Introduction
Throughout her years, the church has dealt with all manner of heresy. While her opponent, the Devil, is not necessarily the most creative being, he is nonetheless patient and a keen and well-studied doctor of human nature. To this end, the Evil One knows that for every novelty he uses to distort the faith, it is only a matter of patience before he is able to reuse such distortions. Speaking of Saint Johnโs emphatic repetitions in 1 John, Luther notes,
You see that the saintly man repeats and inculcates the same things with great emphasis. [โฆ] For the saintly man sees our condition and Satanโs adroitness. Therefore for us it is altogether necessary for him to repeat. [โฆ] He himself has instructed us to proclaim, in order that no one might be in doubt concerning the thing itself; [โฆ].1
Christians who are not rooted in the history of the church and who are not taught the historic and apostolic faith2 are much more likely to fall prey to the same errors and pitfalls that the church has previously taught against. While the modern world is replete with examples of such heresies returning,3 one of the more frightening false teachings of the church, The Phrygians, have found themselves at the forefront of the faith after a nearly 1700 year absence.
Though separated by centuries, the Montanist heresy and the modern New Apostolic Reformation reveal parallel challenges to Christian orthodoxy through their shared emphasis on prophetic authority and spiritual experience. This paper compares their histories, theological foundations, and impacts, uncovering recurring tensions over revelation and authority within the church.
History
Before an accurate comparison of these two movements can be presented, the reader must first be familiar with their histories and the conditions that formed them. To that end, this paper will spend the next section exploring the historical context of both the Montanist movement and the New Apostolic Reformation. This will provide additional context around each movement, including the broader strokes of Christianity at the time so as to create a thorough understanding of the development of these movementsโ doctrines and practices and how they were framed against the larger church of the day.
Brief History of Montanism
Montanism was born in the early second century as The New Prophecy and was founded by a man named Montanus who came from Phrygia,4 from a village called Ardabau.5 This Montanus was a recent convert whose great personal ambition was a fertile breeding ground for the devil.6 Most likely a charismatic and lively sort, Montanus ended up creating a movement that would last several hundred years in one form or another. Oddly enough, Montanus would not end up being the most important figure of his own movement. Chadwick states that, โalthough he does not account for Montanism, we cannot account for Montanism without him.โ7 This is because, despite most commonly bearing his name to make his movement distinct from Christianity,8 Montanus himself ended up being a secondary figure. Eusebius relates that โthese sectarians slithered like poisonous reptiles over Asia and Phrygia, boasting that Montanus was the Paraclete9 and that his female followers Priscilla and Maximilla were his prophetesses.โ10 These two women would go on, arguably, to achieve a greater fame than Montanus himself. There are no verifiable extant sayings, teachings, or writings of Montanus himself available to us (though several fragments of utterances that claim to be authentic), but the teachings of Maximilla specifically are cited and argued against by Eusebius.
Other key leaders of the movement include Theodotus, of whom little is known except that it is claimed that he was brought up to heaven bodily, much like Christ ascended to the clouds, and upon reaching a certain height he rejected the truth and accepted the spirit of the Montanists, and was immediately let go to plummet to his death.11 The movement would find the man who is probably its most famous advocate in Tertullian,12 who was disillusioned with what he perceived as a lax practice of the faith. The church was dealing with the simultaneous rise of both the Phrygians and their supposed โNew Prophecyโ and the rise and spread of the gnostic heresy.13 Alongside this, the church was also considering the practice of the remarriage of widows, and the clergy themselves were occasionally prone to be publicly scandalized. All of this resulted in a situation in which Tertullian, himself a man who did not know half-measures,14 felt drawn to the rigorous and crushing piety of the Phrygians.15 Despite a seeming widespread acceptance, that is, the adherents of New Prophecy were scattered widely around the region, the New Prophecy itself never quite made it beyond being a fringe movement and was nearly immediately and universally condemned as heresy by the church.
Eusebius introduces the New Prophecy as one of a โfresh harvest of heresies [raised by the Devil] to harm the church.โ16 Likewise, Eusebiusโ chief source, an author known only as the Anonymous, introduces the Montanists in opening of his first book17 as โa heretical schismโ18 of the church. The Anonymous, through the pen of Eusebius, states that almost immediately two bishops, Zoticus and Julian โ from Cumane and Apamea, respectively โ showed up at an early Montanist meeting to test the spirits as Scripture commands19 but were silenced and driven out of the assembly by Maximillaโs followers.20 Maximilla is said to have claimed that the men came to the meeting only to drive her away, as one drives a wolf from sheep,21 a sentiment that likely stirred up her followers to fight back against the bishops.22 Besides this attempt, the work of the Anonymous (and those he cites and references) shows that the early church earnestly taught against the Montanists and considered them and their pseudo-prophecy a great danger and stumbling block to the larger body of Christ. This is proven by the immediate efforts of the church โ both lay and clergy alike โ to produce sound and faithful teaching so that the members of Christโs body might not be led astray.
Brief History of the New Apostolic Reformation
William J. Seymore was an African American charismatic pastor in California who headed up the famous23 Azusa Street Revival in 1901. This movement, a highly charismatic โnew outpouringโ of the Holy Spirit would take on its own personality and blossom in the fertile24 soils of the American church. It would go on to combine with the theology of John Wesleyโs Holiness Movement to create various denominations of Pentecostalism.25 This movement of spiritual excitement and revival, along with an over-emphasis on pious living, would come to shape the environment in which a 20th Century missiologist and church planter by the name of Charles Peter Wagner would find himself growing, and by which he would ultimately have his theology formed.
C. Peter Wagner, as he came to be known, would become a student of church history, and ultimately decide that each major movement within Christian history was recovering a lost aspect of Christianity. He notes in his book โApostles and Prophets: The Foundation of the Churchโ, that,
The sixteenth century Reformers had reestablished God as a Father whom we all could approach directly without the aid of a priest. The Wesleyans had refocused attention on the Son in highlighting our need to be more Christlike in our daily living.26
But these movements, with their focus on the first two members of the Holy Trinity would have their work incomplete until the occurrence at Azusa Street, and Topeka before that, wherein the Lord would guide the church to โ[bring] the Third Person of the Trinity from relative obscurity into the mainstream Church life.โ27
It is at this point that the Holy Spirit, according to Wagner, begins to direct and lead the church in a way that He has not done for centuries, including giving the church a mission to evangelize the world,28 to care for the poor,29 and to pray.30 Wagner even claims that, in the 1980s, the Holy Spirit gifted a new office to the church, to be added to Paulโs list in Ephesians 4:11, called the intercessor, who was a person that was able to pray for others in a special way that the average Christian could not.31 The culmination of this new โmove of Godโ for Wagner is the โrestorationโ of the Apostles and Prophets which Wagner claims have been absent from the church since the early centuries.32 He says that with this restoration of these offices complete, and these new revelations given to the church at large, the Body of Christ is ready to enter itโs next great era, which he terms the New Apostolic Reformation.33 Though Wagner himself founded the movement, he finds himself in a similar position to Montanus of old, in that he is now far from the most important leader in the NAR. In fact he had begun to fade from importance in the movement as soon as a decade after he founded it, and his direct impact has been diminishing that much faster since his death in 2016.
One of the key leaders of the movement today is a man named Bill Johnson, heralded by the movement as an apostle, who is the pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bill Johnson claims of himself that he is โa part of a company of people destined to do greater works than Jesus did in His earthly ministry.โ34 Alongside Bill Johnson is his churchโs Prophet in Residence, Kris Vallotton. Vallotton claims that he was commissioned as a prophet directly by Jesus one night while he was sitting in the bath. Kris claims that, โ[he] heard a strange noise, and [he] opened [his] eyes just in time to see Jesus walk through the wall and stand in front of [him].โ35 It is at this โencounterโ that Vallotton claims he is told he will be a great prophet by Jesus directly.36 Despite such egregious claims being regularly made within the NAR community, there have not been any formal declarations or repudiations by church bodies,37 nor any formal condemnation of the movement itself as heresy. That does not mean, however, that the church is not actively working against it.
Many modern theologians have taken up the mantle of the Anonymous of Montanusโ day and have dedicated a large portion of their lives and ministries to combatting the claims38 of the New Apostolic Reformation. These men, such as Rev. Chris Rosebrough, Rev. Voddie Bauchum, Mr. B, and others, routinely create (and support) content that directly confronts the teachings of the NAR and contrasts them to the teachings of Holy Scripture.39
Comparison of Montanism and NAR theologies
In this section of the paper, two specific theological insights about both the New Prophecy movement and the New Apostolic Reformation will be compared to each other to demonstrate the similarity between these two movements. These views, once adequately explored, will then be contrasted against historic Christian orthodoxy. This should be sufficient to show the deviation from standard practice is wide enough that it exposes the believers of these sects to the fiery darts of the devil, even if any specific practice, taken by itself, is not necessarily heretical.40
The Role of The Prophet
The role of the prophet in the Montanist movement can only be inferred by the status that they apparently had within their congregations and communities. Eusebius notes that the prophets of the Montanist movement were often quite wealthy and arrayed in fine linens and gold jewelry.41 Eusebius also quotes Apollonius in his condemnation of a man, Themiso, who abandons the faith for the wealth he stands to gain by being a prophet of the Phrygian sect,
โThe covetous Themiso failed to hold high the standard of confession but exchanged imprisonment for great wealth. Although this should have humbled him, he boasted of martyrdom and, imitating the apostle, dared to write a โgeneral epistleโ to those with better faith than his [โฆ].โ42
Based on what is preserved for us in history, the prophets of the Montanist movement were generally self-appointed and were the ones in the church who were responsible for teaching doctrine and leading church. They were also recipients of the generosity of the people under their care.
Comparatively, the New Apostolic Reformation sets up the Apostles and the Prophets as a one-two punch of leadership that should head up the church. Wagner notes, โWhen the Bible says that God has given first Apostles and second prophets (see 1 Cor. 12:28) it is not establishing a hierarchy. It is, however, setting forth a procedural relationship.โ43 Kris Vallotton dares to go to even greater heights, stating in his book that prophets are the stewards of the mysteries of God, stating, โas prophets and prophetesses it is important to know that God tells us his secrets โ things He does not want anyone else to know!โ44 In this movement, new revelations about the church, her mission, and how she is to function, is given directly by these prophets and apostles, who work together to guide the work of God on this earth.
This role of prophets and apostles is contrasted rather starkly against the traditional and orthodox view of the church, that the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets refers not to specific people occupying a specific office, but to the Scriptures (the Old and New Testaments) and the traditions of the church. There is a case to be made that the Apostles do still exist in the form of the Roman episcopate, but the function, role, and even definition of an apostle in that context is starkly and drastically different from what is meant by the New Apostolic Reformation. Regarding prophets, Saint John says in the Revelation, โWorship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.โ (Revelation 19:10b). Thus the church can conclude that prophets are not those with a fresh and never-before-heard revelation, but those that faithfully preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This equates the office of pastor with that of the prophet. In this way the prophet is the steward of the mysteries of God45 but neither of these terms (prophets, mysteries of God) are understood in the same manner in which the NAR or Montanists would understand them. These movements understand prophets as ecstatic speakers who speak new things. Orthodoxy considers prophets those who faithfully pass down the teachings of the Apostles without adding neither jot nor tittle.
The Role of The Holy Spirit
The Montanist movement was a movement that claimed to finally bring the promised Helper to the Christian church through the person of Montanus himself. The role of the Holy Ghost was excite Montanus and other prophets of the movement to give utterances that would settle disputes of the church, encourage members, and reveal new doctrine.46 This is directly related to the New Apostolic Reformationโs view of the Holy Spirit, wherein the Third Person of the Trinity exists to give the believer the gift of prophecy,47 give the church the gift of the prophets,48 and to help the prophet and believer discern which words of prophecy are โGod wordsโ and which are โgood wordsโ (a silly way in which Vallotton distinguishes between legitimate prophecy and false prophecy).49 Aside from prophecy, the Holy Spirit enables believers to live in power (a euphemism for performing miraculous signs and wonders), according to Bill Johnson. Twisting Matthew 13 out of context and bending it to his own purposes, Bill Johnson says,
โJesus could not heal the sick. Neither could He deliver the tormented from demons or raise the dead. To believe otherwise is to ignore what he said about Himself, and more importantly, to miss the purpose of His self-imposed restriction to live as a man. [โฆ] If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. [โฆ] [Jesus] was completely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him.โ50
If Jesus only did such wonderous works because of the power of the Holy Ghost in Him, and that same Holy Ghost is available to all believers, then it stands to reason that that same Holy Ghost will work those same mighty deeds through all believers โ if only they have the right faith!
Contrast this view against the historic and orthodox view of the church, which โ along with Scripture โ faithfully paints the Holy Spirit as the one who draws us continually to Christ. As Luther notes about the third article of the Apostleโs Creed, โI believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my LORD or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, [โฆ].โ51 It is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who comforts the Christian by continually drawing their focus to the redemptive work of Christ on their behalf. The Christian does not receive his comfort from a vapid sounding prophecy or mighty declarations capped off with an emphatic โthus sayeth the Lord!โ These are not the way the Holy Spirit works in the life of the Christian. Rather, โThe chief work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to Christ. This originates in the incarnation.โ52 Second to this, the Holy Spirit works to sanctify the believer. This active sanctification not only enables the believer to live a holy life before God and men, justifying his faith to those around him, it also gives the believer courage and strength to continue in the faith, providing him with a secondary assurance of his salvation.53
Conclusion
Ultimately, the Montanist Heresy and the New Apostolic Reformation are two strains of the same virus seeking to infect the church. They are a man-focused, glory seeking theology that only apes at the forms of godliness, but denies the true power of the God: The forgiveness of sins.
This paper has sought to fairly compare the beliefs and peculiar practice of the Montanist sect to the modern day New Apostolic Reformation. Despite being separated by centuries, both sects put a focus on the prophetic54 to the detriment of the rest of the church body. These movements take the focus off of Christ and put the focus onto man, introducing strange new teachings and doctrines in the name of โFresh Revelationโ or โNew Prophecy,โ and neither is content to simply have and pass on the Gospel. Yet despite these new teachings, the church continues to confess that โwe have a sure prophetic word by inspiration of the Lord; and tho assailed on evry hand, Jehovahโs Word shall ever stand.โ55
Bibliography
America, Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North. The Lutheran Hymnal. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1941.
Chadwick, John White. “Tertullian and Montanism.” The Christian Examiner, September 1, 1863: 157-176.
Clouse, Robert G., and Edward Engelbrecht. The church from age to age: A history from galilee to Global Christianity. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2011.
Eusebius. The Church History: Translation and Commentary. Translated by Paul L. Maier. Grand Rapids, MI.: Kregel Publications, 2007.
Gerhard, Johann. On Good Works. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2019.
Hall, Fred Perry. The Lutheran Theology of The Holy Spirit. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024.
Johnson, Bill. When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles. Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House, 2003.
Kolb, Robert, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000.
Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works: The Catholic Epistles. Vol. 30. Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1967.
Mayer, F. E. The Religious Bodies of America. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1961.
McGrath, Alister E. The Christian Theology Reader. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2017.
Trevett, Christine. Montanism: gender, authority, and the New Prophecy. New York City, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Vallotton, Kris. School of the Prophets: Advanced Training for Prophetic Ministry. Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 2015.
Wagner, C. Peter. Apostles and Prophets: The Foundation of the Church. Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 2000.
[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works: The Catholic Epistles Vol. 30 (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1967), 226.
[2] The author of this paper thought that, after the Book of Acts, the history of the church was silent until about the 1800s, at which point Christians began publishing. Why, Christians were persecuted until America! How could they have written under such conditions?
[3] Arianism has returned in the form of Jehovahโs Witnesses and Mormons. Unitarians abound. Even the Judaizer heresy can be found in a few different cultic strains that claim to be authentic, apostolic Christianity.
[4] Located in what is Turkey today.
[5] Eusebius, The Church History: Translation and Commentary, Translated by Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids, MI.: Kregel Publications, 2007), 170.
[6] Ibid.
[7] John White Chadwick, Tertullian and Montanism, (The Christian Examiner, September 1, 1863: 157-176), 160.
[8] Christine Trevett, Montanism: gender, authority, and the New Prophecy, (New York City, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2.
[9] There is no blasphemy that the devil is not afraid to commit.
[10] Eusebius, Church History, 169.
[11] Ibid., 171; It is worth noting that even Eusebius seems to doubt this account as a fabrication meant to show even the Lordโs direct condemnation of Montanism.
[12] Whose status as a โchurch fatherโ is now highly debated in the authorโs mind.
[13] Engelbrecht, Church from Age to Age, 38.
[14] Chadwick, Tertullian and Montanism, 162.
[15] Ultimately, Tertullian would find that even the Montanists felt too soft in practice for his taste, and would create his own sect off of their pietistic practice โ not necessarily their pseudo-prophetic utterances โ called Tertullianism. This movement would die out by the 5th century and its few remaining adherents reconciled back into the church.
[16] Eusebius, Church History, 169.
[17] It would seem from Eusebiusโ quoting (the only surviving source of the Anonymousโ works), the Anonymous wrote at least three books against Montanism. It doesnโt seem likely that these books were very long, based on the way Eusebius jumps so quickly from one to the next in his quoting.
[18] Ibid., 170.
[19] 1 John 4:1
[20] Eusebius, Church History, 171.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Though Maximilla was stating that she was not a wolf, but was nonetheless being driven away from her flock as though she were, the author finds it funny that she still must, adjured by the Holy Spirit, confess that she is but a wolf among the Lordโs sheep.
[23] Read: Infamous.
[24] Read: Theologically illiterate.
[25] F. E. Mayer, The Religious Bodies of America, (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1961), 311.
[26] C. Peter Wagner, Apostles and Prophets: The Foundation of the Church, (Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 2000), 15.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid., 16; Wagner, here, seems to ignore both the missional command of Christ to โgo and make disciplesโ and the churchโs unwavering commitment to that command over the last two thousand years. In this section he quite literally, and without any hint of irony, suggests that Christian missionary work did not begin in earnest until 1950: โBecause of the unfortunate opposition to the Pentecostal Movement early in our century, it was not until around 1950 that God set in place the second step out on the diving board toward the twenty-first century. At that time a strong movement for aggressive evangelism began, and it has increased in intensity ever since.โ Emphasis added.
[29] Ibid., 17; Again, Wagner hilariously ignores the history of Christian charity, including figures like Saint Nicholas who would pay the dowries of women and take them to convents so they wouldnโt be sold into prostitution (or who would buy prostitutes from those who owned them). He also seems to ignore, along with a cavalcade of atheists, that most hospitals on the planet have names like โSaint Johnโsโ or โMethodist Hospital,โ owing to the fact that Christians quite literally invented the concept of gathering and caring for the sick and injured.
[30] Ibid., 18.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid., 19; Much to the chagrin of Roman Catholics and the Orthodox.
[33] Ibid., 21.
[34] Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles, (Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House, 2003), 166.
[35] Kris Vallotton, School of the Prophets: Advanced Training for Prophetic Ministry, (Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 2015), 23; Next to Montanusโ claim to be the embodiment of the very Holy Spirit, this is the second most bizarre claim that this author has seen any of these types make, especially considering the setting.
[36] It is also worth noting that Vallotton, a man with no formal biblical training, here mixes up the way apostles and prophets are called.
[37] That this author was able to find, anyway.
[38] Read: Lies.
[39] It is the work done by Pastor Rosebrough in this area that brought this author to both Lutheranism generally, and the AALC specifically.
[40] Though it is the opinion of the author that any reader would be hard pressed to make the claim, against orthodoxy, that these beliefs and practices arenโt heretical.
[41] Eusebius, Church History, 173.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Wagner, Apostles and Prophets, 92
[44] Vallotton, School, 150.
[45] Read: Sacraments.
[46] What surviving remnants of these prophecies that exist today will likely leave the reader rather disappointed, as they are all empty phrases meant only to sound vaguely scriptural.
[47] Vallotton, School of the Prophets, 113.
[48] Ibid., 118.
[49] Ibid., 117
[50] Johnson, When Heaven invades Earth, 29; This also expresses degrees of a different, but related, heretical theology known as Kenoticism. This adjacent theology is founded on the idea that Jesus made Himself completely human in the incarnation and never once made use of His divine attributes. This separation of the persons of Christ finds its roots in a misunderstanding of Philippians 2:6-7, wherein Paul states that Christ โemptied Himself.โ The word for emptied in this verse is แผฮบฮญฮฝฯฯฮตฮฝ, hence the name.
[51] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 355 (paraphrase).
[52] Fred Perry Hall, The Lutheran Theology of The Holy Spirit, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024), 298; The author wishes to personally thank Dr. Hall for providing a copy of this book at no charge upon their meeting at the 2024 AALC Pastorโs Conference. Truly such gifts are an immense blessing to poor and lowly seminarians.
[53] Johann Gerhardt, On Good Works, (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2019), 29.
[54] Beyond the scope of this paper, it is also worth noting that both movements are end-times focused.
[55] Emanuel Cronenwett, We Have a Sure Prophetic Word, in Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, The Lutheran Hymnal, (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1941), 290, 1st Stanza.
Remy is a graduate of Liberty University and currently attends American Lutheran Theological Seminary, where he is pursuing a Master of Divinity. When he isn't podcasting, Remy spends his time playing video games with his wife Samantha, and tending to his gaggle of cats.
Leave a Reply