As previously discussed, a second roundtable discussion was just released by American Gospel that involved Dr. Michael Brown, Dr. Doug Geivett and Holly Pivec (linked above). While I did review it, I only concerned myself with the first two hours of a 3.5-hour discussion. This was because the same errors were being made and the devotional was getting quite repetitive as such. Recently, I was asked to listen to the closing remarks from Dr. Michael Brown and they revealed so much of his fundamental unfairness in deception in how he continues to address this issue. What Brown has always tried to do is deny that NAR exists at all. He has taken this position for years. After being confronted with the realities of NAR and that people he directly supports and defends speak only about it, he has shifted in this statement to pretending there are two versions of NAR. One is the one created by C. Peter Wagner in the late 1990s. Brown claims to have disagreed with Wagner over the years on this. The other NAR is the NAR that doesn't exist, or only exists in the minds of the "critics." By critics he means people who do not agree with him. Brown is constantly trying to muddy the waters, and reduce the debate to individual teachings as opposed to the overall collective. That strategy allows him to disagree with a teaching without having to repudiate the teacher. For example, in the Holly and Doug roundtable, a reference was made to Che Ahn prophesying falsely that COVID was ended when it was not. By solely dealing with this one teaching/false prophecy, Brown can pretend to be agreeable by saying he disagrees with what he said without having to call Che Ahn false by definition. No discussion of how horrific it was and led to people's deaths to wrongly tell them it was safe to return to church when it was not. So, as we reason together once more through this transcript, keep in mind what Brown is trying to do. He wants to pretend that people having difference in definitions is somehow unique to the NAR discussion so that he can make it seem unhinged and inaccurate. He wants to create as much smoke as possible to avoid having to deal with the fire underneath. Let us begin.
"This video, illustrates the point I have been making. We are told NAR is terribly dangerous. It's wreaking havoc on hundreds of millions of believers and yet after hours of dialogue we still don't know exactly what NAR is." - Dr. Michael Brown
Brown employs hyperbole to try and open by claiming his critics are being unreasonable. I do not recall anyone claiming hundreds of millions of people but if you want to discuss the overall apostate church worldwide, that hyperbole may be totally accurate. The context he is missing of course is that anyone who is saying NAR is dangerous is also saying why. The proof provided are actual quotes and teachings from the false teachers. He wants to avoid specificity at all costs because he loses his argument there. If we are stuck in the weeds speaking about non-specificities, he wins. The reality however is we know perfectly well what NAR is. I will admit that Holly and Doug used a very constricted version of that definition that only helped Brown's argument but he knows full well what we are talking about. He just does not want to talk about it.
"So, it's the dreaded spiritual boogeyman, avoid at all costs. It's the theological cudgel that we age and lift up against our enemies but what exactly is it? It's like doctors warning us about a dangerous and deadly disease but 10 different doctors describe it differently." - Dr. Michael Brown
Again, by casting it in silly terms like boogeyman, Brown seeks to minimize the danger. He also uses the cudgel reference to pretend that somehow the wolves are the true victims here. They are not. By the way, these people are enemies of God. As I outlined in a different devotional, the fundamental difference between Brown and discernment ministries is that he is only focused on protecting the wolves while we are focused on protecting the sheep. The doctor analogy is not serious at all. Ten doctors may have completely different opinions about a disease in terms of affect, causation, and treatment. Just look at COVID. There were a myriad of opinions about where it was from, what the causes were and certainly how to treat it remains a great debate but no one is suggesting then that COVID is somehow not real. Well, there may be a few lunatics doing so but no one rational. Holly and Doug stuck to the original definition as founded by Wagner. That dealt primarily with the teaching that the apostles were being reformed by God and wow, Wagner was one of them. Now, he had other teachings associated with it but that was the primary driver. Here is the thing. C. Peter Wagner died in 2016 but people have taken his concepts and they have morphed over time in response to changes in politics and the world. The false apostleship authority paradigm is still there but it is not the primary driver anymore - dominionism is. There are other factors as well, including false signs and lying wonders. So, it is not that Doug and Holly were wrong, just that they were using the original definition. Brown wants to pretend that because there are some differences that we should just declare the whole thing a boogeyman and pretend none of it exists at all. That is such a disingenuous argument. The prosperity gospel for example has many different teachings. There are those that focus on sowing seeds and reaping harvests. There are those that focus on blessing theology and being the head and not the tail so to speak. There are those that are primarily tithing whores such as the disgraced Robert Morris. There are those like Joel Osteen that focuses more on motivation and positive reinforcement. There are some that embrace and teach all of it. There are some that prefer one or two of the arguments. They all belong in the collective term, prosperity. It would be ludicrous to make the argument that because the individual wolves prefer to focus on one, more or all, that the entire thing must be somehow made up by those pointing the errors out. That absurdity is what Brown is arguing here.
"So, do we use Doug and Holly's definition of NAR? After hours of dialogue we are still trying to find out exactly what that is. They're the only ones who can tell us exactly what it is. Or what about on Pirate Christian? They list six different characteristics of NAR. Four of them I personally repudiate personally. Two of them I don't agree with as listed and on many so-called discernment websites, I'm a NAR leader and yet I am not a NAR leader according to Doug and Holly." - Dr. Michael Brown
