





Repent Amarillo "Executes" Santa, Continues Prayer Warfare Against Other Congregations Rachel Tabachnick print page Fri Dec 24, 2010 at 07:06:20 PM EST Repent Amarillo is a group that uses "spiritual warfare" (along with a variety of more earthly tactics) to try to shut down businesses and organizations. This past September 11, leader David Grisham also attempted to burn a Quran on a grill at a public park, but drew a crowd of Christians, Buddhists, and Muslisms protesting his actions. A skate boarder grabbed the kerosene-doused Quran away from Grisham and was later celebrated in a Repent Amarillo is a group that uses "spiritual warfare" (along with a variety of more earthly tactics) to try to shut down businesses and organizations. This past September 11, leader David Grisham also attempted to burn a Quran on a grill at a public park, but drew a crowd of Christians, Buddhists, and Muslisms protesting his actions. A skate boarder grabbed the kerosene-doused Quran away from Grisham and was later celebrated in a Youtube video that was viewed over 800,000 times. This past week Repent Amarillo again drew attention when they posted a video of a firing squad "executing" a Santa Claus pinata. Less noticed, but perhaps more disturbing, is another video on their website in which members of the groups can be seen at the property of other Amarillo area houses of worship targeted for warfare prayers. Their spiritual mapping is still posted (now without the sounds of gunshots) but there are red Xs in the places where businesses or organizations have closed. These include a Masonic lodge and the Route 66 Swing Club. If you click on the red X marking the location of the latter, a message pops up, "Preached to death by Repent Amarillo. Shut down!! Thank you Jesus." The November 1 Make War video on the website includes photos of Repent Amarillo participants at the property of other religious institutions which they have targeted in their spiritual mapping as demonic strongholds. Participants are shown conducting what is called spiritual warfare prayers in this video set to music of "Make War" from the "Identity Crisis" album of Christian rapper Tedashii. Repent Amarillo's warfare prayers are described on the website, "Father God, by the authority granted to us by Your Son Jesus Christ and for the glory of Your holy name, we tear down this demonic stronghold. We destroy this idol in Your name. ...Father God, we proclaim that this land, this city, this nation, is OUR dominion. YOUR dominion for the kingdom of Christ and God. We proclaim that the prince of the power of the air has NO dominion or authority here. That no ceremony or prayer of the enemy emanating from this place shall be of any effect. We bind in the name of Jesus Christ any and all enemy spirits here who squat on this land, Our land, YOUR land, and cast them out and they shall not return." David Grisham points out that Repent Amarillo has made use of local government to help shut down businesses. Grisham states, "Repent Amarillo has been criticized repeatedly ( by both Christians and heathens) for using the local governing authorities to assist in shutting down evil enterprises in our city. We are not ashamed of this endeavor and will continue to aggressively and enthusiastically pursue this methodology in the future. The governing authorities are ministers of God, appointed by God, to execute wrath on lawlessness and evil is lawlessness." Grisham explains that the purpose of government is to punish evil doers but that currently the "ministry" of government has been abandoned to evil doers. He continues, "This means that police officers, fire marshals, city code enforcement personnel, city council members, mayors, congressmen, senators, and even the president are ministers of God appointed by God to execute wrath on those who do evil. All governing authorities are in MINISTRY! No wonder Satan wants to corrupt our politics so badly. ... Of course the Devil wants to convince you that politics and activism are not Christian and is no place for Christians. Because he wants the church out of the way so he can corrupt God's ministry of politics so as to use it for his own means. Then the Devil will use the governing authorities to persecute Christians and cripple the church. And Christians have ignorantly complied with his wishes. Political correctness runs deep in this culture and it is evil." Repent Amarillo participants are shown on site at the Earth Circle at Wildcat Bluff Nature Center (they claim it's a hangout for pagans), Amarillo's Unitarian Universalist Church, and the Wat Lao Buddharam. Additionally the website includes pictures of members praying over the sign of the Metro Community Church. In the Santa execution video, Repent Amarillo participants are wearing sweatshirts with the popular phrase and symbols "Coexist" but in their version, a large red X is over all of the religious symbols except for the cross. David Grisham reads a proclamation aloud to the Santa pinata, "For these crimes you have been pronounced guilty and have been sentenced to death... we will now proceed with the execution..." After telling parents that they should now bring their children to the screen, the group begins firing on the Santa pinata. Then Grisham halts the firing so that he can walk up to the Santa pinata and shoot the last shot directly into its face. As I've written previously Repent Amarillo is a small group which doesn't appear to have direct ties to the national and international charismatic leaders who introduced the concept of spiritual mapping. Repent Amarillo was previously tied to Troy Bohn's Raven Ministries International, but Raven's Amarillo website no longer mentions David Grisham or Repent Amarillo. Spiritual mapping is one of the components of "Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare" (SLSW) which originated with the leadership of the New Apostolic Reformation, including C. Peter Wagner, George Otis, Jr., Ed Silvoso, Cindy Jacobs, and Ted Haggard. For explanation of SLSW terminlogy, link to this glossary of terms. New Apostolic leaders teach that the removal of demonic strongholds is necessary to proselytize communities and to bring about "Christian dominion" in preparation for the end times. Strategic level spiritual warfare is now being taught throughout the nation as a new methodology for evangelizing the globe, but most New Apostolic leaders are more subtle in their approach and quite a bit more savvy than Repent Amarillo. As I mentioned in the previous article on Repent Amarillo, spiritual mapping and other components of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare will undoubtedly spread beyond the core of the apostolic and prophetic movement and C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation. Books and media claiming that these methodologies can be used to purge demons from communities are now widely available to anyone who wants to give these methodologies a try. Yes, Repent Amarillo is just a few people in a fringe group praying over signs of other people's houses of worship. However, the literal demonization of other people is inherent to the strategic level spiritual warfare being popularized by thousands of leaders in the apostolic and prophetic movement worldwide. An example of more prominent leaders engaged in this brand of spiritual warfare can be seen in Bruce Wilson’s article and the video of Canadian Apostle Pat Francis at the International Transformation Network conference in Hawaii in 2009. Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona spoke at the conference and candidate for the U.S. Senate Cam Cavasso and other politicians participated in this warfare prayer ceremony. As seen with Repent Amarillo, the locations targeted in strategic level spiritual warfare as demonic are not limited to swing clubs and strip joints.



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