Hillsong, Bethel and Elevation, not churches?
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I saw this in the late 60s and early 70s. The Way international (Major cult) held the "Rock of Ages" festival where they built a massive world wide empire through their rock groups alone. Many Pentecostal Churches brought into being popular artists who are household words today.
I got sucked into this and it took leaving friends behind, studying scripture for decades, to undo the false doctrines I learned through this experience.
I got sucked into this and it took leaving friends behind, studying scripture for decades, to undo the false doctrines I learned through this experience.
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The Way International?
TEACHINGS
The basic doctrines of The Way International are outlined as follows.
God
God is not a triune being. Jesus is not God the Son, and the Holy Spirit is certainly not God. In a discussion of God’s attributes, Wierwille contends that “God’s ability always equals God’s willingness.” Along with this comes the assessment: “What God is able to do, He is willing to do, and what He is willing to do, He is able to do.”7
Wierwille’s basic contention is that there has never been a theological concept of God as being a »Trinity in the context of the Old or New Testaments. Rather, he attributes the triuneness of God to a pagan origin. Like ISLAM, JUDAISM, the UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION, and many modern religious sects, Wierwille accuses Christianity of teaching a plurality of gods.
Against this polemic, traditional Christianity responds by reaffirming the belief in one God. The Athanasian Creed summarizes the whole of Christian doctrine in this matter: “And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance” (Appendix 1).8 This formula is not the product of pagan thought. Athanasius and the orthodox church fathers reached this conclusion against »Arianism on the basis of such Bible passages as Matthew 28:19; Luke 3:21–22; 2 Corinthians 13:14; and others. The heart of Wierwille’s opposition to the Trinity lies in his opposition to the deity of Christ (see below). This is, of course, the same point on which Athanasius opposed Arius in the fourth century, and this scenario has repeated itself on several occasions in the ensuing centuries.
Jesus Christ
Wierwille contends that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but not God the Son, and that we may know this based on the sheer weight of the witness of Scripture. Wierwille writes:
We note that Jesus Christ is directly referred to as the “Son of God” in more than 50 verses in the New Testament; he is called “God” in four. (Never is he called “God the Son.”) By sheer weight of this evidence alone, 50 to 4, the truth should be evident.9
Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph but was not God. He was sinless because God created a sperm that was endowed with sinless »soul life. Therefore Jesus was born sinless. The essential relationship, then, between God and Jesus is Father to Son, because God provided Joseph with the sperm necessary to impregnate Mary with a sinless child. Jesus therefore was certainly not coeternal with the Father. The Son was only in existence when he was born of the virgin. Before this, Jesus existed in God’s foreknowledge only.
Concerning Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus could not have been God and at the same time have been able to atone for the sins of the world. Jesus, rather, had to be a man. Only men die, not God.
The Way’s understanding of Christ is more heterodox than ancient Arianism in that the latter, while denying Jesus’ coeternality with the Father, did not deny that Jesus existed before his human birth. Moreover, Arius did not deny the virgin birth of Christ as did Wierwille.
By asserting that Jesus could not have been God because God cannot die, Wierwille ignores or fails to comprehend the historic Chalcedonian »Christology, which held to the personal union between the human and divine natures of Christ (Rom. 1:3–4). Jesus’ humanity and deity are united in such a way that they are “inseparable,” “unconfused,” “unchanged,” and “indivisible.” In the Christian tradition, therefore, when the Bible speaks of the human qualities of Jesus as being salvific—“The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)—it is understood that human blood saves insofar as it is Jesus’ human blood. The human qualities of Christ are inseparably linked to the divine. Therefore, when the church contends that God indeed died on the cross, it is by virtue of the personal union between the humanity and deity of Christ that one can speak of God dying.
Holy Spirit
To Wierwille, the Holy Spirit is not a third person of the Christian Trinity. God is Spirit and God is holy, he therefore must be the “holy spirit.”
There is a second reference to the Holy Spirit. When reading Wierwille, one must distinguish between the capitalized “Holy Spirit” and the lowercase “holy spirit.” In the first instance, as we have seen, the reference is to the Father. In the second use, “holy spirit” speaks of a unique gift of grace that God has bestowed on humanity—a power or gift placed within the believer. God does not dwell within the believer, but this “inherent power,” or holy spirit, does. Wierwille’s Receiving the Holy Spirit Today describes also how one may receive the holy spirit. He argues that the sound of the “rushing mighty wind” of Acts 2 was in reality the sound of the breathing of the apostles in the Upper Room. The seeker of the holy spirit is taught to breathe in a prescribed manner as one means of receiving the gift.
Against these ideas, orthodox Christianity firmly upholds the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as being the third person of the Trinity. Nowhere in the Bible or in Christian tradition is the Holy Spirit portrayed as consisting of two separate entities. The Holy Spirit is clearly distinguished from the Father in many passages of Scripture (e.g., Matt. 28:19; Luke 3:21–22; John 7:39; 14:16–17; 15:26; 16:13; Acts 2:17; 2 Cor. 13:14). For this reason, the ecumenical creeds (Nicene and Apostles’ creeds, Appendix I) recognize that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, who is the Sanctifier, Teacher, and Comforter of believers. Second, one searches in vain in Scripture for the existence of a lowercase holy spirit who replaces the fallen spirit of humankind. For example, Romans 8:16 clearly distinguishes between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit (sometimes called the soul). The Holy Spirit comes to and dwells in and with the believer. Never has the human spirit been eradicated and replaced by a nonhuman holy spirit....... too much to post.
CONCLUSION
The Way International was most influential in the 1970s, particularly among college students. Its numbers went into sharp decline in the decades following. The Way members continue to reside in New Knoxville, a rural part of Ohio, and they continue to meet in supervised home fellowships.
Nichols, L. A., Mather, G. A., & Schmidt, A. J. (2006). In Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions (pp. 333–335). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
The Glory Barn/ Faith Assembly Do a search. Pentecostal Word of Faith group that killed over 100 members over a 10 year period by teaching divine healing only.
TEACHINGS
The basic doctrines of The Way International are outlined as follows.
God
God is not a triune being. Jesus is not God the Son, and the Holy Spirit is certainly not God. In a discussion of God’s attributes, Wierwille contends that “God’s ability always equals God’s willingness.” Along with this comes the assessment: “What God is able to do, He is willing to do, and what He is willing to do, He is able to do.”7
Wierwille’s basic contention is that there has never been a theological concept of God as being a »Trinity in the context of the Old or New Testaments. Rather, he attributes the triuneness of God to a pagan origin. Like ISLAM, JUDAISM, the UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION, and many modern religious sects, Wierwille accuses Christianity of teaching a plurality of gods.
Against this polemic, traditional Christianity responds by reaffirming the belief in one God. The Athanasian Creed summarizes the whole of Christian doctrine in this matter: “And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance” (Appendix 1).8 This formula is not the product of pagan thought. Athanasius and the orthodox church fathers reached this conclusion against »Arianism on the basis of such Bible passages as Matthew 28:19; Luke 3:21–22; 2 Corinthians 13:14; and others. The heart of Wierwille’s opposition to the Trinity lies in his opposition to the deity of Christ (see below). This is, of course, the same point on which Athanasius opposed Arius in the fourth century, and this scenario has repeated itself on several occasions in the ensuing centuries.
Jesus Christ
Wierwille contends that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but not God the Son, and that we may know this based on the sheer weight of the witness of Scripture. Wierwille writes:
We note that Jesus Christ is directly referred to as the “Son of God” in more than 50 verses in the New Testament; he is called “God” in four. (Never is he called “God the Son.”) By sheer weight of this evidence alone, 50 to 4, the truth should be evident.9
Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph but was not God. He was sinless because God created a sperm that was endowed with sinless »soul life. Therefore Jesus was born sinless. The essential relationship, then, between God and Jesus is Father to Son, because God provided Joseph with the sperm necessary to impregnate Mary with a sinless child. Jesus therefore was certainly not coeternal with the Father. The Son was only in existence when he was born of the virgin. Before this, Jesus existed in God’s foreknowledge only.
Concerning Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus could not have been God and at the same time have been able to atone for the sins of the world. Jesus, rather, had to be a man. Only men die, not God.
The Way’s understanding of Christ is more heterodox than ancient Arianism in that the latter, while denying Jesus’ coeternality with the Father, did not deny that Jesus existed before his human birth. Moreover, Arius did not deny the virgin birth of Christ as did Wierwille.
By asserting that Jesus could not have been God because God cannot die, Wierwille ignores or fails to comprehend the historic Chalcedonian »Christology, which held to the personal union between the human and divine natures of Christ (Rom. 1:3–4). Jesus’ humanity and deity are united in such a way that they are “inseparable,” “unconfused,” “unchanged,” and “indivisible.” In the Christian tradition, therefore, when the Bible speaks of the human qualities of Jesus as being salvific—“The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)—it is understood that human blood saves insofar as it is Jesus’ human blood. The human qualities of Christ are inseparably linked to the divine. Therefore, when the church contends that God indeed died on the cross, it is by virtue of the personal union between the humanity and deity of Christ that one can speak of God dying.
Holy Spirit
To Wierwille, the Holy Spirit is not a third person of the Christian Trinity. God is Spirit and God is holy, he therefore must be the “holy spirit.”
There is a second reference to the Holy Spirit. When reading Wierwille, one must distinguish between the capitalized “Holy Spirit” and the lowercase “holy spirit.” In the first instance, as we have seen, the reference is to the Father. In the second use, “holy spirit” speaks of a unique gift of grace that God has bestowed on humanity—a power or gift placed within the believer. God does not dwell within the believer, but this “inherent power,” or holy spirit, does. Wierwille’s Receiving the Holy Spirit Today describes also how one may receive the holy spirit. He argues that the sound of the “rushing mighty wind” of Acts 2 was in reality the sound of the breathing of the apostles in the Upper Room. The seeker of the holy spirit is taught to breathe in a prescribed manner as one means of receiving the gift.
Against these ideas, orthodox Christianity firmly upholds the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as being the third person of the Trinity. Nowhere in the Bible or in Christian tradition is the Holy Spirit portrayed as consisting of two separate entities. The Holy Spirit is clearly distinguished from the Father in many passages of Scripture (e.g., Matt. 28:19; Luke 3:21–22; John 7:39; 14:16–17; 15:26; 16:13; Acts 2:17; 2 Cor. 13:14). For this reason, the ecumenical creeds (Nicene and Apostles’ creeds, Appendix I) recognize that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, who is the Sanctifier, Teacher, and Comforter of believers. Second, one searches in vain in Scripture for the existence of a lowercase holy spirit who replaces the fallen spirit of humankind. For example, Romans 8:16 clearly distinguishes between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit (sometimes called the soul). The Holy Spirit comes to and dwells in and with the believer. Never has the human spirit been eradicated and replaced by a nonhuman holy spirit....... too much to post.
CONCLUSION
The Way International was most influential in the 1970s, particularly among college students. Its numbers went into sharp decline in the decades following. The Way members continue to reside in New Knoxville, a rural part of Ohio, and they continue to meet in supervised home fellowships.
Nichols, L. A., Mather, G. A., & Schmidt, A. J. (2006). In Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions (pp. 333–335). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
The Glory Barn/ Faith Assembly Do a search. Pentecostal Word of Faith group that killed over 100 members over a 10 year period by teaching divine healing only.
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I think the hunger for reality many people have...and don't have their needs met in a 1 hr service between 11 and 12....is a big part of the reason we have these types of 'anything goes' churches
no I do not think every song is a vapid representation of Christianity and no I do not think everyone is on the way to hell who attends these churches
what I DO think, is that there are some occultish teachings and some truly outlandish actually demonic things going on...especially in Bethel
and it makes me sad
no I do not think every song is a vapid representation of Christianity and no I do not think everyone is on the way to hell who attends these churches
what I DO think, is that there are some occultish teachings and some truly outlandish actually demonic things going on...especially in Bethel
and it makes me sad
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Yes I think so, but I have not confirmed that so it is again what I have heard 
please take it with a grain of salt .
please take it with a grain of salt .
no worries. they have their own channel ... Hillsong...that we actually get here in FL
I'm going to see if I can find out anything regarding what you said...lots of salt added
I do know one of the worship members walked away...
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well ok
I don't think it's Houston...but rather a Marty Sampson who also happened to be a worship leader and not just part of the team
I googled 'has Brian Houston lost his faith' and the only thing coming up was all kinds of articles on the above mentionned fellow
one even stated that he clarified he hadn't really lost his faith...just had enough of the worship team
so who knows
but I mean a person can find endless articles on the churches mentioned by the op and some of them are really not accurate
of course no cessationist will regard anything good in a church that believes the gifts are still in operation
I don't think it's Houston...but rather a Marty Sampson who also happened to be a worship leader and not just part of the team
I googled 'has Brian Houston lost his faith' and the only thing coming up was all kinds of articles on the above mentionned fellow
one even stated that he clarified he hadn't really lost his faith...just had enough of the worship team
so who knows
but I mean a person can find endless articles on the churches mentioned by the op and some of them are really not accurate
of course no cessationist will regard anything good in a church that believes the gifts are still in operation
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As I’m not all familiar with Hillsong, but I am aware of Bethel and it’s part in the NAR movement. Mysticism, faith healing, prosperity preaching, grave soaking, dominionism, and the Kundalini are all part of the Churches doctrine. It’s wicked. Their music although seems like genuine worship is really a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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This is quite a thread-Thanks all for the warning. I have listened to Hillsong recordigns but only with the Gospel in mind,.
Reading here I am reminded how if anyone does a good work in Jesus, Yeshua's, name, others cannot fault Him. Also thaqt God will take what is not to bring down that which is. And more......Thanks again.
Reading here I am reminded how if anyone does a good work in Jesus, Yeshua's, name, others cannot fault Him. Also thaqt God will take what is not to bring down that which is. And more......Thanks again.
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yeah that's pretty much it and people will defend it still
I have no doubt whatsoever there are very sincere believers who go there and they think it's all good because we have been 'trained' to think the person up front is truthful and to be trusted if they say they are a Christian
just throw discernment out the window if it makes you uncomfortable
but I'll say it again. people want something more than a 1 hr service where all they get to do is listen
we all have Bibles...Acts is looking pretty good for the believer who is bored in church
why do you think these things become MEGA churches?
we have the flip side of these churches with people like MacArthur and others who are cessationist and condemn ALL activity they cannot create or control
both sides and neither right
no worries. they have their own channel ... Hillsong...that we actually get here in FL
I'm going to see if I can find out anything regarding what you said...lots of salt added
I do know one of the worship members walked away...
I'm going to see if I can find out anything regarding what you said...lots of salt added
I do know one of the worship members walked away...
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