A group that classifies Islam as one of the biggest problems of the nation started a 24-hour prayer rally on Friday evening in Detroit, a place with one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States.
The gathering at Ford Field stadium aims to address issues such as economy, racial strife, same-sex relationships and abortion. However, this 10-year-old organization known as TheCall said Detroit is a “microcosm of our national crisis” including “the rising tide of the Islamic movement.”
Leaders of the said organization believe that a satanic spirit is responsible for the state of the U.S. society and it must be purged through intensive Christian prayer and fasting. They say the demonic spirit has ruled over some areas including Detroit. Before the rally, local organizers often travel while performing a ritual called “divorcing Baal,” the name of a demon spirit, to drive out the spirit from each place.
“Our concern is that we are literally being demonized by the organizers of this group,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter, which in the previous week encouraged local mosques and Islamic schools to tighten security. “And given the recent history of other groups that have come into Michigan… we’re concerned about this prayer vigil stoking up the flames of divisiveness in the community.”
TheCall is one of the groups that came into Detroit with a message that stirred up as many as 200,000 Muslims in the area. Like many other Christian groups, TheCall believes that Jesus is the only way that man can be saved. While they consider any other religion false, they specifically focused on Islam and highlighted the September 11 attacks, terrorism, and fear that Islam will overtake Christianity.
Aside from the Muslim communities, other groups were also stirred by the Friday event. A group of about 150 people representing the Detroit clergy marched from a city park to the football stadium around the same time that the rally inside was about to start.
Rev. David Bullock told the The Associated Press that throughout their 1-hour march, they chanted “Stop the hate, spread the love. Stop the hate, spread the jobs.” Their prayer rally was “very non-violent, very peaceful” and that they did not cause any problems for anyone entering the stadium for TheCall. When he received calls asking about TheCall, Bullock told them to look up Lou Engle, its co-founder.
“They didn’t know. People are really shocked by the rhetoric in his sermons,” said Bullock. “We are going to send a different message that the God we serve loves everyone.”
According to Apostle Ellis Smith of Detroit’s Jubilee City Church, who is also a point-person for TheCall in Detroit, the fears of the event being anti-Muslim are exaggerated. He said they won’t be “praying against Muslims” but rather “against terrorism that has its roots in Islam.”
Still, in a sermon that he delivered on October 9 at a suburban church, Smith called Islam a “false,” “lame” and “perverse” religion that was allowed to flourish in Detroit because of the city’s strong religious vase. He said that’s why TheCall event is “pivotal.” The sermon was archived on the online sermon library Sermon.net.
On Thursday, Smith said that saying Islam was a “false religion, as many others are” was just his way of expressing his opinion. He said the prayer event was focused on “loving God, loving God’s people.”
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