History of the New Apostolic Reformation, Part 4: Churchquake!

the conclusion of a series

The Need for a New Wineskin

In Part 1 of this series, we considered 20th century “revivals,” including the Latter Rain. Part 2 reviewed Word of Faith teachers of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Part 3, we saw how the Jesus People began to combine Word of Faith concepts with Revival. Some in this movement began to seek a new structure that would allow them to incorporate Latter Rain, Word of Faith, and Revivalist ideas and practices without hindrance from denominational authorities. This need for a “new wineskin” seemed evidence that God was doing something new; or rather, that He was restoring something old: gifts, doctrines, and practices that were part of the New Testament Church, but had been lost or suppressed. This assumption incorporated the Latter Rain belief that God was restoring, among other things, a particular understanding of authority and ministry. In the restored Church, authority would reside “in powerful Charismatic figures whose… power was seen as deriving directly from God...”¹ No one personifies these beliefs better than

Bill Hamon (1934- )

Hamon holds that gifts were restored to the Church one decade at a time, beginning in the 1950s, beginning with authentic worship:

I was personally present at the Crescent Beach Bible Conference in 1954 in British Columbia, when this type of worship was birthed in the Latter Rain Movement. … …As the worship lowered to a melodious murmur, suddenly a sister began to prophesy, ‘The King is coming, the King is coming--go ye out to meet Him with dances and rejoicing.’ She started taking ferns out of the flower basket and waving them in the air and laying some of them as if before the Lord as she praised the Lord in the dance across the auditorium in front of the platform. The head of the conference started to stop her but the Holy Spirit told him not to, for it was of God. Within a few minutes most of the audience was praising God with legs swinging and bodies moving in rhythmic praise to God.²

What Hamon recounted lines up with the prediction of George H. Warnock in his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles. The Hope of the Church. Warnock taught that the restoration of praise worship would be followed by the restoration of the fivefold ministry, and the relaying of the apostolic-prophetic foundations of the Church:

"And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals... And they sang together by course (or, alternately) in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord…because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid." (Ezra 3:10-11). It is not without Divine purpose, therefore, that the ministry of spiritual song and music is being restored to the Church. …

The present work of the Holy Spirit in re-establishing the Temple of God and its spiritual order of worship, has really just started. … the saints continue to sing one to another in prophecy, because they can see that the foundation has been laid, and the temple is beginning to take shape.

"Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built (literally, are being built) upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." (Eph. 2:19, 20).

"And God hath set some in the church, first apostles (1 Cor. 12:28).

The time is at hand when God will vindicate who His ministers are, and what their place is in this new Temple. For these ministries are not by human-appointment, nor by self-appointment, but by Divine appointment.

Hamon’s 1997 book, Apostles, Prophets, and the Coming Moves of God,³ presents recent Church history as a series of restorations. The 1500s saw the Protestant movement and a restoration of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. In 1900 came the Pentecostal Movement with the restoration of Holy Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues, and the gifts of the Spirit. 1950: the Latter Rain Movement marked the restoration of the “Prophetic presbytery, singing praises, and melodious worship” and the restoration of the office of evangelist. The 1960 rise of the Charismatic Movement marked the restoration of the office of Pastors . The “Faith Movement” of the 1970s (described as “Word of Faith” in part 2) saw the office of Teacher re-established, and the restoration of “Faith confession, prosperity and victorious attitude and life.” In the 1980s, the office of Prophet returned, with the restoration of “Prophetic, activating gifts, warfare praise, prophets to nations.” The 1990s saw the Apostolic Movement, and a restoration of “Miraculous signs and wonders, apostolic ministry, and unity, great harvest of souls.” The restoration of the office of Apostle was needed to “bring divine order and structure” and “finalize [the] restoration of fivefold ministries.”⁴

The Restoration of Prophets

Why did Hamon date the restoration of the office of prophet to the 1980s? Much of the credit goes to the so-called Kansas City Prophets of Kansas City, Missouri. In 1982, Mike Bickle started the Kansas City Fellowship, where he met Bob Jones (no relation to the founder of Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC), “a country boy from Arkansas with poor grammar and strange ways,” who believed himself a prophet who received messages from heaven and saw “technicolor visions.” Two more prophets joined KCF: Paul Cain and John Paul Jackson. Cain had been a follower of William Branham, the chief inspiration for the Latter Rain. Later, Randy Clark claimed Paul Cain had prophesied the Toronto Blessing. Within seven years, KCF had over 3.000 members on six continents. Both Jones and Cain promoted the Latter Rain idea of “Joel’s Army,” an end-times generation with unsurpassed spiritual powers, ready to confront the global rule of Antichrist and a seven-year Great Tribulation.

For a time, John Wimber was associated with the Kansas City Prophets. In 1989, Wimber invited Cain to speak at a Vineyard conference. Cain gave a “Prophecy for the Vineyard:”

Cain’s sermons specifically referenced the importance of five-fold ministry and portrayed Wimber in apostolic terms, while at the same time promising the Vineyard movement miraculous gifts of the spirit, including the ability to heal people with AIDS.⁵

In 1990, John Alexander Kirkpatrick “Sandy” Millar, charismatic Anglican vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in London (where the Alpha course originated), invited Wimber, Cain, and Jones to speak at HTB. Cain prophesied that a great revival would occur in London.

Expectations were already high as Wimber had “declared that  Cain was never wrong in his prophesies.” They were then heightened with “supra-biblical” teaching from Bob Jones, who Wimber had apparently acknowledged had a “demonic problem” but had nevertheless endorsed as highly prophetic. Jones promised a dramatic increase in signs and wonders for a “new breed of men” and an “army of locusts” who would sweep across the nation in a Holy Spirit revival. Tragically the revival never came... His wife Carol’s posthumous biography of John Wimber tells how many people tried to link his embracing of these prophetic ministries with his illness, but also tells of both of their regrets about endorsing Jones and Cain.⁶

Wimber cut ties with Cain in 1991, but their connection ensured that the Kansas City Prophets would be able to influence The Toronto Blessing.

In 1999, Mike Bickle started the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC), featuring a “prayer room” in which unceasing worship has been offered ever since. Following a prophecy by Bob Jones, Bickle saw this as a step toward the full restoration of “Davidic Worship,” a prerequisite for the end times, when the world will be divided between two houses of prayer, one led by Jesus (including IHOPKC and other end-times prayer ministries) and one by Satan.

In 2004, Paul Cain was disciplined by Bickle and other leaders after they discovered his history of alcohol abuse and homosexual activity. Last year, IHOP permanently cut ties with Bickle himself after credible allegations of sexual abuse.

Today, many NAR prophets publish their messages via The Elijah List and Charisma Magazine.

The Restoration of Apostles

In Wagner’s foreword to a revised edition of Hamon’s The Eternal Church, he explained:

When I first met Bill Hamon in 1992, I had no inkling about any such ting as a Prophetic-Apostolic Movement. In fact it was only two years earlier that I first began understanding prophecy at all, with Bishop Hamon’s book, Prophets and Personal Prophecy, as the main instrument that God used to bring me across the threshold… [T]he following year… God began to pour out to me the revelation as to the new shape that He was giving to Christianity…

The 1993 “revelation” was Wagner’s understanding that if “independent charismatic churches were the most rapidly growing segment of Christianity,” it must be a sign of God’s blessing.⁷ God was doing a new thing; what to call it? Wagner had read an article in 1995 that divided Church history into three periods:

• “The Apostolic Paradigm” (first to third centuries)

• “The Christendom Paradigm” (fourth to mid-twentieth centuries)

• “The New Apostolic Paradigm” (late twentieth to twenty-first centuries)

The next year, he read a book that called fast-growing new churches “apostolic congregations.” Combining these sources, he devised “New Apostolic Reformation.” The word “new” distinguished new groups from the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions, who also called the Church “apostolic.” “Reformation” was included, first, to signal agreement with the essential theological positions of the Protestant Reformation; second, because something new and transformational was happening. “New Apostolic” expressed Wagner’s conviction that only a new structure of leadership was adequate for the new shape God was giving to global Christianity. He now believed that the New Testament office of apostle was “alive and well in churches today.”⁸

In 1996, Wagner convened the National Symposium on the Postdenominational Church at Fuller. There he discarded the term ”postdenominational,” which some found pejorative, and embraced “New Apostolic Reformation.” Looking back in 2014, he showed that he had fully adopted the restorationist timeline of Bill Hamon:

I believe that God began to implement a new process designed to resurface the biblical government of the church. The 1970s witnessed the emergence of the great prayer movements...

As a part of this shift, the gift and office of intercessor began to be recognized by the body of Christ. Following that, the gift and office of prophet began to be highlighted in the 1980s. … Throughout the 1990s, the gift and office of apostle became activated more and more among cutting-edge church leaders.

One of these “cutting-edge” leaders was Wagner himself, who began to organize conferences of apostles, and was commissioned an apostle by Hamon in 1999. Wagner had a very high view of this office:

In terms of the role of the apostle, one of the biggest changes from traditional churches to the New Apostolic Reformation is the amount of spiritual authority delegated by the Holy Spirit to individuals. And the two key words are authority and individuals — and individuals as contrasted to groups. So now, apostles have been raised up by God who have a tremendous authority in the churches of the New Apostolic Reformation. (source)

Not having and not wanting an authoritative denominational structure to ordain and assign ministers, the new apostles formed networks based on voluntary relationships between individual apostles. One early network was the International Coalition of Apostles (now the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders or ICAL) born in 1999 at an informal meeting in Singapore that included Wagner, Ed Silvoso, who had helped the Arnotts meet Argentinian revivalists get the idea for what became the Toronto Blessing, and John Kelly. The largest apostolic networks today are the ICAL, Ché Ahn’s Revival Alliance, Mike Bickle’s IHOPKC, Randy Clark’s Global Awakening, John and Carol Arnott’s Catch the Fire Partners, Bill Johnson’s Global Legacy, and Heidi and Rolland Baker’s Iris Ministries. Note: every person mentioned in this list had close ties to the Toronto Blessing.

Even as the new movement coalesced around apostles and grew, it went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media until 2008, when John McCain nominated Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin had been active in NAR-affiliated churches in Wasilla and Juneau. Three years later, the NAR connections of presidential hopeful Rick Perry were highlighted by Rachel Maddow (transcript here). Journalists wary of the role of conservative Christians in politics and conservative Christians who disagreed with NAR theology suddenly found common ground. Wagner decided to respond, denying that the NAR was a “cult” and clarifying his own theological positions. His response had little measurable impact, in part because by 2011 he was no longer the most visible representative of the New Apostolic Reformation. That distinction belonged to a fifth-generation Assemblies of God pastor,

Bill Johnson (1951 - )

In 1987, Bill Johnson and his wife Beni were pastoring a church in Weaverville, California, and Bill was looking for more. He attended a talk by John Wimber about power evangelism, but left discouraged. In his book When Heaven Invades Earth. A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (first published 2003), he wrote, without any apparent irony or overt reference to 2 Timothy 4:3, “(t)he reason for my discouragement was the fact that they had fruit for what they believed. All I had was good doctrine.” He began taking more risk, asking for healings, and “a number of healings and manifestations broke out and I didn’t know what to do with it. …I just didn’t know how to pastor it in a way that it would continue and increase.” In 1995, Johnson visited the Toronto Blessing revival, and has been on a NAR path ever since. In 1996, Bill and Beni became senior pastors at Bethel Church (Assemblies of God) in Redding, California. Johnson became close with Randy Clark. In 1998, the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry was established. In 2006, Bethel and Johnson left the Assemblies of God. Bethel established a music publishing division, Bethel Music, “to carry the culture of Heaven to the nations through worship.” Today, Bethel is the flagship NAR church in North America, with a worldwide reach.

Some Essential Characteristics of the NAR

In his 2011 article, Wagner enumerated characteristics of the movement that are still key NAR principles today. I will list them and comment on each one.

Apostolic Governance

I agree with Wagner that this is the most radical shift in Protestant Christianity since the Reformation. Wagner’s defense of the NAR understanding of apostles reveals why it is so concerning to traditional Protestants:

I strongly object to journalists using the adjective “self-appointed” or “self-declared” when referring to apostles. No true apostle is self-appointed. They are first gifted by God for that ministry; then the gift and its fruit are recognized by peers and the person is “set in” or “commissioned” to the office of apostle by respected and qualified leaders.

Bethel Church, like Wagner and Hamon, teaches the fivefold ministry concept of the Latter Rain, as seen in this video by Bethel prophet Kris Vallotton.

The Office of Prophets

The prophets, while not holding first place in the fivefold ministry, have a unique relationship with the apostles: “Every apostle needs alignment with prophets, and every prophet needs apostolic alignment.” The apostle focuses on leadership and strategy, while the prophet keeps the community connected to the divine message. This is illustrated by Bethel Church, where prophet Kris Vallotton has been in alignment with senior pastor and apostle Bill Johnson for many years. Vallotton also leads a “School of the Prophets.” The word “alignment” relates to the biblical image of the Church as a building, such as Ephesians 2:20, which says that the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The Church, like buildings made of brick or stone, needs to be plumb and level. Bethel Church is chary of saying that Bill Johnson is an apostle and Kris Vallotton a prophet, but a little digging produces evidence that they believe it.

Dominionism

We saw the basic outline of dominionism or “dominion theology” in the works of E.W. Kenyon. Adam and Eve had dominion over the whole earth. Through disobedience, Adam committed high treason against God and so gave up his legal authority to rule over creation, losing both kingdom and dominion, which were handed over to Satan. When Jesus rose from the dead, Satan was vanquished and lost his dominion over creation. Then came the Great Commission:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:18-20, ESV

In NAR teaching, the essence of the Great Commission is not the charge to evangelize, but the transfer of full authority from the risen Jesus to Christians. Bill Johnson’s message “The Power of the Gospel and the Great Commission” develops this at length, as does this episode of the Bethel Sermon of the Week Podcast (also available in Arabic, French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish):

NAR teachers see dominionism expressed in the Lord’s prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Jesus brought the kingdom of God, and He expects His kingdom-minded people to take whatever action is needed to push back the long-standing kingdom of Satan and bring the peace and prosperity of His kingdom on earth. (Wagner) 

Theocracy: The Seven Mountain Mandate

In 2000, Lance Wallnau and Loren Cunningham met to discuss the “seven mountains” or seven “spheres of influence:” family, religion, education, media, arts & entertainment, business, and government. The idea went back to a vision experienced in 1975 by Cunningham, Francis Schaeffer, and Bill Bright in which they were ordered to “invade” these seven mountains. These three, in turn, had been influenced by the Reformed Reconstructionism of Rousas Rushdoony. In Wagner’s 2008 book Dominion, the “message of prosperity from the Word of Faith movement had been wedded to Rushdoony’s notion of the triumph of the kingdom… Dominion concerned the church’s using democracy to take control through invading the spheres symbolized by the seven mountains.” Wallnau and Bill Johnson took these ideas to a new level in their 2013 book Invading Babylon. “Establishing the kingdom meant operating in the supernatural and bringing the manifest presence of God to each mountain.” The Seven Mountains belief was “discovered” by the mainstream media when Wallnau published God’s Chaos Candidate in 2016, predicting the election of Donald Trump, described by Wallnau as a new Cyrus. The prominent role of NAR figure Paula White-Cain as Trump’s personal spiritual advisor only added to the attention.

Extra-biblical Revelation

In the NAR, prayer is a two-way street, as believers can hear God’s voice; NAR figures routinely teach on this subject, instructing their pupils on how to distinguish God’s voice. One of the mottos of Bethel Church is “God is still speaking.” The scripture used to justify this belief is invariably John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice.” Hamon, Kenneth Hagin, and others distinguish between the logos word of God and the rhema word of God. The written word of God in the Bible is the logos word; the rhema word is also inspired by God, but perceived within the spirit of an individual believer. Both are necessary to the believer and should be considered normal.

Supernatural Signs and Wonders

Today, the practice of “power evangelism” is as important as ever in the NAR, and is considered a normal part of leading a “naturally supernatural” lifestyle. The Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry “is designed to equip students not just to minister in the gifts of the Spirit but to live a supernatural lifestyle. You … are encouraged to be naturally supernatural by bringing heaven to earth wherever you go. We believe Jesus meant it when He taught us to pray ‘Your Kingdom come… on earth as it is in Heaven.’” Similar teaching is given at Randy Clark’s Global Awakening College of Ministry (e.g. this course on physical healing). Bill Johnson observes that Christ did not tell his disciples to pray for the sick, but to heal the sick.

“He gave us power and authority to deal with the works of the devil. He gave us power and authority to silence that illegal voice that torments people with lies and deceptions. And He’s given us the great privilege to walk in the anointing that Jesus Himself walked in. It’s a miracle mandate.”

The scripture text always cited to back this up is John 14:12, “ “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Faithful Reader, you will recall from Part 1 that these are the very first words of George H. Warnock’s 1951 Latter Rain classic, The Feast of Tabernacles.

Relational Structures

Unlike a traditional Christian denomination, the NAR has no one leader or official headquarters. As Wagner observed, “whereas denominations are legal structures, NAR is a relational structure. Everyone is related to or aligned with an apostle or apostles. This alignment is voluntary. … Apostles are not in competition with each other, they are in cahoots.” This was illustrated in 2008 by the participation of Wagner, Bill Johnson, John Arnott, Ché Ahn and other apostles in the “apostolic alignment” and commissioning of Todd Bentley (video) during the Lakeland Revival in Florida. Bentley was also endorsed by Randy Clark. A few months after his commissioning, Bentley separated from his wife and later married his intern.

Conclusion

Here we bring to an end the fourth and final part of this “brief” history of the NAR. Some of you have already noticed that I left out important things like Wagner’s belief in “strategic level spiritual warfare” and the practice of “spiritual mapping,” not to mention other topics I found even more fascinating. I have also neglected the worldwide reach, presence, and activity of the NAR outside of North America. In deciding what to leave in and what to leave out, my aim has been to give the reader enough familiarity with the history, doctrines, and practices of the NAR that when I begin to discuss its influence among Catholics, my presentation will be readily understood. Those wishing a work that allots more space to the geo-political influence of the NAR may profitably consult John Weaver’s work cited below. Thank you for your patient understanding, and I invite you all to look forward to the next post: Schools of (Supernatural) Ministry.

1. John Weaver, The New Apostolic Reformation: History of a Modern Charismatic Movement (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2016), chap. 1, Kindle.

2. (Bill Hamon, Prophets and the Prophetic Movement, Vol. 2, Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1990, pp. 117,118)

3. “[Hamon’s] books have been personally endorsed by C. Peter Wagner (Endorsements, Day of the Saints). Wagner wrote the forewords for several of Hamon’s books, including Prophetic Scriptures Yet to Be Fulfilled (Wagner in Hamon, Prophetic 17–19) and Apostles, Prophets, and the Coming Moves of God (Wagner in Hamon, Apostles xxi-xxiii). In addition, Hamon’s work is endorsed by numerous other important NAR figures, such as James Goll, Chuck Pierce, Ed Silvoso, and Cindy Jacobs; Hamon’s work has also been endorsed by more mainstream Charismatic figures such as Oral Roberts...” Weaver, The New Apostolic Reformation.

4. In a later work, Hamon gets more precise, stating that the ministry of prophets was restored to the Church in 1988, and that of apostles was restored in 1995.

5. Weaver, The New Apostolic Reformation.

6. https://yournameislikehoney.com/2021/11/29/part-twelve-when-revival-doesnt-happen-kansas-city-prophets-and-toronto-htb/

7. C, Peter Wagner, Churchquake! How the New Apostolic Reformation is Shaking Up the Church as We Know It. Ventura, California: Regal Books, 1999, 11.

8. This explanation is based on what Wagner wrote in Churchquake! In 2011, he had a slightly different justification for the label NAR.