R. Douglas Geivett's Blog

Shawn Bolz, Prophet of the New Apostolic Reformation—Part 1: A Peculiar Twist in the Data Mining Controversy

Perhaps you’ve heard of the New Apostolic Reformation. This movement promotes the view that certain divinely anointed individuals exercise significant authority for the church in their capacity as apostles and prophets for today. Shawn Bolz is a NAR prophet with close ties to Bethel Church (Redding, California), including the apostle Bill Johnson and the prophet […]

Michael L. Brown, Ché Ahn, and the Brownsville Revival

In August 2022, Holly Pivec and I met with Michael L. Brown for a Roundtable discussion that was released July 15, 2024 under the title “NAR: Myth or Movement?” The release of that discussion for public viewing was delayed for nearly two years for reasons that may eventually come to light. In the end, the […]

As People Flee NAR, Michael Brown Defends NAR Leaders and Compromises His Status as Spokesman for Charismatics and Pentecostals

By Doug Geivett and Holly Pivec Over several decades, the Christian radio host Michael Brown has fashioned a narrative with himself starring as a high-profile representative of charismatics and Pentecostals. And for a long time this was his reputation with quite a number of his followers. But that narrative is unraveling. His zealous defense of […]

New Book: Counterfeit Kingdom

My new book with Holly Pivec, Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Prophets, and New Age Practices in the Church, is about to be released. It can be preordered now at Amazon.

Pithy Pell and RBG’s Call

Looking for a worthwhile news and commentary aggregator, I found Dave Pell’s celebrated NextDraft site. The background buzz was almost intoxicating. Maria Konnikova, of The New Yorker, declares it to be “a consistently informative and entertaining guide to some of the best stories on the web, with a healthy mix of news you should know, […]

Development in Apologetics—George Trumbull Ladd

One of the paradoxes of human existence is that, while there is nothing new under the sun, nothing stays the same. And so it is in the world of ideas. It is no less so in the realm of religious belief, even when the object of belief is eternal and changeless. As long as Christian belief […]

Gabriel Marcel on the Mystery of Evil

Here is a brief excerpt from my first book, Evil and the Evidence for God, published in 1993: “Some philosophers have been rather adroit in their expression of this theme. For Gabriel Marcel, the only problem of evil is what is sometimes called the ‘existential’ mode of the problem. If Marcel is correct, this language intrudes a […]

“The American People”

“The American People” is an abstraction. It is a fiction. Yet pundits and politicians are always saying it. American pundits and politicians. When this began, I do not know. But to refer to fellow-citizens of the United States in this way is to fictionalize real people and to regard them as somehow separate from oneself. […]

Simon Greenleaf on the Rules of Evidence and the Christian Religion

Simon Greenleaf died on this date, October 6, in 1853. He was an American jurist who wrote an influential three-volume Treatise on the Law of Evidence. Greenleaf believed that lawyers have a responsibility to evaluate the evidences of the Christian religion using the standards of evidence demanded in their professional lives. Accordingly, Greenleaf detailed the results of his own […]

Announcing New Book from Doug Geivett and Paul Moser—The Testimony of the Spirit

Paul Moser and I have teamed together to produce a new book published by Oxford University Press. The Testimony of the Spirit: New Essays is an edited volume of eleven chapters written by distinguished scholars in North America and the United Kingdom. The book includes a detailed bibliography of all the most important work on the subject. Publisher’s Description: The […]