While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." - Matthew 12: 47-50 (ESV)
Perhaps no figure in Charismania is more polarizing than Dr. Michael Brown. Most of that is entirely of his own doing. If you have followed my ministry over the years, you will know that I had tried very hard to engage Dr. Brown positively. I made excuses for him. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but at every turn, he would do something else that drastically disappoints the faith one might have in him. He is polarizing because he himself, rarely espouses anything overtly false. He writes detailed books exposing many heretical errors and as he is fond of pointing out, even in his own "camp." This what makes Dr. Brown so exasperating - because he should know better. He does know better. Yet despite having a great deal of correct biblical understanding, he simply refuses to point out specific false teachers. That is often presented by him as being unfair but as he is a master debater, that is a red herring argument. You see, it is not just that he refuses to call them out, it is that he shares the stage with them, provides them cover, or flat out endorses them. Over the years, he has built what he apparently considers a fool proof insulation system also. He espouses how genial and sincere he is, while dismissing any serious criticism as heresy hunting, or too unfair to engage head on.
Along with this he has certain strategies he always employs. The primary one is setting up an absurd foundational logic of defining what a false teacher is. Dr. Brown will try to set the ground rules for any conversation about false teaching by defining such as someone who is a hell bound reprobate. He did this to me when I was a guest on his radio show. I expressed that Bill Johnson was a heretic and he responded by saying I shouldn't be so quick to condemn people to hell, which is categorically NOT what I had done. Heaven and hell is God's purview alone. Our responsibility is to test everything and only hold on to the good. Thus, a false teacher is merely someone who teaches falsely, unrepentantly. But by getting many to agree with the hell bound reprobate strategy, he then dismisses any call to name names by simply saying he refuses to consign them to hell. This also makes his opponents, sound like the more unreasonable party. Secondarily to this, Dr. Brown plays the "I don't know that/I don't have time to research that/I'm not called to criticize teachings" cards. In the recently released roundtables with American Gospel, Brown literally defended Sid Roth multiple times as not being heretical because of how deeply and closely he knows him. Then later in the debate, he actually claimed to have never watched his show. You just can't make this up, oh wait, I guess you can. When I first criticized him years ago for going on Benny Hinn's TV show for a week, Brown countered by claiming he had not heard about Hinn being false. C'mon Michael. My cat knows who Benny Hinn is. Yet this is the schtick he sells. Now, you may say it is unreasonable to ask someone to do the same level of research as a discernment ministry but here is the thing. When you market yourself as the "voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity", maybe we should expect you have done your homework. When you host a national radio program and constantly interject yourself into Christian news as well as the political landscape, maybe it is not so unfair to expect that you actually might have a clue as to what you are talking about. Oh, and watching Fox News, is not research.
Let me provide three real examples, and by the way, there are countless examples. First, Brown wrote a book against the hyper grace heresy and to that I say amen. Yet when I was on his radio show, he not only refused to call Joseph Prince a heretic but called him a good brother in the Lord. Brown likes to point to his books as proof that he does call people out but writing a book about error and then refusing to call those in error as such renders the book utterly useless. The second example is someone who shares his Charisma News platform, Jennifer LeClaire. There is perhaps no more an obvious grifter than LeClaire. She runs all sorts of absurd trainings and schools, all out of a little hotel room by the Fort Lauderdale Airport. She can train you to be a prophet for a thousand bucks or something called a seer, just as examples. She once wrote a book claiming to be able to release the angels of abundant harvest but said she could not "release the prophecy" until the book was published. Perhaps her utterly most stupid moment was when she claimed there was a sneaky squid spirit stalking her. This was immediately mocked and derided by all except Dr. Brown. He invited the huckster on his radio show to explain and he accepted her absolute nonsense. The final example is more recent and involves the revelations regarding Mike Bickle. Now, Dr. Brown has walked a fine line of mistakes and proper distancing but what he still refuses to do is denounce his boss at Chrisma News, Steven Strang. This guy declared Bickle exonerated in December! He has smeared the advocate group by alleging this is all a church split and they wanted to seize Bickle's empire. He spiritually slapped the victims by claiming they were simply being used by Satan. He has not recanted any of it and Dr. Brown even went on his podcast to lend him credibility. This is why it is simply maddening to try and figure him out and get him to see what he should realize. Yet time and again, he refuses. Recently, it seems he starting to fray at the edges too as he did a radio show devoted to explaining why he does not respond to the critics. I may at some point dissect that but today I came across then next radio show, linked above, where he asks the age-old question - should Benny Hinn repent. I am not even going to get into the inanity of needing the ask such a question. Instead, towards the end of the broadcast, he went on a small rant that I would like to address. Hopefully to clarify some things for him, even though he claims to never partake of any of his critics, wink wink. Let us reason once more together beloved:
"I know people that are godly that critics slam and say they are not even saved. I know people that live sacrificially and serve the Lord, who have done more to help the poor and reach Jesus then probably a hundred of us put together and the worst critics, ten million of them put together." - Dr. Michael Brown
One other strategy Dr. Brown employs, ad nauseum, is the "I know them strategy." When I was critical of Bill Johnson, he used it against me by declaring that he knew Bill Johnson and I didn't. Fair enough but I was speaking about his heretical teachings. The fact that you feel you know someone is completely irrelevant. We already went over how he did the same for Sid Roth. Thankfully God is always providing very clear truth for us if we would just be honest so let us go back for a second and speak about Mike Bickle. In the American Gospel roundtable, which was before the recent Bickle revelations, Dr. Brown extolled Mike Bickle as someone beyond reproach and beneath the criticisms he received for being a false teacher. Brown's partner that day, Sam Storms, declared that he knew Bickle down to the depths of his soul. Well, turns out they were, oh what's that spiritual word I am searching for"wrong. That is why it does not matter if you think you know someone. Bill Johnson tells a story about how angel feathers fell all around him in a public diner and I say he is a liar for it. Your response cannot be, "I know him." In the roundtable it was brought up that some other nutcase claimed he awoke to Jesus playing the saxophone at the end of his bed. Not only did Brown and Storms not admit this was absurd, but Storms tried to make a biblical explanation! Enough! Reaching the poor is admirable but not if you are fleecing them at the same time or using those efforts to also line your own pockets. Creflo Dollar used to give away tens of thousands of dollars of backpacks to needy school kids in the Bronx and I say, amen. That does not make him a martyr however. He still climbed into his limo to leave and go to the airport where he climbed into his private Learjet that the parents of those kids paid for. Lastly on this, reaching people with a false Christ, is not a redeemable trait to be bragging about.
