Rodney Howard-Browne Is One Of The Most Controversial And Publicized Figures Of The Third Wave Movement

The Third Wave is a revival of the theology of the Latter Rain tent revivals of the 1950s and 1960s led by William Branham and others. It is based on the idea that in the end times there will be an outpouring of supernatural powers on a group of Christians that will take authority over the existing church and the world. The believing Christians of the world will be reorganized under the Fivefold Ministry and the church restructured under the authority of Prophets and Apostles and others anointed by God. The young generation will form “Joel’s Army” to rise up and battle evil and retake the earth for God.

While segments of this belief system have been a part of Pentecostalism and charismatic beliefs for decades, the excesses of this movement were declared a heresy in 1949 by the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and again condemned through Resolution 16 in 2000. The beliefs and manifestations of the movement include the use of ’strategic level spiritual warfare’ to expel territorial demons from American and world cities. Worship includes excessive charismatic manifestations such as hundreds of people falling, ’slain in the spirit,’ and congregations laughing, jerking, and shrieking uncontrollably.

In early 2008 an outbreak of those phenomena commenced at the palatial former ministry estate of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, recently bought up and restored by prominent Third Wave author and leader Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Ministries. The (spiritual) “breakout” lasted for many weeks and was publicized in an extensive collection of video footage available on YouTube. Healing services in the Third Wave movement claim to heal the sick and injured through methods that in some cases can appear bizarre - including, as in recent cases involving Todd Bentley, the patient being head butted or kicked by the anointed healer. Recipients of such “spiritual” or miraculous healing make a wide range of astonishing claims - to have been cured of life-threatening illnesses, had joints repaired or replaced, been given gold teeth or gold fillings, regrown stunted limbs and even had deformed skeletal structures straightened and reshaped. Worldwide mission efforts of the movement are built around the idea of combating witches, warlocks, and generational curses, which prevent churches from being able to take root.

Rodney Howard-Browne is one of the most controversial and publicized figures of the Third Wave movement. While many of the leaders have been almost invisible in the mainstream media, Howard-Browne and his Holy Laughter anointing have been covered by CNN , Time, Newsweek, PBS, and numerous British media outlets. Howard-Browne refers to himself in many of these articles as the "Holy Ghost bartender."

He is also one of the most controversial figures in the Evangelical world and is the subject of many hundreds of internet pages from other Evangelical and Fundamentalists discernment groups who view his unusual revival manifestations such as uncontrollable laughter, weeping, shrieking, and animal noises, as cultic. Other conservative Christians also find fault with Howard-Browne's end time belief that a unified and purified church is currently being restored through a "great awakening" that is manifesting itself through these "signs and wonders." Howard-Browne, like the other leaders of the Third Wave, believe that they are raising a great end time army that will take control of the world through spiritual warfare, and triumph over Satan before the millennial reign of Jesus. Many in the movement, such as C. Peter Wagner believe that the Apostolic age began in 2001. John Bevere, author of curriculum for the Master's Commission of Wasilla Assembly of God, believes that he is teaching the final generation before the Millennial which he calculates will begin in 2028 or 2029.
Rodney Howard-Browne and his family moved from South Africa to the United States in 1987, and settled in the Lakeland/Tampa area after having a  revival at the church of Karl Strader, Lakeland's first Assemblies of God, Karl is father of Stephen Strader of Ignited Church and the current Lakeland Revival fame whose brother Dan Strader is serving a 45 year jail sentence for robbing the elderly (http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/dan.htm, http://www.a2zbookdepot.com/xxcrxxoxxoks.pdf)

 Howard-Browne and his wife continued to lead revivals around the world and often worked closely with the late John Wimber of the Vineyard movement and the the Kansas City Prophets. They introduced hyper-charismatic activities in widely publicized revivals in both the United States and Great Britain including the Toronto Airport Blessing which began in 1994, and drew people worldwide to experience the phenomenon. Howard-Brown is also credited with a role in the Brownsville Revival, 1995, and more recently, the 2008 Lakeland Healing Revival with Todd Bentley.

Additionally Howard-Browne has been instrumental in the introduction of these "signs and wonders" all over the world including Brompton Holy Trinity, a high-profile charismatic Anglican church in May, 1994. The resulting Holy Laughter and other unusual manifestations at this prominent church and others in London shocked the British press and was the biggest story covered by British Christian media in 1995 and 1996. Brompton Holy Trinity is now primarily known as the source of the ALPHA course.

It was out of the Third Wave, of course, that the river of renewal known as the "Toronto Blessing" began its course. The names of John Wimber and John Arnott are inseparably linked to the Toronto Blessing. It was John Wimber, founder of the Association of Vineyard Churches (AVC), who proved to be the prominent voice in the so-called Third Wave of the P/C movement, whose style of worship and ministry helped to shape Arnott's own ministry and whose earlier tilling of the P/C soil in the UK provided ground for the Toronto Blessing's rapid spread across the Atlantic. As a Vineyard pastor and regional leader in Canada, John Arnott's quest for ongoing renewal, ministry style and P/C orientation reflected that of Wimber and the AVC. Wimber's later dissociation from the Blessing (after earlier endorsing John Arnott's book The Father's Blessing, parts of which were used later as "evidence" against the Blessing) quenched some of the enthusiastic Third Wave support for the Toronto Blessing , adding further fuel to existing controversy surrounding the renewal. http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/fraud_embezzlement
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John Arnott of the Toronto Blessing blessed Todd Bentley at Lakeland http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/john-arnott-of-the-t
oronto-blessing-blesses-todd-bentley-at-lakeland/

John Arnott wrote to Todd Bentley, April 2008:  (source The Elijah list)

    “Todd, you need to keep going in these meetings as long as the Lord is moving. I feel that this is a prophetic sign that another wave of revival is coming to North America.     If you remember, the laughing revival was released in Lakeland via Rodney Howard Browne. Randy Clark went to one of Rodney’s meetings in November 2003 in Tulsa, and came to Toronto in January of 2004, and it all broke out here.     So, the meetings starting again in Lakeland could mean that revival gets another fresh start all over the world! “     John Arnott, Founding Pastor, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship 

The latest facts on Todd Bentley and not so Fresh Fire ministries:
·         The IRS and Revenue Canada are investigating. The Authorities are investigating.  
·         Verified sources closest to Todd Bentley reveal that Todd has been a drunk for years.
·         Verified sources closest to Todd Bentley reveal that Todd has been having multiple physical affairs, cheating on his wife and children, for years. All this while lying to all Christians and preaching his Todd gospel

Todd Bentley is the tattooed former criminal who in July 2008 stepped down from his controversial revival in Florida over an affair with a woman. Bentley, raised in Gibsons, B.C., was known to be a heavy drinker. During his ecstatic services he would often punch or kick sick people in the name of healing them. It wasn't his outrageous claims of raising the dead that finally landed Todd Bentley in trouble. Not the contradictory sermons, or even his criminal past. Not the face piercings, the neck-to-knee tattoos, the biker-dude lifestyle. His followers could live with all that; it was part of the act.

Bentley, a 32-year-old former drug addict from the west coast, was the hottest thing going on the global televangelist circuit. A hog-riding faith healer with a devil-may-care attitude.  Then he failed his flock, the old fashioned way: cheating on his wife. Todd Bentley, disgraced, is now in hiding.

Todd Bentley was EXPOSED as a LIAR and a THIEF!!! During the Lakeland revival Todd also said that God told him to get 1,000 people to give $1,000 dollars. When people confronted Todd, Todd admitted that God did not say that. We had positive prove that Todd Bentley along with the leaders of the Revival Alliance was spiritually abusing everyone. 
ikipedia, the free encyclopedia says Kingdom Now Theology whose  chief proponent are Todd Bentley and Peter Wagner of NAR is becoming frightening - see http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=964

Kingdom Now theology, or Joel's Army is a theological belief within the charismatic movement of Protestant Christianity, which is most widespread in the United States. It is an apocalyptic movement of 'hyper-charismatic' preachers that claim to have a divine mandate to physically impose Christian 'dominion' on non-believers during end times[1] A subset of this is Joel's army which is a supposedly prophesied group of "Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christianity.[1] It is criticized by "mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening."[1]

Kingdom Now proponents believe that God lost control over the world to Satan when Adam and Eve sinned. Since then, the theology goes, God has been trying to reestablish control over the world by seeking a special group of believers. Through these people — known as "covenant people," "overcomers" or "Joel's army," depending on the source — social institutions (including governments and laws) would be brought under God's authority. These "covenant people" or "overcomers" are "little gods" — God's "extension" in the world to regain authority from the devil. The church, under the leadership of "restored" apostles and prophets, therefore must take over the world and put down all opposition to it before Christ can return. Anyone who rebels against the church, along with other "evildoers," must convert or be punished.

One of the most controversial tenets of the theology is the belief that secular or non-Christian society will never succeed, since, according to their beliefs, the only valid legislation, social theory, spiritual beliefs, and economic theory are those derived from the Bible. Hence, Kingdom Now opposes a separation of church and state.

Kingdom Now theology has some beliefs in common with the Latter Rain Movement, such as a belief in restored apostles and prophets. It also has a great deal in common with Dominion theology which is the belief that this world can be conquered for Christ by the temporal political, military, and religious powers of a present day Christian superpower. Its eschatology is a dominionist belief that a church-state takeover of the world is awaiting fulfillment.

This theology is preached by a small minority within the Charismatic movement.[1] However, some of the theology's most strident critics are also from within the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.[1]

Some have claimed that the non-Charismatic movement known as Reconstructionism holds similar beliefs and that the two movements largely complement one another. There are, however, some major differences.[citation needed] Doctrines such as theonomy (the continued validity of the Old Testament) and Calvinism (particularly predestination and the sovereignty of God) are central to Reconstructionist doctrine. Additionally, Reconstructionists nearly always teach cessationism, in opposition to the defining characteristics of the Charismatic movement. Reconstructionists strongly disagree with many of the doctrines of "Kingdom Now" theology and related theologies such as the Latter Rain Movement and typically consider these movements to be heretical, and are usually very critical of the of the charismatic movement as a whole.