What is the New Apostolic Reformation?

Other Beliefs & ReligionsIn theological review

The short answer

The New Apostolic Reformation is a loose network, not a denomination, named by C. Peter Wagner for a movement that restores present day apostles and prophets whose words carry governing authority. Teachers associated with it, including Bill Johnson and Lance Wallnau, promote ideas such as the Seven Mountain Mandate for taking cultural dominion. Most charismatic Christians are not part of it, and Scripture tests every prophet by whether his word comes to pass and whether it matches the gospel already given.

The fuller answer

The name itself comes from inside the movement. C. Peter Wagner, a missiologist, coined New Apostolic Reformation for churches and networks that recognise living apostles and prophets as governing offices for the whole church today. Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, in When Heaven Invades Earth, teaches that believers should expect heaven's reality to break into earth now. Lance Wallnau popularised the Seven Mountain Mandate, the call for Christians to take leadership of seven spheres of culture. There is no NAR creed or membership roll, and many in its orbit have never used the label.

But if any prophet dares to speak a message in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or to speak in the name of other gods, that prophet must be put to death.”

Deuteronomy 18:20 (BSB)

Moses gives the church its prophet test, and it has never been repealed. A prophet who speaks in God's name what God has not commanded, or whose word does not come to pass, is not to be feared or followed. That matters here because some NAR teaching treats a modern apostle's or prophet's revelation as binding in a way that is hard to question without being accused of resisting God. Scripture makes questioning a duty. A word that fails its own test loses its claim, whoever spoke it.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

2 Timothy 3:16 (BSB)

Paul tells Timothy that Scripture is God breathed and sufficient to equip the man of God completely for every good work. That does not settle every question between Christians about prophecy today, and ordinary Pentecostal and charismatic believers, who are not NAR, hold a range of views. It does settle the order of authority. Any claimed new word sits under the written word and is judged by it, never beside it as a second canon, and never above it as a correction.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!

Galatians 1:8 (BSB)

Paul applies the same order to the gospel itself: even an angel with a different message is accursed. The fair answer to the NAR is therefore specific, not sweeping. Where its teachers restore apostles as rulers, add governing revelation, or promise dominion now, those claims are tested by Moses and Paul and found unproven. Where a charismatic neighbour simply prays for healing and expects God to act, that is a different conversation, and this page is not aimed at her.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
New Apostolic Reformation published works

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

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