Prosperity Christianity Part V: Soft-cop theologian examines Bethel Biblically.

Mike Winger Soft Cops Bill Johnson. 

For the previous parts see:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2019/11/prosperity-christianity-part-1.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2019/12/prosperity-christianity-part-ii.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2020/01/prosperity-christianity-part-iii.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2020/03/prosperity-christianity-part-iv-and.html

The above video is an analysis of the Bethel movement by Mike Winger. He himself is a charismatic and is no enemy of Signs and Wonders per se. He's also generous toward Bethelism and doesn't deny that some of Bethel's teaching can inspire. I would call him a "soft-cop"; in fact some of the comments in the YouTube comments thread suggest he's too generous. But having listened to Winger I can only say that if Winger is a soft-cop then just how hard are those hard cops? I'll move onto a hard cop later on, but really who needs hard cops when we've got Mike Winger's devastating points of criticism! I would, nevertheless,  recommend Winger's video to anyone wanting to find out more about Bethelism. On second thoughts I think he's a "fair cop"!

Winger's Verdict

The following is my interpretation of some of Winger's salient points. This interpretation can be checked by looking at the video. [I have put my own additions in square brackets] 

Winger says he's watched 60hrs of Bethel video footage to come to his conclusions. He doesn't accept that they are a front for shadowy demonic influences and believes that Bill Johnson and his lieutenant Kris Valloton are Christians. He even accepts that real healings do come out of this movement. But he believes there is a lot of fake stuff coming out of it as well. He says that Bill Johnson's vision for Bethel is that of spear heading a world wide movement. Through what they claim to be an apostolic network they aim to bring revival to the world wide church after the image of their own concept of revival. Johnson believes this revival will come by proactively exporting their "Jesus culture". [It's true that the Bethel influence has popped up all over place!]

But Winger sees a mixed bag. He sees twisted theology, a theology which encourages its followers to be fake and to fake healings and prophecies. Johnson's followers call him an apostle although he never makes use of that title himself; but he doesn't stop his followers thinking of him as such.  [The "apostles" of the circa 1980s "Restoration" movement  adopted a very similar coy-strategy to their apostleship] 

Winger shows a clip where it appears that Johnson is saying that "teaching" has less to do with Biblical text than it does in having an apostle as a channel of teaching. He thus subtly shifts the disciples attention away from Scripture to the apostolic figure himself and his authoritative teaching. [Hence, the cut, thrust and ongoing contention of Biblically based argumentation is supplanted by the authoritative quietus imposed by the apostle, where the apostle is almost a kind of embodiment of the Word.... clearly a dangerous precedent given that only Christ himself has claim to the title of being the Word]

On healing Johnson becomes even more extreme: Using Galatians 1 & 2 he informs us that anyone who doesn't accept Johnson's claim that all must be healed is in effect teaching a different gospel! Johnson talks about Jesus being "perfect theology" which for him means we simply must follow Jesus' practices and in a literal sense do as Jesus did: To this end Johnson resolves the resultant contradictions with scripture by constructing a doctrine of "Truth priorities": For Johnson some things in scripture are true but other things are "truer". His lesser truth category means that Johnson can ignore or override, for example, the tribulations of Job in favour of his "Jesus is perfect theology" prosperity Gospel. [Johnson neglects the fact it is still our responsibility to interpret the meaning of Christ's life and therefore we can make no claim to having in our hands "perfect theology" when we study and follow Christ]

To further justify Bethel's prosperity teaching Johnson uses the argument that "God can't give what he doesn't have". Therefore God can only impart health and wealth because He only  has health and wealth - i.e. he doesn't have poverty and ill health. e.g. God doesn't have cancer therefore he won't give you cancer. Consequently Christians must be rich and healthy. Winger calls this shallow theology.  (And see Rev 2:22-23).  But did Jesus really teach a prosperity Gospel? Johnson uses Mat 6:10 to justify his position, but Winger says that this verse only finally applies in the fullness of time when there is, eventually, no death (See Rev. 21:4). In contrast Chris Volloton has said "No one in our congregation is allowed to die except of old age". So says Winger, Vollonton accepts that death does eventually come to Bethelites and therefore Mat 6:10 doesn't, after all, hold at Bethel! 

At Bethel it feels as though there are a lot of healings taking place. But they get round the fact that healing doesn't always happen by poor confirmation of healing and using a doctrine of "keeping your healing"; that is, if your symptoms come back you are told that you are "losing your healing" which then triggers a process of spiritual investigation & diagnosis as to why the healing hasn't taken. They also talk about "the fragility of the anointing": Bill Johnson's son has a hearing problem which hasn't been healed. Once again Johnson finds an excuse to ignore this glaring inconsistency: He says that it will ruin his own anointing if he thinks with critical awareness about this inconsistency. Hence there is pressure at Bethel to avoid thinking about negative outcomes because if you do then Johnson's says it may badly effect your anointing. Bethel, therefore, have many ways of explaining away and/or coping with apparent failures of healing and this includes encouragement to turn a blind eye if no spiritual explanation is available .[In effect Johnson is proactively barring intellectual integrity as a harmful influence on their fellowship; hence a gullible unquestioning idiocy is actively encouraged at Bethel - Idiots for Christ!] 

For Bill Johnson's Bethel any nice and positive sounding words that someone feels they should say are liable to be ranked as prophecy; but only positive, happy words are allowed. Negative prophecies are banned at Bethel.  Hence Bethel becomes the source of many fake prophecies. Bethel also has such a thing as "Destiny cards" which are suspiciously like Tarot cards. 

Bethel are trying to engineer a revival in their own image. They are a contrived movement. 

So that finishes with Winger's assessment. I now want move on to.....ressurection.

A Prayer for Resurrection

The ethos of unwillingness to face the tricky realities of Christian life with critical awareness recently had a very sad nemesis at Bethel. In a very public display the Bethel fellowship prayed fervently for the resurrection of the deceased daughter of one of their worship leaders. The matter was reported in a news item in the February 2020 of Premier Christianity magazine. But the affair also got a wide airing in the secular media; the full glare of public attention as the magazine puts it. The Christianity article tells us how for several nights Bethel held services where they implored God for a resurrection, but after a week they faced the heart-breaking and tragic reality of the infant's death. 

The article quotes Johnson's well known position on healing, a position which is based on the notion that Christ's sacrificial death has already "purchased healing" (A common theological cliche among prosperity healers),  a position that encourages a witch-hunt seeking spiritual pathology should God not deliver (My emphases):

"When he bore our stripes in His body He made a payment for our miracle. He already decided to heal. You can't decide not to buy something after you've already bought it.....All lack is on our end of the equation". 

Well, that tells us where Johnson is going to look for spiritual failure when his prosperity expectations aren't fulfilled!  And I don't think Johnson is the sort of guy who is just going to tell us that his church was merely trying to be obedient to Christ's command to raise the dead (Mat 10:8) as Christianity quotes him, and then leave it at that. No, rather than just shrugging his shoulders Johnson looks like a man who is going to angle for a source of blame. But one thing you can't accuse these Bethelites of and that is a lack of belief. So where is Johnson's theological logic going to take him?  Perhaps he'll blame those Christians who criticise his "perfect theology"? After all, those who criticise his prosperity line on healing will, according to Johnson,  be teaching another gospel!

But undaunted by Johnson's theologically threatening position Christianity magazine, partly through the mouths of various pundits, arrays a strong critique of Johnson and Bethel. It is in great contrast to the Christianity article I quoted in part I where the reporter seems to be a Johnson convert. In this latest article, however, we hear that: 

The episode was grounded in really poor theology....you just take little snapshots of the Bible and pick out phrases here and there to extrapolate these huge expectations to command how God should act in a situation......they were praying for only one possible outcome...A wise pastor would stand with the bereaved parents while also gently sharing that God may have other plans as well.....Many evangelical writers have expressed similar concerns....Bethel's theology results of a transactional view of God....God is seen as a genie who will always say yes to our requests if we just say the magic formula.....my anxiety is around the mental health of the parents and the wider community when the miracle was not forth coming.

But Johnson takes no responsibility for the event. He says that they...

...had no option but to ask for resurrection, because that was what Jesus commanded his disciples to seek after.

...and remember if you don't accept Johnson's view without qualification then you may be accused of  preaching another gospel!

Christianity magazine tries put a brave face on it along and the best gloss. The hope was that....

....this story would encourage small churches to pray for healing miracles not out of habit but in the hope that God may actually act....all Christians should trust God enough to ask for big outlandish miracles even if they don't happen.

I doubt it: More like it will make Christians wary of such public failure. The Christianity article still talks about "the struggle against the giant of unbelief". I don't see any unbelief at Bethel (although I do see a lot of gullibility). Talk like this will only create more unresolved conflict, loss of confidence, heart searching and guilt in the lives of believers about their "lack of faith". Pray for healings and miracles by all means but don't think they are a reward for faith and if they don't happen don't then embark on a witch hunt for a lack of faith and/or spiritual failure somewhere. So in spite of starting well, in the final analysis  the Christianity article falls down badly, yet again.

The Hard Cop

We find our really hard cop on this web site:

http://watchman4wales.blogspot.com/search/label/Bill%20Johnson

Now I'm not sure I would want to meet this guy in a dark alley because he would likely hard-cop me and accuse me of heresy as soon as look at me. But then Bill Johnson, as we have seen, is himself a hard cop who is likely to tell us we are preaching another gospel if we don't tow his line on healing. One hard cop deserves another! So here we go with our stern Watchman4Wales' verdict on Bethel and the Johnsons:

It is important to note that the Ffald-y-Brenin bookshop is also very well-stocked with the works of Bill and Beni Johnson, the Senior Pastors of Bethel "Church" in Redding, California. This has to be one of the unsafest "Christian" couples on the planet, their "Christianity" having all the authenticity of a paste diamond, with Bethel having far more in common with sorcery and New Age mystical spirituality than with Biblical Christianity. From gold dust to glory clouds, from falling feathers to fire tunnels, from floating orbs to a born-again "Jesus," from waking up sleeping angels to grave-sucking necromancy, absolutely anything goes at Bethel under the Johnsons' (mis)leadership.

The Ffald-y-Brenin bookshop can thus lamentably be seen to be recklessly disseminating to the unsuspecting an alternative form of faith that is assuredly NOT the true Faith, but instead a deeply fallacious mystical New Age delusion, a cunning counterfeit of Biblical Christianity inspired not by the Holy Spirit but by a subtle and seducing utterly unclean spirit, working stealthily out of the war-camp of the Enemy!

To back up the charges of necromancy we are provided with pictures of "grave-sucking". Below I  include these pictures with their captions: 

And here's Beni Johnson herself, soaking up the anointing of  C.S. Lewis's bones by lying on his grave in Oxford. She also uses a 528HZ tuning fork for prophetic purposes...

A group of students from Bill Johnson's Bethel School of the Supernatural engage in sucking up Evan Roberts' anointing from his grave at Loughor in South Wales...

Hard copping done! Need I say more? 

Summing Up

Large swathes of Christian culture lack intellectual integrity. In fact I've long since come to terms with the fact that Christianity as a faith is extremely idiot proof - that is, it has a high resilience to the large numbers of gullible idiots (some of whom actually classify as malign idiots) who enter the faith. But in spite of taking onboard hoards of these idiots the integrity and dignity of Christianity's high sounding cosmic message of salvation is no more compromised than is the majesty of deep space in the presence of a few deluded "grave suckers" who inhabit one small corner of the cosmos. If I didn't believe this there would be no Christian faith for me (See here and here). In fact the only other (intolerable) alternative to the Open Gospel would be to join one of Christianity's  mean  little "holy remnants"  of huddled Christian crazies who think of themselves and their sect as the one and only true church and all others to be potentially demonic. Like Winger I don't believe Bethel are demonic but they do have a high density of gullible stupidity in their ranks, a stupidity which allows people like Johnson and Valloton to peddle their prosperity gospel justified as it is by a shallow, muddled and incoherent "quip theology".

Stay comatose!

As we have seen in this series Johnson's strategy is to do what he can to block any self reflecting & self critical stance, a stance which is liable to endanger the Bethelist philosophy of comatose forgetfulness. Critical-think, Johnson effectively warns, may lead to the loss of your all-important "anointing". Any apparent inconsistencies of Johnson's philosophy with scripture are dealt with by a doctrine which ranks and prioritises truths so that some truths can be regarded as overriding other truths. (Winger rightly identifies this notion as gobbledegook). As Winger says Johnson has therefore found ways of preventing scripture as a whole of correcting his contention that Jesus' life entails a prosperity gospel. This prosperity gospel, according to Winger, flies in the face of Job.  The ultimate backstop to critical thought is found in the notion that apostles are a kind of incarnation of scriptural teaching. Hence when the chips are down they can pull out this authoritarian card in order to further help ease through their theology. A claim to authority is the ultimate device to stultify a Berean assault on Johnsonianism. This is, however, not an original strategy: I remember reading the restorationist Arthur Wallis where he claimed that the chief way restorationist leaders exert their authority is via their Bible teaching. Thus, in effect  they claim a special almost priestly right to interpret scripture authoritatively (for more on restorationism see here).

At one point in his video Winger remarks on how Bethel teachers teach in a cheeky humorous way. This can be seen with other popular teachers of this ilk; see here. A brash humorous quip theology has great folk appeal.

All in all Bethel have contrived plenty of auxiliary hypotheses for explaining away failed miracles and stopping critical analysis of this failure in its tracks. Let us recall, however, that Bethel is a highly predatory sect determined to stamp their image on the rest of Christianity: They are pulling out all the stops to spread Johnson's teaching. But they may now have pulled out one stop too many.  Like the Restorationism of circa 1980 its empire building appeal will eventually peter out. 

Note:

Early posts I did on Johnson:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2008/04/big-preacher-guy-phenomenon.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2008/05/spiritual-spin.html

A Foot Note on The Mark Driscoll Affair.

I don't think Timmis' bullying  went as far as punching people 
- at least I hope not

This blog majors in the collection and study of the assertive characters and cults which emerge from fundagelicalism's smelly underbelly; e.g. Benny Hinn, Mark Driscoll. Bill Johnson, Mark Stibbe, Ken Ham, Charles Taze Russell, Cowboy Sorenson, Patsie Slapmangle....etc. I suppose I ought to include Donald Trump who has become very much linked with America's Christian-right as their champion and defender*. But in actual fact Trump is so badly behaved that even many American fundagelicals are loathe to admit him to the Christian-right fold. To resolve the dilemma some of them have likened Trump to Jeroboam I in the Old Testament, a man who became God's chosen defender of Judaism: Jeroboam I overthrew the corrupt Solomonic dynasty although he himself was a very flawed character. In spite of Trump's corruption you will find that some Christian right-wingers offer much less leeway to Christians who disagree with them than they do to Trump! After all, he is their champion!

So today I want to give a warm welcome to my latest capture of fundagelical wild life....may I introduce Steve Timmis (pictured above) ex-CEO of the organisation "Acts 29".  You know there's likely to be something wrong when a group are spiritually conceited enough to believe they are writing the authoritative next chapter of Acts! This looks like it's going to be one of those New Testament nostalgia sects; that is, a group who believe the solution to the woes of Christian community is to copy early church practices to the letter, thus presenting (in their view) a Christian witness unsullied by time. The consequence is that they develop a very long list of rules of how Christians should behave.

As I have said before I don't go around especially looking for these less than nice Christian sects and characters but rather they occasionally fly out of the woodwork across my line of sight and I endeavour to capture and study them.

***

Up until I had read the news section of March's edition of Premier Christianity I hadn't heard of Timmis, but he's well qualified for my "Abominable Christians" display cabinet. He has been accused by 15 people who served under him of a pattern of spiritual abuse and intimidation. IVP, the evangelical publisher, will no longer be selling Timmis' books and is quoted as saying  "In hindsight we now realise that the style of the close church community advocated in these books lacked sufficient safeguards against abusive control". That's the trouble: IVP needed hindsight; why was hindsight needed? After all there is long history of Christian cults to learn from and so why weren't the safeguards already in place? I'll be coming back to this subject of safeguarding later.

Premier Christianity magazine refers us to an article in Christianity Today that reported the case. Premier Christianity also tells us why this case is linked to abominable Christian, Mark Driscoll (Pictured below) Viz:

This is not the first time Acts 29 has been plagued with allegations of poor behaviour by its leaders. In 2014 , the Acts 29 co-founder and megachurch  pastor Mark Driscoll was removed from his position due to multiple  accusations of bullying.

For more on the the Mark Driscoll affair see here and here.

Evangelical strong man: A sequence showing Driscoll morphing into the Hulk although I have to say I can't tell the difference 

Reading the story in Christianity Today I find disturbing parallels with "Socialist Gospel" preacher Jim Jones of Jones Town infamy: He too was a bully, a fear inspiring charismatic leader who would suffer no contradiction. He required unconditional surrender to his regime of things. He wasn't satisfied with anything less than complete domination and complete acquiescence to his views. Discipline in the cult was harsh.  His "People's Temple" was an extension of his own personality and ego.

Now let's compare Timmis: In the Christianity Today article we read this:   

Fifteen people who served under Timmis described to Christianity Today a pattern of spiritual abuse through bullying and intimidation, overbearing demands in the name of mission and discipline, rejection of critical feedback, and an expectation of unconditional loyalty.

With a church that demands such high levels of involvement and buy-in, anything seen as taking away from that mission may be deemed selfish, sinful, and cause for discipline

One couple said they were confronted for missing an impromptu barbeque with their gospel community in order to spend planned family time with their kids. They were accused of not putting the mission of the church first. Several who took interest in ministry opportunities outside the mission for their gospel community—which could shift or change under Timmis’s orders—also received pushback, told not to pursue an outside Bible study or social time or not to volunteer with a local coffee shop or summer camp. Students in the university town were discouraged from returning home to their families over the summer—it was seen as a sign that they weren’t really committed to the life of the church.

From the inside, this kind of heavy shepherding seemed by design, with Timmis seeking to mentor and disciple his flock into a church that operated “24/7” and spanned all areas of life. At the least, Timmis implied these expectations set them apart from other congregations in a good way.

“If Steve is challenged in any way, which he always takes as a threat, then the tables are turned and the challenger is made out to be the one at fault,” said Tinker, who saw the same pushback emerge during the decade his son, Michael, was a member of Timmis’s church. “This is classic manipulation.”

“However, in reality it means you need to agree with Steve’s mission and vision. And the sense in The Crowded House that it is the right or best way to do mission and be biblically faithful means you are left with the feeling that if you disagree you are somehow disagreeing with the Bible, or somehow falling short of God’s ideal, or not really giving up your life for Christ.”

Michael Tinker said some at The Crowded House were led to believe that he and his wife were walking away from their faith. Paul and Sharon Goodwin, who left in 2011, listed the elders’ characterizations of them leading up to their departure: divisive, unpastorable, disobedient, “not loving Jesus enough,” “always been troublemakers.”

I think these quotes are enough to show Timmis' conceited opinion of himself and his need for complete control. This control was achieved by the spiritually intimidating insinuation that disobedience to Timmis was tantamount to disobedience to God and therefore courts divine displeasure worthy of punishment: In short Timmis himself was playing the role of a little god and felt deeply insecure if he was crossed. Obviously, the outcome was nothing like the awful Jones Town end game but the prototypical antecedents are all in place and are recognisable. As with Jones Town, Timmis vision of church was to be a total life experience for those who joined it:... a church that operated “24/7” and spanned all areas of life.

Just like the Christian apologists for Trump it seems unlikely that Timmis is going to be very accommodating toward those Christians with whom he disagrees. And yet regarding his own sins Timmis pleads that he is "a sinner saved by grace" and claims "neither infallibility  nor impeccability". Well, don't we all claim God's grace from such a platform of moral failure? But somehow I don't think Timmis would be so gracious toward those who believe his cultish vision of church to be wrong, wrong, wrong. One rule for him.......?

Although Christianity has the long term (sometimes very long term!) effect of subverting authoritarian headship, its message of subversion is very implicit in the Bible and set against it is the fact that New Testament Christianity came out of authoritarian times of brutal public punishments. Therefore, just as with slavery the immediate Biblical impact about leadership is ambiguous: One's moral quality is tested by how one copes with the choices here. It's not a surprising that evangelicalism, in particular in its fundamentalist manifestation where we find jingoistic promises of absolute certainty in doctrine and practice, evangelicalism tends to attract authoritarian and controlling egotists like Timmis.

As I said in my two blogs on the Driscoll affair, evangelicalism's temptation toward epistemic arrogance and an inability to distinguish between headship and leadership leaves it with little immunity when self-assured and bumptious characters like Driscoll and Timmis appear on the scene. Therefore evangelicalism's lack of sufficient safeguards against abusive control trace back to deficiencies in its leadership doctrines. Fortunately many evangelicals are sensible enough to eventually see through the bluff that is being played on them by authoritarian headships and unless the wool is thoroughly pulled over their eyes, they realise that they remain free vote with their feet and their wallets even if the Timmins and Driscolls of this world may try to disabuse them of this privilege by labelling this ultimate deterrent as profane and worldly.

Real power in terms of their opportunities to act is found among the laity. In this connection  we can  derive some consolation from the fact that time was called on Timmis' and Driscoll's activities.  But having said that the power of the laity is not explicit in evangelical teaching and this opens the way for abusive characters like Driscoll and Timmis to pop up every now and again and fool some of people for some of the time. Moreover, many immature Christians actually prefer the cloying atmosphere of authoritarian communities perhaps because it takes them back to a second (or even first) secure childhood where personal responsibility is not so onerous. But such is fertile ground for leadership charlatans, some of whom succeed in infecting a whole community with their mental foibles.

Footnote:
* Trump is also linked with the paranoid fantasies of the conspiracy theorists: He was once a guest on professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's show. Also there is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_America_News_Network

Confirmation bias and Terry Virgo's bad memory

Terry Virgo: "God's new thing is going to be this big!"

Premier Christianity Magazine is a fairly broad church publication; it's articles, both in authorship and subject matter, span the spectrum from liberals and liberal evangelicals (if that isn't an oxymoron!) such as Robert Beckford, Steve Chalk and Rob Bell through Rick Warren to fundamentalist evangelicals like R T Kendall. I'm in favour of this editorial policy because it acknowledges the realities of Christian culture; to recycle a phrase I actually found in one of Christianity's reviews this month: "This isn't safe Christian publishing because we don't live in a safe Christian world". You can say that again! ...the Christian world certainly isn't safe for one's faith! For if one gets too sectarian, too partisan, too fundamentalist and too choosy with one's Christianity one ends up being obliged to label just about everyone else's version of Christianity (except one's own, of course) as heretical! Since there are any number of fundamentalist puritan sects out there declaring themselves to be the-whole-Truth-and-nothing-but-the-Truth-so-God-help-all-those-others-in-error,  a very natural conclusion in the face of this endless sectarian farce is that Christianity is simply bogus. So, either one rejects Christianity outright as the resort of the spiritually conceited or one goes down Premier Christianity's broad church road.

So, given Premier Christianity's editorial policy I was comfortable with the fact that the November edition carried an article by Charismatic "restorationist" and fundamentalist leaning Terry Virgo. His name has come up on this blog before - see here and here. The article was titled: "Whatever happened to the promised revival" and concerned Virgo's belief that the time is right for revival (or at least another promise of revival!). In my experience pronouncements of coming revival by some Christian pundit or other have been so frequent and to date have proved so false that its very easy to automatically dismiss such claims. In fact to be frank that was exactly my response to Virgo. However, given the culturally run down circumstances in which Western Christianity finds itself I can understand a little wishful thinking on Virgo's part and I wouldn't want to be too hard on him. What I would query, however,  are some of the more specific features of his piece. I itemize these below:

Item 1: Virgo says that true revival starts with repentance in the church and fresh encounters with God. He might be right, but what completely obscures this hypothesized pattern is that in my experience repentant revivalist meetings, some of them involving claimed epiphanies, ecstasies, inner light experiences,  trance-like behaviors and altered states of consciousness (Often labelled nowadays as "encounters"), are so frequent that if revival does break out there will inevitably be some revivalist group or other who are well placed to claim "It happened here first!". For example, Virgo tells us the story of the stern Welsh fundamentalist Martin Lloyd-Jones who interrupted his planned preaching program in 1959 to preach for a whole year on revival hoping that revival would break out soon. (At that time Jones did not indulge in what today we would call "encounter" behaviours). There was no revival, but if there had been it is quite possible that Jones' name would have been easily associated with it. As it happened the 1960s was accompanied by cultural shifts both inside and outside the church. The church of the 60s experienced the "encounter" Christianity of the charismatic movement and a resurgence of fundamentalist Christian literalism manifested in anti-science young earthist trends. But as Virgo rightly points out the charismatic renewal of the 1960s cannot classify as a classic revival. 

Item 2: Regarding the charismatic renewal and fundamentalist shifts  of the 60s Virgo says "For me the word 'revival' was replaced by the word 'restoration'". Of course it's futile contradicting Virgo in his use of labels - he can call it what he wants. I personally would have referred to the 1960s cultural shifts in the church as a "change of garb" or  a "change of style". Yes, often those changes were needed to meet the day but sometimes the new dress was tasteless, garish, affected, and inauthentic. Moreover, the "encounters" (referred too as "Baptisms in the Spirit" in those days, and later "the touch of God"**) often failed to live up to their promise of "Holy Power".

However, I'm intrigued by Virgo's use of the world "restoration" because when I first came across Virgo's name at the beginning of the 1980s he was part of a movement who used the word  "restoration" to describe a "recovery" of the ministries of apostles, prophets and authoritative (sometimes also authoritarian) church leadership. By the end of the 1970s the charismatic movement of the 60s had started to get stale and passe and a "where to next?" feeling set in. The new restorationist leadership was claiming that these rediscovered ministries were evidence of God's next big thing. In fact the slogan that did the rounds was that "God was doing a new thing". By the beginning of the 1980s this "new thing" itself was starting to fade and it wasn't until the mid 1990s that yet another "new thing", in the form of the trance-like "Toronto Blessing", started to emerge.

One of the leaders of the restorationist movement, Arthur Wallace, wrote a short "prophetic" piece to the effect that this new awakening, under the restored patriarchal leaders, would result in a flowing together of the different streams of Protestantism. This kind of unifying restoration, needless to say, never took place; it petered out into yet another splinter of Protestantism as its "big preach" leaders got down to the routine day to day business of running their churches. Some of those leaders were authoritarian in outlook, such as Bryn Jones. As one of the big name leaders Virgo was considered by his flock to be an apostle, but Virgo was a less authoritarian and wiser leader than many; this may be why he has lasted and has gained some respect. But even so he was still too authoritarian in doctrinal paradigm to be of much help in the Mark Driscoll affair.  (See here and here) 

Item 3: There have been a number of failed prophecies about revival in the UK and Virgo, unwittingly, probably alludes to one such failed prophecy. He talks of a lady friend who had a vision just weeks before Princess Diana's death of the streets of the UK being filled with flowers. I wonder if this is the same "prophecy" that arrived at my church just after Diana had died. We were told that the source of the prophecy came with good backing (Perhaps with Virgo's backing?) and that clearly the prophecy about the streets being filled with flowers had been fulfilled. However, Virgo doesn't tell us that the prophecy did the rounds in two parts and the second part, presumably from the same source, claimed that as quickly as the flowers would be removed from the streets revival would come to the UK. Of course, that second prophecy wasn't fulfilled! If I'm right then it looks as though Virgo has forgotten about this or has suppressed it. My guess is that the lady concerned had what she perceived as precognitive visions and/or dreams - a phenomenon that is not uncommon in the population as a whole. But if an attempt is made to use these precognitive visions predictively let me warn people that they are unreliable and can betray the prognosticator just as they did Virgo's lady friend.

***

In my experience prophecies of revival are two-a-penny out there. Without digging into the archives I can recall several in my time alone. Like revivalist meetings, prophecies of revival are probably happening all the time and if and when revival breaks out someone somewhere will feel they are able to claim that they correctly prophesied it!

Confirmation bias is rampant in some Christian subcultures and the welter of attempted prognostications makes it very likely that someone somewhere will eventually come up trumps - or at least think they've come up trumps!* In this post I published some false prophecies taken from my own memories. Viz:

1. The Mt Carmel prophecies affirming 1975 as a “significant” year. (From the Christian "Buzz" magazine)

2. That revival would sweep the southern part of England, as did the hurricane of 1987. (Grantly Watkins at a Norwich "May Day" event)

3. That this or that person would be healed from terminal cancer and never did (Too numerous to mention specifically!)

4. That there would be Christian revival shortly after Princess Di’s death. (Terry Virgo's friend)

5. The Spring Harvest prophecy that Westminster Chapel would be the center of a great revival in 1996. (Gerald Coates)

6. That the millennium bug would be the precursor of Global collapse in the year 2000. (Barry Smith)

7. That Southern England would experience a devastating Earthquake. (A Dereham Road Baptist Church member quoting information she received from a "prophetic ministry". She quoted this during a meeting where I was in attendance)

8. That “big things” would be happening in the UK shortly after the July 2005 BennyHinn rally in Norwich.

Since I published the list above there has been a prophecy at the "Bay of Holy Spirit Revival"  which claimed that my home city of Norwich would experience a revival. We've also fairly recently (2014/15) had the "Blood Moon" prophecies which, on the basis of a relatively rare series lunar eclipses, made predictions of eschatological interest. The sell-by-date of these prophecies, however, is rapidly running out. It's also worth comparing all this with the  prognisticating activities of the Jehovah's Witnesses' Watchtower organisation. 

The above are anecdotal in that they just come from my memory. If I did a little digging and research I might be able to unearth some documentation to support these anecdotes. However, I must  say that I've got better things to do with my life than run down cheap plastic Woolsworth's quality prophecies, "prophecies" here today and forgotten tomorrow.

Footnotes:
* You can do this experiment safely at home. Take two dice and throw them both one after the other. Use the first die thrown as a "prognosticator" of the second die thrown. If the first die comes up with a "6" then regard this as a prediction that the second die will land a "6". Marvel when the predicting die actually, and eventually, get's it right!

Wow! One of those die has just predicted the other!

**  As the Toronto blessing got underway in the mid 1990s it became apparent that even those who claimed they had been "Baptised in the Spirit" could come back for more and experience a "new touch of God" in the form of the ecstatic mental states of the new blessing. Thus, the emphasis shifted from an elite class of Christians initiated once for all into the things of the Spirit to ongoing "touches of God" and encounters. The promise of these trance-like experiences drew seekers and filled the chairs (and often the carpets!) of those revivalist rallies.

The Mark Driscoll Affair. Part II

Church Member? Your fired! - unless you follow me!

The December Christianity magazine article carried an article about domineering church leader Mark Driscoll and his fall from grace. The following quote taken from the article holds lessons for evangelical Christians. After Driscoll put one of his pastor's in "the wood chipper" (as Driscoll nicely put it; i.e. gave the pastor the sack and threatened to destroy his career), Driscoll seemed to become intoxicated by power. As Christianity tells us:

It was at this point that Driscoll cancelled all church membership and instructed  the congregation to reapply, simultaneously forcing them to accept his newly proposed bylaws. However, while the majority did not  reapply, new members continued  to flock to the church plugging the many gaps.

This quote is evidence of how these authoritarian leaders are made and supported by gullible followers: Having failed to pull the wool over the eyes of the church members who had at last got wise, Driscoll attempted to "refresh" the membership by gathering to himself only those who would follow him. It seems from the above quote that initially Driscoll found enough new members ignorant of the background to keep his church going for a while. But he couldn't fool all of the people all of the time, for it seems that even these new fresh faced members got wise to him, eventually causing the demise of Driscoll and the Mars Hill fellowship in its original form. The sad fact is it looks as though Driscoll had to be pushed rather than him voluntarily jumping. However, there is some consolation in the fact that ultimately it was by congregational power that Driscoll got his eventual comeuppance. But only then did repentance set in.

Driscoll's strategy by which he attempted to establish absolute control is not original; it's happened before in Restorationist churches and is probably a known, perhaps even a once recommended technique of its leadership: I once heard of a Restorationist leader in the UK who did something very similar: He declared all membership null void during a church meeting and he said that only those who wish to support him need follow him into the next room where he would effectively "reboot" the church with a loyal membership. This little episode, taken together with the Driscoll affair, is evidence of the unhealthy power ethos in Restorationist circles.

During my early 1980s research of Restorationism I also had contact with one of their house group leaders, a certain Steve Lock. Steve said during his sermon at a Restorationist service I attended that one of the purposes of house groups was to give people a boot up the backside - another indication of the kind of abrasive heavy shepherding ethos that was abroad among restorationists. So what has changed? By leaning on his members Driscoll is in many ways simply reflecting his leadership culture.

As said in Part I, we can't put all the blame at Driscoll's door because much traces back to Restorationist attitudes and the epistemic arrogance of their fundamentalism. People like Terry Virgo are in part responsible for this travesty of Christian leadership and their patriarchal maturity should be called into question; Driscoll was never going to learn the art of responsible accountable leadership from the likes of them, especially as the doctrine of the restoration of Apostolic authority was central to their teaching. In fact Driscoll implicitly used this doctrine to justify his putting one of his pastors in the "wood chipper".  For this reason the Christianity article could not offer worse advice than the following:

...if there are lessons to be learned  from the rise of Mark Driscoll (and Mars Hill church) perhaps it is the importance of older and wiser mentors for young church leaders.

No. Given the patriarchal outlook of Restorationist leaders one may as well throw more fuel onto Driscoll's fire if one is to follow that advice. In the end it was the church membership that did their job, voted with their feet and effectively disciplined Driscoll. And that's the way it should be. It's a lesson about where ultimate church power lies; Viz: with an educated and economically and socially empowered church membership who make or break leadership. The writer of the  Christianity article needs to learn that lesson, rather than be besotted with "maturity" and patriarchy. But then does it really matter if the article writer doesn't learn the lesson? Because the hard (and profane) fact is that unless thoroughly deluded church members can simply vote with their feet and withdraw their economic support. That's where the real church power lies, and the Driscoll's of this world can grimace and point as much as they like; they can't take that power away.

For Part I see:

http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-mark-driscoll-affair.html

29/07/21:  See here

The Mark Driscoll Affair

Many fundagelicals have criticized fallen fellow fundagelical Mark Driscoll. In a fundamentalist vs. fundamentalist match it’s often a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object! However, Driscoll's appears to have repented; but that is worth tuppence to suspicious fundies unless it equates to Driscoll eating out of their doctrinal hand!

The December edition of Premier Christianity magazine carries a news article on mega church leader Mark Driscoll. Actually that should be “ex mega church leader” because Driscoll resigned in October of this year due to a variety of scandals about the style of his leadership, (See for example this wiki page). According to Christianity Driscoll has said that “I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit”, which perhaps genuinely sums up where Driscoll personally went wrong;  spiritual arrogance may also be a fitting description at this juncture. However, I am of the opinion that the real problems can be traced further back than Driscoll’s domineering and abrasive personality, right back to “fundagelical” culture and ethos itself.

For a start I find fault with the fundagelical tendency to comb the Bible looking for definitive statements that are considered to be literally God’s (last) Word on belief and practice. This is just a repeat of my usual complaint about the epistemic method and epistemic arrogance of both fundamentalists and some (more moderate) evangelicals who operate with a similar epistemic. In particular, in the Driscoll case Christianity magazine says that “...some welcomed [Driscoll's] return to teaching about submission and authority” (No doubt supported by Biblical chapter and verse “proof texts”!). Driscoll appears to have been part of the restoration movement that claimed to have “restored” New Testament teaching on the “covering authority of leaders”. In the UK this version of Restorationism was championed in the 1970s by fundagelical leaders like Arthur Wallis, Brynn Jones and Terry Virgo (and I believe it still is championed by Virgo who is alive today).

Needless to say that for every fundagelical there is an anti-fundagelical who, although equally as diligent in “following Biblical teaching”, will shout things like heresy!, false teacher! and perhaps even worse at fellow fundagelicals who beg to differ. This is, of course, exactly what happened in the first instance with Driscoll: As Christianity says “...while some welcomed a return to teaching about submission and authority others condemned Driscoll as a false teacher”; notice that as per the usual fundagelical way of doing things they come out shooting with full-on firepower; Driscoll is roundly condemned as an all purpose heretical teacher – they don’t think in terms of shades of grey and will not accept that although Driscoll might well be badly flawed in some areas, he may be OK in others. Rather, the fundagelical tendency is to perceive the world through a polarizing filter that tends to put the latest “big preach” either into the category of a man of God or a false teaching emissary of Satan who is spreading delusion among the gullible Christian flock. By way of example a fundagelical group who would likely see Driscoll in a very bad light, repentance or no repentance, would be the reformo-charismatics, one of whom made a visit to my blog and subsequently became the subject of my scrutiny. (Among the reformo-charismatics a certain Barry Smith was their flawed teacher, a man whose wild millennium bug prognostications ended in grief)

Christianity magazine, however, points a finger of blame at Christian leaders.

“I believe many people were expecting more and certainly expecting more of the men who had a sacred duty to love the church, to love the people and to love Mark Driscoll” he [Petry] said following the resignation. “I  believe [the leaders] failed miserably."

…if there are lessons to be learned  from the rise and fall of Driscoll perhaps it is the importance of older and wiser mentors for young church leaders.

No, I don’t think that is going help because, I propose, it is the inherent ethos and concepts of evangelical leadership that is part of problem. Driscoll had contact with fellow apostolic ministry restoratonist Terry Virgo. Virgo is no doubt an older and wiser leader, but he still holds on to the over-confident fundagelical epistemic and in particular to teaching about submission, authority and patriarchy. It is the flawed evangelical epistemic receptacle that allows dubious personalities like Driscoll to have their authoritarian way without accountability. In his contact with Virgo it seems Driscoll didn’t learn very much, and least of all is Virgo likely to have made Driscoll aware of the weaknesses in fundagelical culture and ethos that conspire to allow ministries like that of Driscoll to grow unchecked before it’s too late. 

You will find some or all of the following cognitive complex I’ve listed below among fundagelicals. This complex grows out of the nutrient bed of intellectual marginalization and existential angst that one finds among fundagelicals. Consequently, fundagelical culture has reacted with (over) compensations and affectations of self-confidence. Here is my list of descriptors of aspects of fundagelicalism that constitute its ugly and all too human facets of spiritual conceit and self-deceit:

Epistemic certainty, a literal understanding of the “God’s Word” concept, a faith based on observance (belief and practice), lionizing leaders, group think and pressures, moral duress applied to dissenters, an array of anti-science concepts, susceptibility to conspiracy theorism, health and wealth teaching, patriarchy, unaccountable leadership authority, a too close identification of right wing attitudes with Christianity, a need for spiritual gurus & personality cults, anti-academic establishment, anti-intellectualism, Gnosticism, rank and file gullibility to the status quo encouraged, a cynical attitude to outsiders but not insider practices, holy remnant elitism,…..

This list will no doubt continue to grow! It is this philosophical complex that is behind the gullibility of the fundagelical rank and file. It is this compliant rank and file who are ultimately responsible for helping to foster leaders like Driscoll by giving them a platform through which they can impose their personality defects on the church.

See here for Part II: http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-mark-driscoll-affair-part-ii.html 


Relevant link:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/god-father.html

The "visiting speaker" refered to in this post was none other than Mark Driscoll

David Tomlinson and the Post Evangelical

 "Firstly you must understand that I don't come as a safe pair of hands!"

The March edition of Christianity Magazine holds an article on “Post Evangelical” Christian David Tomlinson. In the article Tomlinson tells something of his story: He was brought up in the Brethren Church, but eventually moved into Charismatic Restorationism where he had a spiritual experience. But falling foul of the growing patriarchy and authoritarianism of its leaders Tomlinson soured of Restorationism (and also evangelicalism as a whole it seems) and left to become the Church of England’s postmodern rebel vicar that he is today.

For me Tomlinson’s name goes right back to 1982 when I was prompted to study the charismatic Restoration movement. I had got interested because I had already investigated various Christian sects and the Restorationists of that time looked as though they were Christian evangelicals simply reinventing the familiar trappings of the sect complex; e.g. spiritual elitism, leaders with authority, tight knit exclusive communities, Gnosticism, overrating their own importance etc; above all such groups have some kind of rationale, often bound up with their "end times" theology, as to why they have made a sudden appearance amidst what they consider to be the otherwise run-down or semi-apostate state of the Christian culture that surrounds them. For example, JWs and Mormons both have stories they tell that justify their late appears. But in the case in point the rationale is implicit in the term "Restoration"; this group believed they were God's kingdom restored to its proper New Testament glory (Another term I have heard used in a similar way is the word "Recovery", a word used by the Witness Lee Brotherhood). Fortunately they never really went quite as far as becoming an exclusive sect, but at the time it looked a close-run-thing to me.

And so as I studied the Restoration magazines of ‘79 and ‘80 up popped Tomlinson’s name. In those days he was a leader in a Restoration community run by big-man “apostle” Bryn Jones. Jones' authority “covered” a particular brand of Restorationism that had communities across the land and this included a church in my city who called themselves Norwich Christian Fellowship. The claim to covering authority was, and always is, bogus in as much as no Western religious leader can in principle impose his will on another: The leaders of Christian communities have neither economic nor coercive control of the Christians in their fellowships; after all, the people under “covering authority” can in theory simply walk out. But of course the practice is far more insidious: For religious authority to work in the Western church it must engage in serious (self) deceptions about its legitimacy to authoritatively dispense knowledge of God’s will when guiding followers. Unfortunately this deception often works well especially if the “advice” from leaders is backed up by threats of divine displeasure if it isn't followed. Moreover, the best deceivers are those leaders who really believe their own deceptions and this is almost always true of those religious leaders who rank themselves as having "covering authority" over believers.

However, back to the story of David Tomlinson. Tomlinson was interviewed in the May/June 1979 edition of Restoration Magazine. As one of the leaders of the community under Bryn Jones covering authority he had recently visited a church in Argentina in order to spread the word about the Christian Restoration. In the magazine article Tomlinson was asked questions about his visit. In the light of Tomlinson’s subsequent history this interview is in my opinion very telling as it hints at his eventual change of heart. The Restoration magazines in my possession were borrowed and so I had to write out sections of text from these magazines which I did in blue ink and then added my own comments in red ink.  Here then is the typescript taken from my notes:  See if you too can sense that for Tomlinson the goal posts where moving. But as you read these notes remember that at this juncture Tomlinson is still at the stage where he needed to play to the restorationist gallery by affirming their message; namely,  that churches should get under a covering system of apostles and prophets:

Title of article “HELLO ARGENTINA”: An interview with David Tomlinson.

My comment in 1982: Tomlinson gives some general comments on the spiritual state of the church in Argentina. So far there is not much hint of the specific restorationist message until he is asked:

Question: What were you able to share that would help make further progress (Editor’s note: progress re. Restorationism)

Tomlinson: I’ve already alluded to their different starting place. They have developed out of an emphasis on Christ’s authority and a strong concept of a pastoral ministry; hence their emphasis on making disciples etc. Over here (i.e. in the UK) church renewal has stemmed out of a more charismatic approach; that is gifts and ministries of the Spirit. They were appreciative of our open and practical teaching on the relevance of apostles and prophecy in the church today as those bringing over-sight, vision and guidance to churches under their care. Hopefully we were not only able to bring teaching on the subject, but also to help “push the boat out of the harbor”

(Editor’s note: Tomlinson has just played to the Restorationist leadership gallery to keep them happy. But then there is this)

My Comment in 1982: Seemingly the Buenos Aires church had no “structural emphasis” on apostles and prophets. This may well have abashed Tomlinson as he now follows up with an answer to this question:

Question: I know that you were blessed in giving to them. What do you feel your received?

Tomlinson: A deep challenge regarding the quality of life I saw leaders building into the people in their care. A couple of the jig-saw pieces fell into place in my own life, especially through my fellowship with brothers like Keith Bentson. Since I returned I have found my ministry directed strongly toward the individuals walk with God, in the conviction that this is where the strength of our churches lies. Modes of structure, leadership and ministries are all of them important (Editor’s note: That’s right, keep the gallery sweet!) but there can be no substitute for a close walk with God.

My Comment in 1982: Perhaps Tomlinson sensed that the Restorationist “structural emphasis” was rather lost in the real and uncontrived world of the Argentine churches. He also sensed that the real message of the Gospel is directed toward the restoration of the human system rather than the social system – that comes first and social systems are a product of it. In fact we have here a coupled pair:

Individual state ó social relations

It is at the level of the individual that the gospel beaks into this cycle. Like us all Tomlinson may have undergone the experience of seeing how God’s work easily breaks out of the categories we have formed.

….easily breaks out of the categories we have formed.  In 1982 it wasn’t yet clear how category breaking and iconoclastic Tomlinson was going to get! Somehow one senses that Tomlinson’s off the peg Restorationist message about structure and authority is a poor fit given the realities of this Argentinian church. And Tomlinson also senses it. But he is still endeavoring to keep the Restorationist gallery sweet by making sure he puts in all that sycophantic stuff about the importance of leaders.

I’m convinced that Tomlinson was feeling the beginnings of disaffection even in 1979 and was starting to shake himself free of the religious delusions of the restorationist community. So, I wasn’t at all surprised when Tomlinson’s name popped up again in a 1995 review of his book “The Post Evangelical”. By then he clearly had had enough of it all. And by then so had I! I had started out as a moderate evangelical myself in 1973. But by 1995 I had seen more than enough of the excesses of late 20th century evangelicalism: Viz: its weakness for fundamentalism, its Biblical literalism, its anti-science,  its commentators whose excuse for their mediocrity was that they were “in the spirit”, its gnosticism, its bizarre practices, its false prophecies, its authoritarianism, its conspiracy theories and sometimes its downright cultism. I had also seen my fair share of those whose mental problems were disguised by reinterpreting them as spiritual insight; “nutcases” to use the vernacular. To be fair we must acknowledge that many evangelicals eschew all this, but the fact was evangelicalism seemed to be too weak in its cognitive critical immune system to sift out bogus claims and so when those claims came along evangelicals were easy prey. So, given the context of this backdrop Tomlinson’s title “The Post Evangelical” struck a chord with me when I first heard it.

In March’s Christianity article Tomlinson says the following about the phrase “Post Evangelical”:

I see the phrase as a sort of pastoral device, rather than a new systematic theology. For a lot of people who would otherwise feel there was no place for them in church, suddenly this term was a symbol of hope. Obviously it connects with the wider term “postmodernity”. I was trying to contextualize this critical journey people were going on, in terms of their evangelical past, with what was happening in the wider cultural setting.

Tomlinson is probably too postmodern for me, but otherwise he hits the nail on the head. A pastoral device? A journey? Too right! When I first heard the title The Post Evangelical it alone seemed to sum up my feelings, position and connote a microcosm of critical analysis of evangelicalism. Somehow I knew just how Tomlinson felt! The fact is, however, I have never read Tomlinson’s book. But then perhaps I don’t I need to: As Tomlinson himself says in Christianity’s article, when he thought about the phrase Post Evangelical “it immediately felt that you know what it meant” And so it was with me: To a person who felt  there was no place for them in church Tomlinson’s pastoral phrase had done its work! ....

The Suffocating Trappings of Piety

A Christian journalist by the name of H. V. Morton visited the Holy Land between the wars and subsequently wrote a book entitled “In the Steps of The Master”. Here is his reflection after visiting the Mt Calvary of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher:

....Calvary, the holiest place on Earth. I looked round hoping to be able to detect some sign of its former aspect, but that has been obliterated for ever beneath the suffocating trappings of piety... I went away wishing that we might have known this place only in our hearts.

In summer of 1997 I was on business in Israel. During that visit I managed to squeeze in a “Jerusalem pilgrimage” and for a day I became a “pilgrim” doing the usual Holy sites. I too was left with my own reflection on “the suffocating trappings of piety”. Here is a short passage from the story of my visit

The religious mentality has something about it that renders it unselfconscious. Perhaps this is a consequence of devotion so intense that it becomes lost in itself. But whatever the cause, this context blindness means that this extreme devotion leads to an inability to stand back and examine itself. Thus in its obsession with devotional minutia it is unable to see the aggregate effect of its activity, and is thus unaware of the incoherent and implausible jumble its religion has become. One man's iconic elaborations are another man's blasphemy. And so there is a tendency for these elaborations to be repeatedly destroyed and remade as people wipe away the elaborations of their forerunners or contemporaries and start all over again with the construction of fantastic new cultural forms, forms often thought to represent a return to genuine and original simplicity. Thus, the ground is successively cleared and replanted and the net effect is that there springs up a thick undergrowth of diverse groups.


The generic concept here is summed up by the word “Restorationism”. Freedom permitting, Christians (and in fact religious people in general) are forever rebuilding their faith in reaction against the other believers around them, thus restoring or returning to what they believe to be the right way. This tendency is particularly marked in Protestantism where a power vacuum attracts self proclaimed authorities.

With this background behind me it was with a somewhat perturbed fascination that I recently noticed yet another form of Christian restorationism popping up on a Network Norwich & Norfolk thread (See here - this link no longer exists 20/2/10). This form of restorationism actually goes back a few decades and has its origins in the ministry of a Chinese Christian called “Witness Lee” whose views, in turn, are partly founded on the teachings of another Chinese Christian called “Watchman Nee”. Unlike the Christian house church restorationists of the late seventies the Lee sect doesn’t use the word “Restoration”, but a word like it: “Recovery”; it considers itself to be the Lord’s “recovered” church.

I have had a quick look at the teachings of Lee and Nee using links furnished by the NN&N thread (Especially the links provided by a correspondent called “The Terminator”). In order to assess a movement as quickly as I can, as a general rule I go straight to a sects publications dealing with leadership, authority and church. This is because the subject of church management will reveal any cult ethos, if it is to be found. In this case I focused on two publications called “Authority and Submission” and “Leadership in the New Testament”. To cut a long story short these publications suggested to me that we have here a group ethos with a very strong view of its spiritual authority. This was no surprise. Moreover, in the NN&N thread one of the sect members is caught in the act of trying to administer that authority online. Clearly annoyed by the obstinacy of The Terminator a sect member called “a believer in Norwich” does the equivalent of excommunicating The Terminator:

We are left with no other recourse but to follow our Lord’s directive to treat him/her, according to his /her own attitude, as those who are outside the realm of the people of God .

And this is carried out on the basis that The Terminator’s behavior:

reveals little care for the headship of Christ or the body of Christ

This online disfellowshipping is a rather a futile gesture as clearly “The Terminator” is not part of the Lee sect fellowship in the first place. What little gravitas this “excommunication” has comes about as a result of the sect’s view of spiritual demographics: The sect divides the world into three populations: the favoured “blended brothers” (sect members, it seems), the apostate church of “divided brothers” (all other sects and denominations of Christianity) and finally the pagans and atheists on the way to hell. It is to the latter group that the excommunicated Terminator has been consigned. The “headship of Christ or the body of Christ” referred to above is none other than the authority of the “recovered” church of Witness Lee: This much becomes clear when one reads the publications cited. It is this authority that has been exercised in excommunicating The Terminator. (I doubt the Terminator gives a damn). It was the basis of this authority that I expected to find and found when I started reading the sects literature; any sect/cult that maintains a strong sense of communal identity and belongingness requires an exalted notion of the group’s religious authority in order keep discipline. This notion of authority can be found in other sects/cults.

The Lee sect members who meet in a city call themselves the “Local Church”. This may seem a rather bland name, a name that is just about as uninformative as calling oneself a “church”; such terms are over allocated. Moreover the qualification “local” adds little distinction, since all churches, accept perhaps for web churches, are local. However, as is always the case with restorationist startups there is a hidden qualifier tacked on to the front of its prosaic and affectedly primitive self designation. In its view they are not merely “a local church” but “THE local church”.

All restorationist startups face one impossible logical conundrum. As an almost invariable rule they rail against the denominational divisions, but in a monumental and yet completely unself-conscious act of collective egotism they never see themselves as just another denominational start-up: They get round this by taking it for granted that unlike all those other corrupt and apostate churches they are THE church; church in its best and purist manifestation. They are, in their opinion, the church restored (or recovered) to what it should be; primitive and simple. This is ever the story one finds amongst JW’s, Mormons, house church restorationists and the like. They usually have novel elements found in no other contemporary or historic churches and thus they have little option but to explain themselves as a modern recovery of what should have been.

However, to talk of some of these restorationists as just another denominational start-up is to do great disservice to the average mainstream denominational church, because the restorationist churches usually have a much stronger sense of their identity and belonging than the average denomination. Moreover, that identity is maintained by the administration of authority, an authority wielded by a strong leadership. So in a sense restorationist sects are a form of deniminationalism++. But this takes us back to my introduction: Sect and cult members are utterly and genuinely unaware of themselves as just another division of Christianity and they too, in their elaboration of belief and practice, are tempted to bury the true Calvary under the suffocating trappings of piety, particularly the trappings of, submission, authority and control.

There is a story of tadpole that mocked frogs for their ill favoured looks and yet the tadpole himself grew up to be an ugly toad. This story is a fitting metaphor for the cult startups who forever criticize and denounce the denominations of the mainstream EPC (Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) community. But it is out of the EPC community from which many sects are spawned. The authoritarian parody of faith that we see in the cult-startups is often prefigured, albeit a less pronounced form, in EPC itself: Spiritual pride and elitism, anti-intellectualism, intense and affected spiritual expressions, haughty condemnations of sin etc. In some ways the restorationist sects are a mirror of EPC, a mirror that exaggerates its less desirable aspects. That mirror needs to be looked by into by the EPC community and the lessons learned. We currently have an opportunity to look into that mirror on the NN&N website.
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