Cedric Fisher: "earnestly contending for the faith."

I Reject Dr. Michael Brown’s Tepid Mea Culpa. (op-ed)

So, Dr. Michael Brown writes in a source of spiritual contamination, Charisma Magazine, that its time to make some changes in how Charismania’s leadership handles sexual scandals.  In such a Movement with completely unaccountable leadership, it will be decades before they even get some rules that they all agree to. How much longer will it take before they have a committee that can deal with each issue? Would not a famed one simply says, “God’s handling it—back off”?

Additionally, I must ask the question, “Why now?” I mean, now that Christianity is in full-blown apostasy due in great part to the Charismatic Movement (and Charisma Magazine), isn’t it a bit late to begin installing safety measures? And who among Dr. Brown and his ilk are qualified to head up this “noble” project since they are all guilty of bringing it to this point?

The fact is that if it were not for the “tolerance” and “never-speak-anything-negative” and “anything is accepted” policies that continue to be enforced to this day, the Movement would have dissolved long ago and its many wolves would have faded into the darkness from whence they came.

So to come out now as an icon of integrity denouncing the lack of oversight, and chiding God’s people concerning their outrage, is supercilious and arrogant. Furthermore, Dr. Brown tries to wash himself of guilt in the matter e.g., “I have not supported him being in ministry since his divorce and remarriage in 2008, and “I am on public record to that effect, I have no connection of any kind to Todd and his ministry. I also disagreed publicly with the way other leaders handled things…” (Honestly! I mean it!) 

However, in my opinion, he is as guilty as anyone else for Bentley’s rise to prominence. The reason is that Dr. Brown supports Chariamania and is a confessed member of that wolf pack. He supports the New Apostolic Reformation and is likely its foremost apologist. He supports Francis Chan, Lou Ingle, Bill Johnson, and other wolves.

The entirety of the Charismatic Movement, and its metastasizing into the present sordid hoard of reprobates and apostates is a direct result of its open-door policy for every type of charlatan to enter Christianity. However, Dr. Brown is unrepentant and unapologetic about its contribution to the present ubiquitous deception of the masses.

For example, a significant factor in Bentley and other aberrant individuals rise to prominence is from the onset decades of warnings and rebukes by Charismatic leaders not to judge their actions. They also warned people and intimidated them with caustic terms not to discern, not to judge their lives and doctrine by the Holy Spirit or God’s word. Further, they have and continue to employ TV and other media to castigate and smear anyone who exposed their wickedness. None of that behavior has been repented over. Dr. Brown seems to believe it is okay to smear a mere Believer who protests spiritual wickedness, but a great shame to expose the ones that are spiritual wicked.

He chides the Believers, “…the internet is not the place to settle private scores with leaders or bring accusations about the personal lives of others.” He claims that “..we make ourselves a laughingstock before the world,” when using the Internet to expose wicked people.

We don’t have private scores—we do not know them personally, but only recognize their bad fruit.

Then he states, “If you have legitimate concerns about a ministry or leader (for example, involving sexual or financial scandals) make every effort to find a solid, mature leader willing to take up the cause. It may take time, but it is far better to take that time than to turn the internet into the world’s largest Christian gossip network.”

Has he considered the legendary bizarre charismatic behavior on TV? The Charismatic Movement has provided substance for comedians and movie skits for decades. To quote: “What a laughingstock! What a terrible shame!”

So we are forbidden to use the Internet for exposing wicked leaders. Really? But Dr. Brown and his cohorts do not have a problem with using TV and other media presence to spread heresy. Further, they used and use television and other media to mock and demean the Believers who protest spiritual wickedness. To quote Mr. Brown regarding their behavior, how “incredibly ugly and grievous, and it must break the heart of God.”

Further, he orders us to “find a solid, mature leader willing to take up the cause.” Now upon reading that remark I barely avoided spitting my coffee. It reminded me of the following verse:

“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.” – Ezekiel 22:30 (Nuff said)

He declares that to do otherwise is to turn the Internet into “the world’s largest Christian gossip network.” No, the entirety of Christianity has been gossip stricken for many decades if not centuries. Everywhere people congregate, there is gossip—even in church buildings. But it is not gossip to expose the wicked purveyors of heresy. To say that it is can be considered a rebuke of God’s word.

The fact is, the Internet can be used for good or bad, just as television. The difference is that wolves have the money to use television and magazines as their medium, and God’s people are relegated to using the Internet. Before the Internet, the wolves established themselves and dumped their sordid heresy into millions of professing Christians, and became extremely wealthy in the process. There was no recourse for the Body of Christ than to pray and speak locally against the wickedness. To quote Mr. Brown, “What a terrible shame!” Now that there is a recourse, they wish it to go back to the way it was when they had no viable challenges. No.

The fact is that since our protests for years have been rebuked or ignored, We have no one qualified leader today voicing our dislike and rejection of charlatan wolves. Dr. Brown is certainly not qualified to do so. Thus, any serious concern and scriptural evidence of a wolf is ignored or rejected. Our outcries are rubbed in our faces. The wolves call us “heresy hunters, judgmental Pharisees, critical spirits,” and let’s not forget “self-righteous legalists.”

The truth is that the Internet is all we have to be a voice of protest against the apostasy and the smug wolves that have all but destroyed the integrity and essentially all of the moral quality of Christianity.

Therefore we will use whatever means available to expose the darkness. If you do not like it, Dr. Brown, then you and your ilk should not do works in and of darkness. You should have long ago stepped off your pedestals and humbled yourselves. Instead, as you continue, as you do in this piece that you wrote, to exalt yourself. You spend more time chiding the Body of Christ than exposing darkness and wolves. Furthermore, you attempt to wash your image, while arrogantly chide anyone who would call you out for disgusting last-minute, late-in-the-game moral posturing. Your article comes off as damage control rather than a sincere concern for the millions of individuals Charismania has lured into its deception and delusion.

Someone might think that is a bit harsh—or maybe over the line harsh. No, it is past time to jerk off the “sheep’s clothing” of these self-appointed bastions of the Charismatic Movement and identify the spiritual carcinogens that emanate from it. That Movement began as a better version of Pentecostalism, but it was an unaccountable sham Movement that insisted God was the author of every strange doctrine, practice, and spirit—no matter how unbiblical. Its logical path has led to the incredible inflowing of bizarre individuals that long before Todd Bentley, and beyond their massive deposit of heresy, committed, as Mr. Brown states, “…more than our share of sexual scandals.”

So why now, Mr. Brown? Why wait until it is likely too late to turn back the clock on the great apostasy that has swallowed up Christianity? Long before Bentley’s sexual perversion was exposed by one of his followers, God’s Remnant was warning about him. Did Dr. Michael Brown speak or write a statement of protest when Bentley began his rise to fame? Has he spoken or written a protest concerning Todd White’s rise to fame? I advise Dr. Brown to go ahead and prepare his article concerning why the Charismatic Movement should have recognized Todd White as a problem and explaining that he never supported him. He will have to explain why he supports Bill Johnson who mentored White and groomed him for “ministry.”

Has Dr. Brown spoken or written protests against Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson, Jesus Culture, or any of the other powerful wicked influences that are much more destructive than Bentley’s raunchy sex life?

The bottom line is that if proven to be true, Bentleys’ sexual perversion only affects a large number of his deceived and delusional followers. Not one of God’s Remnant is affected because we did not accept him from the onset. So if Brown is attempting to console anyone, it is Bentley’s flock. In his consolation article, there is nothing else that might cause them to rethink their acceptance of such flagrant and unambiguous wolf.

I am more affected by Dr. Brown’s feeble “apology” or whatever it is. It is like a bartender serving liquor to a man until he is near falling down drunk. Then when he runs a red light and kills someone’s wife and children, the bartender writes a letter stating his displeasure with the drunkard that he created. Then imagine the bartender admitting in his letter to a long history of such tragedies as a direct result of him feeding drunkards as much booze as he or she desires. However, he follows that admission by stating that he and other bartenders need to do more to stop such incidents from occurring. Finally, he ends the letter by chiding people who file lawsuits, calling them “spreaders of gossip, stone-throwers, of being disgruntled and trying to settle a private score.”

After over 4 decades of ministry, I am deeply offended by Dr. Brown’s self-serving and arrogant article. Maybe the younger generations that have never witnessed a genuine moving of the Holy Spirit might accept it. They were never in a meeting with godly older men and women who had been in prayer for days concerning God’s work in that meeting. I have, and I’m not one to bite my tongue and hold my peace when I read such a repugnant “answer” to a wolf that didn’t even have to put on “sheep’s clothing” to be accepted and exalted.

Therefore, it is little benefit to the Body of Christ when a wolf apologizes for the wolfishness of a fellow wolf. Additionally, it has absolutely no effect on slowing down, much less reversing, the damage of the Charismatic Movement. It is truly a clever (and well-written) temporary bandaid on a spiritual pandemic of deception. I do not accept Dr. Brown’s half-hearted effort to alleviate the scandal of the situation. The darkness has already fallen, Dr. Brown. If you have any oil left, why don’t you just dare to be a true light?

4 Comments

  1. Cheryl

    Very good, informative, and straight to the point! The wishy-washy attitudes of those highly visible in the professing Christian realm is both sad and disgusting. The fear of offending people is causing a great weakness in CHristianity allowing compromise to become the norm in Christian circles.
    To hear someone speak undiluted truth is more rare than gold.

  2. Linda

    Yup, and the devil set the stage for all of this sort of thing by removing the church’s immune system by the falsely applied phrase; “do not judge!” Just let it all in the drawbridge, hold nothing back, don’t screen anything out, don’t scrutinize, discern, or use discretion or prudence. Just open wide the gate and ‘let em’ all in’ is their motto. All the trojan horses, all the warriors clad as gift bearers. And then things like this happen, and they are left scratching their heads. The true saints refuted it all from the beginning, but they point the finger at us, the immune system! It couldn’t make any less sense. It is a sick body turned on itself and its own defense system, the one thing that can rescue it.

  3. Tom and Katie Muench

    brown? true light? he’s not saved and any true christian needs to get out of any brand of charismania cuz ALL of it is false… read the bible… tongues are a REAL language not yaba daba doo…a sign to Isreal at the time… real languages .. Take a look at the calvary chapel movement Lonnie Frisbee sodomite or Katryn Khulman fornicator and false as hell… the true church is fine… the gates of hell will not prevail against it …Jesus Christ is building it not man read the Word…

    • Linda

      And tongues were not just ‘a sign to Israel’ ‘at the time.’
      The gifts are still in operation. The gifts are also a sign to Gentiles as well as Jews.
      And it’s not just about being a ‘sign.’ So many misinterpret 1 Cor. 13 into ‘the gifts are done,’ when nowhere does it say that. In fact, just the opposite. It says the gifts will continue until we see Him face to face, and that which is perfect has come, Christ and His kingdom! Also, we need the gifts until then. Many assume ‘the canon was complete’ so that’s it. But no, many Christians did not have access to the Bible or all of it during many parts of the church age, it was not in mass replication until the Reformation time. And, many gifts have nothing to do with revelation, but are things like healing, which all the saints need up until now from time to time. Such miracles still occur when doctors can offer no cure. And, revelation still occurs. That is not ‘adding to the Bible.’ That is agreeing with it. The Bible itself says that the church in the end times will have those who see visions and dream dreams, and the book of Revelation says that the blood of prophets will be spilled during that time. (Hint: there are no ‘prophets’ in Judaism, you need to be connected to the vine which is Christ to receive this.) And, we do hear from God. Just as Ananias did when he prayed and was given the information about meeting with Saul, who would become Paul. God spoke to him, just as He still speaks to our hearts if we listen. Often the gifts are more in operation on the parameters of the mission field to aid as a sign in new lands. But, they continue and did not cease. Yes indeed, we must read the Word!
      So many are being deceived, even in the discernment camp, by listening to false teachers who are wolves in shepherd’s clothing.
      : )

Leave a Reply to Cheryl Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© 2024 TruthKeepers

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑