NAR’s (New Apostolic Reformation) videos, according to researcher Rachel Tabachnick, “demonstrate the taking control of communities and nations through large networks of ‘prayer warriors’ whose spiritual warfare is used to expel and destroy the demons that cause societal ills. Once the territorial demons, witches, and generational curses are removed, the ‘born-again’ Christians in the videos take control of society.” The movement’s notion of “spiritual warfare” has spread from the California suburbs to an East-Coast inner city, and has impacted policy decisions in the developing world. Movement operatives are well-connected enough to have testified before Congress and to have received millions of dollars in government abstinence-only sex-education grants, and bizarre enough to maintain that in its prototype communities, the movement has healed AIDS, purified polluted streams and even grown huge vegetables. Leaders in the NAR movement refer to themselves as “apostles.” In the days leading up to the historic vote on health-care reform in the Senate, Apostle Lou Engle led the Family Research Council’s “Prayercast” against health-care reform, a Webcast featuring Republican Senators Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Sam Brownback (Kans.), and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). Earlier in the year, Engle, who leads the group TheCall, prayed over Newt Gingrich at a Virginia event called Rediscovering God in America. In 2008, Engle, at an event he staged at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, advocated acts of Christian martyrdom to end abortion and same-sex marriage. This “apostle” claims LGBT people are possessed by demons. And Engle is not the only NAR apostle with political connections. Presidential campaign watchers got their first taste of the New Apostolic Reformation when it was revealed that Sarah Palin, while mayor of Wasilla, had been prayed over in a laying-on-of-hands by Rev. Thomas Muthee of Kenya, director of the NAR East Africa Spiritual Warfare Network, in a ceremony designed to protect Palin from witches and demons. Muthee, it turns out, is famous in his native land for driving out of town a woman he deemed a witch, a charge that had her neighbors calling for her stoning. Palin, according to Alaskan Apostle Mary Glazier, became part of her prayer network at the age of 24. Wasilla is no stranger to wandering NAR leaders. Last June, Apostle Lance Wallnau stopped through in the course of his world travels, promoting the movement’s Reclaiming the Seven Mountains of Culture campaign at Wasilla Alaska Assembly of God Church — the very church at which Muthee laid hands on Palin. (The “seven mountains” are the realms of business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion.) Other NAR luminaries dropping by Wasilla last year include leading international Apostles Naomi Dowdy and Dutch Sheets. Sarah Palin’s threat to our country is not due to her burgeoning intellect, oratory skills, or leadership ability. It is that she is malleable enough, and with enough natural charisma, to be a perfect figurehead for marginalized groups to use in an effort to further their agenda. Because of this chameleon like ability to reflect the philosophy’s of these disaffected Americans she has been supported by groups as politically disparate as the AIP , the Republican party, and the Teabaggers. However Palin’s connection to the Evangelical movement since the day she was baptized in Little Beaver Lake has been the one connection that has not been just for show or to further her ambitions. In fact it may be the catalyst behind Sarah’s political aspirations and desire to front a powerful political movement. While many see Sarah’s naked ambitions as fulfilling an emptiness inside of her, I think that she is actually completely convinced that she is a vessel through which God is working to bring this nation closer to Him. In other words Sarah believes she has already filled that emptiness with her faith, and is now willing to do anything to fulfill what she sees as her destiny. (Of course those of us carefully observing Palin realize that she is only barely holding things together and that the emptiness within is in danger of consuming her in the not too distant future.) Palin’s ability to attract these angry frustrated people makes her especially dangerous. She demonstrated that threat while on the campaign trail with McCain. She was able to plant a few conspiratorial seeds about Barack Obama back then that have matured into fully realized and well established conspiracy theories. Sarah’s wider influence has diminished greatly, but it has only hardened among a certain population. Every time anybody, myself included, dare to make a joke or reveal some flaw about Sarah Palin the attacks come fast and furious. She plays the victim and they rise to protect her, from the talking heads at Fox News, to political pundits like Pat Buchanan, to Palin supporting bloggers, they receive their marching orders and they charge into battle on her behalf. But while many of them (especially Fox News) believe they are using her to further their agenda, she is also using them to further hers.
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New Apostolic Reformation, Sarah Palin, and the Prayer Warriors who are waging a spiritual war on America.
