Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War is a three-part documentary that makes us privy to a movement that spread like wildfire in the entire United States of America. A Christian ministry named Teen Mania targeted the young minds of the nation and tried to brainwash them in the worst possible manner. A man named Ron Luce was at the helm of affairs and, with time, acquired the status of a legendary personality. He had the capability to move the masses, and he used it to push his own agendas and completely change the perception of the youth of the nation and transform them into religious fanatics.
What was Teen Mania?
Teen Mania was considered to be the biggest Christian youth organization ever to have existed in the United States of America, but after watching the Prime Video documentary, I can safely conclude that it was just an attempt to mobilize troops, end democracy, wage a war against secularism and liberal inclusive ideas, and brainwash and mislead the children. The mastermind of the entire operation was a man named Ron Luce, who became the face of the ministry. The operations of the Teen Mania Ministry were divided into three parts: Acquire the Fire, Global Expeditions, and Honor Academy. Acquire the Fire, for people who aren’t aware of the entire phenomenon, was something resembling a music concert mixed with a very dramatic preaching session. Ron Luce came onstage and, through his electrifying speeches, tried to make the teens believe in God and lay the foundation for turning them into fanatics. I believe fanaticism is the building block of any fascist movement, and I don’t know what Ron Luce’s endgame was, but it did feel that he wanted to spread fascism. I believe Ron started Acquire the Fire to compete with the kind of influence MTV had on teenagers at the time. Ron was a very smart man, and he knew that even hardcore fascists needed to improvise and change their tactics with time. He knew that he needed to lure in the children, grab their attention, and make them feel that they were a part of something big, and that the onus of saving the world lay on their shoulders. Ron wanted to create a Christian celebrity ecosystem so that he could prove that they were much better than the ungodly world. Ron knew that building a new culture was paramount, as only then could he dream of making the United States of America into a Christian nation. So after the children were attracted by the philosophy Ron preached, they were called to be a part of the day-to-day activities of the organization and contribute in their own manner. The Honor Academy was like a Christian boot camp, where Ron Luce made sure that he ingrained his own philosophies into the young minds, brainwashed them, and prepared them to take over the world. Such was the impact on the children that they were ready to fight with their parents, leave their homes, and do whatever Ron Luce told them to.
How did Ron brainwash the children?
Ron Luce became a mythic figure, and he knew exactly the kind of process the kids would have to go through in order to believe that whatever he said was the eternal truth. Whenever such a fraudulent godman arrives on the scene, there is a fixed pattern that they follow, no matter in which part of the world they are operating. Firstly, they make their audience feel that they are an integral part of a larger community and give them a sense of belonging. They make them feel that the onus of saving the world is upon them. A child, in his early teens, feels a heightened sense of importance, the likes of which they haven’t felt in their entire lives. Ron Luce knew that the parents of the children could dissuade them from participating in the camp if they got to know what they were being taught there. I mean, no prudent man would allow their kids to go through such torture in the name of religion. And so Ron very subtly started pitching the idea that anybody who went against the will of God was not a good person. After months of brainwashing, the children finally got ready to purge the outside world of unholiness. Ron told the children that they shouldn’t prioritize themselves, as apparently that was a sin. The children were told that their lives meant nothing compared to the purpose they had to fulfill. Ron was an excellent manipulator, and he knew how to shape the narrative in his favor. Things took a rather grave turn when Ron slowly started pushing the idea that everybody who loved God must be willing to die for Him. There was a school shooting that happened in the year 1999, where a girl named Rachel Scott was murdered. Ron used that opportunity to push his own agenda and tell the children how lucky Rachel was to sacrifice her life for the Almighty. I believe that didn’t go down well with many students, and they just got scared because they were not ready to go to that extent. A sense of belonging, together with the fear of being outcast when they didn’t have reverence for the divine, made sure that the children never dared go against the established authority. They felt subconsciously coerced to be a part of Teen Mania since they didn’t want their own friends turning their backs on them.
Why was Teen Mania shut down?
Ron Luce was basically running an army camp where the students were made to do absurd activities. They were made to roll in vomit, run for miles in secluded areas that were not so safe, and do other physically exhausting activities that mentally had a grave impact on them. Also, there was no space for racial identity in the group, and in retrospect, whenever people who were a part of the Teen Mania ministry thought about it, they didn’t understand why they bore it all and never spoke out against Luce. Well, that was because they were manipulated so brilliantly that they just could not entertain that thought, even though they knew deep down something was wrong. Also, the entire purity culture was totally absurd. The members refrained from indulging in any activity that was seen as impure, but an extra clause was added, and they were told that even the appearance of evil was a sin that they could commit. For example, if a boy and a girl were sitting together in the dark, then it was an appearance of evil even when they didn’t have any intention of doing anything. The children who didn’t have money were forced to fundraise and do whatever they could for the ministry. There was a rule book that described all the ways in which a teenager could earn money. The children were told to knock on somebody’s door and crack an egg on their heads to amuse them and get some money. It was a subtle way of humiliating the kids who didn’t have enough resources to contribute. But obviously it was just a matter of time before somebody spoke out against all the atrocities that happened in the camp. Mica Ringo, a member of Teen Mania, created a blog where she anonymously posted about everything she went through in the ministry. Slowly, more and more people started to speak up, and I believe that had a negative impact on the entire movement. Ron Luce eventually ran out of funds, and a foreclosure was announced. Though Ron Luce had been able to convert a lot of people and make them into racists, for somebody like Mica, it did seem like a victory, though she knew that her job was half done.
Where is Ron Luce now?
Ron Luce became such a prominent figure in the United States of America that he even got support from the very powerful evangelical society called the Arlington Group. This group dreamt of a nation where secularism would cease to exist and the people would wage a war against the democratic setup. They see the right to freedom as a threat to their nation, and they know that people like Ron Luce could come in handy and help their cause. Mica Ringo said a very interesting thing: she said that Ron Luce was a victim as well as the accused in the present case. Ron had had a difficult childhood; his father didn’t treat him well, and he was adamant to channel all that rage into something greater. The problem with such people is that they believe that whatever they are doing is the right course of action. For them, there is no room for a different opinion. Ron believed that, to be a Christian, one needed to have anger within them, which was quite evident in the speeches that he gave during the Fire event and the Battlecry Coalition.
Ron Luce was a part of many ministries (the most recent of them was Generation Next) after Teen Mania was shut down in the year 2015. Ron still feels that America needs a rewiring, as only then would they be able to grow as a nation. The term “growing” does not mean progress for people like Ron, as all they wanted to do was push the nation back some 100 years. Basically, these fanatics are insecure people who feel threatened by the existence of logical minds. Today, they want to invoke the Convention of States, a method through which they can amend the Constitution. That can only be done if two-thirds of the state legislatures apply to Congress, and the extreme right-wing people do believe that they would be able to make that dream into reality. This is why I feel that whatever Mica said in the documentary was right. One cannot sit on the sidelines and expect everybody to act in a justified manner. People who threaten to break the democratic fabric of the nation need to be stopped, and more importantly, need to be told that nobody is above the Constitution.
