Warning, Lunatic Christian Cult active in UK

Joels Army, a lunatic US christian cult, would appear to be active in the UK. The "dominionist " militaristic Christan cult has been associating itself with "Revival Fires"" a revivalist ministry in the Midlands who organise an event called the "Dudley outpouring". Joel's Army have had similar events in the US one of which was called the "Florida outpouring". Revival fires seem quite unembarrassed about proclaiming their link to Joel's Army on their website.

This leads to an obvious question about the exact link between revival Fires in the UK and Joel's Army group - are they one and the same?

The Joels Army groups leader Todd Bentley and other "hyper-charismatic" preachers see Joel's Army as the prophesied Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

Dominionists believe that America and the rest of the world should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in Dominionist thinking for such non-christian ideas as democracy or pluralism.

Joels Army is reportedly an anti-intellectual group who really believe that it is their mission to help bring on the "end times" and to be the military force that will help to usher this in.

According to one website which has an article on Joels Army;

"Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army."

According to the same article it is not only secularists who are concerned about this lunatic bunch; even christian organisations are getting anxious about them;

"The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors."

Accordng to the same article Rick Joyner, a pastor associated with the group posted a sermon in 2006 in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and where he called believers "freedom fighters."

Joyner is quoted as saying;

"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces. In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."

Given the problems that the UK has had with Militant Islam do we really want to see the development of such christian "end of times" lunacy in this country? If these are the types of messages being preached by this group at meetings like the Dudley gathering then it is to be hoped that the Authorities are keeping a very close eye on this group and that they will consider the wisdom of letting lunatics like Todd Bentley into the country.