the Spirit Watch


Monte Kim Miller - Millenium Madness And Accountability


by Bill Honsberger

NOTE: Regrettably, in the past few weeks, a local Tennessee Valley paper called the Bradley Weekly has published the recent mass e-mailings of one Monte Kim Miller, who believes himself to be the exclusive end-time prophet for God and who is seeking new converts for his movement called "Concerned Christians" that originated in Denver, Colorado. While we support the principle of free speech, we don't believe it necessitates the repetition of the kind of clearly imbalanced and self-exalting rhetoric that Miller's e-mailings are filled with. The fanaticism in these e-mailings is even more evidence of his cultic mindset, which has tragically resulted in the destruction of families and disruption of many lives as a direct result of heeding Miller's teachings.  We offer this 1999 article about Miller and his questionable history, written by Coloradan countercult missionary Bill Honsberger of Haven Ministries, as a cautionary response to the local publication of Miller's e-mailings (our thanks to Bill for permission to post this article). It first appeared in a 1999 newsletter published by the Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR) coalition, a ministerial fellowshp that Haven Ministries and our TVBSA ministry are members of.

Back in the closing years of the 1990's, when the hype and frenzy about Millenium-doom saying was at its' height, the media was ablaze with the story of the "Concerned Christians," who fled the country in late September of 1998 making their way to Israel, where their "prophet"  Kim Miller predicts he will die on the streets of Jerusalem as one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11. After their expulsion from Israel for allegedly plotting terrorist acts, recent media reports now place the group in Greece, possibly making plans to move back to Israel.

While much attention has been paid to the aberrant theology and predictions of the group and its leader, far less has been given to the fact that thirteen years ago, Kim Miller might have been sharing the podium with us at EMNR functions. Concerned Christians was originally a group of people who were "concerned" with the rising influence of the New Age thinking in the country. This was a time when Shirley MacClaine was on the cover of Time magazine, B. Dalton had declared that New Age books were the top selling books in their stores, and the media had "discovered" the entire phenomenon of growing paganism within America's borders,

It is important to note that one of the issues about the New Age that Kim spoke out against was channeling, the practice of supposedly allowing spirits from another dimension, or from the past, to speak through a human medium or channeler. The reason this is important is critical to understanding the theology of the "Concerned Christians." For the past four-and-one-half years Kim has channeled God the Father. He claims that when he speaks, it literally is God. The members do not have prayer meetings, they do not have praise and worship times, they just talk to Kim. How could this happen?

I believe there are some signs as to what went wrong and how to prevent this from happening again.

First, Kim is a poster child for what the Apostle Paul says about church leadership, in I Timothy 3:6, that the person in leadership must not be "a new convert, lest He become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil." Having met Kim twice, I can honestly say he is the most arrogant person I have ever met. When asked when he became a Christian, he told us that it was around 1983-1984. But by 1985 he was speaking as an "expert" in some of the biggest churches in the Denver area. Pride can and will seduce us all if we do not stay focused on the Lord, and lose track of our own inability without the Lord.

Secondly, the faith is taught from generation to generation, it does not come out of a vacuum. In 2 Timothy 2:2 Paul says, "[A]nd the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also."  When I asked Kim where he had been taught, he declared to us that he had been taught by no man, but by God Himself. Again the Apostle enjoins faithful people to pass down what they had been taught, with the obvious waming being that messages that come from other sources, outside of the apostolic teachings, are suspect at best.

Third, Kim directly contradicts numerous biblical injunctions, by telling people God told him he didn't have to pay his bills, that it was ok to lie, that he was not supposed to discipline his son, etc. When pressed on these issues, he responds, "You can't put God in a box."

Malachi 3:6 tells me God does not change. With the clear contradiction between Biblical teaching on God's immutability (His unchanging nature) and Kim's changing concept of deity, we are faced with the choice that either Kim is wrong or that God is schizophrenic. As Kim has contradicted sound doctrine, we are left with a spiritual leader not grounded in the faith.

Fourth, we are called in 1 John 4:1 to "test the spirits." Why? Because there are liars out there and we must take that seriously. But ours is a day and age when the church closely follows the postmodern sensibilities of the surrounding culture. ("we must tolerate all points of view"), and discernment is considered a swear word. God's people must be willing to speak the truth in love, no matter who is offended.

Finally, we must be willing to be accountable. The Lone Wolf apologist is feared by the church, and with some good reason. Instead each of us should have a group of people, who owe us nothing, who can look us in the eye and say, "My brother you are wrong!"  The lack of this is not only apparent in Kim's life, but also in too many other infamous situations, and it has left an ugly legacy in the church.

Let us pray that this lesson from our own ranks awake in us a healthy fear of the Lord, that we would be found faithful until the end (Proverb 1:7).

Bill Honsberger is director of Haven Ministries, a missionary outreach to New Age and New Spiritualities and is also an EMNR board member. E-mail Bill by clicking here


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