"No one can convince me that the prayer and worship in that room is not pleasing to the Lord." So said Eric Volz about IHOPKC, who until recently was the crisis manager of Bicklegate. In that role, Mr. Volz has been trying his best to distract, blame the victims, and make disgusting allusions to protect IHOP and Bickle as best he can. As this is being written on February 8, 2024, a new accuser has now stepped forth, fully disclosing her name, who alleges Bickle began sexually abusing her at age 14. She had stayed quiet because she though she was the only one. There appears to be corroborating witnesses including her father who reportedly drove to Kansas City to tell Bickle to stay away from his daughter. Yet despite this and the other indisputable proofs so far, Eric Volz has maintained this public facing to protect the brand at all costs. Even after he stepped down last week, he felt compelled to give an hour-long softball interview from an adoring pastor-fan, linked above. While long, I want to only focus on the disinformation and outlandish garbage Volz is still selling. Please realize this gives me no pleasure. I do not know Mr. Volz and he seems like a fine fellow who has done a lot of good for the falsely accused. The problem here is Mike Bickle is not falsely accused. The story from the primary Jane Doe has been verified by multiple sources. Bickle himself has slowly started to admit more and more. I would say where there is smoke there is fire but Bicklegate is currently burning all of IHOP down, despite how much Eric Volz thinks God is somehow pleased by a 24-7 prayer concept that was founded upon false lies and false prophecies. He is not. Volz never should have agreed to defend the devil here. I hope the 30 pieces of IHOP silver were worth it. Let us reason once more beloved.
"I have been coming to IHOPKC for about seven years. I have dear friends there. My life and walk with the Lord was really affected by their night and day prayer model, the devotion of the singers and musicians, the maturity they had in the word." - Eric Volz
This, along with the opening quote, reveal how undiscerning Eric Volz is and why someone who is so ga-ga over IHOP should probably not been assigned as its crisis manager since his opinion is obviously not objective. The 24-7 prayer model is never required remotely in scripture. It became forced because students were required to attend for credit. They were harassed to keep journals mystifying their experience. Kundalini and eastern mysticism practices were reported by people who escaped the cult of IHOP. Recently, a 24-7 IHOPKC preacher was busted for soliciting sex. I understand that it "feels" pious but it is not. One other thing we know for certain is that IHOPKC was never mature in the word of God. They ascribed to dominionism and the bridal paradigm. The Charismaniacal powers that be are dead set on saving the concept of IHOP even though it is now proven to have been founded by a purely carnal predator. There is nothing "Christian" about IHOP. God is revealing these things because He will not be mocked. Merely changing the head of the snake does not solve the fact that at its root, IHOP was never of God.
"There has been so much unfair criticism of the way IHOP had handled the early days but they were completely blindsided. From my perspective, the crises started for the organization on October 24th because that was when the full breadth of the allegations were presented to the ELT. The day after the allegations were presented he was asked to not come onto the property and he has not been back since. When I got to KC and I saw how vicious some of the adversaries were. From my perspective, IHOP has handled this very responsibly." - Eric Volz
Volz uses this tactic often - try and muddy the waters. Who cares if you say October 24th and someone else says October 9th. The larger point is that IHOP was not blindsided. The advocates had been communicating these problems for months. Even Volz admits the someone who knew the primary Jane Doe had contacted him five months earlier! So please, stop pretending the IHOP and the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) are the real victims here. They are not. Eric also never mentions that right after being given the 50-page confidential document from the advocates, they shared it with Bickle! Now Volz wants an attaboy for the fact that Bickle was told correctly to not come on the IHOP property, and he has not? Is the bar set so low? IHOPKC has handled this very responsibly? How can you say that with a straight face? They lied initially, they shared the report with the perpetrator, they smeared the victims, they promised to bring in an independent investigator, then recanted that decision. They refused an impartial outside investigator and still blame the victims for that! Oh, and they leaked the lie that Misty Edwards and two others were named as victims when they never were so that they could publicly refute it and they could then use the denial to cast doubt on all the victims. Even Volz does it in this very interview despite it being known for a fact now to have been a lie! Yeah, those pesky women who were damaged by Bickle have been so vicious. Please.
"They did not resist at all in bringing in an outside agency to investigate. Just because someone presents allegations doesn't mean an organization has to bring in an outside party to investigate. The first phase should be for the organization to do their own evaluation but IHOP was not even allowed to really do that. Even from the beginning there was a pre-planned solution from the advocate group for IHOP to bring in an outside group, GRACE, to investigate. I don't know if I really have an opinion on that. I know that early on, the leadership was just saying, hey give us the details of these allegations so we can actually arbitrate and handle this in the right way but the advocate group wasn't willing to do that. And that was puzzling. It was puzzling then and it is puzzling now. The organization should have been given the opportunity to evaluate the full extent of the allegations but they never were." - Eric Volz
