Why Pick on the NAR?

It’s impossible to cover all the bases. If I wrote something every day, and if you were to read everything I wrote, you would still have questions about things I’ve said in terms of what I believe about this or that. I can’t let you read my mind or heart directly; I can only try to express what’s in my convictions. Whether we like it or not, we are forced to deal with approximations and simply get used to it. That’s a Hebrew trait, by the way.

Upon releasing his podcast on NAR, Heiser immediately had another guest to sort of counter the extremes of the report on the NAR. It was less a defense of the NAR and more an attempt to recognize that no network or movement is monolithic. As I noted in my previous post, there are good people in that network. You should have realized that this meant some good work was done there.

But even the best leaders will fail to reach everyone following them with the true heart of their message. It’s the nature of human mortality; we cannot have a covenant community without a crowd of unredeemed folks who have no real clue. That’s part of why we should always have a law code on hand to supplement our mystical teaching efforts.

The same goes with the NAR movement. Indeed, the research indicates that this network suffers roughly the same level of dead weight dragging them down that I’ve seen with every conventional church I’ve attended. You cannot reform church enough to fix that problem. The danger is getting lost in the effort to accommodate those who don’t have the Holy Spirit in their lives. It’s too easy to establish policies and procedures that end up killing the spirit for everyone who is spirit-filled.

And I’m not surprised that Heiser’s podcast linked above revealed that many leaders in the NAR movement have no idea the kind of criticism that is leveled against them. It’s quite likely some of them have no idea what kind of effects ripple outward from their work that has such a negative impact on the rest of the world.

They have made some choices that I’m sure they hoped would overcome deficits they experienced somewhere else. I know beyond all doubt that this has affected my work over the decades. I’m still having to make mea culpa for some of that. The difference here is that I didn’t build something that has done as much damage as we believe we see coming from the NAR.

I’m in no position to get their attention. I’ve tried, believe me. They ran me out the door. It was only later that I realized why I lacked the standing to address them about their mistakes. They have a phobia about the membership going off on tangents, while I’ve always promoted lay ministries. Now, the best I can do is help my own flock avoid the poisons they have laid in some pastures. Let me point out those poisons.

1. They cling to some very bad doctrines: 7M, 5-Fold Ministries, extra-biblical revelations that clearly contradict the Hebraic ways of Scripture, etc. They read their western value system back into the Bible.

2. They are feudal as we are, but they have made the mistake of clinging to a western social structure. Thus, they have a western feudalism, not the biblical version to which we cling. They exercise a very western style of authority; it’s frankly a Germanic tribal feudalism. This is what makes it resemble our western state-centered punitive culture of oppression. Their patriarchy is very western, not at all shepherd-like.

3. Regardless of their intentions, the net effects of their ministries is a huge population of very zealous people who are quite willing to take destructive radical paths. Their obsession with socio-political change has caused them to make some ugly compromises to gain influence with people like Elon Musk, Trump, etc. It’s getting vary hard to distinguish between NAR and Christian Nationalism.

4. As a consequence, they stand as a growing threat to our community. The people associated with their network espouse a substantial impatience and lack of grace in dealing with our different convictions. Because we are not Zionists, they say we aren’t even Christians, so they have no duty to be graceful with us.

There is essentially no chance of dialogue with them. What’s left for us is to post warning signs. Part of this is to understand how our Enemy is at work in seeking to silence our witness.