Francis Chan has upped the theological ante recently, going from the relatively sound reformed pastor, through Bill Johnson-loving charismatic, to a full-fledged faith healer, and now to Jesus in the Flesh when he described in a recent video how he laid hands and healed a whole village in Myanmar, ostensibly without the Holy Spirit.
Chan has a particularly irritating way of speaking, where his modus operandi is to consistently engage in religious performance art, not unlike Todd White who falls to his knees red-faced and weeping every three sentences or a certain baptist and pentecostal segment of preachers who insert “-ah” after every few words.
In Chan’s case, he reads the scriptures and preaches like he has an intestinal blockage, with strained features and gasping breaths, as if he’s fighting to speak when he’s not gesticulating wildly. It’s all a show, and it’s sad that some find it convincing.
But in his “Final Message to America,” Francis describes how he laid hands on he healed an entire village of unbelievers, ascribing his success to alleged miraculous machinations, rather than the normative means that Christ saves. He says:
Every time I pray nothing would happen, but that night in that village, I’m going God these people have believed one thing their whole lives, and there’s some really elderly people sitting at my feet. How am I supposed to convince them that this message that contradicts everything they’ve ever believed is true? God you have to do something. There’s little children here. I have no power. I’m speaking through a translator. You need to do something. Please. Visit. Show them one night of Power like nothing they’ve ever seen in their lives, begging God for this.
And believing, believing scriptures, scriptures that I memorized as a high school student came alive in me. Where I believe that Christ and I are one. And I was walking around that village and going ‘this is no different than if Jesus walked through this village.’
Because he says I can do whatever he did, and I can do greater things than he did. John 14:12. and I go I memorized that as a high school student and I believe it right now. I am Jesus right now. He and I are one. He abides in me, I abide in him. These are not just memory verses.
We seem to recall scripture about wicked and adulterous generations looking for a sign, but more importantly, this is a complete abrogation of John 16:7-1, which says:
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
For Francis Chan, however, the preaching of the word and the power of the Holy Spirit was insufficient to save. You heard him say it. “I have no power.” In fact, there’s not even a recognition of the Holy Spirit to bring about faith and repentance.
Because he has no power, and the preaching of the gospel doesn’t quite cut it, he needs that “poison drinking, serpent handling power” to get things done. Perhaps Chan has an extra verse tacked on to the back end of Romans 10:14, which after saying, “and how shall they hear without a preacher?” adds, “and how shall they believe without signs and wonders?”
This is notwithstanding that Chan is promoting some sort of TOS (Theosis on Steroids), a position he assumes by saying “I am Jesus right now” and likened himself walking through a village as literally NO DIFFERENT than if Jesus was walking through that village and engaging in mass healings of bad backs.
We await with bated breath to see where Chan goes next.
