with the love of Christ!”