In response to Proposition 8, radical cleric Lou Engle asks followers to prepare for martyrdom...

[The Night Owl]

Scary noises coming from the religious right...

The Call: Spiritual Warfare in the Field of Martyrs
By MichaelWWilson

On November 1, 2008, I attended The Call - a rally organized by Lou Engle at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium - attended by 33,000 (according to organizer estimates) over a twelve hour period. The Call is a large-scale traveling revival meeting that purports to offer participants an edifying day of fasting and prayer away from the temptations of secular culture. Citing the state's "fog of Jezebel confusion"* Engle organized this incarnation of The Call to support Proposition 8 - a California ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.

My documentation of the event can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91Xxwum7Gc

As Max Blumenthal notes in a piece today on The Daily Beast, the event was bankrolled by prominent dominionists - including the notorious Christian Reconstructionist Harold F. Ahmanson. This connection illustrates the ways in which Christian right leaders from radically different theological perspectives routinely find common ground in the dominionist mandate to "purify the nation" through political means.

...

Toward the end of the night, the stakes were raised when an increasingly agitated Engle and a young campus leader from UC-San Diego called the crowd to ready themselves for martyrdom. The crowd seemed all too willing to comply.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/11/4/14143/7617

Discussion of video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=233904&mesg_id=233904

[mike_c]

1. as long as they self-martyr, I'll support them all the way....

"Here, let me reload for you, brother."

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Professor Mike! Nice to see you.

And I'm with you, except that they want to martyr the rest of us too at some level.

[mike_c]

4. good to see you too!

:hi:

Happy kicking-out-the-republicans day!

[Nikki Stone1]

6. Right back atcha!

Hoping for a full slate victory today. Then we need a Hazmat crew to go in and clean up after the neocons.

Or maybe an exorcist?

[Nikki Stone1]

2. That rally was disgusting

But it IS San Diego. Staples Center would never have gotten away with hosting something like that.

[NeedleCast]

5. If they didn't have secular enemies to attack

they'd be going after themselves, which is to say that all these little Fundie denominations would happily cannibalized each other if they didn't have gays and abortionists to attack.

[AnthemRoad]

7. ....

Unbelievable....well, in this world....I guess it shouldn't be.

~L

[greenman3610]

8. how is this different from Al Quaeda style brainwashing?

should we be expecting some kind of violence to
come out of this?

[AnthemRoad]

9. This type of brainwashing...

....is widely accepted? *shrugs*