The Battle Cry Campaign was an organizing initiative of a now-defunct Christian parachurch organization known as Teen Mania Ministries. This initiative, started in 2005 and headed by Teen Mania founder Ron Luce, had an evangelical Christian orientation; it primarily sought to influence American and Canadian social and political culture. Major backers included prominent evangelical leaders Joyce Meyer, Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, Josh McDowell, and Jack Hayford.
Purpose and goals
The basic purpose of the Battle Cry Campaign, as described in its promotional materials and events, was to ensure that Christianity survived in America by redefining society: (The recitation of the "Teenage Bill of Rights" during this program included the lines "It is necessary for us as teens to redefine our society" and "We refuse to be led by those who are morally bankrupt.") "Christianity in America won't survive another decade... unless we do something now."Teen Mania Ministries advertisement for "Wake Up Call: BattleCry Leadership Summit" in Group Magazine, September/October 2006 issue, inserted between pages 50 and 51.
"Our nation is at a crossroads. The path America is currently headed towards is a future where Christianity may not survive."
"You are invited... to join in an effort to redirect the way America is headed.
The urgency of this "Wake Up Call" was based on the assertion that then-current trends among teenagers would result in an inevitable decline in the number of "Bible-based believers:"
"The evidence shows that if current evangelism trends prevail, only 4 percent of them [American teenagers] will stand firm for Jesus by the time they become the decision makers of our nation."
The fundamental goal of the campaign was the recruitment of 100,000 churches to implement a multifaceted campaign to promote youth commitment and involvement in church programs.
"The goal is 100,000 churches fully engaged in reaching this generation by doubling and discipling their youth group each year for the next 5 years."
Other notable aspects of the Battle Cry Campaign involved other church and political leaders as "BattleCry Partners," the then-existing arena events and other programs offered by Teen Mania Ministries, the website, and a "legislative strategy engaging lawmakers to protect our teens."
Major tenets
The Battle Cry Campaign maintained that "for the first time ever," "sexualized culture," "point and click pornography," and young people being "saturated with media influence" spelled doom for Christianity in America. It also cited gay marriage and other "culture war" issues as matters of current and future concern:
"Our current society with 35% baby boomers as bible-based believers: increasingly perverted TV, film, music and video games, proliferation of Internet pornography, rise of activist government officials promoting gay marriage, attempts to remove the Ten Commandments from public buildings and attempts to remove God from the Pledge of Allegiance." "What does a nation with 4% evangelical Christians look like? Netherlands legalized euthanasia, Nudity in newspapers in England, Scotland's consenting age is 14 years old, Pastor arrested for preaching biblical perspective on homosexuality."
The campaign focused on corporations and media outlets for targeting young people with advertising and programming depicting content often labeled objectionable by evangelical leaders: "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." "This generation views 16 to 17 hours of television each week and sees on average 14,000 sexual scenes and references each year. That's more than 38 references every day." "This generation spends three hours a day online and is the first to grow up with point-and-click pornography. Almost 90 percent of teens have viewed pornography online at one of the 300,000 adult websites, most while doing homework." "More than 25 percent of teen-targeted radio segments contain sexual content; 42 percent of the top selling CDs contain sexual content"
When interviewed at a Battle Cry event in 2007, Ron Luce condemned "purveyors of popular culture" as "the enemy," who according to Luce are "terrorists, virtue terrorists, that are destroying our kids... they're raping virgin teenage America on the sidewalk, and everybody's walking by and acting like everything's OK. And it's just not OK." Battle Cry materials contain charges that a "sexualized culture" is the product of "media people" who are the "virtue terrorists" responsible for sexual content, naming examples such as "MTV, VH1, Desperate Housewives, and movies like ."
Other encouraged tenets included submission to certain kinds of authority:
"We will respect the authorities placed in our lives, even though some may not live as honorably as they should." "We refuse to be led by those who are morally bankrupt." Extending from Biblical analogies and characters used as role models, the campaign used narratives, metaphor and scripted staged presentations including images of weapons, pervasive use of a red pennant, and terms from a war lexicon such as God's Army, enemy and battle. It used current and former members of the U.S. armed forces prominently in the Battle Cry stadium events, encouraging young people to become "the warriors in this battle." In "Battle Cry for a Generation," a book released at the start of the campaign, Ron Luce wrote, "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." At a Cleveland Acquire the Fire event, he said, "The devil hates us, and we gotta be ready to fight and not be these passive little lukewarm, namby-pamby, kum-ba-yah, thumb-sucking babies that call themselves Christians. Jesus? He got mad! ... I want an attacking church!"
Programs, activities and methods
Mass events in stadiums and arenas. Battle Cry stadium event locations in 2006 included San Francisco at AT&T Park, Detroit at Ford Field, and Philadelphia at Wachovia Spectrum arena. In 2007, the Battle Cry event returned to San Francisco in March, and to Detroit in April. A third event, originally scheduled for the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, was held at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Virginia, in May 2007. The 2008 events, titled BattleCry Recreate, were held in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Dallas, Texas, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in February and March.
Pre-event rallies at places symbolic of governmental power. These smaller rallies in 2006, each with a few hundred participants, included San Francisco City Hall, Detroit City Hall, and Independence Visitor Center, in the area of historic sites associated with the American Revolution in Philadelphia. In following years, rallies were held again at San Francisco City Hall in March 2007 and in Times Square on February 8, 2008.
Battle Cry Leadership Summits. Advertised as the "Wake Up Call," these meetings, featuring Ron Luce and a guest speaker, were scheduled for 44 cities in the United States and Canada through the fall of 2006. Scheduled guest speakers in that tour included Blaine Bartel (15 cities), Ted Haggard (10 cities), Tommy Barnett (7 cities), Jack Hayford, Jerry Falwell and Wellington Boone. Materials distributed at these meetings presented the Battle Cry Campaign plan, recruited churches and individuals to the campaign, and promoted other Teen Mania Ministries programs.
Lobbying and gatherings intended to influence legislation and governmental policy. The initial legislative strategy of the Battle Cry Campaign was "to inform lawmakers of the plight of this generation and lobby them to pass legislation that protects our teens from the dangers they face while online and from advertising and other electronic media." Operation Truth, a rally co-sponsored by Battle Cry and the Christian Action Alliance, was announced for August 6, 2006, at the California State Capitol. One of the announced objectives of this event was "to publicly let legislators know that Christians will not stand idly by while being bombarded with legislation that attacks the core values of believers." Examples of the legislation that motivated the organizers to protest, according to the flyer announcing the rally, included Senate Bill 1437 and Assembly Bill 606 of the 2005–2006 legislative session. These bills were intended to prohibit discrimination in California public schools on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, and to prohibit school activities and instructional content that reflects adversely on persons on the basis of their sexual orientation. Joel Johnson, who was then a frequent co-host of Teen Mania's Acquire the Fire arena events, had been announced as an Operation Truth speaker. (Similar bills were eventually signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007.) Letter to presidential candidates. In a letter to U.S. presidential candidates released to the press on February 1, 2008, Ron Luce invited candidates to participate in or to address the pre-event rally in Times Square on February 8. The letter asked that candidates consider the priorities of "Teen Mania teens," that "they are looking to you to carry their priorities forward to Washington and the White House." Enclosed with the letter was a list of "Top 8 Teen Concerns in '08", which through the posing of eight leading questions, proposes governmental action against media content, abortion and sex education. Rally in support of California Proposition 8. Ron Luce was one of the leaders of a youth rally, The Fine Line, held in support of California Proposition 8 on October 1, 2008, at Rock Church in San Diego. Proposition 8 is an initiative that would constitutionally prohibit same-sex marriage in California. Luce presented the "8 for 8" action plan at the conclusion of the event. Message encouraging support of California Proposition 8. On October 30, 2008, Teen Mania distributed an e-mail message to supporters reminding readers of the Battle Cry rallies in San Francisco, "when a culture war was stirred up right there on the street in front of City Hall," casting those Battle Cry and similar events as the reason why "important issues are coming to the forefront and being decided right now." The featured battle "still being fought at the highest levels of California's government" centered on the definition of marriage contained in Proposition 8. The message included this quote from San Diego pastor Jim Garlow: "The definition of marriage is one of these 'tipping points.' No single social issue has threatened to forever muzzle Bible believing Christians like this contest. One person has astutely observed that 'we cannot win the culture war merely on Prop 8, but we can lose it on Prop 8.'" Readers were asked "to continue to get involved however possible to protect the Biblical view of marriage in America" and were directed to , a website that is part of the youth outreach of the "Yes on 8" campaign. The e-mail was signed by Kevin Benson, "Director of the BattleCry Campaign."Benson, Kevin. "The tipping point for marriage in California and the US." Teen Mania Ministries mailing list, October 30, 2008. Battle Cry 33 affiliated partner churches. As of December 2006, 1077 churches and ministries were listed on the website as partner churches of the Battle Cry Campaign. "33" refers to 33 million American teens.