Lou Engle, the New Apostolic Reformation preacher who heads TheCall, is inviting believers to join his Spiritual Air Force Academy. Running from September 6th to April 30th, the Spiritual Air Force Academy offers to teach Christians how to be "pilots sent for the purpose of winning the war in the heavens at a moments notice". For $2,500 tuition (not including room and board in Pasadena, CA), you too can learn how to work yourself into an ecstatic state through prayer, which releases endorphins but doesn't actually impact the world.
In a YouTube video released this spring, Lou Engle describes the Spiritual Air Force Academy with the same bombastic language that he uses for every other prayer event. Participants learn how to fast and pray so as to "remove demons in the heavenlies from the hard, dark places of the earth".
"In 2004, in the shadow of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, we gathered seventy young people to fast and pray for fifty days, day and night. An amazing breakthrough took place, and God began to give us what we believe is historic intercessory strategy. God is going to raise up what we're calling SAFA, the Spiritual Air Force Academy!Can I inject some reality here, please? Taking part in ecstatic prayer is not the same thing as being a fighter pilot. Ecstatic worship does not make one a soldier in some cosmic war. Actual fighter pilots go through rigorous training and risk their lives in aerial combat. Working oneself into a religious ecstasy while forking over thousands of dollars to TheCall is not at all like being a fighter pilot.
A movement of young men and women giving themselves to fasting and prayer to remove demons in the heavenlies from the hard, darkest places of the earth, releasing divine encounters, revival, and awakening on the ground.
You see, in World War II and beyond, if you didn't win air supremacy with the planes winning the battle in the heavens, you could not win the ground war. It took both air and ground to win victories. I know it was like General Eisenhower calling forth the air force to invade Normandy from the heavens so that the ground troops could break through in the Battle of Normandy. This is the kind of ideology, prayer stragegy that God is wanting to release into the earth.
You're about to hear a breakthrough of angelic swords shattering the powers in the heavens, so that a vast movement of evangelism could sweep in and bring forth another massive revival. Can you imagine an army of men and women who would dedicate their lives to fast and pray? This is the time for a new strategy to come forth.
Air supremacy contending in the heavens for breakthroughs on the earth. SAFA! Sweep the skies!"
If one wants to fight evil, I can think of far better alternatives to joining SAFA. Why not donate that tuition money to charity, or volunteer with any number of charitable organizations? Why not help any number of social movements calling for justice in our communities? Ecstatic prayer won't improve the conditions of the world, but charitable giving and hard work just might.
In the meantime, act out those fighter pilot fantasies by playing Ace Combat Infinity.
$2,500? That's a lot of money for a metaphor. And for that money, he'll teach you to mumble to yourself and stop eating until you start to imagine that you're driving away invisible evil entities which, of course, weren't actually there in the first place, all the while listening to mumbo-jumbo about how this is somehow like being in the air force. I bet the "classroom" has posters of fighter planes on the walls.
ReplyDeleteDonating the money to charity might do more good, but that suffers the critical shortcoming, from Lou Engle's viewpoint, that the money wouldn't be going to Lou Engle.
Slick video, though, I'll give him that.
Infidel -- If you want to be shocked, check out the fees on the website. That's $2,500 for the first year, then ANOTHER $2,500 for the second year. Factor in $300 per month for a dorm room, along with expenditures for food, clothes, incidentals, and travel to and from Pasadena, and participants will be paying close to $10,000 for this little prayer warrior adventure.
DeleteI get the impression that SAFA is aimed at young adults, and it pains me to know that someone is trying to squeeze that much money out of them. I wish I could tell them that $10,000 could do wonders for a community non-profit organization...or in their savings account...or as a down payment on a house...or as tuition at a community college. Let them spend that money on things that enrich the community or themselves, not on prayer warrior nonsense.
As a side note, TheCall released another SAFA promotion video, which tries to appeal to young people's need to belong and serve something greater than themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7fZMENzJ7E
I know it's a minor issue compared to the idiocy of this whole thing, but there was no Air Force in World War II. It was part of the Army, and was called the Army Air Corps. It wasn't separated out and called the Air Force until after the war.
ReplyDeleteGreen Eagle -- Correct. The U.S. Air Force wasn't created until after World War II.
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