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Is God Saying What James Ryle Is Saying?

by Carl Widrig Jr.

Hippo in the Garden, by James Ryle (Creation House, 1993)
A Dream Come True, by James Ryle (Creation House, 1995)

James Ryle has been the Pastor of the Boulder Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship since 1984. He has also been the Chaplain of the University of Colorado football team, where he met Coach Bill McCartney, who soon became the Founder of Promise Keepers (PK). Bill McCartney now sits under James Ryle's teaching at the Boulder Valley Vineyard, as does the President of Promise Keepers, Randy Phillips. Ryle himself is/was/is on the Board of Directors of Promise Keepers, and is a featured speaker at PK men's conferences. Ryle also travels throughout the States to speak at other Vineyard meetings and conferences, is on the ministry team of James Robison's Life Outreach International, is a frequent guest on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, and writes articles for Charisma and Ministries Today magazines.

Ryle also wrote a book that was published in 1993 titled Hippo in the Garden, named after a dream that Ryle had in the autumn of 1989.¹ Ryle supplemented Hippo in 1995 with his second book, A Dream Come True. This second book is advertised on page 51 of the Nov./Dec. 1995 issue of New Man magazine, the chief organ for Promise Keepers.

As the reader might have guessed at this point, both of Ryle's books have a lot to do with dreams, especially dreams that he claims are communication from God to himself and other Christians today. Ryle's overall thesis in both books is that God (seemingly) frequently speaks to Christians today, but not only via Creation (cf. Psalm 19), conscience (cf. Rom. 2:15), and in the Bible (interpreted according to it's grammatical-historical context). Ryle doesn't want his readers to miss any "divine revelation" that may come their way, wherein "God speaks" through Scripture (beyond the context²), not to mention in a "still, small voice," and through dreams, visions, and "Prophetic Ministry" (modern-day apostles and prophets) today. According to Ryle, the issue is not if Christians today should expect God to speak "in every circumstance of life,"³ but rather, are Christians today willing to "get past the barriers of unbelief" and listen to what "God is saying."⁴

Let the reader consider that James Ryle has had ample opportunity to "touch" many lives through his "ministry" to the Body of Christ, and it is likely that many more lives will be "touched" via Ryle in the future (especially via Promise Keepers). Surely many new/undiscerning believers that qualify as "children" in the Eph. 4:14 sense are among those that have been and will be exposed to the words of James Ryle. Thus, as the Bereans did with the teachings of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17:11, it behooves the Body of Christ, out of care for itself (cf. Eph. 4:16), to take a serious look in the light of Scripture at just what James Ryle is teaching so as to see whether the things he says are so. Apparently, many critics have done just this with Ryle's teachings in the past, as evidenced in Ryle's invocation in the Preface to A Dream Come True: "May this book ... pacify the critics."⁵

In light of this invocation from Ryle, one of the most striking aspects of Ryle's books is that they both contain many biblical-sounding guidelines⁶ by which to discern extra-biblical revelation truth from error. Ryle acknowledges that the "hide and seek"⁷ "hunt"⁸ he is sending his readers on to seek extra-biblical-context revelation from God⁹ could potentially land the reader in deception. One would thus assume that Ryle has followed his own, supposedly fool-proof guidelines of discernment with respect to his own experiences with extra-biblical-context "revelation" -- such would surely pacify his critics.

As if to assure his readers that he has indeed followed his own guidelines of discernment, Ryle himself tells his readers, "The bottom line is -- don't follow those who lead you away from God -- even if they have credentials which make them seem godly."¹⁰ Ryle goes on to say regarding Mormonism, "Certainly it has some truth within it; otherwise no self-respecting person would have anything to do with it at all."¹¹ The question for us today therefore is this: Is James Ryle leading Christians away from the God who inspired the Scriptures despite the fact that one may find some truth in what Ryle is saying?

A Normative Experience?

The truth is that one may find some truth in what Ryle is saying. It is true that God did speak by the prophets to Israel at various times and in diverse ways (Heb. 1:1), ways including a still, small voice (1Kings 19:12), dreams, and visions. God also spoke through His Son Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:2), as well as through Christ's apostles and prophets, all of which make up the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20). We also know that much of the revelation that God gave the Old Testament prophets, as well as many of the words of Jesus Christ Himself, and the revelation He gave to His apostles and prophets of the Church, are recorded and preserved to this day in God's breathed/authoritative Scriptures (2Tim. 3:16, 2Pet. 1:20-21), the Bible. God spoke in various ways and at various times during Biblical times, but should we expect that today is one of those times that God is giving additional, extra-biblical revelation to His Church?

James Ryle answers this question with a resounding "yes" on page 151 of his A Dream Come True. He then presents his proof in Chapter 8 titled, "Two Thousand Years of Dreams and Visions," "cautiously"¹² citing extra-biblical, post-apostolic experiential claims of those the reader might respect (people like Augustine's mother, Saint Patrick, and Charles Spurgeon). One thing that is notably absent from Ryle's proof, however, is evidence that suggests that a Christian today should expect God to speak to them on a normative basis, "normative" per the voluminous frequency in Ryle's own claimed experience.

Did people in the Bible even, especially the major prophets and apostles we read of in the Bible, experience extra-biblical revelation from God nearly as frequently as Ryle claims a Christian should expect to be their own experience today (as exemplified in Ryle's own claimed experience)? Considering the fact that Ryle credits his meeting of Wimber & Co. (circa March 1984) as an event that was to have a lasting impact on his personal life and direction in ministry,¹³ we might wonder if Ryle's perception¹⁴ of "God's voice" has been formed not by merely observing experiences in the Bible and then developing an expectation based on the Bible,¹⁵ but by some other, extra-biblical worldview inherited from John Wimber, head of the Vineyard Movement (noted for being on the cutting edge of signs and wonders manifestations), that perhaps might lead one to expect the extraordinary to be ordinary/normal:

So we do not see or notice everything we look at; we have selective perception. In the New Testament, dreams and visions are one of the means of communication that God uses in speaking to his people. They are even described as a normal part of the Christian life. Peter, quoting from Joel's prophesy, promised that the day had arrived when `your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams' (Acts 2:17). Yet how often do Western evangelicals today report dreams and visions? Is it because God is not revealing himself in this fashion, or because a blind spot in our worldview prevents us from seeing what God is doing?¹⁶

A few questions need to be asked here. First of all, how often in the New Testament did God communicate via dreams and visions? So much so that it could be said that it was "a normal part of the Christian life", as "normal" as it seems to be with, say, James Ryle for example? And what of Wimber's quote regarding Joel's prophesy in Acts 2:17? If the day had arrived when `your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams', as Wimber seems to be saying, how come a reading of the book of Acts suggests that dreams and visions weren't "a normal part of the Christian life" after all? Wimber also asks the question, "how often do Western evangelicals today report dreams and visions?", and then offers only two choices: all, or nothing, the "black-or-white" logical fallacy in action:

Some Christians believe that more subjective expressions of God's communication open the door to emotional or, far more significantly, satanic deception. Fearing the worst, they retreat to the position that the Bible is the sole source of revelation today. (Their position is not that God could not speak today in these ways, but that he has chosen not to)."¹⁷

Here again, as if to force his readers to take his position, Wimber is not acknowledging that there is another possible choice besides all or nothing: God could and possibly does rarely speak in extra-Biblical ways today as He did in Biblical times.

Displaying Wimber's worldview in action, Ryle writes the following:

A few of our less illustrious seminary professors have molded the minds of zealous young ministers with their own biased traditions... so that dreams and visions, along with other miraculous phenomena, are no longer regarded with any measure of credence. ...If the Bible teaches about something that is not normative to our lives, we are to turn to the Lord and seek His grace in changing our lives to the norm of Scripture. ...When the Bible speaks of dreams and visions, it is not for us to say that they no longer occur simply because we ourselves do not experience them."¹⁸

Here Ryle picks on "our less illustrious (undoubtedly "Western") seminary professors and parrots the same all-or-nothing fallacy and the same "normative" expectation as Wimber does, irregardless of what the Bible actually indicates is "normative." Ryle speaks truth when he says, "If the Bible teaches about something that is not normative to our lives, we are to turn to the Lord and seek His grace in changing our lives to the norm of Scripture," but are dreams and visions from God to be expected on a "normative" basis?

Latter Rain Cult Theology

Several times in his writings, Ryle even points to the same passage of Scripture as Wimber does to justify this normative expectation. For example, Ryle writes,

So it cannot be said that all dreams are from God, but some most surely are. Keep in mind that our basic belief is that God will pour out His Spirit in the last days upon all people... that young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams ...we are surely in the last days. We have been since the day of Pentecost.¹⁹

This "dreams and visions" normative ("some") expectation that Wimber and Ryle are lifting out of the context of Acts 2 must be examined in context, especially since it does not seem from the historical accounts we have in the New Testament that the adjective "normative" accurately describes the actual experience of the early Church following the Day of Pentecost. Yet Wimber and Ryle have already committed to the position that whatever Peter was saying (in his quoting of Joel 2) was for the first-century Church in Acts 2 is the same for "today." Besides the fact that the Apostle Peter only said the "pouring out" itself of the Holy Spirit, spoken of in Joel's prophesy, was happening to the Jewish believers in Acts 2 (cf. Acts 2:33²⁰), a plain reading of this Joel 2 prophesy will reveal that, unlike the Apostle Peter, Wimber and Ryle are engaging in "Latter-Rain"-style²¹ "Replacement Theology"²² in their interpretation and application of Joel's prophesy, substituting the restoration of "Israel" (that will follow the Day of the Lord and the second Coming of Christ, cf. Acts 3: 20-24, Rom. 11:26-27), with the "restoration" of the end-times, pre-second-Coming "Church," and concluding not only that "dreams and visions" and "prophesy" are to be normative experience in the Church "today,"²³ but also that Peter's quotation of Joel's prophesy in Acts 2 actually implies that the whole prophesy is for the "last-days Church."²⁴

By now it should come as no surprise that Ryle's Autumn 1989 "Hippo" dream from which his first book, Hippo in the Garden, was named, has plenty to do with his expectation for the "last-days Church" as indicated above, leaving one wondering if Ryle's Hippo dream is mere "Latter Rain Theology" in the guise of "a dream." Ryle even likens his "Hippo" to the same Joel 2 prophesy that Peter quoted in Acts 2, and proclaims to the reader with certainty that God will be "returning [restoring] the power of His prophetic word by His Holy Spirit into the churches that (presumptuously) no longer have any place for it."²⁵

Could Promise Keepers be the vehicle by which Ryle, Bill McCartney, and Randy Phillips think "God" will reach these "churches"? Ryle identifies his Hippo in these terms:

A vast prophetic movement inspired by the Holy Spirit within the Church and a validated prophetic message through the church in the midst of the world resulting in an evangelistic ingathering."²⁶

Ryle even calls his Hippo, "God's strange act", a term familiar to anyone who may have heard "Latter Rain"²⁷ "Kansas City Prophet" Paul Cain²⁸ speak on July 6, 1989 at the Vineyard Prophesy II Conference in Anaheim, California, a few months prior to Ryle's dream about a Hippo in the Garden. Paul Cain did say that "God's strange act" is "the Vineyard"²⁹ -- I know -- I was there when he said it. Ryle's Hippo is a spitting image of the "K.C. Prophets"'³⁰ message to the Vineyard just before Ryle had his Hippo dream in the Autumn of 1989 and Promise Keepers was "spawned out of the Vineyard"³¹ a year later.

In closing, a quote from Ryle's, A Dream Come True:³²

I believe that God is raising up a people in these last days who will receive profound insight into the Scriptures in dreams and visions.

What Ryle is doing here is setting up people to expect that someday soon, some Christians who rely solely on the grammatical-historical context of the Scriptures in interpreting the Bible will be left behind when "God" gives others (including Ryle, maybe?) "profound insight into the Scriptures in dreams and visions." These Christians will undoubtedly be told that they are wrong in their interpretation of the Bible because they have not received this new "profound insight."

Watch out, Church! When Ryle rises up claiming "profound insight into the Scriptures in dreams and visions" (as he already has in practice in his books), Paul the Apostle's warning in Acts 20:30 will be manifesting in plain sight:

Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

The whole thing has to leave one wondering if God is really speaking to James Ryle -- one would think that God would surely add a little variety to Ryle's otherwise object-lesson-for-his-ministry/books-dreams, and give James a dream warning him about his mishandling of the Scriptures -- if God is indeed speaking to Ryle as muuch as one would think based on Ryle's own claims. The fact that God apparently has not given Ryle a dream of this sort suggests either that "God" is well-pleased with James Ryle's handling of the Scriptures (as if nothing is amiss), or that the true and living God in fact is not speaking to James Ryle at all; If this is the case, Christians are in unthinkable danger, and we can only pray that God will somehow rescue His true children from the midst of this unthinkable deception.

Endnotes:

1. James Ryle, Hippo in the Garden (Creation House, 1993), 258.

2. Ibid., 84-92.

3. This he assures the reader is a given, despite a later "word of caution" that "it is possible to get carried away with flights of imagination and begin to read something spiritual into everything that happens" (Hippo, 161) -- kind of makes one wonder if Ryle's warnings are sincere, or if he is putting on a show for his critics.

4. Ibid., 48.

5. James Ryle, A Dream Come True (Creation House, 1995), 17.

6. a la John Wimber's, Power Points (Harper Collins, 1991), 54-56.

7. Hippo, 221.

8. Hippo, 245.

9. as if studying God's written word isn't enough of a chore.

10. A Dream, 59.

11. Ibid., 64.

12. Ibid., 124.

13. Hippo, 27.

14. which perception has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in determining the quantity of his perceived experiences.

15. "Thus, God speaks today just as He did then" (A Dream, 138).

16. John Wimber & Kevin Springer, Power Evangelism, Revised Edition (Harper Collins, 1992) , 148-149.

17. John Wimber & Kevin Springer, Power Points (Harper Collins, 1991), 54.

18. A Dream, 137.

19. Hippo, 147-148, 125.

20. note: "tongues" are not indicated in Joel's prophesy.

21. A cult that arose in the 1940's, emphasizing the belief that God was about to give the Church a supposedly James 5:7 "later-rain" double dose of "early-rain" Day of Pentecost "power".

22. A systematic understanding of the Scriptures whereby it is thought that the Church has replaced Israel and is therefore now the subject of all unfulfilled OT prophesy that speaks of "Israel".

23. Yet in order to justify his normative expectation as even greater than the experiences of the "last-days" Church as per Acts, Ryle engages in still more Replacement Theology by quoting Haggai 2:9 (A Dream, p.226) which reads, "The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the former" -- this is "Latter Rain" theology shining through, folks.

24. which is not the absolute trend in all the quotations of OT prophesy in Acts, cf. Acts 13:41, 15:16-17.

25. Hippo, 261.

26. Hippo, 262; in which "evangelistic ingathering" perhaps "the entire world comes to know God's love"? -- see inside dust cover of The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper (Focus on the Family, 1994).

27. cf. transcript of message The Latter Rain, at Toronto Airport Vineyard, 5/28/95, according to Roger Oakland's book, New Wine or Old Deception? (The Word For Today, 1995) 65.

28. According to Ryle, "a man of significant prophetic empowerments from the Spirit of God" (Hippo, 110).

29. Ryle says the Hippo is the Church (Hippo, 292).

30. A group of "prophets" out of Kansas City, MO, who came into the Vineyard in late 1988 with a message that, if we were up to it, God had chosen the Vineyard, God's strange act, to lead the whole Church into the Great End-Times, hospital clearing, nationally televised, stadium filling Revival.

31. Ryle claimed this during an interview with Scott Raab about Promise Keepers, "Triumph of His Will," Gentleman's Quartlerly (GQ), Jan. 1996, p. 129.

32. A Dream, 229.