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 ADDENDUM - "The New Apostolic Reformation -
What is it and where it is going?"
 by Sandy Simpson
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/addendumNAR.html
 
 C. Peter Wagner Involvement In The Latter Rain
 

C. Peter Wagner wrote a letter to Dr. Orrel Steinkamp on June 5, 2001 before Orrel wrote his article called "Spiritual Warfare Evangelism - How Did We Get Here?" in The Plumbline, volume 6, No. 5, November/December 2001.  Here is the salient quote from that article:

Today many people being introduced to territorial spiritual warfare evangelism have no knowledge of the genesis of these practices.  Perhaps one of the most surprising examples of this is found in a letter addressed to me, from the leading proponent of territorial spiritual warfare, C. Peter Wagner.  In response to an article of mine that Wagner found on the net, he wrote me a personal letter.  The tone of the letter is very amiable and is a model of how we all should interact with Christians with whom we disagree.  However, the startling revelation in the letter is that he admits to no knowledge, whatsoever, regarding the Latter Rain and its teaching.  He states: "So I never even heard of the Latter Rain, Kingdom Now .. Manifested Sons of God or any of those things...Now since I have become an advocate for contemporary apostles and prophets, all of these things have been coming up, but I haven't had any historical hook to hang them on.  I've asked Bill Hamon and he has tried to explain it to me, but I never really was able to make sense of it until I read your article." Bishop Bill Hamon is clearly one of the few living links with the Latter Rain.  In his writings and especially his book, "The Eternal Church," he clearly and accurately portrays the development of the Latter Rain from its beginning, in the late forties, to its current expression today.  Reading Hamon's book would give anyone all the information needed regarding this teaching.
However, in a conference called "Global Harvest Ministries Presents: Apostolic Church Arising" held at the Atlanta Metropolitan Cathedral, Atlanta, GA, June 14-16, 2001 C. Peter Wagner claimed that he was drawn into the process and started hearing about the Latter Rain back in 1993.  Click on the following link to go to an MP3 file where you can listen to this excerpt.  You will need Winamp, Windows Media Player or something similar to listen to it.
"Global Harvest Ministries Presents: Apostolic Church Arising" held at the Atlanta Metropolitan Cathedral, Atlanta, GA, June 14-16, 2001
For those of you who cannot access the MP3 file, here is a transcript of the above:
C. Peter Wagner: Now, like I say, 50 years ago this process of coming to where we are now began after WW2 but it sputtered. And now we hear terms like 'The Latter Rain Movement" we hear terms like "The Restoration Movement" we hear terms like "The Shepherding Movement" maybe you don't even know anything about those terms because you've come into that later like me I mean I didn't know anything about those movements.  But those people in those movements, now, Latter Rain, Shepherding, Restoration, all of that they were the pioneers everybody and pioneers are very important to get us to where we are now but one of the things that goes with the territory with pioneer is pioneers always make mistakes.  Did they make a lot of mistakes? Made a lot of mistakes!  See. And for example here in American we have our nation America and America for many years depended on pioneers.  So we had pioneers going out west.  Did they every make any mistakes?  They made a lot of mistakes.  Killed too many buffalos, broke their promises with the Indians, ruined land, dust bowls and things like that.  But with all those mistakes look what we got!  I mean somebody had to go out there and do it.  See.  Same with these movements at the end of WW2, somebody had to do it.  And the only thing is that so much criticism came because of the mistakes that they made that for awhile the movement was kind of crushed.  Then it began resurging again, um, in the early 1990's.  And so this is where we have uh been and where we're going.  Cause in the early 1990s God began speaking the same things and by this time the dust had settled, you know, the pioneers had made their mistakes and criticism had come and then God began speaking again.  I myself knew nothing about those previous efforts I mean I couldn't even spell "latter rain".  None of my professors in Fuller Seminary or Princeton Seminary ever taught me about that, Congregational Churches didn't know anything about all that stuff that was happening, and um, so I, but in 1993 then God drew me into the process and I began hearing about these things even though I never experienced them now.
Please note some items above.  Latter Rain heresy is likened to pioneers making "mistakes".  Latter Rain heretics were only pioneers in the sense of pioneering age old heresies in the 20th century.  Heresy is not a mistake, it is a sin, and one we are to reject.  Notice that Wagner claims God began speaking these Latter Rain things again.  Does God speak heresy?  What was the reason these things were not taught in the Congregational Church and other places, though they had been taught at Fuller back in the 1970s on forward?  Because the Church generally recognized the tenets of the Latter Rain to be heresy!  The stark reality is that C. Peter Wagner knew about the Latter Rain at least as long ago as 1989 when Paul Cain came out to visit John Wimber, C. Peter Wagner's employee at Fuller.
Now I told you that for a reason see, because, um, now were getting to 1989 and we have this going, and all of a sudden John gets in touch with the Kansas City Prophets. Now at that time Mike Bickle, who is one of our speakers here, why he was the pastor of the Kansas City Prophets and Paul Cain was one of the prophets and John Wimber didn’t know a thing about them see, and so God figured John should know, so I’m talking about prophets see, so Paul Cain calls up John Wimber on the telephone and he says John the Lord has told me to visit you in California. He never been, Paul Cain had never been there, so the Lord told me to visit you in California and John said "Well wonderful y’know" ... (C. Peter Wagner, National School Of The Prophets - Mobilizing The Prophetic Office, Colorado Springs, CO, May 11, Tape 1)
So we have four forms of "spin" here.  First he claims he knew nothing about the Latter Rain until he read Dr. Orrel Steinkamp's article, and even then he is obviously proud to be promoting it.  Secondly we find him explaining the Latter Rain rather articulately in 2001 to this conference audience.  Thirdly, in this explanation he claims he got drawn into the process back in 1993 when he began hearing about these things.  Fourthly, as I have already pointed out, one of the two living proponents of the New Order Of The Latter Rain, namely Paul Cain, associate to William Branham, visited John Wimber and C. Peter Wagner in 1989 according to Wagner on the DVD series, and he had to have explained the apostolic movement to them at that time.
 
So when did Wagner first know about the Latter Rain?  Clearly it was not in 2001.

Honesty or deception?  You make the call!

Additonal articles on The New Apostolic Reformation:

 Paul Cain, Latter Rain Prophet of Renown Is Now Discredited  Orel Steinkamp

 Rick Warrens' interview on Larry King Live  Mike Oppenheimer

 


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