A modern-day Marcion

Recently, there's been a big blow up in one of the churches that our church is affiliated with in Bangkok. It's especially painful because members of my family attend that church and many of the founding members are old friends, including the pastor. The issue seems to be that the pastor--my friend--is teaching a new "gospel of grace" as espoused by Joseph Prince of New Creation Church in Singapore. People in that congregation started calling and e-mailing us about this several weeks ago and we were at a loss to know what to do.

To help clarify the issue in my own mind, I read through most of Joseph Prince's book "Destined to Reign" because it seemed incredible that Christians I knew well would actually teach some of the things they were accused of teaching. "Maybe they've misunderstood what he taught," I thought. But after reading the book for myself, I was shocked. I can hardly believe this guy is on millions of TVs in America every week.

Usually, I try to keep my public criticism of fellow Christians to a minimum, for each servant is accountable to his Master. However, in this case, I feel obligated to speak out because I know in my head and my heart that this doctrine is contrary to the teaching of Jesus Christ. I'm afraid many younger beleivers may be led astray.

Moreover, this guy comes from the same charismatic, Word-of-Faith spiritual heritage that I do. I believe that health, wealth, and success are God's overall intention for believers, available to us on the conditions of faith and obedience, and that Christians can expect God's supernatural intervention in their lives. So when I read that Joseph Prince takes this and adds his own unorthodox "grace gospel," I feel an extra obligation to weigh in.

I've written an eight-page summary of how Jospeph Prince's teaching differs from historical and biblical Christian teaching and posted it online here. The document cites pages in Destined to Reign that you can read for yourself using Google Books.

In short, Joseph Prince teaches that all guilty feelings are from the devil and a result of ungodly legalism. As a result, he says Christians should not examine themselves or confess their sin (beyond an initial confession when saved). He says repentance simply means changing one's mind and does not entail sorrow or remorse. He says many Christians in the past mixed the law with grace, and that God has called him to expunge the law from the Church and free Christians from guilt and condemnation.

It all sounds very similar to the second-century heretic Marcion, who thought the God of the Old Testament could not be reconciled with the God that Paul preached. (Marcion emphasized Paul, as does Joseph Prince.) Marcion created his own canon (actually a precursor to the orthodox canon list of the New Testament, in a way) that took out all Jewish elements and everything that had to do with law and the retributive God of the Old Testament, Yahweh. I'm not saying that Joseph Prince is so extreme as Marcion, but there are many similarities. Interesting to see how things are repeating themselves now, 1,900 years later.