Defining Terms, 2

Continued from "Defining Terms"

My concept of Christian Martialism comes from at least three influences in my life. First, I have for much of my adult life had loose connections with the patriot movement.

The patriot movement is a very broad agglomeration of organizations and individuals that includes tax rebels, conspiracy theorists, survivalists and militia groups. There is just enough truth in some parts of the movement to be interesting, but enough racism and just plain weirdness to discredit any valid information you might find there.

You hear the term Christian patriot bandied about in these circles, but a lot of that "Christianity" would seem rather strange and foreign to Bible believers.

In the late 1980's (or early 1990's), I attended some "patriot meetings" where various people took turns presenting their theories & ideas (black helicopters and Chinese troops training in the USA were hot topics at the time). It gave me the idea of holding Puritan meetings at the small, rural church where I was pastor.

Here, we would discuss some of the issues that drew people into the patriot movement, but we would do so from a strictly Scriptural perspective. No UFOs or aliens, no humanism in populist garb, no claims based on "secret" or unknown sources.

I called them "Puritan meetings" because I intended them to help others see the world's conflicts and problems from the worldview perspective that arose out of the Protestant Reformation. They did not last long, for they attracted one particular patriot-movement man who tried to hi-jack the meetings for his own purposes.

The meetings stopped, but the idea of a coalition of Christian men looking for Biblical ideas and explanations as alternatives to the Establishment line stuck with me.

Continued in "Defining Terms, 3"