The latest article from Dr. Brown offers that the opposite of greasy grace is holding people accountable, as if they both are bad...

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The Charismatic Industrial Complex is still in full CYA mode after many egregious sexual scandals in the past year alone. One of the chief defenders of everything NAR and Charismaniacal, is Dr. Michael Brown. One of his favorite tactics is to pretend there are two extremes and that he is just offering a reasonable middle ground. Can't we all just hold hands and sign Kumbaya? Except in creating these two extremes, he wields the very "unequal weights" that he often decries his critics for. So let us reason once more together to see what he is really trying do here, which is at all costs, protect the brand.

"When dealing with sin in the church, there are two ditches on either side of the road that we must avoid. On the one side is the ditch of greasy grace in which sin is minimized, overlooked and even covered up. On the other side is the ditch of haughty holiness in which the sinner is condemned without mercy. Both ditches must be avoided if we are to find spiritual health and vitality. This, however, is easier said than done. Greasy grace is incredibly destructive since it allows a deadly spiritual cancer to spread unchecked, putting a pretty Band-Aid on a lethal disease. In the words of the Lord through Jeremiah, "They superficially treat the fracture of My poor people, saying, 'All is well! All is well!' when nothing is well" (Jer. 6:14, my translation).

Greasy grace fails to confront sin or correct the sinner, and without any real evidence of true repentance and change, it sweeps everything under the rug." - Dr. Michael Brown

The bulk of the problems lie in the ditch he has labeled haughty holiness, which is a ridiculous argument. Just as an aside, the hyperlink he placed in the very first line, at "dealing with sin in the church" was to a piece on Robert Morris. Morris was not condemned without mercy and the issue was not merely sin but sexual crimes against a 12-year-old and then covering it up for forty years. He belongs in jail not living out his retirement on the 100 + millions of dollars he was able to fleece from the flock for those forty years. It is also noteworthy that Brown could have just linked to any number of Charisma articles on Morris, some of which were just straight reporting, but he chose the follow up article that alleged the victim had asked for two million dollars. This revelation was from an alleged transcript of a former IT person from Gateway who supposedly found this when transferring data ten years prior and for some reason kept it all this time and only released on conditions of anonymity. Nothing seems sketchy about that right? Brown chose this link because it painted the victim in a more negative light. The other hilarious thing here is to pretend to be against greasy grace, while defending Joseph Prince, the absolute king of greasy grace preaching. He is right that this is a cancer but Brown does not even bother with a band-aid. He is the one with the broom in his hand, doing the sweeping.

"Not only is this a stench in God's nostrils, making a mockery of the blood of Jesus, but it is also a terrible disservice to the offending party who, rather than receiving life-giving and life-saving correction, is given a pat on the back and a smile. This is anything but love. The dying person is given a bill of good health. As for those who have been sinned against, including those who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their spiritual leaders, the situation is even worse. They are simply told to get over it. "After all, who are we to point a finger?" the compromised leaders say. "Just forgive and move on. Plus, you don't want to hurt the ministry of this powerful man of God." In the worst and most extreme cases, a sexual predator is allowed to continue hurting others while the victims of abuse are now painted as the guilty parties for daring to bring an accusation against "God's anointed." This is downright evil, as the victims are discarded and discounted rather than being helped and healed." - Dr. Michael Brown

Once again, Dr. Brown called Joseph Prince as "good brother in the Lord with some holes in his theology." He said this to me, when I was on his radio show. This was anything but love by the way. It was not loving to Prince but more importantly to his victims. All Brown does in his debates and war against discernment ministries is demand that no one point their fingers at false teachers so this smacks as unbelievably tone-deaf and gaslighty. Do you know who has been infamous for the touch not God's anointed nonsense? Benny Hinn, whom Brown always defends. Overall, Brown is 100% correct about this "ditch" even if his prior positions do not line up with this seeming indignation. Let's see about this other "extreme" now.

"Unfortunately, it is human nature to go from one extreme to the other, in this case running from the perils of greasy grace into the arms of haughty holiness. With a self-righteous, unforgiving attitude, haughty holiness looks down on the guilty sinner, as if to say, "We would never have done what you did!" Consequently, those who fall short must be tarred and feathered. There is no place for true repentance, no place for restoration, no place for redemption. Once pronounced guilty, you are guilty for life, branded and marked and ostracized. There is no mercy. There is no compassion. There is no empathy. Only anger, judgment and condemnation. You are consigned to the doghouse for good, and you can never be rehabilitated. (I actually know of pastors who were removed from leadership because of alleged pride in their lives, then given the job of church custodian to teach them humility.)" - Dr. Michael Brown

Just wow. Keep in mind the linked scandal he chose was Robert Morris, guilty of sexually assaulting a twelve-year-old for four years as a married adult pastor. Earlier however this is also dealing with Mike Bickle, an admitted friend of Brown's, who sexually assaulted a 13- and 14-year-old, for multiple years as a young married pastor. Bickle, then went on to seduce a 19-year-old sheep with false prophecies of his wife dying, while he was building the IHOPKC empire upon a network of false prophecies schemed by him and two other sexual predator false prophets. It is not haughty to correctly state what these criminals did and I would hope we all could say we would never have done what they did. It is not a matter of tar and feathering them, as Brown tries to minimize the horrific scale of what we are talking about. Repentance is up to the individual person and redemption is up to the Lord. The problem is in this Charismaniacal notion of "restoration." One might be "restored to their walk, through true repentance but that is not what Brown and his boss Steven Strang mean when they discuss this. They mean restoration to ministry. The huge disconnect of course it that it should appear as obvious to anyone with a sliver of discernment that both Robert Morris and Mike Bickle were never saved to begin with. There is nothing to "restore." These were not oopsies that require a mulligan. Morris built his empire on the shattered life of Cindy Clemishire. Knowing what he did to this child, over and over again for four years, while he was ministering to the church and stealing their money through virulent false tithing lies are not the marks of someone who even grasps their sin, let alone having repented of it. The same goes for Bickle, who had multiple victims spanning his entire involvement in "ministry." Brown referred once to Bickle, after the revelations, as a great holiness teacher. He was a great child predator and if that makes me sound angry or judgmental, for simply speaking the truth about what he did, I can live with that absurd caricature. The empathy I have is for the victims, not the perpetrators. It is for the sheep, not the wolves. Morris and Bickle get to live out their lives in the luxury they have accumulated for a career based upon lies and criminal activity. That is hardly a "doghouse." They should not be allowed to ever serve in the slightest capacity in the church again and that includes as custodian.

"To be sure, there are sins which have lasting consequences. If you murder someone, God can completely forgive you, but you will go to jail (or suffer the death penalty) for your crime. If you sexually abused children, even if you served time in prison, experienced a radical change of life and were truly a new person, you could never work in children's ministry. Such are the lasting consequences of sin. Today, in light of one ministry scandal after another, some of which involved seriously abusive relationships, there has been much repentance and soul-searching among leaders. Did we not listen when someone came with an accusation? Did we fail to provide a safe environment for those who had been sinned again? Did we encourage a "Don't touch the anointed" kind of culture? These are issues the church must get right if we are to be a safe haven for the wounded and the hurting, let alone become a holy bride worthy of God's Son." - Dr. Michael Brown

Words, just words. In the case of Bickle, leadership is stonewalling any real attempts to investigate to this very day and were stealthily trying to reopen and rebrand the IHOPKC cesspool. From the day the story first broke Charismania tried to cover the scandal up. You are concerned about how we treated the victims? Why do you still work for Steeven Strang, who has never apologized for declaring Bickle exonerated, smearing the advocates of trying a church coup, and saying the victims were just being used by Satan? Why did you appear on his podcast, well after the allegations against the children had come out, and allowed him to continue his Bickle cover up? Just in these two scandals, the two predators have avoided criminal accountability because of the enablement of the Charismaniacal machine for a combined eight decades. Did you enable the touch not my anointed culture? You are that culture! This is what Dr. Brown said on the first American Gospel round table, just prior to Bicklegate exploding:

"If I am going to be judged on my orthodoxy for refusing to call a fine man like Mike Bickle a false teacher then I am going to say you are out of line. You do not know the man. You do not know his fruit. His walk, his life." - Dr. Michael Brown

So, as it turned out, it was YOU who did not know his fruit, walk and life. This type of knee jerk defense is exactly what enables the deification of corrupt men under the guise of them being "fine men." I am sure for decades you thought Robert Morris was a "fine man." The church will not be a safe haven for the wounded and hurting until gatekeepers like Dr. Brown and Steven Strang stop protecting and defending the wolves that are devouring the sheep.

"But how do we do this without opening the door to false accusations and slander? How do we put processes in place that will protect both the congregant who was sinned against as well as the leader who was falsely accused? The simple principle is that serious concerns and accusations should be taken seriously, vetted in a supportive, nonthreatening environment. But then both sides must be heard equally and fairly, not presuming guilt or innocence. That's why biblical law required that every matter be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, especially when a leader was being accused (see Deut. 19:15, Matt. 18:16, 2 Cor. 13:1, 1 Tim. 5:19). But it also made provision for witnesses to be vetted, with severe penalties for those who bore false witness (see Deut. 19:16-20). In that light, we should remember that the Ten Commandments forbade bearing false witness against our neighbor (Ex. 20:16), a sin that is literally detestable in God's sight (Prov. 6:16-19). Let us, then, open the door to hear serious accusations and complaints without at the same time welcoming in the devil, who is the accuser of God's children." - Dr. Michael Brown

In typical Brown fashion, he tries to muddy the waters. There is no one claiming that Robert Morris or Mike Bickle are victims of slander and false accusations. Well, at first there were but those people like Strang were swiftly debunked. It is cute to say you want to hear from both sides when Bickle has refused to discuss this at all and Morris' statement claimed the child victim was a "young lady." No one was presuming anything when Bicklegate first came out. We were all calling for an independent investigation, which IHOPKC leadership refused and continues to do so until this day. No one has "let in the devil." The devil was let in forty years ago when people like Brown and Strang exalted these two criminals unreservedly. Unless Brown is making the argument that somehow these allegations against Bickle and Morris are somehow false, please shut the hell up. This is the coverup. This is why people are walking away from the church in the millions. We hear from the pulpit every week about the need to be Christlike and holy and then when it is discovered that two of the loudest voices built their respective million-dollar empires on lies and the sexual assault of children we hear - judge not! Or - "don't let the devil accuse! Please just go away.

"We must also realize that, in our zeal to hear from those who have been sinned against, we have often failed to show mercy to the repentant offender, failed to be redemptive, failed to say, "There is still hope for your life!" In some cases, of course, those who sinned grievously while in public ministry can never return to public ministry. But there can still be redemption and hope and a meaningful life for them, perhaps serving as a cautionary tale for others. And in some cases, there can be restoration to public ministry and service in humility and the fear of the Lord.

The truth is that every one of us lives by God's mercy every single day of our lives, and judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful" (James 2:13). As recipients of mercy and forgiveness, we want to lead the way in showing mercy and forgiveness. And as those who have been the objects of redemption, we want to offer redemption to all. That is the true grace of God." - Dr. Michael Brown

Is hearing from the victims now being called zealous? That is truly disgusting. What is equally repugnant however is the notion that people have been somehow merciless or that somehow these predators have in any way shape or form, been "repentant." I am reminded of when Ted Haggard, who was the President of the National Association of Evangelicals, was caught in a 20-year relationship with a male prostitute who he liked to do crystal meth with. After a very short period of time, he declared he was repentant and restored. He even opened up a new church and years later was charged again with all sorts of sexual misconduct, this time with youth in his church. If Mike Bickle or Robert Morris want to repent, that is between them and God. It has nothing to do with the church they abused for a combined 80 years. Again, we need to show mercy to the sheep, not the wolves. There is no career redemption here. They have disqualified themselves from ministry and proven they never should have been in ministry to begin with. Mercifully, Brown concludes:

"How, then, do we weave all these strands together? First, we do not minimize or excuse sin for a moment, and under no circumstances do we sweep unrepentant sin under the rug. Second, we create a culture and environment that is friendly to those who have been sinned against and unfriendly to those who continue in hurtful sin. Third, where there is repentance, we offer heartfelt love and compassion, thereby offering hope and pointing the way to restoration.

This is how we reflect the character of Jesus to the world, and this is how we demonstrate the beauty of the body of Christ." - Dr. Michael Brown

First, this entire article was minimizing sin, right down to the choice of hyperlinked articles. Floating unrelated points about slander was solely for the purpose of muddying the waters also minimizes sin. Remember that he linked in the very first line the Morris scandal. Secondly, do you think this presentation represents a safe place for victims? Your boss continues to be unrepentant for blaming the Bicklegate victims as being used by the devil! Third, we reject this notion that ravaging wolves should ever be restored to ministry and we ask, where is your heartfelt love and compassion for their victims? This has nothing to do with the character of Jesus. It has to do with protecting the brand and making the sins of the leadership lesser than they truly are. It is an insulting display of how far off the rails Dr. Michael Brown continues to be.

Reverend Anthony Wade - August 1, 2024

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.