Ron Luce's Battlecry and Teen Mania: Like the WWF, Only With God

From Spin Magazine
May, 2000
Like the WWF, Only With God
Inside the “raddest,” weirdest, fastest-growing teen-Christian movement in America
By Benoit Denizet-Lewis

There is an explosion of pyrotechnics onstage, causing a large, scary ball of fire to leap toward the audience. People jump. People cheer.

A tall, attractive teenager with waist-length blonde hair stands on her chair, then jumps high in the air, singing as she elevates, oblivious to the potential catastrophe awaiting her return to Earth. Beneath her, three teenage boys, all
wearing baggy pants and sideways baseball hats, are sobbing in each other’s arms. They do not see the girl descending.

It’s a minor miracle, really: She does not land on the boys. She glances off them, landing on the cement. She props herself up on her hands. She leans on her bony elbows, bows her head, and prays....

Meet the modern Christian army that plans to save you, me, and every young person in America. Its enemy is a society that long ago ceased to love. Its weapons are modern, surprising, and controversial. Its goal is a spiritual revolution that will feel, more than anything, like one big party. Its soldiers are junior-high and high school kids with spiky hair, baggy pants, and braces. Its commander is God, and its role model is Jesus Christ—neither of whom, regrettably, could be here in person today. In their places, a 39-year-old Italian-American named Ron Luce is pacing the auditorium stage, a bundle of unfettered Christian momentum.

“We’re gonna celebrate Jesus together!” Luce screams. “How many of you would like to see God do something huge with your generation? I’d like to see God do something with your generation that makes the ‘60s look like a tea party! Guys, we haven’t even taken off yet! We’re on the runway! Are you ready to take off? Are you ready to devote your lives to God? Are you ready to live for him?”

The tall blonde girl with the waist-length hair is ready. She jumps to her feet, springs back on her chair, only to leap up again, high in the air. As she rises, she sings, “The Lord is my life and my salvation, who shall I fear?” She lands on her feet, then jumps over a row of chairs. She sprints down the aisle and runs past the Teen Mania vending booths, past the four boys playing Hacky Sack in the dark, past the girl who used to believe more in aliens that in God, past the former drug user, past the former drug dealer, past the former gang member, and past the current high school baseball star.

She runs past all that, arriving near the front of the stage, crying and shaking. When Ron Luce asks the crowd who would like to know God, when he asks who would like to join Teen Mania’s growing army, when he asks who would like to be saved this fine November evening, she raises both hands toward the sky and screams, “Me!”