Pentecostals Hoping to Rekindle the 1990s Wildfire

Pentecostals are hoping to rekindle the wildfire with “Light the Fire Again Pensacola,” scheduled for September 4-7. A quarter century ago, “spirit drunkenness,” “holy laughter,” and other unscriptural phenomena broke out in multiple places, most prominently at Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland, Florida (began May 1993, led by Rodney Howard-Browne), Airport Church in Toronto, Canada (began January 1994, led by John Arnott), and Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida (began June 1995, led by Steve Hill and John Kilpatrick). The “fire” was also associated with Claudio Friedzon in Argentina, who in November 1993 taught John Arnott to “dial down the analysis” so he could “receive the spirit of fire” (Guy Chevreau, Catch the Fire, p. 24). This is the unscriptural Pentecostal doctrine of “open up; don’t judge; just receive the Spirit,” which is clear disobedience to God’s command to “be sober, be vigilant” (1 Peter 5:8) and therefore a path to spiritual delusion. At the beginning of the “outpouring” at Brownsville, Pastor John Kilpatrick fell to the floor and lay there for almost four hours. He said, “When I hit that floor, it felt like I weighed 10,000 pounds. I knew something supernatural was happening” (Charisma, June 1996). Church members had to haul their pastor out of the church in a wheelchair because he was too drunk to walk. There was also “spiritual jerking.” A 19-year-old female college student jerked so uncontrollably as she “prophesied” that she appeared to be suffering from seizures. A female choir member experienced wild and uncontrollable jerking of her head whenever she was near the church. At Toronto Airport Church there were spirit slayings, uncontrollable bodily jerks, birth groans, drunkenness, hysterical laughter, roaring, howling, braying, clucking. In Lakeland, the focus was on drunkenness and laughter. Rodney Howard-Browne called himself the “Holy Ghost bartender.” Oral Roberts’ son Richard, who flew to Florida to catch the fire, said he and his family ended up on the floor laughing at every service. On the flight back to Tulsa, Richard laughed so uncontrollably that the flight attendant thought something was wrong with him. Perpetually in financial straits, Oral and Richard Roberts claimed that God was helping them laugh their way out of debt. Marilyn Hickey (author of God’s Seven Keys to Make You Rich) also spent her time in Lakeland on the floor laughing. When Howard-Browne called this loquacious Pentecostal female preacher to the microphone, she laughed and fell down and could not speak, which in her case was doubtless a miracle. (For more about the “fire” in Brownsville, Lakeland, Toronto, and elsewhere see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements, available from www.wayoflife.org.)

(Friday Church News Notes, May 17, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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