Blessing The Church?
By Clifford Hill, Peter Fenwick, David Forbes, David Noakes
Eagle Publishers. 234 pages, £4.99
ISBN 0 86347 186 2
A battle is now in progress for the soul of the British charismatic movement. This book is a heartfelt cry from charismatic leaders who love the Bible seeking to call the movement back from the precipice of disaster. It is a book which deserves reading by every thinking Christian as soon as possible.
Latter Rain in Docklands
Its thesis is that, culminating in 1990, a package of non-Biblical teaching promising supernatural powers, signs and wonders and imminent revival was injected into the movement and is a milestone of apostacy. In that year John Wimber, backed by many British charismatic leaders, held his conference at Docklands in London at a time when Paul Cain (who many see as a prophet) had predicted that a time of great revival was to break out in London. But it did not happen, and into the vacuum left behind the Toronto blessing (which the authors see as spurious) has emerged.
The teaching at that conference, says the book, was almost directly the heresy of the discredited Latter Rain movement which began in Canada soon after World War II. This movement taught that the offices of apostle and prophet were being restored to the church. A pure church would emerge under the apostles outside the corrupt denominations. Through signs and wonders wrought by the apostles a worldwide revival would break out and the majority of the world would be won for Christ. The revival would come as the result of the church defeating demonic spirits through prayer, fasting and spiritual warfare conducted through intense worship and praise. Those who achieved a certain degree of holiness under the apostles would become an army of super-Christians able to overcome all enemies including death and would become immortal, completing the conquest of the nations before Christ returns. This group in the teaching of John Wimber and the Kansas City Prophets associated with him, who came to the Docklands conference, are variously known as 'Joel's army', the 'manifested sons of God', the 'dread champions', the 'omega generation' (Jesus being the Alpha), or 'the new breed'.
The authors claim that progressively much of the charismatic movement has come adrift from Scripture, and this heresy has come in. The Bible is no longer central to much charismatic life, is no longer loved or studied and so the movement has lost the ability to discern good from evil in the spiritual realm. Now, the authors say, we have come to a critical juncture in which, in the Toronto movement, counterfeit spiritual activity has joined hand-in-hand with false doctrines, and who knows what might happen.
Naming names
The authors provide a thorough approach beginning with a survey of the current culture in Britain. Then Peter Fenwick, a leader of the Sheffield house churches, surveys the change in charismatic life and practice over the last 25 years which has led to the Toronto Blessing. In particular he laments the decline in Bible knowledge. Clifford Hill then emphasises that the true prophet is far more likely to be characterised by words of warning and judgment than of blessing. David Forbes gives a most informative history of the Latter Rain movement and how it infiltrated the charismatic movement from an early stage. David Noakes, who has been with the charismatic movement since its early days, surveys how the movement has developed over the years, taking on what he sees as the idolisation of worldly leadership, and through such teachings as Restorationism and Reconstructionism the adoption of a triumphalist view of the church which is entirely at odds with the Biblical picture of a suffering, servant church, displaying the humility of her Master.
But it is Clifford Hill's last chapter in which the gloves really come off. Hill has constantly opposed the Toronto Blessing and the Kansas City Prophets face to face. Here he gives his view of the history of the charismatic movement over the last 5 years. He names the names of British leaders he believes have failed the church. He spells out what he is sure is the occult influence in key people. He speculates as to what the future might be. It is gripping, vital stuff. Many Reformed readers will be very tempted to read this book and say, 'There we are, we told you so,' and they would probably be right. But Hill and the others represent a Bible-based, serious charismatic Christianity which deserves better from us.
