Kanye West has been announced as a performer at Awaken 2020, a 10-hour Christian stadium event and prayer rally being billed as “part of the Jesus awakening that is shifting history.” He will take the stage with his Sunday Service gospel choir this Saturday, January 18 at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona.
West joins the previously scheduled line-up of high profile artists, speakers, and evangelists — many of whom have vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ views, as the NY Daily News points out. They include Trump defender and Miami mega-church pastor Guillermo Maldonado, who has preached about his anti-gay stance multiple times; California pastor Ché Ahn, who has said that same-sex marriage deserves to be banned like incest and polygamy; author Cindy Jacobs, who has said that gay marriage will lead to the next “civil war”; and prominent right-wing religious leader Lou Engle, who has prayed that gays and lesbians become “ex-gays,” among other anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
According to the Arizona conservative news site The Western Journal, Awaken 2020 had already been scheduled for months, with “close to 30,000” individuals registered to attend prior to the announcement that West would be performing.
According to the event’s page, organizers of Awaken 2020 are inviting participants to “open the door and enter into a new era, a new decade, of revival that is bringing a movement of signs and wonders, healing of the sick, and preaching of the gospel.” Event organizer David Herzog told the Western Journal that he “fully anticipates Sun Devil Stadium will be filled to its 53,000+ capacity, with likely an overflow area needed to accommodate those who cannot fit inside.”
West has increasingly aligned himself with conservative Christian evangelicals in recent months. In November, the musician performed at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston. Los Angeles-based Reverend Adam Tyson has also joined Kanye on the road within the past year, conducting Bible studies with West and his team in Wyoming. According to Church Clarity, a crowdsourced database of churches’ stances on gender and sexuality issues, Tyson’s church is “non-affirming” on LGBTQ+ issues.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
