charismatics

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Mainstream coverage of Bickle scandal at International House of Prayer is sparse -- at best

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Mainstream coverage of Bickle scandal at International House of Prayer is sparse -- at best

The announcements have a dreary familiarity to them.

The name of a major Christian leader is blasted in the headline. In the text below are phrases like “sexual abuse;” “investigation,” “scandal,” “unwanted touching,” “sexual misconduct” and “disgraced megachurch pastor.” (For instance, type in the words “Australian church” into Google and the word “scandal” automatically pops up (no doubt due to the many searches involving the Sydney-based Hillsong Church).  

Which is why the recent news about Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City, received next to no attention outside of Christian circles. Which is a shame; Mike Bickle is a major figure in the Pentecostal/charismatic movement and the fact that his church’s 24-hour prayer rooms have lasted nearly 25 years is a major feat.

Bickle is also known as a major teacher in the movement on the end times (aka eschatology), intimacy with God, worship, prayer, prophecy and more.  He’s a man who claims encounters with the Archangel Michael and insight as to how the world will end.

I first heard him at a 1990 charismatic conference in Indianapolis and was impressed. When other speakers were exceeding their time limits and boring the wits out of everyone, Bickle stuck to his and enthralled everyone with his clear, concise delivery. Agree with him or not, you didn’t fall asleep listening to him.

I next saw Bickle in 2001, when I visited Kansas City as part of a series I was working on for the Washington Times. Whereas the charismatic renewal was on life support elsewhere in the country, it was fresh and vibrant at IHOP. Bickel told me they were “an oasis in the desert” in terms of the use of the prophetic “gifts” of the Holy Spirit.

And in 2013, while living in Tennessee, I drove to a conference at IHOP, which had grown tremendously over the intervening 12 years. The 24-hour prayer room was a much more sophisticated set-up in a separate building; as for Bickle, I only saw him from a distance.

There’s been little-to-no secular media coverage about this scandal (I’ll get to Kansas City media in a minute), so I’ll start with what Christianity Today published:


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Independent, charismatic churches getting new scrutiny, but do reporters get why people choose them?

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Independent, charismatic churches getting new scrutiny, but do reporters get why people choose them?

It wasn’t that long ago that I was trying to get reporters to wake up to a whole new world of charismatic/Pentecostal churches that are networked into a movement led by modern-day apostles and prophets.

I chaired a panel at a 2017 gathering of religion reporters in Nashville that had two representatives of this movement plus a third person who opposed it. But very few writers caught on. One reason is because it’s so tough to define. Observers and participants can’t even agree on a name. Some call the movement the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and others call it the apostolic/prophetic movement.

Then Jan. 6 happened at the US Capitol. Now it seems as though reporters can’t get enough of asking: Who were these people? Every week now seems to be something new about this movement, like this piece in Christianity Today, which is a fairly decent overview of what’s happened since last fall. The reporter wrung some quotes out of reclusive former prophet Jeremiah Johnson, which is a first.

My one plaint is that the CT piece is several months late, as some of us were reporting on this in April. Plus, given the extra time the reporter had, I would have liked to have seen fresher material. And California evangelist Shawn Bolz should have been dinged for wrongly prophesying the end of the coronavirus back in April 2020. The up note the article ends on doesn’t reflect the reality that the majority of the false prophets out there have not repented nor apologized.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Washington Post has come out with two pieces, one including the “cowboy shaman” so visible in the attack on the Capitol and the other an account of a visit to Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth.

The first piece was an attempt to explain just what these Capitol invaders believe.

Many forces contributed to the attack on the Capitol, including Trump’s false claims of electoral victory and American anger with institutions. But part of the mix, say experts on American religion, is the fact that the country is in a period when institutional religion is breaking apart, becoming more individualized and more disconnected from denominations, theological credentials and oversight.

That has created room for what Yale University sociologist Phil Gorski calls a religious “melee, a free for all.”

I’d definitely agree that it’s everyone for him or herself out there. However, non-denominational churches have been on the scene since the late 1970s. It just took scholars several decades to start tracking them. And do you think the typical church member really cares what the theologians are saying?


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Donald Trump enthroned with the angels: Why are media missing this story?

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Donald Trump enthroned with the angels: Why are media missing this story?

This just in: Former President Donald Trump not only has an angelic host surrounding him — he’s also seated on a throne with a golden crown and holding a golden scepter.

You’ve not heard about this edgy hook for a news story?

Then you’re not attuned to “Prophet Wars,” my name for the fistfight going on between powerful factions of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement over whether the 45th president will be restored to the White House sometime soon.

I’ve been amazed at how this large Pentecostal chunk of American Christianity — and there are roughly 65 million Americans that belong to this group — is being ignored by much of the media. Trump’s spiritual advisor, the Rev. Paula White-Cain, is part of this segment, so it’s not an obscure bunch.

Last week, I wrote a piece for ReligionUnplugged on a group of 85 leaders in this movement who were fed up with the “Trump prophecies;” predictions from dozens of people to the effect that Trump would coast his way into the White House last November. When that didn’t happen, several leaders began apologizing for their false prophecies; a phenomenon I covered for GetReligion here.

I followed this with a lengthy story in Politico. Ruth Graham of the New York Times wrote a similar piece here.

Then we all waited for a few months. Most of the false prophets did not retract their prophecies. Meanwhile, as detailed in the ReligionUnplugged story, a group of charismatic leaders drafted a four-page document of “prophetic standards” spelling out what biblical prophecy is — and is not — and suggesting that those who prophesy falsely, especially in a public forum, need to apologize when they get it wrong. Those who refuse to do so won’t be allowed on their social media platforms.


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When covering the Trump prophets, listen up: 'Heavenly inauguration' is in the wings

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When covering the Trump prophets, listen up: 'Heavenly inauguration' is in the wings

Well, today is Jan. 20 and, contrary to the assertions of many Pentecostal prophets, President Donald Trump is on his way out of the White House and did not win the 2020 election.

Last week’s post on the “civil war” between Pentecostals and charismatics over failed prophecies by leaders in their movement created lots of buzz, with good cause. We’re not just talking about the failed “Trump prophecies,” as they are now termed, but also the fact that none of these prophets predicted the historic January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol.

For those of you who’ve been unplugged from the news in recent days, here’s a bit of a review: There are still millions of these folks who believed that God was somehow going to replace Biden with Trump before the inauguration — or sometime in the coming months — simply because a coterie of prophets said so. See Kat Kerr’s Jan. 19 video saying this.

Now that this prophetic Hail Mary pass has failed, the recriminations are going to start. One leader in the movement, Michael Brown of 1990s Brownsville revival fame, has been calling out his fellow prophets to stand down for several weeks now and has established a ministry for disappointed charismatics. More on that in a moment. That’s a news story.

The prophets (and I won’t put that word in quotes like some say I should) range from Kat Kerr of Jacksonville, Fla. — who’s known for her flaming pink hair and tales of multiple trips to heaven –- to oldsters like Texas prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland.

There’s also the Rev. Paula White, hailed as Trump’s pastor, who was holding out for a last-minute supernatural reprieve during December, but who’s been pretty silent of late. (News flash: See this video of her Jan. 17 Sunday sermon blaming other Christians for attacking her). Others, like Nebraska pastor Hank Kunneman, say that January 20th thing isn’t a factor now; when God wants to replace Biden with Trump, it will happen.

While researching a follow-up feature that ran the next day in ReligionUnplugged, I got to talk with a few scholars who follow this phenomenon –- and there aren’t many. One was Gordon Melton, now 78, who has helped religion reporters for decades with his encyclopedic knowledge of American religious history.

Now at Baylor University, he was telling me of how many –- of the top 40 people in the apostolic/prophetic movement that he’s tracking — are based close by. Not sure why the Lone Star state brings in all these folks, but Texas has always been an outlier, right?


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Brace for SCOTUS wars: Three big questions people keep asking about Amy Coney Barrett's faith

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It’s been two weeks since President Donald Trump officially nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Right on cue, Barrett’s Catholic faith and religious life became the focal point of news coverage, particularly by the secular press.

What has ensued is an exercise among journalists — particularly in elite newsrooms — to question Barrett’s fitness for the lifetime position, particularly because of her religious beliefs.

For many people in elite zip codes, this is life-and-death territory, since Barrett would give the Supreme Court a solid 6-3 conservative majority on some issues.

The nomination — taking place just weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election — has already triggered a nasty tug-of-war between Republicans and Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has pledged to hold a vote, leaving Democrats with very few options to halt it. In retaliation, Democrats have threatened to pack the Supreme Court with as many as 15 members (from the current nine) should Joe Biden win the race and his party gain a Senate majority in 2021.

Barrett, 48, currently serves on the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, a position she attained after being nominated to the bench by Trump. Barrett, who also teaches at Notre Dame Law School, was one of Trump’s finalists for the Supreme Court two years ago, but he instead went with Brett Kavanaugh.

As Election Day draws near in an atmosphere of near chaos, both the Trump and Biden campaigns have made appeals to communities of faith — particularly Catholic voters in the Rust Belt states of Ohio and Pennsylvania — by highlighting issues they believe resonate with them. In Pennsylvania, Biden has seen his lead widen in recent weeks. It remains a key battleground state with a very large Catholic voting bloc that Trump needs to win.

Overall, Catholics, according to recent polling, favor Biden — but traditional Catholics do plan to join evangelicals and vote for the president. Trump’s pick will certainly serve as an overture to faith voters like evangelicals and a segment of white Catholics who tend to be politically conservative.

With religion so crucial to this campaign season, here are three things you need to know about Barrett’s faith:


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Spiritual warfare explainer: RNS pros offered crucial context for 'Satanic pregnancies' sound bite

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No doubt about it: There are people who show up in religion-beat news who are hard to quote accurately and fairly.

It’s hard, for example, to find a punchy, bite-sized quotation in your typical papal encyclical, even when you’re dealing with the work of Pope Francis. It’s possible, of course, to rip something out of context that sounds like commentary on this or that political issue that’s already in the headline. Most of the time, that context-free approach sheds more heat than light.

Then there are the charismatic and Pentecostal preachers whose words are drenched in metaphors and images mixing biblical language with their own vivid (they would say “Holy Spirit inspired”) imaginations.

This brings me that Twitter storm the other day (sorry to be late on this) about a colorful (to say the least) sermon by the Rev. Paula White, the charismatic leader best known as a spiritual advisor to President Donald Trump. She has been known to unleash storm clouds of rhetoric that sound more like rock-music lyrics more than the traditional exegesis of scripture.

For example, what — precisely — is a “satanic pregnancy”? Come to think of it, what is a “satanic womb”?

If you yanked her words out of context, as legions of her critics did, it sounded like this sermon contained some inconsistent language about abortion.

Thus, I was glad when veterans Bob Smietana and Adelle Banks of Religion News Service quickly produced a short explainer that found some context to White’s wild words. In this case, that was a really big challenge. Here’s some key material at the top of that report (“Paula White’s sermon comment about ‘satanic pregnancies’ goes viral”).


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Lessons from the past: Who is building a super-ministry in ruins of Jim Bakker's dream?

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As a former religion-beat guy in Charlotte, and a veteran of the Jim Bakker and PTL wars of the 1980s (click here for my flashback), I was -- of course -- very interested in The Charlotte Observer's lengthy update on the status of the old Heritage USA.

Here's the totally logical headline on this solid -- but narrow -- feature: "Jim Bakker’s theme park was like a Christian Disneyland. Here’s what happened to it." What's missing? Hold that thought.

As the story notes, Heritage USA was supposed to grow into a kind of Disneyland for charismatic Christians, but things fell apart before the 2,300-acre complex reached the roller coaster ride through heaven and hell stage of development. For those in need of a refresher on why there is this:

Construction had already begun by then on two other mega-projects: A sand castle with a 10-story turret that would house the world’s largest Wendy’s restaurant, and a high-rise hotel to be called Heritage Grand Towers. When finished, reported the Heritage Herald, a weekly newspaper for tourists and those living on the PTL property, the tower’s “elegantly furnished” 500 rooms would include 100 honeymoon suites “for couples who come to Heritage USA to renew their marriages.”
Two months later, Bakker suddenly resigned amid financial and sexual scandal. His plans were scrapped, the ongoing construction halted. Today, three decades after Bakker’s dreams gave way to a nightmarish spell of bankruptcy, lawsuits and prison, many of the magnets that once drew people to Heritage USA are long gone.

The architectural corpse that gets the most attention in this piece -- fittingly enough -- is Bakker's never-finished, never-occupied 21-story tower. It continues its slow decay, while the current owners dream of expanded ministries that sound eerily familiar.

This is the crucial part of the story that I hope Observer editors return to, in depth, in the future. Why? Well, I am biased because this is the part of the story that I kept writing newsroom memos about in the early 1980s, trying to convince editors that there was a national-level story at the foundation of the Bakker scandals.


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Is this the 'fastest-growing Christian group in America,' and perhaps the world?

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Is this the 'fastest-growing Christian group in America,' and perhaps the world?

Back in August, a memo by The Religion Guy outpointed the value of the “Ethics + Religion” section at theconversation.com, where scholars reconfigure their  research in terms lay readers can grasp.

A good example is an October 11 item about what two professors claim “is the fastest-growing Christian group in America and possibly around the world.” The authors are Biola University sociologist Brad Christerson and Richard Flory, senior research director at the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

Their label for this is the “Independent Network Charismatic” or “INC” movement, described in detail in their recent book “The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape” (Oxford University Press).

Props to colleague Bob Smietana for grabbing the importance of this for an August 3 interview with the two authors at christianitytoday.com, which interested writers will want to peruse.

INC is a particular subset of the independent, non-denominational congregations that are the growing edge of U.S. Protestantism. The authors calculate that over four decades ending in 2010, regularly attending Protestants of all types declined by an average .05 percent per year, which is “striking” since the U.S. population was growing by 1 percent per year.

Meanwhile, adherents of “independent, neo-charismatic congregations,” the category that includes INC groups among many others, grew an average 3.24 percent per year. So INC is a distinct sub-category within an already thriving segment of U.S. Protestantism that shuns traditional forms and provides a particularly intense form of Pentecostal-flavored experience.

The movement has expanded for the most part under the radar. Have you seen many news stories about such influential INC personalities as Che Ahn, Mike Bickle, Bill Johnson, Cindy Jacobs or Chuck Pierce, or about Bethel Church, Harvest International Ministries (HIM), or International House of Prayer (IHOP)?


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The mystery of Donald Trump's religion: Inspired by Peale, or by Paula White?

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The mystery of Donald Trump's religion: Inspired by Peale, or by Paula White?

Attempting to comprehend the mystery of Donald Trump’s religion, his critics can’t decide whether to blame Peale or Paula.

Some consider that “positive thinking” guru, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993), the inspiration for what they dislike. (Reports say Trump, a boyhood Presbyterian, never actually joined  Peale’s New York City congregation, which is part of the Reformed Church in America.) For other skeptics, it’s not Peale who’s appalling but Paula White.

Writers with yahoo.com and then Politico.com have recently profiled White,  a popular broadcaster, speaker, author and since 2012 senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Fla. This is one of America’s countless high-growth independent congregations with a “Charismatic” or “Neo-Pentecostal” flavor.

White, a 50-year-old grandmother, and her ministries deserve further reportage with two angles, Trump’s creed and a major fissure in the unruly U.S. evangelical movement.

Veteran activist James Dobson alerted media to the White connection by passing along reports that Trump, a “baby Christian,” was led to renewed faith by White. Trump and White were pals long before she helped broker his 2015 and 2016 meetings with evangelical types. Trump endorsed one of her books in 2007 calling her “a beautiful person,” appeared on White’s TV show, and White rents a New York apartment in a Trump building.

So let's turn to Trump’s fiercest evangelical foe, the Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, the Washington D.C. voice for America’s largest Protestant body, the Southern Baptist Convention.


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