Говард Браун: Өмір жолы мен рухани қызметі

South African preacher (born 1961)

Howard Browne and his three brothers (Mervyn, Bazil, and Gil) were raised in a Pentecostal family in the cities of Port Elizabeth and East London, South Africa. His father, Frank Mervyn Derric Howard Browne (1924–2005), was a cleric. Howard Browne became a Christian at age five. In the 1980s, he volunteered to work for Youth for Christ before doing a teaching stint with Rhema Bible School in Johannesburg. In December 1989, the family emigrated from South Africa to the United States, Howard Browne opened his first U. S. church in Clifton Park, New York, in April 1989. In 1991, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky where he began holding revival meetings. The Rodney Howard Browne Evangelistic Association was incorporated in November 1993 and the family moved to the Tampa Bay, Florida area in 1994. Rodney's eldest brother Gil Likewise, his youngest brother Bazil established an eponymous evangelical ministry on 1 January 1994 with the professed aim of people achieving financial freedom through the special anointing of God. Prior to this he had worked alongside his brother Rodney for a year. In 1996, Howard Browne founded a church he named "The River" at Tampa Bay Church in Tampa, Florida, serving as its pastor ever since. Howard Browne and his wife also founded Revival Ministries International in 1997, as well as River Bible Institute and River School of Worship. Howard Browne's services are characterized by laying on of hands with worshipers giggling in apparent spiritual drunkenness, speaking in tongues, breaking into uncontrollable holy laughter, shaking, dancing in the aisles, or falling to the ground. He refers to himself as "God's bartender" and the "holy ghost bartender". Howard Browne is credited with introducing holy laughter to Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland, Florida during a series of revival services with Karl Strader in 1993. The holy laughter revivals later spread to nearby churches in Melbourne, Titusville, Stuart and Vero Beach, Florida. Howard Browne is credited with bringing holy laughter to the charismatic Toronto Airport Vineyard Church (soon after expelled by its parent Vineyard Church) at a 1994 revival in Toronto, Canada with evangelist Randy Clark, known as the "Toronto Blessing," and then a year later, to Assemblies of God (AOG) Brownsville Church in Pensacola, Florida with evangelist Steve Hill. The event became known in Christian circles as the Brownsville Revival. Howard Browne also ministered under pastor Mike Rose at the Juneau Christian Center (formerly known as the Bethel Assembly of God) in Juneau, Alaska, an AOG church that Sarah Palin later attended after becoming governor of Alaska. Howard Browne first came to national prominence in the US in 1999 when his Revival Ministries organization rented Madison Square Garden in New York City for six weeks. The event, called Good News New York, was described as "an effort to achieve a Billy Graham style faith uprising", but was "derided in local media as a giant flop". It was estimated to cost up to $10 million but only 3,000 people were counted in attendance at the 19,000 seat arena. He then vowed to "to win 100 million souls to Jesus and to put $1 billion into world missions". In 2012, it was reported that Howard Browne's River Church had hosted political meetings for the Florida chapter of the Republican Party during the preceding two years, including a rally for then presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, at which Howard Browne called for a national "rising" of Christian Americans "that will not sit idly by and allow the killing of unborn babies and allow Islam to take over this country". At the same event, he described Mormonism as a "cult" that, in the 19th century, "had death squads that would go around killing everybody that was not a Mormon". He later recanted, saying Mormons were "honourable people". Howard Browne's evangelical movement has been described by some as "a combination of brimstone and fire about God's power, sprinkled with hipster references and a conviction that church—like Disneyland—should be 'the happiest place on earth'." that he is not 'a mass hypnotist, charlatan or a cultist'. Dr. Oropeza (Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Azusa Pacific University and Seminary, Azusa, CA) further states about Howard Browne that "Having read RHB's writings on financial stewardship and prosperity, I have concluded that he does not believe in a prosperity that promotes greed, materialism, or using God as a means to get rich. He denounces ministers who fleece the church through clever gimmicks." In the Special Centennial Edition of The Azusa Street Revival, The Holy Spirit in America, 100 Years, the revival meetings conducted by Howard Browne are compared to the Azusa Street Revival.

Howard Browne claimed to have earned a "doctorate of ministry degree" in 1992 from "The School of Bible Theology", a non accredited Pentecostal correspondence school in San Jacinto, California that has been described as a "diploma mill".

Howard Browne and his wife Adonica were top ranking ("Black Diamond executive level") distributors for Monavie, a multi level marketing company that sold acai berry juice based beverages until folding in 2014 subsequent to a $182 million loan default and allegations of pyramid scheming, fraudulent advertising, and patent infringement. As of 2016, Howard Browne also served as a "North America Emerald Director" for the multi level marketing company Jeunesse.

In July 2017, Howard Browne was one of 17 evangelical pastors who visited the White House to pray for and lay hands on President Donald Trump. In a video several days later, Howard Browne stated that "there is a planned attack on our president and that's all I can tell you about right now; I know what I'm talking about, I've spoken to high ranking people in the government". Howard Browne later said that the Secret Service met with him to discover which congressman told him about the plot but he refused to say, citing pastoral privilege. Howard Browne praised God for giving America a 'Rambo'. In March 2016, Howard Browne wrote a Facebook post titled "Donald Trump Is the New World Order's Worst Nightmare," where he detailed his choice to back Trump in the election as a check against a global conspiracy to destroy America.

In September 2017, Howard Browne received media attention after referring to Hurricane Irma—a category 4 storm that caused the death of fifty people in the United States and Caribbean and resulted in power outages affecting 5.5 million people in Florida—as a "nothingburger". He further stated that "prayer took the teeth out of the storm".

In an October 2017 sermon at The River at Tampa Bay church, Howard Browne alleged that "They sacrifice children at the highest levels in Hollywood. They drink blood of young kids. This is a fact", continuing, "The human sacrifice and the cannibalism has been going on for years" in Hollywood and Washington, D. C.

Howard Browne drew attention for a social media post in November 2017, two days after the Sutherland Springs church shooting, stating that his church was not a gun free zone and that he and the church's pastors "are all heavily armed" and would use "deadly force".

In March 2018, Howard Browne made an appearance on Alex Jones' InfoWars program during which he claimed: that a string of bombings in Austin, Texas were being used by "anarchist terrorists" in an attempt to bring "everything under control"; that churches and religious groups were being censored in the U. S.; and that "globalist gremlins" were attempting to thwart Donald Trump.

On August 27, 2019, Howard Browne delivered a sermon in the Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut as part of a 300 city tour. He preached for over an hour at an Iqaluit church to a mostly Inuit audience of more than 100 people. The event featured a call for donations, including a video of Howard Browne claiming "God loves a generous giver," which Nunatsiaq News criticized on the basis that poverty is widespread in the city and nearly half of Nunavut's population relies on social assistance amidst long standing crises in food security and housing. Several weeks prior, Howard Browne claimed in a video that he would cure Florida of coronavirus, and in a 2019 video he had falsely claimed that he and other worshipers at his church had cleansed Florida of Zika virus. On March 29, 2020, Howard Browne's congregation received a visit from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office warning about his violations of the county's safer at home order, which limited public gatherings to 10 people. Chronister said he had no choice but to take action against Howard Browne, stating "His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week." On March 30, 2020, Howard Browne was arrested and jailed for unlawful assembly and for violating health and safety rules, with each charge carrying a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. On April 1, Howard Browne said that he would not open his church the following weekend over fear of his congregation's safety and to protect them from "government tyranny." However, his lawyer, Mathew Staver of the law firm Liberty Counsel, said that Howard Browne's arrest earlier in the week had led to the pastor's insurance policy being cancelled. Howard Browne also claimed that he had received death threats. The pastor held open the possibility that the church would be open for Easter services but then announced on April 9 that it would instead be closed. Starting in May 2020, he reopened the church as TheStand20.