The Battle Cry Campaign was an organizing initiative of a now-defunct 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: "Christianity in America won't survive another decade... unless we do something now."
"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 battlecry.com 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: