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Short Tales
  • 2 days ago
Shiny Happy People Season 2 Episode 2
Transcript
00:00look at this honor ring now i think about how excited i was when i was being told that i was
00:10going to get a piece of honor and i remember thinking this is probably going to be the best
00:18decision that i've made in my life we had a saying it was the ring the line the plan
00:25so this is the ring and the line was the the individuals that were in this group
00:32and the plan which is to go out into the world and make disciples and lead a generation to christ
00:42but i actually wore it for like 10 years because it really did mean something significant to me
00:48it's like my entire life is just like encapsulated in this little thing here it is my precious
00:55right after you go to the honor academy you receive your honor ring when you receive your
01:05honor ring you pledge loyalty for life i received the privilege of wearing the ring the ring
01:12i took the pledge one of the commitments was i will never portray or allow team mania to be
01:28portrayed in a negative light uh past present or future which i have definitely violated
01:36the honor academy a one-year internship for committed young adults who are driven to find their purpose
02:03and make a difference with their lives what this means is taking young people who are serious about
02:08god and helping them to grow up as leaders then the spark that they've received their passion for
02:14god their heart for the world doesn't just stay with them but it ends up affecting their whole
02:17generation take a year of your life and major in god and i will never forget that as long as i live
02:22that was a phrase that hooked me i really started to just learn who i was here at the honor academy
02:29like who i'm meant to be you're a piece of coal in that fire just being kindled consistently i wanted
02:35to go somewhere before college um just just get grounded in my faith that's when my journey started
02:47the honor academy is the engine of team mania every intern who worked for team mania had to go to the
02:54honor academy here we're going to utterly transform you into this kind of soldier in this army of god
03:03when we come to christ it's like joining a new family you're joining a new kingdom jesus talked
03:08about you know you're a warrior for christ ron would use this phrase the mark of the warrior
03:13going to the honor academy was considered the ultimate mark of a warrior it was a mark of being chosen
03:22you are the elite an army of leaders a generation of world changers there's always the overarching idea
03:33that we're in a war between good and evil so we were always told that we're going to take the victory
03:39over the line we're going to take christianity to where it hasn't been before you know media politics
03:44education and so it just seemed like the natural next step to me to go to the honor academy
03:50going to a place where everybody else was like me and was just as obsessed with being bold for jesus
03:57and being on fire and changing the world okay i'm a high achiever let's do it let's go baby
04:03you're gonna have classes in how you become a leader classes in how you influence america how you
04:11influence the world you would also do huge dynamic spiritual training experiences and i was like that's
04:19awesome there was just something amy that said that i should go i'm sure i said like yes god told me i
04:27should i'm sure that's what i said are you gonna argue with god i had a full scholarship to a community
04:36college but i dropped out and joined teen mania with the internship i was driven i took it seriously
04:45you know i argued for my parents i want to go to team mania i want to go to the internship
04:51i want to commit my life i was like that sounds like an adventure
05:02team mania was located in garden valley texas very remote location you went by a guard station where a
05:11teenager would wave you in the dorms were all named for martyrs like elliott hall named for
05:19jim elliott a modern day martyr you're with all of these people from all over the country
05:28the relationships that you form in that kind of an environment are so intense and so intimate and
05:34there's such a feeling of belonging i was an artsy gothy looking teen i got very lucky to make a lot of
05:43great friends phil bolts carry some i know that the leaders called us the rat pack and it was a really
05:55fun group we were very sincere kids we were believers but we knew something was weird
06:01when we first got there we have to purge the outside world those were the nights where you got
06:09the big bonfire and people are throwing their cds into the fire you brought twilight in with you that
06:14was getting thrown out as soon as you arrived ron very much emphasized that your parents will not
06:21understand this they're not going to understand your passion god is the one you have to truly respect
06:27when i went to the honor academy i was writing for rolling stone magazine the long time story of
06:35rolling stone is what are the kids into but also always looking at suspicion with like i was trying
06:41to fool the kids welcome all of you guys who just got here congratulations you made it you are here in
06:48the honor academy obviously ron was really a big deal he was the wrong loose right we all wanted
06:58to be there because of ron coming to the honor academy yes i am but once we got there he wasn't
07:05coming down to slum with us sometimes you'd hear a motorcycle and be like oh there comes ron
07:10ron was the president but dave haas as executive director was the man in charge on campus dave was
07:21ron's right-hand man ron cast the vision and dave is the one that carried it out who made me the
07:27director of the honor academy yes god did i understand that excellent well done but god used
07:33who to put me in this position ron loose dave was an intern in the early days and then he was hired
07:41on by ron loose to run the internship he had a very authoritative presence dave was like the very cool
07:52older brother that everybody wanted to impress exactly right seats he would say things like when
07:59i was at school my friends would run we would run from everywhere we went to save time so my friends
08:07and i started running we would go from the dorm to the cafeteria let's run we're gonna run as fast as
08:12we can big jordan peterson vibes he was supposed to be the spiritual advisor
08:20he loved the movie braveheart a lot of comparing spiritual warfare to braveheart i think he had a
08:26braveheart sword in his office we need to be remembering the fact that we are people of honor
08:33with dave haas everything was army oriented you should know better by now essentially we were like
08:41the marines for teen christ and you have to be regimented and you have to listen to the hierarchy
08:47i mean it makes sense because we are here to change the world
08:51every morning we would wake up at four o'clock we would do jumping jacks we would work out until we
09:01threw up what they would say when we were doing our morning exercises was you beat your body and
09:07you make it your slave how many got to beat your body a little bit make it your slave as a black man
09:13and you have a campus full of white people coming up to me going beat your body make it your slave
09:18not appropriate we'd all get back have two minutes to shower before we would you know get dressed
09:22and go eat and start our job for the day what we're told about job assignments was that you were being
09:31observed and then they were very seriously praying about where you should go in the ministry where god
09:37would most be able to use you effectively but what i realized way after the fact was that the divine
09:44inspiration for where you end up is a lot more like a draft leaders sit in a room and they say i
09:52want so and so i want this person if you were placed an exec in ron's purview that was the very best
10:02placement you could hope for i was placed as one of ron luce's executive assistants which is not even
10:09something i had on my radar as a possibility as an 18 year old like that's pretty cool my job was a
10:16dancer and an actor for the ministry team now what the ministry team does is they travel around to the
10:22choir the fires and they put on the performances i was on the ministry team as well we were the ones
10:29that were running almost everything that you saw at these events and i ended up being the worship leader
10:34for the choir the fire my first show that i ever sang was like in front of 10 000 people
10:44but i had friends that did not like their job
10:52teen mania was very much of its name every role that you can think of was being filled by teenagers
10:59there were almost a thousand interns on campus at any given time this was a huge operation you could
11:06be put on grounds crew janitorial crew cafeteria crew after you've been told you're going to go out
11:13there and make this difference for christ you're going to go make tater tots for a year these kids
11:20were like god called me to the internship and now i have to scrub the toilet there was definitely a
11:25hierarchy at play the international operations that's where i wanted to be that's where trips
11:30were planned that's where global work was worked out and there was one place i didn't want to be
11:36that was the one in the whole ministry i was like you want me to mow lawns dig holes i'll do just don't
11:42don't put me on this one task so i thought i will trust god god is going to take care of me in this
11:49and i was assigned to the call center the one place i didn't want to be i was a teenage telemarketer
11:59for jesus they were selling blocks of tickets to acquire the fire or harassing people to go on
12:08missions that's where the bulk of us worked day to day you're a telemarketer that was paying them
12:14to telemarket oh yeah i forgot about that we paid to be there nobody paid us to do this work
12:24as an intern we all paid a monthly sum i would raise funds to attend it was really expensive
12:34at the end of acquire the fire you would fill out a card with all of your information
12:39all in the name of keeping up with you and making sure you were getting connected with the right
12:43resources we would have entire pallets full of cards they became our lead cards hello hey this
12:53is morgan calling from acquire the fire how are you today hey morgan i'm doing really good i worked a
12:59shift i would call youth pastors during the day b shift would call kids getting home from school to
13:04be like come on the trip come on the trip come on the trip and it's like there's a bell that you ring
13:08when you get a commit for a summer trip it was can i get 120 or so calls a day working in the call
13:17center was tallying how many calls you made and how many commits you made i was calling synagogues don't
13:26you want to come to this evangelical youth conference you should really should come and they're like we're
13:30jews like you've misunderstood and but we're like let's get them call numbers up i wasn't bad at it i
13:39was good at sales yeah but um it was kind of soul killing i was in this to learn how to do better
13:48international missions but they wanted me to move those fingers to dial they wanted me to get those
13:56commits meanwhile uh i worked my entire year to get off that team started going to be like hey a
14:05mistake's been made no no you need to be faithful with little you need to not complain you need to
14:10not be bitter you might say i didn't want this task i wanted that task well you're not gonna ever get
14:14that task until you're faithful with this task you'd hear the phrase die to self dying to self is
14:22putting yourself last shut down any selfishness any thoughts of your own self your own needs don't
14:29listen to your body your mind your life means nothing compared to the purpose
14:38and they're like that's what you don't want to do that's what god wants you to do
14:4331 hours was the official amount of time they're supposed to work
14:46but many were working 80 100 hours because you wanted to show how intense for god you were
14:54and i almost wish it was just a grift because that's pretty easy to undo but this was more than
15:00that this was meant to transform them don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey
15:07him as slaves you're a slave to the one whom you obey whether you're a slave to sin which leads to death
15:13or to obedience which leads to righteousness ron taught the weekly character development class
15:23he was very good with words very good with framing things in a way that made you go
15:28oh yeah you're right without you getting a chance to think about it jesus learned to be obedient he
15:33wasn't naturally obedient they might call it growth or they might call it character development but it
15:39was the same lesson plan every class obedience well what's character development about obedience well
15:44how do you grow obedience when you go to honor academy you commit to this set of rules
15:53they are all designed to separate you from all the pieces that made you you
16:00that's what we're experiencing there a lot of rules were based on purity culture
16:05i remember in high school being told things like oh you're the hot one she's the marriable one
16:12right things like that that really messed with my brain at the honor academy i wanted to reinvent myself
16:20during your year at the honor academy you're not allowed to date anyone
16:24and if you were in a relationship when you got there you needed to break that off immediately which i did
16:30it purity culture was really big and at the honor academy we subscribed to a strict version of joshua
16:41harris's book i kissed dating goodbye he's a christian activist and the author of i kissed dating
16:49goodbye joshua harris joshua harris jumped onto the scene and took purity culture to a more extreme
16:59level it's not just about saving sex and if the point is is that a lot of us get into really i did
17:05this i mean i'm writing the book from the mistakes that i've made in the past that we get emotionally
17:09involved we lead someone on and then we break it off and we get into a pattern in our lives of doing
17:15that for the rest of our lives and that's a right but wait a minute but look bill i mean you kind of
17:20say that and yet the picture you throw in your books kind of a pimp photograph
17:29i was like oh he's hot like he's so cute and all of us had a crush on him
17:36oh how the heartthrob has fallen i'm just now an old bald you know guy so i'll take the past compliment
17:44for sure in my book i was like we shouldn't date we should save ourselves and you should prioritize
17:52a godly marriage basically your thesis is the best way to find the person of your dreams is to stop
17:57dating right teen mania really embraced the the message of i kiss dating bye and it became the purity
18:06culture handbook at teen mania i bought it i read it i followed it i believed in it a hundred percent
18:14in the past i have kissed many different girls and you know the reason that i so regret that today
18:22is because in each of those relationships i was kissing someone else's future wife
18:31the definition of purity became more and more extreme even to the point of your thoughts and
18:40your emotions like you not only need to keep your body pure but you need to keep your mind pure what
18:46are you thinking about everyone was assigned an accountability partner we would have to tell
18:54accountability partner every simple thought we had anytime we had broken the rules we
19:01we're self-enforcers we policed each other we were encouraged to confront each other they gave us
19:07lessons there was a whole session it was the system of control positive reinforcement and reward for
19:13telling your peers if they were doing something wrong i got confronted one time for singing too good
19:19he told me that it was too distracting and it was like leading people away from worship
19:23if you did something wrong but then you immediately went to somebody and said i did something wrong
19:30they would in theory be more lenient on you they called it running for forgiveness
19:37during winter break i did something that a lot of teenagers did i watched a couple minutes of
19:44scrambled porn on hbo and in my mind i'm going i shouldn't have done that i shouldn't have done that
19:50well i'm not going to do it again and the guilt the hot coal of guilt is just burning down into my stomach
20:00and i tell them what i did and they gave me three months of probation couldn't leave my room
20:06i had to tell my parents about it my mom immediately says if you want to come home that is
20:14fine with us and i almost left however since the day i got there i could tell that the leadership there
20:25thought i was not going to make it i was like i'm going to stick this out and i'm going to show them
20:32this idea of a regime with total control well human beings being human beings we know that that never
20:56really happens it's not so much about the rules never being broken it's about people always always
21:02thinking about the rules
21:06the rules were designed to remove the appearance of evil the appearance of evil was being in a situation
21:15or behaving in a way that could give off the idea that you're doing something wrong didn't matter the
21:22intention behind a guy and a girl sitting next to each other in the dark that was the appearance of
21:28evil i wanted to get my hair braided i had to present to them the idea that it was culturally
21:37a part of who i am so then i need to find somebody to braid my hair well there was a girl on campus but
21:44the thing was there was like maybe seven five to seven black people on campus with me and whenever we
21:51were sitting by ourselves we were confronted about segregating ourselves from the rest of this all
21:56white academy so to avoid the appearance of evil that we were segregating ourselves she bring my hair
22:03in one of the offices but a staff member walks by and she's like guys this doesn't look right this
22:09doesn't look right this is this is no you're playing in his hair no you have to no we can't do this not
22:14here no we had taken the steps to do what we thought was right and here we're being told hey
22:21what you thought was right is wrong when she said that i felt tiny like i didn't have the ability to
22:29think for myself in that particular place there was no questioning of authority
22:35we had for the acquire the fires a group of tribal dancers me three white girls brown paint and it was
22:51ron's idea and we thought nothing of it because it came from people that we were taught not to question
22:59and to question would be rebellion the rebellion is not of god there was no space for racial identity
23:07human identity just christian identity and again obedience obedience to authority even if you think
23:18authority is wrong even if you know authority is wrong the fact of authority is right
23:29ron always sort of looking to blur those lines between fantasy and reality he understood good
23:34theater had a ritual element to it and he wanted to create collaborative theater
23:42lte's were life transforming events and each one was different and they were all multiple days and
23:49they were supposed to teach you through some sort of an experiential way we're going to drive people
23:54to get out of their stinking little baby comfort zone and get out there and change the world we're
23:59going to find a way to get the gospel to the people that have never heard the unreached people
24:03groups of the world can you tell us a little bit about what you're going to go do
24:10well what we're going to be able to do is we're going to be able to preach the gospel to people
24:15we're going to go tell them about jesus
24:17the unreached people group oh boy they split the campus in half half into missionaries and half into
24:28tribal people in what we call the back 40 so there's about 460 acres you have to figure out
24:34their language what god they served and if you've converted them by the end of the weekend you're a
24:41good christian and in the descriptions in the handbook they say very vague your child will learn
24:49how to go deeper in their faith christian larping is what it is but the goal is to kind of blur those
24:55lines between fantasy and reality we were always told that in third world countries they're seeking
25:03us out to eliminate us we had to go through customs to give you a real experience of what it's like to be
25:09a missionary hello what's your name and i remember lying and saying no i'm not preaching the gospel
25:17we're agriculturalists from the peace corps i'm a journalist doing an article on the peace corps
25:22doing a documentary with the university of phoenix we are with national geographic what are you guys
25:28really going to do we're going to go minister to you
25:32other cultures were seen as these objects to be saved cultural competency within that space
25:42was almost non-existent you have to like come into a culture like sensitive to the culture but you're
25:47invading it you aren't you're not like totally becoming like the tribe you're going to you're
25:55you're going to change some things you might make some waves and that's okay
25:58when you look at other cultures and you find all of the things that make them in need of saving you
26:06break the ability to truly be in communion with them and that can be very dangerous
26:14there were more and more things that i was telling myself well this doesn't totally make sense but
26:21i'm sure it makes sense in a way that i don't even realize rest assured if it seems like it's
26:28going in a bad direction it'll get worse
26:33another life transforming event was much worse
26:37the staff would literally come out at like three o'clock in the morning with pots and pans in
26:41the dorm and wake you up out of a dead sleep oh boy oh goody i wonder what we're gonna get to do next
26:46you were blindfolded put in a van and driven out to an undisclosed location this was crosswalk
26:58every so often they would go and tap you on the shoulder if it was your turn and they would drop
27:02six seven eight kids off my group was dropped off in oklahoma you didn't have any money you didn't
27:08have any cell phone and they give you two days and a six foot tall wooden cross and they say get back to
27:16campus
27:22you are depending on god for your food for where you're gonna sleep that night you couldn't ask for
27:29anything and because everyone is so eager to obey the rules don't ask for things becomes don't ask
27:37questions you can't ask anything where are we becomes that's a cool map i wish i knew more about
27:44it after a couple hours of walking one of the girls goes why are people stopping and talking to us
27:51and i go we're a bunch of white kids in the middle of texas with a wooden cross we probably look like
27:56we're looking for the sheet store
28:00my group got picked up by a pickup truck whose driver may or may not have been intoxicated
28:06other groups had guns pulled on them one night we are in the middle of nowhere finally we see
28:14some headlights in the distance and then the car turned its flashers on there was a cop and that cop
28:21was not happy to see us we go okay well can can you help us out he goes okay i can drive you back and
28:29then he points to the cross he goes i'm not taking that and then one of the girls starts crying
28:35because we are going to leave the cross behind and we are going to fail our mission
28:41and this cop who looked completely overwhelmed by this teenage girl and is like okay okay okay okay
28:47okay um just put it on the top so we drove back in this cop car we are holding on to the cross on top of
28:54this cop car holding it in place because to get rid of that cross i mean this is the message they want
29:02you carry that cross even if it kills you this isn't funny if you don't get back there it's not
29:06like you're not going to get invited to the cool kids party if you don't get back there if you don't
29:11pass this test you're going to have betrayed god you're going to betrayed your parents you're going
29:15to betrayed ron that's a real thing that's our martyr
29:20did you assume as a kid that you would die harder and that you would have a short life
29:40when i look back in time i never thought there would be another option
29:54ron loose invited dad to go on a global expeditions trip with team mania
29:58and dad was affected by this on the plane ride back there's dad and ron loose
30:09and dad is penning the lyrics to this song called allegiance dad has it always been this way
30:16well even from the beginning men hated jesus ray bolt i pledge allegiance to the lambs music video
30:23where basically the dad's being persecuted for being a christian and he's like talking to his
30:27kid what dad did they want to die no but they were forced to make a choice i remember watching
30:36that like i'm traumatized from that because the dad gets drug away and the kid's still in the prison
30:41cell so you know he's probably going to die next but it was just this like understanding that we were
30:48willing to die for our faith that was a huge song for dad christians long ago were brought before
31:01a tyrant's throne i pledge allegiance to the lamb is such a clear depiction of what was the cultural
31:10understanding we were told that eventually christians are going to be martyred again
31:27in april 1999 we were driving to pontiac michigan with team mania for this huge stadium event
31:34practically the entire internship of five six hundred kids went to pontiac we were all working
31:41up to an event that was being called day one that was going to be at the silver dome in detroit a huge
31:50arena it was going to be the big daddy of them all day one is national gathering of young people that
31:58are on fire from all over the country coming together at the silver dome in pontiac michigan
32:05seats almost 90 000 people to make a statement to the world there is a generation who do love god
32:14so we're driving up and we start hearing rumors of some kind of a school
32:20crisis some kind of something happened at a school it involved guns
32:23this uh tragedy is about an hour and a half old now apparently the swat team has mobilized outside
32:32of the school it was the columbine massacre columbine high school looks like a battle scene after the worst
32:41school shooting in u.s history possibly as many as 25 students dead
32:46for us who were teenagers school shootings were not common it it was the idea that you could be
32:54murdered in your school was shocking and horrifying and visceral
33:02so we get to day one and we're trying to go on with the event but we started hearing the stories
33:10of students who died these gunmen were going into the school to single out individuals and one of the
33:20students who was in the library reportedly says that one of the gunmen went up to a young girl
33:26asked her if she believed in god she said yes i do and they shot her the story of cassie bernal
33:34one of the students killed the columbine quickly becoming a national symbol to people of faith
33:39that did not turn out to be true but everyone thought what would i have done
33:48daryl scott his daughter rachel was killed outside columbine high
33:53we always felt that the lord was going to use her in a mighty way and i think
33:58none of us would have believed it would be in this manner when i heard the whole story of that she her
34:05dream was to be a missionary uh and she was just on fire for the lord and then she gets cut down and
34:12in her youth i thought of some of the great martyrs of henry martin livingston borden jim elliott
34:20rachel was signed up to go with teamania on a mission trip but before she could go she was murdered in
34:27the the columbine shooting a few days later at day one ron talked about columbine and it was the moment
34:38the room turned upside down rachel scott died that day one of the several martyrs stood up for her faith
34:46and the thing that's unique about rachel if you look around this room right now she was a normal person
34:52she'd been to concerts like this just like you there was something in her heart that said i've got
34:56to make my life count this summer ron looks at that and he sees an opportunity so he claims ownership of
35:05her and just like a myth says this could be you someone who cared about the kids would say this could
35:12be you you could be killed in school we've got to do something to stop that he says wouldn't that be
35:19awesome this could be awesome this could be you your name will be remembered and he was willing to
35:27teach a generation of kids you're expendable and maybe the most valuable thing you could ever do is die
35:37send me lord where no one ever wanted to go
35:41use me lord to finish the job taking this world for you you are imagining yourself as the subject of
35:53violence that the glory is the martyrdom these are the things i'm thinking about as a teenager okay i have
36:00to die i have to get ready to die you can do it micah you can do it you know like you gotta like
36:03gin yourself up because you don't want to go to hell
36:09you can do it we're not just screaming it with our voice but with our very lives we're shouting we are
36:20those with a relentless pursuit of god a relentless pursuit of the people he loves now shout for the
36:30lord has given you this generation i don't think we would be talking about teen mania now were it not
36:39for the columbine massacre in 1999. after day one the tension and the atmosphere at the honor academy
36:49went from like a six to a 12 overnight there was this big push for everyone to know where they stand in
36:56their faith to just push you to your limits to see if you would stand up for your faith nobody was
37:05playing anything anymore everything was very real
37:15the honor academy became more intense it became scarier and harder this is one of the most demanding
37:24and challenging training opportunities that i know of and you are going to be challenged more than
37:30you can possibly imagine
37:36you are going slow right now you are going slow right now move it move it move it we are not going
37:41to feel sorry for you please do not feel sorry for yourself easel which was the emotionally stretching
37:48opportunity of a lifetime it's a simulated navy seal hell week outside in the mud for 90 hours straight
38:00we've got crosses platoons we all have helmets with numbers on them we are no longer our names we are
38:08numbers three five three do you feel like you were an inspiration to someone out there by the way that you pushed yourself
38:20well you're going to want to be gentle laying those crosses down if your belt breaks off your cross
38:24it's not going to be pretty crawling through tunnels 10 feet underground and 30 feet long
38:31we need you in that hole now at first you just need some help here once you get in you can take them
38:36off you but you need to get in first keep going keep going keep going this event is designed to make
38:45you look inside of yourself depend upon god for your strength and go beyond what you thought you could do
38:51god father be with us for this day and throughout the rest of the days father i am a strong man of god
38:58i'm a strong man of god i'm a strong man of god
39:06what's your number down there orange shirt 243 why are you crying
39:10i'm scared sir what are you scared of
39:13you guys to pay attention and you are a loser this is my favorite part of this song i'm gonna go be the
39:20strong one no come on now
39:29this is the mensa challenge okay it is a whole bunch of eighth grade math problems all right we're
39:34gonna give each team the paper and a pen and a certain amount of time and then we're gonna see
39:39how well they do then we're gonna run down and grade them and then we're gonna line them up by their
39:43intelligence no matter how hard you push yourself there's always a little bit more you can push
39:55do it as if you're pursuing the thing that god puts you on this planet for
40:02one way in one way in
40:03that pain and that hurt
40:34an inappropriateness of creating a spiritual climate with this pretend military
40:43training was to get you to come to the very very end of yourself
40:50that was the moment i knew that whatever it was before now they were raising martyrs
40:59and they were recruiting children
41:07the rough beast now comes plainly into view
41:12one time they called us into the auditorium
41:17suddenly some people in military garb come in and tell us we need a bow to their flag
41:21that was the end times lte it wasn't even in the handbook
41:29the end times a lot of christians believe there will be a one world government that will execute christians
41:38our leaders play act they were the evil one world government
41:45i don't even know what happened
41:46these people sermon everywhere
41:47like
41:48it was an attack on christians
41:55and it was an attack on us
42:08they are like transforming events
42:18if you think it's life or death and they're being taught that it is
42:23they're being taught that they're being taught that they're being taught that they're
42:34those people are traumatized
42:36they're terrorized
42:41heightened sense of over stimulation over awareness
42:45fear and it's a means of control
42:47pain mania was the most militant fundamentalist christian youth movement the united states
42:57had seen in at least a century if not more
43:02and that's how ron caught the attention of the arlington group
43:11the arlington group was founded part by james dobson
43:16and other christian right leaders with powerful fiefdoms they were trying to align the organization
43:23so that instead of having you know one fiefdom here and one fiefdom there they could build the kingdom
43:28of god in washington dc their goal is retaking america for a certain vision of christianity
43:37the arlington group was really designed to be behind the scenes secretive these were really the big big
43:44heavy hitters and then ron probably even to his own surprise got a seat at that table
43:50team mania became part of the arlington group that's how ron and the man named charles colson
43:56get together colson's organization was also a part of the group colson was nixon's hatchet man
44:03and he went to prison for it in prison he was born again and he's working on his big project
44:11he wants to undo secularism everything is a war against the very conditions that made democracy
44:20possible everything was the enemy he thinks the enlightenment was a bad idea all i care about
44:28is advancing the kingdom of god and it's a perfect marriage well we're on the same page here if we
44:36don't start looking to kids what's going on with these young people all everything we're doing now
44:40is going to be moot and together they just decide we can make the whole country an honor academy
44:47take their world view and make it go viral so they come up with this idea called rewired their plan had
44:58the scope of require the fire and the deep indoctrination of honor academy they produced videos
45:08it was 12 sessions each about an hour long on dvd all the tools you would need to recruit and
45:14indoctrinate these followers without needing them to even attend team media events
45:22they were exciting highly produced lessons telling the teenagers of america awards being waged against
45:29them you've got to become a real soldier before you become another casualty the curriculum was like
45:38the greatest hits of all their most harmful teachings but intensified it could go farther
45:45than any acquire the fire it could go into every corner of the country he's sending them out through
45:50youth pastors ron's thinking in terms of cells right youth group here youth group here youth group here
45:56an indoctrination they borrow all these motifs from the matrix movies
46:02you can take the blue pill and keep being a sucker and see what the establishment wants you to see
46:11but you can take the red pill and see the reality you can see the truth and the truth is much grittier
46:17it's the battlefield you're breaking through the matrix we've got to wake up everyone else
46:23rewired was designed to get kids to see every single thing through this lens of us versus them
46:33it's a matter of life or death this is a war which side are you on
46:42from team mania to acquire the fire to rewire is all preparation for the coming battle the ultimate fight
46:49battle cry battle cry battle cry was acquire the fire on steroids we want to shape the culture
47:02instead of being shaped by the culture ron's coming out as political the pied piper that the kids from
47:09the stadium into the streets we were at war we were an army for god the army of god you guys don't see
47:15anything wrong with the army of bad i'm a little nervous because i think you might want a theocracy
47:21in this country it's like sarajevo this was fascism in front of me on a massive scale you could say
47:31it's it's a divisive well maybe it needs to be divisive you create a soldier who will follow orders
47:37in an unquestioning way micah was public enemy number one
47:43this whole teen mania thing has had me way down i just can't live like this anymore
47:50that's where i'm at right now they have to be stopped
48:13so
48:20so
48:22so
48:24so
48:34you
49:04You