The problem with Bethel/Redding..

Biblicist · Feb 12, 2016

ToBeLoved said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but they believe that these apostles are over ALL CHURCHES in a region or will be after their theocracy is put into place.

That means that churches will no longer self govern, but will be under a local prophet and regional prophet and then the main ones.

That's definitely the case. The problem with this is that these chappies are also strong dominionists where they not only want to impose their self-appointed authority onto the Church but with the general population as well. Back in 2011 the Arabic speaking newspaper Al Jazeera referred to the American NARzie movement as being "America's own Taliban".

If we are indeed in the last days, the NARzie movement may very well become the last nail in the coffin of the Church where it may irrepairably undermine the effectiveness of the Gospel to the point where we will become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, which was well evidenced with the self appointed NARzie "super-council" in the way that they attempted to handle the Todd Bentley charade a few years back.

Biblicist · Feb 12, 2016

mikedsjr said:
Thanks for answering my questions. Is Patricia King independent of Pentecostal denoms too?

Unfortunately I can't offer any opinon on King as I tend to avoid these more extreme "ministries". As for these celebrity "prophets" who push themselves onto an all too gullible church, I tend to dismiss them as being little more than irrelevencies, though I will admit that they can often be very dangerous irrelevencies!

ViaCrucis · Feb 12, 2016

fhansen said:
I doubt if she was high. I tend to think that neither drugs nor bad theology are the primary culprits here, but rather the desire for holiness -plain old human pride at work in one more of its variants; "neo-phariseeism" to coin a phrase, crudely disguised as the Holy Spirit in action. Phoniness to put it another way, self-delusion driven by the desire to be holy-and/or make money in some cases.

Wgw recently introduced me to a new word, prelest. That's a word that seems to aptly describe this.

-CryptoLutheran

mikedsjr · Feb 12, 2016

Biblicist said:
Unfortunately I can't offer any opinon on King as I tend to avoid these more extreme "ministries". As for these celebrity "prophets" who push themselves onto an all too gullible church, I tend to dismiss them as being little more than irrelevencies, though I will admit that they can often be very dangerous irrelevencies!

Ironically one of my favorite podcast just did a podcast on NAR. I haven't listened to it yet, but it's primarily about William Branham impact on Charismatic theology. Would you say this is a difficult issue to deal with within Charismatic theology? Do you find many of your friends impacted by it?

Biblicist · Feb 12, 2016

mikedsjr said:
Ironically one of my favorite podcast just did a podcast on NAR. I haven't listened to it yet, but it's primarily about William Branham impact on Charismatic theology. Would you say this is a difficult issue to deal with within Charismatic theology? Do you find many of your friends impacted by it?

As this is a bit of an awkward question for me to answer (this will answer the first part of your post), then I might not be as forthright as I tend to be.

Suffice to say, the AoG here in Australia no longer exists, where it is now the Australian Christian Churches (ACC), where it has seemingly being further divided into fiefdoms where various celebrity ministries have control over a number of what they call “campuses”. Since the late 90’s the old Australian AoG has fully embraced the NARzie ethos though they will not use the terms apostle or prophet as I suspect that they have fully realised that this would not go down all that well within Australia – at least for the time being that is.

I should say that the AoG is still a formal legal entity where the ACC is registered with the Federal Government as the AoG and their ministry accreditations are still apparently under the AoG as well, but you will not find any references to the AoG at local church level. It will be interesting to see when (not so much if) the ACC finally breaks with the worldwide AoG fellowship.

Kuriositina · Feb 12, 2016

I thought both sides were really obnoxious to be honest. Neither one was getting their point across by talking over one another. I'm thinking what would Jesus do? He wouldn't giggle obnoxiously and repeat platitudes. Nor would he try to yell over the giggling so he could make his point. I feel like he would walk away and spend his time with someone who really needed it and let fools be fools. What did he say about casting pearls before swine?

Biblicist · Feb 12, 2016

Kuriositina said:
I thought both sides were really obnoxious to be honest. Neither one was getting their point across by talking over one another. I'm thinking what would Jesus do? He wouldn't giggle obnoxiously and repeat platitudes. Nor would he try to yell over the giggling so he could make his point. I feel like he would walk away and spend his time with someone who really needed it and let fools be fools. What did he say about casting pearls before swine?

???

mikedsjr · Feb 12, 2016

Biblicist said:
As this is a bit of an awkward question for me to answer (this will answer the first part of your post), then I might not be as forthright as I tend to be.

Suffice to say, the AoG here in Australia no longer exists, where it is now the Australian Christian Churches (ACC), where it has seemingly being further divided into fiefdoms where various celebrity ministries have control over a number of what they call “campuses”. Since the late 90’s the old Australian AoG has fully embraced the NARzie ethos though they will not use the terms apostle or prophet as I suspect that they have fully realised that this would not go down all that well within Australia – at least for the time being that is.

I should say that the AoG is still a formal legal entity where the ACC is registered with the Federal Government as the AoG and their ministry accreditations are still apparently under the AoG as well, but you will not find any references to the AoG at local church level. It will be interesting to see when (not so much if) the ACC finally breaks with the worldwide AoG fellowship.

Thanks for your input.

mikedsjr · Feb 12, 2016

Biblicist said:
As this is a bit of an awkward question for me to answer (this will answer the first part of your post), then I might not be as forthright as I tend to be.

Suffice to say, the AoG here in Australia no longer exists, where it is now the Australian Christian Churches (ACC), where it has seemingly being further divided into fiefdoms where various celebrity ministries have control over a number of what they call “campuses”. Since the late 90’s the old Australian AoG has fully embraced the NARzie ethos though they will not use the terms apostle or prophet as I suspect that they have fully realised that this would not go down all that well within Australia – at least for the time being that is.

I should say that the AoG is still a formal legal entity where the ACC is registered with the Federal Government as the AoG and their ministry accreditations are still apparently under the AoG as well, but you will not find any references to the AoG at local church level. It will be interesting to see when (not so much if) the ACC finally breaks with the worldwide AoG fellowship.

Who would be a well known Charismatic that is not affected by NAR? In a sense, much of evangelicalism feels infected in some way.

fhansen · Feb 12, 2016

ViaCrucis said:
Wgw recently introduced me to a new word, prelest. That's a word that seems to aptly describe this.

-CryptoLutheran

Interesting word- I never heard of it either. And I also appreciated this from the definition: "In the broadest sense, everyone is in prelest: everyone has some wrong thoughts and views, everyone does not fully understand the meaning of life, the degree of own sinfulness etc."

And I think self-delusion, to one degree or another, has a universal human aspect to it, along with pride et al.

jimmyjimmy · Feb 13, 2016

fhansen said:
I doubt if she was high. I tend to think that neither drugs nor bad theology are the primary culprits here, but rather the desire for holiness -plain old human pride at work in one more of its variants; "neo-phariseeism" to coin a phrase, crudely disguised as the Holy Spirit in action. Phoniness to put it another way, self-delusion driven by the desire to be holy-and/or make money in some cases.

I believe that you are on to something. In simple terms, it's self-salvation. I would also say that it's a desire for a holiness other than Christ's holiness. It's doing an end-run around the cross, and we all do it, or have done it, to some extent.

fhansen · Feb 13, 2016

thatbrian said:
I believe that you are on to something. In simple terms, it's self-salvation. I would also say that it's a desire for a holiness other than Christ's holiness. It's doing an end-run around the cross, and we all do it, or have done it, to some extent.

Yes, but I don't mean to deny their faith either-to say that it's not real, to make this an either/or thing. The young woman in the OP video is simply, IMO, a misguided soul, going "beyond grace", so to speak, acting beyond the truth regarding her spiritual state, driven by the flesh to put on a show to impress God, onlookers, and herself with how holy she is. We all might like to think we're closer to God than we really are; we just don't necessarily all fall into some bit of foolishness trying to prove it. Hopefully she'll look back and laugh about it some day. Meanwhile it only succeeds in making Christianity look foolish to the world-in the wrong way.

jimmyjimmy · Feb 13, 2016

fhansen said:
Yes, but I don't mean to deny their faith either-to say that it's not real, to make this an either/or thing. The young woman in the OP video is simply, IMO, a misguided soul, going "beyond grace", so to speak, acting beyond the truth regarding her spiritual state, driven by the flesh to put on a show to impress God, onlookers, and herself with how holy she is. We all might like to think we're closer to God than we really are; we just don't necessarily all fall into some bit of foolishness trying to prove it. Hopefully she'll look back and laugh about it some day. Meanwhile it only succeeds in making Christianity look foolish to the world-in the wrong way.

I can't be a generous about this as you are.

fhansen · Feb 13, 2016

thatbrian said:
I can't be a generous about this as you are.

I guess I'm just saying that pride and the flesh continue to be a struggle for all believers, to one degree or another-and they can manifest themselves in different ways, some more overtly, some less so. Either way everyone wants to "get it right"; we're all presumably at varying degrees of achieving that.

jimmyjimmy · Feb 13, 2016

fhansen said:
I guess I'm just saying that pride and the flesh continue to be a struggle for all believers, to one degree or another-and they can manifest themselves in different ways, some more overtly, some less so. Either way everyone wants to "get it right"; we're all presumably at varying degrees of achieving that.

If everyone wants "get it right", I don't know how false teachers fit into that idea. Outside of Christ, people are at enmity with God, and the fruit of that is evident.

fhansen · Feb 13, 2016

thatbrian said:
If everyone wants "get it right", I don't know how false teachers fit into that idea. Outside of Christ, people are at enmity with God, and the fruit of that is evident.

Well, I'm admittedly ignorant of their doctrine-I've just seen plenty of people whose doctrine isn't perfect-none of ours, personally, is 100% perfect I'd bet-but who nonetheless know, love, and serve God as best as they know how. Other than that I wouldn't know much about the fruits of those in the OP-God will judge that anyway. I'm not saying that errors shouldn't be exposed and opposed-only that these people do not represent some absolute enemy of Christendom.

jimmyjimmy · Feb 19, 2016

The more I learn about this group, the more I dislike it.

Gnarwhal · Feb 19, 2016

thatbrian said:
The more I learn about this group, the more I dislike.

A common sentiment with pretty much everybody outside of their circle.

mikedsjr · Feb 20, 2016

Is there a list of leaders known to be part of NAR?

Gnarwhal · Feb 20, 2016

ViaCrucis said:
Wgw recently introduced me to a new word, prelest. That's a word that seems to aptly describe this.

-CryptoLutheran

That's gold.

mikedsjr said:
Is there a list of leaders known to be part of NAR?

These guys are, according to Wikipedia.

1. Lou Engle (founder of The Call, works closely with International House of Prayer)
2. Mike and Cindy Jacobs (founders of Generals International)
3. Bill Johnson
4. Rick Joyner (founder of Morning Star ministries)
5. John P. Kelly (founder of John P. Kelly ministries and Convening Apostle)
6. C. Peter Wagner (founder of Global Harvest Ministries)
7. Mike Bickle (founder of International House of Prayer)

I can confirm with a reasonable level of certainty, that this list is accurate.

My former church started to affiliate with the NAR, at least for a time. I believe there's a remnant of pro-NAR shrubs still there and they're all huge Johnson, Engle and Bickle fans. For me personally, I know when I'm talking to/hearing someone of that ilk when they use certain buzzwords that are common in their circle.

The problem with Bethel/Redding..

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