What about NAR and HIM (Ché Ahn/Bill Johnson, etc)?
Question 60074
The New Apostolic Reformation, Ché Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry, and Bethel Church in Redding, California under Bill Johnson represent three interconnected expressions of what has become one of the most influential and theologically problematic streams in contemporary Christianity. Their reach is significant: Bethel’s music label produces worship songs sung in churches worldwide, HIM’s apostolic network spans multiple nations, and NAR thinking has shaped the prayer and mission culture of large sections of the charismatic world. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is worth understanding clearly.
The New Apostolic Reformation
The New Apostolic Reformation is a loose but coherent movement built around a cluster of convictions that C. Peter Wagner systematised and championed from the 1990s until his death in 2016. The foundational claim is that God is in the process of restoring the offices of apostle and prophet to the church, and that these restored apostles and prophets hold governing authority over the wider body of Christ in a manner comparable to the apostolic authority of the New Testament era. This is not incidental to NAR theology; it is the structural pillar on which everything else rests.
Around this apostolic foundation, several other convictions cluster. The Seven Mountains mandate, which Wagner adopted from independent revelations reportedly given simultaneously to Loren Cunningham, Bill Bright, and Francis Schaeffer in 1975, holds that there are seven spheres of cultural influence in every society: religion, family, education, government, arts and entertainment, media, and business. The church’s task, on this reading, is to gain influence, and ultimately dominion, in each of these mountains in preparation for Christ’s return. This is explicit dominionism: the idea that the church must transform culture and exercise authority over its institutional structures before the Lord comes back.
The movement also embraces strategic-level spiritual warfare, the practice of identifying and engaging territorial demonic spirits believed to govern regions and nations. This involves spiritual mapping (researching the demonic history of an area), prayer walks, and direct confrontational prayer addressed to principalities rather than to God. The teaching draws on Daniel 10, where the “prince of Persia” delays Gabriel, as its principal proof text, and argues that believers can and should engage such powers directly.
Why NAR Teaching Cannot Be Reconciled with Scripture
The apostolic claims of the NAR fail at the most basic definitional level. When Paul defends his apostleship in 1 Corinthians 9:1, the first criterion he invokes is having seen the risen Lord: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” The foundational apostles were eyewitnesses of the resurrection (Acts 1:21-22), and that eyewitness function was both unique and unrepeatable. The church is described in Ephesians 2:20 as “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Foundations are laid once. The claim that God is restoring apostles with comparable authority to the Twelve and to Paul requires either dismissing Paul’s own definition of apostleship or arguing that eyewitness testimony to the risen Christ is not actually what made the apostles apostles. Neither alternative holds.
The Seven Mountains mandate has no biblical basis. The Great Commission sends the church to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), not to capture cultural institutions. The prophetic Scriptures consistently depict the nations as under increasing darkness and rebellion until Christ Himself returns to establish His kingdom (Daniel 2:34-35; Revelation 19:15). The idea that the church will progressively transform society from within, taking dominion mountain by mountain, stands in direct contradiction to the biblical trajectory of the present age. The church is called to be salt and light within every sphere of culture, to give a prophetic witness, and to make disciples wherever the Lord opens doors. This is quite different from a programme of cultural conquest.
The strategic-level spiritual warfare teaching similarly overreads the biblical evidence. Daniel 10 records a heavenly conflict that Daniel neither initiates nor directs; he is a recipient of information about it, not a participant in it. The armour of God in Ephesians 6 is defensive provision for standing firm against attack, not an offensive toolkit for confronting territorial powers directly. Prayer in Ephesians 6:18 is directed to God, not at demonic hierarchies. Nowhere in the New Testament are believers instructed to engage, bind, or confront territorial spirits through spiritual warfare practices. The framework exceeds what Scripture teaches and can produce an unhealthy fixation on demonic powers that inflates their significance beyond anything the New Testament warrants.
Ché Ahn and Harvest International Ministry
Ché Ahn is the senior pastor of HRock Church in Pasadena, California, and the founder and president of Harvest International Ministry, a large apostolic network operating in numerous nations. HIM functions as one of the significant apostolic networks within the NAR framework, with Ché Ahn holding the title of “apostle” within that structure. His ministry has significant connection to the Toronto Blessing and to the broader apostolic-prophetic world Wagner mapped.
HIM’s theology is broadly consistent with NAR convictions: restored apostles and prophets, apostolic authority, dominionist mission framing, and the supernatural ministry emphasis common to this stream. Ché Ahn himself is a more measured communicator than some figures in this world, but the structural framework within which he operates carries the same theological problems that apply to NAR as a whole. Participating in an apostolic network whose governance is built on extra-biblical authority claims involves accepting a framework that Scripture does not support, regardless of the warmth or sincerity of those within it.
Bill Johnson and Bethel Church
Bethel Church in Redding, California, and its affiliated Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, represent perhaps the most influential single centre of NAR-adjacent teaching in the contemporary church. Bill Johnson is a gifted communicator whose books and messages have wide reach, and the Bethel Music label has placed worship songs in countless churches whose congregations have no idea of the theological context from which those songs emerged. This is not a reason to refuse to sing them, but it is a reason to know the context.
The most serious problem with Bill Johnson’s teaching is not his emphasis on healing or his continuationist pneumatology, with which there is no principled disagreement in themselves. The problem is his Christology. Johnson teaches that Jesus “emptied himself” of his divinity in the incarnation and operated during his earthly ministry not as the Son of God exercising divine power, but as a Spirit-filled man whose supernatural ministry was powered entirely by the Holy Spirit rather than by his own divine nature. On this reading, Jesus’ miracles are not evidence of his deity but a template for what Spirit-filled believers can do. This is why Johnson so consistently frames Jesus’ works as the model for Christian ministry: if Jesus performed miracles as a man anointed by the Spirit rather than as the eternal Son of God, then everything he did becomes theoretically accessible to any sufficiently anointed believer.
This is a significant Christological error. The kenosis of Philippians 2:7 describes the Son voluntarily choosing not to exercise certain divine prerogatives during his incarnate mission. It does not describe the abandonment of divine nature. He remained fully God throughout the incarnation. When Jesus healed the sick, stilled the storm, raised the dead, and declared sins forgiven, these were not merely the actions of an anointed man; they were the actions of the one who is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Johnson’s framework strips the incarnation of its theological weight by turning it into a model of Spirit-empowered humanity rather than an act of divine condescension. The practical consequence is a ministry culture oriented around replicating Jesus’ signs rather than proclaiming his person and work, and a prophetic community whose track record of accuracy has been conspicuously poor.
Bethel’s broader culture has also been marked by claimed phenomena with no biblical parallel: gold dust appearing during worship gatherings, feathers falling, healing practices connected to the gravesite visits of deceased ministers (sometimes called “grave soaking”), and a prophetic culture in which highly specific predictions about individuals, ministries, and nations have repeatedly gone unfulfilled. The biblical test for prophecy is not complicated. Deuteronomy 18:22 is clear: if what a prophet says does not come to pass, the Lord has not spoken that word. A culture in which failed prophecy is routinely absorbed without consequence has ceased to apply the standard God Himself sets.
So, now what?
If you are connected to churches or networks influenced by NAR, HIM, or Bethel, the question is not whether to engage but how to do so with clarity. These movements contain real Christians with genuine love for God and genuine hunger for His presence. They are not cults in the classic sense of groups that deny the Trinity or the bodily resurrection. But they carry serious theological problems: extra-biblical authority structures, dominionist mission frameworks, a Christology that undermines the uniqueness of the incarnation, and prophetic cultures that lack biblical accountability. Worship songs can be evaluated on their own theological merits. But the frameworks that produced them deserve honest examination, and believers who are drawn toward the genuine spiritual intensity these movements offer should be encouraged toward the intensity of Scripture, prayer, and obedience rather than toward the experience-driven culture that these streams so consistently prioritise.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” 1 John 4:1
