Dominionist Lou Engle called a three-day global fast to stop the coronavirus and prevent it from derailing prayer warriors’ plans for a series of rallies in tents and stadiums across the country between now and the U.S. presidential election.

In a message shared with Engle’s followers last Friday and promoted by CBN and the Elijah List newsletter Wednesday, Engle wrote, “It seems like a demonic force is fueling the rapid spread of the virus and the hysteria surrounding it.” He called for believers to fast from Wednesday to Friday.

Engle explained that he believes that 2020 “has been marked by the Holy Spirit as a year of Stadium Christianity and explosive advance of the Kingdom.” As Right Wing Watch has reported, a coalition of ministries is planning a series of events across the country, culminating in a march from land owned by the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri, to Arrowhead Stadium for a rally organized by The Send just weeks before the election.

The Send is the successor organization to The Call, the banner under which Engle organized political prayer rallies for years. The Send held its first rally in Orlando in February 2019, followed by a multi-stadium event in Brazil this February that was attended by the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. The Send had another rally scheduled in Argentina on April 25, but that country’s government has banned large gatherings to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“It is our conviction,” Engle wrote, “that the storm of this pandemic has been stirred up by a high-level demonic principality to hinder the surge of the Church’s mighty assault of fasting, prayer, sending and missions on the global gates of Hades.”

Engle noted that this is an election year in Israel as well as the U.S.:

It should be noted that this virus has also been rising in the earth at the very time that Israel stands on the threshold of fulfilling biblical prophecy. In Ezekiel 36, the prophet declares that Israel will once again possess the mountains of Judea and Samaria as part of the Lord’s ultimate plan to return the Jewish peoples to Himself. Since the end of January, President Trump (whom the Lord has shown us is in a time like Truman’s) and Prime Minister Netanyahu have been working together towards the annexation of significant portions of Judea and Samaria. Yet, Netanyahu’s and Trump’s re-elections hang in the balance as the storm of this pandemic rages on with complicated economic and political repercussions that could threaten their seats.

Engle is already in the midst of another 40-day “Jesus fast” he called earlier this year, but said he is convinced that God wanted him to call this new fast. “God is looking for His people to take the place of spiritual authority that He has given us in Christ that we might rule with Him through prayer,” he said.

Engle said that Andy Byrd, leader of The Send, urged him to call a three-day fast within the 40-day fast to stand against the coronavirus. “It is threatening the global advance of evangelism and is determined to stop Stadium Christianity and the sending movement,” Byrd told Engle. “The Send Kansas City must not be stopped! Other great gatherings must not be stopped!”

Engle has great faith in the power of fasting:

Together, in the victory Christ has already won on the Cross, we will speak to this coronavirus, saying, “Be thou removed!” As we do, let’s believe together that this pandemic will abate, stadiums will be filled, elections shifted, and 2020 will go down in history – not as the year where the nations collapsed – but as the year of historic advance of evangelism and missions worldwide!

Engle is a member of the council of POTUS Shield, a network of “apostles” and “prophets” created to support Trump’s presidency and promote a new “prophetic order of the United States.” He and other organizers associated with the New Apostolic Reformation gathered at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2018 to unleash angel armies on Trump’s deep state enemies. As Right Wing Watch has reported previously, Engle’s ventures have included a rally on the National Mall a few months before the 2000 elections and one in California in 2008 focused on passing Proposition 8 to ban marriage equality. At a 2010 The Call rally attended by Engle in Uganda, speakers endorsed a notorious kill-the-gays bill under consideration at the time. While Engle did not endorse the bill, he praised local anti-gay activists who he said were taking “a stand for righteousness.” He later clarified that he does support the criminalization of homosexuality. Engle also founded the Justice House of Prayer in Washington, D.C., a home base for anti-abortion protesters at the Supreme Court. Engle has led public prayers for God to knock off pro-choice Supreme Court justices, so that Trump will be able to fill vacancies with justices who will do away with Roe v. Wade.

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God,” Engle teaches in his “Keys to Dominion,” which asserts, “The same authority that has been given to Christ Jesus for overwhelming conquering and dominion has been given to the saints of the most high … We’re God’s rulers upon the earth … We will govern over kings and judges will have to submit … We’re called to rule! To change history! To be co-regents with God!”