“So today, I am officially installing Pastor Brad and Pastor Rachel as the senior pastors of over City of Destiny. Everybody stand up on your feet, because this is God’s plan. I am moving to what I call oversight pastor, but let me explain that. That is apostolic, but I just haven’t embraced the title, though. … But as apostolic overseer of City of Destiny, today officially, it’s all been done legally, officially, we are City of Destiny. Welcome to your new beginning.”
(JD Hall – Pulpit & Pen) Paula White Cain, the thrice-married minister and former mistress of Benny Hinn, has pronounced herself to be an Apostle of Christ and installed her son as the new pastor of her church. While her son is the new lead pastor, White will serve as an “oversight pastor.”
Women, according to the Bible, shouldn’t be pastors at all. But while female pastors are not altogether rare in Pentecostal churches, having “Apostles” is a rather new phenomenon, associated with the New Apostolic Reformation(NAR). Some charismatic apologists, like Michael Brown, deny that NAR exists, in spite of high-profile figures like White declaring themselves Apostles.
NAR, although it also goes by other names, is a recent teaching in charismatic circles that the office of the Apostolate has been revived in latter times and Apostles walk the earth now just like in the days of the 1st Century church. It is closely associated with the prosperity gospel and Dominionism, the belief that God requires Christians to take over the “seven mountains of culture” to hasten Jesus’ return to Earth.
Research