A Planned Battle Against Satan Is Cancelled Due To Lack Of Interest

KEVIN VanStory, inset above, a “Christian Constitutional Conservative“, has mothballed his “Girdle of Truth” and a “Breastplate of Righteousness” – at least for a while.

According to The Kansas City Star VanStory, a leader of the Salt and Light Brigade MAKO edition – which includes Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma – was all set to train Christians how to combat “Satan’s fiery darts of doubt, denial, and deceit” at an event planned for today (Saturday) in southwest Missouri.

But the gathering was cancelled due to “low attendance levels.”

Had it gone ahead, Satan’s foes – The Missouri Embattled Warriors – would have been taught “hand-to-hand combat” among other things.

In a gung-ho message on Facebook, the chubby estate agent declared:

Heavenly Father, Your warrior prepares for battle. Today I claim victory over Satan by putting on the whole armor of God!

Apart from his his “Girdle of Truth” and a “Breastplate of Righteousness”, the crackpot also intended donning a “Girdle of Truth” and a “Shield of Faith.”

The Salt and Light Brigade’s best-known member is “Coach’ Dave Daubenmire, above, who posted an even more florid message on VanStory’s Facebook page. In it he proclaimed:

The American Church is the 98-pound weakling that Charles Atlas used to talk about. At some point Christians are going to have to hit the weight room and fight back against the Luciferian bullies.

Getting one’s ass kicked does not make one more Holy. Fighting pressure does. In fact, it is often called ‘resistance training.’ At the heart of resistance training is the act of pushing back. The American Church has been taught that ‘pushing back’ is un-Christian.

That is a socialist LIE. Standing up to and resisting evil builds character … The American church system has made the American male weak and dependent. It has turned men into mice, lions into pussycats, and sharks into feminine evanjellyfish. The American church is broken.

How crazy is Daubenmire? Very! Last year he claimed in a video that he had been put in danger of hellfire by watching a Super Bowl halftime show at the weekend – and said he believed he had a strong case for suing the National Football League “for about $867 trillion.”

What sparked “Coach Dave” hysterical rant on his “Pass The Salt Live” webcast was a performance featuring Latin pop artists Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. The pair, according to The Christian Post:

Danced with lots of hip-shaking and were at points barely clothed around stripper poles.

VanStory, from Neosho, described the Brigade as:

A group of Christian men and women that go out and will stand against unrighteousness.

He told The Star on Wednesday that the training would be “an intensive study about self defence.”

But some who monitor extremist organisations said the gathering raised concerns, saying it sounded like far-right paramilitary training and that the group was using scaremongering tactics to draw people in.

Bakersfield.com quoted Devin Burghart, Executive Director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights as saying:

The group is trying to hide far-right paramilitary training behind a friendly facade. Whatever the label, the group traffics in racist scaremongering to draw people into paramilitary activity. Whether or not they call it a militia, everyone should be concerned about a far-right paramilitary group like this coming to Missouri.

This VanStory denied, saying it was a “very loosely organised” group was not a militia and that the event was nothing to fear.

News of the event drew a barrage of reaction, most of it critical, on social media.

One man wrote on Facebook:

Nothing says Jesus like a 9mm and a throat punch.

Another said:

I think anyone who’s read the gospels knows the importance Jesus placed on hand-to-hand combat. ‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, offer him a knuckle sandwich and draw your sidearm.’