PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 02. Horror and Pity. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/horror_and_pity/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, December 02, 2005
Horror and Pity
Nightline ran a program on a weird group in Washington, DC—you can watch it at One Good Move. Be prepared to be creeped out.
The program was called "Faith Matters", and it's not clear whether Nightline was going for high irony or was sincere. It's about the Justice House of Prayer, an anti-abortion group whose strategy was to rent an apartment with windows facing roughly in the direction of the Supreme Court, where "interns" jump up and down and rant and pray towards the Court, apparently under the impression that they will have some psychic influence on the justices, or that their all-powerful god requires constant nudging and needs to be aimed in the right physical direction to have an effect. I get the idea they imagine their god as a vast, logy blimp without much consciousness, and if only they tug on his supernatural guidewires enough, they can position him over the court building…at which time he'll reach down with fat, bloated fingers and diddle about in the brains of the people below him. It's a strange, primitive theology, cult-like and absurd.
What's sad, though, is that the organizer behind this, Lou Engle, almost certainly believes fervently in this nonsense, and he is getting lots of money. He mentions that this apartment costs $7000/month, and he's getting a salary. They have 70 interns, each of whom pays $1500 for the privilege of spending 3 months in the program—that's over $400,000/year flowing into Engle's coffers.
What do the interns do?
The main goal of the JHOP internship is to expose interested persons to the unique worship and intercession model of JHOP. During this time, we fully expect that each intern will experience personal growth in areas of devotion to the Lord as well as discovering and using their gifts in the context of community and the house of prayer. The interns will also be intricately involved in the operation and experience of the prayer room as they receive continuous teaching and guidance from Lou Engle and other national and local leaders.
They dance. They chant. They pray. They scream. They bob back and forth, they jump up and down. They're like a mob of dervishes, hysterical, freakish, ineffectual, deluded.
They pay $1500 for 3 months of brain-damaging validation of insanity.
People ask why I despise religion. Try watching this video through my eyes, and maybe you'll understand. This religion is an excuse to strip young people of their minds and their dignity, indoctrinate them in brainless mob behavior, and rationalize craziness—so that they are willing to overlook the foolishness of their mentors. That video documents a disease.
Pedophile Catholic priests get a lot of outraged attention, but they violate the body; it's the destruction of thinking minds that is even worse, and that's the part of religion almost everyone glosses over. What a shame that in a country blind to the evils of religion, a corrupter like Lou Engle gets money tossed to him.
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"It's a strange, primitive theology, cult-like and absurd."
Actually, it reminds me a bit of the cultists in Cthulhu mythos stories -- they were always trying to guide some mindless god like Azathoth or Groth into a position where it would smite their enemies/bring about the endtimes. Typically, the cultists get smoten instead.#: Posted by Jonathan Badger on 12/02 at 08:42 AM -
You know... this brings up something that came into my mind a while back.
Does anyone else see a parallel between some of this current evangelical craziness and the crazier fringes of the New Age / consciousness movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s? Outbreaks of really wacky mysticism seem to be a perennial event in American culture, and in most cases they are fads that pass. I wonder if we're seeing one of those now.
Unfortunately, these wildfires of insanity often leave behind cultural edifaces that are distinctly anti-progressive. The 70s stuff left behind the more luddite wing of the green movement, which has held back our technological progress with a haze of vague medieval fear ever since. This outbreak will likely lead to restriction in the arena of genetic technology as well as the destriction of reproductive freedom and cultural liberty.
The "70s stuff" is why we are still burning coal rather than decaying uranium for energy. This outbreak could be why, in 30 years, we will still be living only 80 year average life spans instead of 150.
I agree with PZ's dislike of religion, but I take it a bit further. It's not just religion that I dislike... I also extend that to... well... whatever this "thought pattern" is. It's hard to even define, but I know it when I see it.
When I say "God is dead" I mean "the thought pattern that is typified by religion" not a specific deity or ideology. Unfortunately, it's not dead yet. But it needs to die. The general cognitive pattern that characterizes all of these movements is what we need to kill.
BTW, on a side note, does anyone see vague parallels between the Discovery Institute and a place called the Esalen institute? I always have, especially at the level of pure aesthetics. Think "reactionary modernism." (The reactionary nature of the new age is not readily apparent to us because the new age is composed of eastern and occult rather than western religious reactionary ideas.)#: Posted by Adam Ierymenko on 12/02 at 08:56 AM -
Does anyone else see a parallel between some of this current evangelical craziness and the crazier fringes of the New Age / consciousness movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s?
Actually, there's a direct line between 1960s and '70s mysticism and modern charismatic/evangelical groups via the Vineyard movement. Strange, spooky cultish stuff -- the comparison with Cthulu cults seems somehow spot on to me.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 09:04 AM -
Does anyone else see a parallel...?
Oh, absolutely. Great point.
Your dyed in the faux wool animal rights activist who hangs on Jeremy Rifkin's every word is no less a fundamentalist than the 700 Club viewer demographic.
Neither is really worth popping an artery over.#: Posted by fearless leader on 12/02 at 09:07 AM -
I really don't get this Christian obsession with abortion. It's always abortion this, abortion that. It makes you think the Bible must be chock full of references to abortion. Well I went to Biblegateway.com searchable bible today and entered the term abortion and found zero references. There are 27 references to mildew however. You would think they would give up this abortion stuff and try to get the Supreme Court to pass laws against people leaving their clothes in the washer overnight.
#: Posted by Ronald Brak on 12/02 at 09:09 AM
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John Updike, S.
'Nuff said.#: Posted by Johnny Vector on 12/02 at 09:25 AM -
IIRC, there have been attempts by devotees of Transcendental Meditation to bring down urban crime rates by getting together and meditating at them <i>really hard<>. The step after that is to find a tiny fluctuation in the day to day rate and misidentify it as "proof" of a successful experiment.
I have to wonder- could our species' perennial predilection for woo-woo thinking have a biological basis? Was it somehow, at some time in the distant past, a useful adaptation for some bunch of early hominids?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 09:27 AM - Delightfully felicitous writing. I'm on board with the sentiments, too. But I was struck by the claim that pedophile priests only violate the bodies of the children they molest. Surely the minds of these kids are affected, too, and almost certainly for the worse. Am I misunderstanding?
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You are correct. Pedophile priests do do psychological harm.
Damn them all! -
#51662: Ronald Brak — 12/02 at 09:09 AM
Well I went to Biblegateway.com searchable bible today and entered the term abortion and found zero references.
You've got to know the right code words.
2 Kings 15: 16 "Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up."
Numbers 31 Massacre of the Midianites. On God's orders, Moses leads a slaughter of the Midianite tribe, including
"[17] Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
[18] But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
For other examples:
Evil Bible
Skeptic's Annotated Bible
From the S.A.N.:
What the Bible says about abortion#: Posted by on 12/02 at 09:52 AM - Complete insanity. Fool and their money really are easily parted. This has to be a sham. This guy is a great con man.
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Does anyone else see a parallel between some of this current evangelical craziness and the crazier fringes of the New Age / consciousness movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s? Outbreaks of really wacky mysticism seem to be a perennial event in American culture, and in most cases they are fads that pass. I wonder if we're seeing one of those now.
It reminds me a lot of the Jesus Freak movement of the 1970s.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 09:58 AM -
I have to wonder- could our species' perennial predilection for woo-woo thinking have a biological basis? Was it somehow, at some time in the distant past, a useful adaptation for some bunch of early hominids?
It's not our species, but your nation. -
This religion is an excuse to strip young people of their minds and their dignity, indoctrinate them in brainless mob behavior...
Quite. As are so many. And I'd agree that's ultimately the worst thing about them. I think it's that element of their nature that serves as the wellspring of the most trouble, in the long run. -
They have 70 interns, each of whom pays $1500 for the privilege of spending 3 months in the program—that's over $400,000/year flowing into Engle's coffers.
I think I need to get religion and come up with a scam like this. This guy could be the next Benny Hinn...#: Posted by on 12/02 at 10:24 AM -
Note to interns:
Don't drink the Kool-Aid!#: Posted by on 12/02 at 10:35 AM -
One of the comments in the original article was great:
"Not to worry. I am leading a large prayer group in Washington too, and we pray for more abortions, and we pray twice as hard as these people, so their prayers are offset. And I don't mean to caste dispersions, we're just praying like muthafcukers yo."#: Posted by on 12/02 at 10:36 AM -
I watched that episode. I found it very strange and mildly disturbing as well. It left me with a few questions.
Why is abortion so bad to Christians like those on the show?
If you believe in heaven and an afterlife for the aborted fetus and that it goes immediately there then why on Earth would you not be overjoyed that they where spared the potential heartache and pain of this very finite existence?
What will they have missed in the concept of eternal time? a millisecond?
It seems to me logically an atheist has a much better argument for the pro-life stance as it recognizes this is the only life that potential human will get, the only oppurtunity for that combination of genes to exist on Earth.
It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if despite the professions(sincerely I'm sure) people really do not internalize life after death and know deep down death is death. All the rest just helps people deal with said fact.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 10:39 AM -
heh, heh... JHOP.
Sounds like a Java implementation of the International House of Pancakes.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 10:47 AM -
Does anyone else see a parallel between some of this current evangelical craziness and the crazier fringes of the New Age / consciousness movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s?
Absolutely. This attempt to influence the Supreme Court through supernatural means reminds me of nothing so much as the 1967 attempt to levitate the Pentagon to end the war in Vietnam, chronicled by Norman Mailer in Armies of the Night. Though in fairness, Abbie Hoffman may have been kidding. JHOP certainly isn't.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:04 AM -
Pearls Before Swine had a pretty good reference to this yesterday; if you sin under an umbrella, God can't see it, so you won't get in trouble for it.
http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20051201.html#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:04 AM -
How is the behavior of a small handful of people (out of a country of nearly 300 million people) at all relevant to the characterization of religion in America?
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:10 AM
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I have to wonder- could our species' perennial predilection for woo-woo thinking have a biological basis? Was it somehow, at some time in the distant past, a useful adaptation for some bunch of early hominids?
Ahh... this is the problem with looking at everything a living thing does as a specific adaptation.
It is possible that this sort of woo-woo thinking is not an adaptation in itself... indeed it is likely not to be as it seems to be maladaptive. However, it may be an emergent effect of multiple other adaptations that are adaptive: conceptual thought, social behavior, creativity, imagination, and certain higher emotional and intuitive cognitive states and abilities.
The intuitive and emotional states that these movements tap into are not only real... they also have beneficial movements. Ecstasy is an important part of both human social behavior and creativity. However, it can also be channeled in very bad directions.#: Posted by Adam Ierymenko on 12/02 at 11:18 AM -
Why is abortion so bad to Christians like those on the show?
I don't understand it either. It seems to me the key here is the determination that the fetus (apparently at any stage) is indeed a thinking, feeling being that an abortion murders.
But then, what doctrine of Christianity would require such a conclusion? I can't think of anything. As far as I can tell it just stems from creationist thinking (things are created fully formed, an irrational denial of the nature of especially an early fetus) and from a strong need to believe in absolutes--anything you find remotely questionable or strange must be thoroughly and completely banned.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:28 AM -
'How is the behavior of a small handful of people (out of a country of nearly 300 million people) at all relevant to the characterization of religion in America? '
This is always what hits me funny. It's not just this instance. You can always point and say these people don't represent Christianity, then look at another group say creationists and say 'they don't represent Christianity'. Or JW's and say 'they don't represent Christianity' or Catholics the same and on and on.
The simple fact is THEY DO represent Christianity. And examples of this in many forms can be seen in virtually any church in any town throughout the nation. Denying it doesn't make it not true.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:36 AM -
Halloween was *last* month, man!
When I watch that video I am reminded of the scenes of Muslim fanaticism that you see on TV from time to time. The kind that get a much less favorable treatment from commentators.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:37 AM -
The New Age movement features a great many silly ideas; but, unlike Fundamentalism, it isn't in to coercion. While traditional religions have always aimed to control behavior, New Agers mostly just cultivate edifying thoughts, hence their endless talk about "consciousness." For the New Agers religion is an individual exercise, a kind of spiritual interior decorating. In this respect, it is very much a post-Enlightenment form of religiosity, absurd but mostly harmless. Religion as hobby.
#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 12/02 at 11:39 AM
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Thanks, Adam. What was in my mind when I formulated the question was an analogy to our tendency to pareidolia. It's not hard to see how pattern-matching ability could develop to the point where we sometimes see Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich- the primitive human who sees tigers in the tall grass when there aren't any there is a little jumpy, while the primitive human who doesn't see the tigers that really are in the tall grass is lunch.
Our age-old beliefs in the power of ritual to affect the physical world seem to relate to the ability to perceive cause and effect in the way that Jesus-in-the-sandwich relates to the ability to recognize the face of an acquaintance.
Looks like it's time for me to re-read Why People Believe Weird Things.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 11:56 AM -
Alon Levy said: It's [woo-woo thinking] not our species, but your nation.
No, it is our species. I'm freakin' sick, sick I tell you, of Europeans, Canadians, or others saying it is only Americans who throw these kind of kookouts. Google "new religious movements" (NRMs) and note how they are distributed over the Earth. The Raelians were founded in France by a Frenchman and have high membership in France, Canada, and Japan as well as here. Without breaking a sweat I could find absolutely wackjob cults I've never heard of, in any country of the world.
Yep, America has tons of gullible, silly, irrational dumbasses, and we have seen a video of them here. But don't kid yourself: it's in us all. Same goes for the American role as the current evil empire--as I tell my European friends, when your country had the power (take your pick: England, Spain, Portugal, etc.) it conquered and sold people, tortured heretics, and razed cultures.
When we start concerning ourselves with human behavior (as opposed to nationalistic tags) we'll get closer to expunging these garbage memes (exons?) from ourselves.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:01 PM -
I'm freakin' sick, sick I tell you, of Europeans, Canadians, or others saying it is only Americans who throw these kind of kookouts.
Every country has its kooks; but only a handful, such as the USA, have turned them into mainstream figures, with an entire mainstream political party catering to them and with the majority of the population believing in intelligent design. -
That's true. The US is a case where the lunatics run the asylum. I doubt the Raelians have much of an influence in French politics and they probably aren't treated with the deep respect Christain fundies are by the news media.
Frankly I'm getting concerned about the fundy virus spreading northward. We've had Ralph Reed here giving speeches and helping to raise money for the Conservative Party.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:11 PM -
Once the child is conceived, it has a spirit. If you actively terminate something with a spirit you commit murder.
You have to admit that an abortion is of a different ethical class than say, a tonsillectomy, since the fetus is a genetically distinct being. The question is what kind of being is it?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:21 PM -
Oh, in the above comment I am putting forward an argument against abortion, not my personal view.
However, I do think we need to discourage abortion as birth control - it should never be approached in a cavalier manner.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:25 PM - My own take is that the abortion question reduces to fetal consciousness. If fetuses become sentient beings at week 25, then abortion is moral up to week 25 but not further. However, as far as I know, consciousness builds up gradually from week 31 to a few weeks after birth, which makes birth an ideal cutoff for reasons of convenience.
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Oh, and the group in the OP seem to be falling afoul of these verses in Matthew 6:
"5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. "
Idiots.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:45 PM -
What gets me is how these people draw such a stark distinction between the "right to life" and the death penalty. We are approaching the ONE THOUSAND mark and I haven't heard a fucking peep out of any noteworthy christian groups about it.
"I'm not being blase about abortion, it might be a real issue, it might not, doesn't matter to me. What matters is that if you believe in the sanctity of life then you believe it for life of all ages. That's what I hate about this child-worship syndrome going on. "Save the children! They're killing children! How many children were at Waco? They're killing children!" What does that mean? They reach a certain age and they're off your fucking love-list? Fuck your children, if that's the way you think then fuck you too. You either love all people of all ages or you shut the fuck up."
---Bill Hicks#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:56 PM -
KeithB:
Your argument seems to hinge on "spirit". Can you propose a test for "spirit"? A definition perhaps?
I think abortion is a sad, repugnant act. Nevertheless, it should always be available to women as an option of last resort. If the state can decide to keep you from undergoing this medical procedure, what prevents the state from outlawing other medical procedures?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:58 PM -
On the other hand...
How else can you live in a 7K/month apartment for $500/month?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:07 PM -
'Once the child is conceived, it has a spirit. If you actively terminate something with a spirit you commit murder.'
My response to this would be so what. If you send the child to heaven for eternity and then ask forgiveness for the 'sin' you have done a good thing. Why would you be wrong to do such a thing? Again what are you actually taking from the child if one truly thinks the child goes to an infinitely better place?
Is it even murder if it is done for the benefit of the child? Or would you be sacrificing yourself for the child? In somes ways that line of thinking makes effective martyrs out of those who have abortions.
Even more, if the child is eternal have you actually killed anything at all other than a mass of cells? You have simply transported the child from one local to another. How can it be murder if the being isn't actually dead just elsewhere?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:11 PM -
No, I cannot test for spirit, which is why I consider abortion to be a matter of personal conscience and should be safe, legal and available.
I have a book called "Abortion and the Early Church," and indeed, the early Christian church was against abortion *and* the death penalty. Probably because Christians were often the subject of it during the persecution of the church!#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:12 PM - I love the image of their god as a sort of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon run amok, requiring enough people to teather it in place or else it flies off and smites something at random. Perhaps this would explain things like Katrina and Tsunamis better.
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I noticed that Lou Engle rocked back and forth as he read his bible. He looked just like the young boys in the masrahs, but probably would be insulted if anyone told him that. And I really feel sorry for whoever is below them, all the jumping and Christian rock can't be fun.
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:27 PM
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The fact is that, due to the unique relationship of a woman to a foetus, I don't believe that a woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term even if the foetus were a sentient being, morally equal to all other sentient beings. Pregnancy, even a normal, healthy pregnancy, entails sacrifices and dangers to the woman that we would never even consider imposing on a person in any other circumstances (even if it meant saving a life). I remember reading of a case where a father refused to donate bone marrow to save his child's life - the mother sued, but the court upheld his right to control his body. If we can't even make a man donate bone marrow to save the life of a child we know is sentient and morally significant, how can we demand that women suffer the dangers of pregnancy simply because a foetus might be sentient?
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:42 PM
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Getting slightly off-topic, the bit about levitating the Pentagon; I could swear there was a scene in the Simpsons that was probably a flashback in which a group of hippies were trying to levitate some building of the Establishment. It's driving me crazy, does anyone remember which episode that was? Usually I'm so up on my Simpsons trivia (until the last five years or so, then they all run together).
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:49 PM
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Even without dragging the video down my dialup line, the descriptions make it pretty clear what's going on. These people are "trancing out" as a magical ritual. Dancing, repetitive motions, drumming and singing, are all classic means to induce trance, and "trance" + "prayer for specific ends" == "MAGIC"
Now, trancing out with your friends all day can be a lot of fun -- maybe too much fun. Those trances can be habituating, in much the same way as hallucinogenic drugs. Back when I hung out with Neo-Pagans, we talked about "magic junkies", and occasionally had to deal with "ungrounded" folks who couldn't or wouldn't return completely to "the real world". Of course, the lure of trance is also useful in binding together a cult!#: Posted by on 12/02 at 02:01 PM -
If you send the child to heaven for eternity and then ask forgiveness for the 'sin' you have done a good thing.
Can someone explain to me when "innocent children" (who will go to heaven when they die) become sinners like the rest of us, who will go to Hell if we haven't turned to Jesus? Does it happen on your 10th birthday? Or when you have sex for the first time?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 02:12 PM -
Ktesibios:
I have to wonder- could our species' perennial predilection for woo-woo thinking have a biological basis? Was it somehow, at some time in the distant past, a useful adaptation for some bunch of early hominids?
Other way 'round, I suspect. What you're calling "woo-woo" thinking, is probably the reversion to a "hominid mentality" preserved as a lower processing layer of our minds. The thing is, this "conscious thought" thing is pretty new. Maybe it's even a little newer than language. Almost everyone can manage consciousness some of the time, but most folks don't keep it up for all their waking hours!
Of course, "civilization", aka the skill-set needed to live in arbitrarily large groups, is even newer still....#: Posted by on 12/02 at 02:31 PM -
imagine their god as a vast, logy blimp without much consciousness, and if only they tug on his supernatural guidewires enough, they can position him over the court building…at which time he'll reach down with fat, bloated fingers and diddle about in the brains of the people below him
PZ, you should write for animation. That was vivid, hilarious, lurid and pathetic. Speaking of which...
Has anybody seen this trading spouses clip that's been circulating? It's dork-sided. All that newage stuff we laugh at and lump with Xtianity? She's terrified of and obsessed by it. Types like her are far too common, but even the JHOPers probably wouldn't want her jumping up and down in prayer, unless they wanted to pay for the apartment downstairs too... -
Actually,
The religous belief which allows the death penalty, but opposes abortion is a little subtler than that. And it has nothing to do with when a fetus can think.
According to their interpetation of the bible, the soul enters the fetus at the moment of conception. And it is still guilty of original sin. All souls are filled with sin until they can be washed free of sin by baptism (or other rites).
So, since the fetus is full of sin when it dies, it will go to hell, not heaven.
For many of the religious nuts, the reason to stop abortion is because abortions send the souls of unborn children to hell for eternal torment. Nice,huh?
Once a child is born, it can be wiped free of it's sins. Even a condemned man can repent and have his sins wiped clean before being executed. If he doesn't, it was by his choice.
Again, I think it's interesting that consiousness is not important for this process. Birth defects which prevent fetal development to reach the stage of having a brain, and prevent a child from ever gaining consiousness are still not justification for an abortion because the soul will still suffer eternally.
There are plenty of things I have trouble with here. First, the whole belief in souls and gods is a bit freaky to me. But more importantly, the idea that everyone starts life condemned to hell is bizzare.
-Flex#: Posted by on 12/02 at 02:35 PM - As I understand it, aborted fetuses have not been baptized, and therefore are not saved.
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Well that is ridiculous. I also believe that the bible explains that a fathers sins will not be visited upon the sons although it wasn't originally this way.
Either way makes little sense.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 02:47 PM -
As part of an effort to explain who Lou Engle and the Justice House of Prayer really are, I've started work on something of a bio/fact sheet which follows. What was not shown in the Nightline piece were all their political and religious connections, and Engle's role in organizing a series of mass gatherings beginning with one in Washington DC in the fall of 2000 that involved hundreds of churches and other national Christian organizations.
Engle is the co-founder of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, California, with Che Ahn. This paper, "Reviving Pentecostalism at the Millenium: The Harvest Rock Story" at http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/research_pentecostalism_polomaart4.html is an overview of their background and shows their connections with Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and other figures in the pentecostal/charismatic movement. Engle and Ahn have been associated since the early 1980's when they hatched the idea of moving from Maryland to California to start a church. They started Harvest Rock, their second church, in 1994.
Engle and Ahn organized "The Call DC," a twelve hour gathering on the Mall on September 2, 2000 that was endorsed by, and gained the participation of, a significant number of Christian leaders and churches including Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, Benny Hinn, Teen Mania Ministries' Ron Luce, Pat Robertson, and a number of Promise Keepers affiliated people including then-PK head Bill McCartney. Christian recording artists Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St. James appeared. Senator Sam Brownback spoke and said he was repenting for the sin of abortion on behalf of the U.S. government. It was covered live on Salem-owned radio station WAVA. Portions of the event were later broadcast over the Sky Angel satellite television system.
Although they claimed attendance of 400,000 in DC, actual attendance was much smaller than that, setting a pattern of inflation of the published attendance numbers.
The DC gathering was the first of a series of seven domestic events under the name "The Call," including Boston (9/22/2001), New York (6/29/2002), Kansas City (12/31/2002), Los Angeles (2/22/2003), San Francisco (4/5/2003), and Dallas (11/29/2003). Pat Robertson spoke at the New York event. Sam Brownback participated a second time, standing on stage in Dallas while Engle called for the end of the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. The Dallas event also brought abortion front and center with the participation on stage of various anti-abortion advocacy organizations and the Dallas chapter of Operation Save America was present in the ministry tent outside the stadium. American history revisionist David Barton gave his powerpoint presentation.
A list of participants and endorsing leaders of The Call DC is at http://www.barf.org/archive/thecalldc/callpeoplelist/ and the named leaders and advisors remained pretty much the same throughout the duration of the Call events.
The movement since Dallas has fissioned into a few identifiable pieces:
The Cause - based at Rick Joyner's Morningstar Ministries on the site of Jim Bakker's Heritage USA in Fort Mill, SC (near Charlotte).
Justice House of Prayer - on Capitol Hill at 209 Pennsylvania Avenue NE, Washington, DC
Bound4Life - run by The Cause, appears to be the promoter of the red tape over the mouth tactic seen at the Supreme Court and at Terri Schiavo's hospice; it also organizes local affiliates.
The movement in recent years has more clearly been aligned with the so-called "Kansas City Prophets" and others associated with them including Mike Bickle, Jim Goll, Cindy Jacobs, Paul Cain (since discredited), and Dutch Sheets. This is evident in their lists of links on their websites as well as the current participants in their events. A large proportion of the participants also seem to be coming from the Kansas City area, based at Joyner's International House of Prayer and also Vineyard churches.
Lou Engle has departed Harvest Rock Church (has disappeared from the church's website) and is now living in Maryland. JHOP has somehow obtained use of a 90 acre farm that is owned by Christian Hope Ministries, the corporate name of Hope Christian Church. The farm is in Bowie, it was going to be the site of Hope Christian's campus but they couldn't gain zoning approval to dump megachurch-sized traffic loads on the already congested local roads. A garage and mansion have been converted to dorms, and Engle and his family live in another house on the property. The so-called "interns" must raise money to pay to participate in JHOP's program, as seems to be common in many Christian teen programs today.
Hope Christian is headed by prominent pastor "Bishop" Harry Jackson Jr. who is known for his participation in the "Justice Sunday" series of staged media events and is an associate of Christian televangelist Rod Parsley. In April 2005 Jackson organized and promoted a two-evening "Silent No More" conference at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington. Along with Lou Engle and Christian comedian Brad Stine, Rod Parsley was present on the first night to sell his book by the same name.
Harry Jackson has a Sunday morning TV program on the TV One network, where he tends to feature guests from the "Kansas City Prophets" set including Goll and Sheets. Last weekend's program featured Tony Perkins from the FRC and Ron Luce of Teen Mania. Teen Mania's recent leadership conference was held at Jackson's church. Jackson also heads the "High Impact Leadership Coalition" which promotes the "Black Contract With America." His church is unmarked and in an office/warehouse district just outside the DC Beltway in Landover, Maryland.
An interesting recent development is the announcement that Karen Wheaton will be participating in the JHOP "Rumble USA 2006" conference, January 12-16. Wheaton is one of the young female preachers that have been prominently featured on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in recent years (the other one is Paula White). Wheaton is based in Hamilton, Alabama, and operates a youth center she calls "The RAMP." Her program airs on TBN once a week and on other Christian channels, and it's mostly a stage show with a lot of militant imagery and language interspersed with preaching, swords and
camo and general belligerence that's hard to watch.
Related links:
Other press coverage:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Features/CapitalLiving/071205.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4573645
Partial list of speakers at The Call Dallas:
http://www.talktosteve.com/email/2003_12_01/
JHOP website: http://jhop.org/
Bound4Life: http://bound4life.com/
Jackson's Hope Christian Church: http://www.thehopeconnection.org/ and High Impact Leadership Coalition: http://www.himpactus.com/
Bill Berkowitz' piece on Harry Jackson:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Berkowitz1105.htm
Karen Wheaton: http://www.karenwheaton.com/
Other links off the JHOP link page: http://jhop.org/links/#: Posted by Mike Doughney on 12/02 at 03:10 PM -
The "70s stuff" is why we are still burning coal rather than decaying uranium for energy. This outbreak could be why, in 30 years, we will still be living only 80 year average life spans instead of 150.
I'm confused, what exactly is it that would extend our lives by 70 years that's being suppressed?#: Posted by on 12/02 at 03:14 PM -
I'm confused, what exactly is it that would extend our lives by 70 years that's being suppressed?
Perhaps funding and research that could be directed towards something like this.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 04:00 PM -
The obsession with abortions has little to do with 'babies,' 'fetuses,' or 'life.' It has everthing to do with sex and control: who has sex, and who controls it. Notice that the most rabid of these people are all men? As if men contributed anything more that some chromosomes, some fluid and a groan.
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 04:12 PM
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I could swear there was a scene in the Simpsons that was probably a flashback in which a group of hippies were trying to levitate some building of the Establishment
I believe that was an episode of Daria and they were trying to levitate the Pentagon.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 04:15 PM - So I also think that there is a more fundamental belief, beyond matters of the soul, that innocence is a condition more worthy of saving than otherwise, and that adults on death row in particular are besmirched. That is, it's possible to be sufficiently besmirched that one deserves to die, but a fetus can never be so besmirched, and thus is the most valuable life. The woman is besmirched more than the fetus, hence the fetus has more right to live.
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Can someone explain to me when "innocent children" (who will go to heaven when they die) become sinners like the rest of us, who will go to Hell if we haven't turned to Jesus? Does it happen on your 10th birthday? Or when you have sex for the first time?
Original sin, i.e., all souls are damned until baptized or one accepts Jesus as one's personal savior. Aborted fetuses go to (protestant) hell or (catholic) limbo. There was a one line story on the front page of the wall street journal that the catholic church is reevaluating the concept of "limbo."
Also see "In Adam's fall we sinned all." from The Pilgrim's Progress.
LM Wanderer#: Posted by on 12/02 at 05:07 PM -
That explains why I couldn't find it. It was Daria, thanks, Rooey!
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 05:20 PM
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It's not just religion that I dislike... I also extend that to... well... whatever this "thought pattern" is.
The term I've come across is "magical thinking". It's ubiquitous or endemic, being present in quite young children and not always about their religious beliefs. The other part, the luddite element, is of course fear of the unknown - which translates into angry unthinking attacks against anything that provokes it. Primitive brain stuff and not likely to go away any time soon.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 05:45 PM -
I've put in 15 years and counting as a clinic escort, so have dealt with a lot of what we call antis and have pondered on their motivations quite a bit.
Though just about anything pertaining to sex can be counted on as a source of hyperchristian hysteria, the fixation on the fetus has, imo, another important aspect. Many of these people are well-meaning middle- and working-class traditionalists, who have seen their lives and cultural values uprooted and exploited by modern commercial and social pressures which they don't have the political insight and/or ideological courage to challenge directly. Nonetheless, through no perceptible fault of their own, their hopes for personal security are being disrupted by powerful yet anonymous forces, and they feel a need to protest this.
The fetus - aka “babies” - is the perfect symbol of innocence and helplessness (and one which can always be relied on not to assert any disillusioning agenda of its own). As such, it makes an extremely potent emblem for all sorts of fears and frustrations, with a very broad appeal (especially when compared to say, lambs in a post-agricultural society). Professional manipulators of emotion have made prime hay over the last 30+ years through encouraging their sheeple to sublimate their well-founded anxieties by identifying with “the unborn” (aka “preborn”), which seems to be why one of their most popular bumper stickers says, “Your choice - MY life”.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 07:05 PM -
Aborted fetuses go to (protestant) hell or (catholic) limbo.
I seem to remember a high school teacher of mine announcing that the Catholic Church had announced that unbaptized babies were not sent to limbo back in 1994. This was during a discussion of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Of course, these discussions are exactly as relevant to real life as arguments about continuity in old issues of Green Lantern.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 07:16 PM -
My impression is that the Catholic church has been been seriously downplaying/phasing out the whole concept of 'limbo' ever since Vatican 2.
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 07:33 PM
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Obviously this man has learned the lesson of L. Ron Hubbard.
Let us hope he comes to a similar end.
-jcr#: Posted by on 12/02 at 08:48 PM -
As if men contributed anything more that some chromosomes, some fluid and a groan.
one could say that about women. the only real difference is the time scale.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 09:32 PM -
I'm confused, what exactly is it that would extend our lives by 70 years that's being suppressed?
Human genetic engineering, stem cell research, life extension research (which these guys will target once it becomes feasible-- they have already gone on record in opposition to it), therapeutic cloning, and so on.#: Posted by Adam Ierymenko on 12/03 at 10:55 AM - I think you should be cautious when trumpeting the miraculous consequences of something that hasn't been tried. The consequences will almost certainly be beneficial, but every invention has its merits exaggerated by its inventor(s).
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'Aborted fetuses go to (protestant) hell or (catholic) limbo'
Not true, in Protestants the babies go to heaven as do children who are not of the age of consent. Only Catholics consign them elsewhere. Whatever that is and why, as another poster mentioned, it wouldn't be 90 instead of 10.#: Posted by on 12/03 at 11:34 AM -
"Our age-old beliefs in the power of ritual to affect the physical world seem to relate to the ability to perceive cause and effect in the way that Jesus-in-the-sandwich relates to the ability to recognize the face of an acquaintance."
We seems to have two systems for patternmatching. One is exclusively concerned with faces. (Sorry, no references.) The trick is of course to verify the hypotheses our minds will constantly come up with.
""As if men contributed anything more that some chromosomes, some fluid and a groan."
one could say that about women."
Oh, please! One can and should joke about everything, but it doesn't work here after reading what Tessa says on the dangers of pregnancy.#: Posted by on 12/03 at 01:24 PM -
I don't want to get embroiled about abortion but will point out that some of you guys have ideas about the rationale of antiabortion that are every bit as kooky as JHOP's ideas.
Adam, see Nick Lane, 'Oxygen,' for an extended discussion of why we are never going to live past 120. George Bush is not to blame.
Mark Wilson asked a wonderful question, which resonates especially for me, since I live in one of the 20 or so 'world sacred sites.' JHOP is, in principle, no different from the Harmonic Convergence idiots who flooded here in 1989 or thereabouts. They are still here, still taking in money and dupes.
Nothing to do with Christianity, however.
Then we have the whale-olators. Same deal.
There is absolutely no evidence that people who are antireligious are immune from this sort of nuttiness. We might instance the Curies, first-class scientists, militant atheists and Stalinists simultaneously.
On the whole, I'd rather have all their energies put into hopping in Washington than into effective political organizing.#: Posted by on 12/03 at 10:02 PM -
I seem to remember a high school teacher of mine announcing that the Catholic Church had announced that unbaptized babies were not sent to limbo back in 1994.
Any word on where they were sent that year? Was limbo shut down for maintenance or something? -
It makes you think the Bible must be chock full of references to abortion. Well I went to Biblegateway.com searchable bible today and entered the term abortion and found zero references.
Exodus 21:22-25:
If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [or "she has a miscarriage"] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
So causing a miscarriage is a crime, but not a serious one: it only warrants a fine. Gathering firewood on the sabbath, on the other hand, is punishable by death (as is catching a relic so that it doesn't fall on the ground, by the way. Uzzah got shafted). -
#51841: GH — 12/03 at 11:34 AM
'Aborted fetuses go to (protestant) hell or (catholic) limbo'
Not true, in Protestants the babies go to heaven as do children who are not of the age of consent. Only Catholics consign them elsewhere.
Actually, that depends on the Protestant demonination/interpetation, there are quite a lot of them. If you want to slog through a bunch of quotes which are really disturbing, visit the site Dr. Myers recommended through Skeptico a week or so ago: http://www.fstdt.com/
Here's a particularly disturbing one from Oct 2002:
"All people who are subject to death are in Adam. All infants are subject to death; therefore, all infants are in Adam. All who die are in Adam. All who are in Adam are sinners; therefore, all who die are sinners. All who are subject to death are sinners. All infants are subject to death; therefore, all infants are sinners."
rlvaughn, BaptistBoard [Comments (0)]
Whereas the Catholic church has a doctrine about limbo, the Protestent churches (hundreds of them) are allowed to declare individual beliefs. Please understand that in the occasional broad statements made here concerning Protestant beliefs, we often use too broad a brush.
-Flex#: Posted by on 12/04 at 09:03 AM -
Why is abortion so bad to Christians like those on the show?
A couple of thoughts in response.
1. Religion of whatever type is an attempt to gain favor in and control a world that in reality is pitiless and uncontrollable.
2. Religious people always have tended to fixate on sexuality, and particularly on female sexuality. This suggests to me that religion is at a fundamental level an attempt to control fertility.
3. Regarding abortion, the "it's murder/you can't murder something that's not yet a human being" argument is a loser. When life begins is a question that cannot be resolved--not even by papal fiat. And anyway, what if abortion is killing? Killing isn't wrong by definition; see any number of arguments regarding self defense.
Seems to me the better argument is along these lines: I am a unique tissue match for Joe, who will die without a kidney transplant. Who may compel me to donate my kidney to Joe? My parents? My husband? The government?#: Posted by on 12/04 at 01:32 PM -
</blockquote>I seem to remember a high school teacher of mine announcing that the Catholic Church had announced that unbaptized babies were not sent to limbo back in 1994.</blockquote>
Any word on where they were sent that year? Was limbo shut down for maintenance or something?
Heh. Oops. Yeah, I think it was closed for a year-long asbestos abatement project. At a guess, I'd say they housed the kiddies with the virtuous pagans.#: Posted by on 12/04 at 03:53 PM
