Allen Parr: Christians, Stop Believing These False Doctrines!
Inside This Episode
Christianity is under attack today, not only from outside cultural forces but also from influences within the church. Popular YouTuber and Bible teacher Allen Parr is on a mission to help Christians understand the most dangerous doctrines of our day that distort the gospel and lead many well-meaning church-goers astray. In this interview, Allen and Maybe God host Eric Huffman discuss hyper charismatic churches, deliverance ministries, prosperity gospel, progressive Christianity, and so much more.
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Transcript
Eric Huffman: Christianity is under attack today, not only from outside cultural forces but also from influences within the church. Popular YouTuber and Bible teacher, Allen Parr, is on a mission to help Christians understand the most dangerous doctrines of our day that distort the gospel and lead many well-meaning churchgoers astray.
Allen Parr, I just want to say welcome to the Maybe God podcast and thank you for joining us.
Allen Parr: Thank you, Eric. It's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to our conversation.
Eric Huffman: Bro, I can't tell you enough, I was telling you before we started rolling what an honor it is. And I meant it. I've followed you for some time. If you're watching this and you don't follow Allen on YouTube, The Beat with Allen Parr is a must follow. Man, I was looking at your numbers. Congratulations.
Allen Parr: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Eric Huffman: It's going well. And it should. You do good work.
Allen Parr: God is so good. Yeah, so humbled by that. Thank you.
Eric Huffman: I guess as a way of getting started, talk to us about the mission you're on in life and in your ministry. What are you out to do?
Allen Parr: Well, I think this all kind of started for me in college where I went to a church, and I was a younger Christian at the time. I wasn't really knowledgeable about a lot of doctrine and just was caught up in a lot of emotionalism and things of that nature. So I went to a church that was heavily word of faith and very much into all the things that come along with that. I didn't know at the time that I was misled. I didn't know that I was deceived. I just got caught up in everything.
As I started to study the Word, and as I got discipled, and then I eventually went to seminary, I realized just how far off I was with my doctrine, with my understanding, with the practices, with some of the things that were happening at this church.
And my heart goes out because there's thousands of churches, maybe millions of churches all over the world, that are leading people astray because they're not teaching sound doctrine, they're not teaching proper theology.
And so, I started The Beat and wrote a book as well as just everything that we do. Our whole mission of our ministry is to try to equip believers with sound doctrine, and also more importantly to equip them with the tools that they need so that they can discern truth from error and do the work of the ministry inspired by Ephesians 4.
Eric Huffman: Awesome. We'll talk about the book more in just a second. The book's called Misled: Seven Lies That Distort the Gospel and How You Can Discern the Truth. First, let's just clarify one thing you just talked about, which was your experience in the Word of Faith Church. What is that? I mean, most people probably have no idea. Is it a denomination, a network? What'd you see there that bothered you?
Allen Parr: Lots of things. I was a teenager at the time, really. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church where it was pretty much like the frozen chosen. Like people barely said amen, people didn't say, amen, hallelujah. I mean, the pastor could be preaching his heart out and it was really, really quiet. And so, I grew up in that. Great church, love the church even to this day.
But when I went to college, I got my first taste of the charismatic experience and all the different experiences that come along with that, the emotionalism, the worship, the music, all of that. At first it was great. I mean, I was experiencing things that I'd never experienced before.
But then as my antennas thankfully kind of went up from studying the Word and being taught and being discipled and listening to people like Charles Stanley and Chuck Swindoll and Tony Evans, I'm dating myself now, and David Jeremiah and all these guys, I mean, these guys are the ones, John MacArthur, these guys, I grew up spiritually listening to them. And I said, "Man, what they're saying is a lot different than what's happening at the church."
So things like being slain in the Spirit. People trying to push you down in the middle of the service, and if you don't go down, then they feel like you're rebellious, you're resisting the move of the Holy Spirit. People getting hurt. Sometimes I see people looking behind them to make sure that they don't fall down on the ground before they fall down, which is like, okay, so this is not some spiritual experience. You're deciding to fall down because you're looking behind you to make sure you don't fall down.
People speaking in tongues with no interpretation, prophets coming in and out of town, speaking a word of prophecy, don't know whether it's true, whether it's not, casting demons out all the time. Everything is a demon. If you're lusting, it's a demon. If you're overeating, it's a demon. Everything's got to be a demon. It's got to be cast out.
Then, of course, you've got all the other things like speaking things into existence, positive speaking, positive confession, little God's doctrine, all these things that we can dig into. But it's just declaring and decreeing things, ordering God to do stuff. All that stuff is just not sound. But you didn't know it at the time.
Allen Parr: I did not.
Eric Huffman: Something drew you into it. And something draws a lot of people into it because these churches often grow and they often grow with young people. What was it that drew you in? What do you think it is generally that attracts people to this sort of church?
Allen Parr: Well, there's lots of things. First and foremost, the energy, the environment, the atmosphere that's created there through the worship, people feel so close to God. And I'm not saying that that's not a genuine feeling. I mean, obviously, I want to go to a church where the worship is lively and I can feel free to express myself.
And I will say this is one thing that I did learn there that I thank God that I did learn at that church is that we can be free to worship God and express ourselves, but it needs to be done in order. I think the emotionalism, the feeling, but also the things that are being said. Everyone wants to believe that they can be healthy, that they can be wealthy, that God has promised them these things. There's not a human being alive that doesn't want to hear that, that doesn't want that to be their reality.
So if people are continuing to tell you that, you know, you're healed and God's going to get rid of all your debt, He's going to bless you this time next year, God's going to have a supernatural abundance waiting for you. And it's always very, very vague. It's never really specific, right? It's not like November 13th, God's going to do this. No, it's just, you know, I see an abundance all over you. So people want to hear that and it makes them feel good and so they get sucked in.
Eric Huffman: Well, when you started to do your research and the scales fell from your eyes, I guess, under the influence of, you mentioned the preachers, Tony Evans and David Jeremiah and the others, what was your initial feeling about the church you'd been going to? Was it that this place is totally misguided and satanic, or was it that this place is mostly right, just kind of disoriented?
Allen Parr: Well, you know, that's an interesting, because the specific church that I went to, there was such a brainwashing that was going on outside of just the whole doctrinal Word of Faith concept. It's more so like, hey, I'm your spiritual covering, I'm your spiritual father, you know, if you leave this church, you're not going to be blessed. You're going to be rebellious. You don't leave until I release you as your spiritual covering. I'm your spiritual father. You go whenever I tell you that your season is up because God speaks to you through me. It's that whole anointing, mantle-covering type of thing.
I had my antennas up, but I was also, at the same time, fearful of bringing any of this to the attention because you don't want to be called out as rebellious. You don't want to be blacklisted.
Eric Huffman: Right, you have a demon.
Allen Parr: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don't want to be seen as somebody that's going against authority in the Church or anything, you don't want to be a troublemaker. And so you just kind of take it all in. And I did that for months, even after I got the understanding of what was going on at the Church. And it took me some time to get the courage to leave.
Eric Huffman: Since you left, and in the years following, did you see other people sort of emerging or leaving those Churches with the scars to show it? Did you see the damaging effects of it in the lives of others?
Allen Parr: I did, yeah. I had some friends in not just that Church, but just other Churches like that. I had lots of friends that came out of that, thankfully. And all of them came out scarred and wounded. A perfect example, I mean, you know, if you are sick or you have a loved one who is sick and the Church says, By His stripes we're healed...
And that's the thing that's so interesting, is that with every lie, it's always wrapped in a little bit of truth, right? They use Scripture. So yeah, we're healed, but that doesn't mean we're guaranteed to be healed on this side of heaven. Like we're healed because Jesus saved us. So one day, yes, we will be physically healed, and sometimes we do get physically healed on this side.
But you have people that believed that, that hey, if I have enough faith, if I pray, if I trust, if I fast, if I get all my friends to pray for my grandmother or my wife who's struggling with cancer or whatever, not my wife, but just as an example-
Eric Huffman: Sure. Sure.
Allen Parr: ...you know, then God's going to fulfill that promise, right? But then when it doesn't happen, they're so disoriented, they're so disillusioned because now they feel like either a) they didn't have enough faith to believe, so now they're blaming themselves, or b) God is not who He says He was. He's not a promise keeper. He did not keep His promise, and so now I want to leave the Church, leave the faith, and snowballs.
Eric Huffman: Wow. Wow. I'm guessing all those experiences contributed to your eventual desire to write a book about it and help people.
Allen Parr: Yeah, yeah.
Eric Huffman: And that's how we got misled.
Allen Parr: Yeah, yeah. Basically, it did, yeah. It's kind of a collection of... some of them are my story, but a lot of them is just people that I know, stories that I've heard, along with just trying to create a book that would hopefully set the record straight in terms of doctrine on issues that I think are very confusing for a lot of Christians. So I selected seven of them in the book.
Eric Huffman: It's so interesting to me to hear your story, because it's just so not my story. I was raised Methodist and was a United Methodist my whole life until a few years ago when we left the denomination, and so I didn't... I mean, I heard about things the Charismatics did.
Once in a while, we'd have a revival in the preacher. They invited some preacher that they didn't realize was going to bring the circus to town, and then it was in our laps. People were getting slain in the spirit, and I remember what a scandal that was. But it was not normative for me. And so I have to really think and work hard at being understanding and empathetic about the real issues at hand.
It's easy now that I'm older because I've seen and known enough people who've come out of these movements into my church or into my life that bear the scars from it. And in some cases, they don't bear scars. They just bring those teachings with them, and they're still sort of under that illusion, I guess, that the Word of Faith teachings are not only biblical but super biblical and more biblical than whatever it is I'm up there preaching. So there's a sense of superiority about it, which we all have to be aware of and our hearts about, right? But yeah, this is a real issue in the church today.
I recently talked with Melissa Dougherty, who I know you've had conversations with, and she lifts some of the same issues up. She's so passionate about New Thought. That's kind of where she comes from. I think your approach to this conversation is a little bit more approachable to everybody because most people hear the stuff about New Thought, and they're like, I don't know what to do with all this.
Allen Parr: Right.
Eric Huffman: But I think most people can really relate to what you're saying on some level and the mission that you're on. So, you outlined seven lies. If you were to say one of these is most prominent or most important for people to talk about and know about, which would it be?
Allen Parr: Well, that's kind of like asking me to choose my favorite kid, right?
Eric Huffman: Deep down, you know you can't.
Allen Parr: I know, I know. Ah, ouch. Oh, man. I would say, honestly, probably for our viewers and listeners, the one that concerns me probably the most, because I talk about tongues and the misuse of that, I talk about prophecy, I talk about speaking things into existence, I talk about different things like that. But the chapter I think that is probably the most practical for today's culture is probably the one on progressive Christianity.
Eric Huffman: Huh?
Allen Parr: And I know Lisa Childers has really, really done a lot of work on that. But I have a chapter in the book where I talk about how that's dangerous because they present themselves as Christian. At least we know when you meet someone who's Muslim or you meet someone who's Jewish or someone who's Buddhist, you already know what they stand for, right?
But when you meet someone who says, "Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus, yeah, yes, I believe in Jesus. I go to church every week," most people assume, oh, okay, good, we have common ground, you're a Christian, I'm a Christian. But nowadays, Christianity means different things to different people.
So the progressive Christian movement is a movement that essentially has a lower view of Scripture. They kind of pick and choose which parts of Scripture that work for them. If it's an Old Testament Scripture on homosexuality, Hey, we throw that out because that's old school. That's not consistent with the way the world is today and the culture is today.
And they focus on love. So all the things that Jesus did about loving people, hey, we're for that. But when Jesus calls people out for their sin, no, no, no, no, no, right? So just follow Jesus' example of love, accept everybody. To me, that's a dangerous movement that we have to be careful of.
Eric Huffman: Interesting. It's interesting, given your experience with the dangers of Word of Faith and some charismatic churches, that you would feel the need to loop in a chapter about progressive Christianity being as dangerous as those others are.
I've seen it too. I've talked a lot about it on this channel. I used to be a progressive Christian, pretty hardcore one, actually, until I really met Jesus and everything changed for me.
I think a good example of it in the headlines lately might've been that sermon after Inauguration Day, the Episcopalian Bishop Marianne Budde, I think, or Budde, who preached about loving immigrants and loving LGBT people.
[Mariann Budde clip start]
Let me make one final plea. I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.
[Mariann Budde clip ends]
Eric Huffman: I feel like people that got upset about that sermon missed the point and almost kind of fall into a trap that Marianne set for them. Because then it sounds like you don't believe we're supposed to love immigrants, or you don't believe we're supposed to love our gay neighbors or brothers and sisters. That's what most people got upset about it seemed like.
But what upset me about that sermon was you have a chance on the national stage to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a compelling way before the president and the vice president and their wives and the whole country. You have a platform like no other to give people the gospel and not a word of the gospel was spoken. It was just the moralism that you often hear from that particular part of the church, progressive Christianity.
And just to be clear, I don't think you're saying and I'm not saying that there aren't real faithful Christians in progressive churches, right? It's more of generally what's being taught or advanced by these groups, these denominations, these clergy can be and often is so dangerous.
Allen Parr: I mean, if you asked me to pick one that's pressing, I would say that one. But if I had to pick a secondary one, interestingly enough, I would probably say the one on speaking things into existence probably would be a second one.
Eric Huffman: Oh, really?
Allen Parr: Yeah. It's so hard because, I mean, I have a chapter on can you lose your salvation as well. That's pretty important. That's an important one. But you have a lot of Christians who are caught up in speaking things into existence, or now they'll say it's called manifesting. I know Melissa and I talked about that on my channel not too long ago. I would say that one is a pretty important one.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, let's slow down and talk about that because I think there's a lot of people watching right now who might not know anything about what we're talking about. But if you're in the church long enough, you'll kind of hear it creeping into conversations and things. I think most people that hear it spoken at churches or in small groups don't really think it's bad. This idea just seems Christian-y and Christian-ish or whatever, and so we just kind of let it slide. But why, in your view, is it so potentially dangerous?
Allen Parr: The idea, for those who may be unaware, the idea of speaking things into existence kind of comes out of this idea that we were created in the image of God. Genesis 1 says we were created in the image of God. Unfortunately, there has been a group of people who will say, okay, well, if we were created in the image of God, well, how did God create things? Well, God spoke things, and there were. He said, Let there be light, and there was light. He spoke the world into existence.
And so if God used words to create things, and you and I were created in the image of God, therefore you and I are little gods, which is where the whole “little gods” doctrine comes into play. And if you're listening, you're not familiar with that, just go read up on "little gods" doctrine. But it's the idea that if God can use words to create things, we're created in the image of God, then therefore He has given us the power, the authorities, He's passed it down to us to be able to also use words to create things.
And so if you want to create a certain life for yourself, then you need to speak that into existence. Or if you want to ensure that you don't get sick, well, you better speak health into existence, and then conversely, you better not say anything about being sick. So if you're sick, you better not say that, don't speak it. You even hear Christians now, oh, don't speak that, don't say that, don't speak that.
Or if you say, Man, I'm in debt, I need to get out of it, "Oh, don't speak that. Don't speak debt over your life, don't speak that. No, speak victory, speak prosperity." No, I'm in debt. That's the reality. I'm in debt. Or I'm sick. That's true, I need to get some medicine to get some help, so it's just...
Eric Huffman: I totally hear you. I think the average person might say, well, that's just kind of... it's well-meaning cheerleading. It's just like a rah-rah kind of thing to... it's moral support. What do you see as the theological problem for churches where this is allowed to sort of go on, or maybe it's taught from the pulpit? What's the problem?
Allen Parr: The main problem is that they are, like many of these lies, they're misinterpreting the Scriptures. They're not doing, as Paul said. They're not rightly dividing the Word. For instance, perfect example, okay, yes, we're created in the image of God, but that doesn't mean we have the same power as God, right?
So, in theology, in seminary, we learned about that there are communicable attributes of God and incommunicable attributes of God. I know there's some big words, but let's just make it very simple. There's certain attributes of God that we share with Him, and then there's certain attributes of God that we don't share with Him.
So, when the Bible describes God as good, or loving, or kind, or forgiving, or patient, we share all of those attributes. Not to the same degree, obviously, but we can share all those attributes of Him, because He has created us in the image of God. But when it describes God as sovereign, eternal, all-knowing, omnipresent, all-powerful, these are attributes of God that we don't possess. And creator, right?
So, yes, we were created in the image of God, but don't take that verse and build a whole theology to say, well, that means we have the power to do what God did. That's what I mean when I say taking things out context.
Eric Huffman: I mean, it's twofold. I think, on the one hand, what that does is it overestimates us, but it also diminishes God at the same time. If we're like God, then He's like us. So it's a twofold problem that seems innocuous. I think most people who hear it probably go, well, that's just theology nerds nerding out, but it's way more than that. I mean, it has real implications when we take God down a notch and put ourselves up a few notches. Clearly, that's not going to go well.
What I've tried to do as we've talked is... I've got these concentric circles in my mind, just these different sort of camps and things. And we talked about charismatics, and we've talked about word of faith, and we've talked about, gosh, what else was it? We've talked prosperity gospel. Like, how overlapping are these things? Is it one perfect circle that's all together, or is there some overlap and some not?
Allen Parr: That's a great, great question, because it can be a little bit confusing. Let's just say it this way. It's kind of like what we learned in math. I used to teach math. So, every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square, right?
Eric Huffman: Yeah.
Allen Parr: That was probably a bad analogy, because some people are probably like, whoa, what are you talking about? But I would say that not every person who claims to be a charismatic is a proponent or a supporter or a believer in prosperity theology, word of faith.
I have plenty of friends who would describe themselves as charismatics, but they thoroughly denounce that doctrine. I think you can be a charismatic when... and let me define some of these things.
Eric Huffman: Sure. Please.
Allen Parr: Because people might be confused. Like, what's a charismatic? So, charismatic. Charismatic, that word comes from the Greek word charismata. Charismata in the Greek New Testament is the Greek word for "gift". Gift. So, people who claim to be charismatics are people who believe that every single spiritual gift that was expressed in the New Testament times is active, alive, and should be and is being expressed in the exact same way today as it always has.
There are no limitations on the gift of healing, there are no limitations on the gift of miracles, the gift of prophecy, the gift of interpretation of spirits, and distinguishing of spirits, interpretation of tongues, speaking in tongues. There's no difference. All the charismata, all the gifts are the same today as they always were. So, that doesn't mean, if somebody believes that, that they also believe that everybody in the world should be and everybody should be healthy.
But I would say that, from my understanding, word of faith and prosperity gospel seem to be synonymous for the most part. Word of faith probably refers more to the movement, and the prosperity gospel refers probably more to the beliefs of that movement.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Okay. Would you say most or all charismatics tend to think that without the evidence of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, someone might not be a Christian? Is that fair?
Allen Parr: I don't think I would go that far. I don't believe so. Okay, let me say this, there are a range of different beliefs within the charismatic movement. I'll explain a few of them. One very extreme one is the idea that if I don't speak in tongues, if you don't speak in tongues, you're not a Christian. You're not a Christian.
Eric Huffman: I've heard that, yeah.
Allen Parr: Most people that I know that say they're charismatic don't hold to that, because there's just too much biblical support to say otherwise. But then another position might be, well, if you don't speak in tongues, you don't have the Holy Spirit. You could be a Christian, but you don't have the Holy Spirit, which to me is weird.
Eric Huffman: It doesn't make any sense.
Allen Parr: Exactly. So they'll throw that one out. But then another one would be, if you don't speak in tongues, you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so you have now not experienced this second blessing. You're not walking in the fullness that God has for you, because you're missing out on this very important gift of speaking in tongues. And if you don't speak in tongues, then you've not really received this extra power, this extra ability to communicate to God.
So, now, basically, I talk about this, is you're creating two classes of Christians: the Varsity Christians and the JV Christians now. Because if you don't speak in tongues, you're now a JV Christian, and everybody who doesn't speak in tongues, you're all JV Christians.
Eric Huffman: Right. No, I had an experience like that, where we had a pastor visiting from out of town during the week, so it was like during the office hours of the church. And some people that I knew kind of brought her by to talk to us about... I think it was supposed to be about just spiritual warfare generally. And she actually did some great teaching about spiritual warfare and all that.
But before she left, she said she wanted to pray over us and asked us if we had, me and another pastor at my church, if we had received the gift of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues. And we said we hadn't. So she stood over us and laid hands on us and then saying, just speak, just start speaking, and you'll speak in tongues. I just refused. I'm kind of a nonconformist in that way. I kind of get mad when people try to force me into something.
Allen Parr: Yeah, same. Same with me.
Eric Huffman: The longer I sat there, the heavier her hand got. She just kept pushing down for more and more. And my buddy's over there just pretending to speak in tongues. I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that. That seems worse.
Allen Parr: I did that all through college.
Eric Huffman: It was very uncomfortable. I think she was well-meaning. But that was definitely the impression I got was that until we take that step, we are the JV Christians, in this case, JV pastors, until we really take that step of receiving that gift, which in her mind, I think she would say it's for all believers should speak in tongues. Where does that idea come from?
Allen Parr: That idea comes... these are some great questions, actually. So the idea that all Christians can and should speak in tongues, that doctrine primarily comes from two places. In the book of Mark 16, there is a passage of Scripture that says, "And these signs will accompany those who believe."
And there are five of them, I think. Let me see if I can remember. You will pick up snakes and not get bitten, you'll drink poison and not get sick, you'll lay hands on the sick and they will recover, you'll cast out demons, and you'll speak in other tongues. Actually, I got all five, I think.
Eric Huffman: Well done.
Allen Parr: So many people will take that verse and say, Hey, it says right here that these signs will accompany those who believe. They'll speak in other tongues. And I always tell people, I say, this is an example of absolutely horrendous exegesis of Scripture. Because if you say that that has to be the normative experience for every Christian, then you also have to say the other four have to also be the same experience as well. You can't say-
Eric Huffman: Obviously.
Allen Parr: Yeah, obviously. I mean, you can't take that one out of context. It says, and these signs, plural, will accompany those who believe. So that means every Christian should be able to lay hands on the sick and they will recover, every Christian should be able to pick up snakes and not get bitten, every Christian should be able to drink poison and not die and speak in tongues and cast out demons. So clearly—
Eric Huffman: There's more going on.
Allen Parr: There's more going on there, right? So that's one place where it comes from. Then another place it comes from is there's a couple passages in the book of Acts where after people got saved, they spoke in tongues shortly after they got saved. And so the assumption is, well, if that's what happened to them, then that should happen to every single Christian.
Eric Huffman: Right, right, right. Wow. What do you make of the, in the New Testament, the different sort of—I don't want to say it wrong—the different understandings of tongues from Acts 2 and what happened there versus what you see talked about in Paul's letters?
Allen Parr: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Interestingly enough, I have a specific perspective on this. In Acts chapter 2, I think it goes without saying that even just an easy reading of that, we understand that what was happening is that God was enabling certain people to be able to either speak in a learned or they were speaking something, but people were hearing it in their language, right?
So I could be saying, to be silly, mama say, mama sa, mamakusa, and Eric, you could be over there and you may have just heard me say—
Eric Huffman: You want a cheeseburger for lunch? I heard it.
Allen Parr: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I don't know what I'm saying when I'm saying that, but you just heard me clearly and said, Allen wants a cheeseburger, right? I didn't know what I said. To me, that was, clearly, the original gift of tongues in Acts 2, was the ability for the gospel to be spread in languages that you hadn't learned.
And that makes total sense to me why God would give that gift to people. Because if His desire is to get the gospel to be spread and people have all these different languages across the world, well, then there's a barrier here. How could I go to Africa and communicate the gospel when I don't know that language? How could I go to Spain and Europe?
Eric Huffman: There's a utility in it.
Allen Parr: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Right? So that makes total sense to me why He gifted people with that gift of tongues there. But somehow or another, when you get to 1 Corinthians 14, this is where it gets a little, little dicey is where it talks about unknown tongues and he who speaks to seeks in tongues speaks to God and not to men. And it gets into these different things where now people feel as if there's this private prayer language, right? That you can pray in tongues to God.
But without going to all the weeds here, I have issues with that because in those same contexts, Paul also talks about there needs to be interpretation. If you pray in tongues, there needs to be interpretation. So I'm like, well, but if this is private between me and God, why should there need to be an interpretation? God can interpret it. So why does He say, well, if you pray in a tongue, you know, there needs to be interpretation? And, you know, it's just like-
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Everybody disagrees about this, and it's hard to understand. It's not essential to salvation, this issue, and where you land on it. I think that's important to say. To be fair, I have seen interpretation happen. It's very rare. Right. Maybe one out of a hundred cases of where I've seen tongue spoken, interpretation was offered, and I think it was authentic.
I'm a believer in this stuff, man. If you're listening, you're thinking, you know, we're discounting it altogether. I'm not at all throwing it out.
Allen Parr: Neither am I.
Eric Huffman: My next question is, where do you land between... you know, you have your charismatics and you have, I guess, the people you would call cessationists. And I believe... tell me if I'm wrong. I think John MacArthur, who you mentioned earlier, is kind of a cessationist.
Allen Parr: He's a cessationist for sure. 100%.
Eric Huffman: Not even kind of. He's all the way there.
Allen Parr: He's all the way in.
Eric Huffman: So where's Allen Parr on that spectrum?
Allen Parr: I'm what you call... I'm in the middle. I'm not as charismatic. I'm not a cessationist. I'm a-
Eric Huffman: Continuationist, I bet.
Allen Parr: There you go. Thank you. I would not have remembered that, but, yeah, that's exactly... I'm a continuationist. I believe that there's a couple of gifts that I feel like are not active today primarily because we've not seen these gifts in the last two thousand years. Like, people being able to go and heal people at will who are sick. I mean, let's be honest. Like, who's doing that? Now? There might be people who get their hands laid on who recover, but I don't see that as someone possessing the gift. I see that as God's mercy using a person for that specific time for that person to get healed. So praise God for that.
But people who have the ability like Paul and some of the other apostles to, at will, go and heal people like Jesus did, who is sick, who are sick, I don't see that gift nor the gift-
Eric Huffman: You're skeptical of that.
Allen Parr: I'm skeptical of that. I'm skeptical of the gift of miracles, being able to do miracles, and things like that. But do I believe that God can give someone the gift of tongues today? The way I interpret it, we might differ on, I believe that God could equip a Christian to be able to go to another country and speak a message that they did not know what they were saying and somebody get saved. Somebody hear the truth.
I do believe that that's possible because being true to scripture, I don't see a clear scriptural... I don't have to see enough clear scriptural evidence to suggest that gift has ceased. I don't think 1 Corinthians 13 is strong enough. So because I don't see that clearly, I have to deduce that these gifts are still active. Some of these gifts are active, but I think they're a lot of times being misused.
Eric Huffman: That's interesting. It sounds to me... Tell me if I'm wrong. It sounds like your continuation is kinda leaning toward the cessationist side, but you're not committing to it at all. Like, you're still leaving open the possibility for God's supernatural gifting in various ways.
Allen Parr: Absolutely.
Eric Huffman: I think that defines more or less where I might swing a little bit more toward char... just in the sense that I look at healing the same way I look at tongues. I'm like, it's very rare, and we should be very careful not to exploit or, you know, use the appearance of these gifts for our own glory, to our own. I see that way too often. But I'm open to the possibility of that those things are... not even the possibility. I'm open to the reality that these things still happen because I feel like I've seen evidence of it. But it is very rare and very scant.
And it's not something we should base our faith on, which is, I think, the trap of it is a lot of people get addicted to sensationalism, and they end up basing their faith on this idol of, you know, supernatural outpourings or evidence or whatever when our faith should be in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And I think that's what gets lost.
Allen Parr: Eric, I wanna say one final thing about that just to make sure that our listeners are clear, because, you know, this is important. In no way am I saying that people cannot get healed today, people don't get healed today. I need to make that clear because some people might leave here and say, well, Allen doesn't believe in the supernatural. I've been criticized for that. And I just don't understand how people can't-
Eric Huffman: People hear what they want to hear, man.
Allen Parr: Yeah. They're hearing what they want to hear. Right? Like, let me just go on record and say the Bible says God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. So if He healed two thousand years ago, He can still heal today. It's His prerogative. He can heal who He wants to heal. He can decide not to heal who He wants to heal.
I'm not questioning whether God can do and does do what He does. I'm questioning whether there are specific people who have the ability to go heal anyone they want to at any time.
Eric Huffman: Like the apostles did.
Allen Parr: Yes. That's where I'm saying I don't see that gift.
Eric Huffman: I hear you. I appreciate that clarity. I think you'll be glad you cleared that up so you can save yourself some comments. But I hear I hear you loud and clear. Let's talk about the problem or issues with the spiritual gift of prophecy in our day and age. This is one that's gotten kinda wild.
If you're not in the church world, you may not even be aware. We have biblical prophecy, which biblical prophets, their role was pretty clear as being... people often think they were like fortune tellers and future casters. They were really truth-tellers, mouthpieces for God and His servants, and they were often killed for doing what they did. And then we have modern-day prophets and prophetic words. What are you seeing on this front and sort of the abuses or misuses of this gift?
Allen Parr: Yeah. Yeah. This one is huge. This one is huge. It's unfortunately... I guess you could call it a gift. I've seen this experience mislead many, many people. So if you have a pastor... I even have a very close family member who married someone because their pastor said they heard from God that they were supposed to get married. It was a total disaster.
This particular young lady should never have married this guy. He wasn't responsible. He wasn't spiritually mature. He ended up abusing her. We all saw it as a family and told her not to marry him because he had no fruit that he should... you know, that it would warrant him to be the type of husband that she needed.
But because she went to a church where she trusted her pastor heard from God, and her pastor said "God told me", the good old famous three words, God told me that you should marry him, she trusted him and she married him, and it was a total nightmare.
This is where I feel like the gift can be misused when... I'll just say it this way. I think Christians need to be extremely careful saying the words "God told me". I think we need to be very careful with those three words because when we look at Deuteronomy and we see that God punished false prophets in the Old Testament by stoning them, right, it makes it very clear that God takes it very seriously when we say God said this or God said that. Just like I would. If you said Allen Parr said something, I'd be upset, right, if I didn't say it. You know, we have to be understanding of that.
So where I land with this is, do I believe that God can speak through other people to us? Absolutely, I do. Of course, I do. But I also I would hope that what God is speaking to me is confirmed in scripture, first and foremost. Because here's the thing. If it's not, then let's be all honest about this, I have no way of confirming what you're saying is really from God. I don't.
If you say to me, Hey, God showed me that you should start a knitting… I don't know, a crocheting business next year, am I supposed to just say, well, because god told you that, I'm supposed to do it? How do I know for sure before I rearrange my entire life to do what you said God said, how do I know for sure that God said that unless it's backed up in the word?
Now, here's where I think a prophetic word, or whatever you wanna call it, can come in. If I'm out to dinner with my wife and let's say we're out there, we're out there, we double date or something, and I'm speaking to my wife in a real negative condescending tone or something like that, and you pull me aside and you say, hey, brother, God spoke to me about how you're talking to your wife. God spoke to me about coming to you and telling you you need to use a loving tone, you need to ask her to forgive you because if you go down this path, it's gonna create some negative situation. To me, that's biblical because you spoke a word into my life and I should receive that.
Eric Huffman: And the word comes from the word. You don't even have to hear a supernatural voice from heaven. Just read your Bible, and there's your word from God to tell your buddy to be kind and gentle with His wife.
Allen Parr: Exactly.
Eric Huffman: And so you don't need to get outside the lines. But you know, the pastor that told your... who was it? Your-
Allen Parr: It's a family member.
Eric Huffman: The family member to marry this guy, there's no chapter and verse you point to and go, well, this is where the word comes from. And I just think getting out outside the Bible with these prophetic words is one of the ways it goes wrong. There's such implied authority that comes along with it. And the most vulnerable... people in congregations fall prey to this the most because, like you said, how are they supposed to know any better in these environments?
It feels to me like a lot of these prophetic word ministries feel like power grabs and influence and there's some greed in it as well. It really gets under my skin. And I think it's another thing that we need to be sort of have our eyes open to and be aware of.
Man, it feels like we're talking about a lot of things going wrong in the church and things people have to be wary of in the church. As we wind down, why don't you share something you are hopeful about that you're seeing in the church today, something that gives you some hope?
Allen Parr: Yeah. Well, I'll say this. You know, I know a lot of people who claim to be Christians, and I'm sure they are Christians, genuine Christians, but they say, well, I don't have any need for church. I love Jesus, but I don't I don't love church. And to them, I would kindly say, and want to challenge you to reconsider that statement or that position because the Bible describes the church as the bride of Christ, right? The bride of Christ.
So if someone were to come to me and say, hey, Allen, I wanna hang out with you, I love you, but I don't like your wife, Jennifer, I have no use for her at all, I would feel some kind of way about that. Right? And so I think that Jesus feels certain kind of way when we say, Jesus, I love you, but I don't love the church.
I am a big proponent of the church. I grew up in church. I've served on staff at churches. My wife and I are very active in our church. We're active in small groups. So I think that there are some amazing benefits of church, of accountability, community, people helping you whenever you need help, corporate worship, Bible studies. Although, you know, a lot of times that's a thing of the past for a lot of churches. It's kinda been-
Eric Huffman: What practical advice would you give to people who are wondering if they're in the right church or people that are new believers or returning believers that are looking for a church to dig into? Like, what sorts of things would you look for, and what kinds of things would you warn against?
Allen Parr: Well, I would, first of all, say that there's no perfect church. So if you're looking for a church that's absolutely perfect, in other words, you can check every box, perfect worship every Sunday, perfect messages, great children's ministry, great singles ministry, all these things, you're gonna probably have to concede on some things. But the question is "what"? Right?
So I would not concede on sound theology. But if you're a younger Christian, you may not even know what that is. But I wouldn't concede on that. I wouldn't concede on children's ministry. You know, if you have children, that's important.
I wouldn't concede on certain practices going on in the church. So if you see a lot of things that are out of order, like the pastor saying, Hey, I want everybody in here to pray in their prayer language right now. Well, the bible says that there should only be two or three people if they are praying in tongues doing it. And then there should be interpretation and each person should take a turn. 1 Corinthians 14.
So when you start to see these things that I saw in my college church, things that are happening out of order-
Eric Huffman: There's chaos in worship.
Allen Parr: Chaos, confusion, things like that. Those are things that-
Eric Huffman: What about music? Do you have any concerns about music these days in church?
Allen Parr: How much time we got?
Eric Huffman: Not much. I know. We got about minutes.
Allen Parr: I do have a lot of concerns about music, because a lot of times people were memorized... They were member music and the words of songs more than they will the sermon. And people don't realize that there's a lot of theology that's being taught in worship. We go throughout our week, we start singing, oh, you know, start singing songs. We don't even realize we're just singing because we heard it in church or we're listening to it, but we might forget the sermon.
So my biggest thing to keep it short is that I just hope that every worship leader would understand that every song is really a sermon. Every song is an opportunity to present God in the right way or to present Him in a way that's not accurate to who He says He is. So we need to make sure our music is theologically sound.
And one quick final thing, it's okay to create an environment where people express themselves in worship, and we let the spirit of God move in that place. I think there's a lot of churches that are very conservative, that are so afraid of being considered charismatic, that they quench any move of the spirit whatsoever because they're like, oh, we have to just sing three songs, and we're done. Fifteen minutes. And it's like, wait. Let the spirit move. But there's no time for that in church today.
Eric Huffman: Quenching the spirit is, you know, every bit the sin that taking advantage of people through the spirit, quote-unquote, “the spirit” might be in some charismatic movements. I'm okay going a couple minutes over. Are you?
Allen Parr: Yeah. I am.
Eric Huffman: Just a few minutes.
Allen Parr: I'm good.
Eric Huffman: You've talked a lot about some of the trends in modern Christian worship music and some of the troubling things you've seen. In particular, I mean, just to name names, kinda out of the Bethel movement and its corollaries. What troubles you about some of what you've seen from those outlets?
Allen Parr: What's troubling is that some of the theology that we've discussed today is being interwoven in the theology of the music. Now, here's the thing that's so interesting is that if I'm going to go on record and say probably 95% of their songs are theologically sound. And I'll be honest with you. I'm just going to be honest. I know some people might have a problem with this. I listen to a lot of their music. I listen to Hillsong. I listen to Elevation. I listen to Bethel. I know some people are gonna be angry with me. That's fine. I have no problem with that because-
Eric Huffman: I do too.
Allen Parr: I do. I love some of the songs. I base every song individually, not based on who created it or who wrote it or what church it came from. I look at the song, the theology of it, and am I spiritually fed by that song?
But, unfortunately, there are enough songs that these churches are putting out that are theologically inaccurate and that communicate the speaking into existence and speaking, you know, things, and I have authority, God's given us the authority and all this stuff that can be problematic.
Eric Huffman: I hate to put you on the spot with this, but can you think of a song that fits that description, like, that troubles you in popular modern worship?
Allen Parr: Yeah. I think I did a video a couple years ago on this song called, Champion. Champion by Bethel. Let me see real quick.
Eric Huffman: You're not hurting my feelings? I don't think I've sung this one.
Allen Parr: Yeah. Because it's been a while, but let me just pull up a couple lyrics. Here it is. It talks about... there's this passage here. "When I lift my voice and shout, every wall comes crashing down." So I'm asking myself when I'm reading that, I'm listening. I'm like, what do you mean by that? Really, seriously, like, we have to get to the point as Christians, what are we singing? What do we mean when I lift my voice and shout, every wall comes crashing down? Are we talking about the wall of poverty, the wall of overeating, the wall of depression, the wall of anxiety?
Eric Huffman: It's sneaky.
Allen Parr: It's very sneaky. And then it says, I have the authority Jesus has given me. Okay, I agree. Jesus had given us the authority, no problem. But then it says this, "When I open my mouth, miracles start breaking out. I have the authority Jesus has given me. When I open up my mouth, miracles start breaking out." That is very troubling to me. So now I have the authority that Jesus has so when I open up my mouth, miracles start breaking out. See, that's what I'm talking about.
Eric Huffman: No. I am the center of the song. It's all about singing about me. Like like, God, I just want you to know how great I am. I mean, thanks to you, but I'm great. That's just not the point of Christian worship music. But if it slaps, like my kids say, I probably wouldn't even notice it in the service. If it really sounds good, you know, it would go right behind me.
Allen Parr: No. I remember being in a worship service and they were singing this at a conference that I was speaking at. And I remember hearing it, and that's what gave me the inspiration to create this video that has kinda gone viral on YouTube because I said, Man, am I the only person in here that's uncomfortable singing this phrase or the song?
Eric Huffman: I think the big picture, the big message of it all, if you're listening and we're making you anxious, don't be anxious. Just be discerning.
Allen Parr: Yes. Exactly.
Eric Huffman: That's another gift of the spirit actually is the gift of discernment. And he can help you discern right from wrong and good from evil and good teaching from... and sound doctrine from, you know, the stuff that's off base. So I think that's a good summary of what you're saying.
There's one last question I wanted to ask you just based on your experience as a young adult who wasn't married for quite some time. You stayed single for a long time. I know we have a lot of single people at my church, single people that watch this channel, and that's a particular challenge these days for a lot of reasons. What would you say to them just pastorally or as a teacher of the word? Like, what would your word of encouragement or advice be to adult single Christians that are trying to stay faithful in the world they're living in?
Allen Parr: Yeah. I'll say something that was communicated to me. The only thing worse than waiting is later on wishing that you had. I'll say that again. The only thing worse than waiting is later on wishing that you had.
Eric Huffman: Wow.
Allen Parr: I remember when I was single, I thought that the worst thing in the world was waiting to be married. I really did. I thought that was just the most frustrating experience, especially if you're single and celibate. You're trying to really honor God with your body, and you're trying to do things the right way. And it was so frustrating.
It's very tempting to want to settle because you're getting older, you feel like, hey, I've got to make this happen and you just feel like, hey, let me just choose someone. I'm being too picky. I'm looking for the perfect person. Let me just settle. Unfortunately, you have a lot of people who are if they do settle, they're settling in the wrong areas. Like, they're settling in terms of spiritual companionship.
You can settle in terms of what does he make? 6 figures? Or does he make 50,000? Okay, you settle for that. If he wants a hundred thousand, but he make 50. Okay, settle, if he's a great guy. But don't settle if he says, I'm spiritual, but I'm not a Christian. Oh, that's good enough for me. You know?
Eric Huffman: He's six-five and spiritual, but not a Christian. Yeah, no, get you a five-six boy that loves Jesus.
Allen Parr: There you go. That's my advice. You have a lot better life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just don't settle. Be patient. Honor God. The last thing I'll say is, take that time as a single person to prepare yourself as best you can. Because when you do end up meeting the right person, if that is what God has for you, you wanna be able to present the best version of yourself to that person.
Eric Huffman: Amen. And you waited a long time to get married. How old were you?
Allen Parr: 40. I got married on my 40th birthday.
Eric Huffman: Really?
Allen Parr: 11/15/2015 is our anniversary and my birthday.
Eric Huffman: Ten years is coming up, man. Better get ready.
Allen Parr: Ten years is coming up this year. Yeah.
Eric Huffman: Oh, congratulations.
Allen Parr: Thank you.
Eric Huffman: All right. Allen Parr, thank you so much for the time today and giving us more time than we asked for. I really am grateful. I hope everybody was blessed by this conversation. I encourage everybody to check out Allen Parr's YouTube channel and also his book, Misled: Seven Lies That Distort the Gospel and How You Can Discern the Truth. His YouTube channel, by the way, is called The Beat. So be sure and check it out. Allen, thank you, brother. God bless you and your ministry.
Allen Parr: Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it. I had a great time.
Eric Huffman: Me too.