Teens Rally Against an 'Un-Christian' Culture
Teens trade pop culture for praise and prayer.
March 28, 2007 — -- One recent weekend at San Francisco's AT&T Park, almost 25,000 teens gathered to proclaim their faith and devotion to God, all while rejecting the negative influences of today's pop culture. The two-day concert event is known as BattleCry and takes place almost every weekend around the country.
"The media is just cramming garbage down their throat. … It is absolutely immoral. I wish it was illegal, but the whole idea is we have people making money, not caring what they are doing, what they are doing to kids," said Ron Luce, the founder of BattleCry.
Charlotte Rose Hamilton attended her first BattleCry event last year, and the 18-year-old said it changed her life. "When I came to San Francisco last year … my life was just a downward spiral -- I was depressed, I was having sex, doing drugs, like, it was bad, and when I came to the BattleCry event, it changed my life," Hamilton said.
"And I don't understand how there's opposition to abstinence and being sober, like where you would disagree with having hope in your life," she said.
A 45-year-old married father of three, Luce began his youth ministry, known as Teen Mania, 20 years ago.
"It's a battle, it's a very real battle, it's a spiritual battle for their heart and soul, so we tell them about how they can come close to the Lord, but it is also a cultural war, and essentially we live in a Christian country with a very un-Christian culture," Luce said.
If you didn't know any better, you could mistake a BattleCry concert for any rock concert, minus the sexy clothes and alcohol. There's plenty of loud music, fireworks and contemporary self-expression, but there's also praise and prayer.
Saturday morning the teens gathered in groups around the stadium and prayed before the entertainment and speakers began inside.
When Luce talks about the "un-Christian culture," he makes it clear that he is on a crusade against all the influences bombarding kids today.
"We have what I call secondhand sex -- it's all over in the media and it's so ubiquitous, it's everywhere, we don't even notice it," Luce said. "It's like when you go into a dark room and your eyes can't see but then they adjust. Well, we've gotten used to the dark. We think it's normal like this. We don't understand what it's doing to our kids."
Hamilton said the Spice Girls were her role models growing up, and gave her a false representation of how women should act and behave. Now, she said, her sister may be getting the wrong idea from music groups like the Pussycat Dolls. Their videos, Hamilton said, are "a televised striptease."
Besides the large attendance at this San Francisco BattleCry, there is something else that sets it apart from the almost weekly events around the country. The teens held a rally on the steps of San Francisco's City Hall to kick off the event, which is something they don't do in any other city.
"It's a great place to send a message to the world," Luce said.
