The "New Apostolic Reformation"

THE "NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION"

- In 1989 Paul Cain spoke words that have often been paraphrased and repeated:

"God is raising up a new standard, a new banner if you will, that's going to radically change the expression, the understanding of Christianity in our generation..." ("You Can Become the Word!," Vineyard Prophecy Conference, 1989, as cited by Jewel van der Merwe in "The New Order," Discernment Ministries, Lapeer, Michigan, p. 7).

Paul Cain is "Senior Prophetic Authority" at Shiloh in Missouri, a ministry associated with Mike Bickle’s "Kansas City Prophets," a group that clearly teaches Latter-rain/Manifest Sons of God theology (LR/MSOG). For a while,
Paul Cain was very active in ministering alongside John Wimber of the Vineyard movement. Wimber was also a close associate of C. Peter Wagner.

Fuller Theological Seminary’s Dr. C. Peter Wagner is having a tremendous influence upon Protestant evangelicalism due to uncritical reliance upon the teachings of the Church Growth movement &SHY; a movement that has provided some helpful insights to Christian missionary work in the past, but is currently so controlled by pragmatism, commercial marketing, and sociology that it has veered very far from traditional, orthodox Christian teaching and practice, taking a large segment of evangelicalism with it. In the past we have noticed Wagner’s close association with John Wimber and the Vineyard movement, and that his teachings are consistent with "Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God" (LR/MSOG) theology.

In promoting the "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) Wagner openly endorses the "restoration of the five-fold ministry" of Ephesians 4:11 &SHY; which is a key teaching of LR/MSOG theology. Glory of Zion International Ministries is "the personal ministry of Apostle Chuck Pierce, Director of the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs." His web site informs us that the term "New Apostolic Reformation" is, "a term coined by Dr. Peter Wagner to describe the extraordinary work of God that is, to a significant extent, changing the shape of Protestant Christianity around the world" (according to their home page at http://www.glory-of-zion.org/ which was last modified on March 2,
1999 and read August 7, 1999) &SHY; interesting in the context of the Cain quote above. A further description is found at the web site of "Christians Seeking Renewal," where an article written for their newsletter describes Wagner’s
New Apostolic Reformation. Further down on the same web page, a previous article equates loyalty to one’s denomination with racism, as Bevis writes "Promise Keepers is one of those ‘front-line’ ministries that God continues to use in a powerful way to bring down the giants of racism and denominationalism" (quoted from http://www.csrministries.org/monthly.htm on August 7, 1999).

"New Apostolic Reformation" replaces the term "postdenominational" that had been used in the past to describe the new, emerging church of this movement. Dr. Wagner and Fuller Theological Seminary hosted a "National Symposium on the Postdenominational Church" in 1996.

We don’t want to "beat a dead horse" concerning Dr. Wagner. But we cannot ignore the nature of his leadership considering the success he is having in promoting LR/MSOG based beliefs and practices in the church around the world. ("News and Notes," by Sterling Durgy - The American Night Watch Newsletter, Vol. VII Part 8, August 1999, p. 4, 5).

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