Just wow. Keep in mind the linked scandal he chose was Robert Morris, guilty of sexually assaulting a twelve-year-old for four years as a married adult pastor. Earlier however this is also dealing with Mike Bickle, an admitted friend of Brown's, who sexually assaulted a 13- and 14-year-old, for multiple years as a young married pastor. Bickle, then went on to seduce a 19-year-old sheep with false prophecies of his wife dying, while he was building the IHOPKC empire upon a network of false prophecies schemed by him and two other sexual predator false prophets. It is not haughty to correctly state what these criminals did and I would hope we all could say we would never have done what they did. It is not a matter of tar and feathering them, as Brown tries to minimize the horrific scale of what we are talking about. Repentance is up to the individual person and redemption is up to the Lord. The problem is in this Charismaniacal notion of "restoration." One might be "restored to their walk, through true repentance but that is not what Brown and his boss Steven Strang mean when they discuss this. They mean restoration to ministry. The huge disconnect of course it that it should appear as obvious to anyone with a sliver of discernment that both Robert Morris and Mike Bickle were never saved to begin with. There is nothing to "restore." These were not oopsies that require a mulligan. Morris built his empire on the shattered life of Cindy Clemishire. Knowing what he did to this child, over and over again for four years, while he was ministering to the church and stealing their money through virulent false tithing lies are not the marks of someone who even grasps their sin, let alone having repented of it. The same goes for Bickle, who had multiple victims spanning his entire involvement in "ministry." Brown referred once to Bickle, after the revelations, as a great holiness teacher. He was a great child predator and if that makes me sound angry or judgmental, for simply speaking the truth about what he did, I can live with that absurd caricature. The empathy I have is for the victims, not the perpetrators. It is for the sheep, not the wolves. Morris and Bickle get to live out their lives in the luxury they have accumulated for a career based upon lies and criminal activity. That is hardly a "doghouse." They should not be allowed to ever serve in the slightest capacity in the church again and that includes as custodian.
"To be sure, there are sins which have lasting consequences. If you murder someone, God can completely forgive you, but you will go to jail (or suffer the death penalty) for your crime. If you sexually abused children, even if you served time in prison, experienced a radical change of life and were truly a new person, you could never work in children's ministry. Such are the lasting consequences of sin. Today, in light of one ministry scandal after another, some of which involved seriously abusive relationships, there has been much repentance and soul-searching among leaders. Did we not listen when someone came with an accusation? Did we fail to provide a safe environment for those who had been sinned again? Did we encourage a "Don't touch the anointed" kind of culture? These are issues the church must get right if we are to be a safe haven for the wounded and the hurting, let alone become a holy bride worthy of God's Son." - Dr. Michael Brown
Words, just words. In the case of Bickle, leadership is stonewalling any real attempts to investigate to this very day and were stealthily trying to reopen and rebrand the IHOPKC cesspool. From the day the story first broke Charismania tried to cover the scandal up. You are concerned about how we treated the victims? Why do you still work for Steeven Strang, who has never apologized for declaring Bickle exonerated, smearing the advocates of trying a church coup, and saying the victims were just being used by Satan? Why did you appear on his podcast, well after the allegations against the children had come out, and allowed him to continue his Bickle cover up? Just in these two scandals, the two predators have avoided criminal accountability because of the enablement of the Charismaniacal machine for a combined eight decades. Did you enable the touch not my anointed culture? You are that culture! This is what Dr. Brown said on the first American Gospel round table, just prior to Bicklegate exploding:
"If I am going to be judged on my orthodoxy for refusing to call a fine man like Mike Bickle a false teacher then I am going to say you are out of line. You do not know the man. You do not know his fruit. His walk, his life." - Dr. Michael Brown
So, as it turned out, it was YOU who did not know his fruit, walk and life. This type of knee jerk defense is exactly what enables the deification of corrupt men under the guise of them being "fine men." I am sure for decades you thought Robert Morris was a "fine man." The church will not be a safe haven for the wounded and hurting until gatekeepers like Dr. Brown and Steven Strang stop protecting and defending the wolves that are devouring the sheep.
"But how do we do this without opening the door to false accusations and slander? How do we put processes in place that will protect both the congregant who was sinned against as well as the leader who was falsely accused? The simple principle is that serious concerns and accusations should be taken seriously, vetted in a supportive, nonthreatening environment. But then both sides must be heard equally and fairly, not presuming guilt or innocence. That's why biblical law required that every matter be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, especially when a leader was being accused (see Deut. 19:15, Matt. 18:16, 2 Cor. 13:1, 1 Tim. 5:19). But it also made provision for witnesses to be vetted, with severe penalties for those who bore false witness (see Deut. 19:16-20). In that light, we should remember that the Ten Commandments forbade bearing false witness against our neighbor (Ex. 20:16), a sin that is literally detestable in God's sight (Prov. 6:16-19). Let us, then, open the door to hear serious accusations and complaints without at the same time welcoming in the devil, who is the accuser of God's children." - Dr. Michael Brown
In typical Brown fashion, he tries to muddy the waters. There is no one claiming that Robert Morris or Mike Bickle are victims of slander and false accusations. Well, at first there were but those people like Strang were swiftly debunked. It is cute to say you want to hear from both sides when Bickle has refused to discuss this at all and Morris' statement claimed the child victim was a "young lady." No one was presuming anything when Bicklegate first came out. We were all calling for an independent investigation, which IHOPKC leadership refused and continues to do so until this day. No one has "let in the devil." The devil was let in forty years ago when people like Brown and Strang exalted these two criminals unreservedly. Unless Brown is making the argument that somehow these allegations against Bickle and Morris are somehow false, please shut the hell up. This is the coverup. This is why people are walking away from the church in the millions. We hear from the pulpit every week about the need to be Christlike and holy and then when it is discovered that two of the loudest voices built their respective million-dollar empires on lies and the sexual assault of children we hear - judge not! Or - "don't let the devil accuse! Please just go away.
"We must also realize that, in our zeal to hear from those who have been sinned against, we have often failed to show mercy to the repentant offender, failed to be redemptive, failed to say, "There is still hope for your life!" In some cases, of course, those who sinned grievously while in public ministry can never return to public ministry. But there can still be redemption and hope and a meaningful life for them, perhaps serving as a cautionary tale for others. And in some cases, there can be restoration to public ministry and service in humility and the fear of the Lord.
