The charismatic Christian leader Lou Engle has declared a 'spiritual battle' over Donald Trump's presidency, saying that Trump's opponents have used 'witchcraft' against him.

In an article for Charisma Magazine, the right-wing leader of The Call wrote: 'The Women's March was the first shot across the bow, heralding a revolutionary rise against the president of the United States, "We the people" and in reality, the foundational biblical truths upon which our nation was founded. Soon after, the second shot was manifested publicly: an unprecedented global summons of witchcraft to curse President Trump, his Cabinet and all of those aligned with a biblical worldview. Suddenly, the whole controversy was elevated to a global spiritual dimension, inaugurating a spiritual battle that cannot be won on the playing field of protests and political arguments.

'Only the church has the answer to this unprecedented manifestation of witchcraft. Spiritual strategy must be used to overcome this open-faced, brazen challenge of the powers.'

Engle said that this was a pivotal point in history. 'There are moments in history when a door for massive change opens,' he wrote. 'Great revolutions, either good or evil, spring up in the vacuum created by these openings. In such divine moments, key men, women and entire generations risk everything to become the hinge of history—the "pivot point" that determines which way the door will swing.'

The rallying call came as the Washington Post published an article with the headline: 'The religious right is steeling itself for a Biblical battle on Trump's behalf'.

The article referred to the new President's weekend Twitter outburst accusing his predecessor of 'tapping' his phone calls. It said that 'religious-right figures are rising to Trump's defence in the battle over whether Obama tapped his phones. For instance, Charisma magazine, a leading source for charismatic and Pentecostal writings, is citing [the right-wing website] Breitbart as proof of the need for a congressional investigation of Trump's claim that Obama ordered the wiretap. Charisma has long been a cheerleader for Trump; during the campaign, it promoted widely disseminated comparisons of Trump to the Persian King Cyrus, referred to in the Book of Isaiah as God's "anointed" one.

It added that 'the Christian Broadcasting Network, which has long provided Trump favorable coverage, has also lent support to Trump's claim about Obama. It favorably cited Trump's comparison of Obama's supposed wiretapping to Watergate and McCarthyism, and quoted Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the religious-right legal group American Center for Law and Justice, saying that it was "very possible" that there were wiretaps in Trump Tower.'