@AskDrBrown Refuses to #Answer on Rick Joyner

In case you missed it, @DrMichaelLBrown. I hope to hear your response to my questions by Saturday: http://t.co/POVd9kyW30 #strangefire

— Justin Edwards (@airo_cross) October 28, 2013

Dear Dr. Brown,

As you know, I sent you the above tweet Monday morning as I had not heard from you previously. I understand you are very busy, and wanted to give you the benefit of doubt that my second effort to appeal to you might have been overlooked. I don’t know whether you read the 2nd open letter, but it does seem at this point you do not intend in answering my initial questions on your relationship with Rick Joyner. This is disappointing, and unfortunately, your avoidance is revealing and speaks for itself:

Dr. Brown, I did not ask my questions as one of your disciples, seeking to understand a question on theology or Christian worldview. I came to you as a concerned Berean, who has found your association with Rick Joyner et al troubling (to say the least). What I have attempted to find out is your true position, and hoped it may have been an oversight on your part not knowing some of the strange fires that are raging south of the border in South Carolina. It is becoming more clear that is not the case. I am left to conclude that you either

1) are avoiding the video and my questions so you won’t have to rebuke possibly one of your own; or

2) you are just like Rick Joyner and believe and practice the same things he does.

While you are avoiding my questions on Rick Joyner, you’ve been spending some time pleading, “can’t we all just get along”, like in this article. Sadly, it seems you are qualifying Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle as sound brothers in the faith when you make comparisons of them to John MacArthur and James White, respectively. This is adding to the confusion, Dr. Brown. One wonders if you are attempting to be some sort of bridge builder between the Third Wave false signs and wonders movement and mainstream evangelicalism. We simply don’t know because you won’t say. Your unwillingness to call out specific errors and name names while blurring the lines like you did in your article is crafty and harmful. Do you actually think there can be unity built on anything less than the truth?

Now, before we continue and in case a reader has become distracted by your smokescreens, I’d like to clear the air and bring things back into perspective. This is not a heresy hunt, nor a game of cat and mouse, nor an attempt to bully you into submission to my demands. That is foolish. Let us remember that you have affirmed Rick Joyner as a man of God. This is significant because of the broad public voice you have in evangelicalism, and anyone who hears you endorse another public figure as “a man of God” has the potential to take your word for it and become influenced by said person (for better or worse – this is worse in the case of Joyner).

This issue is relevant because you have campaigned against cessationism and taken issue with the Strange Fire conference and book. You have positioned yourself as a credible voice on “the other side” and people seem to trust your opinions and positions on the matter. This is dangerous because of your endorsements of the very people Strange Fire is seeking to warn people about, the waterless springs reserved for utter darkness (2 Peter 2:17)  or the poison they spew. Therefore, I am seeking to show why you cannot be trusted as a credible voice in the conversation when you endorse the wolves who would devour the sheep.

So let’s proceed. This should be brief as I merely want to point to a few items of concern that should serve as enough evidence for why your charismatic voice can’t be trusted. When you say that Rick Joyner is a “man of God”, you believe his practices are godly – like the ones in the following videos. It only took me about an hour on youtube to find these, so if you don’t like some of the titles, you can research yourself so to not offend your sensitivities. Let’s begin with the first video as a review…

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you believe him to be invoking the Holy Spirit when he says, “Lord, move among us” in this demonstration of Morningstar worship:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you believe he is a man of God when he commissions “power evangelists” by “fire” under his authority:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you believe this is worship pleasing to God and that God heals through such madness:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you accept his disciple Jason Hooper as performing sign and wonders with these gems:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you also believe Jason Hooper is actually “releasing fire” in this video:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you believe his prophecies with Bob Jones and Paul Cain are legitimate:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you do so knowing of his “apostolic and prophetic commissioning” of ravenous wolf Todd Bentley at the notorious Lakeland Revival:

When you say Rick Joyner is a man of God, you by default accept his church leadership as godly leadership teaching truth behind his pulpit, such as Jessa Bentley, adulteress wife of Todd Bentley, convulsing while practicing divination here:

You either blindly promote Joyner as a man of God when he teaches and practices these things, or you are completely aware of these practices and consider them to be authentic fire. After all, how can one be a “man of God” and practice “strange fire”?

Of course, this is only scratching the surface on Rick Joyner, but I think it’s enough to show he is a fraud, and your endorsement of him is suspicious of your own ministry, at best.

Well, Dr. Brown, I think the record speaks for itself. Any clear-thinking Christian will see why your endorsement of Rick Joyner as a “man of God” is troublesome, if not outright shameful. It could even be telling, to use your language and logic (see bold red type here), of your own ministry and zero credibility in this conversation.

In closing the chapter on Rick Joyner, I’ll let Phil Johnson sum up our concerns about your credibility as he did so succinctly in yesterday’s article, The Broad Brush:

Dr. Brown says he is totally unaware of some of the most egregiously false prophecies and bizarre shenanigans we have specifically pointed out to him—even though these things are happening right under his nose. Yet he wants the critics (and me in particular) to trust him when he says he is confident that the charismatic movement worldwide consists mainly of people with sound faith and sober minds who are godly, biblically literate, informed believers. Sure, he’ll admit that there are occasional “extremes and imbalances”—but Dr. Brown refuses to say that the prosperity gospel is a damnable false gospel, or that it’s dangerous to follow the lead of unhinged charismatics like Bickle and Joyner.

Frankly, I don’t own a brush broad enough to paint that mess. Is it reasonable to believe that the best and brightest charismatics are seriously concerned about what’s biblical—while these men give Mike Bickle and the modern prophecy movement a ringing public endorsement and balk at acknowledging that the charismatic movement is beset with very serious problems?

Are they even capable of recognizing “extremes and imbalances” when they see them? Remember, Dr. Storms worked with, and affirmed the supposed gifting of, the charismatic movement’s most famous prophets for years, and apparently none of them had enough genuine discernment to realize that their main prophetic guru (Paul Cain) was a drunkard, a homosexual, and a fraud. When it comes to discerning charismatic claims and distinguishing truth from make-believe, Dr. Storms is frighteningly naïve.

During the Brownsville Revival (a fiasco which Michael Brown insists was a mighty work of God, even though the host church was left as spiritually and financially desolate as Detroit), Dr. Brown was so adept at causing people to be “slain in the Spirit” that his nickname was “Knock ′em Down Brown.”

These men have indeed seen and participated in the dark side of the charismatic movement. Perhaps readers will understand why I’m skeptical of their cheery optimism about the overall state of the movement.

In hopes you will soon speak on the “authentic fire” or “strange fire” coming out of Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Ministries,

Justin