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 After our premiere of the AG3 episodes, “Grave Soaking” and “The House of Generals” we’ve been asked some common questions that we would like to answer here. Q. Why did you remove the two AG3 episodes from AGTV? From the beginning of our announcement, we made it clear that these two episodes would only be available for a week (10/25-10/31), but understandably people want to know why, and what the plan is now. First, the series is not completed, which means that the episodes could still be tweaked or changed before the final “locked” version is completed and made available. Second, please understand that the cost of producing these episodes (in addition to the entire series) is something that we need to recoup through sales in order to continue working. Typically, when a film is released, it does not first appear on a streaming service (unless it was made specifically for that streamer, and has enough subscriber support to fund an original series— Netflix, Amazon, etc.). New films typically are only available to buy at first, followed by rental, and finally are made available on a streaming service. The sales help us recoup our costs, which allow us to pay people what they’re owed for their work (editing, music composition, animation, travel, etc.), and gives us the ability to continue to work on other things— in this case, the rest of the AG3 series. Allowing these episodes to remain available through our 3-day free trial would hurt us financially, since no one wants to buy something that’s available for free. We hope to continue to preview future AG3 episodes on AGTV as they are finished to reward our supporters. The Plan Through many of our updates, we’ve described AG3 as a 10+ episode series. In reality, the amount of content we have can create at least 20 or more episodes. The plan at this point is for AG3 to be released in about 5-6 “seasons” containing 4-5 episodes each. That's about 24-30 episodes total. This will give us the ability to release episode content more quickly (in smaller groups) vs. having to wait for the entire series to be done. Our first season (5 episodes) of AG3 will focus on Bethel Church and the stories of people who have lived in Redding, California and/or attended BSSM. Two of those episodes are on “grave soaking” (and “anointing”) which is a small fraction of the entire series. Other seasons of AG3 will cover other topics and focus in on testimonies from those who were involved in other ministries (IHOP, YWAM, Hillsong, etc.). At this point, we have about 3 of the 5 episodes of season 1 completed. It will take a few more months before they are all completed and available to be released. Dr. Brown’s Roundtables As some of you know, Dr. Michael Brown agreed to allow us to publish his uncut interview and roundtable discussions publicly, as long as they are not a part of the AG3 docuseries. We still have some work to do getting those ready for public viewing, but we hope to release those between seasons of AG3. Evangelism Version Finally, I believe there is a benefit to making AG3 more “evangelistic” (like AG1’s format), which focused on the gospel of “Christ Alone”. To accomplish this, I’m considering the possibility of creating an summary version (an episode or a “film” length version) that serves as shorter, overview of the entire series, which I summarize as “rest in Christ.” This version would lead people who are interested in seeing more, into viewing the full docuseries. Thank you everyone for your feedback and prayers!
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In a recent video (which I plan to address more directly later) some claims were made related to my integrity and trustworthiness in my communication with Dr. Michael Brown. I’d like to explain and address those issues here, so that those with concerns can see the full context. Initial Contact with Dr. Brown In November of 2021, I sent the following email to Dr. Michael Brown as an initial email inviting him to be interviewed in AG3. Hello Dr. Brown, This email was sent as an introduction, and wasn’t meant to get into full details about the project (who I’ve interviewed, what questions would be asked, etc.). I figured that connecting myself to my past films would at least lead Dr. Brown to ask some followup questions before deciding to agree to do this. I sent this email at 12:14 PM, and Dr. Brown responded 9 minutes later at 12:23 PM, agreeing to participate and do the interview! I recall being surprised at how quickly he replied. Knowing now that he had never watched the previous AG films before agreeing to participate is hard to believe, and it makes sense now that there was some concerns relating to the interview questions that I would later send him. The Questions Our interview would take place on January 24, 2022. At the beginning of the month (January 6, 2022), I emailed Dr. Brown my interview questions, which you can read below. I explained to Dr. Brown that the questions were extensive (about 40k including notes to help him understand the context) and that I wanted to be respectful of his time. I explained that I was making a docuseries, which is equivalent to multiple films, covering more topics than a single film would cover— thus the reason for the extended questions. The question also revealed the topics that I planned to discuss in this project, including allowing Dr. Brown to address criticisms that have often been directed at him by critics like Justin Peters or Chris Rosebrough. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Dr. Brown graciously agreed to give me extra time in the interview if needed (and he did), but he responded to my questions with surprise and a number of concerns. He was concerned about the questions related to the Brownsville revival being “planned” (there are local Pensacola newspaper articles caliming this). He was also not expecting to answer questions about Todd White, thinking that these issues were not directly related to “the alleged NAR”. He asked me to kindly explain my reasoning for these questions: “…can you tell me honestly, before the Lord, why you are inviting my involvement? Will there really be an opportunity for me to present the truth clearly in a context that will not be prejudiced against it out of the gate?” - Dr. Brown In my followup email, I explained some of the following points: “First, while I am focusing on NAR, this is also a film about the Holy Spirit and sometimes there are topics that branch outside of topic of modern Apostles and Prophets.” -Brandon The topic of “revival and revivalism” is outside of the topic of “modern Apostles and Prophets,” but is still a huge emphasis in this movement. I explained my background again and connections to the Toronto Blessing, and Rodney Howard Browne’s laughing revival. I also knew that the Brownsville revival was very influenced by the Toronto Blessing, and wanting to see that same move of God happen there in Florida. I found a number news articles detailing some man-centered “planning” that occurred, which lead to the start of this revival. I explained: “I have no context for what happened at Brownsville, other than I know it came shortly after Toronto. I think what the newspaper was describing was not necessarily “planning” (even though it says that in the headline) but having a group of people (hungry for God) hearing about a revival elsewhere (Toronto), seeing the manifestations in that, and wanting to prep their church for the same thing.” -Brandon The reason I had questions related Todd White was in connection to this false kenotic christology teaching: “The Todd White question is connected to my first American Gospel film. We explained the kenotic christology issue (because I consider it one of those first tier issues that is common in circles like Bethel, etc.). Todd responded to the AG film a few times, and at one point said he “repented for not preaching the full gospel.” (then he kind of recanted his repentance, and said we took his teaching out of context, but simultaneously admitted that you were helping him change his language). I would just like your perspective on this, and how you would teach a Biblical view of Christ’s kenosis (this is all connected to the teaching that all believers can do the same and greater miracles as Jesus— as if the miracles are merely examples for us to follow). I want to explore the idea of what it means to follow Christ vs. duplicate Christ. If you aren’t comfortable talking about your help with Todd, we can just focus on the kenosis.” -Brandon Notice how I pinpointed that Todd White had publicly said that Dr. Brown had helped him changed his language on his biggest error (ontological kenotic christology), where Todd essentially says thing like, “Jesus wasn’t here as God” or “Jesus emptied himself of all divinity…” The question that I wrote for this was: Q. Do you think Todd White should be teaching a school when he has errors in his Christology? Do you consider this a first-tier, essential issue? Dr. Brown informed me that he preferred to NOT talk about Todd directly (or answer this question), but was happy to speak about his view of the kenosis (Christ emptying himself) in general. My original intention here was to get Dr. Brown to “change his mind” or “repent” of this specific issue, because I think it’s a serious error to allow someone who has preached heresy to first, deny it publicly, but then help them change/correct their language behind the scenes; Brown should have had a serious conversation with Todd about his qualifications in teaching, and having his own school (LCU) to teach others. But Brown declined to speak about this, so that discussion never happened. Finally, I explained my goals and motives, and offered him the chance to watch “AG2: Christ Crucified” if he hadn't already:
The Agreement Leading up to our interview, Dr. Brown wanted to solidify our agreement. He expressed the following points: “To be sure that we’re all comfortable and get to speak and record freely, it will be important to me to have specific language in our agreement that will allow you to use our interviews only based on my final approval. This would include seeing the full context in which I am quoted at any point in the series, along with any footage in which others mention me by name. Also, I’d like to have full, unedited copies of our interviews NOT for public distribution in any form but rather for my own records.” I responded with the following points: 1. I will provide you with the full unedited interview for your reference (not for public distribution in any form). This language in our emails was used as the basis of our agreement. In sum, Dr. Brown knew the questions leading up to the interview, and thus, the nature of the topics in the docuseries. I tried to explain my intentions with whatever concerns that he had. The Interview It’s hard for me to remember all the details of my time together with Dr. Brown, but I think the interview went very well, and our conversation was very friendly. Our conversation did have points where I challenged Dr. Brown or questioned some of his beliefs or practices, as I stated in my initial email (he also did the same thing in my direction on the topic of discernment and hyper-criticism). A number of the questions that I asked were related to serious concerns that people had over Dr Brown’s past associations (Benny Hinn, Sid Roth), his refusal to mark someone like Kenneth Copeland as a false teacher, and what appears to be a pattern of downplaying hyper-charismatic errors, while elevating the sins of “hyper-critics” to an equal level of error. I also believe I pushed back a bit on his perspective on God’s will and healing. We also discussed his denial of the existence of NAR, and his alleged participation in an apostolic leadership network (USCAL) which has used the “New Apostolic Reformation” language in the past on their website. Another thing that stood out in our interview is that I asked a question related to the prophetic standards statement, which said: “we reject the notion that… God always speaks inerrantly through prophets today.” My problem with this statement is explained in my question here: The wording of this statement seems to suggest that God can speak in error through prophets today. It places the error on God, rather than man, which conflicts with an essential attribute of God— that He is Truth (Titus 1:2) Dr. Brown responded to this by thanking me for bringing this error to his attention, and he reaffirmed that he believes that God speak infallibly through prophets (who don't always hear infallibly). He also told me that he would get this language changed in the statement, which today, says the following: “WE REJECT the notion that a contemporary prophetic word is on the same level of inspiration or authority as Scripture or that God’s inerrant speech is always communicated perfectly by prophets today…” https://propheticstandards.com/ The Facebook Post After our interview, I posted the following on our Facebook page: “We’re asking for your prayers for today’s AG3 interview today with Dr. Michael Brown. Like AG2, we are interviewing people we disagree with the hope of asking challenging questions and calling to repentance.” Immediately after this post, Dr. Brown emailed me with concerns about the language “calling to repentance” and was confused as to why I used that language in front of my audience, but had not clearly communicate that to him personally. He was concerned about the public responses to the post (hyper critical bad fruit) where people would think that I was suggesting that I thought he was a “heretic” needing to repent. That was not my intention. I don’t believe that Dr. Brown is a heretic through a denial of any essential gospel issue. However, as I’ve explained above and through the nature of the questions that were sent to him, it was clear that I had a number of concerns that I wanted to challenge or “change his mind” (repent) about. This is part of my initial response to him: “As far as the Facebook post, I’m happy to explain. From the beginning I made you aware that we had disagreements, and I intended to ask you questions and challenge some of your beliefs by having your consider Scripture, and to consider changing your mind, or beliefs about what Scripture teaches in certain areas (This is what I meant by repentance— not necessarily in the sense of a specific sin, but changing your mind about certain charismatic practices that we were discussing).” After more discussion on this, I edited my initial Facebook post to say the following:
This whole discussion culminated in Dr. Brown talking about this on his radio program back in February of 2022 in the episode titled, "The American Gospel, NAR, Hyper-Critics, and Me". He also asked me to post about this on our Facebook page (which you can read below): TODAY Today, this whole issue still continues to come back up, and is used against me to attack my integrity (Again, I will address this more specifically later). Meanwhile, I still agree with what I said in February of 2022: “Perhaps I could have been more clear in saying that I considered the purpose of these challenging questions to be that I wanted him to change his mind about certain doctrines and practices (repentance).” I did not intend to be deceptive in my communication with Dr. Brown, but that’s how it appeared to him. When you’re dealing with a huge project like this, communicating with multiple people, working through research and hundreds of hours of footage, in the midst of the responsibilities of life... mistakes happen.
Looking back, I wish Dr. Brown would not have agreed to participate in the project so quickly. I think if he had watched the first two films, he may have concluded, “This is hyper-criticism, and I don’t want to participate.” In light of Dr. Brown’s recent decision to withdraw from the project, I still consider Dr. Brown a brother in Christ who is in error on certain issues. I appreciate his desire to help me see and turn from my own errors and blindspots in my faith, particularly in the world of online discernment. I would just hope that we all could view a “call to repentance” or “reformation” in our understanding of Scripture to be a loving act and not something to offended by. Note: Dr. Brown recently did give us permission to post an unedited version of his interview, and roundtable discussions for the public to see (as long as they aren't part of the American Gospel: Spirit & Fire project). So if the interview questions intrigued you, you will be able to hear his answers (not every question was covered) in the future. |
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