On July 23, Prime will release its second season of Shiny Happy People, and they’ll be dragging some old bones out of the closet, including some of my bones.
Back in 2008, I attended Teen Mania’s Honor Academy. If you’ve never heard of it, you’ve likely heard of Acquire the Fire or Battlecry, its youth conference.
Thousands of teens would pack into stadiums across the country as Christian rock bands blasted “How Great Is Our God,” and Ron Luce screamed into the microphone “Come nail your sins to the cross of Jesus Christ!”
Brandon Flanery
The ministry started in the 1980s when Ron felt he was supposed to “build an army of young people who will change the world,” and nowhere was that more clear than at the Honor Academy, their leadership school in Garden Valley, Texas.
If you were to arrive on campus at 5 in the morning back in 2008, you’d have seen hundreds of teenagers doing pushups “on the four count” as it pours rain. They’d then run miles around campus, chanting, “If it ain’t raining, we ain’t training.”
Later, they’d jump into cold showers, praying for the persecuted church and then start an 8-hour day of calling youth pastors across the country, convincing them to come to Acquire the Fire.
After a few weeks, these same kids would roll through mud and vomit, chanting, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” They’d be cuddling each other to keep warm during their 30-minute sleep cycles. They’d wake up, submerge themselves in ice, and avoid paintball rounds as a staff member in camo would scream, “Beat your body and make it your slave!”
This would be just one event of many throughout the year based on military trainings to “raise an army.”
As Prime reveals the secrets of that place, wholesome Christians likely will ask, “How could this happen? Why would these kids pay to be there?”
And my answer will be, “These students simply took the evangelicalism they were given and followed it to its natural climax.”
At age 5, we marched in place and chanted “I’m in the Lord’s army.” At age 10, we memorized the story of Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, and Joshua marching around Jericho. At age 13, we screamed in worship “Take, take, take it all! Take, take, take it all!” At 16, we cried as the pastor said, “Will you advance the kingdom of heaven? Will you be a soldier for Jesus?”
“We were simply the ones who kept saying yes to every altar call.”
Those who ended up at the Honor Academy were not crazy — we were simply the ones who kept saying yes to every altar call.
So when Prime unmasks the abuse and the pain the Honor Academy inflicted on its interns, I say this is not an exception to evangelicalism, it’s its natural fruit. And as the Good Book says, “We reap what we sow.”
For so long, the church has been sowing fear of neighbor rather than love; it’s been sowing sensationalism over thoughtfulness, loyal obedience over curiosity, idolatry of rockstar pastors over humble servants, political control over service to the world, hiding abuse over walking in truth.
We have been sowing the wrong seeds for a very long time — seeds more concerned with a national identity rather than a spiritual one — and now we’re in the midst of a bountiful harvest, a harvest of Shiny Happy People, of Robert Morris scandals and of the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexual abuse report.
As the Good Book says, “Judge a tree by its fruit.” All this is the natural fruit of our labor, and I believe it’s time we sow new seeds.
Brandon Flanery is the author of Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism. He’s an expastor, exmissionary, exvangelical who’s written about the intersection of faith and sexuality for Baptist News Global, the Colorado Springs Independent and UCCS’s The Scribe. Read more of at BrandonFlanery.com.
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