Rick Joyner

Rick Joyner of MorningStar Ministries and the Oak Initiative has regularly provided his “prophetic” analysis of the Republican presidential nomination race, and claimed to have met with at least one candidate, Michele Bachmann. But today, Joyner focused on the accusations against Herman Cain that have drawn immense media scrutiny not only into Cain’s background but also his campaign management skills, as he and his chief of staff have since blamed everyone from Rick Perry to the “Democrat machine” and even a reporter who they falsely accused of working for Politico and being the son of one of his accusers.

But Joyner is rallying to Cain’s defense in a “special bulletin” he sent to members today. The “prophet” portrayed Cain as the victim, not the two women who received settlements from the National Restaurant Association or the two other women who said Cain had harassed them.

Joyner argued that if Cain was harassing women, how come no one “has come forth admitting to having an affair with him”? Speaking about Sharon Bialek, Joyner said that “the attack she claimed happened in a car would have been impressive even for someone with the dexterity of Spiderman”:

One of the accusers, who we now know has a history of filing complaints like this and seeking compensation, did not file a complaint when she supposedly was harassed by Cain. Why? This has to raise even more questions about her credibility.

Then the attack she claimed happened in a car would have been impressive even for someone with the dexterity of Spiderman. This accuser, who claimed she had nothing to gain from making this accusation, then happily began making the rounds of the morning talk shows.

Another missing ingredient to these charges against Cain is that no one has come forth admitting to having an affair with him. Another is that when someone is as aggressive as these accusers claim that Cain was with them, there is almost always a pattern of behavior that has grown over time, and there are usually many people who know about it. People who worked with Cain for many years have to date said this was not something they had ever witnessed in him.

But Joyner’s logic continues to amaze as he compares Cain to Jesus and says that Satan, referring to him as the “father of lies” and “the accuser of the brethren” (John 8:44; Revelation 12:10), is behind the allegations against him:

Even if the accusers all prove to be liars and deceivers, this does not prove that something did not happen. Doubts have been raised about Herman Cain’s character that will taint him with many for the rest of his life. I am not asserting innocence or guilt, but the same thing happened to Jesus, who was the Truth. He was not accused of sexual harassment, but of sexual misconduct, and many other terrible things by His enemies. These charges continue to be made about Jesus as the novel, The Da Vinci Code, recently rekindled.

My point is that you can be the most pure, perfectly righteous person to ever walk the earth, be falsely accused of heinous behavior, and many, if not most, people will believe it. The “father of lies” is called “the accuser of the brethren” for a reason. For thousands of years, he has been doing much of his evil with accusations. He has destroyed the reputations, and sometimes the lives, of many very good people, and some of the world’s best people.

But maybe Joyner’s steadfast defense of Cain will make more sense as Joyner reveals that he too has been the victim of false accusations:

I may err on the side of being too prone not to believe accusations because I also have been subject to so many false ones. The few times I’ve had the nerve to look up my name on the Internet, it’s hard to believe what people say I’ve taught or believed. Some of the good things people say about me are not true either. What is really scary is the number of people who recount my visits to their church when I know full well I’ve never been their church or even the city it’s in.

Last week, Brian noted that several of the leaders involved in Lou Engle's upcoming "The Call" rally in Detroit have been pleading ignorance about the anti-Islam agenda that is driving the event.

"The Call" founder Lou Engle has made it abundantly clear that he chose to hold the event in Detroit in order to target the state's Muslim population for conversion, especially in the nearby city of Dearborn.  

But Engle is not alone in organizing this event and several of the other organizers of the prayer rally are professional anti-Muslim activists. 

In fact, Rick Warzywak of Transformation Michigan was tasked by Lou Engle to take the lead in organizing the Detroit event and, as part of that process, Warzywak put together a leadership team that featured Rick Joyner and Gen. Jerry Boykin, both of The Oak Initiative:

Joyner is an anti-Muslim activist who declares that Muslims are enslaved by Islam and the only reason he doesn't want to see the Quran burned is so that people will read it just to see how bizarre it is:

Boykin, for his part, was the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Donald Rumsfeld until he resigned after video emerged of him proclaiming that that US was engaged in a spiritual war against Islam.

Since then, he has become a full-time anti-Islam activist, serving as team leader for the "Shariah: The Threat To America" report while constantly attacking Islam and telling anyone who will listen to Islam does not deserve First Amendment protections and Muslims should be prohibited from building mosques in America, while warning that the Muslim Brotherhood is on the verge of taking over the United States, so much so that he fears that his granddaughters will be forced to wear burkas.

As Boykin sees it, there can be no interfaith dialogue among Christians and Muslims because the two faiths are at war ... and, as Boykin explained to Transformation Michigan, it is time for Christians to "go on the offensive" and take the fight to the enemy by claiming vacant lots in the name of Jesus so that Muslims cannot use them to build mosques:

• Herman Cain seems to believe that the number "45" holds specific significance for his life.

 

• The media finally notices that Michele Bachamnn has a tendency to just make things up.

 

• On a related note, Bachmann's campaign is so dysfunctional that staffers have to publicly release letters announcing that they have quit her campaign.

 

• Rick Joyner does not seem particularly enamored with any of the GOP candidates.

 

• The Florida Family Association is going after Target for advertising on a show on a channel that also airs ads for The Trevor Helpline, which seeks to prevent suicides among gay youth. Seriously.

 

• Finally, Bryan Fischer interviews Kirk Cameron.  You are welcome.

Yesterday on MorningStar Ministries’ Prophetic Perspectives, Rick Joyner hosted self-proclaimed prophet Bobby Conner, and the two discussed their various prophesies and how they have all came true. Joyner recently warned that “very soon, God’s judgment is going to come upon Hollywood” for promoting “spiritual and moral pollution,” and said that God is punishing America for its “perversions” by “using Islam.” Conner, who was on the show promoting his book Shepherd's Rod, said that United States’ alleged attempts to “distance” itself from Israel caused the devastating BP Gulf oil spill:

Conner: Let’s talk about Israel becoming, it is very important that we watch what God’s gonna do in Israel, and that Israel will be a cup of trembling for all nations. So I think that we really need to be praying for Israel like never before. Probably in my estimation the most critical thing in our nation right now is our response to Israel and how we befriend her, it’s really important. I think, I wrote in 'Shepherd's Rod' last year that if we continue to distance our self from Israel we’ll have calamity on our shore like never before, then the oil spill happened. See even words, God plays with these words, so we have to have ears to hear what He’s seeing.

Several week ago, we noted that Rick Joyner had embraced anti-Islam activism and begun working with notorious anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney, even dedicating an entire week of his television program to highlighting the threat of Isalm.

One of Joyner's main area of concerns is "Chrislam," an effort to build bridges between Christians and Muslims, occasionally by engaging in some form of joint worship.  To Joyner, this is flat-out heresy and he recently posted a video decrying the practice, declaring that the only reason he doesn't support burning the Quran is because he wants people to read it to see just how "bizarre" it is and declares that the Quran enslaves Muslims, which is why "we have more slaves in the world today than before the Civil War here in America": 

Earlier this week, Janet Porter organized a rally to press for passage her radical "Heartbeat Bill" which has been endorsed by everyone from James Dobson and Roy Moore to Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.

For the event, Porter brought in Religious Right activists like Rick Scarborough and Wendy Wright, as well as "prophets" and "apostles" like Lou Engle and Rick Joyner.  And, just as she did when her bill was being debated in the Ohio state house, she brought an ultrasound of a fetus to "speak" on behalf of the legislation.

The woman in the video is Ducia Hamm of the Ashland Care Center who explains that "Anna" is "screaming to you 'I'm alive'" ... and also waving hello to the crowd:

Last week we noted that, after being confronted about The Oak Initiative and its anti-Muslim activities, Samuel Rodriguez admitted that his role as a board member and supporter of the group did not square with his reputation as a moderate evangelical leader.

As such, Rodriquez promised that he was going to resign from the group:

He knew instinctively as I read to him the Oak Initiative's views about Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood that this was an affront to what he wished to stand for. While he pleaded ignorance with regards to the details of the Oak Initiative's agenda and website (he claimed he had barely been involved), he assured me that by the end of the day he would resign from the Board and make clear his regret. Five hours later I received an email with his letter to the Executive Board of NHCLC responding to Tabachnik's article and detailing the steps he was taking to denounce extremism, steps that include his resignation from the board of the Oak Initiative. 

Today Rachel Tabachnick, whose recent article on Rodriguez set this chain of events in motion, reports that Oak Initiative founder Rick Joyner has confirmed that Rodriguez has in fact resigned ... but only because he is too busy with other projects:

Dear Rachel Tabachnick,

Thanks for your inquiry. Sam Rodriguez did recently resign from the board of The Oak Initiative citing as the reason being that his increased responsibilities with editing a new Spanish version of Charisma Magazine would prohibit him having time to give a meaningful contribution to The Oak. We have a deep appreciation for Sam Rodriguez and will miss his contribution to The Oak, but congratulate him for this new endeavor.

This change should be reflected on our website soon. Thanks again for the inquiry.

Rick Joyner

Rodriguez promised that he would do three things: resign, voice his regret for associating with this group and denounce their extremism. 

He appears to have accomplished the first step, but we have seen no evidence that he has done either of the latter two.  And if Rodriquez was compelled to resign from the organization because of its anti-Muslim extremism, why is his resignation is now being attributed to his "increased responsibilities" elsewhere?

Tomorrow, Janet Porter is bringing self-appointed "prophets" like Lou Engle and Rick Joyner together with Religious Right activists like Wendy Wright and Rick Scarborough for a "Heartbeat Bill" rally in Ohio.

And for her efforts, she is being profiled by the Associated Press which, to its credit, actually mentions that Porter only ended up back in Ohio after her career as a Religious Right activist fell apart when her radio program was dropped due to her embrace of Dominionism:

Last year, Porter was let go by Milwaukee-based VCY America, a conservative evangelical radio network, for allegedly promoting radical "dominion" theology.

The network stated as much on the air at the time, but did not return calls for further comment. Porter said her show's cancellation stemmed from statements made during an 8-hour May Day Prayer Rally she staged at the Lincoln Memorial in May 2010, which the network believed promoted dominionism and its idea of strong Christian influence over government, to the point of theocracy.

"That was an accusation because (of) somebody they didn't like that prayed at the event," she said. "I had never even heard of that term. Somebody had explained it to me that everybody wants to build some sort of Utopia for Jesus to come back, and I said, 'Well, that's not how I read my Bible, because in Revelation, things are supposed to get really bad.' So if that's the definition of dominionism, I'm not one of 'em."

Porter called being let go "a blessing in disguise," as she's now recording a 60-second radio spot on more stations elsewhere and working on the heartbeat bill.

Porter's claim that her radio program was dropped because VCY didn't like somebody that prayed at her prayer rally is absolutely false, as the station made clear in its announcement that she had ignored the their repeated warnings about her embrace of Dominion Theology.

Likewise, the idea that Porter "had never even heard that term," is laughably false considering that she was writing columns for WorldNetDaily called "Stop whining and take dominion!," declaring that Christians are to "occupy until Jesus comes, to take dominion in every area," speaking at events entitled "Sovereignty & Dominion," and praying for God to give Christians control over the media and every level of government.

It sure is odd how all of these people who have been actively promoting dominionism for years have suddenly developed collective amnesia about it now that it is in the news.

While right now Janet Porter is focused on using spiritual warfare to persuade the Ohio State Senate to pass her anti-choice ‘Heartbeat bill,’ she continues to lead the Christian Zionist group ‘Israel: You’re Not Alone.’ Porter was able to bring together an impressive list of supporters including well known conservative leaders Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Mat Staver, and Tim Wildmon, and during the group’s introductory press conference accused President Obama of carrying out “ethnic cleansing.”

On September 11th the organization released a statement calling for “repentance of the sin pervading the Earth and its inhabitants” and a plea for “media outlets to consider the material presented in a 10-minute video and to present this to their viewers, listeners, or readers in some format.”

The graphic video Porter’s group advertises was made by preacher Carl Gallups and depicts the September 11th attacks as a “biblical sign of judgment” and calls out politicians for the “arrogance of defiance” which is “the highest insult against the Most High God”:

“The eight harbingers of judgment pronounced on Israel,” Gallups claims, “are identically pronounced on the United States of America and have been acted out by our own nation’s leaders.” Gallups concludes:

It was in New York City where America began as a nation, it was where this nation was started, and it was there that the warning of the judgment of God was given on September 11, 2001. America on its day of birth of a nation was dedicated to God at the corner of a plot of land now known by a more ominous name, now known as Ground Zero. Ground Zero is the mystery place of American history; it was right there at the corner of Ground Zero that our nation’s first government knelt and prayed and it was there on September 11th where God spoke again. What happens to America, and probably soon, will depend upon whether America is willing to repent and turn back to God, or not.

Along with Huckabee, other Religious Right activists that signed onto her coalition include James Robison, Lou Sheldon, Jerry Boykin, Rick Scarborough, Rob Schenck, Paul Blair, Don Feder, Bill Federer, Gordon Klingenschmitt, and E.W. Jackson, and New Apostolic Reformation figures Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner, Che Ahn, Don Finto, Robert Stearns and Chuck Pierce. The signatories also included the Messianic Jewish Alliance and Toward Jerusalem Council II, which both work to convert Jews to Christianity.

While partnering with an extremist like Porter should’ve been alarming enough, do Mike Huckabee and the countless other conservative leaders want to continue their partnership with a group that endorses the claim that the September 11th attacks were a “biblical sign of judgment”?