Back in August, NPR's "Fresh Air" dedicated a program to discussing the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation that featured an informative interview with Talk To Action's Rachel Tabachnick.
Today, "Fresh Air" is following up that program with another episode dedicated to understanding NAR, but this time featuring none other than C. Peter Wagner himself.
The audio from the program has not been posted yet, but the website has posted transcript excerpts in which Wagner seeks to explain his "sex with demons" statement and to downplay his past talk of taking dominion:
"In terms of taking dominion, we don't — we wouldn't want to - we use the word dominion, but we wouldn't want to say that we have dominion as if we're the owners or we're the rulers of, let's say, the arts and entertainment mountain. What we strive to do and our goal is to have people in the arts and entertainment mountain who are committed to the kingdom of God so therefore, we use the adjective there — kingdom-minded believers — and our goal is to try to have as many kingdom-minded believers in positions of influence in the arts and entertainment mountain as possible. And the reason for that is, to help bring the blessings of heaven to all those in the arts and entertainment mountain."
...
"We believe in working with any - with whatever political system there is. In America, it's democracy and working with the administrative, judicial and legislative branches of the government, the way they are but to have as many kingdom-minded people in influence in each one of these branches of government as possible so that the blessings of the kingdom will come."
Of course, it is only now that he is getting media attention that Wagner has started saying that they don't want to take dominion, so it is a little hard to buy this defense given that he wrote an entire book called "Dominion!" and declared a few years ago that they were to "do whatever is necessary" to take it.
Wagner was also asked about the upcoming "40 Days of Light Of Light Over DC" effort, which he supports ... though he is worried that organizers are making it look like they are out to establish a theocracy:
"I must say that both John Benefiel and Cindy Jacobs are very close to me. They're both aligned apostolically with me so I am part of what they do and they're part of what I do. I have not been part of the development of these 40 Days Over D.C., but because I'm so close to Cindy and John, I have given my tacit affirmation to what they're doing and I still do that. I happen to know the artist who drew that picture and I'm not sure that that might not be interpreted as a theocracy. ... I think that was probably a mistake. I think that the message that the artist intended to convey was that the kingdom-minded people would have a lot of influence in the Capitol, but I don't believe our Capitol ever wants a cross on top of it because that would be a sign of a theocracy."
Here is the image in question - Gee, how could anyone ever misinterpret this as an effort to establish a theocracy?
