A planned Muslim prayer rally at Capitol Hill tomorrow has provoked a fit of the vapours from the Charismatic end of the Christian Right, with calls for “spiritual warfare” from as far away as Nigeria. Charisma reports:
Tonight [Lou] Engle will join Shirley Dobson, chair of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in praying for the U.S. during a national teleconference beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. In a statement posted on his ministry Web site, Engle also called on Christians to fast and pray Friday…Window International Network distributed a prayer guide related to the Islam on Capitol Hill rally, and Intercessors for America created radio spots with a prayer that there would be only peaceful protests Friday…
Nigeria-based prayer leader Mosy Madugba called on Christians to fast and pray beginning at midnight Friday and pray until the rally ends at 7 p.m. Madugba-leader of the Ministers Prayer Network in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the Florida-based Global Prayer Network-said the rally is part of an ongoing spiritual war.
“If they succeed, they will acquire greater boldness to press for stronger and greater Islamic influence in USA,” he said. “What they are trying to do is test the waters. For every ground Islam gains, the church loses some.”
…Oklahoma pastor Reza Safa, a former Muslim who now broadcasts the gospel into the Middle East through his Nejat TV, said 50,000 Muslims bowing before Allah is “a slap in the face of Christianity.”
“You can’t say America is a Christian nation and have Muslims, who deny Jesus is the Son of God, on the lawn of the White House,” he said this week from Jerusalem.
The “Window International Network” – run from Colorado by a certain Beverley Pegues – has got particularly carried away, exhorting us to
Ask the LORD to dispatch His warring angels to oversee, contain, and defeat any spirits of destruction, terror or violence that seek to use this meeting of Muslims as an opportunity to wreak havoc. Pray that every demonic attack against the United States is revealed. Pray the Bible. Mark 4:22. Pray for every terrorist plot to be revealed, and those planning evil to be caught and quickly brought to justice.
And:
Pray for the false gods of Allah and Muhammad, along with the demonic spirits of manipulation, religion, control, hatred, rejection, abandonment, and witchcraft to be bound and cast down in the Mighty Name of Jesus. Loose Godly unity, peace, and love.
Pray for the Athan (Islamic call to prayer) and all other Islamic prayers to be rendered ineffective and powerless, and for God’s impenetrable hedge of protection to be placed around leaders and governmental agencies of the United States of America. Pray that these leaders will not be affected in any way or influenced by witchcraft prayers and the schemes of evil principalities and powers. Pray the LORD’s Will and Purpose for the US will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
There’s also conspiracy mongering:
Muslim groups have begun a 20 year plan to make America an Islamic country by the year 2020…Pray America will never become an Islamic country, but one that is dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ in service and in deed. Pray for an immediate end to any of the “Islam 20 Year Plan” that is in process or that is already taking place in America.
The website links to an anti-Islam website, where there is a repost of an article by Anis Shorrosh on the subject of “How Islam will Defeat America”:
The following is my analysis of Islamic invasion of America, the agenda of Islamists and visible methods to take over America by the year 2020! Will Americans continue to sleep through this invasion as they did when we were attacked on 9/11?
Shorrosh (who has a slightly strange-looking website here [UPDATE: and who was arrested last year for attempted arson]) has a feverish vision that Muslims are involved in an all-encompassing plot which includes the following strategies:
Terminate America’s freedom of speech by replacing it with hate crime bills state-wide and nation-wide….Wage a war of words using black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other visible religious personalities to promote Islam as the original African-American’s religion while Christianity is for the whites!…Take control of as much of Hollywood, the press, TV, radio and the internet…Encourage Muslims to penetrate the White House… Train Muslims as medical doctors to dominate the medical field, research and pharmaceutical companies…. Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961)… Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them…Applaud Muslims as loyal citizens of the US by spotlighting their voting record as the highest percentage of all minority and ethic groups in America.
Lou Engle, meanwhile, sees the rally as a moment of “convergence”:
First of all, our President has recently proclaimed, honored, encouraged the Muslim holy days of prayer and fasting called Ramadan. He was very silent on the National Day of Prayer, but very vocal on the support of Ramadan. Interestingly, at the same time, a major Christian leader of the Emergent Church called for forty days of fasting and prayer in the same Ramadan period with the goal that the Church will better understand our Muslim friends…At the same time, on the 25th of September, Muslims are calling for a Muslim Day of Prayer in Washington DC… This is the exact word of one of the Sheikhs who is leading this historic gathering: “Muslims should march on the White House. We are going to the White House so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will become into a Muslim house.”…However, I believe in this moment of divine providence that God has raised up on the stage of history, a little “Esther” that if we pray and fast for her, she could be a major voice to expose the dark under-belly of Islam and radiate a bright hope for a day of salvation for Muslims in America…
(That would be, of course, Rifqa Bary)
This convergence, I believe, is urgently summoning us in the midst of the rising tide of Islamic influence in America to recognize that our God is above every god and that if we return to Him with all of our hearts and call upon Him with fasting and prayer, then God could use what the enemy meant for evil to bring about a great day of salvation for Muslims in America, of which Rifqa is but a major sign.
Last year, Engle led a “team of prayer leaders” in Washington D.C. in battle against the demonic forces which were working to help Barack Obama to get elected; perhap’s they’ll have better luck this time.
Returning to the Charisma article, apocalyptic paperback author Joel C. Rosenberg (first blogged by me here) tells us that
“My prayer is that people go out and just start handing out copies of the New Testament in Arabic to those who are there,” he said. “To share the gospel. That they show love and mercy to those who are there who are Muslims. That they don’t get into arguments. You’re not going to persuade Muslims by arguing with them. … The Lord has to open their eyes to understand that He’s calling them to Him.”
As I noted recently, nobody was particularly bothered when the exact same spot was used last summer to puff a Unification Church front group.
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