Lou Engle is odious and possibly deranged. But is the homophobic evangelist also a bad marketing strategist?
Engle is the Kansas City-based co-founder of TheCall, a youth-oriented "radical prayer" movement. A fierce opponent of abortion rights and homosexuality, Engle raised his profile last year when he traveled to Uganda and endorsed the efforts of lawmakers there to lengthen jail terms and expand the death penalty for gay "crimes." Engle, however, may find that hating on Ellen DeGeneres is the wrong way to run a thriving youth ministry.
Engle is part of the leadership team at the International House of Prayer. The church caters to the young. IHOP offers internships that are available only to singles who are between 18 and 25, in addition to (unaccredited) university instruction.
The emphasis on fasting and prayer sessions that last for hours has led to the suspicion that Mike Bickle, IHOP's founder, is operating a cult. At the very least, the ministry is an enterprise that requires a steady stream of eager young adults to sustain itself. (Three a.m. worship services begin to lose their luster.)
Engle's is a questionable face to put on a franchise that, like MTV, is forever young.
Individuals' attitudes about gays and lesbians depend in large part on when they were born. It wasn't so long ago that Republicans were putting "defense of marriage" acts on the ballot in order to increase turnout. This is not a tactic with a future, as millennials support marriage equality by a pretty substantial margin, according to polls.
To be sure, IHOP draws most of its future "intercessors" from the less tolerant side of the bell curve. Still, Engle's bug-eyed sermons about the wickedness of gay sex may prove to be detrimental. After all, students who went to Bible colleges in the 1960s probably supported interracial-marriage bans in larger numbers than their secularly educated counterparts. But was miscegenation an issue that any evangelist of that era rode to stardom?
If Bickle is smart, he may look at Engle the way MTV programmers remorselessly sized up hair bands upon the arrival of grunge.
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Correction. We are all His annoited. Hence why I. Share the truth IHOP Bickle and Lou are just off the entire leadership lie. They earn salaries when they say they do not. Their doctrine is wacked and the foundation is not based on the cross but on old testatment and Bickles beginnings also off. Bob Jones a lunatic and sex offender and this is what IHOP is based on? Its all about money, I should know they took my entire trust fund. How many other people did this koolaid mess up as well??????
Not a peep out of Engle since this has happened , only to go after Ellen..people need to educated on dominionism, C. Peter Wagner, 7 mountain theology etc., this is their next move with the Prophets and Apostles you will see and hear the verse especially in their bubble of delusion "touch not mine anointed" but the Bible is already been proven to be errant and falliable and for years they bashed us and thumped us over the head on how the bible was directly from God..hogwash but get ready for that next step..the 7 mountains.
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