One month has passed since Lancaster County Public Library’s Drag Queen Story Hour was abruptly canceled in the wake of multiple credible - and to-date unsolved - bomb threats.
In the week prior to the planned event, FreePA, Moms for Liberty, the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society, the Lancaster Patriot, Pennsylvania Family Institute and a number of Christian churches - both Christian Reconstructionist and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) - were involved in plans to protest together on Saturday in Lancaster City’s Binns Park.
While LancasterOnline provides a robust timeline of events both leading up to the planned Story Hour and the fallout in the hours and days after its cancellation, what follows are important details which could be critically important in this investigation.
Sunday, March 17th: Lancaster City pastor Matt Kroll of the Lord’s House of Prayer (LHOP) tells his congregation before his sermon that he plans to join Saturday’s gathering and invites the LHOP community to join this effort. Kroll also shares that Kurt Weaver of the Church Ambassador Network, part of the Pennsylvania Family Institute’s “Pro-Family Team” “already put out massive communications to show up and pray.” (Watch, below, to at least the 2 minute mark and then continue.)
Kroll’s LHOP Comments: 3/17/2024
Context & Connections:
Pennsylvania Family Institute: While certainly not the first to report the connection, WHYY provided some of our earliest yet recent state level documentation of PA Family’s connections to the Family Research Council, a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) “Designated Hate Group.” The SPLC states, “[The Family Research Council] often makes false claims about the LGBTQ community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to dehumanize LGBTQ people as the organization battles against LGBTQ rights.”
Pastor Matt Kroll / Lord’s House of Prayer: As KiraResistance first documented, Kroll is connected to Pennsylvania-based NAR leader Abby Abildness. Abildness and her statewide leadership with the New Apostolic Reformation has been profiled recently by both the Bucks County Beacon and Mother Jones. Kira’s tweet featured this January 3, 2023 photograph from Pennsylvania Family Council’s Kurt Weaver’s Facebook account which shows Abildness, Kroll and Weaver posing for a picture after attending an Abildness led tour of the capitol building. That Kroll, who has served as a Judge of Elections, would appear with Abildness, who “has told Christian media that she ‘was called by God to lead the government mountain'” is worth noting.
Thursday, March 21: The perceived unity of orgs gathering on Saturday splintered when the messaging from some revised their plans to Friday evening, instead. The Lancaster Patriot’s Chris Hume’s Facebook account shared a screen capture of Kurt Weaver whose words mirrored those also found in emails (see images below) from Pennsylvania Family Institute and Gateway House of Prayer - located on the campus of Ephrata Community Church. All of these organizations have connections to the New Apostolic Reformation.
Friday, March 22nd: As reported by LancasterOnline, Weaver and Kroll’s efforts came to fruition on Friday night when over 100 people gathered “to ask for divine intervention to prevent the Lancaster Public Library’s planned “Drag Queen Story Hour.” According to LNP, they “performed what Kroll called a ‘Jericho Walk,’” an action that the NAR considers “spiritual warfare” and was also performed in the weeks leading up to the January 6th insurrection.
Sunday, March 24th: Pastor Kroll again takes the opportunity to share his thoughts about Drag Queen Story Hour, including why the “City Pastors” chose to pivot away from Saturday and instead pray and performed a Jericho walk or march on Friday night. (View the video clip with both eyes and ears before continuing to read below.)
Kroll’s LHOP Comments: 3/24/2024
The reason we moved [our action] to Friday was not cuz we were scared. It’s because when I said, “Hey let’s fast and pray,” I got a text from Jed King. Thank you Jed King for hearing God and caring enough to let me know. (Jed King is the son of Lord’s House of Prayer’s founders Mark and Abby King and it appears from LHOP’s website that he leads LHOP’s “Gate Keeper Ministry” and serves as LHOP’s “Church Security.”)
“Hey Matt: I’m just sensing - I’m not sure it’s the Lord but I think, you know, here’s what I’m sensing -- that Saturday might be filled with hate. And it may not be good to tie in the Gospel with that crowd.”
I listened.
Ah, you see, to be honest with you, I was showing up Saturday.
Sometimes we can be so caught in our own plans that we could miss the wisdom that God’s saying. Thank God I wasn’t, and we - other pastors - weren’t caught up in our own plans. We were praying. You have - this week we gathered. We prayed. We were listening.
And then all of a sudden I get a phone - an email - you gotta call this person - I won’t - I’ll leave names out. Somebody very tied into a level of things in the city that I wouldn’t know about. And they said - and they’re a believer - and “just warning, just giving you this warning. Things could get chaotic and there may be an agenda Saturday that is not God.”
So we all met and prayed and we said “ok what is God saying?” We said “Well, I think God is preparing the way. Let’s go Friday night. Let’s be separated from the junk and [sic]. Let’s pray that place. Let’s ask God to send Angels. Let’s repent down there. Let’s take care of business. And perhaps, maybe, this thing could get shut down.”
Kroll continues. (Again, please watch the video with eyes and ears before continuing below.)
Kroll’s LHOP Comments: 3/24/24, cont.
But I will just say this, for the record: It’s just interesting how the dogs sniffed something at 10:30 in the morning when the library wasn’t even open. It wasn’t open when we were down there at night. And then, that’s what really shut it down.
I think, unless Officer King I’m wrong.I personally believe that that was God’s answer to prayer.
Leaders of the anti-LGBTQ actions, including Matt Kroll of LHOP and Kurt Weaver of PA Family, were well aware of the varied groups planning to meet on Saturday. They knew there would be LGBTQ and allied families attending the Drag Queen Story Hour. They knew there would be LGBTQ people and their allies outside of the library for a planned “Wall of Love.” They knew there would be an unusual - and often oppositional - mix of conservative Christians meeting in Binns Park.
What, then, was the “hate” and “chaotic…agenda” that compelled them to pivot to Friday night and with whom/what organization would it stem from? What did the King brothers and the “somebody very tied into…the city” know in the days before the planned events?
Most importantly, are these questions being asked and by whom?
We need to look at all the involved groups: the police, the churches and the church leaders and examine their words and actions with an informed and critical lens.
