Then the charismatic industrial complex went to work. Soon Misty Edwards puts out a statement saying IF she was one of the listed victims it was untrue. Then someone randomly makes a Facebook post claiming she was listed as a victim, but she swears she was not. Steven Strang at Charisma seizes on this and starts writing and making videos casting shade on the underlying accusations because now several of the alleged victims have recanted. Dr. Brown starts to mention this as well in his "let's wait and see and say nothing" defense. The groundwork has now been laid to provide some cover and the IHOP leadership team changes course entirely with the above linked statement. Let's review portions of this "major update:"
"After three weeks of examination, IHOPKC has identified five of eight alleged victims.
Three of those five have publicly called the allegations lies, a fourth has not wanted to
communicate with IHOPKC's attorney, and the fifth's allegations relate to incidents that
preceded IHOPKC's founding. Further, it became apparent that the Complaint Group did not
have permission to include at least four of the women in their list of alleged victims.
We remain committed to verifying the remaining allegations, but we need the Complaint Group
to assist in our inquiry of the remaining alleged victims to ensure their veracity. There is much at
stake in getting to the truth." - IHOP Leadership
First of all, everyone seems to be glossing over this absurd comment about one of the accusations predating Bickle founding IHOP. Does that matter to us as Christians? Who cares if the allegation is old? Most sexual abuse victims do not come forward when they have been abused and victimized as in this case. Also, the initial findings say Bickle manipulated the victims using his spiritual authority. I remember reading the report of the Ravi Zacharias debacle. Ravi spiritually extorted his victims by claiming they could be consigning millions of people to hell by depriving them of his ministry if they dared to tell on him. I might add they often do not come forward because of actions such as these. Why in the world would the complaint group help leadership when it is quite apparent, they have no intention of dealing honorably and fairly?
"The second, and only detailed, allegation is from 26 years ago, before IHOPKC was founded.
The allegations include physical contacts between Mr. Bickle and an adult woman; it is also
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