The Assemblies of God "Bible College" was teaching their ministry students to deceive and infiltrate churches for steeplejacking in 1981-82, when I used to hang out with them and was a thoroughly brainwashed member of that cult.  I actually thought they were doing the right thing at the time, and yes, we people in the pews also were encouraged to be deceitful in our dealings with "heathens and non-Christians" (anyone not AoG or a short list of other "accepted" dominionist churches).

The idea put forward then was that if people knew you were befriending them or being nice to them in order to try to convert them (instead for real interest in being friends or being helpful), their evil spirits would drive them away from you, so you had to deceive their evil spirits.  Your were not to have any contact with "non-Christians" (including members of mainstream churches) outside of proselytizing, or business, or situations where you didn't have a choice (like family).

The big thrust of the college's teaching was that they were to avoid being caught out and most especially, to never EVER let any other church know that they had been trained by their denomination to infiltrate and try to steeplejack churches (in their words, "lead the church back to Jesus" or something similar).  I was strictly charged never to reveal what I'd learned, and although I've long forgotten the names of the "professors" who were doing the teaching, they were as I remember highly placed in that ersatz school.  They even often held their training in secret, because as they told me, there were students attending there that they didn't trust.  Another point - they were being trained as teams that were multiple of two... because Jesus sent out His disciples two by two, and they were also received training for specific denominations - like Episcopal, Church of Christ, Baptist, and so on... what to say and more importantly what NOT to say.

I hung out with them for several months, and even took part in some of their "evangelizing" (proselytizing) efforts.  I think they had me earmarked for something, but their demands that I remain single all my life (some sort of prophesy or "God told us this was His plan for you") and give most of my income to the church got to be too much... and then when I was told I had to give up anything and everything I enjoyed if I wanted to "follow Jesus" (such as hunting, fishing, traveling... the very things that the speakers did all the time)... it was too much and I walked shortly afterward.

As to how effective they were... look how conservative most of the churches have gone, and their emphasis on forcing creationism in the schools - anti-abortion and no birth control - "Return the US to its Christian roots!" and so on.  Look at all of the inter and intra-church conflict and how they often get together only in the issues that have always been pushed by the dominionists.  It's pretty obvious that they made a lot of headway (including the complete steeplejacking of the Southern Baptists).


by ArchaeoBob on Tue Apr 10, 2012 at 11:47:30 AM EST
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Yeah, I have a bad habit of referencing him, but here it goes, "The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as a military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary." From "The Prevention of Literature" the best argument I've ever heard for intellectual freedom. This strikes me as similar not only in form, but in spirit, as this "commentator" seems to thing so long as he holds out long enough the world will somehow become better.

by Hirador on Fri Apr 13, 2012 at 11:48:36 PM EST
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