Discernment divides because it challenges unbiblical beliefs and the bible always divides...

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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

I have followed Chris Rosebrough over the years at Pirate Christian but that does not mean I have agreed lock step with everything the man has uttered. I am sure he may not agree with everything I have written. The standard Brown is insisting on can never be met. Pirate Christian's six points are apostles, kingdom, glory, revival, unity, and the denial of the sufficiency of scripture. Now, I do not know which two Brown thinks are not defined correctly but these six points are presented as their summation of the NAR. Apostles is there and we previously spoke about the founding of NAR. Kingdom refers to the primary driver today, which is dominionism. Glory refers to the Charismatic obsession with the Holy Spirit at the expense of doctrine and the word. I personally would have lumped in the focus on a revival with the dominionism and the doubting of the sufficiency of scripture in with glory because that is what they are directly related to. Unity to me is a more global trait of all false denominations as we head toward the biblically prophesied one world religion. The point is that because I would present Pirate Christian's six hallmarks as a consolidated three, doesn't mean we need to throw both out. Brown's argument is so specious. I might add here that he always says he repudiates this and that but he never actually repudiates the specific people associated with those things he repudiates. He never concludes that the person themselves is false, only the individual teachings, which is why he keeps trying to parse everything out. He is correct that Doug and Holly said he was not NAR, which I have written was a mistake. I think Brown is again being deceitful. Dr. Michael Brown rarely directly espouses NAR teaching. He does occasionally say he disagrees with some of them. The problem is that he directly supports, platforms and defends all of them. I have always referred to him a gatekeeper for the NAR. Now maybe he just views himself as protecting Charismatics. It matters not. We already saw that Charismania is one of the NAR traits. Lastly here, while Brown does not usually openly profess NAR teachings the one area that is not true is dominionism. He has been a shill for the Republican Party as it relates to Christianity since I have followed him and is even more brazenly partisan today. Not cray-cray like Mario Murillo or Greg Locke but remember, Brown would vociferously defend both.

"If you believe that apostles and prophets exist today - is that NAR? Or certain types of apostle and prophets? How do we work these things out and define them? Just do a search, thirty seconds. You'll find endless videos, articles, websites (screen shot of mine was shown, 828 Ministries) dedicated to quote, "exposing NAR." Many of them completely contradict each other and list hundreds of leaders who Doug and Holly wouldn't put on their list so, who do we believe." - Dr. Michael Brown

Yes, reasonable people can disagree reasonably. I have heard some posit that Joel Osteen is NAR but I would probably not characterize him that way. That does not make us all wrong somehow and that the definition then needs to be discarded. Now, I do not know why Brown flashed a screen shot of my ministry website while saying that some websites say they are dedicated to exposing NAR. My website says nothing of the kind. A fair portion of my work does focus on NAR because so many in the apostate church are NAR. That is hardly the only thing I write about. Just this week for example I have written about false prophets Jenny Weaver and Jennifer LeClaire and their grifting of the sheep. My website also has a section for some Christian poetry and some old videos when I used to be invited to preach. Brown is trying to make it seem like some crazy Internet people have all banded together to go NAR hunting because the more unhinged he can make it sound, the easier he thinks he can dismiss it. Very few ministries or websites I have seen focus solely on NAR. There is a myriad of false teaching right now, as the bible forewarns us. NAR is certainly part of it but not all of it as Brown pretends.

"I can point to the work of research scholar Matthew Taylor. He has been granted complete access to the archives of Dr. Peter Wagner. He is one of the strongest critics of the real NAR today, meaning the movement spearheaded by Dr. Wagner. He said Doug and Holly have some nuggets in their research but they fundamentally misunderstand NAR so do we trust Dr. Taylor or do we trust Doug and Holly?" - Dr. Michael Brown

I had not heard of Dr. Taylor and I am not sure why Brown referenced him here as support. A quick review of just one podcast reveals that he firmly believes what I seem to believe. That the NAR started with Wagner and has now grown through the likes of Che Ahn, Lance Wallnau, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets Sean Feucht, General Michael Flynn, and others. He further speaks about how these leaders have inspired the rise of Christian nationalism that resulted in the attack on our democracy on January 6^th, something Brown has downplayed. He also addressed the fact that they call themselves apostles and that they coordinated with the Trump White House before January 6^th. Now, I cannot speak for how he views the work of Holly and Doug but overall, Taylor does not seem like he is in agreement with Dr. Brown about anything. Dr. Taylor clearly believes as we do that the NAR exists as we define it, although he focuses more on dominionism, which I said is the primary driver of NAR theology today.

"So, let me summarize. Yes, there is a real NAR, spearheaded by Dr. Wagner, with which I have had serious disagreement for years. Then there is the imaginary NAR of the critics which groups together an unrelated collection of Charismatic leaders and movements as if it was one entity, as if this entity shared common strategies and goals and then takes the most extreme elements, taught by specific leaders as if these were the beliefs and practices of the whole." - Dr. Michael Brown

What Brown is not saying is that he pretended for years there was no such thing as the NAR but now he has no choice but to acknowledge that he was lying all those years. So instead, he moves the goalposts into this bifurcated notion of NAR so he can dismiss the one that tries to hold him accountable. Sorry Doc, not going to happen. Let us not lose sight that while he pretends to repudiate positions and arguments, he never attaches those to the people who make them. He wrote an entire book on greasy grace but calls Joseph Prince a good brother in the Lord. That hypocrisy is the issue. Repudiation is useless if you are not going to warn the sheep who are teaching them the things you pretend to repudiate.

Now let us deal with this other red herring Brown always tries to argue when discussing NAR. The NAR is not an entity. It is not a denomination. People do not sign up for it. They do not hold meetings. The NAR is a collection of beliefs, shared by many people in similar settings. So, someone like Mario Murillo and Greg Locke may teach the exact same thing but never know each other. They do not view these teachings as NAR either and they do not have to in order for NAR to be real. Those very same teachings might be shared across this entire country with other churches that never interact or know each other. This is not true just for NAR. Churches across this country might share in word faith beliefs. They do not consider themselves as word faith churches. They just teach those things. The term word faith is used by people evaluating those teachings. I believe that NAR dominionism has shared goals and strategies but they all take their marching orders from the Republican Party, whether they are aware or not. That is their master, even if they cannot see it. They do not however have Zoom meetings and plan anything together. Just go on Charisma News and you will see ten different leaders who may have never met, espousing the exact same talking points. That is not an accident. Lastly here, Brown always tries to make it seem like we are just talking about extremes but that is another red herring. The extremes are the leadership. Everyone listed in this one small devotional are people Brown has vociferously defended, so spare me that it is just some outliers. The disagreement is we know these are wolves and he defends them as brothers and sisters. Mercifully, Brown concludes:

"That's why as much as I share Doug and Holly's concerns, I also find their work to be divisive, confusing and fear producing. If you want to know about my larger concerns with the Pentecostal Charismatic movement, read my book Playing with Holy Fire. If you want to know my precise beliefs about NAR and related matters read the online statement, I coauthored with Dr. Joe Mattera called NAR and Christian Nationalism. If you want an in depth study of the larger movement get Dr. Mattera's book The Global Apostolic Movement and the Gospel. So yeah, there is a real NAR that we can discuss and critique in depth and the NAR of the critics that does not exist. That's why for the sake of truth and the health of the body this wider terminology of NAR should be dropped." - Dr. Michael Brown

Divisive? Just this week Brown wrote an article on Charisma News declaring he did not understand how anyone who is Christian can vote Democratic because that is what NAR Leaders believe. That divided half the country against the other half. Before that he wrote after the presidential debate that Joe Biden disqualified himself because he appeared old but not a peep about the other guy who lied over 30 times. Once again, divisive NAR talking points disguised as Christianity. I want to however in closing suggest that Brown might be on to something here as it relates to the work of discernment ministries. Our work is divisive because it focuses people back on to the bible, which divides people by nature. THAT is the true issue that makes Brown uncomfortable. He has built himself this perfectly sealed hermetical bubble. Inside of it, everyone praises him as a learned scholar and deeply sourced man of God. Anyone who has the temerity to disagree, with scripture mind you, is dismissed out of hand as divisive, hyper-critics, mudslingers, using uneven weights or whatever his next diversion is. It makes him uncomfortable to face the unbiblical realities of what he supports and defends because somewhere he knows he is wrong. He knows for example that Steven Strang, his boss at Charisma, is a political operative. He knows that Strang never should have declared Mike Bickle exonerated in December and advocated for his restoration even months after that. Still, he went on his podcast after and said yes sir. He knows he never should have gone on Benny Hinn's show or defended Jennifer LeClaire's sneaky squid spirit nonsense but he did nonetheless. When discernment comes along and tries to divide him from the untruths he supports, he lashes out and this closing argument is just the embodiment of that fact. Why not throw in some plugs for your book while you are at it? Does it make a difference what your concerns are with Pentecostal Charismania if you then defend the people making those problems a daily reality? That is like writing a book about how bad killing people is and then declaring that Jeffery Dahmer was an ok guy. This is again the fundamental point Brown misses. Pointing out the bad theology is important but it is far more vital to say who are the ones teaching it. There is only one NAR and Brown knows it. He is still trying to discard the term so that he can focus on individual teachings and sound like he is being reasonable in disagreeing with them without having to declare the teacher as false. For example, discernment ministries know that C. Peter Wagner was a false teacher. Period, full stop. Brown in this closing argument said he disagreed with a lot of what Wagner said but if you ask him, he will still think he was a good brother in the Lord. As mentioned, Che Ahn told his sheep to return to church because COVID was over way before it really was. I am sure Brown would say that was wrong but he still exalts Ahn, not only as an apostle but as another good brother in the Lord. Dr. Brown may have won this roundtable because he is a formidable debate opponent but he revealed in his closing remarks why remains so very wrong. Continue to mark and avoid.

Reverend Anthony Wade - July 18, 2024

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.