Lou Engle

Just yesterday I noted that Mike Huckabee had joined Tony Perkins, Mat Staver, Pat Roberston and others in recording a message urging activists to attend the upcoming "The Call" prayer rally with Lou Engle in Sacramento, CA. 

And one of the points I have been trying to emphasize in my posts about the rise of these self-proclaimed "apostles" and "prophets" like Engle within the Religious Right movement is that when they claim to be battling Satanic and demonic forces, they mean that quite literally.

And, just to demonstrate that point, here is Engle explaining that events like The Call are so important because they unleash spiritual movements in America that can break Satan's control over our government, though which He is enacting His evil agenda: 

Engle believes the anniversary meeting, which thousands are expected to attend, has the potential to turn the nation toward biblical values, as participants pray for "righteous" leaders to emerge from the midterm elections and for God to "shift the whole political system in America and the seven spheres of society."

"There is a hill above Capitol Hill," Engle said. "It's God's praying church who actually begins to influence the governments of the earth through their prayers."

Engle makes no apologies for his political advocacy. He believes if Christians don't influence politics, Satan will.

Prayer and preaching the gospel are the church's primary calling, he said. "But to say don't get involved in those high places [of government] is actually allowing our archenemy Satan to put his own people in those high places, where spiritual powers can actually control societies and release laws that actually legalize systemic evil," Engle added.

• Did you know that Dinesh D'Souza has been appointed President of King's College?
• The Family Research Institute continues to churn out "reports."
• This seems like an interesting/important story ... unfortunately, I know nothing about it.
• When Dominionists talk about talking control of the media, this is what they dream.
• The National Organization for Marriage's Robert George has joined the Editorial Advisory Board of the LDS-owned Deseret News.
• Finally, why is the City of Sacramento hanging banners advertising Lou Engle's upcoming "The Call" rally on its streetlights?

For the last few weeks, we've been chronicling Chuck Colson's plan to raise up a nationwide opposition to gay marriage in an attempt to sway the Supreme Court by demonstrating that Americans will not tolerate any decision that recognizes marriage equality.

And he is still at it, again making it the focus of his newest "Two Minute Warning" video. In this one, Colson says that Republicans have taken social conservatives for granted for too long and this year are trying to downplay social issues in order to focus on economic issues as a winning election strategy.  That is obviously unacceptable, so it is up to Christians to tell them "they are full of prunes, our consciences cannot sit on the back burner" (skip ahead to the 2:40 mark):

Colson also apparently intends to use the Dominionist/7 Mountains-themed Pray and ACT organization founded by Jim Garlow and intimately tied to Lou Engle and The Call as a means of mobilizing activists for his crusade, as his likeness is now featured all over the Pray and ACT website and he's even recorded a video touting its importance:

This piece from Rachel Tabachnick on strategic level spiritual warfare (SLSW), the ideology behind the growth of "prayer warrior" networks across the nation, reminded me of something I wanted to highlight from book I have been reading by Chuck Pierce called "The Future War of the Church: How We Can Defeat Lawlessness and Bring God's Order to the Earth."

Pierce has not been as openly political as have been the likes of Cindy Jacobs and Lou Engle, but he has been making inroads, having been involved in Janet Porter's May Day rally.  Pierce has deep ties to Jacobs and is actually next in line to take over C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation dynasty, with Wagner recently explaining that his Global Harvest Ministries was merging with Pierce's Glory of Zion (GOZ) International into something called Global Spheres, Inc. (GSI).

Whenever I write about how this new brand of prophetic intercessors is working their way into the mainstream Religious Right movement, I tend to end up relying on the word "literally" a lot, as in: "when they call themselves prophets and apostles, they mean that 'literally.'"

I do that because I think that people tend to assume, when they hear these activists talk about things like waging spiritual warfare against demon strongholds, that they are speaking in some figurative or metaphorical sense.

They're not.

In his book, Pierce lays out the explanation of why they must engage in this type of spiritual warfare, explaining that sin allows Satan to gain strongholds in homes, families, communities, and cities that can only be broken by properly directed spiritual warfare ... and again, let me point out that he means this literally: 

Satan gains access to an area in the same way he gains access to an individual's life or a family line: through sin. He does this by encouraging individual or family sin to escalate into corporate sin. When corporate sin enters into our assigned boundaries, we need to be aware of how that sin can build a throne of iniquity and how we, being positioned in God's army, have the authority to dismantle it.

Corporate sin - for example, idolatry, bloodshed, immorality and covenant breaking - creates a break in God's purpose, or order, for a region. Once this break begins to occur, Satan will take advantage to gain an upper hand and being to establish his influence in that area.

...

Satan uses ongoing problems within a community, such as murder, violence, pornography or gangs, to strengthen his throne of iniquity within the community. If your community is plagued by these and other corporate sins, you must realize that Satan has a throne of iniquity in place that is being maintained through these sins.

...

Satan's confederation, through which he maintains his system of worship, is not just limited to witchcraft or covens but can manifest itself through many forms of occultic practices, including satanism, psychic hotlines, spiritism, paganism, goddess worship, voodoo, fortune-telling, palmistry, demon worship, the use of spirit guides, and other New Age practices. The enemy's confederation also extends to those who practice any form of false religion - including Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hinduism, Eastern religions, Native religions, Christian Science, and Bahai - and to those embroiled in secret societies such as Freemasonry, Shriners, Oddfellows and the Elks.

Even though many involved in these practices would deny that they are being driven by a satanic confederation, the fact is that through their practice of what the Bible clearly identifies as evil, these people are contributing to the throne of iniquity upon which Satan is seated in the area.

Earlier this week I noted that Lou Engle and TheCall were operating a mobile prayer strikeforce for exactly this purpose.  Called the Prayer Strike Program, these groups "will be developed and deployed to key regions in the earth where breakthrough is needed for the spreading of the Lord's justice and salvation. In those regions, the teams will engage in concentrated worship, prayer, and fasting."

So if you live in an area with a large population of Mormons or Elks clubs, don't be surprised when you see a battalion of spiritual warriors descend upon your town in order to break the chain of corporate sin and free the region from Satan's control ... literally.

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about Rick Joyner and The Oak Initiative, one of the "prophetic intercessor" groups that, like Lou Engle and The Call and Cindy Jacobs and General International, are becoming increasingly active within the more "mainstream" Religious Right.

Like The Call and Generals International, The Oak Initative is a member of the Religious Right "supergroup" known as The Freedom Federation and Joyner, along with Engle and Jacobs, participated in the group's "Awakening" conference earlier this year, sitting on a panel on "Pastors and Political Activity" with Rick Scarborough and Richard Land.

Later this month, The Oak Initiative will be hosting its first ever Oak Convention in South Carolina which is scheduled to include Joyner, Samuel Rodriguez, Lance Wallnau, Jerry Boykin, Cindy Jacob, and others where they will discuss methods for gaining influence over their version of the 7 Mountains: 

At this time it is important to establish a leadership forum that focuses on the current major areas of dominant influence and crisis, including:

1. Spiritual and moral
2. Government and politics
3. Media
4. Economic
5. Social Issues
6. Environmental
7. Education

To do this we want to establish a leader and a council to address each of these spheres. Organizing this will be one of the major goals of the August Oak Convention. We will be establishing each of these with a Chairman, Asst. Chairman, and a staff devoted to both Research and Communications. The purpose of these councils will be to provide an accurate assessment of the great issues of the times, and to propose answers and solutions to them.

And among the ways they hope to do this is by creating their own "Christian Intelligence Service" and building their own media empires [PDF]: 

The formation of a Christian Intelligence Service

This is for training an army of “watchmen” who are skilled in discerning important issues or events as they unfold, and can gather basic information about it that is accurate and trustworthy.

One of the number one issues that seems uniform across nations and cultures at this time is a deteriorating trust in the media for accurate reporting and information. Most of the people on earth have never had government information sources that they trusted to be accurate, but in recent times even the most trusted governments have had a significant collapse of integrity and trust. If this void is not filled with truth and accurate information, the level of deception of the people will continue to grow. We believe this is a basic call of Christians who are supposed to be a light in their times, which is more than just preaching the gospel, but it is also exposing what is hidden in darkness with the truth that will set people free. We believe fundamentally that all men were created to be free, and that the basis of all freedom is truth.

The formation of media outlets with the highest standards of integrity and accuracy

We intend to build a world-class media outlet that is built more on trust and integrity than just style and technology, though we intend to be good at these too. The body of Christ has the people resources to quickly become a great light that shines in this darkness with truth. We have the ability to almost immediately reach virtually every major nation, and most of the world’s population with news and information for less than the cost that is now paid to a single executive at present media outlets.

And of course the aim of all of this is decidely political, as demonstrated by this new ad The Oak Initiative has posted on its YouTube page which declares that America regrets electing President Obama and the Democrats because they are a threat to this nation and so "we're coming after you" and "now you will pay" in 2010: 

Update: Apparently this video has been around for a while and is not an original Oak Initiative ad.

For a while now, we've been covering the fact that Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice has set up offices in Kenya and Zimbabwe for the purpose of shaping the draft constitutions that are being prepared in both nations.

Today, Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches has an important new report on the intersection between the ACLJ, "Word of Faith" spiritual warfare, and the future of Zimbabwe's government as demonstrated by a recent "Women, Weapons of Warfare conference" that took place in Kentucky:

At the heart of this women’s conference is the concept of “spiritual warfare,” the idea that God has anointed his “generals” to defeat Satan and bring the world to Christ. During this pre-conference prayer session, the group prays for a “mega-breakthrough” and for God to “take down the enemy.” It’s not a war of flesh and blood, conference speakers are quick to point out, but against the evil evident everywhere around us: in the “total moral decay” of America; in the nearby “liberal” Indiana University; in the unexpected frog in the throat of a speaker from Georgia; in the angry outburst of a woman whose husband had left her; and in the fear of failure recounted by speaker after speaker—until they found Jesus, that is. It becomes evident, as the speakers give testimony about their relationship with Jesus, that for many he is not only their savior, but someone they converse with to obtain instructions for most details of their lives. Many call him “Daddy.”

Bourland introduces special guest from Zimbabwe, Pastor Vicky Mpofu, her “spiritual mother” whom she likens to Moses, a figure “God has anointed” to “deal with an affliction on her people.” Mpofu is, says Bourland, “an oracle of God to bring a warning to our country.” She predicts that people, “will wake up and listen”; then she prays for there to be “more than enough to take care of all the children of Zimbabwe.”

...

Mpofu, who co-founded the WWW conference with Bourland, is the executive director of the African Centre for Law and Justice, a branch of the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by Pat Robertson in 1990 as a “Christian” answer to the American Civil Liberties Union ... The African Centre for Law and Justice is injecting itself into the political process of drafting a new constitution that will supposedly pave the way for new elections. The African Centre for Law and Justice is aiming to do in Zimbabwe precisely what the religious right seeks to accomplish in the United States: declare the country a “Christian nation” guided by biblical principles, outlaw abortion, and ostracize and criminalize LGBT people ... Together with the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the African Centre for Law and Justice is working to garner the support of religious leaders and activists for constitutional provisions that would “affirm that Zimbabwe is a predominantly Christian nation founded on Biblical principles,” and require application of “the Laws of God in order to prosper and avoid chaos and destruction,” according to a pamphlet prepared by the EFZ and supported by the ALCJ.

Backed by the ACLJ, Mpofu has been traveling Zimbabwe to rally religious support for the EFZ’s constitutional proposals. “We’ve had a lot of support from ACLJ in America because for me to be able to go around the country to visit the ten provinces we’ve received some help financially and also we’ve received some help from the teams from America visiting and working with us,” Mpofu said. “The support has been tremendous.”

...

The EFZ/ACLJ pamphlet also calls for constitutional prohibitions on both abortion, by defining life as “beginning at conception,” and on attempts to reform the country’s laws criminalizing homosexuality. It calls for defining marriage “as being between a man and a woman” and for “any and all definitions of a family or marriages or relationships or legal unions that seek to include or permit same sex unions to be prohibited,” as well as for “sexual relations between partners of the same sex, bestiality, and other perversions to remain a criminal activity.”

Posner also posted video highlights of the conference, which has a Lou Engle/Cindy Jacobs sort of familiarity to it:

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Lou Engle recently spoke at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City about the importance of the upcoming 10th anniversary TheCall rally to be held in Sacramento, CA over Labor Day weekend to fight, in part, the "Antichrist ideologies [that are] pervading our universities and campuses":

Christians must stand on the truth of God's Word and not bow down to intimidating forces that would cause them to compromise for the sake of political and cultural expediency. We believe that this ruling is an invitation for true believers to stand for truth, pray like never before, and proclaim boldly the name of Jesus on their campuses. To simply wilt in the face of this ruling or to surrender when campuses try to misuse it to take away your rights is to give away more ground to the Antichrist ideologies pervading our universities and campuses.

When judicial and governmental rulings threaten to silence the voice of the Church, she only has one great recourse; united fasting and prayer as an appeal to heaven. ... The stakes are higher now than they were ten years ago. It is time for a spiritual revolution on the campuses of America.

But it not just about universities, it is about America ... and most importantly, political action:

I still believe in the greater revival for America. I still believe that abortion can end in America. I still believe that our education systems won't have to be taught homosexual ideologies and little Hispanic kids who can't afford to go to private education will not have to be taught the sexual immorality of the so-called false prophets of our education systems. I've got to believe that sex trafficking back be driven back and drug lords can be arrested because the praying church bound principalities and powers.

I still believe that righteous men and woman can arise in places like Hollywood and tell the stories of the fame of God. I still believe that men and women can arise into the high places of government in our nation, like Daniel.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know this: I've been called to stand in such a time as this. And if The Call was raised up with hundreds of thousands over the last ten years, I've still got to believe the promise He gave to me ten years ago when He spoke to me that what I am pouring out is stronger than the rebellion. This Sixties forty-year cycle is up and the Seventies forty-year cycle is ready to release another Jesus Movement. Can you believe with me for that.

Just begin to pray right now, pray for America. Pray. Just begin to pray for America. Pray God, in our darkest hour, when we don't even know right from wrong any more, nobody can even say a word publicly without being vilified, political correctness is killing our prophets, silencing the voice of truth. We have to have miracles again. Who will live for the miracle-working power of God to be displayed? I believe the days of solemn assembly are just ready to break out, that stadiums will be filled in the days of Obama.

A few weeks back, we noted that Pat and Gordon Robertson had recorded a video message urging people to attend The Call's 10th anniversary rally in Sacramento in September.

Today, Engle was on The 700 Club where he was explained that, despite the fact that the culture seems to be getting progressively worse, those young men and women who took up "the call" ten years ago have become leaders in their own rights who are now shifting the nation and working to bring about the next great awakening:

I've returned for vacation and am slowly working my way through everything that happened while I was away and trying to catch up.  While going through my RSS reader, I saw a New York Times article entitled "Obama Gains Evangelical Allies on Immigration" and decided to take a look at it because this is an issue that we have been covering here for several months now.

As we've been noting, a handful of Religious Right leaders including Richard Land, Mat Staver, Lou Engle, Samuel Rodriguez, and Ken Blackwell, have come out in support of immigration reform, marking a distinct break from the rest of the conservative movement which has traditionally opposed any such reform and instead favored fences, round-ups and overall anti-immigration crackdowns.

So imagine my surprise when I took a look at the NYT article and saw this photo:

Bryan Fischer, in addition to being the one of the most viciously anti-gay activists operating today, has also been among the most vocal Religious Right activists opposing immigration reform, calling for the deportation of all Muslims and advocating for the deportation of entire families in the name of compassion and controlling "vigliante justice."

While the article focused mostly on activists like Staver and Land who are supporting President Obama's efforts to reform our immigration system, for some reason the NYT decided to feature of photo of a man who easily ranks among the Religious Right's most openly hostile anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant activists ... and, not surprisingly, he opposes those leaders who are supporting this effort:

Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, a national conservative Christian organization in Tupelo, Miss., said, “What my evangelical friends are arguing is that illegal aliens should essentially be rewarded for breaking the law.

“I think it’s extremely problematic from a Judeo-Christian standpoint to grant citizenship to people whose first act on American soil was to break an American law,” said Mr. Fischer, who hosts a daily radio show on which immigration is a frequent topic.

On a related note, Fischer and Staver debated this issue on Fischer's radio program last week.  You can read Fischer's take on it here.