"One final consideration that one might have is whether the illness was inflicted by a demon or devil. The Bible always tells if an illness is caused by a demon or devil... The victims often had what sounded like a convulsion when the demon was cast out. In our index case, demonic influence is not stated, and the woman had no apparent convulsion or residual symptomatology." --- from "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time" published in Virology Journal on July 21, 2010

Can demon possession cause Influenza ? To even ask the question presupposes a lot - that demons exist, for one thing, that they can infest humans and, obviously, that they can cause disease.

It's one thing for a peer-reviewed medical journal to publish a paper that makes such claims. But what if leading American politicians could be found praying together with religious leaders who claim homosexuality is caused by demon possession and who practice exorcism ? What if leading politicians are friends with professed witch hunters?

Consider the following short video documentary (see full story), which presents what it calls the "transformation" of Newark. Initiated by New Jersey residents Lloyd and Joanna Turner in early 2008, the Pray For Newark effort involves a consortium of church volunteers who are working closely with Newark's police and the mayoral administration of Corey Booker. The effort claims to be able to field an entire army of volunteers, one for each street in the city, organized by city ward - almost like a neighborhood watch.

Neighborhood watches have been shown to be effective at reducing crime. So what's not to like ? Well, as I documented in my story Movement Behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill Organizing in Newark, Pray For Newark is closely tied to a an international evangelical ministry whose leaders are in the forefront of opposing gay rights in Hawaii and are closely allied with Ugandan leaders who are leading the push in Uganda for the so-called "kill the gays" bill that would in effect legislate an entire segment of Ugandan society out of existence. As a simple point of fact, the Uganda Anti Homosexuality Bill is harsher than any comparable anti-gay legislation passed, prior to World War Two, in Nazi Germany. The movement can't currently aim so high in the United States but in Hawaii, where it is highly influential in the executive branch of government, gay rights activists are being treated as second-class citizens whose civil rights can be determined by majority vote.

"Why is it that the people who came to the Capitol building in support of the gay community and HB444 were required to obtain a Special Use Permit and proof of liability insurance in order to participate in a rally, but the pastors, church members, and those rallying against the civil rights legislation were not similarly required to obtain the necessary permits? And, why is it that certain people were invited to a special prayer meeting inside the Governor’s office, but others were excluded?" - Hawaii activist Carroll Cox

As she announced her veto of Hawaii's Civil Unions Bill HB444 on July 6th, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle echoed a standard argument traditionally advanced by leaders of the Christian right, that the issue of the civil rights of minority groups was so important that it should not be decided by an executive decision but, rather, by popular vote. It was a strange argument for a Jewish politician given the use of the democratic legislative process in pre-World War Two Germany to strip German-Jewish citizens of basic rights. But it also was the height of hypocrisy because that day, prior to announcing her veto, Lingle had sent a clear message of her executive decision: supporters of the civil union bill gathered at the Hawaii State House that day were second class citizens and Lingle was more than happy to use the power of the state to enforce the point.

On Tuesday of this week during the Glenn Beck Show, Beck stated the following:

"Jesus conquered death. He wasn't victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the the Jews pay for what they did."

While the Anti-Defamation League has not been especially vigorous recently in opposing virulently anti-Semitic claims from Christian Zionists such as John Hagee, the ADL nonetheless can be considered an authoritative source concerning what anti-Semitism is. The ADL identifies Glenn Beck's claim that "the Jews" killed Jesus as one of the top four most destructive of anti-Semitic lies.

Will the recently released video showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating that he conspired, against US President Bill Clinton, to undermine the Oslo Accords have the sort of political blowback it truly ought to have ? Shot nine years ago, the video shows Netanyahu boasting that he destroyed the peace process and stating, "America is something that can be easily moved. Moved to the right direction... They won't get in our way ... Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It's absurd."

The video has the potential to undermine Netanyahu's credibility in the US but there's another aspect to the story that could undermine Bibi Netanyahu's credibility with Jews in Israel and internationally - Netanyahu's key, close ally in undermining peace negotiations, Christians United For Israel founder and head John Hagee, has a ugly history of distributing, on a global scale, vile anti-Jewish propaganda including Adolf Hitler's favorite conspiracy theory, the canard that Jewish bankers rule the world.

[editor: This story is about a radical right wing movement in charismatic Christianity that claims to fight demons but, leaving demonology aside, is also targeting the executive branches of government of entire US states.]

They claim to be able to raise the dead and cause miracles, such as the multiplication of Thanksgiving turkey dinners. They burn "witchcraft items" and "idols." They hold mass exorcisms to cast out alleged evil spirits they say cause lust, pornography, addiction, homosexuality, bisexuality, and perversion. They claim to be able to heal HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, Glaucoma, and cancer, and to break "generational curses" and "witchcraft curses." Who are they? Here are a few overviews (1, 2, 3.)

They compare opponents of their movement to rats that will be exterminated and one of their leaders has predicted that the regime they're working to create will initially "seem like totalitarianism". They're closely tied to the notorious, so-called "kill the gays bill" before Uganda's Parliament. They're behind Sarah Palin and one of their "prophets" has become the de-facto prayer leader for the Republican Party.  

[Editor: this story has been removed because the information that Univision network broadcasts a John Hagee show is incorrect. The Univision network does not broadcast any regular Hagee content]

In the Philippines ITN teams are indoctrinating, by government order, the entire 100,000-plus officers of the Philippine national police force with an ITN "transformation" course based on Rick Warren's book the Purpose Driven Life. The Philippine army and judiciary have become agents of "transformation" as well according to ITN's Philippine agent King Flores, who described at the International Transfomation Network's 2008 Argentina conference,

"In the police force today The Purpose Driven Life program was instituted nationwide, over 120,000 policemen. The top brass military officers are doing likewise. Our soldiers were trained, not just an army, for the armed forced - they have been deployed as soldiers of the Lord to preach the Gospel.

And our judiciary was not even spared. Our Chief Justice now is working to disciple the whole nation. He's moving around the nation teaching how to transform our nation. And in the Presidential Palace whom we visited three years ago, with brother Ed, our president has welcomed Jesus into the palace. If God can do this in the Philippines God can do this in your city and God can do this in your nation !"

"It doesn't matter if the Republican or the Democratic candidate wins the governorship [of Hawaii]. Either one is already in the kingdom," declared International Transformation Network Founder and CEO Ed Silvoso at the March 4-6 Convergence 2010 conference in Dallas, as Silvoso was announcing the ITN's upcoming 20th International Transformation Network conference, scheduled to be held November 9-14, 2010 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village near Honolulu.

At the ITN's 19th world conference, on November 7, 2009 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Hawaii's current Republican Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona, running in 2010 to be Hawaii's next governor, repeatedly jabbed his finger at the podium, for emphasis, as he told his audience,

"We're one body of Christ, we're one church and we're all here to disciple the nations, here in Hawaii and everywhere else, and I want you all to know that... May God's grace be with the participants of the International Transformation Network Global conference. Aloha, from myself, Lt. Governor Duke Aiona to all of you but in particular to pastor Ed [Silvoso.]"

At the ITN's 18th world conference, held October 2008 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Silvoso likened opponents of his movement to rats that would be killed when necessary. Silvoso's movement may well be in the forefront of organizing against gay rights globally.

Writing for the Religion News Service, journalist Daniel Burke's new article Obama's spiritual cabinet: Seven people who shape policy, tend the presidents soul, published in the National Catholic Reporter and elsewhere, indirectly raises some rather troubling questions. One of the seven alleged "spiritual advisers" to Barack Obama Burke's article lists is Lt. Carey Cash, who has openly advocated the use of America's military to impose a Christian theocracy.

As I described in a June 29, 2009 Talk To Action story,  ( http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/29/165121/157 ):

According to Hawaii pastor Cal Chinen's church newsletter, on the first Wednesday of every month leaders from Transformation Hawaii join Hawaii's Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona in his official conference room and pray. Aiona is running for the Hawaii governor's seat in the 2010 election.

Transformation Hawaii is a local chapter of a sprawling international ministry called the International Transformation Network. Based in Minneapolis, the ITN has been linked to the effort behind Uganda's notorious Bill #18 before the Ugandan Parliament that gay rights activists have dubbed the "kill the gays bill."

Duke Aiona has participated in Transformation Hawaii rallies against a Hawaii civil unions bill and in December 2004 Aiona, speaking from a Hawaii public school in a telecast statewide prayer event, declared that "Hawaii belongs to Jesus."

But the Transformation Hawaii interpretation of Christianity, as evidenced in the following excerpt of an interview with one of the founders of the effort, Cal Chinen, is somewhat less than mainstream. In the interview, Chinen gleefully describes how Christmas and Santa Claus have been banished from a suburb of Buenos Aires.

As TheCall founder Lou Engle told a Boston church in 2006, "I became the roomate of Senator Brownback - for seven months!" The most dangerous terrorist, according to Sam Brownback's friend Engle, is God: a point to warm Osama Bin Laden's heart. Video from the 2006 church sermon links the Kansas Republican Senator directly to rising, radical pastor Engle, who appears to advocate  domestic terrorism and civil war and has publicly declared homosexuals are possessed by demons.

TheCall founder Lou Engle has a long history of rhetorically encouraging domestic terrorism.

On November 16th, 2009, as noted by the Rachel Maddow Show, Lou Engle led Republican senators Sam Brownback and Jim DeMint, and Congressional representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes, in a nationally televised November 16 religious event, organized by the Family Research Council, a "Prayercast to stop Health Care Reform."

For national-level politicians such as Brownback, DeMint, Bachmann and Forbes to appear with Engle in such a forum constitutes endorsement, especially because Lou Engle is a religious leader and the event was overtly religious.

For all practical purposes, for the duration of the FRC's "Prayercast against health care reform" Lou Engle functioned as a pastor to Brownback, DeMint, Bachmann and Forbes.

But Engle has an especially close relationship with Senator Brownback. As I've described in a new story, Will Lou Engle take his mega-antigay TheCall to Uganda?, Lou Engle and Sam Brownback were condo-mates for the better part of a year. Did Brownback pay any rent to Engle ? Curious minds want to know.

[Video footage from a September 25, 2006 Lou Engle speech, at a Boston, MA church, in which Engle describes how Kansas Senator Sam Brownback came to live in Engle's Washington DC condominium for seven months.]

The following is an excerpt from my new story, Will Lou Engle take his mega-antigay TheCall to Uganda?

"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 Beam helped 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 Brownback": 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, New 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 to 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 Brownback. His condo just burnt down. He wants to know if he could stay in your condo'. I became the roommate of Senator Brownback for seven months.

We began to get dreams he would be the president of the United States."

[note: above transcript, provided by The Lion Of Judah Church in Boston, MA, of Lou Engle's Sept. 25, 2006 speech at the church, was slightly inaccurate and has been amended to correspond with audio and video of Engle's speech. See end of story for more details.]

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 ]

Pepsi is to be commended for rapidly disavowing what appeared to be Pepsi sponsorship of a virulently anti-gay rap concert in Uganda during which, according to a news report, a popular Jamaican performer sang about wanting to slit the throats of gay men.

Then, there's Rick Warren.

The Ugandan branch of an evangelical group called "College of Prayer" played, as a new talk To Action report details, a major and little noticed role organizing and inspiring legislators behind the pending Anti Homosexuality Bill due to come before Uganda's parliament early in 2010. Homosexuality is already legally a crime in Uganda that can lead to lifetime prison sentences, but the new bill would mandate the death penalty for homosexual acts and critics have called it "genocidal" and charged that the bill could require the execution of HIV positive Ugandan citizens.

College of Prayer members in Uganda's parliament have spearheaded the push for the new anti-gay bill and, as a story posted on the main College of Prayer website quotes College of Prayer Canada head Rev. David Chotka,  

"I have three-twelve members of the Canadian Parliament who have heard about what God is doing in Uganda and would like to attend the Parliamentary COP in Uganda next year. They are interested in bringing the College of Prayer to the Canadian Parliament."

The article concludes, "It seems that God continues to expand our spheres of influence. The extraordinary favor of God is resting upon us. All glory to His name!

As the Talk To Action report, Rick Warren's Dissertation Advisor Leads Network Promoting Uganda Anti-Gay Bill details, the president of Uganda's College of Prayer, Julius Oyet, has extensive ties to networks associated with C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation. Peter Wagner is perhaps the world's leading expert on church growth, and he is an unabashed Christian supremacist. Wagner was also advisor for Rick Warren's 1993 dissertation... on church growth. The report traces ties and parallels between Rick Warren's and Peter Wagner's ideologies and global networks.