FORMER CHARISMATIC WARNS ABOUT “TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED” PHILOSOPHY
- The following warning by Kevin Reeves of how he was forbidden to warn about the error of certain protected leaders when he was a pastor in charismatic Latter Rain circles reminds us that Mennonites are not the only ones guilty of this gross misuse of Scripture. “Perhaps the single biggest factor hindering acknowledgment and genuine repentance of false doctrine is the unwillingness for believers to relinquish THE SUPERSTAR STATUS OF THEIR SPIRITUAL HEROES. And how many times had our [church] leadership supported this by telling us not to name names? It was the one thing above all others that tied my hands and put a gag in my mouth. Although I was told to go ahead and speak to whomever I wanted to within our group, such presentations were always followed up with appropriate damage control by the leadership. And I was forbidden to breach the unwritten hyper-charismatic code and expose people like Kenneth Copeland during the times I filled the pulpit. ... This fear of exposing God’s anointed, even if they are guilty of repeated heresies, bordered on (may I use the term?) paranoia. ... The false shepherds among us have too long used I Chronicles 16:22 and Psalm 105:15 as a blank check to do as they please. ‘Touch not mine anointed’ and ‘do my prophets no harm’ was God’s warning to the nations through which the Israelites passed during their sojourn through the wilderness. It implied swift judgment for any pagans who would come against the chosen people of the Lord. To wield this like a saber at a sincere brother alarmed at false doctrine smacks of spiritual tyranny, cowardice, and dishonesty. Hammered also with the Acts 5 account of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, a concerned believer in Jesus is usually bullied into silence or into leaving the congregation” (excerpted from The Other Side of the River by Kevin Reeves).
