# How To Recognize a NAR Church (Jed Hartley) > [!question] Lingering Questions > - The Vance Boelter case study asserts a "direct connection" (removed sermon transcripts remembered secondhand, a family-connected institutional link through a Zimbabwe farm) that the hosts themselves can't fully source — needs primary-source verification (news archives, court records, archived sermon audio) before repeating as fact. > - The source metadata names this episode 665 of *Leaving the Message*, but the host introduces the show on-air as "the William Branham Historical Research Podcast" — likely the same John Collins/william-branham.org production under two distribution names, but unresolved. > - How exactly does "already but not yet" glorification interact with present-tense dominion claims? The episode names the tension but doesn't fully resolve what, if anything, believers can claim about authority now vs. at the resurrection — this is precisely the gap dominionist teaching exploits (see the Heiser theosis episode processed in this same batch). > [!tip] Article Ideas > - "Health before doctrine": a short, non-theological triage guide for someone asking "is my church NAR?" — built entirely from this episode's checklist, explicitly scoped as a first filter, not a verdict. > [!link] Cross Reference > - [[3. Resources/MOCs/NAR and Charismatic Authority Critique MOC]] — primary home for this note > - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Do We Become Gods Theosis (Heiser)]] — Heiser's own present-tense/eschatological-tense diagnostic is the same-shaped tool applied to a different doctrine cluster > [!quote] Vocabulary > - "aligned" / "covering" / "mandate" / "assignment" — the episode's "activation language" glossary: coded signals a group is asserting a private, non-biblical revelation and a personal obligation on the listener > - **prophetic history** — a movement's private, extrabiblical founding-revelation narrative (e.g. IHOP's Kansas City Prophets lineage) whose collapse would, per the hosts, collapse the movement itself — a load-bearing dependency historic Christianity's Gospel-based founding narrative doesn't share ## Metadata - Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/How to Recognize a New Apostolic Reformation Church Jed Hartley Ep 665]] - Author: Jed Hartley (raised in IHOP; guest) and John Collins (host, William Branham Historical Research / Leaving the Message) - Type: podcast/video - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTP6fLABiaU ## Author's thesis Doctrine-first identification of NAR-lineage churches fails because these groups deliberately obscure their lineage under "non-denominational" branding; a structural, network-tracing diagnostic — where authority concentrates, whether the group's existence depends on a private founding narrative, whether it teaches members to see other Christians as spiritually hostile — is faster, harder to obfuscate, and available to someone with zero theological training. ## Key arguments (≤3) 1. **Health before doctrine**: ask first whether authority is distributed (a real eldership) or concentrated in a single "mouthpiece of God" figure — a structural question answerable in one visit, unlike doctrinal genealogy that "can lead you into years of trying to untangle that mess." 2. **A load-bearing prophetic history is the doctrinal engine**: IHOP's dependency on the Kansas City Prophets narrative (centered on the late Bob Jones) is generalized into a diagnostic — any group whose continued existence depends on an extrabiblical apostolic/prophetic origin story has created something distinct from historic Christianity, whose founding narrative isn't a private in-group revelation. 3. **Follow the network, not the doctrine, when labels are ambiguous**: even a textbook case (Pasadena IHOP, undisguised name and lineage) evaded easy identification via Reddit and an AI chatbot — evidence the obfuscation strategy works even against motivated fact-checkers, so tracing funding/personnel/shared-training connections is the more reliable method. ## Claim atoms ### Health test beats doctrine test for spotting authoritarian churches > [!quote] ID:rw_btp6flabiau_h1 > Is this a church that takes the people in the congregation and tells them we're all equals. John Collins's stated primary diagnostic method — the episode's most exportable, non-doctrinal heuristic, applicable without theological training and harder for a group to obscure through relabeling than a statement-of-faith check. [~21:52] ### Loaded words like "aligned" and "covering" signal a private revelation claim > [!quote] ID:rw_btp6flabiau_h2 > A New Apostolic Reformation church is going to say, you must be properly aligned to belong with us. A practical listening test ("just listen to the sermons") a newcomer can apply on a single visit. [~37:54] ### Trace institutional networks, not doctrine, when labels are ambiguous > [!quote] ID:rw_btp6flabiau_h3 > If it's trying to spread and grow like a virus, it's probably New Apostolic Reformation if you combine it with all of the other things Collins's closing methodological thesis — but see the Vance Boelter application of this rule under Lingering Questions above; the weakest-sourced part of the transcript. [~57:05] ## Permanent candidates - **Authority concentration, not doctrine content, is the fastest high-control-group tell** — checking where authority is concentrated (distributed eldership vs. a single mouthpiece figure) before looking at stated doctrine, because structure is observable in one visit and doctrine-matching against a deliberately ambiguous target can eat weeks. Promoted below. ## Processing checklist - [x] Verify no existing Literature Note covers this doc (checked, none found) - [x] Extract claim atoms and permanent candidate from the existing deep-read - [ ] Verify the Vance Boelter/Kansas City Fellowship Zimbabwe-farm claim against primary sources before treating it as established - [x] Connect into the relevant MOC — [[3. Resources/MOCs/NAR and Charismatic Authority Critique MOC]] ## Links - [[3. Resources/MOCs/NAR and Charismatic Authority Critique MOC]] — primary home; a structural, non-doctrinal diagnostic for NAR-lineage churches