LGBT POV

(Editor’s note: Bruce Wilson is a straight religious right researcher who not only produces extraordinary work but understands the possible consequences of what he uncovers – especially to the LGBT community. This is a cross-post of an in-depth piece about Lou Engle who we in Southern California remember as the hyper-antigay Christian whipping up the fasting crowd at the pro-Prop 8 event in San Diego called TheCall. Few of us really expected to see Lou Engle wearing an ill-fitting suit leading the anti-healthcare reform bill “Prayercast” organized by the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins – with portions  broadcast live by Rachel Maddow recently.  Given his frenetic fanaticism and some of his pronouncements about Christian martyrs and statements such as -“Wherever I go I spit, but it’s holy water” – it is disturbing to learn from Wilson about Engle’s association with US Sen. Sam Brownback and that he might take his religious show on the road – to Uganda. This is one of those investigative pieces that LGBT politicos should read and save because it seems we’re just getting to know Lou Engle. Additionally – please bookmark and continue to follow Bruce Wilson at Talk to Action. – Karen Ocamb)

Will Lou Engle take his mega-antigay TheCall to Uganda?
By Bruce Wilson

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow introduced religious right-wing evangelical pastor Lou Engle to the political nation last Wednesday, cutting into the Family Research Council’s live “Prayercast.” She described Engle as:

“the pastor calling for a second American civil war, for American Christians to be martyred against abortion – headlining tonight’s anti-health care reform event, with two serving US Republican senators and two serving Republican members of Congress.”

Lou Engle is the founder of TheCall, organizer of the mega antigay marriage event held last year at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego to urge passage of Proposition 8 in California. Interestingly, Engle’s son specializes in casting out “homosexual spirits,” though there is no indication he was gay before he became an “ex-gay.”

Engle says one of the GOP senators at the Prayercast – Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback – was his roommate in a Washington DC condo for the better part of a year. (More on this later.)

Aside from the Prop 8 rally last year, Lou Engle organized a rally in 2000 that drew hundreds of thousands to Washington DC’s national mall. But the Family Research Council’s “Prayercast” Dec. 16 was Engle’s real national coming-out party.

There’s more to the mainstreaming of Lou Engle than meets the eye. New information indicates that Engle might bring TheCall stadium event – featuring predictions of a coming second American civil war and calls for acts of Christian martyrdom to stop legal abortion and gay marriage – to Uganda. Right now in Uganda there is a climate of anti-gay repression which has led to extra-judicial killings, torture and, most lately, a bill before Uganda’s Parliament that mandates the execution of Ugandans for “aggravated homosexuality” and even simply being infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. The international community – including the US State Department – is trying to kill the bill or at least scale back the death penalty provision.

“The most ‘dangerous terrorist’ is not Islam but God.”

The US is still home base for Christian fanaticism and many of the new leaders of the religious right believe they either have a direct line to God – or hint they might be semi-Divine. Lou Engle unabashedly claims he has Holy water running in his veins: “Wherever I go I spit, but it’s holy water.”

With nationally known old lions of the Christian right such as Jerry Falwell dying off or retiring, this younger leadership group is coming to the fore. And politicians know it – though they may not know exactly what they’re buying into.

[image, left: Lou Engle leads rally]

The most dangerous terrorist, according to Lou Engle, is God. It’s a point that might warm Osama Bin Laden’s heart. In a document titled “Doctrine of the Shedding of Innocent Blood,” [PDF of document], Engle writes,

“Where there is shedding of innocent blood, there is no atonement for the land. There is a blood pollution problem on America’s soil. The most “dangerous terrorist” is not Islam but God. One of God’s names is the avenger of blood. Have you worshipped [sic] that God yet.”

In his book Sons To Glory, Paul Jablonoskwi, who is sympathetic to Engle’s cause, described a 2002 Lou Engle/TheCall event in Kansas City:

“What I witnessed in Bartle Hall on December 31st 2002 was the antithesis of radical Islam. Instead of people wanting to blow themselves up to kill others, I saw young adults who were so radically in love with Jesus that they were willing to become martyrs for the sake of saving other people’s lives. Someone from the stage asked, ‘who here feels like they are called to die as a martyr for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ?’ Many hands went up throughout the stadium.”

[image, right: Lou Engle anoints Mike Huckabee]

Last summer, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee traveled to a Virginia Beach megachurch where an evangelist unknown to most of secular, mainstream America anointed and blessed the two GOP presidential hopefuls.

Only days before Huckabee and Gingrich received Lou Engle’s endorsement at Rock Church, on Sunday, May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few medical professionals who would perform late term abortions, was gunned down in the lobby of his Wichita, Kansas church. The next morning CBS’s Jeff Glor reported:

“We did speak with the accused shooters’ ex-wife yesterday. She said she was not surprised this happened and that she believed Roeder wanted to be a martyr for the cause.”

Lou Engle’s personal website and his organization websites still feature extreme rhetorical attacks [1, 2] posted prior to George Tiller’s assassination.

In one of those posts, Engle wrote:

When at an abortion clinic in Miami, a living-breathing baby is born during an abortion procedure and the baby is thrown away – alive into a plastic bag, the nation is appalled and the doctor is charged with two felonies and faces prison time.

If that very same abortion had not been botched, the doctor would have gone home in peace having put to death a viable human being before it was born. What white-washed insanity!

Today, the country faces another instance of insanity as President Obama has nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to the highest healthcare post in America, the Secretary of Health & Human Services.

As governor of Kansas, MS. Sebelius has consistently vetoed restrictions against late-term and partial birth abortions that are performed on babies from 6th-9th months. She has also protected one of the most prolific abortion doctors in America, Dr. George Tiller from Wichita. His renowned 30-year practice has overseen the death of nearly 60,000 babies.

In the early 1980’s, KKK and Aryan Nations strategist Louis Beamhelped popularize a tactic known as “leaderless resistance” in which high profile propagandists would incite terrorist acts carried out by autonomous individuals and cell groups. During the 1990’s leaders of the Army of God, wielding militant anti-abortion rhetoric, helped inspire terrorist bombings of abortion clinics and the assassination of doctors who provided abortions. Now, a decade later, one can hear such incitement coming from the stage at Lou Engle’s TheCall events. As California journalist Karen Ocamb writes,

members of the Army of God were out in force at Lou Engle’s TheCall antigay Prop 8 rally in San Diego, along with Jim Garlow and James Dobson, three of the guests on Perkin’s webcast about abortion and healthcare…

Lou Engle and “Senator Brownbag”: roommates in martyrdom?

One pertinent question is whether Lou Engle’s ideological extremity has been quietly adopted by America’s GOP power elite. In fact, such a question should be posed to Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, Lou Engle’s roommate for seven months, according to Engle. As Engle told congregants at a Hispanic church in Boston, Mass, on February 19, 2006,

“I was mobilizing young people to go to Boston in 2001. The gathering ….. came 11 days after 9/11. Many people from New England called and they said ‘we can’t come. It’s not safe.’ It ticked me off. Why could Muslims die better for their faith than we can? We’re able to die better than Muslims. We’re living for self-preservation rather than bringing the Kingdom. We cannot live for self preservation.

Esther was brought into a moment of time when she had to choose between living for self- preservation or say ‘if I die, I die’. And right now I’ve got young people right there in DC, who will say, ‘We’re not going to leave this house of prayer until that heinous decree of abortion has ended and if I die, I die.’ Alleluia!

As I was mobilizing for Boston, I said to kids in California ‘we need to dig the dwells of revival in Harvard and close the door of false ideologies that have come through Boston’. Amazingly a week later, I received a phone call from the US Senator from Kansas, Senator Sam Brownback, he’s a godly man. He calls me up, he says ‘Lou, I’m in England, you need to dig the dwells of revival in Harvard and close the door of false ideologies that have come through Boston’. Almost word for word. A Senator was prophesying me, glory to God.

In fact, it was prophesized to me that I would be connected with a man named Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas. But I forgot about the prophecy, so when I rented a condo in DC to mobilize for TheCall, a week later I received a phone call from the owner of the condo and he said ‘There’s a man named Senator Sam Brownbag. His condo just burnt down. He wants to know if he could stay in your condo’. I became the roommate of Senator Brownbag for seven months.”

Nazirites

On December 16th, Lou Engle, flanked by bearded young male disciples pledged to sexual purity whom Engle calls nazirites, led Senators Sam Brownback and Jim DeMint and House Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes in a telecast group prayer service against the health care reform bill now before Congress. The same day, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show picked up the event and broadcast footage from Engle’s November 1st, 2008 pro-Proposition 8 stadium rally in San Diego, during which Engle declared that legal gay marriage would unleash “sexual insanity” upon America and made calls, from onstage, for acts of Christian martyrdom to stop legal abortion and gay marriage. On December 6th, 2008, Engle’s TheCall staged it’s first African event, in Kenya. Uganda may be next.

So, who is Lou Engle ?

[image,right: Lou Engle's young followers at an antiabortion protest. The red tape over their mouths, with the word "life" has been perhaps Lou Engle's most successful viral marketing success. The symbolic gimmick is promoted by Engle's Bound 4 Life ministry.]

Lou Engle’s organization TheCall was in the forefront of the fall 2008 pro-Proposition 8 campaign against legal gay marriage in California and set up 8 field offices in the state. Leaders in the campaign claim they fielded as many as 70,000 volunteers. Engle’s son, Jesse, performs exorcisms to cast out “homosexual spirits” and has established a ministry in San Francisco’s Castro District which, says Lou Engle, is “where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness.”

In a September 25, 2007 Las Vegas rally, Lou Engle told a crowd of his followers,

[excerpt from 2007 Engle Los Vegas speech. see here for extended transcript. right: audio excerpt from Engle sermon] “My son Jesse, he’s nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District – where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He’s going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

…He said to me, “dad,” he said, “as long  as I’m there I don’t think the Lord will judge San Francisco.” [boos, angry murmur from Engle's audience]…

He’s 19 years old. He’s starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It’s scary as hell. The whole thing’s scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places.”

Engle has suggested and also predicted that legalized abortion will lead to a second American civil war. Engle appeared, in the documentary “Jesus Camp,” alongside Becky Fischer – who specializes in evangelizing children and has stated she would like Christian children to learn to be as dedicated as young Islamic militants ready to lay down their lives for their cause.

[Top, Left: Becky Fischer admires the dedication of Hamas' young suicide bombers ? Top, Right: Lou Engle predicts legalized abortion will lead to a second American civil war, TheCall Kansas City, December 31, 2007. Bottom, Left: Lou Engle calls for martyrs, at TheCall San Diego, November 1, 2008. Bottom, Right: Lou Engle, at Jesus Camp, indoctrinates children as future antiabortion movement warriors.].

Lou Engle’s fevered rallies often betray a disturbing militancy. During Engle’s November 1, 2008 Qualcomm Stadium TheCall event, which served as the capstone event to a massive anti-gay marriage push spearheaded by Engle’s activists in California during summer and fall 2008, one of Engle’s young acolytes called out to thousands filling the stadium,

“So God right now I ask, father, we celebrate the martyrs right now, God, and we ask, God, for a great martyr movement to go out of Qualcomm. I believe God is going to mark many of us with a spirit of martyrdom. And that is a glorious thing.”

Lou Engle followed up with, “Even under martyrdom, God, give me the grace – fasting twelve hours, with prayer: these are seeds are martyrdom. Days are coming when we’re going to have to risk our lives to stand for truth in this society. Say, lift your voices and say, ‘God, mark me now! Mark me – as a man or women of the cross and of Jesus Christ.’ Say, ‘mark me!’

[below: Lou Engle's November 1, 2008 TheCall event, featuring calls for acts of Christian martyrdom to stop gay marriage and legal abortion]

Avengers of blood for Proposition 8

Over the last two decades, the American Christian right has gone truly global and established power centers in the developing world which now lend support to the long march in the United States towards extending Christian dominion over key sectors of society such as government, business and finance, education, media, and religion.

Engle’s role as leader of TheCall has now received some mainstream media notice – but the source of his influence is still largely unknown. Lou Engle is one of Peter Wagner’s “prophetic elders” who, along with Sarah Palin’s prayer group leader Mary Glazier, sits on Wagner’s prestigious Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders, one of the key leadership groups wielding influence over a sprawling, global new incarnation of the religious right known as the New Apostolic Reformation.

It’s a religious tendency, rapidly becoming the new face of the religious right, which welcomes women and minorities but features an ideology just extreme as that of the bigoted, nativist branch of the Christian right that Engle’s movement will soon overshadow.

Engle has described his movement as an “underground church” and he has stated, in an interview for a documentary video about his movement,

“Right now they haven’t seen the true church. There’s an underground church that the world has no idea that exists. Once they get the stage, it’s over with.”

While the American left has heavily focused on the Tea Party movement, leaders in Engle’s arising tendency, which I’ve described as the The Rainbow Right, wield major electoral influence with minority groups and can infiltrate Washington-based Democrat “centrist,” “common ground” efforts with ease. National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference President Samuel Rodriguez, one of Peter Wagner’s apostles, has been listed on the TheCall’s advisory board (recently wiped from TheCall’s website, link is to Internet Archive version of page) which is almost a who’s-who of Wagner’s movement.

[video, below: Lou Engle, in February 19, 2006, at a Boston Hispanic church, talks about his relationship with his former condo-mate Senator Sam Brownback]

Four of the Christian leaders appearing in the “PrayerCast” event alongside Brownback and DeMint played dominant roles in a two and a half hour key motivational and planning conference call held July 30th, 2008 for leaders of the Christian right who organized the successful campaign to block gay marriage in Arizona, Florida, and California. Those leaders are: Jim Garlow, Bishop Harry Jackson, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Lou Engle of TheCall.

Engle’s operation was so central to the California pro-Prop 8 drive that one of the four campaign timeline maps, distributed to members of that July 30th, 2008 conference call detailing major elements and events for the anti-gay marriage campaigns in AZ, FL, and CA, was dedicated solely to TheCall’s effort in California.

[ below: map/timeline for TheCall's pro-Prop 8 effort in CA ]

Taking it on the road… to Uganda ?

It’s an international effort. TheCall has staged its stadium-sized anti-abortion and anti-gay rights events in numerous countries around the world, including Australia, Germany, the Philippines, Norway, England, Jerusalem, Brazil, and Kenya. Reports indicate TheCall is now planning to stage one of its rallies in Uganda, next May 2010.

As evangelist Jo Anna Watson, founder of Touching Hearts International, describes in her November 2009 ministry newsletter,

I attended the International Call Summit, October 28 -30, hosted by Lou Engle and Stacey Campbell. Over 20 participants from other nations were gathered who are interested in holding a Call in their nation. This summit was very informative as we were filled with the DNA of the CALL and encouraged to follow through with what God has placed on our heart. On October 30th I flew to Chicago to attend the last two days of Pastor John Mulinde’s prayer summit. We met on Saturday to discuss in more detail and make preparations for the CALL Uganda to be held May 29, 2010. I will arrive in Uganda on January 6 and will be living in Uganda to partner with Pastor John Mulinde as we prepare and mobilize this Sacred Assembly, similar to the one described in Joel 2. I ask you to keep theCall Uganda and our team in prayer and if possible to fast one day a week or month, along with us, in preparation for the Call Uganda on May 29, 2010.

As Watson wrote in an earlier post,

Lou Engel and Mike Bickle have organized an International Call Summit, October 27 to 30 2009 in Kansas City.  I will be attending this meeting since TouchingHearts International is partnering with Apostle John Mulinde, World Trumpet Mission, Uganda to mobilize and host TheCall Uganda. I am excited to hear representatives from a number of nations will be attending.  Please keep Apostle John and his family in your prayers as he has been very sick.

The date for TheCall Uganda has been confirmed and is May 29, 2010. We will be putting a website up soon: www.thecalluganda.com. There has been so much interest in TheCall and Uganda that we will also be organizing a mission trip to include TheCall Uganda event with ministry in Uganda following TheCall.  If you are interested please email me.  You can also go to my website to find more information.  Please keep us in your prayers for all finances and resources to come in to cover the expenses of TheCall Uganda.

A miraculous Ugandan “Transformation:” The Glory Spreads

[image, below: as depicted in "Transformations II : The Glory Spreads, on January 1, 2000, the nation of Uganda was officially covenanted, for 1,000 years, to God. With the Ugandan government's close cooperation, the nation has become the most celebrated example of "Transformation" in the movement and is routinely showcased at international "Transformation" conferences. Hawaii and San Francisco are other targets for "Transformation." Transformations II claims faith healing has caused miracle curing of HIV/AIDS in Uganda]

Julius Oyet, a spokesman for the Transformations movement so central to the Transformations mythos that Oyet has starred in his own dedicated Transformations video, “An Unconventional War”, is a powerful Ugandan evangelist who played a major role in organizing and inspiring Ugandan legislators who have put the internationally condemned so-called “kill the gays bill” before Uganda’s parliament. Both Lou Engle, Robert Mulinde, and Julius Oyet are tied the religious networks of a man even less well known than Lou Engle – C. Peter Wagner.

John Mulinde has also starred in the Transformations propaganda videos that have propelled Wagner’s movement. Mulinde’s ministry World Trumpet Mission ministry is co-located in Uganda and Southern Florida.

Marketed under the global brand name of “Transformations,” the Transformations videos purport to be documentaries which show how Christians can bring about Earthly utopias by hounding witches, expelling demon spirits, and unifying Christians across denominational lines; a religious ideology that for over a decade was exported from the Colorado Springs megachurch of former National Association of Evangelicals president Ted Haggard. Thomas Muthee, seen during the 2008 presidential election anointing and blessing Sarah Palin and calling upon God to protect Palin against “every form of witchcraft,” is another globally famous star featured in the Transformations videos.

Oyet: “mob justice will kill and destroy witches, thieves and evil people”

As detailed in a December 4th report published at the religious right watchdog website Talk To Action, Julius Oyet has played a major, little-reported role as Uganda President of the College of Prayer, a Virginia-based international ministry closely tied to Wagner’s religious networks. She’s been critical in organizing Ugandan legislators, included MP David Bahati, who spearheaded the push for the Anti Homosexuality Bill now before Uganda’s Parliament. As part of a “Prophetic Directive for 2009″ published on Oyet’s ministry website, the evangelist, who is influential in a new association of born-again Ugandan Christians purportedly nine-million strong, wrote,

9. A Year For The Righteous To Experience The Right Side Of The Double-Edged Sword Of God’s Judgment:  There are two sides to God’s divine judgment – the left and the right side.  The left side belongs to the wicked while the right side belongs to the righteous.  The ninth year of divinely orchestrated judgment is a time for the righteous to experience the right side of the double-edged sword of God’s judgment. Which side of the judgment you fall on will depend on your position under God.  This is not a time to play tricks with God.  It is not a time to walk in rebellion.  It is rather a time to walk intimately with your Maker.  It is a time to walk in integrity through the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit.  (2 Chronicles 16:9). “There will be lots of dead dogs in your streets. This will show my judgement on evil in the land!” Says the Lord. God will judge evil in 2009 as mob justice will kill and destroy witches, thieves and evil people. There will be lots of manifestation of Satanists and exposition of homosexuality and other evils in the Church, human sacrifice and all sorts of evil will manifest in the nations. God’s people will rise in full authority and dominion! The righteous will march against evil and triumph over them all.

[image, below" Julius Oyet's College of Prayer group in Uganda played a major role in organizing and inspiring Ugandan legislators who have pushed the "kill the gays" bill before Uganda's parliament.]

[video, below: Julius Oyet describes the Uganda College of Prayer]

Wagner, Wagner, everywhere

According to C. Peter Wagner’s Apostle Os Hillman, in 2006 Julius Oyet traveled to a December 2006 Dallas meeting of Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles.

Another highly influential evangelist in Uganda also tied to C. Peter Wagner is Purpose Driven Life author and megapastor Rick Warren, who in 2008 launched a national-level “Purpose Driven” program in Uganda. Warren has recently denied that he and Wagner are “attempting to rid the world of homosexuals.” In a statement released through Warren’s extensive global networks reported to reach tens of thousands of pastors worldwide, Rick Warren declared “I have not had contact with Peter Wagner for many years and am certainly not conspiring with him.”

C. Peter Wagner has written that Rick Warren is “stage one.” In May 2008 Warren’s publicist A. Larry Ross issued a press release announcing Warren was launching an official Purpose Driven program in Uganda. In the forefront of Rick Warren’s efforts has been Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan, which claims that “spiritual poverty” is the paramount “global giant” afflicting the world’s poor. Warren has called upon his followers to be as dedicated to Jesus as the followers of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao were to their respective leaders. As Peter Wagner wrote in his 2008 book Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World,

I think the P.E.A.C.E. plan fits most comfortably into Phase One, the “social action” phase of strategies for obeying God’s cultural mandate. The Phase Two emphases on strategic-level spiritual warfare and associated activities have not been placed front and center. And crucial to Phase Three, as I am defining it, are such things as apostolic/prophetic government of the Church, the Church (including apostles) in the workplace, the great transfer of wealth, dominion theology and the 7-M mandate.

The Seven Mountains mandate, also called the 7-M mandate,” calls on Christians to achieve positions of influence on seven “mountains” which are key sectors of society such as business, government, education, media, and entertainment. Before he anointed and blessed Sarah Palin on October 16, 2005, Thomas Muthee, who Peter Wagner has described as a close friend, outlined the 7-M mandate. Sarah Palin was among Muthee’s audience.

[below: short video documentary. At 24, Sarah Palin joined Mary Glazier's Wasilla prayer group. Glazier claims she fought a witch in '95, and she advocates religious cleansing of entire lands, by believers in her movement. Palin's close ties to Glazier were described in a January, 2009 story published in Charisma magazine.]