Chris Anthony

@andre_gagne1 Yes the important thing is not that they were confirming gifts by laying on hands - as the AoG also did - but that Latter Rain was a) doing so independently and by apparently exclusively by prophetic function; and b) establishing its of kind of apostolic succession.

Fascinating 1949 archival note from the General Council of the AofG, stating that “the most serious aspect of the New Order of the Latter Rain is the assumption that God is NOW setting in the body of Christ the members through the ministry of the laying on of hands and prophecy.”

Not all contemporary pentecostal and charismatic roots are connected to or significantly influenced by William Branham. #PSA #revival #churchhistory

@TaylorMatthewD Congratulations!

Genuinely moved this weekend to learn that my book (The Violent Take It by Force) received the Pneuma book award from the Society for Pentecostal Studies. This one lands differently: the scholars who voted on it are many of the same people whose research I relied on to write it

So glad I completed my PhD before AI really took off & without any AI input. There's a (too long) list of minor corrections for the first edition of the book that came out of that research, but now I wonder if those inconsequential errors are actually hallmarks of my humanity.

@TexasPreacher Amen!

Why the popular, hard-line/hyper-cessationism doesn’t do justice to the Reformed tradition. ***Primary sources: Puritan John Trapp: “Actually, supernatural dreams are sent to people by God and his angels, and they are done so either to comfort us, as in Matt 2:19, or to chasten us, as in Job 7:13-14. And God usually repeats them until they are regarded.” Vermigli: “a good and lawful attention to dreams is not to be forbidden. The godly are permitted to pray that they may be instructed even in their dreams.” John Owen: “To say God does not or may not send his angels to any of his saints, to communicate his mind to them as to some particulars of their duty according to his word or to foreshadow to them his own approaching work, seems to unwarrantably limit the Holy One of Israel.” Exposition on the Book of Hebrews John Calvin: “Still, I do not deny that the Lord has sometimes at a later period raised up apostles, or evangelists in their place, as has happened in our own day.” Commentary on 1 Cor. 12:28 William Bridge, Westminster divine: “But, you will say, may not God speak by extraordinary visions and revelations, in these days of ours? Yes, without all doubt he may: God is not to be limited, he may speak in what way he pleases.” The Works of the Rev. Bridge, vol. 1 Richard Baxter: “It is possible that God may make new Revelations to particular persons about their duties, events, or matters of fact, in subordination to the Scripture, either by inspiration, vision, apparition or voice.” Christian Directory Samuel Rutherford: “There is a revelation of some particular men, who have foretold things to come, even since the ceasing of the Canon, as John Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, have foretold things to come and they certainly fell out, and in our nation of Scotland, M. George Wishart and John Knox.” “Mr. Flavel replied, That he expected much trouble because of his dream the night before, adding, that when he had such representations made to him in his sleep, they seldom or never failed. Accordingly they were overtaken by a dreadful tempest.” The Life of John Flavel Luther: “I do, indeed, have dreams from time to time, which move me somewhat....” Commentary on Gen 37:10 Also Luther: “The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth.” “Increase Mather did no less than three Times as the Year, 1678, was coming on, very Publickly Declare, That he was verily Perswaded, a very Mortal Disease would shortly break in, and the Slain of the Lord would be many. Some of his Friends were troubled at him for it. But when the Year 1678. was come on, we saw the Mortal Disease. The Small-Pox broke in.“ Cotton Mather, Parentator George Gillespie: John Knox, John Welsh, and others were “holy prophets receiving extraordinary revelations from God, and foretelling strange & remarkable things, which did accordingly come to pass punctually.” Works, vol. 2 etc. etc. ****Secondary sources: “Some of the later ‘cessationist’ ideas should not be read back into the Reformation era. While the Reformers were quite clearly not modern charismatics, they were also not so suspicious of the supernatural.” Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power “Personal informative revelation…was the standard Puritan view, as I have observed it—they weren’t cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.” J.I. Packer “Without a doubt, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches cessationism, but it is a cessationism which requires considerable nuance and allows for supernatural surprises so long as they are working with and through the Word of God.” Kevin DeYoung “The divines did not intend to deny that God could still speak through special providences that might involve dreams or the ministry of angels, for example, but such revelation was always to be considered ‘mediate.’ Garnet Howard Milne “However, many of the authors of the WCF accepted that “prophecy” continued in their time, and a number of them apparently believed that disclosure of God’s will through dreams, visions, and angelic communication remained possible.” Garnet Howard Milne "Where the contemporary continuationist claims that God may still reveal hidden and future events to the church, he or she stands in line with Reformed orthodoxy as represented at the Westminster Assembly. Where the modern cessationist denies any God-given ability to discern such matters, he or she is at odds with the pneumatology and the doctrine of Scripture of the Westminster Assembly." Milne "The strict cessationist perspective of Warfield and others is a limited perspective on what the reformers and their descendants believed and practiced. If Knox, the Scottish Presbyterians, and the Covenanters were living today in the same manner that they did in the 1500s and 1600s, we would be forced to classify them more with the continuationists than the cessationists.” Dean Smith, Westminster Theological Journal “The Reformed tradition repeatedly stress the completeness and sufficiency of Scripture. They show an appreciation for discursive processes for deriving conclusions from Scripture. Yet we also find testimony to extraordinary works of the Spirit of a nondiscursive kind.” Vern Poythress etc. etc. ****Conclusion: Popular treatments of cessationism have swung to an extreme that the divines didn’t intend. The Reformers, Puritans, and Westminster Divines clearly believed that dreams, angelic visits & prophetic impulses/motions can still have a role in the ordinary lives of Christians. Popular treatments of cessationism rarely (never?) nuance this. The Divines who gave us WCF 1.1 also wrote 5.3: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”

@andre_gagne1 Can't pretend I am familiar with that setting, but it is a pattern J have seen in the treatment of certain high profile figures.

@1WayPublishing Indeed; I encountered the same issue with White-Cain’s “Satanic Pregnancies” prayer a few years ago.

Teaser : dans mon prochain livre, prévu pour début mai, je dévoile la signification de cette vidéo de 2020 qui refait surface aujourd'hui.

@andre_gagne1 I have found proper contextualisation can be both illuminating in itself and aids critical evaluation.

@1WayPublishing Absolutely!

@TheWomanfredi Don't forget Junia!

@1WayPublishing Basically, they need to be a Peter, a Paul, a Mary, AND a Martha. No wonder it’s so hard to be a bishop 🤣

Bit late with this, as I’ve been chewing it over, but on the topic of Bishops having PhDs, I actually don’t give a hoot. Can you pastor wisely? Shepherd by example? Treat me like a human? Show me who Jesus is by your words & actions? No? Then you can keep your doctorate thanks.

@TheWomanfredi Yes absolutely! My goal was to contrast academic teacher (Paul) with practical preacher (Peter) rather than practical servant (Martha) with devoted disciple and the picture of a teacher in training (Mary). But Yes!

@1WayPublishing And Marys and Marthas 😊

@reachjulieroys @lanceford @lukegeraty Thank you for the feedback. Very important and timely issue. Lots more one could say.

@reachjulieroys @lanceford @lukegeraty and I discussed this at length a couple of weeks back on the #sacrementalcharismatic podcast: m.youtube.com/watch?v=bgGDhk…

After a frmr Bethel intern went public wth allegations of sexual abuse, ldrs’ decision to label it an “affair” & restore the pastor is under scrutiny. @LanceFord joins me to examine how Bethel’s “culture of honor” protected predators & left victims unsafe. julieroys.com/podcast/bethel…

@JustinPetersMin I am not prominent, but mine's legit. More importantly, there are two points here worthy of attention: 1) That trading off honorary degrees is not limited to charismatics 2) The tacit belief that social media and AI qualify as research.

If a prominent charismatic preacher today claims to have a doctorate, it's a very safe bet that it is not a real degree.

Today’s #manuscriptmonday is all about it being Purim. Purim is a Jewish spring festival commemorating a deliverance of the Jewish people in ancient Persia during the 4/5 century BC. The holiday centers on a dramatic rescue: Haman, a court official, convinced King Ahasuerus to execute all Jews after a Jewish servant named Mordecai refused to bow before him. However, Esther, Mordecai’s cousin who had become queen while concealing her Jewish identity, revealed Haman’s plot to the king, resulting in Haman and his sons being executed instead. Esther scrolls are the only ones within Jewish tradition that can be illuminated and decorated.

@timsuffield "The" prophet, no. But people can be identified as "a" prophet. In all cases walk in humility. That's what you're saying, right?

Humility is a vital key in delivering prophetic words. If you start to think of yourself as 'the Prophet' you're sunk. nuakh.uk/2026/03/02/hum…

@markchironna Thank you for engaging. I am not editing. Since John 1 describes the beginning, I do not see it as dispatching with the OT or foreshadowing. But I will respond further later.

God ordained both the tabernacle and the temple. The tabernacle was commanded directly to Moses, and while David initiated the desire for a permanent house, God responded not with rebuke but with the Davidic covenant, and then filled Solomon’s temple with His kabod. So we cannot set one against the other. The trajectory is real: tabernacle to temple to incarnate Word to ecclesial body. John 1:14 deliberately uses the language of tabernacling, and Paul tells the Corinthians they are the naos of the Holy Spirit. But these are not corrections of what came before. They are fulfillments of it. The moment we say “from John 1 on” as though that is where the real story begins, we have divided the Scriptures into a rough draft and a final version. And the God who speaks in them does not work that way. He is not on a timeline of progressive self-correction. The Scriptures are one. The God who filled the tabernacle with glory is the same God who tabernacled in flesh. When we stop seeing that, we are no longer reading Scripture. We are editing it.

Heaven is God’s throne and the earth is His footstool. And yet this same God commanded the tabernacle, desired the temple, and filled both with His glory. Sacred space was His idea, not ours. He chose to dwell among His people in a particular place, under specific conditions, with precise instructions. So when He asks “Where is the house you could build for Me?” He is not dismissing what He ordained. He is grieving what was done with it. The temple had become a guarantee rather than a gift, a place of entitlement rather than encounter. The building still stood, the sacrifices still smoked, but the hearts that were supposed to meet God there had replaced awe with assumption. God does not reject holy places. He rejects the arrogance that treats holy places as proof that He is obligated to show up. The structure was always meant to serve the relationship. The moment it replaced the relationship, it became an offense. You can stand in the very place God appointed and still be a thousand miles from His presence if your confidence is in the place rather than the Person who chose to fill it.

@AlistairMerrym1 @goldstar002 Thank you for pointing out the differences, there is no straight read across.

@goldstar002 Actually Bethel came out of the Assemblies of God and Pentecostalism while IHOPKC was entirely founded on the teachings of Mike Bickle and the curated ramblings of Bob Jones and Paul Cain. Morningstar is similar. All were influenced by C Peter Wagner's NAR teachings.

This is Melissa Dougherty reading an excerpt from Danny Silk's Culture of Honor. I want to share a little from my heart here tonight. One aspect of processing the dark revelations that erupted from IHOPKC in 23/24 was that we had to take a step back from the horror and depravity of the sin being exposed (which was traumatic) and unpack the "How did we get here?" question. Mike Bickle was extremely deceptive and well practiced. It took a village of people to unpack the answers to a lot of those kinds of questions when God (and it was God not Julie Roys or fill in the blank) orchestrated the "Exposure". We did this very publicly right here on X. We had messy ruthless conversations right in the midst of a propaganda war that was being waged by the Executive Leadership Team who was telling us to "Get off Social Media" and eat "Cinder blocks" from the platform. (Not hyperbole, they literally told us to eat rocks). But like Twisted Sister, We didn't take it. Today, Bethel shutdown the Alumni Group on Facebook. Regardless of wether or not their reasons for doing so are legit and well advised or simply an attempt to control the damage their own actions have caused, it's still a blow to the larger community. Bethel has a different culture than IHOPKC. You have a different foundation and spiritual lineage. Your story belongs to you but there are similarities. You were lied to. That's a painful thing to process especially if the Liars were people you trusted and followed in good faith with sincere hearts, people who may have been or are Your Heroes. There is no shame in being deceived. It's the human condition. It's why God killed an animal in the Garden and clothed Adam and Eve when they were naked and ashamed. It's why Jesus came full of Grace and Truth. It's why He gave us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Truth It's also why He gave us the Bible. II Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. It's very sad what's taken place at Bethel Church in Redding, CA. It's a tragic story of deceit and exploitation and I'm not talking about Shawn Bolz or Ben Armstrong. I'm talking about your leaders. May God have Mercy on you as you continue to process and grieve as a community that has been lied to by some of the people you trusted the most. Because you have been. Godspeed Bethel Alumni 🙏 💔