"Spiritual Warriors" Plan Takeover of Society

Ever heard of the New Apostolic Movement? I hadn't either until they came up in connection with Sarah Palin, but they are apparently growing fast, especially in places like Brazil. This rather rambling post on DailyKos touches their philosophy and ambitions, including:

• Infiltrating business and finance, schools and education, media and entertainment and politics and government.
• "Plundering" the wealth of their enemies as "God has declared through His prophets that the wealth of the wicked will be released to the Kingdom of God."
• Transforming society "by mapping strongholds of demons, witches and 'spirits of witchcraft', and through driving those out through 'spiritual warfare'. The result will be the almost complete cessation of crime and addiction, almost 100% Christian church membership, the growth of farm vegetables to enormous size, and a miraculous reversal of environmental degradation.

I first heard about "spiritual warfare" and "prayer warriors" on an old episode of This American Life, featuring members of Ted Haggard's New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Pastor Ted had

put in place a project to pray in front of the home of every person in the city, systematically, block by block and house by house. He's also helped organize a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year 'prayer shield' over the city; all-night prayer vigils; and more.

This reminds me a sign in front of a Christian fraternity or sorority house in Minneapolis: "Jesus is Lord of the University of Minnesota". The implication is that Jesus reigns over a certain territory, whether the people in that territory are Christians or not. One can guess who are Jesus' deputies in the administration of his reign.

This movement has an ambition to conquer territory and control sectors of society, as opposed to/in addition to winning hearts for God. It combines the tactics of a modern revolutionary political movement with a belief system that is Medieval in its focus on the supernatural. The more traditional posture of evangelicalism is to believe that the inherent fallen nature of humankind and this world means that the truly righteous can never achieve worldly power. This movement combines a total alienation from society with a apocalyptic expectation of total revolution more reminiscent of Marxism-Leninism or Nazism. Something to keep an eye on.