1. What is the Toronto Blessing?
The Toronto Blessing (or TB, as it is
now often called) is a worldwide spiritual movement within the
Pentecostal and charismatic churches. It is named after the Toronto
Airport Vineyard Church in Toronto, Canada, where the movement
first hit the headlines in January 1994. Its advocates claim that
the Blessing is a "sovereign move of God," a new and
glorious work of the Holy Spirit. Many of them call it a "revival."
However, others, conscious that scarcely any unbelievers are being
converted through this movement, do not call it a revival, but
a "renewal" of the Church. Many of them add that this
renewal of the Church is being done by God as the prelude to a
revival. Others claim that this is more than a mere renewal of
the Church; it is God bringing to birth a new super-Church for
the end times - a view which fits in with the doctrine known as
"Latter-Rain Restorationism," which has been around
in Pentecostal and charismatic circles for some time. The claim
is also made by many advocates of the TB that those who resist
this great move of God will, if they persevere in their resistance,
be guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and various dreadful
things will happen to them. What exactly will happen is often
left rather vague: the language used is that opposers will be
"swept aside," "crushed," that sort of thing.
On his video The Coming Revival, Rodney Howard-Browne
warns that opposers will be struck dumb and blind.
What then is this great blessing that
God is allegedly pouring out on His Church at this time? According
to its advocates, it is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit
which can be compared with the day of Pentecost. This outpouring
happens when a leader, who has already received the blessing himself,
then passes it on to others, usually in a meeting of a church
or in a larger gathering of believers from various churches. These
leaders, especially the more well-known ones, are often referred
to as "anointed men," and the blessing itself is also
often called the "anointing," or a "fresh anointing."
Sometimes the anointed leader will simply call down the blessing
on the entire gathering; more usually, people will be asked to
walk to the front, where the leader and his team will lay hands
on them, and transmit the blessing to them physically. A few of
the leaders have stranger and more dramatic methods of passing
on the Blessing, e.g. blowing on people, hurling the blessing
at people by dramatic hand gestures, or even transmitting the
blessing into a tea-towel and then throwing the tea-towel at someone.
TB advocates claim that the blessing
or anointing has two main effects on believers: (i) It brings
them a fresh and overwhelming sense of God's love, which leads
to a wonderful joy; (ii) It lifts people up to new heights of
the spiritual life, so that they begin to walk much closer to
God, praying more, reading the Bible more, evangelising more,
etc.
If we look at what actually happens when
people receive the blessing - the immediate observable effects
- we see the following:
(i) Almost without exception, people
fall over onto their backs, sometimes gently, sometimes as if
struck by a bolt of electricity. Those who fall sometimes black
out. This phenomenon has of course been around for a long time
in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, and is referred to as
being "slain in the Spirit."
(ii) Often those affected are seized
by a spirit of uncontrollable laughter. This laughter can last
literally for days. On The Coming Revival video,
Rodney Howard-Browne reports a man who (to use his language) got
drunk on the Holy Spirit and laughed uncontrollably for 3 days.
This particular phenomenon is referred to as "holy laughter,"
and it has been so widespread in the TB that it has sometimes
been called "the laughing revival."
(iii) Often, but by no means always,
when the blessing is imparted in a meeting, some will respond
by making noises and bodily movements like various animals. In
the early days of the TB, the most common of these animal manifestations
was "roaring like a lion." However, this is in fact
only one of many animal manifestations which have been observed.
I myself have witnessed people gibbering like monkeys, barking
like dogs, howling like wolves, and screeching like cats. Here
is a description by a person who is in favour of the TB:
That room sounded like
it was a cross between a jungle and farmyard. There were many,
many lions roaring, there were bulls bellowing, there were donkeys,
there was a cockerel near me, there were all sorts of bird songs....
Everything you could possibly imagine. Every animal you could
conceivably imagine you could hear.
1
There are other physical phenomena, such
as holy drunkenness (staggering about as though drunk), dancing
in the Spirit (tap-dancing, ballet dancing), running on the spot,
and bouncing up and down like a grasshopper. However, these three
- falling over, hysterical laughter and animal manifestations
- these are the main physical manifestations of the blessing or
anointing.
As for the inner spiritual or emotional
experience, there is no reason to doubt that many people do feel
an overwhelming sense of being loved, and tremendous feelings
of joy and euphoria. The only question is how these emotional
experiences should be interpreted, a question we will return to
later.
2. What are the origins of the Toronto Blessing?
The TB originated within something called
the Faith Movement in the USA. The Faith Movement is better known
in this country as the "health, wealth and prosperity gospel,"
because of its teaching that Christ has delivered believers from
the curse of poverty and sickness. These are seen as evil powers
from which Christ has liberated us by His work of atonement, so
that all true believers ought to be living in a state of perfect
health and material prosperity. However, this is only one aspect
of what the Faith Movement teaches. In a moment we'll look at
a wider and fuller picture of their doctrines. First, though,
let's introduce ourselves to the leading Faith Movement teachers
(see chart).
These men have book, audiotape, video
and satellite ministries that literally span the world. Their
influence within the Pentecostal and charismatic movements is
large and growing. I was recently in the bookshop of the Kensington
Temple in London, one of London's most prominent Pentecostal churches,
and the bookshop was selling hundreds of books and tapes by people
like Kenneth Hagin, Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Browne, Morris Cerullo,
Paul Yonggi Cho, Marilyn Hickey and others. The Faith Movement
is also very widespread in Third World Countries. e.g. Nigeria,
where I spent 5 months last year: Morris Cerullo is very popular
with Nigerians.
As I've indicated on the chart, almost
all the spiritual phenomena and experiences which are now called
the TB were in fact already taking place under the ministries
of men like Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Browne and Kenneth Copeland
years before the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church took these things
on board. I've especially singled out these three men, because
it was Rodney Howard-Browne who transmitted the blessing or the
anointing to the Toronto Airport Vineyard. and Howard-Browne has
been closely linked with the ministries of Benny Hinn and Kenneth
Copeland.
Now, before we look at how the blessing
made its way from the Faith Movement to Toronto, let's get a clearer
picture of what the Faith Movement actually believes and teaches
- what its doctrines are. In his book Christianity in Crisis,
Hank Hanegraaff sums up Faith Movement theology by using the mnemonic
FLAWS. This stands for Faith in faith,
Little gods, Atonement atrocities,
Wealth and want, and Sickness and
suffering. We can summarise these teachings thus:
Faith in faith: "Faith" is an independent spiritual
force, a basic law of the universe. God Himself is a "faith
God": He created the universe by His faith. This involved
God in visualising the universe in His imagination, and then speaking
it into existence with "faithfilled words" - saying
"Let it be" and believing that it would be. Man also
can use the same power and create his own reality. This involves
visualising what you want, and then speaking it into existence
with faith in your creative words ("positive
confession" -sometimes called "Name it and claim it").
This force of faith is such a basic law of life that people of
any religious belief can use it and get results. Christians must
simply learn how to do what others (e.g. in the New Age movement)
are already doing.
Little gods: Adam in paradise was God's equal; he was "God
manifested in the flesh," the god of planet earth. Man has
no independent nature of his own; all he can do is share either
in God's nature or Satan's. By giving in to Satan, Adam lost his
godhood to the devil who thus became (quite rightly and legally)
"the god of this world." And by this sin Adam experienced
a diabolical rebirth, acquiring Satan's nature. But through Christ,
man regains his lost godhood and becomes as much an incarnation
of God as Jesus Christ was. The believer is another Christ. Incidentally,
many Faith teachers, e.g. Rodney Howard-Browne, say that
Christ abandoned His true deity when He became a man. On earth,
He merely partook of God's nature in the sense that innocent Adam
did, as a perfect man. Jesus was not God in the flesh, but a Spirit-filled
"prophet under the Abrahamic covenant."
Atonement atrocities: Most Faith movement teachers deny that Christ's
death on the cross saves sinners. What real}y happened on the
cross was that Jesus actually became sinful; He took on Himself
the spiritual nature of Satan, thus being transformed from a divine
to a demonic being - the same thing that had happened to Adam
in Eden. This doctrine of the cross is often referred to in shorthand
as "JDS" - "Jesus died spiritually." The real
atonement took place after Jesus died. For the demonised spirit
of Jesus literally went into hell itself, where He was tortured
by demons for three days and three nights. Then Jesus was spiritually
reborn in hell, recovering His lost divinity and defeating Satan.
The same rebirth is granted to the believer, who is thus liberated
from his Satanic nature and becomes a god.
Wealth and want: Poverty is part of the curse of the law from
which Christ has delivered believers. Christ Himself, when He
was on earth, was a millionaire; He had so much money that He
had to appoint Judas as His finance manager, and the reason why
no-one noticed that Judas was stealing was because there was just
so much money in the moneybag. Many Faith teachers require their
followers to give them money with the promise that God will repay
them tenfold. Such giving is called "sowing a seed of faith."
Sickness and suffering: These too are demonic powers from which Christ
has delivered believers. We must claim our healing by faith speak
our health into existence by positive confession. Because man
is essentially a spirit who merely lives in a body, sickness and
healing are essentially spiritual, not bodily realities. So if
physical symptoms of illness persist after we have claimed our
healing, that is just what our bodily senses tell us; we must
deny this sense-knowledge by the higher spirit-knowledge of faith,
which knows that healing has truly occurred in the spiritual realm.
You will gather from all this that the
Faith Movement's belief in health, wealth and prosperity is only
one of its many false doctrines. Far more serious are its heretical
teachings about God, Christ and salvation.
Now the question we need to ask ourselves
about all this, the $64,000 question, is this: If these Faith
Movement leaders teach deadly heresy and destructive error, how
can it be the Holy Spirit that is at work in their meetings and
ministries? Remember that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth:
When the Helper comes.
Whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth
Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. (JOHN 15:26)
He will glorify Me, for
He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you (JOHN 16:14).
But these Faith teachers do not teach
the truth about Christ, and they do not glorify the Christ of
the Scriptures, but a Christ of their own imaginations: a Christ
Who was not almighty God in the flesh, a Christ Who was a millionaire,
a Christ Who became demonised on the cross and atoned for sin
"spiritually" in hell rather than by His blood, a Christ
Who was only the incarnation of God in the sense that (according
to them) every believer is an incarnation of God. It is no wonder
that Bible-believing scholars and theologians like Hank Hanegraaff,
Dan McConnell and others have concluded that the Faith Movement
gospel is a "different gospel" (2 CORINTHIANS 11:3-4).
So what we are faced with in the Faith Movement is another gospel,
another Jesus and another Spirit. The true Holy Spirit of God
would never honour, sanction, or give credence to the ministries
of people who teach poisonous error. Whatever spiritual power
is at work through men like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Rodney
Howard-Browne, one must conclude that it is not the Spirit of
Truth.
3. How did the Toronto Blessing arrive in Toronto?
Now let's see how the spiritual manifestations
and phenomena, the so-called anointing that Benny Hinn, Kenneth
Copeland and Rodney Howard-Browne were transmitting to thousands
of people in the Faith Movement - let's see how these things made
their way to Toronto. The key figures here are Rodney Howard-Browne
himself, and a man called Randy Clark. Clark is the pastor of
the Vineyard Church in St. Louis, Missouri. In case you aren't
familiar with this term "Vineyard Church," a Vineyard
Church is a fellowship that belongs to the network of churches
which look to John Wimber as their founder. Wimber is a leading
American charismatic who became well-known in the 1980's for his
emphasis on miraculous healing and on signs and wonders as a necessary
part of effective evangelism. Randy Clark then is the pastor of
one of these Wimber Vineyard churches in St. Louis, Missouri.
An account of how Randy Clark received
the blessing or anointing of the Spirit from Rodney Howard-Browne
is found in the paper What in the World is Happening to
us? This was written by Bill Jackson of the Vineyard movement
to try to show that the TB is a good Biblical thing. Here is Bill
Jackson's account of how the TB began:
Randy Clark is the founding
pastor of the Vineyard Christian fellowship in St. Louis. Missouri.
After years of seeing little fruit and power in his ministry-
he became desperately hungry for God. Hearing of unusual manifestations
of God's presence through the ministry of South African evangelist
Rodney Howard-Browne Randy attended one of Rodney's meetings in
Tulsa Oklahoma. Randy was powerfully touched and, in going home,
began to see a similar outbreak of the Spirit among his people. 2
That was in August 1993. So the "anointing"
and the spiritual phenomena linked with it, which had been going
on for some time under Rodney Howard-Browne, Benny Hinn and Kenneth
Copeland, were now transmitted to Randy Clark. The anointing spilled
out from the Faith Movement into the Vineyard movement.
(One interesting point that Bill Jackson
doesn't make clear in his account is where exactly Randy Clark
went to the Rodney Howard-Browne meeting. Jackson simply says
it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. What he doesn't say is that Tulsa,
Oklahoma is the headquarters of Kenneth Hagin's branch of the
Faith Movement, the Rhema Bible Church. Once we take that into
account, it underlines the deep bond between Rodney Howard-Browne,
the Faith Movement and the TB.)
Having received the blessing himself,
Randy Clark then passed it on to the Toronto Airport Vineyard,
at the invitation of its pastor John Arnott, in January 1994.
The meetings that Clark held in Toronto lasted for 90 days, and
were so powerful that the movement took off within the Vineyard
network of churches, and acquired the nickname "the Toronto
Blessing." The TB was given huge publicity, and charismatics
from all over the world (many of them unaware of the Faith Movement
and its teachings) began flocking to Toronto to see what God was
doing, to catch the blessing and take it back to their own churches.
The TB swiftly became a global phenomenon, striking roots in Britain,
Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, everywhere.
Now the important thing to remember at
this point is the origins of the TB. It began in the Faith Movement.
It began in a context of destructive and poisonous error. But
now here are men like Randy Clark and John Arnott who do not accept
any of the heresies of the Faith Movement, happily
and enthusiastically embracing the spiritual power
that is at work in the Faith Movement. The false spirit that operates
in the Faith Movement, zapping people, making them fall over and
laugh and so on all amid the most dreadful twisting and distorting
of Scripture - that same false spirit has now been welcomed, accepted
and endorsed by many of the Vineyard churches of John Wimber and
from them it has gone out into the charismatic and Pentecostal
churches on a worldwide basis. They say it is God refreshing and
renewing His Church. A more honest verdict would be that it is
one of the worst delusions ever to afflict the professing Church
of Jesus Christ.
Part 2
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