Jack Van Impe

Background

Van Impe's parents, Oscar Alphonse Van Impe and Marie Louise, née Piot, immigrated from Belgium to the city of Troy, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, in the United States in 1929. Jack Leo Van Impe was born on February 9, 1931, in Freeport, Michigan. He was the couple's only child. The reason why Van Impe had decided to become an evangelist was because his father was a missionary with very strong faith.

According to Van Impe, he and his father Oscar played the accordion at night clubs, and Oscar regularly swore and drank alcohol, and believed that religion was hogwash. At meals, Van Impe would drink alcoholic beverages along with his father which is a European tradition. Then when Van Impe was twelve years old, Oscar converted to evangelical Christianity, and Oscar and Jack Van Impe together smashed all of their bottles of alcoholic beverages, and since that event Van Impe has not drunk any alcohol.

Van Impe then played accordion duets with his missionary father across Michigan and other states. In 1948, Van Impe graduated from high school and entered Detroit Bible Institute, earning his diploma in 1952 and beginning his career as a preacher and evangelist as well as an extensive recording career. Van Impe notes that during his years working with the Billy Graham crusades, when he was at a Youth For Christ rally with Chuck Ohman, Van Impe met his future wife, Rexella Mae Shelton, who was an organist with the crusades. Rexella was named after her father, Rex Shelton. The couple were married on August 21, 1954, and started their own joint ministry.

Since the 1950s, Van Impe has released dozens of Gospel and spoken word recordings. His first album Presenting the Van Impes features Van Impe on the accordion as well as Rexella's organ playing. Subsequent musical recordings featured the accorgan, a type of electronic accordion.

Jack Van Impe Ministries

Jack Van Impe Presents is a non profit organization, videotaped at the Jack Van Impe Ministries World Outreach Center, in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Van Impe's wife Rexella cohosts the telecast.

On a typical show, Rexella begins by reading recent news headlines. Van Impe then applies his memorization of Bible verses to interpret the news stories, generally in an attempt to show that it is another manifestation of biblically-predicted signs of the end of the age.

Twice during the broadcast, once in the middle of the broadcast and once at the end, announcer Chuck Ohman, who many years before was a trumpeter for Percy Crawford's "Youth on the March" television broadcasts, describes a DVD that is being sold by the ministry, and how to order. (Rexella announced Ohman's wife's death on the 12 March 2016 broadcast.) Near the end of the broadcast, Jack looks at the camera and makes a personal prayer to Jesus, and he asks the viewers to make the prayer with him. At the end of the broadcast, Rexella says the goodbyes. On the Christmas broadcast and the Easter broadcast, they play a video of Rexella singing a song in her younger years.

Recurring topics include a New World Order consisting of one world government and one world religion, prophecies of future wars and the second coming of Jesus, modern "Chrislam", differences between the biblical Jesus and the Jesus of Islam, the proposed United Nations blasphemy law and radical Islam, the removal of crosses from churches, the importance of doctrine, and criticism of such individuals as Pope Francis, Barack Obama, Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, Joel Osteen, and Oprah Winfrey. Jack also cites numerous Bible verses, with emphasis on various select verses that are his favorites. Van Impe uses the King James version of the Bible.

Conflict with TBN

In June 2011, Trinity Broadcasting Network refused to air an episode of "Jack Van Impe Presents" which criticized Robert Schuller and Rick Warren for promoting "Chrislam." In response, Van Impe ceased airing his show on TBN.

Biblical prophecy beliefs

Van Impe believes in one particular interpretation of a literal meaning of the Bible (King James Version) that states, according to Revelation 13, that a single world political leader (The Beast) and a single world religious leader (the false prophet) will emerge, but the rapture will happen before either leader comes to power. He believes that the Bible teaches that the world will be organized into ten political subdivisions, based on the ten-district plan set up by the Club of Rome, and that this ten-division world empire will be jointly ruled by the European Union and the Islamic world, which Jack believes are represented by the two iron legs of the prophetic dream statue in the Book of Daniel. Jack believes in the Prophecy of the Popes, and that according to said prophecy, Pope Francis is Peter the Roman, the predicted pope who will preside during armageddon.

Van Impe preaches a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of 'The Body of Christ'.

Van Impe also believes a one-world religion will form, named "Chrislam"; the joining of the world's two largest religions (Christianity and Islam). Jack believes that the Bible states that the world political leader will "come in peaceably" (per Daniel 11:21) and create a seven-year peace deal involving Israel (per Daniel 9:27). Then, three and a half years into the peace, Russia (the interpreted meaning of 'Rosh' from Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1; Van Impe also identifies Meshech and Tubal from the same passages as Moscow and Tobolsk respectively), along with its Middle Eastern allies ('Persia, Cush, and Put', from Ezekiel 38:5), will break the peace by invading Israel, according to Ezekiel 38, and the military of Russia and its allies will be decimated by nuclear warfare and pushed back to Siberia. Then China (the interpreted meaning of 'kings from the east' from Revelation 16:12) will invade, and the military of China will likewise be decimated when Jesus returns.

Health problems

In one episode of Jack Van Impe Presents which aired in the week of June 19, 2006, Van Impe disclosed that he had undergone two total knee replacements in early 2006. He gave thanks to God for his recovery and for leading him to the "wonderful surgeon" who did the operation. Subsequent to the problems with his knees, Van Impe has suffered from cancer, a severe sepsis attack, and blood loss resulting from holes burned through his stomach by his NSAID arthritis medication. On the program which aired the week of May 31, 2015, Van Impe was not present for the program, and Rexella reported that he was recovering from a serious surgery (triple by-pass) in the hospital. Carl Baugh co-hosted the program. Van Impe compared his colitis to the flood in the account of Noah's Ark.

Van Impe returned to his weekly show on October 3, 2015, following successful rehabilitation from his triple by-pass heart surgery.

On 7 January 2017 Rexella Van Impe announced that Jack Van Impe had broken his hip but was recovering. Carl Baugh co-hosted that program as well. Pending Jack's return, Rexella Van Impe co-hosted the program with various guests: Carl Baugh for six episodes, Dave Williams for six episodes, Dr. Robert Jeffress for two episodes, Walt Sheppard for three episodes. On 6 May 2017 Rexella Van Impe announced Jack Van Impe's slated return to the broadcast on 27 May 2017. On 13 May 2017 Rexella abruptly announced "... the doctors said, Jack, you cannot go back on weekly TV ... what? ... no, because your health will not hold up if you do ..." but that Jack said "... I'm not retiring ..." There was no guest co-host that week or the next week, just as there had been no guest co-host on 8 April 2017; those three programs featured one re-run apiece. On 27 May 2017 Jack Van Impe reappeared beside Rexella.

Criticisms

In 2001, Jack and Rexella Van Impe won the parodic Ig Nobel Prize in Astrophysics "for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell."

Van Impe frequently incorporates islamophobic rhetoric in his shows. He generally condemns Islam after current events concern Islamic terrorism, namely ISIS. Van Impe has also warned about a hybrid term of Christianity and Islam, "Chrislam."