teenage holy war
this blog is getting dangerously close to a magazine review, but i have just run across some very provocative articles lately. the most recent one is from ROLLING STONE and it chronicles a Christian youth movement called BattleCry. i was unfamiliar with it myself, but i did recognize the name of its youth crusades: Acquire the Fire. [RS article]
the author, admittedly unreligious, paints a pretty slanted picture i think of this BattleCry group, as evidenced in the lead-in to the story:
“Jesus is really, really [angry] — at Hollywood, at the media, even at most Christians. But BattleCry, the nation’s largest and most radical youth crusade, is recruiting a new generation of Christian soldiers to fight back. Inside the shock troops of the religious right.”
as jaded as this guy is, there is something that strikes a chord with me too. i guess i just wonder if this article is another example of the “liberal” media’s agenda to slander Christianity [i don't really buy into that conspiracy theory by the way] or is there something to his assertion that Christian groups like BattleCry have simply replaced a “secular” culture with one that is no less harmful: fundamentalism, evangelicalism, acquire the fire, promise keepers, etc, etc.
i am not judging these group, just asking the question: what impact is the church having on our culture and society?
something Jesus said to the religious people of His day has been haunting me: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted…. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” [Matthew 23:12, 15]
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i think people are generally turned off by die-hard activist groups no matter what they support or how noble their cause. I hate to use an example like this, but the minute Tom Cruise came out swinging for Scientology, people started attacking him and the religion because his fanaticism was both odd and a little scary. Americans [or maybe all people] don’t like to be told what to do or what to believe, and anytime a group is militant or aggressive our defenses go up. Of course this isn’t to say we shouldn’t stand up for our beliefs, but you get more bees with honey.
Hello!
I just discovered all the blogs here on the Chesnut Ridge website, so i decided to check some of them out. I clicked up yours, and was drawn to read this entry because of the BattleCry picture. I have actually attended 2 Acquire the Fire events myself, but it was before the BattleCry theme hit the scene. You know, it seems like a great thing .. and I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a bad thing. What I’ve personally experienced, is that “high” you can get from attending a huge event, I came back so pumped to live out what I was taught. But that wears off..fast. It took me a while to figure out, that its my everyday relationship with God and relational evangelism that matters. My only problem is these events can put a false image of a revolution in young peoples’ heads. One CAN go back thinking that it takes a huge emotional experience for someone’s life to be changed. But in most cases, I think that a revolution starts with changing one life at a time. I am not really a huge blog reader, but I could relate to the same questions you presented in this one. Have a great day!
thanks for the thoughts everyone. i guess what scares me is a spirituality that is not authentic, but rather based on purely a mob psychology, which can be dangerous in large or smaller group contexts. churches i think can fall into this as easily as a battleCRY type event.
Hi. Just logged onto your site and saw the little blurb regarding BattleCry. I have taken many teens/groups to Acquire the Fire events. I went to the first one in Pittsburgh (when Ron Luce did the majority of the ministering…and he had a mullet) and have been to as many as I could over the years. If you have never been to one I encourage to mark your calender for next year and attend. Probably my favorite time is the final worship service on Saturday night. The teens’ worship is something that EVERY christian leader…every christian adult, should experience.
I do agree that this is a “Mountain Top” experience for those who attend, but I do not have a problem with that. Many adults (including myself) go for weekend retreats for the same purpose. It is incumbent on the adult leaders to follow up on what God does in the hearts of these young men and women, and encourage -shoulder to shoulder- their walk with God on a daily basis. We as adult leaders are ultimately responsible for loving, caring for, and discipling the young people that God has placed in our lives.
Just a closing note; these young men and women aren’t the “future” church, they are the church “now”. Many times the quenching of what God sets to flame comes from the Home church when they get back. Embrace them. Love them. Encourage them. Let’s see what God does.
God Bless.