Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lou Engle

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. – Sceptre ^(Talk) 14:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lou Engle

Non-notable D-list Elmer Gantry wannabe. No actual accomplishments. Believe me, I checked this guy, fixed up the biased and poor language, formatted and wikified, researched publisher info on his vanity-press "publications", tried (and failed) to find citations backing up any claim to any level of notability (besides his website). I'm especially pissed because after all that, I decided not to AfD the article despite his clear non-notability, because, enh, too lazy. Response? Reverts with insulting edit summary, addition of more mendacious and biased material, refusal of editor to respond to polite requests to engage. Giving him a pass on his non-notability a mistake, I guess, so deletey-time. "Lou Engle is an influential leader" is just plain false. He's a nobody. More info on article talk page. Herostratus 02:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per Herostratus' comments. Royboycrashfan 03:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Ignoring the POV problems, I don't know where you draw the line on notability. I get about 30K GHits for this guy, fewer than 1K for "Justice House of Prayer", and about 650 for "The Cause USA". To compare, I find 167K for Randall Terry, and 400K for his organization, "Operation Rescue". Clearly this guy's no Randall Terry. Where's the cutoff? Fan1967 03:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Note Looks like that 30K is really less than 700 unique hits for his name [1]. Fan1967 03:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• Might be a fairly common name. Delete per nom. Notability doesn't seem to be backed up by the facts. Grandmasterka 04:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Being clergy or publishing a book does not notability make. NTK 04:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The notability page establishes several consensus criteria for notability. Engle does not qualify by many of them, but does qualify by the criterion for published authors, and by the 100-year test. To illustrate the latter, I consider Engle to be analogous in his role and activity to Daniel Rowland. Anyone researching turn of the millenium American revivalism would be ill-served by Engle's omission from the history, 100 years from now. I'm sorry if the editor felt personally slighted by my npov smear comment, but the use of self-published appeared prima facie to be an intentional mischaracterization. Whatever the editors intentions were, I still consider the incorrect use of the term to be belittling. The deletion project also appears to be consistent with this agenda-based editorial plan. Please do not attribute to me edits which I did not make. Aminorex 19:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • What Aminorex is talking about is a message I left on his talk page taking him to task for an edit made by someone else, which I did due to a engregiously incorrect misreading of the page history. I apologized on your talk page and I apologize here, Aminorex. Stupid mistake, but why are you bringing it here? (I don't know what you mean by "agenda-driven plan". I'm an inclusionist, and I cleaned up the article and left it even though the guy is clearly non-notable; I only thought better of it when I saw it got messed up again and I saw a long stretch of edit warring, not worth it for a guy who's just not notable.) I don't know exactly how to characterize his publishing; it's a special case. He's certainly not published by normal, commercial publishing houses; They look to be small fundamentalist publishers. Perhaps "specialty publisher" would be the term, or maybe they are a form of vanity press. I used "self-published" and I guess that was a slight mischaracterization, but to leave the impression that he was published in the sense that we use the term for normal published authors would also be misleading. As to the main point, I'll comment below. Herostratus 19:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I mention it here, because you made statments above which were based on that mistaken impression, appeared to contribute to the imputation that I was making edits which were mendacious and biased. I think it is reasonable to make a defense against such an imputation wherever it occurs, and I hope that any impression that I have undertaken mendacity or bias has been mitigated by your subsequent review of the actual edit history. —This unsigned comment was added by Aminorex (talk • contribs) .
      • I didn't mention your name anywhere above. I apologized again on your talk page, and will continue to do so as long as you wish, I guess. Herostratus 23:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
        • No apologies are necessary, I merely wished to provide a refutation. We both understand the facts of the case. I appreciate your graciousness in offering an apology, but that frank mutual understanding is more than enough to gratify me.Aminorex 06:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I would dispute that Engle is a "published author" in the sense that the term is commonly meant. Although I think its probable that his publishing houses exist in some sense, I sure couldn't find out much about them. This goes way beyond not having a web site; they don't seem to have a web presence. I think at least one of them is defunct. These are not big players in the publishing world. I don't know where the line between a vanity press and actual publishing house lies. As to the rest... the original article makes as his big claim to fame that he "organized" something called CallDC that got a crowd of "400,000". I couldn't find any mention in the regular press at all - not a clipping, not an 'also in the news' note, nothing. The only other real mention was in another fundamentalist website, where they gave the crowd as "75,000" and characterized Engle's involvement as being "among the speakers" at the event. And that's his friends. 75,000 is probably a great exaggeraterion itself, but who can tell since there is no mainstream press coverage of the event at all. For all I know it was 750. And remember, that's his main claim to notability that the article made. (Since then, more has been added, such as his being "actively involved in the leadership" of a planned future event, along with some frankly bizzare ramblings about theology. Whatever, but I hope any Keep voters also volunteer to re-clean and re-verify the article and keep watch over it (have fun), 'cause I ain't gonna. Herostratus 20:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Specialty presses are not somehow unreal by virtue of their specialized audience. Examples of specialized publishers which have wide respect are abundant, and many very influential works have been published by specialized or ephemeral presses. I agree that one of the publishers in question has been dissolved or, as seems more likely, absorbed into Destiny Image, and that none of Engles publishers is among the top tier; in fact they represent a subspecialization of Christian theological publishing, however, if there is a mall near your home, I'm sure that you could find many current titles published by Destiny Image, or by Wagner, in the Charismatic or Pentecostal interest section of a Christian book store. I don't think that the unverifiability of the attendance numbers of The Call gatherings is a strong grounds for refuting the notability of the organizers. I do have personal knowledge that Engle was among the organizers at The Call in Kansas City and in San Francisco. If his role in The Call D.C. was inflated by my edits, I hope to correct that error. I understand that the theology espoused is a minority one, but that doesn't impugn the interest of the topic to researchers. The movement represented is very real, has numerous well-known proponents, and certainly several hundreds of thousands of participants in North America alone (millions seems more likely to me, but my sampling is very unscientific, and certainly suffers from selection bias). While there are hundreds or thousands of leaders of local influence, Engle is among a handful with national and international influence of note. Others would include Goll, Joiner, Bickle, Cain (now in disgrace), and Strom (who has dissociated himself, but remains influential and is closely related, if no longer affiliated). The web presence of these people is very small, when compared to practical impact, and I think it is misleading to derive notability from Google statistics for this group. They seem to invest most of their efforts in speaking to sympathetic groups in person, and organizing on a face-to-face basis, and perhaps consciously avoid the web entirely, although I speak here in a hypothetical frame, as I have no actual contact with any of these persons, except as a casual observer of their activity and its consequences. I think the ongoing activity is also of interest, and substantiates the notability of the organizers. Aminorex 21:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I've looked into this a bit more. It seems that Lou Engle was in fact one of the principal organizers of The Call D.C., as he was the person to whom the U.S. Park Service issued the permit which secured the Washington Mall for the event. The event is generally attributed to Engle and Che Ahn, in the literature. I personally consider organizing a national event attended by hundreds of thousands of people, involving thousands of local churches, and establishing cooperative links with dozens of national organizations to be a noteworthy accomplishment, whether one considers it favorably or unfavorably. Moreover, every indication is that Engle's activity is expanding and influencing a substantial youth subculture of "Riot Christians", through his involvement with Teen Mania and Rock for Life. "D-list Elmer Gantry" is a profoundly whiggish spin and does not accurately represent this persons role in U.S. culture. He speaks routinely to gatherings of tens of thousands of people. That makes him at least an "A-List Elmer Gantry". I would rather characterise him as a midpoint between Pat Robertson and Martin Luther King, Jr., but with much less media involvement than either of these two figures.—This unsigned comment was added by Aminorex (talk • contribs) .
  • I'm perfectly prepared to change my vote if you have any web sites or other citations you could share with us? I still don't understand why an event attended by "hundreds of thousands of people" would get zero press coverage. Herostratus 23:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Just a note to inform the readership that I am engaged in collecting references in publications outside of the influence of organizations associated with Engle, and gathering verifiable facts to support the notability claim. I anticipate providing my results by April 16, since tax preparations are eating my head right now.Aminorex 05:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Herostratus' comments. Furthermore, Lou Engle isn't listed as a pastor of Harvest Rock Church... --Sam67fr 22:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks. Updated the article to reflect his departure from that office.Aminorex 05:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments about notability; There is no doubt that books were published. But we have no way to know the audience of these books. About Lou Engle himself and the Call dc ... I can't find any real press coverage of that event and/or of Lou Engle involvement in it. I can't find any real press coverage of Lou Engle in any other major event. The only web sites I found that cover the man or the event are mostly self promoting sites.--Sam67fr 08:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep this article. Lou Engle is leading one of the most vital christian youth movements in the USA. I have been at the Boston Uprising, I have been there, I have seen it with my onw eyes. Lou Engle is a well know Christian leader with a huge media coverage. Just look at http://www.the700club.org/700club/guests/bios/lou_engle_070804.asp . The nominator's comment does not represent facts. —This unsigned comment was added by 140.247.251.192 (talk contribs) .

Comment In case the 700 Club reference is considered marginal (many non-notable people appear on the 700 Club, certainly), I would observe that he was also covered on ABC's Nightline in December, 2005, in connection with the Justice House of Prayer Project. He is also one of the organizers of Rock for Life, a series of rock concerts, mostly in California and in the U.S. rust belt area. This helps substantiate notability, in my view, since it influences a large audience.Aminorex 05:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per Herostratus. Eusebeus 12:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as nn. -- infinity0 15:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.