C. Peter Wagner

Charles Peter Wagner (August 15, 1930 – October 21, 2016) was an Apostle, theologian, missiologist, missionary, writer, teacher, and church growth specialist best known for his controversial writings on spiritual warfare.[1]

Wagner served as a missionary in Bolivia under the South American Mission and Andes Evangelical Mission (now SIM International) from 1956 to 1971. He then served for 30 years (1971 to 2001) as Professor of Church Growth at the Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Missions until his retirement in 2001. He is the author of more than 70 books. He was the president of Global Harvest Ministries from 1993 to 2011 and served as the chancellor emeritus of Wagner Leadership Institute, which trains leaders to join in a movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, an organization Wagner also helped found. He was also the vice president of Global Spheres, Inc.

Spiritual warfare

Wagner wrote about spiritual warfare, in books including Confronting the Powers: How the New Testament Church Experienced the Power of Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare and Engaging the Enemy. In Confronting the Powers, Wagner breaks down spiritual warfare as having three levels: "Ground Level: Person-to-person, praying for each other's personal needs. Occult Level: deals with demonic forces released through activities related to Satanism, witchcraft, astrology and many other forms of structured occultism. Strategic-Level or Cosmic-Level: To bind and bring down spiritual principalities and powers that rule over governments."[2] "Strategic-level intercession" uses "spiritual mapping" and "tearing down strongholds" to engage in spiritual warfare against "territorial spirits".[3]

According to Wagner, these methods "were virtually unknown to the majority of Christians before the 1990s”.[4] The premise of Engaging the Enemy is that Satan and his demons are literally in the world, that Satan's territorial spirit-demons may be identified by name, and that Christians are to engage in spiritual warfare with them.[5]

In Hard-Core Idolatry: Facing the Facts, Wagner asserts that idolizing Catholic saints brings honor to the spirits of darkness, and promotes the burning of their statues in Argentina. Wagner asserts that the Holy Spirit came to his associate, Cindy Jacobs (a prophet in Wagner’s Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders) and "told her that in [the Argentinian city of] Resistencia they need to burn the idols, like the magicians did in Ephesus in Acts of the Apostles".[6]

Founder of New Apostolic Reformation

Wagner has been credited with founding the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement associated with Texas Governor Rick Perry's New Response, an evangelical Christian prayer vigil in Houston's Reliant Stadium on August 6, 2011.[7]

Selected works

Sources

References

  1. ↑ http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2016/october/in-memory-of-c-peter-wagner.html
  2. ↑ C. Peter Wagner. Confronting the Powers: How the New Testament Church Experienced the Power of Strategic-level Spiritual Warfare. Regal Books; 1996. ISBN 978-0-8307-1819-1.pp.21-22
  3. ↑ Confronting the Powers
  4. ↑ Confronting the Powers, p21
  5. ↑ C. Peter Wagner, Engaging the Enemy
  6. ↑ Hard-Core Idolatry – Facing the Facts, pp 38-40, 1999, publisher - Wagner Institute of Practical Ministry
  7. ↑ Forrest Wilder, "Rick Perry's Army of God", The Texas Observer, August 3, 2011
  8. ↑
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