Ron Luce is like Jesus Camp… only he didn’t shut down.
This won’t be the first time that I’ve looked at Ron Luce’s organizations and events thus making me spew my guts out all over because he literally makes me sick. However, as I divulge further into my new found past time of making atheist documentaries and attending every atheist/secularist/humanist event from London to Toronto and everything in between - I feel as though I may be able to articulate my dislike for Ron Luce a bit more, and expose a few more of their more recent terrifying attempts to get teenagers to “take back your generation”. (Well, it’s my generation too, and I don’t want to give it to Ron Luce.)
As a bit of a background to the organizations Ron Luce founded Teen Mania ministries in 1986. Since then this has flourished in a plethora of areas such as the very successful youth rallies Acquire The Fire which is now also a television program. There is also the more recent campaign of BattleCry which can only be appropriately compared to a Christian fascist movement. And last buy not least there is the Honor Academy, an unaccredited school in Texas offering a one year program in bible lessons and youth leading.
Maybe it was harsh of me to compare Battle Cry to a fascist movement. But check out the website. And lets look at a few quotes from it…
“A stealthy enemy has infiltrated our country and is preying upon the hearts and minds of 33 million American teens. Corporations, media conglomerates and purveyors of popular culture have spent billions to seduce and enslave our youth.”
“Operation Truth: to publicly let legislators know that Christians will not stand idly by while being bombarded with legislation that attacks the core values of believers.”
“This is war. And Jesus invites us to get into the action, telling us that the violent—the ‘forceful’ ones—will lay hold of the kingdom,”
“I will keep my eyes on the battle, submitting to Your code even when I don’t understand.”
“That is your youth pastor. He’s going to make you a SEAL for Christ.”
I’ll leave that… at that.
The Honor Academy is no better. It’s rules and regulations are set so that any sort of sexual urge is to be repressed. They can not watch R-Rated movies, listen to “secular”, music, use the internet alone, zero facial hair, date one another and it is a RULE that they must be finding their purpose in life.
Acquire the Fire is where most of my dislike sits. I can still remember walking into that hall with so many people. I was completely oblivious to what I was doing there. Before I knew it Ron Luce was convincing me that I was leading a life of sin. He was convincing me that my life without god in it was no longer worth living for. So I cried, and cried, and cried and gave myself to god. Crafted by false statistics embedding fear into the very depth of my soul I was to leave that building a warrior for the Lord. And if I didn’t leave as a warrior, well then I was as horrible as the worst scum on the side of the road.
More than just personal experience, the percentages that they use are completely false. They say that 89% of Americans believe truth is relative. Wrong. 4% of Christian youth believe in the bible. Way wrong. Only 4% of Christian adults use the bible in their everyday decision making. Wrong again. Christian Smith, a prof at Notre Dame studying American Evangelical practices states repeatedly that this percentages were inconsistent to his numbers.
I wish Secularism has this sort of following. Sure, we’ve got a couple camps, centeres, sobriety groups, support all across the world, TV shows, radio shows, forums, plenty of magazines… But we don’t have that voice. That loud, consuming voice. I don’t want to create a rally that eats people like Luce’s does, but I would want a rally where we could come together and make a bit more noise than what we are.
In the next few months I’ll be making an audio documentary on the social and community development projects that secular groups are doing. Following this we’ll be doing a video documentary. Soon there after we’ll be starting a television show. Amidst all these activities I hope to spawn an increasing amount of members aged 20 - 30 so that we have a long lasting group. I also hope to create a strong online network of supporters - hopefully all you reading with support our endeavors. I don’t want our organization to be like Luce’s. I just want it to be as big as Luce’s. There is no reason why that many young adults can commit their time and money to organizations like Luce’s, but CFI can’t get that many and get that big.
There is absolutely no reason what-so-ever that these emotionally tearing, brainwashing and flat out lying groups of people need to be the voice of “our generation”. I’d rather a voice of reason.
Kian,
it seems like God really did begin to touch your heart….while at the atf….for whatever reason you have pushed Him away and have deluded yourself with thinking there is no God….when all of creation is screaming that there is a mastermind Creator….i am not perfect…nor is our organisation, but we are trying to help people find Him in a very real way. Stop running and let Him catch you…..there is no Real Life outside of knowing Him.
Ron
Wow! The real Ron Luce?!…
God didn’t really touch my anything, Luce’s ability to manipulate emotions touched me. I pushed him away because of people like Luce who don’t encourage questioning or exploring your own life. I was told there was only ONE answer, and that can’t be right because there are hundreds of religions. I want the freedom to explore, and question, and diversify. That is not available in Luce’s definition of christianity.
How can you push a being of supreme omnipotence away? If God is the be-all and end-all of everything, the creator of everything we know, how can any one thing or consciousness offend him/her/it?
I for one support the family guy view of Gods role in the creation of the universe. More specifically this frame grab makes me smile at the thought.
OMFG. I can’t believe Ron Luce (or at least someone calling himself Ron Luce) commented on your blog.
My boyfriend and I used to watch Acquire the Fire for a laugh - until it started to really, really creep us out.
The stuff from the Battle Cry site is REALLY disturbing. The violent will lay hold of the kingdom. Hmm. Whatever happened to the meek inheriting the Earth? Ah, screw the meek! They aren’t warriors for Christ!
First of all, the Honor Academy is an internship, not an unaccredited school. I respect your opinion, but what’s wrong with promoting Christian morals? If I told you it was wrong to listen to secular music or if I said that it was wrong for you not to believe in a God, you would jump down my throat. So you shouldn’t have a problem with Christians getting together and willingly obey/agree with those rules and morals. The Honor Academy is big on accountability. There is nothing wrong with that. Those at the Academy don’t have a problem with looking at the internet with a person there. They’ve decided to take a year out of their lives and devote it to God. You shouldn’t have a problem with Christians being devoted to Christ, otherwise you’d have to have a problem with the majority of the world for believing in a higher power and deciding to worship it. As an example, you’ve made an effort as an atheist to share your beliefs on the internet. I have no problem with that, but I also think that you shouldn’t have a problem with an internship that isn’t pressing or taking away your beliefs. The mormon church here where I live isn’t a credited college either, nor have they supported me in going to college (i’m not mormon) and they have different beliefs than I do. Big deal. I don’t care. That’s their right to have that. We should get the same. Ron Luce is promoting abstinence which helps protect against STD’s, unwanted/teen pregnancies, abortions. . . What’s wrong with that. You should be happy. You said it’s your generation to, so what’s wrong with Ron Luce promoting morals that would help our generation. Just my thoughts. . .
i dont care if people go to it. i just don’t like it and think its one big huge joke. you don’t have to have no sex to remain free of stds or babies. It’s called safe sex.
I don’t need Ron Luce in my generation to promote morals. Morality is independant of religion.
I dont care where people go to worship. I support people and their religions. I just think things like the honour academy and acquire the fire are big brainwashing scams to make money.
I’ve worked with Global expeditions, which is through the honor academy and my brother is currently in the honor academy. My youth pastor and his wife both went and they’re awesome people. I agree that morality is SHOULD be independent of religion, but unfortunately in our country, it isn’t. If you don’t have a religion I’m not saying you are a bad person, but many without religion are losing morality because they believe morality is relative. (I said many not all) Not only that but I’ve been to 3 acquire the fires. They are AMAZING. I can honestly say that they aren’t money making scams. You’re right, you don’t need Ron Luce (who is an AMAZING guy, get to know him, don’t just judge him without ever meeting the guy) you don’t need the honor academy, or acquire the fire to promote morality, but that’s what they’re doing and you shouldn’t have a problem with that.
And contraceptives, methods for safe sex can fail up to 50% of the time. So safe sex in many cases isn’t safe sex. Remember the only safe sex is abstinence, which Ron Luce promotes and no one should throw a fit over that.
i have met him. i didn’t think it was all that great. i remember my first acquire the fire, i did have a good time. until I stepped back and realized what it was doing to me. it was playing with my emotions and then scrutnching my brain into thinking that so many of the things i did was “wrong”. There is nothing “wrong” with sex. There is nothing wrong with practicing safe sex especially with someone you care about. I’m not saying fuck your entire highschool, (well yo ucan if you want to) but safe sex is better than abstinence, for sure.
I am not religious. I am still moral. All of my non religious friends - are still moral. I have met many religious people who are not moral. (I have also met many non religious people who are not moral.) Religion has nothing to do with morality.
What did I say about my high school? Anyway, Acquire the Fires don’t play with your emotions. They state facts and present statistics that are influencing our generation in a negative way. You have your opinion about sex, but so do I and so does Ron Luce. That’s the problem is people get so annoyed with Christians expressing their beliefs but feel they have every right to express theirs. Of course you do. Again you have your opinion about sex, but I believe that God made sex and obviously knows how it’s supposed to work. Obviously sex can bring a lot of crap with, like the things I said before. (STDs, abortion, teen pregnancy) That’s why God meant for it to be used in marriage. Of course STDs aren’t protected just because someone is married, but if I gave my girlfriend an STD we could end up breaking up but if we were married it would be easier to deal with and take care of. If I was married I wouldn’t leave my wife when she got pregnant, like what happens many times in high school, and she wouldn’t get an abortion because sex is supposed to make babies and if we’re married, we’d expect that.
I think ATFs are amazing. They realize and so do I that there are tons of ways that sex violence drinking and drug use are being pushed at our generation. Ron Luce is helping protect our generation. You think there isn’t any thing wrong with sex, well, I respect your opinion. But there isn’t anything wrong with abstinence. You’re saying sex is okay, which can bring on all that crap, while Ron Luce is saying abstinence is better because you can avoid it.
It’s like drugs. I don’t know what you think about heroin, but some think it’s okay. Good for them. That’s their opinion. If they truly believe that, then whatever. But heroin can kill them, they can get an overdose, aids or other diseases from unsterilized needles. . . a whole bunch of crap. Well I can say to people, “Hey don’t do heroin.” And he could get mad at me, but I know and you know that if you aren’t doing heroin, then you don’t have to worry about all that crap.
Oh and what don’t you like about Ron Luce?
I recently researched Ron Luce’s rhetoric for a presentation on violent rhetoric in Christian ministry. The more I looked into is writing and speaking I became increasingly troubled with his call for violence.
This disturbs me. Both because of my understanding of the dangers of violent rhetoric and my Christian faith. Luce’s words are deceptive and wildly dangerous. He presents people in American culture as demonic and worthy of being killed. Even more frightening, he indicates that violence is the call of the Christian faith. I am severely troubled by this.
John Prine,”Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason for.”
Also, the claim from Tim that ATF’s don’t play with emotions is ridiculous. The fusion of loud music, extreme rhetoric, and visual fanfare creates an environment in which peoples emotions are all a buzz.
hey, i didnt go to acquire the fire, but my friend did and she is signed up to go to on a missions trip… i have also signed up for this trip and we are fundraising right now, tim- are you sure this isnt a scam? i want som ereassurance pleas,e thanks.
(global expeditions mission trip)