Whom Do We Listen To? Part 11

Whom Do We Listen To? Part 11
Monday, May 4, 2026 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Apostasy / Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare / The church / Thought for Today / Truth telling

Why is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) potentially so dangerous?

Although technically not a cult, at least some churches within the NAR exhibit cult-like behaviors and tendencies. One red flag is that the NAR ultimately pronounces God’s judgment against any church or pastoral leader that will ultimately not support, follow, or submit to the NAR end-times “God-given” prophetic words and to their leadership. Bill Hamon is clear on that point. God will either immediately remove His anointing from that church or pastor (i.e. their ability to accurately represent God), or God will cause them to wander around, fruitless, in the wilderness until such time as they physically die off (where they get that idea will be explained in a subsequent post). They will never enter the Promised Land.

Churches must ultimately come under the authority of, the covering of, or submission to, an NAR apostle, who is himself linked to an NAR prophet and networked with other apostles, ultimately under the authority of what they describe as a vertical apostle: one who has churches and other apostles under his or her authority.

Every Christian must come under the covering or authority of an NAR pastor, who is himself under the authority of a corresponding NAR apostle. The level of submission demanded is different from the type of submission Scripture speaks of. Scripture does talk about believers imitating the godly examples of their leaders, of coming under the author of leadership. With genuine godly leaders, honest questions are welcome. Leadership is encouraging, supportive, not demanding, not authoritarian.

Jesus is clear on the topic. First and foremost, biblical leaders are servants. Whenever the twelve disciples argued about who was the greatest among them, Jesus emphasized servanthood, not lording it over others as the Gentiles did. One also sees Jesus responding to honest questions. His rebukes are reserved for the Pharisees, those who were asking dishonest leading questions, looking to entrap him.

Scripture never talks about submitting on a level where every key decision must be approved and/or determined by a pastor or elder. That happened in many cases within the earlier Shepherding movement, a key forerunner of the NAR. Within the NAR, as a generic member, one isn’t truly free to ask questions of those in authority, since they are, by NAR definition, speaking God-ordained new prophetic truth. It is also worth noting that a leading NAR apostle, when speaking of that shepherding movement, only criticized it for having the wrong type of people in charge, not the basic nature and requirements of it.

How, then does the NAR treat one’s mind, the “mind” part of loving God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength? We will continue our discussion in the next post.

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