I was heartened the other day when I read that the President of the United States took time out of his busy schedule to allow an "Evangelical Minister" to lay hands on Him and pray. He needs prayer, and the support of the evangelical church, as much as possible.
But then my joy turned to angst when I read further, that the "evangelical minister" who prayed for Trump, was in fact a spiritually dangerous counterfeit, a purveyor of false doctrine and gnostic, experience based spirituality named Rodney Howard Browne.
I shouldn't have been surprised because one of the President's closest Spiritual advisor, is a televangelist and Word of Faith heresy proponent Paula White who is of the same heretical ilk as Rodney Howard Browne.
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| RODNEY HOWARD BROWNE |
In short Rodney Howard Browne is the Father of the so called "Laughing Revival" of mysticism and Spiritual Drunkenness which led directly to the disastrously destructive "Toronto Blessing" which spread through Pentecostal, Charismatic and Even evangelical churches in the late 1990's spreading heresy, false doctrine, mystical experience, deception and delusion throughout the world.
Howard Browne is famous for calling himself the "Holy Ghost Bartender" and inducing people into states of Spiritual Drunkenness, and has destroyed much of what was left of the sense of the true Fear of God in many, many Pentecostal, Charismatic churches. I consider him a minister of Judgment and part of the Strong, God sent Delusion.
Who Is Rodney Howard Browne?
He was born into a Pentecostal home, an atmosphere that was bathed in prayer. By his own testimony, he was saved at the age of five and baptized in the Holy Spirit at age eight. Both at home and in the Pentecostal church he attended, he testifies of
“continually [seeing] supernatural manifestations.”2
His own “baptism of fire” occurred in 1979, while he was still a teenager. Hereis how he tells it.
I knew that there was more, much more...In July of 1979, I cried out to God in sheer desperation. I wanted Him to manifest Himself to me and in me. I was hungry...As I prayed that day, I told the Lord, “Either you come down here and touch me, or I am going to come up there and touch you.” I was desperate. I must have called out to God for about 20 minutes that day. Suddenly, the fire of God fell on me. It started on my head and went right down to my feet. His power burned in my body and stayed like that for three whole days...I was really praying, “Lord, I am too young to die.” In the fourth day, I am not praying, “O Lord send your glory,” I am praying, “Please lift it off me so that I can bear it.” I was plugged into heaven’s electric light supply...my desire has been to go and plug other people in. My whole body was on fire...Out of my belly began to flow a river of living water. I began to laugh uncontrollably and then I began to weep and then speak with tongues. I was so intoxicated on the wine of the Holy Ghost that I was beside myself...Because of that encounter with the Lord, my life was radically changed from that day on.3
Rodney Howard Browne proceeds in the book to relate changes in his ministry after that anointing with fire, while preaching in a Methodist church. I’ll let him tell it in his own humorous way.
We were preaching in a Methodist church. I was back in the vestibule—which is a holy name for a plain old office—preparing for service. One of the young ladies came into the office and asked me to pray for her because she was in terrible pain...I got my hand halfway to her head, almost like a gunslinger would draw a gun out of a holster, and point it at his opponent. Suddenly, unexpectedly, it felt like my finger tips came off. I felt a full volume of anointing flow out of my hand. The only way I can explain it is to liken it to a fireman holding a fire hose with a full volume of water flowing out of it. The anointing went right into her. It looked like someone had hit her in the head with an invisible baseball bat and she fell to the floor...4
On and on it goes.
Notice the sensuality of the testimony, though. The fire of God courses through his body, it shoots out of his fingers, like a gun, she gets hit by an invisible bat! The concept behind the word sensual is not always referring to “sexual.” Sensual refers to the things pertaining to the five physical senses. Rodney Howard Browne has a very sensual ministry. The promise is held out that you are going to be touched by God, you’re going to feel God, you’ll even get drunk on the new wine! You’ll laugh, stagger, get stuck to the floor, and generally have an all out good time! It’s “fun” going to these meetings!
Back to Who is Rodney Howard Browne?
In 1987, Rodney Howard Browne left his native South Africa to come to the
United States, on a “word from God.” By that time, he had already pioneered a church, pastored for a time and been on the pastoral staff of Ray McCauley’s Rhema Bible Church in Johannesburg. Upon arriving in America, he commenced an itinerant ministry.
It was at a series of meetings in Albany, New York in 1989 that the unusual manifestations had begun to take place. It began to occur at a time when both he and his wife were hungry for God to move. As he was preaching at a morning meeting, he said a cloud filled the room, visible to others, but not to him. He could feel it, though. People began falling out of their seats as he preached.
While I was preaching, the power of God began to fall. Many people began to fall out of their seats. It looked like someone was shooting them and in some places whole rows at a time would go down. They were laughing and crying and falling all over the place and looked like drunken people.5
Rodney Howard Browne became an internationally prominent revivalist after a Spring, 1993 meeting at an Assembly of God church in Lakeland, Florida, the Carpenter’s Home Church. He was scheduled for one week, but the meeting lasted four! People who heard about it flew in from as far away as Africa, Great Britain and Argentina. What made the difference in this revival meeting? According to Charisma Magazine,
The difference was the laughter. No matter what Howard Browne did or said, hundreds who attended the daily sessions always ended up on the sanctuary floor in helpless laughter. When the services were broadcast on radio, more curious seekers showed up to join the fun.6
...
In Conclusion
I suppose I could go on and on, “building a case,” about my reservations of the ministry of Rodney Howard Browne, but why? After all of the above, if you don’t have serious problems, you are also a victim of the continuous conditioning that has taken place. Keep in mind that it was a transference of his “anointing” into Randy Clark who brought “it” to Toronto, that “birthed” the Toronto Blessing. I hope that I have brought some clarity to the issue. This is not about personality, it’s about truth. Can you see Jesus or the apostles even remotely promoting anything like this? I think not.
Is Rodney Howard Browne correct when he dismisses his critics by saying things like,
Now some would say, “I don’t believe it,” that’s fine, those people that don’t want to believe it, they probably wouldn’t believe anything. They probably wouldn’t believe the Bible...16
On the contrary, I don’t buy this, and I believe in the Bible! I also believe in the present activity of the Holy Spirit. I consider myself to be spirit filled and have seen many “signs, wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost” over the years in my ministry as well as in many other fellow ministers. We have witnessed the casting out of devils, healing of the sick, and powerful life transformations, all to confirm the preaching of the gospel! So don’t dismiss me as an unbelieving, religious dead head!
I want to close this chapter by encouraging you to hold fast to that which is good. We know that certain men have crept in unawares, but that doesn’t mean that we have to throw out the validity of supernatural workings of God. The Pentecostal experience is needed now more than ever, God’s people do need a fresh baptism in the Holy Ghost, to witness afresh to this sin-sick generation.
End Notes
1. July 21, 1994, Testimony Service Videotape. RHBEA Camp Meeting. Louisville, Kentucky. 2. Rodney Howard Browne. “The Touch of God.” Page 71.
3. Ibid. Pages 73-74.
4. Ibid. Page 76.
5. Ibid. Page 100.
6. Julia Duin. “Praise the Lord and Pass the New Wine.” Charisma Magazine. August, 1994.
7. Rodney Howard Browne. “The Coming Revival.” Page 14.
8. Ibid. Pages 13-14.
9. Francis Frangipane. “Rising to Christ’s Stature.” Charisma Magazine. December, 1994.
10. Rodney Howard Browne. “The Coming Revival.” Page 14.
11. Ibid. Page 27.
12. Rodney Howard Browne. “The Reality of the Person of the Holy Spirit.” RHBEA Publications. 13. Rodney Howard Browne. “Manifesting the Holy Ghost.” Pages 25-27. RHBEA Publications. 14. Ibid.
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