What’s the best way to end an episode of the Pulpit & Pen Program with a guest like Dr. James White? End it with a #DOWNGRADE segment with someone like Michael Brown, of course.
Remember the Strange Fire Conference a couple months back? John MacArthur hosted the Strange Fire Conference, with speakers like Phil Johnson and Justin Peters addressing tongue-speaking, gold-dust sprinkling, prosperity-drenched Charismatic craziness from a Cessationist perspective. The conference pretty well incensed about every Pentecostal, Word-of-Faith, and prosperity cult on the planet (and a bunch of the “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” people), and also threw Michael Brown into a tizzy.
Writing in Charisma Magazine, Michael Brown insisted that MacArthur’s cessationist perspective must be wrong because
…the Holy Spirit is moving mightily around the earth, saving lost sinners, bringing rebels to repentance, healing sick bodies, setting captives free and, above all, glorifying the name of Jesus. According to pastor John MacArthur, however, this is actually ‘a farce and a scam.’
Michael Brown must not have actually listened to the conference speakers, who virtually all reiterated that the Holy Spirit is very active doing precisely those things. What the Holy Spirit is not doing, according to MacArthur is knocking people out with Holy Spirit body slams, giving people direct divine revelation or empowering people to babble nonsense words in the name of Jesus. Still, Brown wasn’t content with that mischaracterization of the Cessationist perspective.
…[MacArthur’s] divisive and destructive language [is] based on misinformation and exaggeration, as Pastor MacArthur attributes the extreme errors of a tiny minority to countless hundreds of thousands of godly leaders worldwide.
I have worked side by side with some of these fine men and women myself, precious saints who have risked their lives for the name of Jesus, giving themselves sacrificially to touch a hurting and dying world with the gospel, literally shedding their blood rather than compromise their testimonies—yet an internationally recognized pastor calls many of them “Satan’s false teachers … spiritual swindlers, con men, crooks, and charlatans.”
Now let me remind you that the chief concern of discernment ministry folks like Justin Peters – and much of the content of Strange Fire‘s rebuke – is that the evangelical world lacks discernment when dealing with this discussion of continuationism or cessationism. So hold on to your socks, because they’re about to be knocked off.
Who might be an example of the ‘precious saints’ with whom Brown has worked that he is upset are being called ‘false teachers, spiritual swindlers, con men, crooks and charlatans’? Apparently one of these precious saints and ‘godly leaders’ unfortunately characterized by mean ole’ MacArthur this way is none other than Benny Hinn. Yes…this Benny Hinn.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCAuP9qulH4]
Yes, that’s right. Dr. Brown is tag-teaming Biblical exposition with Benny Hinn. And look at what Dr. Brown says when called out by the street-preaching machine, Tony Miano.
So Brown’s claim is that he hasn’t heard of Hinn (and apparently didn’t research him by Googling his name or watching a single, solitary video of him preach ever.
That’s right. You read that with your own eyes. Brown compares MacArthur to Benny Hinn.
When in doubt, claim to have a level of secret, gnostic and esoteric knowledge about Benny Hinn that nobody else knows. He just knows things “others don’t know.”
Gene “The Squirrel” Clyatt (Pulpit & Pen Contributor) is rebuked for insinuating (?) it’s a scandal. He needs to be patient and watch how awesome the show goes before he can call Henn a heretic. This show will change everything!
Perhaps Phil Johnson explains it best.
Yep. That explains a lot.
Tune into the Pulpit & Pen Program on Monday, as Dr. Michael L. Brown is the subject of the Daily #Downgrade.
