I have a prickly feeling in my neck right now. It came from the double facepalm I gave myself when I found out what FBC Woodstock is up to. Just when you think Johnny Hunt is trying to do things right, you find out he’s up to some other shenanigans. Hunt, who recently apparently denounced the sex predator Clayton Jennings, is the senior pastor of the flagship Southern Baptist Church in Atlanta Georgia, FBC Woodstock. Hunt is certainly a mixed bag of nuts as his church is hosting David Platt’s Secret Church, a relatively solid bible teaching program, in April of 2017, he’s also hosting the Outcry Tour in May.
The Outcry Tour is a mishmash of false teachers and Holy Ghost blasphemers. The main participants in the tour are Jesus Culture, Elevation Worship, Steven Furtick, Levi Lusko, and Lauren Daigle. According to the website,
OUTCRY is the lights and sounds of a movement in progress.
We believe that the “the next big thing” is here. It’s always been here. The local church. And there is no greater movement to give your life to than the powerful, worldwide movement that begins at the local churches in your city.
The next chapter of Church history is being written and we are at the center of it. And we are louder when we are together.
It’s actually perplexing that such a movement would invoke the name of the local church since each and every participant in the event rejects the biblical model of the local church. Steven Furtick appears on a video screen from one campus broadcast to fifteen campuses around the United States and Canada. Woodstock has at least four campuses spanning three states. Bethel Redding has six campuses and Levi Lusko’s Fresh Life Church has eight campuses spread across Montana and Utah. This is the exact opposite of the biblical model of a local church. It’s beyond all reasonable comprehension that these people would expropriate biblical terminology, despoil it, and leave it for dead after this tour.
Besides the obvious malfeasance against the local church to be featured at Woodstock, there is not one man capable of rightly handling the Scriptures who will take the stage at the event. Furtick is a shameless prostitute of false teaching and a promoter of himself, even once having his church put out a worship video directed toward him (which has since been removed). He creates an atmosphere of self-idolatry. He reads himself into the biblical text, even to the extent of seeing himself as the “Son of God.” He recently spoke at the infamous trinity-denier, T.D. Jakes’ church, to which he glad-handed Jake’s audience, and forked over a 35 thousand dollar check to advance Jakes’ false gospel. As a matter of fact, Steven Furtick is even pretty sure that the only sinless man who ever walked the face of this earth, Jesus Christ, was a sinner. Steven Furtick’s theology is so messed up, we even coined a new name for it—Furtick-ology, kind of like theology, only different…and wrong.
And of course, there’s Levi Lusko, another charismatic Emergent promoter of false teachers and Gospel compromisers such as Greg Laurie, and even many of the others listed at this event. They run in circles, promoting each other’s books, speaking at each other’s conferences, and fleecing each other’s sheep for cold hard cash.
But perhaps far worse than even this is the shameless blasphemers of the Holy Spirit known as Jesus Culture. Jesus Culture is a band out of Bethel Redding that teaches and promotes prayer labyrinth’s, spiritual surgery, channeling or contemplative prayers, fire tunnels and the personal manifestation of Jesus as He is said to audibly speak to the those who are truly faithful. At the Strange Fire Conference, John MacArthur had the following to say regarding one of Jesus Culture’s songs,
…that doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity, nothing to do with God. In fact, I’d be afraid to put my mind in neutral and start yelling out loud with that kind of sensual music saying “fill me up, fill me up, fill me up” among a group of non-believers, who would go from being kind of normal non-believers living in the kingdom of darkness, to being demon-possessed.
Southern Baptists need to wake up. The infiltration of God-denying and Holy Spirit blaspheming charlatans and false teachers into bible-believing churches is increasing exponentially. These men do not teach the Scriptures. These men do not preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They preach another gospel. Paul has specifically warned about these infiltrators, yet Johnny Hunt apparently either has zero discernment, or he’s one of them.
Which one is it?
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. –2 Tim 4:3-4
[Contributed by Pulpit & Pen]
