Randy Clark’s claim to fame came thro’ attending a Rodney Howard Browne meeting in Tulsa Oklahoma in Aug. 1993, motivated by a desperation for ‘more of God,’ (a term, cry and ideological phenomena to be repeated for years right up to this day), as he was exp’ing dryness in his christian walk and ministry, depressed and dejected. What he exp’d when Rodney laid hands on him in prayer, came on the heals of unusual exp’s people had been having of late in Browne’s meetings, that culminated at Carl Strader’s church in Lakeland Florida, Carpernter’s Home Church.
Rodney’s unusual phenomenical history began as a 17 year old in S.A. Relating these details is important, as it gives understanding and explanation to the origin and rise of the phenomena currently plaguing the charismatic and even evangelical churches today, of which Randy became a major catalyst, proponent and promulgator to this present day.
1st. Who is Randy Clark?
Before the Toronto Blessing, NARpostle C. Peter Wagner described Randy Clark as a “relatively unknown Vineyard pastor” (The Rising Revival, 1998, pg. 10). It is significant to note that Clark was a Vineyard pastor. Wagner worked closely with John Wimber and his Vineyard movement, heralding him as the “pioneer of the New Apostolic Reformation” (The New Apostolic Churches, 1998). Wagner astutely observed that Vineyard (later known as the Association of Vineyard Churches), was “one of the early prototypes of the New Apostolic Reformation in the United States” (ChurchQuake!, 1999, pg. 136).
While at Vineyard, Randy Clark received a spiritual ‘impartation’ from NAR Apostle Rodney Howard-Browne, carried this ‘impartation’ to Toronto and released spiritual mayhem in John and Carol Arnott’s airport church. What you are about to read is a valuable insight into Clark’s relationship with Vineyard and John Wimber:
“In January 1984, Randy Clark met John Wimber (founder of the Vineyard Movement) for the first time. John prayed for him and prophesied many encouraging words. Among those words, which Randy has never forgotten, were: “You are a prince in the Kingdom of God.” Although discouraged prior to receiving this prophecy, Randy was greatly encouraged afterward. A few months later, Randy discovered what else God spoke audibly to John that night. When Randy asked why he had been put on the Leadership Council of the Vineyard when he had less than 50 people in the new church he was starting, and everyone else on the council had churches from 500-5,000, a close confidante of John Wimber told him, “John didn’t invite you onto the council because of what you have done, but because of what God told him audibly you will do. You are going to go around the world and lay your hands upon pastors and leaders for impartation of the Holy Spirit, and to stir up and impart the gifts of the Spirit.“
Ten difficult years passed before this word from God was fulfilled. A few days after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the Toronto Airport Vineyard, now called Catch the Fire, John Wimber called Randy. He said, “This is the fulfillment of what God showed me about your life ten years ago.” The last time Randy met with Wimber, John gave him one more word, “God told me audibly that you and (one other) were the two Vineyard pastors who would go around the world, laying your hands upon pastors and leaders to impart gifts of the Holy Spirit to them and to impart the Holy Spirit to them.”
Rodney Howard-Browne – When The Fire Fell
a https://www.equip.org/articles/the-counterfeit-revival/
What Rodney Howard-Browne refers to as “revival” had its genesis in July of 1979. At the age of 17, he says he gave God Almighty an ultimatum: “Either You come down here and touch me or I am going to come up there and touch You.”9 He began to shout over and over again, “God, I want your power!”10 He shouted until he was hoarse, frightening nearly everyone present. Rodney recounts that suddenly:
The fire of God came 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 four days. I thought I was going to die. I thought He was going to kill me….My whole body was on fire from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and 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 other tongues….I was so intoxicated on the wine of the Holy Ghost that I was beside myself. The fire of God was coursing through my whole being and it didn’t quit….Because of this encounter with the Lord, my life was radically changed from that day on.11
___________________________________________________
>* Daryl here: I believe this introduction to Rodney’s ‘laughter’ exp. and ‘fire’, is paramount to observing and understanding it’s entrance into the christian church. His attitude, mindset and approach to God and his incessant desire and cries of demand to be ‘touched’ with God’s power, were an invitation to demonic powers to manifest what he was asking for. I’ve said, when one behaves this way, asking/demanding God for what has already been given or is not His will to give, they will rec. what they ask for, but it won’t be from God. _____________________________________________________
Although Rodney experienced a few subsequent manifestations of divine power, it was not until 1990 that this anointing returned to stay. By this time Rodney had moved from South Africa to America, and by his own admission had a ministry that was nothing to write home about. Despite that fact, when the unusual manifestations resurfaced, Rodney became indignant. Speaking to the Almighty, he said, “God, You’re ruining my meetings!”12 God retorted, “Son, the way your meetings are going, they’re worth ruining.”13
And ruin them He did! As the story goes, in Albany, New York, two people were merely walking down a church aisle when God enveloped them in a “thick fog or mist” and they “fell out under the power.”14 In a meeting in New Jersey people began to “jump out of wheelchairs without anyone touching them.”15 At times the anointing of the Holy Spirit would blow into buildings so powerfully that Rodney had to hold onto the podium, “because it nearly blew me flat on the floor.”16 One time the power of God hit a whole row of people, causing them to fall on their backs “before the ushers could catch them.”17
Rodney says that even he was “amazed” at what happened when he prayed for people. At times they would be “picked up and thrown over three rows of chairs like a piece of rag.”18 On one occasion, while Rodney was praying for a man, the power of God allegedly came over his shoulder like a whirlwind. The man saw it coming and tried to duck, but it was too late. The whirlwind “picked him up off the ground, level with my waist,” said Rodney, and “then it struck him to the ground….I was shocked. As the power hit him, the first couple of rows all went out. It was like a Holy Ghost tornado came in there.”19
That was only the beginning of the unusual manifestations. In addition to becoming drunk in the Spirit, being knocked down by the Spirit, and getting enveloped in the mist of the Spirit, suddenly people were subjected to the “glue” of the Spirit.
One of Rodney’s books has a section titled “Holy Ghost Glue.”20 In it he recounts the story of a wealthy woman who got “stuck” in the Spirit. As Rodney tells it: “She was lying there from noon until 1:30….At 1:30, she tried to get up. She wanted to get up. She couldn’t. All she could do was flap her hands. So she was lying there flapping away — flap, flap, flap, flap….2:30, 3:30, 4:30….At 4:30 the woman was still saying, ‘I can’t get up. I’m stuck to the floor.’”21
She flapped so long that, as Rodney put it, he ended up “walking out on the Holy Spirit”:
I turned to the pastor and said, “Look, I haven’t had either breakfast or lunch. It’s 4:30. I’m not stuck and you’re not stuck. These people are going to stay here with her, so let’s go have a meal before the night service.” The ushers told us later that at 6 o’clock the woman finally peeled herself off the carpet. Then it took her an hour to crawl from the center of the church auditorium to the side wall. She had been stuck to the floor for six hours! By 7 o’clock she couldn’t talk in English anymore. She tried to talk, but only tongues came out of her mouth. She couldn’t help it. She was totally filled — and totally inebriated, saturated, and drunk in the Holy Ghost! The ushers put her in the back row thinking that she wouldn’t disturb anyone, but she interfered with everyone who came through the door.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Five women were sitting around her, were struck dumb — they couldn’t talk — Their husbands were rejoicing.22
The Big Time
The “big break” that would propel Rodney into international visibility happened in the spring of 1993.23 Charisma magazine reported that Rodney’s “rise to fame began…during a watershed meeting at Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland, Florida.”24 Laughter in the Spirit caught on there, “jetting Howard-Browne, 33, out of obscurity, whisking him from Alaska to the Pentagon.”25
Assemblies of God pastor Karl Strader invited Rodney to preach and perform at Carpenter’s Home Church in its ten-thousand-seat auditorium. At the time Strader was struggling professionally through the trauma of a church split.26 In addition he was struggling personally with what Charisma magazine reported as his son’s arrest for racketeering charges “stemming from an alleged pyramid scheme involving more than $3.7 million.”27 Rodney’s revival rhetoric provided Strader with just the release he thought he needed. According to Strader’s friends, Charles and Frances Hunter (popular charismatic leaders known as the Happy Hunters), “he had spent six weeks on the floor of his church laughing, having the most wonderful time of his life.”28
While Rodney apparently provided Strader with a chance to laugh at his problems, Strader provided Rodney with the opportunity to finally capture his claims on camera. As thousands looked on, however, Rodney’s claims of the miraculous did not materialize. No mighty, rushing wind blew into the auditorium, causing Rodney to hold onto the podium so that he would not be blown flat on the floor. No one was picked up and thrown over three rows of chairs like a piece of rag. People did not “jump out of wheelchairs without anyone touching them,”29 and no one was raised from the dead. Instead, Rodney was relegated to resuscitating tales of bygone miracles as well as delivering a litany of well-rehearsed jokes.
One thing Rodney did produce, however, was an epidemic of “spiritual drunkenness.” In response to his cries of “Fill, fill, fill! More, more, more!” or “Git ‘em, Jesus, git ‘em, git ‘em, git ‘em!” a growing number of people began to manifest signs of intoxication. Some fell to the floor in uncontrollable laughter while others got stuck in “Holy Ghost Glue.” As Rodney commanded God to give people double and triple doses of His “New Wine,” some even went “dumb in the Spirit.” Most notable among them was Pastor Strader himself, who struggled pathetically to speak but could emit only unintelligible grunts.
“Holy” Laughter an “End-Time Revival“
(These new unusual phenomena were then recognized as end-time revival)
News of the laughter that erupted in Lakeland “spread quickly on the charismatic grapevine,”30 drawing thousands of spiritually starved saints to the church sanctuary. What was originally scheduled to be a week’s worth of meetings eventually stretched into three months.31
Lakeland had suddenly become the spiritual destination of choice. Christian leaders from America, Africa, Australia, Argentina, and elsewhere began to make pilgrimages to Florida to witness the “bizarre emotional displays”32 firsthand. Among them was Richard Roberts, the President of Oral Roberts University (ORU), who was struggling under the weight of a 40 million dollar debt inherited from his father, Oral. After his introduction to Lakeland’s laughter, “Roberts says he ended up on the floor laughing at every Howard-Browne meeting as have members of his family.”33
Oral Roberts, who also attended the Lakeland meetings, was so enamored with Rodney Howard-Browne that he proclaimed that Rodney’s ministry signaled the arrival of “another level in the Holy Spirit.”34 Oral said that Rodney was “raised up from a new kind of seed, with a new kind of revelation…yet a fresh wave.”35
After seeing Rodney perform in Lakeland, Richard and Oral invited him to come to Tulsa for a series of meetings at Oral Roberts University. The response was so overwhelming that classes had to be canceled as students fell to the floor and laughed.
Karl Strader was so enthusiastic over the dramatic changes in the lives of these Christian superstars that he called the Happy Hunters and encouraged them “to come down and participate in this.”36 After doing so, the Hunters were impressed enough to label “Holy” Laughter an “End-Time Revival.”37 They concluded that in this revival “the Spirit of God is swiftly moving in breathtaking and sometimes startling new ways, and people of every tongue and every nation are letting out what is on the inside of them. People of all races and denominations are radically falling in love with Jesus in a brand new way! They are running at a fast pace to ‘Joel’s Bar’ where the drinks are free and there is no hangover.”38
The Vatican of the Faith Movement – Tulsa Ok.
After their visit in Lakeland the Happy Hunters went on to spread “Holy” Laughter throughout Europe. Back home in America, “Holy” Laughter was to get a powerful shot in the arm as well. Events that ultimately would lead to a worldwide laughing revival were precipitated when Howard-Browne, himself a former associate pastor of a Word of Faith church in South Africa, was summoned to speak at the “Vatican” of Faith theology — Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible Training Center (located near Tulsa, Oklahoma).
Rodney Howard-Browne was tailor-made for Rhema. The parallels between his preaching and practice and those of Rhema’s founder, Kenneth Hagin, are striking. Like Rodney, Hagin is quick to pronounce divine judgment on those who dare to question his prophetic ministry. Hagin has gone so far as to predict the untimely death of a pastor who doubted his false doctrine. According to Hagin, “The pastor fell dead in the pulpit…because he didn’t accept the message that God gave me to give him from the Holy Spirit.”39
Years before Rodney began popularizing “Holy” Laughter, Hagin preached and practiced “Holy” Laughter at Rhema. Thus, when Rodney Howard-Browne came to this “Mecca” of faith theology in August 1993, most of the people were well prepared for what he brought. One person, however, was not.
THE VINEYARD CONNECTION
Randy Clark had traveled to Rhema discouraged, disillusioned, and close to a complete breakdown. He was a burned-out pastor from the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Saint Louis who, over the 24 years of his ministry, had gradually lost the fervency of his faith. The Bible no longer spoke to him; he no longer wanted to pray; and he did not like going to church. He was at Rhema for Rodney’s appearances only because of the persistent urging of a friend “who moved in power” and in “the gift of discernment.”40
Reluctantly, Randy Clark gave in and decided to attend Rodney’s next appearance. He was dismayed when he found out it was to be at Rhema. Clark was passionately opposed to the Faith movement and agreeing to go to Rhema was like Daniel’s asking to be thrown into the lion’s den.
Randy now says that in the midst of his spiritual disillusionment, God rebuked him, saying, “You have a…denominational spirit if you think you can only drink of the well of your own…group.”41 God then asked Randy a very pertinent question: “How badly do you want me?”42 Thus chastened by the Almighty, Randy made his pilgrimage to Rhema.
Randy, Rodney, and Rhema
To his own amazement, at Rhema he “fell under the power” as Rodney prayed for him. At first he doubted that the experience was real because he was not “shaking” and “hurting from electricity”43 as he had during a similar experience at a Vineyard in 1989. However, the accompanying phenomena convinced Randy that this was a genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit. While he was “pinned to the floor,” says Randy, “two bodies down from me there was somebody oinking!”44 Randy immediately began laughing in the spirit and then got drunk in the spirit. In time, Randy got so drunk that he was actually afraid the police would arrest him on his way home.45
Randy’s associate pastor, Bill Mares, who had accompanied him and received the blessing as well, couldn’t wait to bring the Rhema experience back home. Randy, however, did not want to bring the manifestations into his church until he had spent six months preparing his people. When Bill said, “I can’t wait that long,” Randy pulled rank and countered, “I’m the senior pastor.” God allegedly intervened then by impressing Randy with the words, “I’m God and I’ll do it when I want.”46
We All Fall Down
And do it He did. Their first Sunday back, while his congregation was worshiping God, a woman on the worship team fell, knocked over a guitar stand, and began to laugh uncontrollably. As Randy points out, “She just didn’t fall and lie still, she’s laying there, doing this — Laughing! — Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! All the way through forty-five minutes of worship, just continues to do this.”47 Although none of his people had ever fallen in church before, by the end of the service virtually everyone enthusiastically rushed forward to be touched by Randy, who recounted later, “WHOOOMP! Wall to wall people…. BOOOM! Boy, this is fun! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!”48 As Rodney had touched Randy, Randy now touched his people, and they all fell down.
The initial impact of Randy’s visit to Rhema was merely a harbinger of things to come. A woman, who had been touched in Randy’s church, received a vision in which she saw Toronto, Canada. In her vision Toronto was “on fire and little blades of fire [were] going three hundred-sixty degrees all over Canada.”49 Sure enough, not long after this vision, Randy received a call from a Vineyard pastor named John Arnott, whose church was located in Toronto, Canada.50
Arnott had heard about Randy’s participation in a regional meeting of Vineyard churches in which every pastor, as well as all of their wives (except one) were touched by “drunkenness and partying.”51 Arnott wanted Randy to export these experiences to Canada.
A Wing and a Prayer
Pastor Randy, however, was afraid to step out as a guest leader because, as he put it, he had only “a testimony and maybe one other sermon.” Once again God intervened. This time, instead of speaking directly to Randy, God sent him a prophetic pronouncement through a Baptist friend named Richard Holcomb, whose record of prophetic accuracy in the past was allegedly one hundred percent.
Repeating himself three times, presumably for emphasis, God said (through Holcomb), “Test me now. Test me now. Test me now. Do not be afraid. I will back you up. I want your eyes to be opened to see my spiritual resources in the heavenlies for you just as Elijah prayed that Gehazi’s eyes would be opened. And do not become anxious because when you become anxious you can’t hear me.”52
Randy later pronounced “that prophetic word” to be the very thing that “changed my life.” Randy is now convinced that without this prophecy, he would not have made the transition from being an emotionally disturbed pastor to becoming the conduit through which the new wine of the Spirit would be dispensed to people who until now had never even conceived of Holy Ghost Glue or divine drunkenness. Within hours of the prophecy, Randy was in a van, headed to the airport. It was a mission that would forever change not only his life, but also the lives of multiplied millions of other people later touched by what has come to be known as the “Toronto Blessing.”
The Toronto Blessing
Long before Randy Clark’s January 1994 trip to Canada, Toronto Airport Vineyard pastor John Arnott was being conditioned for what was to follow. As his wife, Carol Arnott, explains, “God also spoke to John and said, ‘I want you to hang around people that have an anointing.’”53
According to Carol, God directed them back to an old friend named Benny Hinn.54 When Benny would get through ministering to them backstage, Carol would be so drunk that John would have to carry her home.55 John, however, did not “feel anything.”56
In June of 1993 Rodney Howard-Browne prayed for John Arnott, but the results were the same. In November of that year he embarked on an expedition to Argentina, where he was prayed over by a Pentecostal pastor named Claudio Freidzon, who himself had undertaken a spiritual pilgrimage through which he received “an impartation of spiritual anointing from both Benny Hinn and Rodney Howard-Browne.”57 Freidzon’s ministry was now characterized by manifestations of “uncontrollable laughter.”58
Claudio Freidzon asked Arnott “if he wanted this new empowerment, and if so to take it.” While Carol, as John puts it, “went flying,”59 John didn’t know whether “to stand, fall, roll or forget it.”60 John fell down, but he suspected that he was just “going along with it” as he had many times before. When John got up from the floor, Claudio walked over to him and said, “Do you want it?”61 Claudio then slapped John on both of his hands and immediately Arnott felt God prompt him with the message, “For goodness sake will you take this? It’s yours.”62 With those words Arnott finally gave in and received the breakthrough he had been seeking so desperately.
The Arnotts traveled back from Argentina with great expectations. When they heard that, like them, Randy Clark had been touched, they invited him to speak. On January 20, 1994, he gave his testimony before 120 attendees at the Toronto Airport Vineyard. In short order “almost 80 percent of the people were on the floor.”63 As John tells the story, “It was like an explosion. We saw people literally being knocked off their feet by the Spirit of God….Others shook and jerked. Some danced, some laughed. Some lay on the floor as if dead for hours. People cried and shouted.”64
Like the congregation, the staff of the Toronto Airport Vineyard was dramatically impacted. Arnott reported that the sound man got “drunk, drunk, drunk.”65 The church receptionist could not speak for three days and after that, “could only speak in tongues.”66 Delighted, Arnott described how “our staff loves to get me on the floor, you know, they all run over, ‘Hey he’s down,’ you know. They come ‘More, Lord!’ [and] they try to get me to shake or jerk or something. It just makes their day.”67
Party Now, Check the Fruit Later
As news of the strange goings on in Toronto spread, spiritually starved seekers from across North America and abroad began flocking to Toronto. Many have brought the experience back with them to their churches (e.g., Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church in London), causing the “laughing revival” to become a truly global phenomenon.
Not everyone who has come seeking the Spirit in Toronto has been filled, however. John believes many frustrated seekers simply would not let go of their emotions. The reason John himself had such a hard time getting drunk and falling in the Spirit was, as Carol clarified, “You control your emotions. You control your responses.”68
Controlling emotions is not only harmful to an individual, but doing so can also have a significant impact on others. John explains, “Many times Carol and I will be praying for people, we’re soakin’ ‘em, soakin’ ‘em, soakin’ ‘em, feel the anointing going in. Next thing you know the guy that’s supposed to be catching goes flying back ‘cause it just kind of, it’s got to go somewhere. If the person doesn’t take it, it goes to the catcher, or it rebounds back on the person praying, or something where they can’t take it.” This dilemma can be solved, John says, if he and the other leaders “break those controls off of people and boom, they’ll take it just like that.”69
Another reason for failing to receive is people’s fear of deception. The antidote, says Arnott, is not to become a good discerner, but instead, when one comes “asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit, I don’t want you to even entertain the thought that you might get a counterfeit.”70 John notes that, in the past, Vineyard leaders made mistakes regarding the supernatural: “We used to think when people shook, shouted, flopped, rolled, etc., that it was a demonic thing manifesting and we needed to take them out of the room. That was our grid, that’s what our experience had taught us, that demons could be powerful.”71 Now John thinks these kinds of situations should be handled simply by enjoying the experiences and checking the “fruit” later. He explains, “Why would we focus, then, on ‘Yeah, but I don’t like the way he fell and shook and got stuck to the floor and everything!’ Listen! Who cares whether he did or he didn’t? Who cares? If he thinks it’s God and he likes it, let him enjoy it! Because you can test the fruit later.”72 Caution would be a big mistake: “If you play it safe with this thing, the Holy Spirit, you know what? You’re never going to get anywhere.”73
Arnott is quick to admit that in the beginning he had no “theological framework for parties.”74 He adds, “I had no desire for Christians to fall down, roll around and laugh.” Instead he says he wanted God to “save the lost, heal the sick, and expand the kingdom.”75 Today, however, he proudly promotes parties during which Christians get “thoroughly blasted” while “Jesus picks up the tab.”76
While he is happy to “marinate”77 Christians in the Holy Spirit, he complained when God began bringing “animal sounds” and “strange prophecy”78 to the party. When the Almighty allegedly asked, “Would you like Me to take it away?” Arnott quickly acquiesced.79
Arnott’s assumption that God was more interested in evangelism than experiences led to another unexpected revelation as well. As he preached salvation messages, he began to sense a “quenching of the Spirit.” He went to the Lord in prayer and asked, “Well, why, why is this hard, like I would have thought you would have liked it if I’d have preached on that.” To his astonishment, the Lord replied, “It’s because you’re pushing Me.” And then God said, “Is it all right with you if I just love up on My church for a while?”80
John not only discussed this issue with God but he also discussed it with Randy Clark. Randy, like John, came to the conviction that, rather than giving people “the heavy message of holiness to start with,”81 it was wise for God to throw “a party first.”82 Randy later elaborated: if God had not first thrown a party, “the church couldn’t even have responded” because “most of the people in church already feel so icky about themselves.”83
No Laughing Matter
As attractive as they believe the “party” is, Laughing Revival leaders seem convinced that the day is coming when critics will polarize in opposition to those who know how to enjoy the party. Vineyard prophets Wes and Stacey Campbell point out that after people “throughout the entire Christian community of the world” find out about the party, “there will come a polarization.”84 The Campbells warn that this is “no laughing matter.”85 A horrendous “time of bloodshed” is coming in which “there won’t be a house that escapes weeping.”86 God Himself (using Stacey Campbell as His mouthpiece) called upon those gathered at the Toronto Airport Vineyard:
Grab all you can while you can get it. Take what you can while you can have it. For the days are coming, says the Lord, when a great division will begin in the church, and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. And your parents will criticize you, and speak evil of you and say they have lost you to a cult. And your sons and daughters will say, “My parents have gone crazy.” And there will be mourning in the house of God.
And I tell you there are those even among you now who are here simply to spread discord among the brethren. . . . And for the one who comes to bring division, to divide the Church of Christ, to cut off His arms and His legs, and the toes from His feet, the Lord says it would be better for Sodom and Gommorah than it will be for that one on that day. But I tell you, nonetheless, that division will come, and it is even now brewing like a leaven in the church.
For the Lord calls you right now, this day, seeing what you are seeing, hearing of the miracles you are hearing of, seeing the fruit of God that you are seeing, to call it God, endure to the end and be saved, or to follow after human wisdom and reasoning that kills the word of faith and brings division and justifies in self-righteousness the dividing of the church.
The Lord wants you to purpose in your heart this night, is it God or isn’t it, and to stand by your commitment as you are called to stand by your confession of faith.87
God Almighty then summed up his sentiments in just three words — “Choose! Choose! Choose!”88
John Arnott likens the choice God is calling for to that which faced the Israelites while they were wandering in the desert three thousand years ago. Says Arnott, “God came along with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” However, “due to fear and unbelief,” the Israelites failed “to possess the kingdom of God.”89 According to Arnott, God is once again giving us an opportunity to “enter the promised land.” The question is, will we be “radical enough to go for it”?90
Richard M. Riss
A History of the Worldwide Awakening of 1992-1995
a http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/history.html
Excellent detailed historical account of the new spiritual phenomena, perhaps more details on Rodney, Randy and John Arnott – ‘Toronto Blessing’
Rodney Howard Browne – Rare footage!
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYe8qhiehzQ
I used to think this video below was funny, and real. Rodney claims it’s blasphemy to criticize this phenomena.
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNG5kCzPtU
More Browne Erroneous Blasphemy Accusations
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwRt0QtHh4s
Manifestation Of Toronto Blessing After Randy Clark
LongforTruth1 – video produced 13 Jan. 2022
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSgYn9_Azgo
Dangerous Leaders Of The Toronto Blessing
Many connections covered in this video. Randy Clark-false prophecy over Todd Bentley at Lakeland ‘revival’ 2008 -‘apostolic/prophetic’ ‘day of infamy’
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp6KDRNifN4
Randy Clark Today
a http://www.piratechristian.com/museum-of-idolatry/2020/1/randy-clark-global-awakening-to-the-demonic
Implications In Apostolic/Prophetic ‘Day Of Infamy’ June 23 2008 Lakeland Fl.
The point of re-visiting the Lakeland fallout with Todd Bentley and all of the apostolic/prophetic leaders that pretty much represented the movement as a whole, is to seriously ponder, and realize the implications of the movement’s many false prophetic words over Todd, and the fact that no one knew Todd’s egregious behaviour.
Beyond that, as covered in the 2 blogs above, there were more issue involving information, awareness, and decisions made between Carl Strader and Peter Wagner, before the 23 of June, indicating Peter knew about Todd’s marriage issues and more, yet invited the apostles to publicly align Todd with the apostolic group, most represented by the ‘Revival Alliance’, (Bill Johnson, Che Ahn and John Arnott), who either weren’t aware, and privy to Peter’s knowledge, or had strongly disagreed with holding the ‘alignment’ ceremony before addressing Todd’s issues. A number of members in Peter’s ICA group left after this fiasco, Peter right in the middle, and basically the instigator of the whole alignment and embarrassing predicament and ensuing implosion.
The apostolic/prophetic movement in manifesting bad fruit continuously, has exponentially, proceeded forward in the same. There are many explanations, justifications for these grievous facts, narrative spins (such as Peter Wagner’s in blogs above), that silence the questions of many, the false movement progressing forward, ever increasing, enlarging, straying deeper into gross error.
Randy Clark, in fulfilling John Wimber’s 1984 prophecy over him, “You are a prince in the Kingdom of God.”…”You are going to go around the world and lay your hands upon pastors and leaders for impartation of the Holy Spirit, and to stir up and impart the gifts of the Spirit,” embarked upon a ‘ministry of laying on of hands, imparting the ‘more’ that he craved and cried for 10 years up until he met Rodney Howard Browne. ‘ that was realized in January 1994, in Toronto Can.
Could John Wimber’s exalting prophecy over Randy in 1984 have been the catalyst causing Randy’s disappointment and dejection?
“Global Awakening was birthed by Randy Clark in January 1994 as a result of God using him to bring the fire of revival to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. This ministry was birthed in the greatest revival movement of the last half of the 20th Century, a move of God resulting in the longest protracted meeting in the history of North America. During the first year, the “Blessing” spread to 55,000 churches around the world. Over three million people visited the church during those first few years; thousands were rededicated and saved and thousands more were empowered and equipped to minister more effectively.” [Source]
“If you click on the source link above, you can read how his false revival impacted Heidi Baker and many other false apostles and prophets. This ‘revival’ soon spread to other countries and was responsible for the diabolical manifestations in 1994 at Holy Trinity Brompton (UK), in 1995 at Brownsville, Pensacola (US) and later Lakeland, Florida (2008).”
Apostolic Network Of Global Awakening (ANGA)
Somewhere in his early success, God supposedly made Randy Clark an apostle. Clark states,
“He believes that the United States will once again experience a powerful “Healing Revival” and, when it does, he knows that he and his associates and interns, along with the pastors and itinerant ministers who are part of the Apostolic Network, will help fan the flames.” [Source]
Clark implies that he was already an apostle even before he launched his apostolic network:
“… the Apostolic Network of Global Awakening is a teaching, healing and impartation ministry with a heart for the nations. Founded in 1994 by Randy Clark after being used by God to begin the Toronto Blessing revival at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship…” [Source]
“In the early days of the Toronto outpouring, God called Randy to be a Fire Lighter, Vision Caster, and Bridge Builder. This call rests upon the Network and its members.” [Source]
The reports of revival in other parts of the world, the results of Randy imparting something to other church leaders, has to be held in tension with observable spurious, questionable fruit, beginning in Toronto and continuing to this day.
Actually, in considering who imparted something to Randy, we are taken back to 1979 and Rodney Howard Browne as a 17 year old in S. A. screaming at God to touch him, or he was going to die and come up there and touch God. The manifestations that have ensued after such conduct, insisting, ‘wanting more,’ inevitably result in such exp.’s and are always then claimed to be ‘revival.’ What Rodney rec’d thro’ his belligerent insistence for more, many others, including Randy, and exponentially many, many more, thro’ the laying on of his hands, is the result of their insistence for more, in the form of experiential spiritualism.
The massive movement taking place today in hyper, neo-charismatism, is a movement abandoned to ever-increasing more experiential spiritualism, portrayed as anointing.
In the 1st place, transferring anything spiritual, to others is unBiblical and was a major point of contention with the main Pentecostal churches, from the very beginning of the Latter Rain movement, and here it is today, a major belief and practice on par (as far as importance, and focus), with walking out the Scriptures.
To me it is so apparent that the impartation thro’ the laying on of hands is, in many cases, transferring demonic spirits. Insistence upon rec.’ing some thing, that God has already given, or is not His will to give, will impart what one is insisting upon, but it won’t be from God.
Randy Clark Global Awakening To The Demonic
a http://www.piratechristian.com/museum-of-idolatry/2020/1/randy-clark-global-awakening-to-the-demonic
Numerous videos have been posted already giving everyone the opportunity to soberly consider, if what they’re observing is Scriptural, and equal to the term anointing as seen, described and explained in Scripture.
Voice Of The Apostles 2017
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPD7W9sXao4&t=533s
(at the 8:50 mark Randy prays for ‘the electricity of God’)
Voice Of The Apostles- Mark Chironna- 2021
Mark Chironna is a regular speaker at Randy Clark’s ‘Voice Of The Apostles’
a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJaWN-u6s4
Mark Chironna – @ 1:50 mark he starts to relate about visitations from dead saints & his own personal exp. with the dead in dreams – He calls it the ‘communion of the saints.’ – patristic fathers exp.’s similar
- @ the 2 hour mark, Mark says of Rev.19:10 – John mistook the angel for Jesus, and fell down to worship.
- Rev.19:10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
- Mark continues; “in the fullness of the glory, you cannot tell where the servant ends and Christ begins. The servant/angel says; “That’s the testimony of Jesus. That’s the spirit of prophecy.”
- The spirit of prophecy is when we are so one with Christ, that we can’t tell where He ends and we begin.
Mark Chironna’s New Age Connections
a https://mkayla.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/mark-chironna-another-pea-in-the-pod-of-poo/
Mark Chironna & Leonard Sweet -Co-Author Book
At the 1:30 min. mark Mark says the Father spoke the Son into existence.
http://bethelburnett.blogspot.com/2010/03/apostates-heretics-false-doctrines-ii.html
Chironna speaks at Bethel – 2012
https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=16072
Chironna then begins his introduction of quantum mysticism:
99:55: And this leap is not just marked by a shift in our interior identity, it’s also marked by an awareness that everything in creation is connected. Everything is connected. Say everything is connected.” [Audience dutifully repeats] (emphasis mine)
100:15: “And it’s connected at deep interpenetrating levels, at a sub-atomic dimension. Our problem is we walk in the illusion of separation. But we are not separate. We are connected. When Paul says we are all one body in Christ in Galatians 4, literally in the Greek it’s we’re all one person.” (emphasis mine)
101 minutes and three seconds: Chironna then uses a talk given by a British quantum physicist as proof that everything in the universe is connected. The scientist apparently rubbed a diamond and stated that this friction at a sub-atomic level was affecting the molecular movement of the farthest known star, five billion light years away. Why? Because everything is interconnected…
Laying On of Hands-Corrections-Biblical Applications
a https://truthwatchers.com/laying-hands-taught-bible/
a https://jesustruthdeliverance.com/2018/09/01/caution-about-the-laying-on-of-hands/
Impartions, Anointings, Manifestations
The laying on of hands for impartations, anointings, and experiential manifestations is the huge Trojan horse rolling into christendom today. 1st repudiated by the Assemblies of God in 1949, when introduced and propagated as doctrine in the Latter Rain movement, as part of the revelation of the restored ‘5 fold ministry.’
The article below critiques and dismantles the whole idea and practice of laying on of hands for impartations and anointings. This practice, besides being unBiblical, has been possibly the greatest catalyst for the exponential increase of aberrancies, heresies and acceptance of false spirituality in the church in the past 100 years. The practice of improper use of laying on of hands, for the purpose of ‘imparations’ is in fact a catalyst for the transference of demonic spirits to influence and oppress, by deception, gross error, aberrancies, spiritual bondages.
This practice has become a ‘go to,’ for everything a person may be looking for in spiritual advancement, in personal growth, in spiritual revelation, in increased intimacy and objective and internal awareness of God’s presence experientially, and spiritual encounters. It has become as or more so important than living by the Word of God, genuine relationship with the Lord, and definitely elevated above, or even completely replacing the sanctification process, morphing into a false spirituality, spiritualism.
a https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/impartation-anointing-and-manifestation/
Randy Clark’s connections, phenomena, and influences should not be obscured by his personal demeanor, and teaching skills
Randy Clark, in perusing his history, can be seen as a major catalyst in the practice of laying on of hands for impartations of ‘more,‘ as he prays for the electrifying lightning and fire of God to consume people, imparting more of God, as he supposes. Much has been written by many, about the affects of this activity, the physical and spiritual effects thro’ the transference of spirits.
Randy’s pleasant demeanor, scholarly education, and presentation present his message of impartation as believable and only when observing many of the manifestations resulting from his laying hands on people for ‘more’, would questions arise in some. The reality of the Biblical error of laying on hands, the subjective seeking of ‘more’, and the blatant demonic manifestations in many, should alert every genuine seeker of truth, who would stop to ask the Lord, and follow the Biblical admonition to test the spirits and examine all things, that other spirits are at work, that have been assumed by many to be the work of the Holy Spirit.
The big debate raging on right now concerning the apostolic movement’s indignant reactions against supposed erroneous NAR misrepresentations, is in fact a Latter Rain issue, encompassing the entire movement, as has been pointed out regarding a number of issue, 1st addressed by the AOG in 1949, and again in 2001, 1st and foremost of which was the belief in church governance by apostles and prophets, and secondly the impartation of gifts and callings, (gifts of the Spirit, and 5 fold ministry gifts), thro’ the laying on of hands. These repudiations by the AOG and many other evangelicals as well as charismatics, are primary beliefs and practices in the apostolic movement today.
Randy is not only a catalysts for the laying on of hands for impartations, but is a major player in the apostolic movement, ‘as prophesied’ by John Wimber in 1985, and self proclaimed in his own web site and ministry. The ex. of some who speak at his ‘Voice of the Apostle’s’ conferences and ‘Global Awakening’, should alert honest seekers of truth as well, as heretical teachings and statements have been observed. The ongoing bad fruit in the apostolic/ prophetic movement, as has been outlined here, should again be causing great alarm.
Randy Clark’s connections, phenomena, and influences should not be obscured by his personal demeanor, and teaching skills. He is part of a false movement, that many are beginning to recognize and call out, the fruit of which is evidence of a bad tree.
Bizarre Bethel Manifestations From Randy Clark Impartations https://www.facebook.com/BethelChurchandChristianity/videos/521688085121187
scribal well 