COMMENT: Over the years, we’ve covered the profound Nazi and fascist elements at the foundation of the Republican Party. This extremism continues to express itself.
Texas GOP Governor Rick Perry used “The Response” prayer event to launch his presidential bid. That event prominently featured Mike Bickle, head of the International House of Prayer.
Bickle recently opined that Jews who didn’t move to Israel and convert to Christianity would be put in prison camps and pursued by hunters sent by God. Bicle cited Adolf Hitler as an example of one of these God-sent hunters.
Aside from the overt Christian/Nazi nature of the comment, it is striking to see the degree of overlap between Christian fascism and Islamic fascism.
In FTR #634, we noted that Muslim Brotherhood-connected figures saw Hitler as having been sent by God to punish the Jews.
One of the prominent influences on the Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb was one of those.
“. . . In Qutb’s eyes, the Jews are to blame for everything they have suffered over the centuries, and this applies to Hitler and the Shoah too. Thus, in the modern period, ‘the Jews again returned to evil-doing and consequently Allah . . . brought Hitler to rule over them.’ But even the ‘punishment’ meted out by Hitler was not sufficiently terrible, since ‘once again today the Jews have returned to evil-doing, in the form of ‘Israel’ . . . So let Allah bring down upon the Jewish people . . . the worst kind of punishment.’ Qutb’s message is internally consistent: the Jew is the source of evil in the world, the Shoah is therefore no crime and Israel deserves to be erased from the map. . . .”
(Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11; Matthias Kuntzel; Telos Press Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2007 Telos Press Publishing; ISBN 10: 0–914386–36–0; p. 84.)
In Cairo to Damascus, John Roy Carlson noted the the similarity in world-view and rhetoric between Christian and Muslim fascists after interviewing Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“. . . I asked his views on establishing the Caliphate, the complete merger of Church and State—the Moslem equivalent of religious totalitarianism, as in Spain. ‘We want an Arabian United States with a Caliphate at its head and every Arab state subscribing wholeheartedly to the laws of the Koran. . . . The laws of the Koran are suitable for all men at all times to the end of the world.’ . . . I could not help making a mental note that the word ‘Christian’ has been similarly used and with similar fanaticism among Western exponents of authoritarianism. . . .”
(Cairo to Damascus, p. 92)
Now, about Bickle’s comments:
EXCERPT: According to Kansas City-based International House of Prayer founder and evangelist Mike Bickle–who played a major role in the August 6th “The Response” prayer event that served as the de facto kickoff event for Rick Perry’s presidential bid–in the near future Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity and move to Israel will be pursued by “hunters” sent by God and can expect to be thrown into “prison camps” and “death camps” (see embedded video footage, from Bickle sermons)
IHOP Kansas head Bickle says that “the most famous [heaven-sent] hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler”, and has claimed that Jews collectively are “under the discipline of God because of... perversion and sin.”
In Mike Bickle’s view, a lucky one third of the world’s Jewish population to survive the apocalyptic persecution he predicts will “get radically saved and become lovesick worshipers of Jesus.” Bickle has expounded these prophecies, which he claims are clearly described in Biblical scripture, in multiple sermons from 2004 through 2009.
As a newly released AP News story acknowledges, IHOP head Mike Bickle played a substantial role in Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s August 6th, 2011 The Response Prayer event. . . .
Thank you Dave for reminding those who tend to forget these things too often. Being involved myself in a struggle against anti-semitism in my local area, I can say that it is not always easy to make people understand that it is not only useless but mostly stupid to scapegoat the Jews for the problems of the world. Evil is universal. No race or ethnic group or nationality has the copyright or exclusivity on it.
You’re right. Christian and Muslim fascists have certainly in common their hatred of Jews. Hopefully, fundamentalists such as the Evangelicals have a much more positive view of the Jews and it tends to counter-balance the others. Not enough I should say, but that’s a start.
Unfortunately, the day envisioned by Mike Bickle will probably happen. In a World War III scenario, Fascists, both Christian and Muslims, and probably third-position Leftists too, will fight against Liberal Democrats, both Christian and Jew, for the control of the world. The fate of the Jews will depend totally on the ability of the Liberal Democrats and Israel to win the military and guerilla wars against the Fascists and their terrorist footsoldiers. I just hope that we will have the courage and strength to fight to our last breath to save mankind from this terrible beast that is coming upon us. It is only our resolve in the end that will make us win.
If it can boost your spirit, you can watch this documentary on the French Resistance (narrated in French) on my site:
http://lys-dor.com/2011/10/19/la-resistance-francaise-ou-comment-repousser-lenvahisseur-pour-proteger-la-civilisation/
Have a great day.
@Claude: A little skeptical on the WWIII, tbh, given how much fearmongering is out there, but I do believe there could be a day where fascists and anti-fascists of all stripes are indeed duking it out on the streets of many of the world’s major cities.
And hopefully, we’ll have someone like Dave to help us keep on top of things. =)
Also note Bickle’s role as a leader of the “Joel’s Army” theological movement. It’s rooted in the 1940’s preachings of William Branham and there’s no shortage of racialist undertones to the theology:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2008/fall/arming-for-armageddon
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Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel’s Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham’s teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel’s Army theology.
Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF’s plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider’s account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF’s Dominion school.
According to Gruen’s report, students at the school were taught that they were a “super-race” of the “elected seed” of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the “end-time Omega generation.”
Though he’d once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as “spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death,” “warning followers to beware of other Christians” and exhibiting “a ‘super-race’ mentality toward the training of their children.”
When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen’s spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews.
The Kansas City Fellowship remains in operation and has served as a farm team for many of the all-stars of the Joel’s Army movement. Those larger-than-life figures include John Wimber, the founder of a California megachurch, The Vineyard, who, before his death in 1997, proclaimed that Joel’s Army would not only conquer the earth but defeat death itself. Lou Engle founded The Call based on the Joel’s Army visions that KCF “prophet” Bob Jones (not to be confused with Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University) received while at KCF. Mike Bickle, another KCF member, stayed in Kansas City to form the International House of Prayer.
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@Pterrafractyl: Kinda scary to think about, but this information looks to be quite valuable. Thanks for putting this up. =)
It looks like Joel’s Army teamed up with another army....in Guatemala. Note that the “C. Peter Wagner” referenced in that article is like the Joel’s Army Godfather. His Dominionist platform of having the Christian church (one sect in particular) take over government might sound familiar in other parts of the world.
Part 1 of 2 posts (there seems to be a word limit on posts?):
Note: Perhaps a better location for this comment would be FTR #697 (Christian Fundamentalism & The Underground Reich), or FTR #497 (Nightmare), but comments are locked (or not responding) for those posts.
On intelligence-exploited “prophecy”, symbolism, Obama — and the strange “nationalist destiny” of “defeating Satan” on July 4, 2012:
Dave writes (point #5, FTR 497): “Is it possible that people within the administration seek catastrophe in order to fulfill biblical prophecy?”
“Reverse-engineering” prophecies would be a very powerful tool for intelligence agencies (or rogue factions within intelligence agencies) to amplify the narrative propaganda power of assassinations & would-be assassinations.
Interestingly, those of us raised in fundamentalist Christian eschatology are well-aware of The Book of Daniel’s “anti-Christ” prophecy which gives “1260 days” (roughly three-and-one-half years) as the length of time that the anti-Christ would be “permitted” to deceive mankind.
Obama’s January 20, 2009 inauguration was marred by John Roberts’ illegitimacy-baiting misapplication of the Oath of Office. Obama took the Oath again, correctly, on January 21.
Adding 1260 days to January 21, the exact date is July 4, 2012.
Am I saying that Barack Obama has a rendezvous with “destiny” on July 4?
As you’ll recall, on July 4, 2011 (one year ago), we were treated to an Obama “foreshadowing” event that would — (should anyone decide to “force the prophecy to come true”) — be looked back upon by many as evidence of right-wing conspiracy ... and it was perhaps intentionally planted to do so, post-mortem:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/jul/04/fox-news-hacked-twitter-obama-dead
Who was this Twitter message for? Who was its intended audience?
What effect would it have, post-mortem, on Tea Party reactionaries?
Was its intended purpose to misdirect — to leave clues that would associate right-wing factions/Fox News mischief-makers with the (hypothetical) assassination?
Or will it be “framed” (ala George Lakoff) to consolidate Tea Party reaction to a sudden death that even Tea Partiers would find suspicious — which could now be framed as “left-wing hackers supporting a Clinton conspiracy to kill Obama” and prevent Tea Partiers from having a crisis of conscience?
Of course, these questions are premature. And, all-the-more murky if there was no assassination, but a “heart attack”:
Tom Brokaw to Obama: Stop Smoking
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/10/tom-brokaw-obama-smoking_n_795210.html
Physician’s Open Letter To Obama: Stop Smoking
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-seidman/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_487452.html
Obama “Cigarette Tracking” News Page
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/obama-smoking-habit
2008 concerns about Obama’s health seemed bizarre 4 years ago ... but would seem prescient on July 4:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-stier/obamas-health_b_97436.html
“The Disproportionate Cost For African-Americans” who smoke:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19965569
continued in part 2 of post:
Sadly, there’s more than one way to deny the holocaust. For instance, horribly false equivalences will do the trick:
Regarding Perry’s statement about how “Roe v. Wade condemned 55 million innocent and defenseless souls that cried out for righteousness from a God who is just — we will answer for that as a nation”, one of Perry’s far right fellow travelers that happens to have a column at the National Review already recently shared the ‘national answer’ he has in mind.
Talking Points Memo has a new longform piece for TPM Prime members on Mike Bickle and the International House of Prayer. Here’s a preview:
If you aren’t thoroughly perturbed by all of that, keep in mind that the “Kansas City Prophets” that coalesced around Bickle and Engle’s church in the 80’s is the same group that spawned this: