Trigger warning: discussion of sexual abuse and sexual assault
For the last two months, one of the leading forces in the Christianist universe has been on life support. In late October, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC), which has run praise and worship sessions 24 hours a day, seven days a week since 1999, was rocked by claims that its founder and longtime leader, Mike Bickle, had sexually assaulted a number of his adherents (diaried here).
Well, we may be getting very close to the dénouement of this saga. Late Friday, IHOPKC announced that it had parted ways with Bickle after claiming that it had received confirmation that he had indeed engaged in “inappropriate conduct” in the course of his ministry. Given the circumstances, though, I have to wonder how long IHOPKC will stay in business.
The story began in late October, when three former top leaders at IHOPKC released an open letter alleging “credible and long-standing” accusations of sexual assault on Bickle’s part. They also claimed that Bickle blew them off when they tried to confront him, forcing them to bring the claims to IHOPKC’s executive team before going public.
That Sunday, IHOPKC’s executive team told parishoners at Forerunner Church, a church with close ties to IHOPKC, that Bickle had agreed to stand down from all public ministry and stay off social media pending investigation for “sexual immorality.” Watch the announcement here.
The reaction from some of Bickle’s friends was predictable to anyone who has been watching the religious right and/or sexual assault in the evangelical world. For instance, Steve Strang of Charisma magazine, a longtime friend of Bickle’s, wrote an op-ed in which he revealed at least two of Bickle’s accusers claimed nothing happened. He went further in his “Strang Report” podcast, claiming that it was one helluva coincidence these allegations dropped after Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel.
However, the beginning for the end for Bickle came on Dec. 7, when Christian investigative journalist Julie Roys revealed that Bickle had told evangelist and frequent IHOPKC speaker Bob Bohi that he had engaged in “bad judgments and bad mistakes” with one of the accusers. According to Roys, recently retired IHOPKC executive director Stuart Greaves had told prayer room section leader Jason Carr that Bickle had confessed to him as well.
Less than a week later, on Dec. 12, Bickle released a statement in which he admitted to engaging in “inappropriate behavior” more than 20 years earlier. However, he claimed he was not admitting to the “more intense sexual activities” that were the focus of the accusations. That didn’t sit well with the lawyer for the accusers, Boz Tchvidjian—best known for his work advocating for victims of emotional and sexual abuse in the evangelical world. Tchvidjian marveled at Bickle’s “deliberate word choice” and wondered if he was admitting to “less intense sexual activities.”
According to The Kansas City Star, the shit finally hit the fan on Wednesday when one of Bickle’s former colleagues, Stephen Magnuson, fired off a message to IHOPKC’s recently-hired spokesman, Eric Volz—best known for being wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting his former girlfriend—that more disclosures were about to come.
On Thursday, Magnuson revealed that he had warned Bickle of what was to come.
This prompted Forerunner Church to blast out an email to its supporters warning that someone was about to “release details of extremely sensitive, private information about members of our community” unless IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT) came clean about it. According to a close friend of mine, “Marcia,” a former IHOPKC worship leader who has joined the effort to turn the hot lights on Bickle, this also caused consternation among the survivor community as well, since it resulted in one of the accusers being the target of retaliation and doxing. Apparently Magnuson’s Friday tweet came only after several of the survivors and their allies urged him to at least get the consent of the survivors before going public.
Forerunner, and through it IHOPKC, said it was actively working to “defuse this situation.” Apparently that effort resulted in the discovery of information that made Bickle’s position untenable, because on Friday night, IHOPKC released a message announcing that Bickle was out altogether. Watch here.
Volz said that IHOPKC’s executive committee, which had assumed responsibility for the crisis earlier in the month had unearthed new details confirming Bickle had indeed engaged in “inappropriate behavior.” He didn’t elaborate citing the need for an independent investigation, but said that what was known about the nature of this behavior required IHOPKC to “immediately, formally, and permanently” cut ties with Bickle.
Considering how IHOPKC has behaved lately, whatever it found must have been pretty bad. According to a statement from Tchividjian, IHOPKC’s earlier attempts to engage an “independent investigation” have been elaborate shams. Its first choice to lead the investigation was a law firm with “a fiduciary duty” to IHOPKC. When Tchividjian called them on it, IHOPKC engaged a lawyer who was a longtime member of IHOPKC/Forerunner, and thus also had “a fiduciary duty to her client (IHOPKC, not the victims).” Tchivdjian went as far as to send IHOPKC suggestions for “a legitimate, qualified, and experienced third-party investigator who is not an attorney.” Instead, IHOPKC engaged another firm that proudly touts its work defending a number of people and groups accused of engaging in sexual assault and covering it up. Tchividjian believes that at present, “this (is) an internal investigation being publicly labeled as independent.”
Even before Friday, IHOPKC was reeling. Indeed, I’m surprised something like this didn’t blow sooner. After all, IHOPKC has grown by roping in a lot of people who weren’t raised in this world, and thus aren’t used to simply doing as they’re told. According to Marcia, however, many of the people who are part of the effort to turn the hot lights on Bickle grew up under leaders and ministries close to IHOPKC. They spent their entire lives in this world and had the scales knocked off their eyes. The more I thought about it, this wasn’t nearly as shocking. Much of the evangelical worldview depends heavily on keeping the real world out, and you can’t do that in the age of social media. As she put it in one of our many chats on Facebook Messenger, “Mike raised up an end times army and we are coming for him.”
The great majority of them are Xennials, millennials and GenZers who are finding ways to undercut Bickle’s attempts to hang on. For instance, Marcia tells me, one of the first things IHOPKC’s leadership did once this crisis broke was to tell staffers to stay off social media—so they decided to mount a flanking maneuver by reaching the periphery. For instance, she said, “we went into the prayer room and talked to people.” It’s worked so far—so many people have left that I was already wondering if Bickle would be around by Easter. After all, when an army can’t replenish its troops, it’s done. As it turned out, he didn’t even make it to Christmas.
From my experience of watching the religious right, I doubt this will be enough for IHOPKC to outlive Bickle for long. I suspect even more people will come forward, and it will be too much for them to withstand. I also see a lot of parallels with how Mars Hill Church imploded even after it pushed out its founder, Mark Driscoll—or “Sun Myung Driscoll,” as I sometimes call him. Regardless, the survivors are now one step closer to getting justice.
