Rodney Howard-Browne came to this country from South Africa and brought the Anointing with him. He began speaking at various churches where he dispensed it like alcohol, calling himself ''God's Bartender'' while enthusiastically encouraging spiritual drunkenness.

Randy Clark, a Vineyard pastor, received the Anointing from Howard-Browne at Kenneth Hagin's Rhema church. Clark then brought the Anointing to the Toronto Vineyard church and imparted it to the pastor, John Arnott. The Toronto church then dedicated itself to spreading the Anointing, and thus it became dubbed ''The Toronto Blessing.''

Tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world, including a large proportion of pastors and church leaders of all denominations, have now traveled to Toronto to receive the Anointing and take it back to their home churches, where they distribute it to all they can.

John Arnott laid hands on Sandy Millar of Holy Trinity Church, in Brompton, England, who laid hands on Steve Hill, who laid hands on pastor John Kilpatrick.

Hill and Kilpatrick are of the Brownsville Assembly of God, Pensacola, FL. (Kilpatrick's wife had also traveled to Toronto and had hands laid on her by John Arnott.) As at Toronto, the Brownsville church then dedicated itself to dispensing the Anointing. Thus began the so-called ''Pensacola Outpouring'' which has drawn 2 million or more visitors since its beginning on June 18, 1995, who, likewise, come to receive the Anointing and take it back with them to impart to others. They call this process ''cross-pollination'' - like bees go out and pick up pollen, they 'pick up' the Anointing and carry it back to their 'hives.'

The Anointing is spreading through the church like a virus out of control. I recently read of a principal of a Christian school who visited Pensacola, brought the Anointing back, and was holding special assemblies to impart it to as many students as could be coerced into receiving it.

Every single person who receives the Toronto Blessing can trace it back to Rodney Howard-Browne and Kenneth Hagin's ''Rhema'' (Word-Faith) church.

Howard-Browne and Hagin are both leaders in the outrageously heretical 'Word of Faith' movement, or Word-Faith for short, better known as the ''health, wealth, and prosperity'' gospel. The Word-Faith movement teaches that we can 'speak things into existence' such as money, possessions, position, if our words are accompanied by enough ''faith'' that they will occur. Our Words + Our Faith = Results.

They teach that if we speak things with enough faith, God is obligated to grant our desires, and that this is a ''law of faith'' that can be accessed by anyone, including non-believers. And, they teach the reverse also - the Almighty God cannot help us until we speak.

They also teach that Jesus and the disciples were rich, that believers are equal to Jesus Christ, that Jesus was not God when He was on earth, that His death on the cross was not sufficient to redeem us- His shed blood did NOT cleanse us from our sins, but rather, He had to go to Hell and be tortured by Satan and the demons in order to earn our redemption! (Please see Heb 10:29) ...and many other blasphemous and bizarre beliefs.

The fact that must be faced is that the spirit of the Toronto Blessing came forth out of this spiritual environment. Receivers of the Toronto Blessing may not be aware of or accept its heresies, but they are inviting the spiritual power identified with the Word-Faith movement into themselves when they receive the Impartation.  (20)