Clayton Howard Ford

Some of the songs that promote the Dominion/Kingdom Now theology (as well as the Word of Faith theology) have come from or through IHOP and Bethel Church. The song, “Our Father,” was written in 2009 by Marcus Meier, a worship leader at IHOP. Here are the lyrics:

Our Father in Heaven
Hallowed be Your name
Your Kingdom come quickly
Your will be done the same

On Earth as it is in Heaven
Let Heaven come to
Earth as it is in Heaven
Let Heaven come

Let Heaven come, let Heaven come

Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the power
Yours is the glory forever, amen
Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the power
Yours is the glory forever amen

This song promotes Johnson’s teaching. The chorus splits off Johnson’s favorite slogan, “On earth as it is in heaven,” from the rest of the sentence, “Your will be done,” just as Johnson does in his teachings. The chorus also adds and repeats the request, “Let heaven come,” meaning let heaven come down to earth, which is what Johnson teaches.

Johnson’s teaching got into the song because his teaching has obviously infiltrated IHOP because Bickle has endorsed Johnson. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the song became a part of Bethel Church’s worship and appeared on one of their albums.

To be continued…

Johnson is also closely tied to an organization called the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri (IHOP for short, also known as IHOPKC, since they have also opened houses of prayer in other cities around the world). IHOP was founded and is led by Mike Bickle. Bickle started Kansas City Fellowship in the 80s. Several so-called prophets became associated with that fellowship and became known as the Kansas City Prophets. These prophets have been shown to be false prophets and have even been involved in sexual sins and homosexuality, which is why Bickle has distanced himself from them. Even so, their influence and their Kingdom Now teachings have spread. Bickle himself is a Kingdom Now preacher, though a subtle one. He claims that he is not one on the IHOP website, but his teachings show that he is one. He did a teaching at the Toronto church in May 2010 which shows that he is a Kingdom Now believer (https://mikebickle.org/resources/resource/2930?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmikebickle.org%2Fresources%2Fcategory%2Fministry-outreach%2Fevangelism%2F). I have downloaded the study notes and highlighted in red the points that show he teaches the Kingdom Now and Word of Faith doctrines. It is available at www.claytonhowardford.com/MikeBickle.doc.

In the late 80s Wimber, the leader of the Vineyard Fellowship, became enamored with Bickle and these prophets, but when the sins of these prophets became public, Bickle placed himself under Wimber’s leadership and Kansas City Fellowship became Metro Vineyard Fellowship. However, when the Toronto revival began, Bickle endorsed it. When the Toronto church left the Vineyard Fellowship, Bickle’s church did, too, and became Metro Christian Fellowship.

Bickle resigned as pastor of the church in 2000 to lead IHOP. IHOP has had worship and prayer going 24/7 365 days a year since September 1999. Bickle also founded a school of ministry called IHOP University. In November, 2009, a “revival” started at the university among the students. The same manifestations that occurred in Toronto occurred here. The leaders of the school taught that it was God’s will to heal everyone. Mike Bickle and Lou Engle, who at that time was the leader of a ministry named The Call, wrote a letter about that revival. You can find it here: https://www.xpmedia.com/article/95/a-letter-from-mike-bickle-and-lou-engle. At the bottom of the letter (under “About the Author”), it says that IHOP is committed to “impact the seven spheres of society.” That is dominion theology.

After a few weeks of this, the leaders of the school became concerned that the “revival” might be fizzling out, so they invited two pastors to join them for a week of meetings to teach them how to keep the “revival” going. One of those pastors was John Arnott from Toronto. The other was Johnson.

Johnson has kept in touch with IHOP. Every year IHOP hosts a youth conference called OneThing. Over 20,000 youth from across the nation attend this annually. Johnson was a speaker at the 2016 conference.

Lou Engle has also been a speaker at these One Thing conferences. The Call was a ministry that called the youth of America to fasting and prayer, which sounds like a legitimate ministry. But Engle promotes ecumenism. He organized a rally that was held in Los Angeles in April 2016 called Azusa Now. Ostensibly, the purpose of the rally was to celebrate the 110^th anniversary of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Azusa Street in 1906, which was the beginning of the Pentecostal movement. In reality, the purpose of the rally was to gather people of all denominations, including the Roman Catholic denomination, and preach that we should forget doctrinal purity and just be united. This is what happened at that rally: https://christiannews.net/2016/04/10/lou-engle-of-the-call-prostrates-himself-kisses-foot-of-catholic-leader-as-act-of-reconciliation/

Bickle also promotes ecumenism through the One Thing conferences as this video shows:

To be continued…

Some popular worship songs, written over the last few years, teach Dominion/Kingdom Now theology.

Let me give some history behind these songs. In the late 70s, a group of people within Calvary Chapel, led by John Wimber, the pastor of the Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda, California, wanted the worship to be more emotionally expressive and open to the Holy Spirit. Chuck Smith, the leader of Calvary Chapel, disagreed. So these people left Calvary and joined a small but growing group of churches known as Vineyard Fellowship. Wimber became the leader of this group.

In the 80s a Vineyard church was started in Toronto, called the Toronto Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship, pastored by John Arnott. He is still the pastor of that church. A “revival” broke out in that church in January 1994, in which the people began to laugh uncontrollably, rolling in the aisles, and even making animal noises. This “revival” attracted international attention and became known as “The Toronto Blessing.” Arnott prefers to call it “The Father’s Blessing.” It has since spread to many churches around the world. These manifestations are still going on in this church even today.

Apparently, these manifestations proved to be too emotional even for Vineyard Fellowship because this church was eventually excommunicated from the Fellowship. It was renamed Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. Now they call themselves Catch the Fire Fellowship.

In February 1995, Bill Johnson, the pastor of what was then Bethel Assembly of God Church in Redding, California, visited the revival in Toronto. He claims that he never was touched by the Spirit like the others were and so never had any of the manifestations, but still believed it was a move of God nonetheless and brought it back to his church. There have been reports of these manifestations occurring in his church ever since. Bill Johnson has kept in touch with the Toronto church. In January 2014, the Toronto church celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the revival and Johnson was the keynote speaker. There is a video on YouTube of his sermon. In that sermon, he states that he sees the Toronto church as the “Mother Ship” and his church as just one of the “satellite ships” of the Toronto church (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mPt2twjlE).

Besides promoting the Toronto revival in his church, Johnson is also a health/wealth preacher and a Kingdom Now preacher. Johnson’s favorite slogan is “On earth as it is in heaven.” He teaches that if one truly has faith, then it will be here on earth as it is in heaven for that believer. Since there is no poverty or sickness in heaven, there should be no poverty or sickness for the believer here on earth. In short, by faith, we can bring heaven down here to earth. Bethel Church is no longer an Assembly of God church. Neither Bill Johnson nor the Assemblies of God will publicly say why Bethel Church left the Assemblies of God denomination, but one can surmise that the Assemblies of God did not agree with Johnson’s teachings. Twice in the last 60 years the Assemblies of God have publicly denounced the Latter Rain movement (another name for Kingdom Now Theology) as a heresy.

To be continued…

Kingdom Now Theology is a version of Dominion Theology that is more popular in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. It teaches that the Kingdom exists on the earth even now, but that the Church must still spread it over the whole earth. The Church will be able to do this when God raises up an elite group of believers known as “Joel’s Army.” This army is also known as “The New Breed,” “The Elijah Company,” “The Bride,” “The Manifested Sons of God,” or “The Latter Rain.”

This teaching is derived from the teaching of the Latter Rain Movement which first arose in the 1940s among members of the Assemblies of God church. The Assemblies of God leadership saw the danger in this teaching and condemned it as a heresy in 1949 and again in 2001.

The Latter Rain Movement is based on Joel 2:23-24. It says that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was the early rain. The latter rain will occur when God again pours out the Holy Spirit upon the Church just before Christ returns, but this outpouring will be greater than the first. Those who receive this latter rain outpouring will again move in the power and the gifts of the Spirit, but they will be able to perform more and greater miracles and signs than anyone in the early Church ever did. Because of this, the Church will also see the greatest harvest of souls it has ever seen.

Of course, this is not what the Bible teaches. 2 Thess. 2:3 says that there will not be a great harvest just before Christ returns but a great falling away. And the power and the gifts of the Spirit have never been taken from the Church, so why would there be a second outpouring?

The Kingdom Now Theology takes the Latter Rain teaching one step further. It says that those who receive the latter rain outpouring will become the army prophesied in Joel 2:1-11. This army will rise up and take dominion over the whole earth. They will take over all of the governments, all of the schools, all of the economies, and all of the social institutions, thereby breaking the chains of these institutions. They will do so through warfare, spiritual or (according to some) otherwise. Some even teach that the army’s first task will be to eliminate anyone who resists this teaching and therefore stands in the way of this army.

This, of course, is a misinterpretation of Joel. The prophecy in Joel 2 is not about the army of God spreading the Kingdom through an unrighteous world but about God’s coming judgment upon his own people, Israel, for their continued disobedience. Furthermore, the Church has already been appointed to be an army and as soldiers in this army, each of us is commanded to put on the whole armor of God (Eph. 6:10-17). But our warfare is not “against flesh and blood” but against “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). In resisting these false teachings, we must remember that we are not fighting against the people who teach these things but against the spiritual hosts who have deceived them.

To be continued…

I see two disturbing trends within today’s Christian worship, trends that are rapidly spreading through the Western Church. The first trend is that an increasing number of “worship” songs are promoting the false teachings of Dominion Theology and Kingdom Now Theology. Let me explain what those are.

Dominion Theology is a false teaching that arose in the 1970s and is most popular in Reformed churches such as Baptist and Presbyterian churches. It is based on three basic beliefs:

1. Satan usurped man’s dominion over the earth through the temptation of Adam and Eve.
2. The Church is God’s instrument to take dominion back from Satan.
3. Jesus cannot or will not return until the Church has taken dominion by gaining control of the earth’s governmental and social institutions, often referred to as the seven “mountains” or spheres of influence: family, education, government, economy, arts, media, and religion.

It teaches that God gave dominion over the earth to Adam in Gen. 1:28. This dominion was not just over the living creatures but over all of the earth: physically, spiritually and politically.

Satan stole that dominion away from Adam when Adam fell. Jesus gained that dominion back and gave it to the Church. It is the job of the Church, therefore, to exercise its dominion and “take back everything that Satan has stolen.”

The Church, therefore, must take over all of the governments, all of the schools, all of the economies, and all of the social institutions, and impose God’s law on the whole earth. In short, it is the Church’s job to establish the Kingdom of God on this earth.

Once the Church has taken dominion over the earth and essentially ensured that everyone is behaving righteously (either through conversion or obedience to God’s law), then Jesus will return and reign as king.

It teaches that there will be no rapture. In fact, it teaches that the idea of the rapture is what is keeping the Church from doing its job. It also teaches that everything in Revelation is symbolic and refers, not to future events, but primarily to past events that occurred in Israel from 30 AD to 70 AD.

This theology is wrong for several reasons:

1. The dominion over the earth belongs not to the Church but to Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:18). We operate within Christ’s authority, meaning that we have no authority of our own.
2. The Church has been commanded to preach the Gospel (Matt. 28:19-20), not to reform society.
3. Christ will not return to a pure and righteous earth that is governed by the Church; rather, he will return to a wicked and sinful earth that is governed by the Antichrist (Rev. 19:11-21).

To be continued…