Many of us remember the strange public prayer (or prophesy) uttered by Pentecostal evangelist and Presidential advisor Paula White:
“I hear victory in the corridors of heaven. Angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now. They’re coming here, in the name of Jesus, from South America.”
She was predicting, apparently, a divine intervention into American politics to prevent Joseph Biden from being inaugurated President of the United States.
Some of us, however, took her words in another direction. The “angels from Africa” seemed rather a reference to black women of Georgia and other states who organized on behalf of Biden and ensured not only his election but the surprising election of two senators from Georgia.
Regardless, the Paula White prayer illustrates the increasing role played by: Pentecostal Christians; expectations of the unexpected, even the supernatural; and what is now called Dominion theology. These things dominate a wide swath of American Christianity, a movement sometimes known as NAR—New Apostolic Reformation.
Alan Bean, in a powerful and compelling article, describes this New Apostolic Reformation, pulling together familiar names, like the above-mentioned Paula White, Rick Joyner (of Morningstar Ministries), the late R. J. Rushdoony (of Christian Reconstruction), the late Peter Wagner (of Fuller Seminary), Mike Bickle (of International House of Prayer in Kansas City), the late John Wimber (of the Vineyard Movement), the late Francis Schaeffer (of L’Abri), President Donald Trump, poet William Butler Yeats, and yes, Hollywood!!
I encourage you to read and ponder this article—read it HERE. I rarely make such recommendations like this, but Dr. Bean’s long article will fill in many of the blanks and connect many of the dots. It provides answers but raises many more questions.
Not that this New Apostolic Reformation has become mainstream. What’s happening is still playing fifth string to Roman Catholic drama, Evangelical decline, Mainline renewal, and Black Church influence. Yes, it made it all the way to the White House, led by Paula White, and their prayer meetings were broadcast to all of us with nauseating frequency.
In reference to that Trump-White collaboration, some will use Camelot vocabulary and describe “one brief shining moment” and others will use Gettysburg language and describe “a great civil war” and point to the insurrection of January 6, 2021.
I am decidedly in the company of the latter, but I recognize the popularity and power of this so-called New Apostolic Reformation. Regardless of what it claims, this movement is neither new nor apostolic, and it certainly is no reformation. It mirrors earlier religious movements that appeal to the imagination and mobilize people into a frenzy. It bears only superficial resemblance to either Jesus or those first apostles even though it incessantly invokes the names of both.
There is no evidence that their so-called “reformation” has either the capacity or the intent to usher in a human community that bears the marks of the gospel.
That being said: I certainly recognize that many advocates and participants of this New Apostolic Reformation are devout Christians, decent people, and devoted citizens of countries like the United States of America. Individually and collectively, they have done much good, have not “grown weary in well-doing,” as the Good Book demands. I hold no ill will.
However, I am convinced their growing influence is not good—not good for the Christian community, not good for the American community, and not good for the human community!!
It was their prediction that Trump would win the elections in 2016 and 2020 that caught my attention as an observer of the American religious scene. They were shockingly right the first time, and Trump rewarded them with unprecedented access to power.
They were clearly wrong the second time; but it was their wrongness in the name of God that gave rise to the claim that the 2020 election was stolen. If God declared through his prophets and apostles that Trump would serve a second term and he, in fact, did not, there must have been fraud: fraud deep enough and wide enough to counter the very purposes and plans of God.
This conclusion has fed the national fantasy to overturn the election, storm the capital, and rewrite the election laws. And that, in and of itself, demonstrates the great power of this New Apostolic Reformation.
At least one answer to the question I posed weeks ago—What Kind of Church does America Need? —must read something like this: one that offers a compelling account of how the gospel of God enriches the Human Community with these great qualities: life, justice, truth, beauty, and peace.
That is what we mean when we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Many of us remember the strange public prayer (or prophesy) uttered by Pentecostal evangelist and Presidential advisor Paula White:
“I hear victory in the corridors of heaven. Angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now. They’re coming here, in the name of Jesus, from South America.”
She was predicting, apparently, a divine intervention into American politics to prevent Joseph Biden from being inaugurated President of the United States.
Some of us, however, took her words in another direction. The “angels from Africa” seemed rather a reference to black women of Georgia and other states who organized on behalf of Biden and ensured not only his election but the surprising election of two senators from Georgia.
Regardless, the Paula White prayer illustrates the increasing role played by: Pentecostal Christians; expectations of the unexpected, even the supernatural; and what is now called Dominion theology. These things dominate a wide swath of American Christianity, a movement sometimes known as NAR—New Apostolic Reformation.
Alan Bean, in a powerful and compelling article, describes this New Apostolic Reformation, pulling together familiar names, like the above-mentioned Paula White, Rick Joyner (of Morningstar Ministries), the late R. J. Rushdoony (of Christian Reconstruction), the late Peter Wagner (of Fuller Seminary), Mike Bickle (of International House of Prayer in Kansas City), the late John Wimber (of the Vineyard Movement), the late Francis Schaeffer (of L’Abri), President Donald Trump, poet William Butler Yeats, and yes, Hollywood!!
I encourage you to read and ponder this article—read it HERE. I rarely make such recommendations like this, but Dr. Bean’s long article will fill in many of the blanks and connect many of the dots. It provides answers but raises many more questions.
Not that this New Apostolic Reformation has become mainstream. What’s happening is still playing fifth string to Roman Catholic drama, Evangelical decline, Mainline renewal, and Black Church influence. Yes, it made it all the way to the White House, led by Paula White, and their prayer meetings were broadcast to all of us with nauseating frequency.
In reference to that Trump-White collaboration, some will use Camelot vocabulary and describe “one brief shining moment” and others will use Gettysburg language and describe “a great civil war” and point to the insurrection of January 6, 2021.
I am decidedly in the company of the latter, but I recognize the popularity and power of this so-called New Apostolic Reformation. Regardless of what it claims, this movement is neither new nor apostolic, and it certainly is no reformation. It mirrors earlier religious movements that appeal to the imagination and mobilize people into a frenzy. It bears only superficial resemblance to either Jesus or those first apostles even though it incessantly invokes the names of both.
There is no evidence that their so-called “reformation” has either the capacity or the intent to usher in a human community that bears the marks of the gospel.
That being said: I certainly recognize that many advocates and participants of this New Apostolic Reformation are devout Christians, decent people, and devoted citizens of countries like the United States of America. Individually and collectively, they have done much good, have not “grown weary in well-doing,” as the Good Book demands. I hold no ill will.
However, I am convinced their growing influence is not good—not good for the Christian community, not good for the American community, and not good for the human community!!
It was their prediction that Trump would win the elections in 2016 and 2020 that caught my attention as an observer of the American religious scene. They were shockingly right the first time, and Trump rewarded them with unprecedented access to power.
They were clearly wrong the second time; but it was their wrongness in the name of God that gave rise to the claim that the 2020 election was stolen. If God declared through his prophets and apostles that Trump would serve a second term and he, in fact, did not, there must have been fraud: fraud deep enough and wide enough to counter the very purposes and plans of God.
This conclusion has fed the national fantasy to overturn the election, storm the capital, and rewrite the election laws. And that, in and of itself, demonstrates the great power of this New Apostolic Reformation.
At least one answer to the question I posed weeks ago—What Kind of Church does America Need? —must read something like this: one that offers a compelling account of how the gospel of God enriches the Human Community with these great qualities: life, justice, truth, beauty, and peace.
That is what we mean when we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
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