By
Discernment Group
February 13, 2009
We
must find a new understanding of our place in public life. We
affirm that to be Evangelical and to carry the name of Christ is
to seek to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace, and
well-being that are in the heart of the kingdom of God, to bring
these gifts into public life as a service to all, and to work
with all who share these ideals and care for the
common good. Citizens of
the City of God, we are resident aliens in the Earthly City.
Called by Jesus to be ‘in’ the world but ‘not of’ the world, we
are fully engaged in public affairs, but never completely
equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system,
class, tribe, or national identity.”
—The
Evangelical Manifesto
Be prepared
for an onslaught of global common ground and global civility
documents in the days to come. These carefully-worded manifestos
always cite pressing
crises, or a momentous challenge or a critical
opportunity that requires a clarification or unity statement
about where we stand on carefully delineated issues. This strategy
of issuing declarations achieves several key aims:1) it is always accompanied by an
orchestrated public relations and media campaign to bring about
public awareness;2) it redefines issues, often
creating or seizing upon a crisis;3) it posits a pre-manufactured
solution and calls for a new broad consensus to achieve
its aims; and4) it becomes a watershed event
historically, collecting runoff from all of the nearby slippery
slopes of compromise, so that thereafter the document is viewed
as the definitive statement.In the past few years we have witnessed
the rise of global ecumenical declarations that use the
all-important strategy of enlisting key leaders to serve as
signatories. Using prominent leaders puts the stamp of approval on
any potentially controversial activities. The leaders then speak at
well-sponsored forums, conferences, media tours, and publicity
events to promote the new mandates. These common ground
statements and corresponding activities have the effect of
neutralizing opposition, while at the same time shifting the
paradigm to address new realities that appear to be more
relevant. The idea behind all of this is to build momentum and
pound the drumbeat for change.These recent global common ground statements include
Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common
Word Between Us and You which called for peace and justice
between Muslims and Christians. Another example would be
Bonos
Make Poverty History campaign where citizens can sign on to
The ONE Declaration an historic pact for compassion and
justice. In May 2008 evangelical leaders issued
An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and
Public Commitment, a re-defining and re-positioning of
evangelical Christianity document that was designed to have
far-reaching repercussions.A closely-related strategy that is becoming more common is to enlist
a diverse array of religious leaders to sign onto open letters to
elected officials and/or the media advocating a position such as
helping
Gulf Coast hurricane victims or
We Stand With Rick Warren and Barack Obama on the AIDS issue.A plethora of common ground organizations and advocacy groups have
been spawned to promote the common ground for the common good
agenda. These are well-funded groups that cover the entire political
spectrum from Left to Right, and play out a
well-orchestrated dialectic dance. The ideology behind this,
however, is unified at its core this is raw, unadulterated
Communitarianism with all of its corresponding beliefs.The linkages between organizations, leaders and agendas are easy to
prove historically, and author Berit Kjos has done a commendable job
in this regard. She has spent several decades researching and
documenting the history, interconnections and strategies of the
global common ground movement, resulting in an encyclopedia
compilation of articles on the topic posted at her website
www.crossroad.to. Her impeccable research comprehensively links
together diverse elements of the evangelical world with some of the
most
radical political agendas in the past century. As she points
out, all of this common ground for the common good activity is
inextricably linked to the history and agenda of education reform.
This is because it is necessary to shape public attitudes through
such means as character education, values clarification, and global
education. All of this is connected to the worldview
movement to create a universal civic religion and global culture
of tolerance, reconciliation,
justice and civility.To get a sense of how vast this global civility movement is, and
how incredibly interlocked yet diverse, scan the following
articles and follow the links:
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/evangelical-manifesto.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/News/communitarianism.html
http://www.crossroad.to/glossary/communitarianism.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/Reinvent1.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/socialism.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/peace-un.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/TwistingTruth.html
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communitarian/third_way.htmA key element of these common ground
for the common good pronouncements and manifestos is the idea
of signing a covenant.
These open declarations with signatories often serve as a means to
cement commitment to the cause. Rick Warren, and his mentor Peter
Drucker, were masters at using this method:“Purpose-Driven churches have a
built-in mechanism upon which to eventually pressure or compel
their members to volunteer: the membership covenant that is to
be signed. This covenant-signing is connected to the idea of
‘human capital.’ One management expert has proposed that
‘organizational capital’ (a kind of human capital) is
increased when there is a formal ‘joining-up process,’ a type
of psychological contract in which one aligns their lifes
purpose with the organizations purpose. Which raises the
obvious question did the Purpose-Driven ‘covenant’ idea
actually originate in organizational capital theories? Has a
psycho-social concept been dressed up in biblical language to
make it palatable?“Interestingly, these church covenants are so vaguely worded and
undefined that new meanings could be assigned to the terminology
as time goes on.[1]
Jeffrey Sharlet in his groundbreaking work
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
(HarperCollins, 2008) noticed that the
secretive shadowy group known as the
Washington Fellowship utilizes covenants to cement the
doctrine of Dominionism among its cult adherents. He observed that
the biblical term covenant had been assigned new meaning, a
semantic deception tactic typical of all of these global change
documents:“They view themselves as the new
chosen and claim a Christian doctrine of covenantalism, meaning
covenants not only between God and humanity but at every level
of society, replacing the rule of law and its secular contracts.
Since these covenants are signed, as it were, in the Blood of
the Lamb, they are written in ink invisible to nonbelievers.”
(p. 44)
The Fellowship (otherwise known as
The Family) is one of the groups lurking just beneath the
surface, managing the
global consensus movement, as Sharlet so well documents in his
book. One of their chief tactics has been to enlist recruits to sign
onto documents such as Our Common Agreement as a Core Group a
publicly invisible but privately identifiable group of companions
that through a series of outer relationships built like concentric
rings can wield power from an inner circle (i.e., cells) of
initiates. (pp. 44-45) [2]The major thesis of Sharlets book is that the
Washington Fellowship plays all sides of the political and
religious spectrum in order to conduct a covert dialectic
transformation process towards an elite world religious (as well as
political and economic) order. The Jesus of the Fellowship is a
nebulous Jesus
plus nothing a formula into which one could plug any values.
It was a theology of total malleability . (p. 217) which suits the
needs of those building common ground in the world. Interestingly,
this nebulous Jesus isnt the weak-kneed, ineffective, effeminate
type that has so characterized
ecumenical movements of the past. In the context of the current
global cultural evolution (i.e.,
Dominionism), Sharlet describes him as the American Christ on
methamphetamine. (p. 290)The
Washington Fellowship sponsors an annual National Prayer
Breakfast that
serves a purpose far beyond
mere prayer. This is an event that attracts powerful political
leaders and
dignitaries who are associated with all sorts of
controversial causes that further a one world common ground
agenda. This is the tip of the iceberg of the murky underworld where
both the political Left and Right of all stripes converge, working
together on a common goal.It is therefore relevant that the
Fellowships most well-known personage,
Chuck Colson of Watergate born-again fame, is one of
Rick Warrens partners in of all things a worldview
curriculum that teaches such key issues as truth,
tolerance, terrorism, creationism vs. Darwinism, sin and
suffering, and the purpose of life. And Os Hillman, one of the marketplace
leaders of the
ultra-Dominionist
7 mountains (spheres)
movement, recently wrote a letter to his supporters (1/20/09)
promoting this past weekends 2009
Reclaim 7 Mountains conference in Atlanta and referencing his
connection with Chuck Colson:
I have just returned from Washington D.C. from a meeting hosted by
Chuck Colson and about 140 other leaders of Christian organizations
who have a desire to reclaim culture for Jesus Christ. We
collectively decided to join hands together to set our priority on
reclaiming the godly culture that has made this nation great.
Constance Cumbey, who broke the story about the New Age movement several decades ago,
has written a series of insightful columns onThe Fellowship, linking them to a more covert occult agenda. All
of this coming global civility is directly
connected to the Theosophists and they also have a
Jesus who isn’t going to be Mr. Nice Guy. See these article
links for some fascinating in-depth reading on this topic:
http://newswithviews.com/Cumbey/constance22.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cumbey/constance23.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cumbey/constance124.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cumbey/constance125.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cumbey/constance126.htm
Stay tuned for Part
3. . . .
The Truth:
“For there is nothing covered,
that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be
known.” (Luke 12:2)
Endnotes:
1.
The Pied Pipers of Purpose: Human
Capital Systems and Church Performance, p. 42.2. The author of this post saw one of these
concentric circle documents firsthand in the autumn of 1986 when
Pat Robertson abruptly shut down his Freedom Council operation
in order to run for president. A Robertson operative came through
the state of Iowa and handed out this plan to a handful of Christian
Right leaders as he described the next phases of Robertson’s plans,
including his ambition “after he lost the election” to set up what
would become the Christian Coalition.