"Revival or Heresy? the So-called New Apostolic Reformation" by Joel Nisly and Dru Lattin

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Yeah, well, good morning, everyone. Welcome back here to Strength to Strength. It's good to be here with you, brothers and sisters from all around the world. So yeah, the purpose of Strength to Strength is to advance Jesus' kingdom by tackling thought-provoking topics, stimulating candid discussions, and by sharing faith-building testimonies. This morning, with the topic that we have here in front of us, we're going to be looking at really maybe all three aspects of this. Joining us here is Joel Knisely and Drew Latin, and they've experienced, they've interacted with this personally, with this movement that we're looking at, the NER, or so-called NER. And so they'll be sharing some of their experiences and, of course, engaging this topic.

And so we're excited about that. I myself have interfaced with numerous brothers who have been pulled into this and have dialogued with some about this. And so I'm excited personally to see us engage this topic here this morning.

It is a sobering topic, and our desire is to do it in a way that, with brotherly love and consideration of those who really, I think many, that I've interacted with, who are wanting to follow Christ. And so we don't want to engage this topic lightly, but do it in the way that Jesus would. So yeah, before we get started here, why don't we just bow our heads for prayer? Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for your mercies that are new this morning. Thank you for brothers and sisters from around the world who are gathered here this morning, who care about following you, who have a desire, a burning desire to follow you, who have a burning desire to see your kingdom come on earth, Lord, and to see your will be done here.

And so, Father, we know that there's many voices that call for our attention, and it takes much discernment. And that shouldn't surprise us. We know that Paul told Timothy that in the end, perilous times will come. And so, Father, we don't come here with a fatalistic spirit this morning. We come here with much hope, knowing that you're at work, knowing that we have your written scripture, knowing that your Holy Spirit is within us, knowing that there's brothers and sisters who we can trust and learn from. And so, Father, I just ask, Lord, that you would bless Joel and Drew in a special way as they grapple with this subject. Father, you know their journey and how they care deeply to see the church being faithful to you and to the laws of your kingdom.

So, Father, just ask that you would guide and direct their time here this morning. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Yeah, so Joel and Drew, I'll turn it over to you here right shortly. But before I do that, I would like to just introduce each one to you.

Joel Knisely comes to us from Massachusetts. Drew grew up in Indiana but has lived in El Salvador, California, and Ohio, and recently moved to Holiok, Massachusetts, with his wife, Sarah, and three children. They are part of Disciples Fellowship. As some of you would know, Glenn Martin, of course, here on the call, Glenn is from that same congregation. And he also works with Glenn in sales at a storage shed and gazebo business there.

Drew Latin comes to us from Wisconsin. Drew lives with his wife and four children there in northern Wisconsin, where he teaches English at a tribal school and served with a local church. Before moving to Wisconsin, he lived in Thailand, serving in church planting and English ministry there.

So Joel and Drew, welcome here. I don't think this is the first time for you to be on the call, but first time to be presenting. So welcome here to Strength to Strength, and I'll let you take it from here. And of course, at the end, brothers, we'll be opening it up for questions. So be considering this, and you can drop them here in the chat or just give it at the end in person. So all right, all yours.

All right. That's good to be here. Thanks for having us. Yes. I can make a few comments here at the beginning. In looking at this topic, our strategy is to target false doctrines and not individuals. We'll mention some names of some global leaders in this movement. We try to avoid naming names in people in Anabaptist circles or Anabaptist adjacent that are involved in this. We want you to be able to recognize the teachings and compare them with scripture and look at the fruits in the lives of the people that are embracing these doctrines. Another thing to mention, we're not cessationists. We believe God is still at work today, that he can still do miracles and operate through gifts of the Spirit.

Amen. So that's not the key difference. Often people want to dismiss, say, "Well, you're just a cessationist if you critique these kinds of hypercharismatic movements." But that's not the case.

I think we'll go through what some of the concerns are with this movement. And as far as our experience with it, I think I'll let Drew start out with giving some of his background. Yeah, it is exciting to be here. And just to confirm with Joel, I'm definitely not a cessationist.

I at times, with some of the excesses in the charismatic movement I've seen, I've at times been attracted to the cessationist approach. But that approach is so unbiblical that I can't have much appreciation for a theological cessationist position.

Yeah, a lot of this comes from my experience living in Thailand for the better part of 10 years and seeing apostles, quote-unquote apostles from the United States, coming over, flying over to Thailand and giving teaching on identifying other apostles and prophets. And they wanted to come in and explain that the reason the Thai church was deficient was because they lacked the authority from the United States to establish apostles in this network. And they said, "Okay, so we're going to do this loose network, and we're going to come to Thailand and teach you how to find apostles so you can then have revival in your church."

Later, I actually had the opportunity and almost felt bad taking advantage of the opportunity when I heard some of what was being taught to sit and listen to see Peter Wagner, who interestingly, Peter Wagner is a longtime evangelist, teacher, theologian. He was quoted when I was going to missions training at the Mennonite Missions School in Thailand. He was quoted as kind of like the lead church planting guru. But later in his life, Wagner shifted hard into the charismatic movement. And then what we're discussing today kind of established and coined the term New Apostolic Reformation. So sitting under Wagner's teaching, I had previously been kind of ambivalent about it. Like, okay, I'm not real comfortable with this idea of parachurch authority that's somehow approaching the level of Pauline authority or Christ's authority, the 12 apostles.

But I wanted to support what my local brothers and sisters in Thailand were doing. When I sat under Wagner's teaching, though, it was so contrary to scripture, so counter to the kingdom principles that I was trying to bring and share and grow in with my Thai brothers and sisters. I ended up walking out halfway through the service. And just as an example, he spent most of his time talking about the Seven Mountain Mandate, which we'll get into Joel talking about how we need to infiltrate the systems of power, the systems of politics, the systems of the arts, the systems of finances, and just kind of take them over for Jesus. And he had this whole complicated system about tearing down strongholds in these mountains.

I remember one specific point. He talked about a husband and wife couple that were leading a mega church in Singapore. And she had a very established career as a pop singer in China. And he just said, "Well, she can use her sexuality to glorify Jesus." And said this to the Thai church that was listening and got so graphic with his description of using her sexuality as a pop singer/pastor of a mega church that the Thai translator for Peter Wagner was blushing. And it was around that point, I was like, "I think that the Thai church needs a revival, but I don't think that's what they're actually selling."

Yeah. My interaction with this, I think it goes back to watching some people I knew, acquaintances, friends end up at Bethel Redding or in California or other similar churches. And some of them after being influenced pretty heavily by some Anabaptist or some teachers in Anabaptist circles. And then they came closer to home as some friends of mine got more and more involved in this teaching.

Some of them ended up being appointed as apostles. And

I started hearing some of these same teachings that I had seen coming from places like Bethel Redding, coming from these people. And this network started developing out of that. And for my wife, her parents are agnostics, but she saw plenty of New Age philosophy and teachings in her upbringing. And so she started recognizing elements from New Age. She said, "No, this is just the Christian version of New Age teachings." And practices like positive affirmations, well, they just kind of twisted it a little bit, did the same repeating these things, but now it's truths from scripture, and we're repeating these to ourselves.

Actually, another thing, and we'll get to this later, but a real emphasis on not causing division. And I've just recently realized that that comes from that's also a New Age teaching of oneness, that distinctions are bad. And so we just don't talk about our differences.

We emphasize we're all one. And really, that's so the Christianized version kind of takes that. The Bible teaches against causing division, but it's the people that are bringing in different doctrine. The false teachers are the ones that bring division, which is very ironic, where these people were saying by even just pointing out the scriptural truth on an issue that somebody might not be practicing, you're causing division. So it's just flipped around from the scriptural or from what we see in scripture, as far as it works. So Joel, I grew up with a lot of my aunt was very charismatic growing up and had a big influence on my life. A lot of the positive affirmation stuff is really just kind of a hallmark of a lot of the charismatic movement.

What are some of the things that make the New Apostolic Reformation, so-called, different? How does it exist in a way that's different from sort of the traditional charismatic Pentecostal movement?

Well, I mean, the one thing there is a discussion is whether it actually exists. I think it may be good to address that first. Is it some conspiracy theory? I know Michael Brown says it's a conspiracy theory among people that are critics of the movement, and there is really no such thing.

And even the label, New Apostolic Reformation, that comes from Peter Wagner. But other people will say, "Well, they're not with Peter Wagner's organization," or, "They don't necessarily agree with everything that he stood for." And so some people have suggested other labels like Independent Network Charismatics. There's a book, The Rise of Network Christianity. And those authors use that term to try to come up with something more neutral. And some people call it a restoration movement. Mike Winger, he's a self-described charismatic. He calls it the Signs and Wonders movement associated with Bethel.

But it's a hypercharismatic movement. And I think we'll look at what some of the practices are, what distinguishes it. There is a lot of overlap with the Word of Faith, the Word of Faith movement. I think that's where some of the overlap that you're referring to there, Drew.

Some of those teachings go, "We create things with our words." That's there in both circles, I would say. Probably the distinguishing characteristics, and we'll look at more, but the two big ones. One is the apostles, a different view of apostles.

So apostles as offices. When I first heard among some of my friends talking about apostles, okay, I have heard this from traditional Pentecostal groups, from even now we have groups like Fathers of the Way that use apostle to mean a church planter.

And they commission people as church planters. And that fits right in with what we see in the New Testament with people like a number of the associates of Paul that are called apostles. Not the 12, but people like Timothy and Silas and Barnabas. Some of those are also grouped in as ones that go plant churches. And so, but that's a different the way these people are using it is different. So usually you have an apostle, you have and often this is okay, I should point out these are terms they use among themselves.

Usually, you don't hear it as much when they're talking outside their own circle. So inside the circle, they know who's apostle, who's a prophet. And usually an apostle and prophet work together. Now, they may not use it as a title when they're talking to people outside their circles. But really, the apostle speaks for God. He has God's authority. And really, authority like that of the 12, functionally anyway.

It should be noted. It should be noted even at that point, some of my friends who would be part of the New Apostolic Reformation or adjacent to it would say, "Oh, no, no, no, we're not claiming the same authority as the 12." But you kind of have to look at how it's being lived out. And even if it's not technically at that level, is it healthy? Is it balanced? Is it accountable? Is there brotherhood there?

Yeah. And then the prophets might be good to mention. The prophets are also they usually work in teams with the apostles. And they are I think the best analogy is like the Old Testament prophets where they are speaking for God. I think it's kind of a common thread is these people are receiving revelations from God. And that's why we should listen to them.

So they take those things that the church has built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and they bring that and apply that to themselves. So that's why in their theology, it is so important for apostles and prophets to be over the church.

Yeah. Do you have comments on that, Drew? Yeah. And we'll get into this with some of the hallmarks we see. But I think perhaps one of the clearest examples of this would be the Passion Translation, which claims to be a translation and also claims to, well, not really be New Apostolic Reformation, but especially initially, Brian Simmons' The Passion Translation was explicitly affiliated with this kind of movement. And he actually claimed in promotional materials, and this isn't digging into conspiracy theories at all, he said he went up to heaven, met with Jesus, and Jesus said, "Okay, I'm going to give you downloads to your brain to give you this translation." And brothers and sisters, it's not a translation.

It's not even a meaningful commentary on scripture. It makes the message, Eugene Peterson's message, look very, very accurate and profound. But because he feels like, and this is a hallmark of a lot of the independent charismatic network types, the New Reformation types, we can kind of circumvent scripture itself and find some new exciting message, some new exciting authority beyond the apostolic tradition. And this is a big burden for me. Not that we don't need the Holy Spirit to make the Word alive in our hearts, but if we're going to something like downloads from heaven to give us new insight into scripture, I'm not accountable to anybody. I'm not necessarily balancing this with scripture because honestly, scripture is such a diverse collection of readings of texts.

You can read whatever you want into it, whatever message you feel like God has given you. So yeah, the combination of the apostolic authority and the new messages from apostles really do provide well, it's really a foundation for a different kind of church.

And I think you mentioned this earlier, Drew, but it's not a matter of King James versus other translations. Exactly. In its own category altogether. I did mention Mike Winger once, but I would recommend for somebody that wants to look more into this, into the Passion Translation, he has, if you go on biblefinker.org, his what's called The Passion Project. It's a series that he did on even having different Bible translators and scholars review parts of the Passion Translation.

I heard a Mennonite pastor reading from it in a meeting I was, and he had no idea. He just thought it was another translation. And we have to be clear again, the durability of God's power and the creativity that God can use. I am 100% convinced, even in our circles up here in Wisconsin, people have brought the Passion Translation to church.

I always hesitate to call it translation because it's like barely even a paraphrase. But anyhow, God can still use that. He can use a talking donkey. He can use anything. So if you've read the Passion Translation, quote-unquote, if you've appreciated, say, music from Bethel Church or whatever, I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm not saying that you're on the road to heresy, but we need to sound an alarm here.

Yeah. Just a few more comments on the Passion Translation.

So Brian Simmons, anyway, in some of that analysis that I referred to, it looks at all the phrases that he added. If you compare with the original, he's adding a lot of his thoughts. And a lot of it's the buzzwords.

Mike Winger did this analysis where he searched for buzzwords among the hypercharismatic movement in the Passion Translation, and they're all over the place, realms. And I forget what some of the anointed one and things that anointings and all these things were there.

And when you search those terms, they came up all over the place. And then you go compare with other translations.

And those terms are not basically simply added in those spots to, I guess, bring more passion into it. And really, the name even comes from he's careful where he seems to be careful where he talks about this, but it actually came from he said he had an angel named Passion that was blessing his ministry or whatever. And that's why it's the Passion Translation was given help. Anyway. Yeah. But as we're go ahead.

As we're kind of touching on Brian Simmons and the Passion Translation, we should also bring in, again, not to vilify anyone who's been blessed by these programs or teachings, but talk about the Bethel Reading and Bill, drawing a blank, Joel. Bill Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. Bill Johnson. And some of that, to me, that feels like a lot of the front-facing aspect of this movement that we're trying to get at. I have multiple friends that actually, because I'm not from California, I only know a couple of people personally, but several people and friends of friends that have actually been in California and kind of got, again, for lack of a better term, sucked into Bethel Reading and the Supernatural School of Ministry and some of that stuff.

And it kind of just takes over their life. And the whole principle is if we want to see genuine revival, we need the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is evidenced by supernatural gifts of healing. And this is where I imagine some of our audience have experienced this before. Someone comes up to you and, "Can I pray for you? Are you experiencing any physical pain?" They lay hands on you. And then they say, "Okay, are you feeling better? How much percentage are you feeling better?" That technique is propagated to some extent by the Bethel Church and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

And it's all this idea that we need revival, we need a reformation, and it's going to come through signs and wonders. It's going to come through apostolic authority, and it's going to come through prophetic messages. And on that revival, I think that is something focusing on. I mean, it is true that we need revival. I think that we could always grow in our walk with God. But for Bill, I think Bill Johnson's a good one to look at here.

For him, it's basically revival at all costs. And if that means taking in, and they're pretty explicit about this, taking in some new age practices. They said, "Well, it's just a counterfeit of the real thing, and we had it first, so we have to rediscover these things."

If it's that, if it's just creating a certain atmosphere, a certain mood. And that is often done with music. I think that is a place that music ties in. And it's kind of a common theme. And you look at even other groups when things are really supposed to be happening, the music, they always have the background music going. And it kind of hypes people up as they're seeing some or hoping for some signs and wonders and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whatever they call it. And it's always present there in the background. It kind of, as if they're laying hands on people or whatever, then the music kind of grows in intensity.

There's a lot of that kind of thing going on. So it's a particular vision of revival and then trying to produce that. And that's what I saw in some Anabaptist circles where some people were brought into that by really, really focusing on revival and revivals of the past and trying to recapture that.

I think we really need to make sure that we're seeking after God. And then he can do signs and wonders. He can do whatever he wants to, but he needs to be the focus. That's what we see in the book of Acts. It was the signs followed.

It wasn't the focus, and it was kind of incidental to Paul or whoever it was. They didn't make a big deal of what they were these signs that they were doing. It was more on the message of the kingdom. And God confirmed it. God did the work. Yeah. And just to provide a little bit more of kind of a scriptural framework along with what you laid out there, we see so often when we get the signs and wonders thing backwards, in the book of Acts, the pattern is, and even throughout the epistles, that when God's message is going out initially to a new group that hasn't heard it, those concentric waves of outreach and the gospel spreading in the book of Acts, when the gospel hits a new group, there will be a sign and wonder to confirm that, yes, this is from God.

And it's a clear, easily verified sign and wonder. It's not lengthening somebody's leg or somebody feels 20% better from neck pain. It's clear and verifiable. And then as the church grows and establishes, the real fruit of the Spirit is what we're looking for. So signs and wonders are not the mark of vast spiritual maturity. I mean, it can be, but it's not the primary mark. The primary mark of vast spiritual maturity is being like Jesus and being like Jesus in love and unity and patience and kindness and holiness and following what he teaches. And this is why so much of the epistles of Paul's teaching to the growing church is about growing in Christ rather than this is how you lengthen somebody's leg.

Yes. And I may mention on the leg lengthening thing, I mean, that's a hallmark of Todd White. Well, many people. I remember seeing that trick when I was 10 to 15 years old, and we were attending an Assemblies of God. So it's an old trick.

Yeah. It is a sleight of hand trick thing where they move the leg, but they go up to random people on the street and say, "Start asking them questions. Do they have some back pain?" That kind of thing. And then they say, "Oh, it's because your one leg is shorter." And so they show it for the person. And then they turn the foot, turn the leg, and kind of gradually pray for the person as they're doing this. And supposedly, the leg is growing, is growing out with the other. And then that passes as healing.

So there is plenty of that in Bethel and those circles. I haven't seen it as much in the more Anabaptist background kinds of people, but what I do see there is this whole emphasis on that if you have enough faith, you'll be healed.

And some of them may say, "Oh, well, I won't pray for a person unless God has shown me that he's going to heal this person. So I'm not just praying for any random people." But I mean, that's some of the teaching I heard personally.

But I think that goes against what Scripture says. We're to ask God as a good Father. We're supposed to ask him for things. It doesn't mean that he'll always heal. I mean, we see this in Paul and his different ones of his companions. They weren't healed.

And it wasn't that they didn't have faith for healing. Yeah. And I would add another aspect. And you've laid out some really done a really good job laying out some hallmarks, especially that you see how the new reformation comes into the Anabaptist church. But bottom line, a good litmus test in my mind, if somebody's bringing in a coercive spiritual experience, what do I mean by coercive spiritual experience? If somebody is coming in and saying, "In order to have the fullness of Jesus, you have to experience this," or, "I'm going to lay hands on you, and I'm going to make you feel better 20%, 40%, 70%," if you feel that kind of pressure, panicky feeling rising up, I almost guarantee you that's not from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit does not force people. And if you feel this external pressure from somebody, if somebody's claiming authority and wanting to bring that down on you to push you in a direction, just take a breath, give it a beat, and step back and say, "Hey, I don't need this. I have Jesus. I have the Holy Spirit. I have his word. I have my brothers and sisters in Christ." Don't allow yourself to be coerced or kind of, excuse me, or kind of panicked into feeling something.

Sure. And this authority, this power, there's an obsession with power and authority. And that is, it's said that, and it really flows from God to the apostles and prophets. And if you don't understand where it's coming from, it may not make sense at first, but just, okay, the Bible uses that. Jesus said, "All authority, all power is given to me." And the Great Commission, "Go therefore and make disciples." But it gets twisted around. And I think that's why, especially Anabaptist background, traditional background people, where they're used to a strong authority structure, are especially susceptible to it because people, maybe they didn't fit in, maybe they weren't.

A lot of these probably weren't part of the authority structure there. And so now this, all at once, I've seen this happen where now they're the authority. If they're the apostle or the prophet, they have authority, and they speak for God. And so people need to listen to them. And it flushes out different in different people. Some of it has to do with personality. Not everybody takes it to that. But I think a lot of it has to do with their concept of authority. And actually, I'll bring in right here the true kingdom of God in Scripture. It's completely reversed. The greatest reversal ever. Exactly. It's not really, I would say, in this movement, it ends up being what Jesus called the rulers, how the rulers of the Gentiles lead.

They're the great ones. That's really what it boils down to. And they will give a lot of it. Even their Bible, their teaching from the Bible comes out of personal revelation. And so they say, "God showed me this. I'm seeing God revealed this to me." It's things that language that we're kind of used to hearing. Exactly. But it means something different. So in their case, I've listened to some of the Bible teaching, and they'll give an interpretation, but it is based on revelation, on their personal revelation, rather than on anything in the text or in the context of it or even original languages or whatever.

The original intent of the author, it's completely based on if you realize what's behind it, it's actually just something that they're basing it on their personal revelation.

Yeah. And I should, maybe we should take this one step further. I'm not sure where exactly you would fall, Joel, but it's so common for people to sit down and say, "So what does the Scripture mean to you?" Or Bill Gothard kind of introduced this concept to a lot of conservative circles of Rhemas. And I'm not dismissing the idea of God giving a personal meaning to Scripture for you, but that's not primarily what this is about. Or that's not primarily what Scripture should be about. And when we use sloppy language like, "Oh, God told me," or, "I feel like God wants me to tell you this," it opens us up to receive from those where it really isn't safe or healthy.

And I really liked what you said. The kingdom theology from a lot of my brothers and sisters in an Anabaptist background, historically, it's actually bottom up. That's where the input comes from. That's where the growth comes from. And this is what we see in all the parables. You have a mustard seed, and it grows from the bottom up. It's not top down. You have a little leaven and a loaf that expands without really having any clear somebody coming in there with a pump and pumping up the loaf of bread. It just kind of happens organically. And we don't see that sort of biblical organic growth through the new apostolic reformation.

So you've touched on some of these hallmarks, a belief in the present-day offices of apostle and prophet that govern the church and the authority on the apostles and prophets to speak for God, and then this personal revelation.

Did we touch on the focus on signs and wonders? Have we flagged that horse enough? I think we have some anyway. I think it would be good to look at, especially the Seven Mountain Mandate. My favorite. That's a core of the teaching.

And that goes, it's not just, I mean, C.P. DeWagner advocated it, but Lance Walnall, he is one that really, I mean, he wrote a book with Bill Johnson about the Seven Mountain Mandate. I mean, it wasn't original with them. Supposedly, it came by revelation to Warren Cunningham and Bill Brake, but in the '70s. But he really took and ran with it. And he's had some interaction with some of these people from Anabaptist backgrounds. And really, for some of them, I think maybe it's good to mention what the mountains are. I think you mentioned some of them there, Drew. So I'll just read that. So education, so the Seven Mountains of Culture that they say we should be taking over, it's a Dominionist view that the Seven Mountains are education, religion, family, business, government, entertainment, and media.

And they say, once you have apostles, I mean, I think in C.P. DeWagner's version, once you have apostles at the top of these seven mountains, so they're governed by principalities. And so the authority of the apostles needed to take over these principalities, to, I guess, stop their grip on these mountains. And then Christians are to be at the top of these mountains. And so what some people will do with the Seven Mountain Mandate, even though they accept the teaching, they say, "Oh, well, I don't go into politics." So that's the government mountain. And they say, "I don't believe." Some of the Anabaptist background people say, "That's not really for us."

But they're still advocating all these other mountains. And business, I think, is where it's a real temptation, I think, for people from Anabaptist background because we're hardworking.

Business is something that they tend to be good at. And so, okay, so we can build the kingdom with business. I mean, it's kind of, there's a, here there is a counterfeit, and there is a truth. We should be doing everything we do for the glory of God. That part's true. But this is a sign of God's blessing. I mean, this ties into another big emphasis of both Word of Faith and NNAR, or this movement, whatever you want to call it, that wealth is a sign of God's blessing. That if we are really, if everything in our past is taken care of, we should be prospering. We should be prospering in our health and our finances.

And so a business that's growing and growing, and that's a sign of God's blessing. And that is, they have prophecies about a great end-time transfer of wealth, that the wealth of the world is supposed to be going into the church, and the church takes over that and becomes more and more powerful. That's kind of their vision. I mean, there's kind of two. Some of them are post-millennialists. Some of them are dispensationalists, but they both kind of have that same thing in common. I mean, people like IHOP, I think, are more dispensationalists. We're Buffalo's post-millennial. But it kind of boils down to the same thing.

And this is really, in my mind, coming into it, going to a Seven Mountains conference with Peter Wagner talking, this was sort of the big red flag for me where, like you said, you have these. And the idea of a mountain is that everything flows out of the mountain and kind of trickles down. And so if we can get to the top of the mountain, if we can get to the source, and then just influence all of culture, I would go one step further, Joel, and note that some of these other mountains of education, Anabaptist folks tend to be very proud of their education and just how successful they can be. Family is very seen as a real hallmark of God's blessing.

And yes, definitely business. And I'm not saying God doesn't bless through business. God doesn't bless with solid families and low divorce rates and nice Christian schools. But over and over again, these things are trotted out, and culture is trotted out. "Oh, well, this must be true because it works for us." And what happens, again, coming back to business, is, well, obviously, God is blessing us because of our successful business. And I've seen it happen in subtle ways and explicit ways where somebody kind of takes on authority in the church or in a movement like this because they're financially blessed, because they have a successful business. And that is so contrary to what the Epistle of James would teach or what Jesus would teach in the Sermon on the Mount.

And we've got to push back against that, this idea that physical blessings are necessarily tantamount to spiritual authority or spiritual blessings. And one thing that takes a lot of these people into is politics, the government mountain, especially with the last election with a lot of these people were Trump supporters. And I've seen some people from Anabaptist backgrounds really getting sucked into that.

It varies. So some people specifically, I think, have strategically said, "No, I don't do the politics." And so, but that doesn't mean that, but they still embrace all the other things. All the others, apostles, signs, wonders, they're still, and so that doesn't get them off the hook, I would say. But for a lot of them, it does suck them into the politics.

And it comes several ways. One is this Dominionist thing trying to take over government. And so if you have a leader that says things that the Christian right wants to hear, they tend to support that person. And then the other thing is tied in with the views on dispensationalism of Israel. So if a particular government leader supports the secular nation-state of Israel, that they are blessed because of the blessing on Abraham, that kind of thing. So that's another way that people get into this. And Lance, like I said, Lance Walnall, he's a big one on both Seven Mountains and also he was a big Trump supporter, saying Trump was Cyrus, that kind of thing. So some people get sucked into it that way.

Yeah. And again, we're really kind of seeing as this influence of the new affirmation or new apostolic affirmation kind of filters out into a lot of different areas, it can be harder to pin down. But I see the same thing among a lot of conservative. I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and voting and being in a very politically conservative, religiously engaged family. And now, as I step back from some of that, some of my Anabaptist friends are kind of pushing forward and engaging.

And it's this concept, the way I hear some of my friends talking about Donald Trump and some of the other movements around, "Stop the steal and such," it seems like what we're saying is the same framework as some of the new affirmation where, well, God's obviously blessed him and God obviously wants to bless us through these physical ways, through political power. And even if I'm not going to vote, I know that God wants to use Trump or whoever to give us blessings. And it's like, wait, the value system, you just traded out the value system of the kingdom for the value system of the world. And that's what the Seven Mountain Mandate does. It trades out the value system, the upside-down economy of Jesus' kingdom for the twisted, perverting influence of these earthly kingdoms.

And one way that they try to take over some of these mountains is by binding the principality that's over that mountain or over a region. There's this teaching there that, and the way you do that, sometimes it really sounds pretty pagan or it boils down to being pretty pagan. But this emphasis on getting up on maybe a high mountain or hill overlooking an area and then having a prayer meeting up there. And I mean, it sounds a lot like the Canaanites, but the, and either pouring or anointing the river with oil or blowing a shofar or something to, I don't know, to claim the area for God, to take back the area that Satan's principality has been over and take that for God.

So really take a kind of a magic formula kind of approach to it. Yeah. Now, there is a place, I guess I'm thinking back to some of my experiences, both growing up and then my decade in Thailand and such. I remember going up with groups of young people in our missions program, and we would go up to the lookout high above the city in Chiang Mai, and we would pray for the city as we could look down upon it.

And things like prayer walking, I like to walk in the morning when I pray because it keeps me from falling asleep. But some of these things, if you take them a couple notches over, and all of a sudden it's like, I'm claiming spiritual territorial something, you can kind of feel when it begins to shift. And it's something not to be scared of, not to be like, "Oh, I can't pray on a mountain," or else still, "Nestle will come after me."

But it is something to be aware of. Am I actually moving toward a sort of paganism? Another thing about this whole territorial spirits and claiming that there's demonic power. And I see this so much in the sort of Anabaptist political type movements. Oh, there's demonic power behind the COVID vaccine. There's demonic power behind the Donald Trump, whatever.

It tends to dehumanize. And over and over again, what we're called to in scripture is, excuse me, is to recognize the humanity of those around us. And so if I trade out seeing Jesus in my brother or sister, seeing the least of these as someone to care for, and I instead say, "Oh, there's a demonic power controlling this," I'm losing the opportunity to love because we're not supposed to love demons. And so if I can say, "Hey, there's a demon in this system. There's a demon controlling this," which there's a kernel of truth there, but it's twisted then, I don't have to love them anymore. I don't have to show care for them. Instead, I can just pray against them.

And it separates me. It dehumanizes. And once again, it violates the divine economy. Yes. And actually, that brings up a good point. And if you critique these kinds of teachings, a lot of times you're labeled as having a religious spirit. And what they mean with those kinds of things, they actually mean a demon.

We use that language a lot of times, this kind of spirit or that kind of spirit. And we mean the attitude of the person or the, but what they mean by it is actually a demon controlling it. That's, yeah, some of the terminology is good to be aware of that that's what they're saying. They're actually saying that it's a demon. Yeah.

Of strength, some more examples, but a demon, a spirit of. Spirit of Jezebel, a religious spirit. Yeah. Yeah, those kinds of things. Empire spirit where there's a. That would be like a hierarchical, if the church with a church has a strong authority structure, well, that's an empire spirit.

Can you touch a bit, Joel? We have about, what, 10 minutes left or whatever. Something you brought up when we were talking about this is how ecumenical and kind of the looseness of this. It's not actually like a denomination. Can you talk about some of that? Yes. And what I've seen in the circles that are kind of coming out of Anabaptist circles is really a mirror image of the larger movement. It's kind of a loose network structure. And that was something back to the rise of network Christianity. That book, they highlight the problems with these apostles, this apostolic authority and that kind of thing. But they said it's actually pretty effective in spreading the message.

They do say other people could be using some of these methods that they're using to coordinate, to using technology to coordinate. They work together to have conferences. And you see this both in the larger movement and in the Anabaptist adjacent ones where they are big on conferences, books, that kind of thing.

And so you have these apostles coming together to do these events. But so they help, it brings their followers, the people they're influencing together. And so they kind of boost each other that way. But then if you try to hold them accountable, well, then they just came together for an event. I mean, you see this in the bigger movement. Somebody like Todd White gets invited to Bethel.

I mean, he's been there. I think they have worked together many times. But then if you try to call out some of Todd White's teaching, well, then they just are together at some conferences. They don't endorse what Todd White does, that kind of thing. And if you have more comments on this, Drew?

Yeah. Well, no, I think that's good. I guess I just come away, it's frustrating to me because I have friends that are charismatic. I have a podcast that I run on the side with a friend who really appreciates a lot of the charismatic movement. And he's always teasing me about my obsession with the new apostolic reformation. And he's like, "It's just a boogeyman." And I actually get that concern. It is hard to pin down. So what we're trying to do is to emphasize tendencies. Yeah, I think initially Wagner was trying to establish some sort of discreet movement, discreet like a unique movement that didn't happen so much. And he's passed away since. But the influence is still there and the tendencies are still there.

And it's not really new, like you said. But the desire to have something more, have something different, it's a legitimate desire. It's legitimate to say, "My church is maybe lackadaisical spiritually," or, "My own life is lacking the power of the Holy Spirit. I want more." That's a good desire. We've just got to watch where are we going to grow and how do we measure what a spiritual reformation looks like. And that's why we're sounding the alarm. And that's why even though it's a little hard to pin down, I think we've both seen some real tendencies here that are consistent across the board in a lot of these circles. And it's important to say, "Hey, let's get back to the real thing.

Let's get back to King Jesus and the way his kingdom is supposed to work." Yeah. I might just mention one thing. I heard somebody saying, "Well, so the International House of Prayer, they're a different place." So I had heard somebody asking about a particular local IHOP.