When I received email alerts yesterday from Wallbuilders, Renewing American Leadership, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition announcing that their respective leaders - David Barton, Jim Garlow, and Ralph Reed - were all going to appear on Glenn Beck last night, I knew something remarkable was going on.
As it turned out, these men with also joined by several other Religious Right leaders, including NOM's Robert George and John Hagee (John Hagee!?):
The discussion went pretty much as you would expect it would when a bunch of Religious Right leaders who are convinced that America was, is, and ought to always be a Christian nation team up with a far-right conspiracy nut ... so it is not really worth covering.
Instead, I want to use this to further explore something I mentioned last week in my "The Religious Right and Six Degrees of Dominionism" post: though not every person who shares a stage with a controversial figure can be said to share that figure's views, those who either invite such figures to participate in their events or else themselves agree to appear at events hosted by such figures are offering, on some level, their validation of such views.
In the case of last night's Beck program, it would be unfair to say that Robert George shares the radical views of John Hagee just because they shared the stage; but it is fair to say that Beck does, at least in part, or else he would never have invited Hagee on to participate in this panel. By the same token, by appearing on Beck's program, George is signaling that he is entirely comfortable using that venue as an outlet through which he is eager to share his own views with an audience who shares Beck's views.
Which brings me to my main point: two of the men featured on Beck's program last night also appeared at Convergence 09:
Perhaps you recall our posts about Convergence 2010, where Janet Porter prayed for control over the media and Cindy Jacobs discussed her personal interactions with Jesus and conducted faith healings and Harry Jackson was declared to be a "modern day Martin Luther King" and Jim Garlow explained how he brought in Lou Engle to lead spiritual warriors in fasting and prayer to pass Proposition 8.
Well, Convergence 09 also featured Jacobs, Jackson, and Garlow plus several other prophetic intercessors like Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce, and Seven Mountains leader Lance Wallnau ... as well as David Barton.
According to the schedule, Barton spoke for three hours, but unfortunately I have not been able to find any video of his speech ... but he clearly was there:
And I did manage to track down this email announcement from Generals International announcing the conference - note especially the militant language and central role that spiritual warfare was to play in the event:
Mike and I would like to invite you to gather together with us and intercessors from across the world to raise up a prayer army to both awaken and reform this nation.
One does not have to be prophetic to realize that we are at one of the most serious junctures of history our nation has ever known. Some are even suggesting that the United States as it stands is in the balance. Critical times require us as intercessors and believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to rally for troop training. We need a new generation of Generals to arise and war for the soul of our nation!
With this in mind, we know that we cannot pray the way we have in the past season. We need new prayers for a new day. Every army has to come aside for training and equipping. They need to learn how to work with spiritual intelligence and use their weapons of warfare.
We have often said that if we want to see what we have never seen, we have to do what we have never done. This also means that if we want to see this nation not lose her destiny, then we are going to have to fight to ensure that we become the city set on a hill our forebearers fought for!
With this passion in our hearts, we are calling you to come and prepare for battle in what we are calling Convergence ‘09: Raise Up An Army! We have brought together one of the finest teams of equippers we could find to help us mobilize to change the nation, including David Barton, Dutch Sheets, Lance Wallnau, Chuck Pierce, Harry Jackson, Jim Garlow, Cheryl Sacks, Jim Hennesy, Klaus Kuehn, Mike Jacobs and Cindy Jacobs.
Again, I have been uable to find any of the video from the conference, but I did find these "action shots" of Jacobs performing some sort of faith healing on stage:
Now, I will admit that I have been following Barton's work closely for quite some time now and have never heard him talk about Dominionism or the Seven Mountains Mandate. But I also had no idea that he associated with Dominionists like Jacobs and company either.
Barton is currently traveling the East Coast with Jim Garlow on their Next Great Awakening Tour and Garlow clearly has deep ties to Jacobs and Engle and Seven Mountains theology.
As I have said, there is a danger in playing "six degrees" with some of these connections ... but it is also completely fair to point out these connections, especially since they seem to be playing a bigger and bigger role within the "mainstream" of the Religious Right as a movement.
