Strange Fire

Strange Fire, by Eric Wright ★★★★
This book, written by a Baptist missionary to the Muslim world for 16 years, now a preacher in the Toronto area, writes an in-depth critical review of the Vineyard movement and Toronto blessing. As you might be aware, the Vineyard movement, started by John Wimber in the early 1980s, attempted to resurrect the “signs and wonders” of the early church into today’s church. The Toronto Airport church went a little further in manifesting extreme physical signs, such as being “slain in the Spirit”, making animal sounds like barking like a God, or laughing hysterically for hours at a time, all during the typical worship service. Wright does an excellent job of reviewing the splits in the Vineyard movement, the total absence of focus on Scripture, and the essential non-Scriptural basis for this movement. It is a must-read, though a touch long and often repetitive, of this dangerous movement in the Christian church.