Former New York Giant David Tyree’s personal views on gay marriage have been the topic of much debate since his recent hiring as director of player development for that franchise, but the press has overlooked an even more significant problem. For the better part of a decade, Tyree has traded on his NFL fame to win unsuspecting donors for some of the country’s leading Christian dominionists, including one of the most aggressive anti-gay activists in America. Thanks to Tyree, Joseph Mattera can be seen in the New York society pages at fundraising galas rubbing shoulders with New York Giants Eli Manning and Tiki Barber, NBA stars, beauty queens, business leaders, and movie stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Jackman. Many of these figures are, no doubt, unaware that they are helping one of the nation’s most zealous campaigners for biblical law establish a foothold in New York by funding the foundation led by his wife and co-pastor, Joyce Mattera.
A rising star of the Religious Right, Joseph Mattera was recently named the “convening apostle” of the U.S. by a network of religious leaders by called the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (ICAL, formerly the International Coalition of Apostles). These self-appointed, modern-day “apostles and prophets” are part of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement and are on the cutting edge of anti-gay activism in eastern Europe, South America, and Africa. They believe they have a mandate for taking dominion over the “Seven Mountains” or power centers of society and culture. While those society page celebrities at these fundraisers may not know about Mattera’s national and international fame in this role, and at least one major donor I’ve reached most certainly did not, Tyree undoubtedly does. His “spiritual mother” and co-author Kimberly Daniels is also an apostle in the movement, as is Tyree’s business partner, Frank Dupree. I have documented these relationships elsewhere, including the obsession of Tyree’s mentor with praying away the gay, or expelling the (literal) demons she believes cause homosexuality.
Children of the City
According to its website, the mission of Joyce Mattera’s nonprofit organization, Children of the City, is “to reach at-risk inner-city youth and their families.” The group has long used Tyree and its at-risk intervention agenda to attract public exposure and win liberal support for the Matteras. Mattera has written about doing “good works” through Children of the City to gain traction in New York City for their conservative religious campaigns, stating in his book, Kingdom Revolution,
My wife and I have taken this principle to heart and have ministered to tens of thousands of at-risk children since 1981. Then when the time came to lead the fight against same-sex marriage in our city, we had already earned a place of respect because of the service we had freely given to our community.
This approach is common among the “apostles.” For example, Peter Wagner, a pioneer of the NAR and its apostolic networks, wrote about ICA apostle Eddie Long’s success in making his ministry indispensable to Atlanta through faith-based charitable work.
In another book, Walk in Generational Blessings, Joseph Mattera describes the monthly home visits to 1,000 children on Children of the City’s roster “by our fifty volunteers, most of whom attend our local church.” While Children of the City’s programs appear to be faith-based, their marketing and much of their support appears to be secular. In Kingdom Revolution, Mattera boasts of their fundraising success outside their own conservative religious community:
Our programs are 95 percent supported by non-Christian private donors, foundations, or city and state aid. Since 2001, this has totaled millions of dollars and far exceeds our local church’s budget and financial abilities.
Mattera’s apostolic network affiliates include New York City Intercessors, and his wife Joyce is an executive of the NYC Women’s Prayer Summit. These prayer networks have emphasized an international campaign called the 4/14 Window Movement to reach children four through fourteen years old, the age range they believe is most impressionable for indoctrination into their worldview.
Joyce Mattera started Children of the City in the early 1980s and serves as its executive director. The group registered with New York State in 1994 and received federal 501(c)(3) status in 2002. According to its newsletters and promotional material, the board of directors includes mainstream business leaders. However, those names do not appear in the nonprofit’s tax filings. Almost all of the directors listed in Children of the City’s IRS 990 tax forms are pastors and lay leaders of the Resurrection Church, founded by Joseph and Joyce Mattera.
The nonprofit is registered as a religious charity, and one of its early tax forms lists the mission as “teaching children biblical and Godly values.” Subsequent filings and promotional material for the organization have no religious language. The charity is advertised as providing academic mentoring and life skills training for poor urban children and their families.
The Children of the City organization shares space free of charge and phone numbers with the Resurrection Church, as well as with Joseph Matteras’ nonprofits. The contact number for New York summits and rallies for traditional marriage were the same as that given for Children of the City.
The nonprofit’s newsletters and website include a “Uganda Mission,” described as partnering in Uganda with Arnold Muwonge in support of education of children at his orphanage. There is no reference to the fact that Muwonge is also an ICA apostle who, in addition to housing 100 or so children, leads an apostolic network that claims to include more than 2,500 churches. Muwonge resides and works in England as a “reverse missionary,” bringing the supernatural successes of Uganda to the Western world. Like many others in this network in Uganda, he teaches that HIV/AIDS can be cured through prayer. Muwonge’s bios include references to his training under Apostle John Mulinde, a key player in introducing Peter Wagner’s ICA networks in Uganda and the local apostle who organized Lou Engle’s TheCall Uganda in 2010. That event became a rally for the “Kills the Gays” Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a version of which passed earlier this year before being overturned today on a procedural issue by Uganda’s Supreme Court.
Tyree, Mattera, and NOM
Tyree has also worked directly with Joseph Mattera and the National Organization of Marriage (NOM), providing a popular face for these Religious Right leaders’ activism. One example is the 2011 press conference in opposition to marriage equality organized by Mattera. In the embedded NOM video from the event, Mattera introduces Tyree, stating, “He cared more about marriage and family than his reputation. He’s the first celebrity that I know of, and the first New York athlete to come out against same sex marriage.” Mattera describes the response to a NOM-produced viral video of an interview with Tyree, who is followed at the microphone by NOM’s Maggie Gallagher.
Joseph Mattera coordinated the protests against marriage equality in New York and has written extensively about strategy for a theocratic restructuring of society. He has spoken at foreign events decrying the “homosexual agenda,” including a 2007 Watchmen on the Walls conference in Latvia with founders Alexey Ledyaev and the notorious Scott Lively. Lively is the author of The Pink Swastika and currently the defendant in a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights for his role in inciting the persecution of sexual minorities in Uganda. Speakers described an agenda for forming government aligned with biblical law in countries around the world, including a strategy presented by Scott Lively for criminalizing any public advocacy of homosexuality.
Tyree’s relationship with the Matteras, like his relationship with Kimberly Daniels, predates his famous Super Bowl performance of 2008, but it is Mattera who has soared to international prominence in recent years in the religio-political networks of the NAR. Mattera compares his views on biblical law to those of Rousas Rushdoony and Christian Reconstructionism, but has voiced opposition to execution of homosexuals in his interpretation of biblical law. He favors a more gradual process that would drive LGBTQ people back into the closet and argues that the process “towards a biblical theocracy in a pluralistic society” is to establish commandments five through ten of the Ten Commandments, and to enable the next generation to legally enforce commandments one through four.
City Action Coalition
The U.S. network of apostles that Mattera now heads is a part of a movement dubbed the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) by C. Peter Wagner, the recently retired international convening apostle. Mattera’s rapid ascendance in prominence within the NAR may be the results of his capabilities in organizing and outreach in urban areas, a primary target of the international movement. In addition to his Resurrection Church in Brooklyn, Mattera founded Christ Covenant Coalition, a network of apostles in the New York area, and a religio-political activist arm called City Action Coalition. Protests against marriage equality in 2011 were organized under the auspices of the latter, including one on the steps of city hall in New York City and the press conference at the state capitol. David Tyree was perhaps the most widely recognized public figure on stage at both of these events.
Mattera’s network of like-minded apostles, including Harry Jackson Jr., utilizes similar strategies to those leaked to the press from internal NOM memos in 2012. That strategy was to drive a wedge between lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities and African Americans in order to split key sectors of the Democratic Party. However, in urban and heavily Democratic areas, the effort is intentionally nonpartisan or bipartisan, in order to separate African American and Latino pastors and churches from their progressive allies, while leaders retain their Democratic or nonpartisan identies. Some, like Harry Jackson Jr., have described themselves as Democrats while supporting GOP candidates and a reactionary political agenda.
Tyree’s co-author Kimberly Daniels ran, and won, a position on the Jacksonville, Florida, city council as a Democrat in 2011. Daniels had partnered with fellow “prophet” Harry Jackson in spearheading opposition to the federal Hate Crimes bill in 2007, falsely claiming that pastors would be jailed for preaching against homosexuality.
Bullet points for City Action Coalition’s strategic agenda, no longer online, included forming a nonpartisan Christian political movement to inspire 10,000 emerging leaders in politics and culture and to unite the “1.5 million Bible-believing Christians in New York” as a “strong multi-ethnic and cross-denominational voice” for the political arena. The following were listed as major issues: traditional marriage, sanctity of life, religious freedom, formation of charter schools, and support for school vouchers and homeschooling.
Taking Dominion over the Seven Mountains
Joseph Mattera travels the world - Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America- to speak about the “steps to biblical dominion” or taking control of the “Seven Mountains.” The latter is a concept used to simplify the teaching of the Christian Dominionist theology by using mountains or gates to represent the seven power centers of society: arts and entertainment; business; education; family, government; media; and religion. In his book, Ruling in the Gates, Mattera writes that the “coming apostolic reformation should result in placing godly leaders in every facet of society with a biblical worldview.”
Mattera’s biblical worldview is not limited to the hot button issues of homosexuality and abortion. Mattera’s response to the shooting at Sandy Hook School was to blame abortion, rather than guns, for the tragedy. He teaches that capitalism is most closely aligned with the bible, and that the bible forbids inheritance and other progressive taxes.
Mattera has spoken around the world about the need for like-minded Christians to out-procreate everyone else, describing this as the “key to dominion.” In 2010, Mattera told an audience in Argentina that dominion won’t happen because of one stadium event, and explained that if the church had more children and their children had more children, “we would have more influence than anybody else, we would have more votes than anybody else, and we would have the most power on earth.”
This is the Religious Right leader that David Tyree has helped to empower in New York, aiding him and his wife in establishing their enterprises in the community, and drawing unsuspecting funders to grace the pages of society magazines in promotion of the Children of the City nonprofit. This past week, Tyree was publicized as having evolved in his views about homosexuality and that he was repentant of his words of three years ago. But perhaps it’s not his personal views, whether they have evolved or not, that matter most. The most recent David Tyree Charity Ball raising funds for Children of the City was held in June, publicized in sports page lauding Tyree’s life choices as guiding his selection of charitable partners. As director of player development for the New York Giants, Tyree will be able to expand his role of leading his unsuspecting teammates and others into the sphere of the theocratic NAR apostles.