Page updated 22 Oct 2015
Page Suggestions: False Prophets, who are true prophets, Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
Alternate known names: Brownsville Revivals, Elijah List, Florida Revivals, IHOP, Kansas City Prophets, New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)A movement within Protestant Christianity that embraces present-day apostles and prophets who claim they govern the church and give new divine revelation needed to set up God's EARTHLY kingdom., Toronto Blessing → see false prophet list.
Mike Bickle
Love and Death In the House of Prayer
Page 7
But then came the revelation. It was 2 a.m. He was "wrestling with God....I felt like some lesser creature, a half-man, a half-human..." For reasons having largely to do with childhood trauma, he explained, he had always sought self-worth in other men, and he saw now that this seeking was classically idolatrous. In Romans 1:25–27
(verse 25) Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
(verse 26) For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
(verse 27) And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.Romans 1 verses 25-27, he noted, Paul identifies idolatry as the cause of homosexuality: "They worshipped and served [created things] rather than the Creator...[and] for this reason...men were consumed with passion for one another." For the first time, he repented of the idolatry driving his desires. "The joy that surged through me on that night and in the immediate days [afterward] is difficult to explain," he wrote.
A few weeks later, Deaton was sitting in the prayer room, watching Bethany worship. A "giant vat of affection," as he later described it, rushed over him. "I was experiencing real, passionate, sexual, knock-me-off-my-feet, pure and glorious attractions for the most beautiful woman alive," Deaton wrote in the essay. When they completed their internships, Deaton asked her out. In the summer of 2009, he took her for a walk and announced that he intended to pursue her "unto marriage."
"It's hard to overstate the exhilaration she felt," Herrington says. "By the time she left Southwestern, her one dream was to be married to Tyler. Tyler was going to be cured, they were going to get married and have a son named Samuel."
Later that summer, more group members moved to Grandview, and the men and women settled into their respective houses. Whatever passions Deaton's epiphany might have released, his relationship with Bethany appeared staged to some members of the group. They went on a date every Tuesday between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and spent Friday evenings baking bread together. Anything more, Deaton said, would mean subordinating the needs of the group to their own needs. He discouraged Bethany from physical displays of affection. They would not kiss until their engagement, two and a half years later. About a year after they began formally dating, Deaton convened the core group members for a "leader's conference." They took turns describing their visions of the future.
When it was Bethany's turn, she got "really scared," Herrington says. She turned to Deaton and said, "Sometimes all I want to do is live in a house with you, and a baby, and maybe some chickens!" Deaton called her "selfish" and told her to stop elevating her own desires over those of the "community." "You need to put away your personal longings and connect with the goals of this movement," he said.
This is so ungodly, and also so cultish. How can people be this dumb? This sounds exactly like the words of Satan. -POR Admin-
"I'm sorry for being selfish and idolizing Tyler," she said.
Tyler Deaton's sway only increased in the sphere of IHOP.
"His hand could be felt in everything," a former member says. "Even if he didn't directly say to do something, his influence was in almost every aspect of our lives."
Deaton was a canny delegator, and he or his appointees drew up meal charts and worship schedules and assigned chores and roommates. If he perceived parents to be thwarting "God's will for their children," he urged his followers to reduce contact with them. Many cut their families off completely for periods of time. In early 2010, Deaton told the members of the inner circle that God wanted him to quit working as a part-time math tutor and devote himself completely to his ministry. They would need to pool their meager earnings to support him.
This is yet another sign of a cult. Someone controlling where you live, who you associate with, what you eat, who you marry or have relationships with, and even taking control of how your children are raised. -POR Admin-
In college, they had looked ahead to careers in law, art, medicine, literature, finance, education. Some had started applying to grad school. But the Great Tribulation was impinging on the present, and Deaton's End Times mission trivialized everything else. To support themselves and Deaton, group members delivered pizzas and sold makeup and paint. Exceptionally, Bethany entered an accelerated nursing program in 2011, but she and everyone else spent much of their time in the prayer room, worshipping at home with Deaton, or studying the Bible and IHOP doctrine, gazes fixed on the next world. "They became shells of themselves," says a member of the Southwestern group who did not make the move. "Once you went to Kansas City, you didn't leave," says another.
Once a week, the men and women held "accountability" meetings in their respective houses, reviewing the dynamics within the group and searching out sin. When men shared feelings of desire toward the women, Deaton might embarrass them by unilaterally informing the women. Even as Deaton strategically strained relationships, he condemned noncommunal activities as "un-relational." "If we noticed a lack of heterosexual love occurring within the group, that was 'OK' because, Tyler reminded us, Jesus said people 'neither marry nor are married in heaven,'" a former member recalls.
In the fall of 2010, Deaton ordered Herrington shunned for eight months. Among his stated misdeeds: judgmentalism, self-isolation via creativity, and unwillingness to reform himself. Herrington had been one of the group's most obdurate skeptics, and after Deaton's revelation about his sexuality, he [Herrington] had acidly suggested to Deaton that he "might not be as cured of homosexuality as he thought he was." Herrington was not asked to move out; instead, members simply stopped interacting with him.
Word of the shunning reached IHOP's leaders in May 2011. They had not known of Deaton's grip over the residents of the two houses, and they were not pleased. (In a statement, IHOP has said that "Mr. Deaton led his religious group entirely independently" from the organization.) Over the summer, a leader spoke with Deaton, and Herrington was officially welcomed back. The first ritual of his reinstatement, after roughly eight months of phantasmal existence in his own home, was a celebratory dinner at the women's house. One by one, each member stepped forward and hugged him. June, dressed in a long orange gown, presented him with a blue robe and sash. After dinner, a few people performed scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream. At the end of the evening, Deaton asked him how he felt about the celebration. "It was very well orchestrated," Herrington said.
"Boze, some day you're going to realize what an incredible thing was just done for you," Deaton said.