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GOP's Prayer Guru Lou Engle Helping Incite Near-Genocidal Antigay Hatred in Uganda
Meet Lou Engle, the GOP's new prayer guru
To give you a sense of where Lou Engle is at, in the video below, which features a recording from one of Lou Engle's TheCall rallies, Engle talks about how one of his sons casts out homosexuals spirits (gay demons), a practice Engle calls "scary," and he demonizes San Francisco's Castro District, the semi-official stronghold of San Francisco's gay population, as a place where "the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness." Professional Incitement On December 31, 2007, at one of his TheCall events in Kansas City, Engle told his audience that one of the names of God was "avenger of blood" and encouraged his audience to worship that aspect of God. Engle stated that decades of legal abortion had incurred a blood debt that must be repaid in blood, and he predicted that legal abortion would cause a second civil war. Five months and one year later, in May 2009, Kansas late term abortion doctor George Tiller was shot through the eye and killed, on Sunday in the lobby of his Wichita, KS church. In a March 2009 letter on his personal web site, Engle had suggested Tiller was like an “Auschwitz death camp worker.” Now Engle is turning his inflammatory rhetoric against Uganda's gay citizens, many of whom are already in hiding. Whereas anti-abortion terrorism in the US usually involves solitary acts of violence, Lou Engle’s planned anti-gay agitation in Uganda coincides with pending legislation that could harness Uganda’s police and judicial system to remove or eliminate an entire segment of Ugandan society. Engle’s invocation of the Holocaust inadvertently raises the uncomfortable fact that the pending Ugandan Anti Homosexuality Bill is more draconian than analogous legislation passed during the early years of Hitler’s Third Reich. German homosexuals were one of the societal groups targeted by Hitler’s Nazi regime. Lou Engle is a provocateur. Given Engle’s horrific timing it’s hard to interpret his planned event as anything but intentional incitement of antigay hatred in Uganda, already at a near-fever pitch. The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as, “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Uganda’s draconian Anti Homosexuality Bill is not quite genocidal according to that definition but it comes uncomfortably close. Along with his antigay agitation that could help set in motion Africa's next genocide, Lou Engle is also emerging as one of the Republican Party’s top religious leaders. A "Prayercast" against health care reform At the Family Research Council’s December 16, 2009 “Prayercast” against health care reform Lou Engle led US GOP Senators Sam Brownback and Jim DeMint, and Republican Congressional Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes, in prayers against government-provided health care plans. Engle claims to have been Senator Brownback’s roommate for seven months. During summer 2009, at a Virginia Beach, VA megachurch ceremony Engle prayed over, blessed, and anointed GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich. At the April 15-16, 2010 Freedom Federation “Awakening” conference held at Liberty University’s Thomas Road Baptist Church, attended by Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Lou Engle led a session on “revival and prayer.” During the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast President Barack Obama attacked Uganda’s widely condemned Anti Homosexuality Bill as “odious” and, on April 14, 2010, the United States Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution calling on Uganda’s Parliament to withdraw it. But, as quoted in an April 16, 2010 story in the Uganda Daily Monitor, Ugandan Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi told the Monitor that, “The resolution may influence us but there is no procedure [currently available] that we can take of totally rejecting the Bill.” As the Monitor described, the antigay bill “seeks to toughen laws against homosexuality by putting to death gays who have previous convictions, are HIV-positive or engage in homosexual sex with minors, and hands down a three year jail sentence to Ugandans who fail to report homosexual activity” - which in Uganda is already a crime punishable by life in prison. TheCall fights gay marriage in California During the 2008 US elections Lou Engle’s TheCall ran eight California field offices in the successful church-based voter turnout effort that helped pass Proposition Eight, which bans same sex marriages in the state. Engle states that he personally made 3,000 phone calls to leaders and pastors in the state in support of the effort. Massachusetts, which has had legalized gay marriage for half a decade, has seen no appreciable negative impact from the 2005 expansion of marriage rights to same-sex couples. The Bay State, which has long had the lowest divorce rate in the nation, now boasts a state divorce rate comparable to that of the early 1940’s before the United States entered World War Two. At the November 1, 2008 capstone rally of the pro-Prop 8 push, held by TheCall at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, Engle predicted that failure to pass Prop 8 would “release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam, a spirit of lawlessness and anarchy. And a sexual insanity will be unleashed into the Earth.” Engle’s words, and his stadium event, were broadcast internationally on GodTV, which claims its networks can reach several hundred million people worldwide. National Day of Prayer Chairman Shirley Dobson and her husband Focus On The Family Founder James Dobson spoke at the Qualcomm Stadium rally, during which Lou Engle and one of his bearded young disciples made calls, from onstage, for acts of Christian martyrdom to stop gay marriage and abortion. Jim Burroway's gay rights advocacy news site Box Turtle Bulletin has by far the best coverage of the deteriorating human rights situation in Uganda for LGBT Ugandan citizens, followed closely by College Professor Warren Throckmorton's coverage (Throckmorton is an evangelical Christian who does not approve of homosexuality but but opposes the ongoing persecution of Uganda's gay population). Both Burroway and Throckmorton report that Ugandan LGBT activists have issued a calling for help to stop "stop TheCall Ministries from fueling homophobia in Uganda through their May 22, 2010 Crusade." Rick Warren, Peter Wagner, and the New Apostolic Reformation Some Ugandan religious and political leaders, including Ugandan MP David Bahati who drafted and introduced in Parliament the Anti Homosexuality Bill, claim homosexuality in their country is a Western cultural import. But in Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches & Homophobia a report released in late 2009 from Boston-based nonprofit Political Research Associates, PRA Project Director and Zambian priest Kapya Kaoma accuses American evangelicals of exporting their culture war agenda to Africa. A January 2010 New York Times story also noted that conservative American evangelicals have developed enormous influence in Uganda and are playing a major role inciting homophobia there. Many, or even most, of the American evangelists and their Ugandan allies playing key roles in inciting anti-gay hatred in Uganda are tied to a movement led by little-known but globally influential religious leader C. Peter Wagner. In his 1999 book Churchquake!, Wagner lists, as one of the three moral non-negotiables in his movement, “homosexuality is a sin.” Peter Wagner was Rick Warren's sole academic "mentor" listed for Warren's 1993 dissertation for a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. Warren has denied any ongoing association with Wagner and his movement but Warren and Wagner are listed together on the "Board of Reference" for the National Day of Prayer Task Force, and they also have been listed together as endorsing Lou Engle's TheCall International, which is staging Lou Engle's May 1, 2010 antigay rally in Uganda. C. Peter Wagner has written that Warren's Saddleback church is part of the apostolic movement Wagner is helping lead, and in Wagner's 2008 book "Dominion" he describes the process through which his brand of Apostolic Christianity can take dominion over government and society, and claims that this can be accomplished within a democratic framework. Wagner clearly states in the book that Rick Warren's global P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an example of "stage one": "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." After considerable public pressure, in December 2009 Rick Warren issued a statement calling on Uganda's pastors to condemn the Anti Homosexuality Bill now before Uganda's Parliament. But Warren's statement contained a bizarre disclaimer in which Warren declared that he was not "conspiring" with Peter Wagner to "rid the world of homosexuals." As described in the extended Talk To Action report Rick Warren's Dissertation Advisor Leads Network Promoting Uganda Anti-Gay Bill, leaders associated with Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation have played significant roles in organizing and inspiring the Ugandan legislators who have drafted, submitted, and backed the internationally condemned Anti Homosexuality Bill. Lou Engle is one C. 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, which issues group prophecy and is one of the key leadership groups in Wagner’s sprawling new incarnation of the Religious Right known as the New Apostolic Reformation that is fighting gay rights and inciting antigay hatred on a worldwide scale. Described in my extended report Transforming Hawaii [part one, part two] Peter Wagner's apostle Ed Silvoso runs a ministry called The International Transformation Network that is fielding the current GOP candidate for Hawaii's governor, current Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona. In 2006 Aiona traveled 9,000 miles round trip to one of Silvoso's conferences in Argentina, where the Hawaii Lt. Governor was filmed praying, hand in hand, with First Lady of Uganda Janet Museveni. As detailed in my 20 minute mini-documentary Transforming Uganda, cited in January 2010 in testimony before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Ed Silvoso's International Transformation Network has ties to Uganda's top leadership, and to Ugandan leaders backing and promoting the Anti Homosexuality Bill. ITN head Ed Silvoso claims his ministry has initiated* an effort which is using curriculum based on Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life to indoctrinate the entire National Police Force of the Philippines. (Philippine government agencies themselves describe the massive indoctrination effort) and the ITN has ongoing organizing efforts in cities and towns across the US, including in Newark, New Jersey. Like Wagner prophet Lou Engle, Wagner apostle Ed Silvoso teaches that gays are possessed by demons. Ed Silvoso compares opponents of his movement to rats that will be exterminated, and Silvoso's fellow apostle Harold Caballeros has publicly praised the efforts of church-based, government-backed death squads in Guatemala. Below: Ed Silvoso, and Hawaii public school principal Susan Mulcahy, compare their opponents to rats. Action Items Actions:*A Correction: While ICA apostle Ed Silvoso suggests his ministry efforts are responsible for the program, various evangelical ministries not technically part of the ITN appear to be carrying out the Purpose Driven indoctrination of the Philippine National Police. International Coalition of Apostles head C. Peter Wagner has written that Rick Warren's widely-touted P.E.A.C.E. Plan in Africa and the developing world is "stage one" in the process of establishing Christian dominion. In a December 10, 2009 public statement Rick Warren denied that he was "conspiring" with Peter Wagner to "rid the world of homosexuals."
GOP's Prayer Guru Lou Engle Helping Incite Near-Genocidal Antigay Hatred in Uganda | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 hidden)
GOP's Prayer Guru Lou Engle Helping Incite Near-Genocidal Antigay Hatred in Uganda | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 hidden)
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