As someone who loves researching my history, family tree and genetics, I took this interest and began looking into the modern Charismatic movement and how it was shaped into what it is today and what I’ve found is that it’s is a complex maze of genuine spiritual hunger mixed with doctrinal heresy, demonic manifestations, false prophets, false prophecy and severe moral failure in it’s most celebrated leaders. What started as a genuine, Holy Spirit led awakening morphed into the insanity that it is today. In this post, we’re going to look at the “family tree and DNA” of the movement.
1- The Azusa Street revival (1906): The Pentecostal movement was birthed on Azusa Street in Los Angeles and was led by William J. Seymour. The Azusa Street revival was a genuine move of God, rooted in biblical teaching and holiness. People weren’t looking for extra-biblical revelation; there was no “name-it-and-claim-it” nonsense and no celebrity status around the leaders. There was deep conviction of sin, repentance and the revival’s focus was on the exaltation of Jesus Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit for worldwide evangelism.
2- The Latter Rain movement (1948): Following World War II, the Latter Rain movement rose up as a radical offshoot of classical Pentecostalism. While it kept the belief in spiritual gifts, it introduced doctrines that were absolutely heretical. This is the movement that produced the “Manifest Sons of God” doctrine, which taught that a “special class” of Christians can obtain sinless perfection before Christ’s return. It also taught the restoration of the “five-fold ministry,” specifically claiming that modern-day apostles and prophets have absolute authority over the church. They moved the focus from Scripture to the authority of modern “apostolic and prophetic” leaders.
3- The Word of Faith Movement (1970’s): While the WOF can actually be traced back to the 1930’s and E.W. Kenyon, this counterfeit version of Christianity really started to gain traction in the 1970’s and 1980’s through false teachers like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. The WOF gave the church the heresy of “positive confession”; the belief that our words have the same creative power as God Himself and that faith is a force that we can use to “get stuff”. It also promotes the “Little gods” doctrine, teaching that Christians are “little gods”. The most blasphemous is that WOF leaders teach that Jesus and satan became “one in nature” and that Jesus’ blood alone isn’t sufficient to save; that He also had to suffer in Hell at the hands of demons and then become the first “born again man” to ever rise from the dead.
4- The Kansas City Prophets (1990): In 1990, a group of modern-day prophets connected with the Kansas City Fellowship (led by disgraced sexual predator Mike Bickle) gained massive inroads in the Charismatic world. This vile movement included people like Bob Jones and Paul Cain. Bob Jones would have women strip naked so he could “prophesy” to them as they stood “bare before the Lord” and Paul Cain was exposed as a homosexual predator who would seek out young men; he was also an alcoholic. The Kansas City Prophets took the Charismatic movement further away from the Word as the final authority and toward trusting in modern day apostles, prophets and their extra-biblical revelations. They delivered “Thus saith the Lord” prophecies and used their false gifts to control the people of God. They created a culture of fear, where questioning a prophet was seen as coming against “God’s anointed.”
5- The Toronto Blessing (1994): Originally a Vineyard church, this false revival spread worldwide through Randy Clark, who received his false “anointing” from WOF false teacher Rodney Howard Browne. Millions of Christians travelled to Toronto to “catch the fire”. It became famous for “holy laughter”, violent shaking, acting like literal drunks (“drunk in the spirit”) as well as animal noises like roaring, barking and clucking like chickens. This revival was all about “partying with Jesus”; nothing about holiness or the authority of the written Word; it was too busy being focused on physical manifestations to worry about Biblical discernment and anyone who brought concerns to them were told that they’re “blaspheming the Holy Spirit”.
6- The Brownsville Revival (1995): Beginning in ‘95 at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, this revival lasted for five years and saw millions of people come in. Brownsville was a mixture because it did have genuine aspects of revival. There was Biblical preaching by Steve Hill, conviction of sin, deep repentance and a real hunger for God that results in transformed lives. That said, the revival was also contaminated by the Toronto Blessing’s demonic “anointing” with some of the same vile manifestations that were happening in Toronto.
7- IHOP and Bethel Church (1999 to now): Just as we were going into the 21st century, two ministries began to dominate the entire Charismatic movement; the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City, founded by serial sexual predator Mike Bickle in 1999, and Bethel Church in Redding, California, led by Bill Johnson. Under Mike Bickle, IHOP introduced Christians to extra-biblical revelations, promoted wicked perverts of the past (Bob Jones, Paul Cain, etc; and now we know why) and we now know that Bickle used the “prophetic and apostolic” framework he taught as a way to groom and then sexually abuse young women, all with IHOP leadership covering it up to protect the ministry’s reputation. IHOP was demonic, perverted and Biblically illiterate from the get-go; a bad tree (Mike Bickle) CANNOT produce good fruit.
Then we have Bethel, which promoted the unbiblical and occultic practice of “grave soaking” (getting “the anointing” from teh graves of dead Christians). They claimed it was a “small group” doing it… until we learned Bill Johnson’s own late wife, Beni, was doing it. It was a “from the top down” necromancy practice. They’ve also promoted Christological heresy, as Bill Johnson’s teaching on the nature of Jesus is so off-base; he shreds the Hypostatic Union. They’ve also REPEATEDLY platformed and covered up for sexual predators ( ie; Todd Bentley) and false prophets (is; Shawn Bolz, also a sexual predator) and lying “leaders” (ie; Brian Simmons of The Passion Translation which Bible Gateway removed for stealing from other modern translations word for word).
8- The Lakeland Revival (2008): In 2008, evangelist Todd Bentley had a “revival” in Lakeland, Florida, which was broadcast worldwide by GodTv. This satanic revival was marked by what Toronto was … but multiply it 10 fold for it’s lunacy. Yet Bethel’s Bill Johnson, Toronto’s John Arnott and others (C Peter Wagner, Rick Joyner, etc) “commissioned” Todd and did so as “apostles”. Just weeks later we’d learn that Bentley was a drunk, financially corrupt and ran off with his assistant, leaving his wife to fend for herself. The Lakeland Revival is the perfect example that men like Bill Johnson, John Arnott… well; most of the Charismatic movement… will protect a sexual predator or false prophet as long as he’s “anointed”.
Closing remarks: The Charismatic Movement started as the Pentecostal movement at Azusa Street with a genuine, Holy Spirit revival that exalted Jesus, called for holiness and relied on the authority of the Word. The revivals and movements to follow became less and less about Jesus and more and more about experience, submission to “apostles and prophets” and teachings that allowed for necromancy and other doctrines that the Word explicitly condemns. The modern Charismatic movement has abandoned Biblical Christianity and has built an empire of experience, false authority, and doctrinal error. To be a Charismatic today, you have to be someone who uses Biblical language while rejecting Biblical doctrine and practice.
