Tag: Centering Prayer

New Apostolic Reformation

What is the New Apostolic Reformation?

Michelle Lesley

If you’re more of a listener or watcher than a reader, you can listen to the A Word Fitly Spoken podcast version of this article here:

Or, if you subscribe to Answers TV, you can watch the live version I delivered at Answers in Genesis’ 2025 Answers for Women conference, Resolute.

If you’re listening or watching (or even if you’re reading, I guess!), here’s the accompanying study guide if you’d like to take notes.

Have you ever heard the term “New Apostolic Reformation” or “NAR” and have some idea of what it is?

If not, I’m so glad the Lord led you here, because, over the last 20 years or so, the New Apostolic Reformation has become the predominant form of false doctrine in Protestant American evangelicalism, and you’ve probably encountered it in some way, even if you’re just now learning what it’s called.

In my opinion, the NAR is the most dangerous form of false doctrine in the United States today because so many people think it is biblical Christianity and unknowingly import it into reasonably doctrinally sound churches. I mean, I’ve never heard of Anytown Baptist Church teaching (as Christianity) that Mohammed was a prophet or that God lives next door to the planet Kolob, but you’ll certainly see NAR beliefs and practices like dominionism, unbiblical manifestations of the “Holy Spirit” and NAR prayer practices gradually creeping into many average evangelical churches.

And, to our shame, America has so diligently exported this false doctrine to other countries under the banner of “missions,” that in many areas of the world – particularly Africa – the New Apostolic Reformation is the primary representation of so-called “Christianity”.

It is pervasive, it is heretical, it is blasphemous, and it is sending people to Hell at an alarming rate. 

Because this is an article (albeit a long one) rather than a book, I want to give you an overview of a few of the major points of New Apostolic Reformation doctrine, and then I want to focus in on unbiblical NAR practices and experiences so you’ll be able to more easily spot an NAR church*, recognize when a loved one is straying into NAR false doctrine, and keep NAR false doctrine from creeping into your own church. 

*New Apostolic Reformation organizations are heretical, which means their organizations are not “churches” and their adherents are not “Christians”. Typically, when I write about the NAR, I use “scare quotes” when referring to NAR “churches” and other Christian terminology the NAR has co-opted. However, because of the volume of this terminology in an article of this length, I felt that attempting to do so would be distracting to the reader and burdensome to the writing process. I have, therefore, left most of them out. But please understand, NAR “churches” are no more real churches than a Mormon “church” or a Jehovah’s Witness “church”.

Because that’s the immediate danger here. You’re not going to go to an NAR “church’s” website, go read their statement of faith page, and see – clearly spelled out for you – the doctrines explained below. But you probably will notice the outward signs and practices. So I do want to give those unbiblical practices and experiences some emphasis.

So let’s start by taking a look at…

Major NAR Doctrines

The first thing you need to understand is that one thing the NAR has in common with the rest of the evangelical world is that there are variations in beliefs and practices from church to church and individual to individual. I mean, I’m Baptist. You ask ten random Baptists what they believe, and you’re going to get ten different answers, even though there will be a lot of similarities.

It’s the same with the NAR. And on top of that, because this is a doctrine of demons, and its leaders disguise themselves as angels of light, some of them will flat out deny right to your face that they believe, teach, and practice some of these things, when you’ve read in their books, and heard in their sermons, and watched in videos of their worship services that they do.

Another thing that leads to variations in beliefs is that the NAR is not an organized denomination like the PCA or the ELCA. There’s no defined structure of leadership or governance. There’s no headquarters building, no national president, no official creed, confession, or statement of beliefs that all its churches hold to, no membership criteria for admitting or dismissing churches, or, indeed, even the concept of “membership” itself, because there’s no denomination for churches to be a member of.

So just keep that in mind. If you walk up to your friend NAR Nancy and say, “I heard your church believes X, Y, and Z,” she’s very likely to say either, “No, it doesn’t,” or “I never heard of that,” because NAR “churches” really minimize teaching and doctrine and maximize feelings and experiences.

But let’s look at some of those doctrines that most NAR churches and those in leadership in the NAR hold in common:

False Doctrine 1:
Restoration of the offices of Apostle and Prophet

Probably the most definitive, stake your claim doctrine of the NAR that separates them from typical, Bible believing Protestant churches, is that they believe God has restored the offices of Apostle and Prophet. “Capital A” Apostle, as in Peter and Paul. “Capital P” Prophet, as in Isaiah and Jeremiah. 

NAR doctrine holds that the offices of Apostle and Prophet have been restored to the church, and that God places people in those offices today to rule and run the church. The prophets (supposedly) receive new revelations from God and the apostles take that revelation and apply it to govern the church.

Here’s why that’s unbiblical: Acts 1:21-26 clearly spells out the normative requirements for the office of Apostle: 

1. He had to have followed Jesus during His entire earthly ministry, from his baptism by John the Baptist to His ascension. And/or (in the case of Paul)…

2. He had to have been an eyewitness to the resurrected Christ.

3. He had to have been personally appointed to the office by Christ Himself.

Now, NAR apostles will skirt around numbers 2 and 3 by telling you that Jesus appeared to them and personally appointed them in a dream or a vision. But even if you give them that, not a single one of them followed Jesus during His earthly ministry, the very first requirement of an Apostle.

Furthermore, if God wanted Apostles and Prophets running the church today, why doesn’t He say in the New Testament that He wants Apostles and Prophets running the church? There is no mention whatsoever of the office of Prophet in the New Testament, or any qualifications a man must meet if he wants to hold the office of Prophet in the church. And none of the original Apostles in Acts were replaced when they died.

We have the pastoral epistles – 1&2 Timothy and Titus. These are the policy and procedure manuals for the church. You’ve read them (and if you haven’t you can stop right now and read all three of them in 30-40 minutes). Do they say anything about Apostles and Prophets running the church? No, they don’t.

The Apostle Paul, an actual Apostle – under the divine, theopneustos inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes these words to Titus, who’s getting a bunch of new churches up and running… 

For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.

Titus 1:5

Not Apostles. Not Prophets. Elders. And then he goes on in verses 6-9 (and in 1 Timothy 3:1-7) to list the qualifications of elders, or overseers, or pastors, not Prophets and Apostles. If God wanted Prophets and Apostles running the church He would have said so right here. And He doesn’t.

False Doctrine 2:
Dominionism and the 7 Mountain Mandate

The NAR believes that the biblical gospel isn’t good enough. You know the gospel, right? If not, or if you’re not sure, click here. That’s the gospel. That is the complete gospel. We don’t add to it or take away from it.

But the NAR says that’s not the complete gospel. They have what they call the Kingdom Gospel, which is the gospel plus the idea that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection made it possible for NAR “Christians” to take dominion of the earth, and gave them a mandate to do so.

Now, this is not your Genesis 1:28 dominion where God tells Adam to take dominion over the fish and the birds and every living creature. This is also not the idea of sharing the gospel and being salt and light – being a godly influence on the world – like Scripture tells us to. 

This is the idea of the NAR taking over every institution and government of every nation, and eventually, literally ruling the world in order to usher in the second coming of Christ. That’s dominionism.

They even have a plan for doing this called the 7 Mountain Mandate, which basically breaks society down into seven different categories or “mountains” to move – government, media, family, business & finance, education, church & religion, and arts & entertainment.

The NAR twists two main Scriptures to teach this.

  1. The Great Commission- Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…”. What does that mean? It means “as you go,” as you walk through life each day, share the gospel with people and disciple them if they become Believers. Send out missionaries. That’s what the Great Commission means.

    The NAR teaches that “make disciples of all the nations,” means make every nation disciples. Infiltrate every corner of every nation and make that nation NAR.
  2. The other Scripture they twist is in the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Does that mean we’re supposed to literally take over the world and establish God’s kingdom on earth by force or by stealth? Of course not. But that’s what the NAR believes and teaches.

    “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What does that mean? It’s similar to “Maranatha: come Lord Jesus”. It is our prayer that Christ will come soon to rule and reign over all the earth. 

False Doctrine 3:
Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare

This is not the biblical spiritual warfare we find in Ephesians 6 with the full armor of God – standing firm in Christ with prayer, study of the Word, righteousness, truth, and so on. 

This is more like something out of a scary Hollywood movie. The NAR believes that there are powerful, high ranking demons and evil spirits that control various geographical regions or territories as well as those 7 mountains in the 7 Mountain Mandate. These evil spirits have to be driven out before the NAR can take dominion of all of the seven mountains, and, thus, each nation.

You’ve read your New Testament. Does the Bible teach this? Of course not. Say it loud. Say it convictionally. Say it fearlessly and without shame:

THE BIBLE DOESN’T TEACH THAT.

That is spiritual warfare. Stand firm against the schemes of the devil -like the false teaching of the New Apostolic Reformation- by girding your loins with truth and taking up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. That is spiritual warfare.

False Doctrine 4:
Signs and Wonders

This is probably the best known doctrine of the NAR because it’s the most visible and publicized. The NAR teaches that you can do all the same miracles you saw Jesus do during his earthly ministry. 

For many, the reason they believe this is that they believe a twisted version of Philippians 2:6-7. They think when that passage says Jesus “emptied Himself,” that He gave up His deity. That when He came to earth, He was not God. This is called Kenoticism, or the Kenotic heresy. 

Bethel Church in Redding, California, is basically ground zero for the NAR in the United States- and that’s what they believe. That’s why you’ll hear discerning Christians say that Bethel and the NAR are heretical. Because they are. They literally deny the deity of Christ. You can’t get more heretical than that.

Both Bethel and most of the NAR believe Jesus was just a regular human being like you and me who was so faithful to God and so filled with the Spirit that He was able to work miracles. So, of course, if you’re able to be that faithful to God and filled with the Spirit, you can do those miracles, too. 

They’ll also take you to John 14:12, where Jesus said: “…he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do…” 

Now, if you’re a good student of your Bible, you will read this verse in context and you will quickly see that it is not promising or commanding Christians today to go out and work miracles.

But the NAR twists this verse to mean that they are to do all the same miracles Jesus did. Mostly healing the sick and raising the dead. And then you’ve also got speaking in tongues, and prophecy, and extra-biblical revelation.

But they don’t even get their own Bible twisting right, because Jesus didn’t just say they would do the same works He did. Jesus said those of us who believe on Him would do greater works than He did. What’s greater than healing the sick, or raising the dead?

There’s only one thing greater than that- it’s the miracle that takes place when God raises the spiritually dead to newness of life in Christ.  We have the privilege and the honor of being entrusted by Christ to take the gospel – the true gospel – to those who are dead in their sins so that Jesus can give them life. 

That’s the greater work. Jesus could not do that work during His earthly ministry the way we can, because He had not yet died and risen from the grave. And another thing – Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was spent in that little tiny area of Israel. It wasn’t God’s plan for Him to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth like we’ve been able to do. So it’s a greater work in that sense, too.

But the NAR not only gets it wrong in that they don’t understand what the greater work is, they don’t even do the same works Jesus did. They have never genuinely healed one person. They have never genuinely raised one person from the dead. They’ve never multiplied food for thousands or calmed a storm or caused a fig tree to wither instantaneously. Never. If they had, there would be evidence of it.

Now, as I said, your average NAR churchgoer who just shows up for the worship experience on Sunday morning is likely not to even be aware of these doctrines or that her church subscribes to them, because, while some of these things might be hinted at, implied, or assumed on Sunday morning, generally speaking, NAR churches don’t usually sit their members down and formally teach and explain these doctrines to them. 

They don’t have a church covenant you sign, or a creed you recite, or a statement of faith, confession, or catechism that says these things. In fact it’s often the opposite – they try to hide these things because they know it’s weird and unbiblical and it’s going to turn people away. And they don’t want to do that, they want to draw people in so they can deceive them. 

So, if NAR false doctrine starts creeping into your church, it’s not going to look like your pastor standing up in the pulpit and saying, “Please turn to Philippians 2 and let us learn the Kenotic heresy.” And if your brother and sister-in-law start going to an NAR church, she’s not going to tell you over coffee that they learned all about strategic level spiritual warfare in Sunday School last week.

What you will see and hear is the NAR’s unbiblical practices, experiences, and street level Bible twisting.

Unbiblical NAR Practices and Experiences

I opened this article by asking if you were familiar with the NAR. If not, you might be familiar with the Word of Faith or prosperity gospel: 

Name it and claim it / blab it and grab it

It’s never God’s will for you to suffer, be poor, or be sick.

It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful. 

To live your best life now, as Joel Osteen would have us believe.

Because the NAR and the Word of Faith movement both have their roots in charismatic Pentecostalism, there is a great deal of overlap between the two as far as what they look like to most people. In fact, the way I usually explain it is that the NAR takes the Word of Faith and kicks it up a notch with outlandish “supernatural” manifestations and signs and wonders, and blasphemously attributes these to the Holy Spirit. 

So let’s take a look at some of the NAR’s unbiblical practices and experiences. Some of these will be common to Word of Faith/prosperity gospel churches as well.

Street Level Bible Twisting

Health, Wealth, and Prosperity

Like the Word of Faith, the NAR teaches followers that it is never God’s will for Christians to be poor, unsuccessful, or sick. It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful. The Word of Faith tends to place a little more emphasis on the “wealthy and successful” part. The NAR tends to place a little more emphasis on the “healthy” part.

There are a couple of Scriptures they twist for this. One is John 10:34, where Jesus, in order to demonstrate to the Pharisees that they were being hypocritical and inconsistent, quoted Psalm 82:6: “Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”.

Now, obviously, Jesus was not saying that you and I possess any level of deity whatsoever, because the entirety of the Bible clearly teaches against that. Take the time to read those verses in context and you’ll plainly see that. But both the NAR and the Word of Faith rip these verses out of context so they can say that we are “little gods” – we are divine.

Now, think about it: God can’t get sick. God can’t be poor. So if we’re little gods, we can’t be sick or poor either.

They will also take you to Isaiah 53:5, which, speaking of Jesus’ crucifixion, says, in part, “by His [stripes or] wounds we are healed.” Now, we understand, just by reading the rest of that verse, that what’s being said there is that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for our sins. We are “healed” from our sinful state of spiritual unwellness by the physical unwellness -the wounds- Jesus suffered on the cross that led to His death for us. 

And we can even go so far as to say that Jesus’ wounds did ultimately pay for our physical healing, because those of us who are in Christ will all be completely, totally healed the moment we step into eternal life with Jesus.

But the NAR and Word of Faith will tell you that Isaiah 53:5 means that Jesus’ death on the cross purchased your healing in this life on earth. And that’s demonstrably not true. Any pagan can look around and see that even the most godly person he can think of gets sick, gets injured, and eventually dies.

I mean, just take a look at the Johnson family. They have plenty of health issues. Bill Johnson, the leader of Bethel, wears glasses. He had a serious intestinal blockage several years ago that required surgery. I would guess that, at 73 years old, he takes just as many medications for high blood pressure, or diabetes, or cholesterol, or whatever, as most 73 year olds take. Bill’s wife, Beni, who literally wrote the book on health, called Healthy and Free, tragically died of cancer in 2022.

Their own theology doesn’t even work for them.

Love Bombing, Ego Boosting, and Environmental Manipulation

Just the general air and experience of attending an NAR worship service is also Bible twisting. Everything is centered around and focused on you rather than on Christ, even though the whole time they’re saying the focus is on Christ.

But their view of Jesus is that He’s a life enhancement accessory. Jesus is there to serve me, to make my life better, to give me all the stuff my greedy little heart desires. Remember John 6:26? After He fed the 5000, Jesus said to the crowd of people following Him, “you seek Me, because you ate of the loaves and were filled”. 

In other words, they weren’t following Jesus because they wanted Jesus. They were following Him to get something out of Him: food, healing, miracles. Something to make their earthly lives easier and better. That’s what the NAR is. They don’t want Jesus, they want a genie.

So even when an NAR church is supposedly focusing on Jesus – singing about Jesus, preaching and teaching about Jesus, praying to Jesus – they’re really still focused on you, because their false Jesus is just a means to an end to get you what you want.

So you walk in the front door, and you’re immediately love bombed – especially if you’re new. You get a million hugs, and everyone’s so thrilled to see you: “Can I help you with that?” “Here’s a coffee and a swag bag for first time visitors.” “Why don’t you come out to lunch with us after?”. You’re made to feel like a queen. Like you’re the most important person in the building. 

This is not biblical hospitality – because this place isn’t biblical – this is Satanic manipulation and deception. It’s the same kind of thing cults do to draw people in.

You go in and find your seat, and the house lights go down, and the band comes out, and you get an hour long concert that you can sing along with if you want. It’s music that’s written specifically to get a hold of your emotions. It stirs you and makes you feel good. 

The music is often very repetitive and literally mind numbing, because that puts you in a suggestive state, very much like hypnosis. Sometimes they will even tell you something like, “Just empty your mind and sing with your heart and let the spirit move.”

Then someone they call a pastor will come out on the stage, and he or she will give you a word salad with a few Bible verses for croutons, some general truisms and tips you could get from Dr. Phil or Oprah, and tell you a bunch of emotionally manipulative stories. 

It’s all about how much God loves you, how great He thinks you are, and how wonderful He wants your life to be. And so quickly that you can’t even catch it, they’re weaving in unbiblical ideas here and nuggets of false doctrine there.

And you’ll get out of there high as a kite, feeling like you can conquer the world and God just thinks you’re awesome… until about 6 a.m. on Monday when the alarm goes off and real life sets in. And you still have all the same problems. And you still have all the same bills you’re struggling to pay. And you’re still taking all the same medications you were taking yesterday. 

It’s cotton candy Christianity. It’s fake. They’re not teaching you what the Bible really teaches, and they’re teaching you to worship yourself instead of Christ.

Unbiblical Signs and Wonders

This is what really has marked the NAR in recent years because it’s so obvious and attention grabbing, and in most cases, so clearly fake and unbiblical.

Some of these things are rooted in the NAR’s misunderstanding and twisting of the events surrounding Pentecost. For example…

Speaking in Tongues, etc.

If you will sit down with your Bible and carefully read Acts 2, you will see two things about the phrase “speaking in other tongues”.

The first thing you will see is that “tongues,” in this passage, means known, legitimate, foreign languages. Verse 5 says, “there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.”

In verse 8, those devout men from every nation under heaven said of the apostles, “We each hear them in our own language in which we were born.” 

And verse 11 bookends the whole thing by saying, “We hear them in our own tongues [languages] speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”

Why were the apostles speaking in all these different languages? To preach the gospel to all these people who spoke different languages. They didn’t have Google Translate. And this purpose is borne out by the rest of the chapter where you can read Peter’s sermon on the gospel.

That’s not how speaking in tongues is practiced in NAR churches. It’s not a legitimate tool for explaining the gospel to someone who doesn’t speak your language. Again, it’s all about you, and how you can have this supposedly supernatural experience of speaking meaningless syllables that makes you feel good and supposedly brings you closer to God as you worship Him. That’s not what the Bible teaches about speaking in tongues. 

Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 says that in the church setting, a maximum of three people can speak in a tongue and someone must interpret it from the foreign language being spoken into the common language spoken by the church. And you will rarely, if ever, see those two commands being obeyed in NAR churches.

Some other unbiblical NAR manifestations that seem like they may have been extrapolated from tongues and other events at Pentecost: holy laughter, strange “anointings,” glory clouds of gold dust, tremoring, false prophecy, grave sucking, raising the dead, trips to Heaven, and being “drunk in the Spirit.”

False Prophecy and Extra-Biblical Revelation

Did any true prophet in the Bible ever say, “Thus says the Lord…” and then get it wrong? Of course not. One reason for this was that the punishment for false prophets was execution. 

Deuteronomy 13 and 18 both tell us that…

  • If a prophet’s prophecy comes true, but he leads you astray to false gods (like the false god of the NAR) or
  • If a prophet speaks something God has not commanded him to speak (like the “prophets” of the NAR do) or
  • If a prophet speaks in the name of a false god (like the false god of the NAR)

…that prophet is to be put to death. 

Am I advocating for the death penalty for false prophets today? No, I am not. All I’m saying is, in the Old Testament, all of the NAR prophets would be dead three times over.

The God these people teach isn’t the God of the Bible. The things these people tell you aren’t prophecies. They’re much more like the false prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah warned about who just tell you what you want to hear to make you feel good.

And from the prophet even to the priest everyone practices lying. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6: 13-14

And listen to what God says about His people who prefer the message of false prophets over true prophets:

For this is a rebellious people, false sons,
Sons who are not willing to listen to the law of Yahweh,
Who say to the seers [the true prophets of God], “You must not see,”
And to those who have visions [the true prophets of God], “You must not behold visions for us of what is right,
Speak to us pleasant words, behold visions of illusions.
Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,
Cease speaking before us about the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 30:9-11

In other words, God’s people are telling the true prophets, like Isaiah, “Stop telling us the hard truths of God’s Word. Be nice! Tell us nice things that make us feel good! Scratch our itching ears!”.

NAR prophecies, extra-biblical revelation, words of knowledge – these supposed revelations from God that are found nowhere in the Bible – are the vain imaginings of their own minds. Case in point, the 2020 Presidential election. 

Anybody on the planet had a 50-50 chance of correctly guessing who would be the next President, Trump or Biden. Every single NAR prophet who gave a public prophecy got it wrong. Every single one of them. They all said Trump would win the election and occupy the White House, serving as president.

There’s no New Testament special dispensation for prophets to get things wrong. They don’t have the gift of prophecy. They aren’t prophets.

Related to false prophecy and extra-biblical revelation, the NAR is also largely responsible for many of the corrupt teachings on prayer that have become popular in recent years, such as: contemplative/centering prayer (which we see creeping into churches through the teachings of Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Lysa TerKeurst, Christine Caine, and others), lectio divina, Sozo prayer, healing rooms, and soaking prayer.

Fake Healings

You’ve probably seen videos of Benny Hinn and other fake faith healers calling people up on stage and pretending to heal them.

Maybe you’ve even seen the man on the street videos of Todd White going up to random people and pretending to lengthen their one leg that’s shorter than the other. 

You might have even heard of Todd Bentley who has been known to try to  heal people by kicking or punching them, such as the man with stomach cancer whom he kicked in the gut.

None of these so-called miracle healings are real. Benny Hinn only allows people into his healing lines who have invisible or fake illnesses, so you can’t tell whether they’re really healed or not. Todd White’s leg lengthening has been demonstrated to be a parlor trick. Todd Bentley has injured more people than he’s healed.

If you still think these things are real, ask yourself, “Where are the doctors and hospitals publicly coming forward and saying, ‘Yes, this person was genuinely, medically healed,’ and why wasn’t it splashed all over the news?”.

Why don’t these fake healers ever heal someone medically documented to be paralyzed, or brain injured, or with cerebral palsy?

Why don’t they walk into hospitals and heal everyone there?

How come there’s not one video of a fake healer instantly growing back an amputee’s arm or leg, or healing someone’s badly disfigured face, or making the skin of a burn victim like new?

God still heals people all the time. He heals people in answer to our prayers, usually through modern medicine and the body’s own healing properties, but sometimes miraculously and inexplicably by His own hand. He is not giving people the sign gift of healing today, and even if He were, it certainly wouldn’t be to these rank heretics.

Resurrections

I’m not really sure why, but these people think they can raise the dead. They’ve never done it. There’s never been any medical documentation of it. And in this age of everyone having smart phones, there’s never been photographic or video evidence of it. 

And, I mean, if somebody who was certifiably dead was resurrected, where is he? He ought to be up walking around among us and telling his story on every news channel and talk show.

No one raised Bill Johnson’s wife from the dead when she died of cancer a few years ago. Why not?

In December of 2019, a precious 2 year old little girl named Olive tragically died in her sleep. As a mother and grandmother, I can only imagine the excruciating heartbreak and agony her family went through. 

Olive’s parents were members of Bethel Redding where her mother was also a worship leader. Instead of making funeral arrangements for Olive, they contacted Bethel’s dead raising team.

No, I’m not kidding. Your church has a hospitality committee, Bethel has a dead raising team. 

And for – not one, not two, – but five days, they cried out to their god, they sang, they jumped around, they chanted “Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive!”. And “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.” The false god of Bethel did not answer them. 

And this story went viral – all over the world. And I remember following this story, and how all I could think about when I saw the pictures and videos of all of this was the 1 Kings 18 story of the prophets of Baal crying out to their false god to answer them with fire and consume their sacrifice. But, verse 29 tells us, “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.”

On the sixth day the parents announced that they were planning Olive’s funeral. And how do you think that momma and daddy felt, when, at the worst moment of their lives, their false god failed them and didn’t give them back that precious baby? 

Bill Johnson, their pastor whom they trusted, failed them. Their church that so believed they could resurrect the dead, that they had a dead raising team, failed them because Bethel believed and taught lies.

Second only to the fact that NAR heresy sends people to Hell, the cruelest of their false teachings is that they can resurrect the dead.

These are just a few of the more notable unbiblical signs and wonders of the NAR. There are so many more. 

NAR People and Organizations to Be Aware Of

I’ve covered some of what the NAR believes, teaches, and practices, but I think it might help you to know some of the movers and shakers in this movement, so if your friend comes to you and says, “I’m reading a book by this lady,” or “I started listening to a podcast by that guy,” you’ll immediately be on the alert.

But please understand, the NAR has been the fastest growing version of so-called Christianity over the last 20+ years, so this is by no means anywhere near a comprehensive list.

If you want to avoid false teachers and heretical organizations in the New Apostolic Reformation, mark and avoid:

Anyone who calls him or herself an apostle, prophet, or prophetess

Bethel Church in Redding, CA, Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry – anyone involved with those and any content, books, materials, music, etc. that comes out of the Bethel universe. 

Bill Johnson (Bethel’s pastor), Brian and Jenn Johnson (Bethel’s worship leaders and founders of Bethel Music). Pretty much anybody with the last name of Johnson who’s associated with Bethel. 

Kathryn Krick

Todd White 

Kenneth Hagin 

Dutch Sheets

Brandon Lake (close ties to Bethel)

Todd Bentley

Patricia King

Matt and Laurie Crouch, and the rest of the Crouch family over at TBN

Joni Lamb and the rest of the Lamb family over at Daystar TV

Jennifer LeClaire 

Steven Strang (CEO of Charisma Magazine)

Cindy Jacobs

Cory Asbury (Reckless Love)

Rick Joyner (Morningstar Ministries)

Rod Parsley

Kris Valloton

Heidi Baker

Andrew Wommack (Charis Bible College)

Kat Kerr

Paula White (head of President Trump’s faith office)

Shawn Bolz

Benny Hinn

C. Peter Wagner

Lance Wallnau

Che Ahn (Harvest International Ministries)

James Goll

Lou Engle

Phil Wickham

John and Lisa Bevere

If you hear one of these names, you’re dealing with someone in the New Apostolic Reformation. (And if you’d like more information on any of those listed above, try the ministries listed here.)

Now you may have just read a name that surprised and offended you because you like that person. I want you to think about something. If I told you that person was a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Hindu, and because of that, you shouldn’t listen to him, you wouldn’t have any problem with me saying that. 

The New Apostolic Reformation is just as false, and heretical, and blasphemous as any of those other false religions, but because it calls itself “Christian,” and because your church might use music or materials from some of those people, it’s not as obvious. 

The NAR in Music and Women’s Ministry

If you listen to contemporary Christian music, you probably recognized the names of some musicians in the list above: Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, Brandon Lake, Cory Asbury, and Phil Wickham. And there are many more.

Two of the main ways NAR false doctrine usually begins infiltrating otherwise healthy churches is through the music ministry and the women’s ministry. 

Bethel Music and its production and publication companies practically have a monopoly on the contemporary worship music industry. If your church sings contemporary worship music in the worship service, you’re probably using music from Bethel, Phil Wickham, Hillsong, and/or Elevation. In order, those are the top four most widely used sources for worship music.

When you bring music like that into your church – even the songs with seemingly biblical lyrics – people like it, they start listening to the music outside the church, and that acts like a gateway drug to draw them in to the NAR and its false doctrine.

Bill Johnson has proudly and publicly boasted about doing this – on purpose. That’s why they’ve built up this music empire. It’s by design, to draw people in.

I, and many others who teach against the NAR, have heard the testimonies of hundreds of people who have told us that’s exactly how they got drawn away into a New Apostolic Reformation church.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

1 Corinthians 10:12

Can a man take fire in his bosom
And his clothes not be burned?
Or can a man walk on hot coals
And his feet not be scorched?

Proverbs 6:27-28

You don’t know when you’re being deceived. That’s why it’s deception. 

That’s why the Bible doesn’t teach us to chew up the meat and spit out the bones. It teaches us to stay away from these people altogether. 

I explain things like this when I teach, and I explain all the blasphemies and cruelties the NAR commits against vulnerable people, and I still have Christians come up to me and argue with me that it’s perfectly fine to for them to listen to NAR artists like the ones I just mentioned. 

Examine the music your church uses, and, if necessary, have a talk with your pastor about it.

Also, examine the materials your women’s ministry is using and the conferences they’re attending. It’s extremely likely that the authors and teachers your women’s ministry follows are in the NAR themselves, or they’re partnering with and embracing NAR teachers, or they are in some way being influenced by NAR teachers.

Research the authors and teachers your church uses and that you follow. See who they surround themselves with. First Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals.” Or if you want the country version: If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Birds of a feather flock together.

This is one of the reasons why Romans 16:17-18, and 2 John 9-11, and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, and Titus 1:9 and so many other passages of Scripture command us to have nothing to do with false teachers.

If you find NAR false doctrine infiltrating your church, kindly, lovingly, gently, take what you’ve learned today, go to your pastor, and express your concerns.

Why is any of this important?

A lot of well meaning Christians look at NAR “churches” and think, “Well, they may worship a little differently, but it’s no big deal. We all love Jesus!” 

No, we do not.

Regardless of what they say, people who believe and teach damnable heresy, by biblical definition, do not love Jesus. And it is harmful to those people and the vulnerable people they’re deceiving, to say – or treat them like – they do.

I told you about baby Olive and her parents. I didn’t mention the thousands of direly ill and disabled people, the parents of children with terminal cancer, or who are horribly disfigured, who give their life savings to these fake healers because that is their last hope. And they’re either turned away, or they’re not healed, and they’re told it’s their fault because they just didn’t have enough faith.

Or how about the young woman who was almost murdered because she believed a false prophecy that it was God’s will for her to marry this certain guy who turned out to be unspeakably abusive.

The NAR is evangelically-sanctioned spiritual abuse. It has destroyed countless lives, ruins everything it touches, and has sent untold millions to Hell for all eternity.

And as unfathomably awful as that is – exponentially worse than all of that – New Apostolic Reformation heresy is a slap in the face to our precious Jesus who hung on a cruel Roman cross in agony for your sins and for mine. 

It is blasphemy of the highest order against God, our Father. It is lying about, slandering, and maligning the Holy Spirit.

The New Apostolic Reformation is heresy and has no place in a Christian church in any way, shape, or form. Stay far away from it. Protect yourself. Protect your loved ones. Protect your church.

Additional Resources:

Holly Pivec’s books

Clouds Without Water by Justin Peters

New Apostolic Reformation by Apologetics Index

The New Apostolic Reformation Cornucopia of False Doctrine, Dominionism, Charismania and Deception  by Messed Up Church

New Apostolic Reformation by Berean Research

Truth & Transformation (video series) with Costi Hinn and Justin Peters

Kundalini Warning videos by Andrew Strom

The Six Hallmarks of a NAR Church by Berean Examiner

Drunk in the Spirit by Todd Friel

Popular False Teachers see links for “International House of Prayer (IHOP)” and “Jesus Culture/Bethel Music/Bethel Church (Redding, CA)/Bill Johnson”

God’s Not Like “Whatever, Dude,” About The Way He’s Approached in Worship

The Mailbag: Should Christians Listen to Reckless Love?

Leaving the NAR Church testimony series by Amy Spreeman

Berean Research (Amy Spreeman)

Dawn Hill (The Lovesick Scribe) (Website)

Steve Kozar (Website)

Justin Peters

Chris Rosebrough (Archives)

God Doesn’t Whisper! With Jim Osman
God Doesn’t Whisper to Me, Either
God Doesn’t Whisper (book) by Jim Osman

Pastoral Response to #WakeUpOlive (Bethel’s Dead-Raising Charade) with Costi Hinn and Jon Benzinger

Why Your Church Should Stop Playing Bethel, Hillsong, Elevation, and Jesus Culture

Is She a False Teacher? 7 Steps to Figuring it Out on Your Own

The Mailbag: How should I approach my church leaders about a false teacher they’re introducing?

Discernment, False Teachers

Shauna Niequist

Michelle Lesley

If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against certain teachers, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.

This article is kept continuously updated as needed.

I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, and Bible teachers, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found above at my Popular False Teachers tab. The teacher below is someone I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on her.

Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, or author, he or she has to meet three criteria:

a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual).

b) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.

c) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.

I am not very familiar with most of the teachers I’m asked about (there are so many out there!) and have not had the opportunity to examine their writings or hear them speak, so most of the “quick checking” I do involves items a and b (although in order to partner with false teachers (b) it is reasonable to assume their doctrine is acceptable to the false teacher and that they are not teaching anything that would conflict with the false teacher’s doctrine). Partnering with false teachers and women preaching to men are each sufficient biblical reasons not to follow a pastor, teacher, or author, or use his/her materials.

Just to be clear, “not recommended” is a spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are people like Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kay Arthur. These are people I would not label as false teachers because their doctrine is generally sound, but because of some red flags I’m seeing with them, you won’t find me proactively endorsing them or suggesting them as a good resource, either. There are better people you could be listening to. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans- complete heretics whose teachings, if believed, might lead you to an eternity in Hell. Most of the teachers I review fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum (leaning toward the latter).

If you’d like to check out some pastors and teachers I heartily recommend, click the Recommended Bible Teachers tab at the top of this page.

Shauna Niequist
Not Recommended

Shauna, an author, speaker, and podcaster, is the daughter of Bill Hybels, former pastor of Willow Creek, where Shauna has preached the Sunday sermon on many occasions.

This information from my 2016 article on Shauna is from a pastor friend of mine who knows Shauna’s family personally:

“[Shauna is] the daughter of Bill Hybels, the founder and pastor of Willow Creek in Barrington, IL. Because of very personal experience with it, I will tell you that this stuff they peddle has proven to be the worst kind of Christianity, and probably a Matthew 23:14-15 type of situation, at least in my opinion.

Next, this post right here ought to really be enough.

She is a friend of Rachel Held Evans. She is touring with Jen Hatmaker, who is a complete mess. Really, there is no other way to describe her than secularism covered with some Bible words.

Aaron [Shauna’s husband] is a worship leader at Willow Creek. He began a HUGE movement with contemplative prayer a couple of years ago. Because of his music, he comes off as very spiritual and sound, but there is nothing inherently Christian about anything he says or does, really. Take a look at Aaron’s blog here, which will give you more insight. [Aaron has apparently removed the blog portion of his website. He is no longer with Willow Creek, and neither is Shauna.]

There is ZERO discernment with this family, they either promote or flock to whoever is popular, and they are all about using words that sound really great, but have no substance to them at all. They are on this big thing lately about “Holy Spaces”, which sounds great, but is so anti-biblical when you really think about it. You don’t create a space that is holy, only God can do that. Anyway…

This is the Willow Creek legacy, in a nutshell: their lack of sound doctrine, lack of Bible, lack of biblical discernment, and their false teaching and false gospel. Shauna and Aaron are simply products of what her dad has built, which is a huge gathering of people who neither know Christ, nor have reverence for His word.”

As I began re-researching Shauna to update this article on her, her most recent Facebook posts alluded to the fact that she hadn’t written anything in a while and that her family had gone through some “adjustments” and other issues. I was hoping this meant God had convicted her of past sin and false doctrine and was straightening out her theology. Unfortunately, a mere scroll back through the last several months of her Facebook posts demonstrates that Shauna remains a false teacher to avoid.

A few years ago, Shauna publicly congratulated Jen Hatmaker for affirming homosexuality.

screenshot-2016-10-29-at-5-00-58-pm

And here’s Shauna recently affirming homosexuality herself.

“This is so beautiful,” says Shauna about this blasphemous article from female “preacher” and feminist Sarah Bessey. The purpose of the article is for Sarah to explain to a young woman (who is on the fence about the inclusion of practicing, unrepentant homosexuals into church membership and wrote to Sarah asking for advice) how she became affirming. In addition to shamelessly twisting and abusing the Scriptures throughout the article, Sarah has the unmitigated temerity to suggest that Jesus Christ, the sinless, perfect Son of God, had to be taught by the Syro-Phonecian woman about His privilege and His prejudice against Gentiles. And Shauna says, “This is so beautiful.”

Shauna continues to violate Scripture by preaching to men. Aaron says his wife is the “best preacher ever.”

She continues to yoke with, affirm, and maintain close friendships with, some of the most egregious false teachers out there, including Jen Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle (The “Christian” mommy blogger who divorced her husband and “married” her lesbian partner, Abby. Shauna has recommended Glennon and spoken glowingly of her and Abby several times.), and the late Rachel Held Evans.

Here, Aaron says he and Shauna are helping Nichole Nordeman (homosexuality affirming, frequent associate of false teachers) fund her next album.

In addition to these (and so many more) glaringly unbiblical relationships, positions, and violations of Scripture, notably absent, or nearly so, from Shauna’s Facebook timeline is any meaningful mention of God, Jesus, or the Bible. Her post on “Holy Saturday” (the day before Easter) doesn’t even mention Jesus, the crucifixion, or the resurrection. And the benediction she wrote for her church’s Easter service barely does, in passing.

For a taste of Shauna’s theology, consider the following:

Shauna recently appeared on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday to promote her book, Present Over Perfect, “a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self.” She does not mention Christ, the gospel, or the Bible, and only mentions God in the most generic (“God loves me”) of terms. When explaining what was most helpful to her in overcoming her stress and anxiety, Shauna credits centering prayer, an unbiblical, mystical, New Age practice.

Shauna’s website markets Present Over Perfect as a “Bible study.” You can download the first two chapters of the book, and view the teaching video for the first session of the study. I did both.

Shauna writes engagingly, there’s no doubt about that, but the first two chapters of the book read like a memoir of someone who is aching to know God but hasn’t found him yet. Christian-y words like “God,” “sin,” “grace,” and “baptism,” are sprinkled through the narrative, but there’s a palpable disconnect between Shauna’s artistic usage of these words and her grasp and internalization of what they truly, biblically mean. It’s almost like “stolen valor” – a guy desperately wants to be a soldier, so he dresses and talks the part, but he has never served and isn’t actually in the military, yet he hopes doing all these things will fulfill his yearning to actually be a soldier.

And, keeping in mind that this is supposed to be a “Bible study,” there is nothing from or about the Bible in the first two chapters of this book. No verses. No discussion of passages or books of the Bible that will be studied in subsequent chapters. It is all about Shauna and her thoughts and experiences.

The teaching video is very much the same, minus most of the sprinkling of Christian-y words. There is no Bible in this “Bible study” video. It’s all about Shauna’s opinions and anecdotes from her personal life. (Sharp listeners will also note her mention of her “friend, Glennon,” the aforementioned Glennon Doyle.)

Here, Shauna reinforces the pernicious “church is optional” and “I don’t have to go to church; I can worship God anywhere,” mindset ravaging Christianity today.

In this benediction she wrote for her church in June 2019, Shauna waxes panentheistic: “May we walk through these doors and through this city intimately aware of the divinity all around us and within us and within each person we encounter.”

And in her 2017 blog article, Expanding the Way We Experience God:

Shauna commends, “a wide vision for how people connect with God,” including “poetry, silence, sitting by the ocean…centering prayer, truth-telling with my closest friends…” (rather than studying your Bible, prayer, faithfully serving and being taught Scripture at your local church, etc.). “The tools [for connecting with God] that have been meaningful along the way for me have been books, poetry, counseling, friendship, spiritual direction, the Enneagram, centering prayer.”

She again promotes the “church is optional” idea when she states, “Some seasons [of spiritual growth] require poetry, and others preaching,” and “…in late high school and early college, I needed a little distance from church life. And so instead of going to church, I went to the ocean.”

Shauna also believes in extra-biblical revelation: “So I’d settle myself on a rock [at the beach] and I’d listen for God’s voice, or at least the sense of His spirit.”

Southern Baptists should note that LifeWay, which purports not to carry authors who affirm homosexuality, at this time, carries four of Shauna’s five books.

Researching Shauna saddened me at every turn. Most of the false teachers I warn against proudly and brashly twist and defy God’s Word in order to build up their own kingdoms on earth of fame, fortune, and influence. That’s not the impression I get from Shauna, but rather of someone who acutely craves peace, purpose, and contentment, and is casting about for it everywhere except in the Christ of Scripture.

Is Shauna deeply steeped in sin and false doctrine? Yes. Should you and your church avoid her teaching and materials? Definitely. But there’s a subtle thread of sorrow and despair running through her writing that makes me want to hug her, sit and cry with her, and help her to embrace the truth of the gospel that will give her the peace she so desperately seeks after, the love of Christ that she’s looking for in all the wrong places, and the rest for her soul that only comes from intimately knowing as Savior the Jesus who is a stranger to her.

Mailbag, New Apostolic Reformation

What is the New Apostolic Reformation?

Michelle Lesley

If you’re more of a listener or watcher than a reader, you can listen to the A Word Fitly Spoken podcast version of this article here:

Or, if you subscribe to Answers TV, you can watch the live version I delivered at Answers in Genesis’ 2025 Answers for Women conference, Resolute.

If you’re listening or watching (or even if you’re reading, I guess!), here’s the accompanying handout if you’d like to take notes.

Have you ever heard the term “New Apostolic Reformation” or “NAR” and have some idea of what it is?

If not, I’m so glad the Lord led you here, because, over the last 20 years or so, the New Apostolic Reformation has become the predominant form of false doctrine in Protestant American evangelicalism, and you’ve probably encountered it in some way, even if you’re just now learning what it’s called.

In my opinion, the NAR is the most dangerous form of false doctrine in the United States today because so many people think it is biblical Christianity and unknowingly import it into reasonably doctrinally sound churches. I mean, I’ve never heard of Anytown Baptist Church teaching (as Christianity) that Mohammed was a prophet or that God lives next door to the planet Kolob, but you’ll certainly see NAR beliefs and practices like dominionism, unbiblical manifestations of the “Holy Spirit” and NAR prayer practices gradually creeping into many average evangelical churches.

And, to our shame, America has so diligently exported this false doctrine to other countries under the banner of “missions,” that in many areas of the world – particularly Africa – the New Apostolic Reformation is the primary representation of so-called “Christianity”.

It is pervasive, it is heretical, it is blasphemous, and it is sending people to hell at an alarming rate. 

Because this is an article (albeit a long one) rather than a book, I want to give you an overview of a few of the major points of New Apostolic Reformation doctrine, and then I want to focus in on unbiblical NAR practices and experiences so you’ll be able to more easily spot an NAR church*, recognize when a loved one is straying into NAR false doctrine, and keep NAR false doctrine from creeping into your own church. 

*New Apostolic Reformation organizations are heretical, which means their organizations are not “churches” and their adherents are not “Christians”. Typically, when I write about the NAR, I use “scare quotes” when referring to NAR “churches” and other Christian terminology the NAR has co-opted. However, because of the volume of this terminology in an article of this length, I felt that attempting to do so would be distracting to the reader and burdensome to the writing process. I have, therefore, left most of them out. But please understand, NAR “churches” are no more real churches than a Mormon “church” or a Jehovah’s Witness “church”.

Because that’s the immediate danger here. You’re not going to go to an NAR “church’s” website, go read their statement of faith page, and see – clearly spelled out for you – the doctrines explained below. But you probably will notice the outward signs and practices. So I do want to give those unbiblical practices and experiences some emphasis.

So let’s start by taking a look at…

Major NAR Doctrines

The first thing you need to understand is that one thing the NAR has in common with the rest of the evangelical world is that there are variations in beliefs and practices from church to church and individual to individual. I mean, I’m Baptist. You ask ten random Baptists what they believe, and you’re going to get ten different answers, even though there will be a lot of similarities.

It’s the same with the NAR. And on top of that, because this is a doctrine of demons, and its leaders disguise themselves as angels of light, some of them will flat out deny right to your face that they believe, teach, and practice some of these things, when you’ve read in their books, and heard in their sermons, and watched in videos of their worship services that they do.

Another thing that leads to variations in beliefs is that the NAR is not an organized denomination like the PCA or the ELCA. There’s no defined structure of leadership or governance. There’s no headquarters building, no national president, no official creed, confession, or statement of beliefs that all its churches hold to, no membership criteria for admitting or dismissing churches, or, indeed, even the concept of “membership” itself, because there’s no denomination for churches to be a member of.

So just keep that in mind. If you walk up to your friend NAR Nancy and say, “I heard your church believes X, Y, and Z,” she’s very likely to say either, “No, it doesn’t,” or “I never heard of that,” because NAR “churches” really minimize teaching and doctrine and maximize feelings and experiences.

But let’s look at some of those doctrines that most NAR churches and those in leadership in the NAR hold in common:

False Doctrine 1:
Restoration of the offices of Apostle and Prophet

Probably the most definitive, stake your claim doctrine of the NAR that separates them from typical, Bible believing Protestant churches, is that they believe God has restored the offices of Apostle and Prophet. “Capital A” Apostle, as in Peter and Paul. “Capital P” Prophet, as in Isaiah and Jeremiah. 

NAR doctrine holds that the offices of Apostle and Prophet have been restored to the church, and that God places people in those offices today to rule and run the church. The prophets (supposedly) receive new revelations from God and the apostles take that revelation and apply it to govern the church.

Here’s why that’s unbiblical: Acts 1:21-26 clearly spells out the normative requirements for the office of Apostle: 

1. He had to have followed Jesus during His entire earthly ministry, from his baptism by John the Baptist to His ascension. And/or (in the case of Paul)…

2. He had to have been an eyewitness to the resurrected Christ.

3. He had to have been personally appointed to the office by Christ Himself.

Now, NAR apostles will skirt around numbers 2 and 3 by telling you that Jesus appeared to them and personally appointed them in a dream or a vision. But even if you give them that, not a single one of them followed Jesus during His earthly ministry, the very first requirement of an Apostle.

Furthermore, if God wanted Apostles and Prophets running the church today, why doesn’t He say in the New Testament that He wants Apostles and Prophets running the church? There is no mention whatsoever of the office of Prophet in the New Testament, or any qualifications a man must meet if he wants to hold the office of Prophet in the church. And none of the original Apostles in Acts were replaced when they died.

We have the pastoral epistles – 1&2 Timothy and Titus. These are the policy and procedure manuals for the church. You’ve read them (and if you haven’t you can stop right now and read all three of them in 30-40 minutes). Do they say anything about Apostles and Prophets running the church? No, they don’t.

The Apostle Paul, an actual Apostle – under the divine, theopneustos inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes these words to Titus, who’s getting a bunch of new churches up and running… 

For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.

Titus 1:5

Not Apostles. Not Prophets. Elders. And then he goes on in verses 6-9 (and in 1 Timothy 3:1-7) to list the qualifications of elders, or overseers, or pastors, not Prophets and Apostles. If God wanted Prophets and Apostles running the church He would have said so right here. And He doesn’t.

False Doctrine 2:
Dominionism and the 7 Mountain Mandate

The NAR believes that the biblical gospel isn’t good enough. You know the gospel, right? If not, or if you’re not sure, click here. That’s the gospel. That is the complete gospel. We don’t add to it or take away from it.

But the NAR says that’s not the complete gospel. They have what they call the Kingdom Gospel, which is the gospel plus the idea that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection made it possible for NAR “Christians” to take dominion of the earth, and gave them a mandate to do so.

Now, this is not your Genesis 1:28 dominion where God tells Adam to take dominion over the fish and the birds and every living creature. This is also not the idea of sharing the gospel and being salt and light – being a godly influence on the world – like Scripture tells us to. 

This is the idea of the NAR taking over every institution and government of every nation, and eventually, literally ruling the world in order to usher in the second coming of Christ. That’s dominionism.

They even have a plan for doing this called the 7 Mountain Mandate, which basically breaks society down into seven different categories or “mountains” to move – government, media, family, business & finance, education, church & religion, and arts & entertainment.

The NAR twists two main Scriptures to teach this.

  1. The Great Commission- Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…”. What does that mean? It means “as you go,” as you walk through life each day, share the gospel with people and disciple them if they become Believers. Send out missionaries. That’s what the Great Commission means.

    The NAR teaches that “make disciples of all the nations,” means make every nation disciples. Infiltrate every corner of every nation and make that nation NAR.
  2. The other Scripture they twist is in the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Does that mean we’re supposed to literally take over the world and establish God’s kingdom on earth by force or by stealth? Of course not. But that’s what the NAR believes and teaches.

    “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What does that mean? It’s similar to “Maranatha: come Lord Jesus”. It is our prayer that Christ will come soon to rule and reign over all the earth. 

False Doctrine 3:
Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare

This is not the biblical spiritual warfare we find in Ephesians 6 with the full armor of God – standing firm in Christ with prayer, study of the Word, righteousness, truth, and so on. 

This is more like something out of a scary Hollywood movie. The NAR believes that there are powerful, high ranking demons and evil spirits that control various geographical regions or territories as well as those 7 mountains in the 7 Mountain Mandate. These evil spirits have to be driven out before the NAR can take dominion of all of the seven mountains, and, thus, each nation.

You’ve read your New Testament. Does the Bible teach this? Of course not. Say it loud. Say it convictionally. Say it fearlessly and without shame:

THE BIBLE DOESN’T TEACH THAT.

That is spiritual warfare. Stand firm against the schemes of the devil -like the false teaching of the New Apostolic Reformation- by girding your loins with truth and taking up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. That is spiritual warfare.

False Doctrine 4:
Signs and Wonders

This is probably the best known doctrine of the NAR because it’s the most visible and publicized. The NAR teaches that you can do all the same miracles you saw Jesus do during his earthly ministry. 

For many, the reason they believe this is that they believe a twisted version of Philippians 2:6-7. They think when that passage says Jesus “emptied Himself,” that He gave up His deity. That when He came to earth, He was not God. This is called Kenoticism, or the Kenotic heresy. 

Bethel Church in Redding, California, is basically ground zero for the NAR in the United States- and that’s what they believe. That’s why you’ll hear discerning Christians say that Bethel and the NAR are heretical. Because they are. They literally deny the deity of Christ. You can’t get more heretical than that.

Both Bethel and most of the NAR believe Jesus was just a regular human being like you and me who was so faithful to God and so filled with the Spirit that He was able to work miracles. So, of course, if you’re able to be that faithful to God and filled with the Spirit, you can do those miracles, too. 

They’ll also take you to John 14:12, where Jesus said: “…he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do…” 

Now, if you’re a good student of your Bible, you will read this verse in context and you will quickly see that it is not promising or commanding Christians today to go out and work miracles.

But the NAR twists this verse to mean that they are to do all the same miracles Jesus did. Mostly healing the sick and raising the dead. And then you’ve also got speaking in tongues, and prophecy, and extra-biblical revelation.

But they don’t even get their own Bible twisting right, because Jesus didn’t just say they would do the same works He did. Jesus said those of us who believe on Him would do greater works than He did. What’s greater than healing the sick, or raising the dead?

There’s only one thing greater than that- it’s the miracle that takes place when God raises the spiritually dead to newness of life in Christ.  We have the privilege and the honor of being entrusted by Christ to take the gospel – the true gospel – to those who are dead in their sins so that Jesus can give them life. 

That’s the greater work. Jesus could not do that work during His earthly ministry the way we can, because He had not yet died and risen from the grave. And another thing – Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was spent in that little tiny area of Israel. It wasn’t God’s plan for Him to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth like we’ve been able to do. So it’s a greater work in that sense, too.

But the NAR not only gets it wrong in that they don’t understand what the greater work is, they don’t even do the same works Jesus did. They have never genuinely healed one person. They have never genuinely raised one person from the dead. They’ve never multiplied food for thousands or calmed a storm or caused a fig tree to wither instantaneously. Never. If they had, there would be evidence of it.

Now, as I said, your average NAR churchgoer who just shows up for the worship experience on Sunday morning is likely not to even be aware of these doctrines or that her church subscribes to them, because, while some of these things might be hinted at, implied, or assumed on Sunday morning, generally speaking, NAR churches don’t usually sit their members down and formally teach and explain these doctrines to them. 

They don’t have a church covenant you sign, or a creed you recite, or a statement of faith, confession, or catechism that says these things. In fact it’s often the opposite – they try to hide these things because they know it’s weird and unbiblical and it’s going to turn people away. And they don’t want to do that, they want to draw people in so they can deceive them. 

So, if NAR false doctrine starts creeping into your church, it’s not going to look like your pastor standing up in the pulpit and saying, “Please turn to Philippians 2 and let us learn the Kenotic heresy.” And if your brother and sister-in-law start going to an NAR church, she’s not going to tell you over coffee that they learned all about strategic level spiritual warfare in Sunday School last week.

What you will see and hear is the NAR’s unbiblical practices, experiences, and street level Bible twisting.

Unbiblical NAR Practices and Experiences

I opened this article by asking if you were familiar with the NAR. If not, you might be familiar with the Word of Faith or prosperity gospel: 

Name it and claim it / blab it and grab it

It’s never God’s will for you to suffer, be poor, or be sick.

It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful. 

To live your best life now, as Joel Osteen would have us believe.

Because the NAR and the Word of Faith movement both have their roots in charismatic Pentecostalism, there is a great deal of overlap between the two as far as what they look like to most people. In fact, the way I usually explain it is that the NAR takes the Word of Faith and kicks it up a notch with outlandish “supernatural” manifestations and signs and wonders, and blasphemously attributes these to the Holy Spirit. 

So let’s take a look at some of the NAR’s unbiblical practices and experiences. Some of these will be common to Word of Faith/prosperity gospel churches as well.

Street Level Bible Twisting

Health, Wealth, and Prosperity

Like the Word of Faith, the NAR teaches followers that it is never God’s will for Christians to be poor, unsuccessful, or sick. It’s always God’s will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful. The Word of Faith tends to place a little more emphasis on the “wealthy and successful” part. The NAR tends to place a little more emphasis on the “healthy” part.

There are a couple of Scriptures they twist for this. One is John 10:34, where Jesus, in order to demonstrate to the Pharisees that they were being hypocritical and inconsistent, quoted Psalm 82:6: “Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”.

Now, obviously, Jesus was not saying that you and I possess any level of deity whatsoever, because the entirety of the Bible clearly teaches against that. Take the time to read those verses in context and you’ll plainly see that. But both the NAR and the Word of Faith rip these verses out of context so they can say that we are “little gods” – we are divine.

Now, think about it: God can’t get sick. God can’t be poor. So if we’re little gods, we can’t be sick or poor either.

They will also take you to Isaiah 53:5, which, speaking of Jesus’ crucifixion, says, in part, “by His [stripes or] wounds we are healed.” Now, we understand, just by reading the rest of that verse, that what’s being said there is that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for our sins. We are “healed” from our sinful state of spiritual unwellness by the physical unwellness -the wounds- Jesus suffered on the cross that led to His death for us. 

And we can even go so far as to say that Jesus’ wounds did ultimately pay for our physical healing, because those of us who are in Christ will all be completely, totally healed the moment we step into eternal life with Jesus.

But the NAR and Word of Faith will tell you that Isaiah 53:5 means that Jesus’ death on the cross purchased your healing in this life on earth. And that’s demonstrably not true. Any pagan can look around and see that even the most godly person he can think of gets sick, gets injured, and eventually dies.

I mean, just take a look at the Johnson family. They have plenty of health issues. Bill Johnson, the leader of Bethel, wears glasses. He had a serious intestinal blockage several years ago that required surgery. I would guess that, at 73 years old, he takes just as many medications for high blood pressure, or diabetes, or cholesterol, or whatever, as most 73 year olds take. Bill’s wife, Beni, who literally wrote the book on health, called Healthy and Free, tragically died of cancer in 2022.

Their own theology doesn’t even work for them.

Love Bombing, Ego Boosting, and Environmental Manipulation

Just the general air and experience of attending an NAR worship service is also Bible twisting. Everything is centered around and focused on you rather than on Christ, even though the whole time they’re saying the focus is on Christ.

But their view of Jesus is that He’s a life enhancement accessory. Jesus is there to serve me, to make my life better, to give me all the stuff my greedy little heart desires. Remember John 6:26? After He fed the 5000, Jesus said to the crowd of people following Him, “you seek Me, because you ate of the loaves and were filled”. 

In other words, they weren’t following Jesus because they wanted Jesus. They were following Him to get something out of Him: food, healing, miracles. Something to make their earthly lives easier and better. That’s what the NAR is. They don’t want Jesus, they want a genie.

So even when an NAR church is supposedly focusing on Jesus – singing about Jesus, preaching and teaching about Jesus, praying to Jesus – they’re really still focused on you, because their false Jesus is just a means to an end to get you what you want.

So you walk in the front door, and you’re immediately love bombed – especially if you’re new. You get a million hugs, and everyone’s so thrilled to see you: “Can I help you with that?” “Here’s a coffee and a swag bag for first time visitors.” “Why don’t you come out to lunch with us after?”. You’re made to feel like a queen. Like you’re the most important person in the building. 

This is not biblical hospitality – because this place isn’t biblical – this is Satanic manipulation and deception. It’s the same kind of thing cults do to draw people in.

You go in and find your seat, and the house lights go down, and the band comes out, and you get an hour long concert that you can sing along with if you want. It’s music that’s written specifically to get a hold of your emotions. It stirs you and makes you feel good. 

The music is often very repetitive and literally mind numbing, because that puts you in a suggestive state, very much like hypnosis. Sometimes they will even tell you something like, “Just empty your mind and sing with your heart and let the spirit move.”

Then someone they call a pastor will come out on the stage, and he or she will give you a word salad with a few Bible verses for croutons, some general truisms and tips you could get from Dr. Phil or Oprah, and tell you a bunch of emotionally manipulative stories. 

It’s all about how much God loves you, how great He thinks you are, and how wonderful He wants your life to be. And so quickly that you can’t even catch it, they’re weaving in unbiblical ideas here and nuggets of false doctrine there.

And you’ll get out of there high as a kite, feeling like you can conquer the world and God just thinks you’re awesome… until about 6 a.m. on Monday when the alarm goes off and real life sets in. And you still have all the same problems. And you still have all the same bills you’re struggling to pay. And you’re still taking all the same medications you were taking yesterday. 

It’s cotton candy Christianity. It’s fake. They’re not teaching you what the Bible really teaches, and they’re teaching you to worship yourself instead of Christ.

Unbiblical Signs and Wonders

This is what really has marked the NAR in recent years because it’s so obvious and attention grabbing, and in most cases, so clearly fake and unbiblical.

Some of these things are rooted in the NAR’s misunderstanding and twisting of the events surrounding Pentecost. For example…

Speaking in Tongues, etc.

If you will sit down with your Bible and carefully read Acts 2, you will see two things about the phrase “speaking in other tongues”.

The first thing you will see is that “tongues,” in this passage, means known, legitimate, foreign languages. Verse 5 says, “there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.”

In verse 8, those devout men from every nation under heaven said of the apostles, “We each hear them in our own language in which we were born.” 

And verse 11 bookends the whole thing by saying, “We hear them in our own tongues [languages] speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”

Why were the apostles speaking in all these different languages? To preach the gospel to all these people who spoke different languages. They didn’t have Google Translate. And this purpose is borne out by the rest of the chapter where you can read Peter’s sermon on the gospel.

That’s not how speaking in tongues is practiced in NAR churches. It’s not a legitimate tool for explaining the gospel to someone who doesn’t speak your language. Again, it’s all about you, and how you can have this supposedly supernatural experience of speaking meaningless syllables that makes you feel good and supposedly brings you closer to God as you worship Him. That’s not what the Bible teaches about speaking in tongues. 

Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 says that in the church setting, a maximum of three people can speak in a tongue and someone must interpret it from the foreign language being spoken into the common language spoken by the church. And you will rarely, if ever, see those two commands being obeyed in NAR churches.

Some other unbiblical NAR manifestations that seem like they may have been extrapolated from tongues and other events at Pentecost: holy laughter, strange “anointings,” glory clouds of gold dust, tremoring, false prophecy, grave sucking, raising the dead, trips to Heaven, and being “drunk in the Spirit.”

False Prophecy and Extra-Biblical Revelation

Did any true prophet in the Bible ever say, “Thus says the Lord…” and then get it wrong? Of course not. One reason for this was that the punishment for false prophets was execution. 

Deuteronomy 13 and 18 both tell us that…

  • If a prophet’s prophecy comes true, but he leads you astray to false gods (like the false god of the NAR) or
  • If a prophet speaks something God has not commanded him to speak (like the “prophets” of the NAR do) or
  • If a prophet speaks in the name of a false god (like the false god of the NAR)

…that prophet is to be put to death. 

Am I advocating for the death penalty for false prophets today? No, I am not. All I’m saying is, in the Old Testament, all of the NAR prophets would be dead three times over.

The God these people teach isn’t the God of the Bible. The things these people tell you aren’t prophecies. They’re much more like the false prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah warned about who just tell you what you want to hear to make you feel good.

And from the prophet even to the priest everyone practices lying. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6: 13-14

And listen to what God says about His people who prefer the message of false prophets over true prophets:

For this is a rebellious people, false sons,
Sons who are not willing to listen to the law of Yahweh,
Who say to the seers [the true prophets of God], “You must not see,”
And to those who have visions [the true prophets of God], “You must not behold visions for us of what is right,
Speak to us pleasant words, behold visions of illusions.
Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,
Cease speaking before us about the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 30:9-11

In other words, God’s people are telling the true prophets, like Isaiah, “Stop telling us the hard truths of God’s Word. Be nice! Tell us nice things that make us feel good! Scratch our itching ears!”.

NAR prophecies, extra-biblical revelation, words of knowledge – these supposed revelations from God that are found nowhere in the Bible – are the vain imaginings of their own minds. Case in point, the 2020 Presidential election. 

Anybody on the planet had a 50-50 chance of correctly guessing who would be the next President, Trump or Biden. Every single NAR prophet who gave a public prophecy got it wrong. Every single one of them. They all said Trump would win the election and occupy the White House, serving as president.

There’s no New Testament special dispensation for prophets to get things wrong. They don’t have the gift of prophecy. They aren’t prophets.

Related to false prophecy and extra-biblical revelation, the NAR is also largely responsible for many of the corrupt teachings on prayer that have become popular in recent years, such as: contemplative/centering prayer (which we see creeping into churches through the teachings of Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Lysa TerKeurst, Christine Caine, and others), lectio divina, Sozo prayer, healing rooms, and soaking prayer.

Fake Healings

You’ve probably seen videos of Benny Hinn and other fake faith healers calling people up on stage and pretending to heal them.

Maybe you’ve even seen the man on the street videos of Todd White going up to random people and pretending to lengthen their one leg that’s shorter than the other. 

You might have even heard of Todd Bentley who has been known to try to  heal people by kicking or punching them, such as the man with stomach cancer whom he kicked in the gut.

None of these so-called miracle healings are real. Benny Hinn only allows people into his healing lines who have invisible or fake illnesses, so you can’t tell whether they’re really healed or not. Todd White’s leg lengthening has been demonstrated to be a parlor trick. Todd Bentley has injured more people than he’s healed.

If you still think these things are real, ask yourself, “Where are the doctors and hospitals publicly coming forward and saying, ‘Yes, this person was genuinely, medically healed,’ and why wasn’t it splashed all over the news?”.

Why don’t these fake healers ever heal someone medically documented to be paralyzed, or brain injured, or with cerebral palsy?

Why don’t they walk into hospitals and heal everyone there?

How come there’s not one video of a fake healer instantly growing back an amputee’s arm or leg, or healing someone’s badly disfigured face, or making the skin of a burn victim like new?

God still heals people all the time. He heals people in answer to our prayers, usually through modern medicine and the body’s own healing properties, but sometimes miraculously and inexplicably by His own hand. He is not giving people the sign gift of healing today, and even if He were, it certainly wouldn’t be to these rank heretics.

Resurrections

I’m not really sure why, but these people think they can raise the dead. They’ve never done it. There’s never been any medical documentation of it. And in this age of everyone having smart phones, there’s never been photographic or video evidence of it. 

And, I mean, if somebody who was certifiably dead was resurrected, where is he? He ought to be up walking around among us and telling his story on every news channel and talk show.

No one raised Bill Johnson’s wife from the dead when she died of cancer a few years ago. Why not?

In December of 2019, a precious 2 year old little girl named Olive tragically died in her sleep. As a mother and grandmother, I can only imagine the excruciating heartbreak and agony her family went through. 

Olive’s parents were members of Bethel Redding where her mother was also a worship leader. Instead of making funeral arrangements for Olive, they contacted Bethel’s dead raising team.

No, I’m not kidding. Your church has a hospitality committee, Bethel has a dead raising team. 

And for – not one, not two, – but five days, they cried out to their god, they sang, they jumped around, they chanted “Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive! Wake up Olive!”. And “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.” The false god of Bethel did not answer them. 

And this story went viral – all over the world. And I remember following this story, and how all I could think about when I saw the pictures and videos of all of this was the 1 Kings 18 story of the prophets of Baal crying out to their false god to answer them with fire and consume their sacrifice. But, verse 29 tells us, “there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.”

On the sixth day the parents announced that they were planning Olive’s funeral. And how do you think that momma and daddy felt, when, at the worst moment of their lives, their false god failed them and didn’t give them back that precious baby? 

Bill Johnson, their pastor whom they trusted, failed them. Their church that so believed they could resurrect the dead, that they had a dead raising team, failed them because Bethel believed and taught lies.

Second only to the fact that NAR heresy sends people to Hell, the cruelest of their false teachings is that they can resurrect the dead.

These are just a few of the more notable unbiblical signs and wonders of the NAR. There are so many more. 

NAR People and Organizations to Be Aware Of

I’ve covered some of what the NAR believes, teaches, and practices, but I think it might help you to know some of the movers and shakers in this movement, so if your friend comes to you and says, “I’m reading a book by this lady,” or “I started listening to a podcast by that guy,” you’ll immediately be on the alert.

But please understand, the NAR has been the fastest growing version of so-called Christianity over the last 20+ years, so this is by no means anywhere near a comprehensive list.

If you want to avoid false teachers and heretical organizations in the New Apostolic Reformation, mark and avoid:

Anyone who calls him or herself an apostle, prophet, or prophetess

Bethel Church in Redding, CA, Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry – anyone involved with those and any content, books, materials, music, etc. that comes out of the Bethel universe. 

Bill Johnson (Bethel’s pastor), Brian and Jenn Johnson (Bethel’s worship leaders and founders of Bethel Music). Pretty much anybody with the last name of Johnson who’s associated with Bethel. 

Kathryn Krick

Todd White 

Kenneth Hagin 

Dutch Sheets

Brandon Lake (close ties to Bethel)

Todd Bentley

Patricia King

Matt and Laurie Crouch, and the rest of the Crouch family over at TBN

Joni Lamb and the rest of the Lamb family over at Daystar TV

Jennifer LeClaire 

Steven Strang (CEO of Charisma Magazine)

Cindy Jacobs

Cory Asbury (Reckless Love)

Rick Joyner (Morningstar Ministries)

Rod Parsley

Kris Valloton

Heidi Baker

Andrew Wommack (Charis Bible College)

Kat Kerr

Paula White (head of President Trump’s faith office)

Shawn Bolz

Benny Hinn

C. Peter Wagner

Lance Wallnau

Che Ahn (Harvest International Ministries)

James Goll

Lou Engle

Phil Wickham

John and Lisa Bevere

If you hear one of these names, you’re dealing with someone in the New Apostolic Reformation. (And if you’d like more information on any of those listed above, try the ministries listed here.)

Now you may have just read a name that surprised and offended you because you like that person. I want you to think about something. If I told you that person was a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Hindu, and because of that, you shouldn’t listen to him, you wouldn’t have any problem with me saying that. 

The New Apostolic Reformation is just as false, and heretical, and blasphemous as any of those other false religions, but because it calls itself “Christian,” and because your church might use music or materials from some of those people, it’s not as obvious. 

The NAR in Music and Women’s Ministry

If you listen to contemporary Christian music, you probably recognized the names of some musicians in the list above: Bethel Music, Jesus Culture, Brandon Lake, Cory Asbury, and Phil Wickham. And there are many more.

Two of the main ways NAR false doctrine usually begins infiltrating otherwise healthy churches is through the music ministry and the women’s ministry. 

Bethel Music and its production and publication companies practically have a monopoly on the contemporary worship music industry. If your church sings contemporary worship music in the worship service, you’re probably using music from Bethel, Phil Wickham, Hillsong, and/or Elevation. In order, those are the top four most widely used sources for worship music.

When you bring music like that into your church – even the songs with seemingly biblical lyrics – people like it, they start listening to the music outside the church, and that acts like a gateway drug to draw them in to the NAR and its false doctrine.

Bill Johnson has proudly and publicly boasted about doing this – on purpose. That’s why they’ve built up this music empire. It’s by design, to draw people in.

I, and many others who teach against the NAR, have heard the testimonies of hundreds of people who have told us that’s exactly how they got drawn away into a New Apostolic Reformation church.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

1 Corinthians 10:12

Can a man take fire in his bosom
And his clothes not be burned?
Or can a man walk on hot coals
And his feet not be scorched?

Proverbs 6:27-28

You don’t know when you’re being deceived. That’s why it’s deception. 

That’s why the Bible doesn’t teach us to chew up the meat and spit out the bones. It teaches us to stay away from these people altogether. 

I explain things like this when I teach, and I explain all the blasphemies and cruelties the NAR commits against vulnerable people, and I still have Christians come up to me and argue with me that it’s perfectly fine to for them to listen to NAR artists like the ones I just mentioned. 

Examine the music your church uses, and, if necessary, have a talk with your pastor about it.

Also, examine the materials your women’s ministry is using and the conferences they’re attending. It’s extremely likely that the authors and teachers your women’s ministry follows are in the NAR themselves, or they’re partnering with and embracing NAR teachers, or they are in some way being influenced by NAR teachers.

Research the authors and teachers your church uses and that you follow. See who they surround themselves with. First Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals.” Or if you want the country version: If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Birds of a feather flock together.

This is one of the reasons why Romans 16:17-18, and 2 John 9-11, and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, and Titus 1:9 and so many other passages of Scripture command us to have nothing to do with false teachers.

If you find NAR false doctrine infiltrating your church, kindly, lovingly, gently, take what you’ve learned today, go to your pastor, and express your concerns.

Why is any of this important?

A lot of well meaning Christians look at NAR “churches” and think, “Well, they may worship a little differently, but it’s no big deal. We all love Jesus!” 

No, we do not.

Regardless of what they say, people who believe and teach damnable heresy, by biblical definition, do not love Jesus. And it is harmful to those people and the vulnerable people they’re deceiving, to say – or treat them like – they do.

I told you about baby Olive and her parents. I didn’t mention the thousands of direly ill and disabled people, the parents of children with terminal cancer, or who are horribly disfigured, who give their life savings to these fake healers because that is their last hope. And they’re either turned away, or they’re not healed, and they’re told it’s their fault because they just didn’t have enough faith.

Or how about the young woman who was almost murdered because she believed a false prophecy that it was God’s will for her to marry this certain guy who turned out to be unspeakably abusive.

The NAR is evangelically-sanctioned spiritual abuse. It has destroyed countless lives, ruins everything it touches, and has sent untold millions to Hell for all eternity.

And as unfathomably awful as that is – exponentially worse than all of that – New Apostolic Reformation heresy is a slap in the face to our precious Jesus who hung on a cruel Roman cross in agony for your sins and for mine. 

It is blasphemy of the highest order against God, our Father. It is lying about, slandering, and maligning the Holy Spirit.

The New Apostolic Reformation is heresy and has no place in a Christian church in any way, shape, or form. Stay far away from it. Protect yourself. Protect your loved ones. Protect your church.

Additional Resources:

Holly Pivec’s books

New Apostolic Reformation by Apologetics Index

New Apostolic Reformation by Berean Research

Truth & Transformation (video series) with Costi Hinn and Justin Peters

Clouds Without Water by Justin Peters

Kundalini Warning videos by Andrew Strom

The Six Hallmarks of a NAR Church by Berean Examiner

The New Apostolic Reformation Cornucopia of False Doctrine, Dominionism, Charismania and Deception  by Messed Up Church

Drunk in the Spirit by Todd Friel

Popular False Teachers see links for “International House of Prayer (IHOP)” and “Jesus Culture/Bethel Music/Bethel Church (Redding, CA)/Bill Johnson”

God’s Not Like “Whatever, Dude,” About The Way He’s Approached in Worship

The Mailbag: Should Christians Listen to Reckless Love?

Leaving the NAR Church testimony series by Amy Spreeman

Berean Research (Amy Spreeman)

Dawn Hill (The Lovesick Scribe) (Website)

Steve Kozar (Website)

Justin Peters

Chris Rosebrough (Archives)

God Doesn’t Whisper! With Jim Osman
God Doesn’t Whisper to Me, Either
God Doesn’t Whisper (book) by Jim Osman

Pastoral Response to #WakeUpOlive (Bethel’s Dead-Raising Charade) with Costi Hinn and Jon Benzinger

Why Your Church Should Stop Playing Bethel, Hillsong, Elevation, and Jesus Culture

Is She a False Teacher? 7 Steps to Figuring it Out on Your Own

The Mailbag: How should I approach my church leaders about a false teacher they’re introducing?

Mailbag, Prayer

The Mailbag: What is Contemplative Prayer?

Michelle Lesley

mailbag

What is contemplative prayer, and is it biblical?

Contemplative prayer, often called centering prayer, (and connected to sozo prayer and soaking prayer) is very much like a “Christianized” transcendental meditation (similar to New Age or Buddhist meditation). You are supposed to sit quietly, empty your mind, and repeat a biblical word or phrase over and over until you begin “hearing from God.”

Is this a biblical form of prayer? No, and it is also very dangerous. Many who have come out of this practice and churches or organizations which promote it (the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, and Bethel “Church” in Redding, California, are major proponents) report that contemplative prayer is much like being hypnotized and that it was an open door for demonic opression and even possession.

Our beliefs and worship practices are to be drawn from Scripture, and nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray like this. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He did not tell them to empty their minds and repeat a mantra. He said,

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Matthew 6:7-13

Jesus taught us to talk to God using intelligible words, worshiping Him, repenting and seeking His forgiveness, and asking Him to provide for our needs. It is not His desire that we mimic a pagan form of meditation.

Additional Resources:

What is Contemplative Prayer? at Got Questions

What is Centering Prayer? at Got Questions

Contemplative Prayer at Berean Research

IHOP is Dangerous: Stephanie’s Testimony

If you have a question about: a well known Christian author/leader, a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.