Response to the article, Exposing the NAR Conspiracy, by Daniel Kolenda
Daniel Kolenda would lump me in with the NAR conspiracy theorists, I suppose, demonstrated by my book, published in 2017 by Earthen Vessel Publishing: False Prophets Among Us: What is the New Apostolic Reformation and Why is it Dangerous?
Currently I am pastor of Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Valley, CA (San Francisco Bay Area), now in my 38th year there. I was a street evangelist in the Haight-Ashbury beginning in February 1967. A little more than a year later, though I was a fundamentalist Baptist type, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues. I am not a cessationist, nor a complementarian, and hold to a moderate Reformed theology. I yet pray for healings and am very active in deliverance ministry, mostly via Zoom these days.
In the late 1980s I attended both the beginning and advanced church growth seminars at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and spent many hours talking with C. Peter Wagner and Charles Kraft about the moving of the Holy Spirit during the Jesus People Movement. I also attended sessions where John Wimber taught us how to lead worship by means of proper lighting, music, and talented worship leaders.
I have attended services at the Bethel Church in Redding and have close friends who have been very active there for many years. Many of the top names in the NAR I have heard there as well.
Conspiracy theorist?? This term cannot be applied to those who question what goes on in places like the Bethel Church in Redding. Plus, there are many of us who doubt that the anointed apostles and prophets who report being in the “throne room” in heaven, speaking directly with the Father and the Son, even sitting on the laps of Jesus and others, and given important messages to relay back on earth are speaking truthfully.
It went even wilder with the prophecies about Donald Trump being re-elected as president. I viewed the video where Kris Vallotton apologized for the false prophecies he gave out on this matter. Apparently 20% accuracy on “words from God” is acceptable at his School of the Supernatural there at Bethel.
Then there is “soaking prayer,” where people lay for hours in what looks like a trance state just slathering in the Spirit. It is a page right out of the Shaman’s or Wiccan’s handbook.
We are not talking conspiracy here; no, we must be aware that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (see 1 Peter 5:8). Those of us who speak these “unpleasant to hear words” do so for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we view as playing with fire and that of the infernal kind.