Important Context for the Mike Bickle/IHOP-KC Sexual Accusations

This should not be surprising, but it should be a wake-up call.

Sexual and spiritual abuse accusations have recently become public about Mike Bickle. Bickle is a giant in the Independent Charismatic sector of Christianity, and the institution he built in Kansas City—the International House of Prayer - Kansas City (IHOP-KC)—is one of the major American Independent Charismatic “brands.” A group of former IHOP-KC leaders put out a statement on October 28 acknowledging the accusations without many details. That same night a public announcement was made in the church service at Forerunner Church, a charismatic megachurch closely attached to IHOP-KC, with people in the audience arguing and pushing back against a perceived lack of transparency. As of this writing, Bickle has not formally resigned or been removed from authority, though he has temporarily stepped back from activities in these ministries. There is more information to come and more details will, no doubt, surface in coming weeks and months, but, I’d like to give some important context and history to situate these accusations in their proper context.

First, the big picture. There are generally considered to be three strands of the lively Pentecostal-charismatic segment of global Christianity: 1) Pentecostalism, rooted in early 20th century revivals; 2) the Charismatic Renewal movements that brought Pentecostal-style spirituality into mainline Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism in the mid-20th century; and 3) the Independent Charismatics. The Independent Charismatics are known for a strong emphasis on the full spectrum of supernatural spiritual gifts — prophecy, healing, words of knowledge, speaking in tongues, etc. — and for eschewing denominational governance in favor of independent ministries and networked leadership echelons. This dynamism and lack of regulation has made the Independent Charismatic sector the Wild West of modern Christianity, full of captivating leaders, exciting prophecies, snazzy upstart brands, miraculous claims, and many, many opportunities for abuse and megalomania.

In the late 1940s/early 1950s a revival movement emerged in Saskatchewan called the Latter Rain movement (or sometimes the New Order of the Latter Rain). An offshoot of Pentecostalism, the Latter Rain movement shaped many aspects of the Independent Charismatic culture both in the US and globally. The Latter Rain believers were highly suspicious of denominations, particularly their own Pentecostal denominations, and they believed that God was inaugurating a new end-times movement of the church characterized by miracles and what they called the “fivefold ministry,” a reference to Ephesians 4:11-12, where the author of Ephesians lists five ministry gifts given to the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors. The Latter Rain proponents believed that, though the active work of apostles and prophets had died out or morphed into different forms of leadership after the era of the early church (according to most Christian interpretation), God was going to commission new apostles and new prophets to lead the global church into a massive eschatological charismatic renewal and revival.

In 1982, Bickle came to Kansas City to lead Kansas City Fellowship church. There he encountered a group of these Latter Rain holdouts who believed they were some of these end-times prophets. The two most prominent of these were named Paul Cain and Bob Jones (not to be confused with the founder of Bob Jones University). Though Bickle, by his own account, was skeptical of their claims, he eventually became convinced through prophecies given to him that came true and through miracles and “signs and wonders” performed by these prophets. Over the course of the 1980s, a whole cluster of these Latter Rain-descended prophets coalesced around Bickle’s church. They were informally referred to as the Kansas City Prophets, and they were profiled in a 1991 piece by Christianity Today magazine.

The Kansas City Prophets were a very important leadership cohort who helped shape the culture of the modern Independent Charismatic world. They included Bickle, Cain, and Jones, but also Bill Hamon, James Goll, John Paul Jackson, and they mentored younger prophets like Shawn Bolz.

In 1990, Bickle chose to associate Kansas City Fellowship with the burgeoning Vineyard association of churches led by Anaheim, CA pastor John Wimber. People I’ve interviewed who know that world well have theorized the Bickle wanted to merge his own prophecy-driven movement with Wimber’s charismatic Vineyard movement. Wimber was, seemingly, on board with some elements of this merger and, for a time, he was very excited about these compelling prophets and their evidently supernatural insights. But then some of the prophecies they gave Wimber did not come to pass, and he grew disenchanted with their schtick. Bickle and the church (by then titled Metro Christian Fellowship) left the Vineyard association in 1996.

In 1999, Bickle founded IHOP-KC based on various prophecies and revelations from the Kansas City Prophets. The organizing vision of IHOP-KC was to operate a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year unending prayer room. The leaders of this prayer were seen as “intercessory missionaries,” and they believe their prayer initiative would drive world evangelization and also hasten the end times return of Jesus. Bickle formally left his church role to lead IHOP-KC.

In the past quarter century, IHOP-KC has become a major Independent Charismatic hub in the US. Many other “houses of prayer” have arisen in imitation of IHOP-KC, creating an informally linked network of these charismatic 24-7 prayer hubs. According to their website, IHOP-KC itself now has more than 2,000 of these “intercessory missionaries,” most of who are employed, at least on a part-time basis, at IHOP-KC. I have friends and family members who have served in these roles.

IHOP-KC is also a central fixture of the modern Apostolic and Prophetic movement, a rapidly growing Independent Charismatic trend, based on the same Latter Rain teachings, of building nondenominational church networks around modern-day apostles and prophets. This apostolic network model of church governance is built around apostles and prophets like Bickle, and it is a charismatic-personality-based leadership model, invested in the theological belief that these apostles and prophets are divinely appointed and given supernatural giftings.

Bickle was involved in some of the early gatherings and institutions of the New Apostolic Reformation, another major Apostolic and Prophetic movement and a set of networks organized by renegade Fuller Seminary professor C. Peter Wagner in the late 1990s. (For more on the New Apostolic Reformation and their pivotal role in constructing Christian Trumpism and instigating Christian participation in the January 6 Insurrection, listen to my audio-documentary series “Charismatic Revival Fury.”) Bickle, and several other Kansas City Prophets, participated in Wagner’s Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders, one of the central NAR institutions. There was a great deal of cross-pollination between IHOP-KC and the NAR, though they remained formally distinct. IHOP-KC vehemently denies being part of Wagner’s NAR movement.

This is absolutely not the first time controversy has arisen around IHOP-KC. In 1991, Bob Jones admitted to “sexual misconduct (not adultery)” with two women, and he confessed that he had used his spiritual authority to manipulate and coerce them. Accusations later surfaced about Paul Cain, who, in 2006, was internally disciplined for “long-term homosexual activity” (viewed as a sin in these evangelical communities) and abusing alcohol.

One last piece of context is crucial to understanding the accusations against Bickle and the way they are being processed within this IHOP-KC community. Bickle has claimed that he had a vision in 1984 of a giant, winged, demonic black horse that attacked him, which he has interpreted as being a sign of Satan’s rage against him (Bickle) and demonic efforts to stir up lies to discredit him. Since that time, when any controversy about IHOP-KC has arisen or any significant criticism has emerged against him, Bickle has resurfaced this “black horse” narrative to say that such opposition must merely be another manifestation of Satan’s aggression and anger against his godly and important work. “Black horse” langauge or imagery within IHOP-KC has become a catchword (a shibboleth) and a way of dismissing accusations as presumably false and demonic.

Last week, in a sermon that’s still available online, Bickle (who was almost certainly aware of these swirling rumors and accusations about his own sexual misconduct) referenced this “black horse” vision and said, “accusation is the number one weapon of Satan.” Bickle, who is a devout Christian Zionist (a Christian supporter of the state of Israel for theological reasons), hints in that sermon that Satan is out to disrupt his support for Israel in this crucial moment where the Jewish nation is at war: “If the devil can get accusation — get the body [of Christ] against the body — then the body cannot stand for Israel. They’ll be fighting each other. That’s the point — to get the body fighting the body.” Reading between the lines: he seemed to be framing his own narrative in anticipation of these accusations becoming public.

In their announcement about the accusations and the investigation into Bickle, the Forerunner Church leaders explicitly ask that people stop referencing the “black horse” as a means of dismissing the accusations. You can already see the lines forming within the IHOP-KC community between those who intrinsically believe Bickle and those who want to allow these accusations to see the light of day.

Mike Bickle isn’t the first major evangelical leader accused of sexual abuse and misconduct, nor will he be the last. But this is an apt moment to consider the fact that all three of the iconic leaders of IHOP-KC (Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, and Bob Jones) have all stood credibly accused of sexual misconduct. That bespeaks a leadership culture where charismatic authority has utterly overtaken institutional or communal accountability.

In these apostolic and prophetic circles, people like Mike Bickle are given an almost unfathomable amount of spiritual authority — far beyond most evangelical pastors. They are seen as oracles of God, speaking with the voice of God through prophecy, and leading the church under divine apostolic directives. That is a straightforward recipe for abuse and cover-up. Indeed, it’s baked into Bickle’s decades-long prophetic narrative that anyone who criticizes or exposes him must be an agent of Satan.

The question now arises: Can the institution that Mike Bickle forged around himself and his theology now stand up and hold him accountable? Will his fellow Independnet Charismatic apostles and prophets (many of them lifelong friends of his) speak out against him? Will his accusers be sidelined through theology and prophecy or will they be allowed to tell their stories?

The lack of overarching governance structures in the Independent Charismatic world mean that there is no higher body or bylaws to adjudicate this process. At the very least, this should be a wake-up call to all Christians—whether downstream of the Latter Rain or not—that when you invest a leader with this amount of license and authority, that is a breeding ground for abuse and cover-up.