The obduracy of Apostle David Kriss

“That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done.  So there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

A young man born in 1847 in Scotland became a Presbyterian minister in Australia, where he was known for his hard line stance against sinful living.  At the age of 41 he arrived in Chicago, USA, where allegedly a string of miraculous healing followed his ministry.  John Alexander Dowie was hailed a great man and idolised by many as a Prophet, healer and Restorer.  In June 1901 Dowie declared himself to be ‘Elijah’[1] of the Last Days and the restorer of all things, preparing the way for Christ’s return.  He started wearing High Priestly robes based on the Aaronic garments of Exodus 28.  He bought 6,000 hectares of land outside Chicago and founded Zion City, a place to be based on Christian principles including the absence of doctors.  It was his dream that Zion cities would be established everywhere as his attempt to restore all things.  He died a sick old, wheelchair bound man in financial ruin, still believing that he was the Elijah.

This is a very sad story, yet there is a modern one much like it. David Kriss was a Melbourne based Messianic Jew who called himself a Prophet and Apostle.  He had his own ministry called ‘The Hope of Israel Christian Ministries’.

Kriss had long regarded himself with a prophetic and apostolic call and has claimed to be the end-time Elijah.  His fellowship group are the one true church and all other organisations will have to bow the knee and submit before them.  By November 1995, an edict was issued commanding all members of the group to always wear robes and that when he plants his first church, all would wear robes based on the Aaronic model of Exodus 28.  In 1999 land was purchased in Neerim South, Victoria and Hope Gardens was established in Busselton WA.  Kriss had never heard of John Alexander Dowie before I told him the story.  His response was, “He was the false, I am the real.”

I was a member of his organisation for seven years and held eldership responsibility for a least the last five.  The following exposé is based upon what David Kriss has published, what he has said in the public forum and my own personal knowledge of the inner workings of the group.

His story goes that he was saved in the Independent Baptist Church in 1980, a few years later he was ‘baptised in the Holy Spirit’ and this brought great contention in his church; as a result this his wife left him.  To him all of these hardships were the training for God’s end-time Apostle and Prophet.  He joined some AoG churches in Melbourne and alledgedly his prophetic declarations caused much division.  He started Melbourne’s first Messianic Synagogue in Caulfield and this ended in ignominy.  Kriss became heavily involved in the Branhamite[2] cult for some time and after becoming wary of some of Branham’s extreme teaching he left; however, not before picking up on this idea of the end-time Elijah.  By the early 1990’s Kriss was labelled as pernicious by the AoG leadership and ousted from organisational ties.  Kriss says that this rejection of him by the church was intensely hurtful, however, the only comfort he had was that God had promised to vindicate his name.  A rejection of David Kriss would be a rejection of God himself.

Kriss has allegedly received many prophecies proclaiming his status as a prophet and apostle; indeed he believed that he was the Apostle Paul for this age and the Seraphim amd Cherubim that covers the throne of God.  He also believed that he was THE Prophet and Apostle and all would have to submit to him in due course.  The title of his testimony is: ‘THE Jew who turned to Jesus.’  I recall when I wrote, ‘A Jew who turned to Jesus’.  He rebuked me as he believed that he was the only genuine Jewish believer that there was, hence the necessity of the definite article.

The basic problem with Kriss is his mystical Gnosticism.  In essence Kriss was a New Age mystic who disparaged the authority of Scripture (the teaching of Jesus) by elevating the absolute authority of his ‘spirit guide’.  For example, he believes that God had anointed him High Priest and that he has the ‘Urim and Thummim’ [3] in his stomach.  God had placed these decision making stones within him and at any time he’d writhe in pain saying, “God is giving me a pain in my stomach.  It is the Urim & Thummin.”  Of course, he is left to interpret the meaning of this pain.  It could be that a demonic attack is on its way, or someone in the fellowship is causing dissention, a new direction to take, or any other bizarre explanation.  The decisive factor is when the ‘spirit’ fell on him.  This feels like hot rain/wind pouring down over his body and when he experiences this feeling it will decide what the meaning is.  Often we would all be called to relish this wonderful electric atmosphere, of course, if anyone did not feel as he did they were branded unspiritual and unable to hear God’s voice.

He taught that the ‘council of the many’ discerns the truth of any spirit.  Those ‘many’ are all those were in submission to David and under his direct teaching and discipleship.  He really is that arrogant.  The manner in which they were able to discern, is whether the ‘spirit falls on them’ as a physical feeling.  This feeling was total confirmation of God speaking and it is much closer to Mormonism[4] than New Testament Christianity.  Over time David began to work out what different feelings meant, he was left to interpret pains, twitches, nerve tingles and all other physical and emotional sensibilities.  Kriss seeks to allow his ‘spirit guide’ to reinterpret the Bible for him.  Apparently our Lord’s teachings cannot stand on their own, according to Kriss they must be understood mystically. This brought on an austere asceticism to his group, trying to climb to a higher level of Christianity.  Kriss became more obdurate[5] when this was exposed as completely unbiblical.  However “...most ‘Christian’ mystics depreciate the Bible for a more subjective experience [hence the] arguments often fail to reach them.”[6]

What has been the result of this kind of Gnostic mysticism?  Let’s start off with Kriss’s ‘Statement of Faith’.  He requested me to write an orthodox statement of belief and he would modify it.  Hence the phrase ‘One God in three persons’ was changed to ‘...three different expressions’.  This change accurately describes Kriss’s modalistic beliefs about the Godhead.  He actually believes that the many manifestations of God, the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, the burning bush are all different manifestations of God, co-equal with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.[7]

He inserted into the statement of faith a clothing regime stating that God requires all genuine believers to wear robes to cover their bodies as they did in the culture of the Patriarchs.  Women have their heads covered by a scarf at all times, in a manner that covers all of their hair.  Each member of the group needs to carry with them a bag that contains a mobile phone, David’s tracts, David’s testimony tape and $20 that could be used to give away to someone in need.  If at any time one did not have the required items, did not have your phone switched on or you were late o a meeting/function then one would be fined between $5-20.  Men were commanded to grow beards, have shoulder-length hair and wear sandals.  All this is included in his ‘Statement of Faith’.  To David this is what it means to be a Christian.  It is not an opinion or a conviction, it is the teaching (doctrine) of Jesus according to Kriss.

Although not included in his statement, Kriss believed and taught a customised view of purgatory.  He believes that Hell is a place where there are two groups of people.  Those who are saved by the sacrifice of Jesus and those destined for the Lake of Fire & Sulphur.  He believed that Christians who did not experience the kind of rigorous discipleship that he gives, will have their rebellion burnt off them in Hell before they can enter Heaven.  This is unbiblcal and exemplifies Kriss’s misunderstanding of the Gospel message; which is, through faith alone in the One (Jesus) who suffered for us, our sin is expiated and God’s anger is satiated.[8]

David believed that he was the Prophet and as such made many prophetic declarations in my hearing.  I can say with confidence that there is not one predictive prophecy that has accurately come to fruition.

a)      He declared that the ‘spirit fell on him’ that a baby would turn in the womb and the young woman would have a natural birth.  Instead she was delivered by emergency caesarean as there was foetal distress.

b)      He declared that the ‘spirit fell on him’ and he would win a house on the Sunshine Coast in a surf lifesaving raffle.  He even mentioned to many people that he should not be considered a prophet if this didn’t happen.  It didn’t happen.  So he whitewashed over this prophecy convincing everyone that the only bit wrong about this prophecy was the timing.  It would happen in due time.  Now he is dead and it has not happened.  However, timing is a common excuse for David.

c)      David came home from India very excited, as the ‘spirit’ had clearly confirmed that he would begin a Bible College there soon.  ‘Hope of India Bible College’ was to happen at God’s leading.  It never happened.

d)      He prophesied that judgement over a member of the group who left the cult.  David said that an international evangelist[9], who he worked with, would never return and run meetings in Australia.  However, he has returned many times.

e)      He prophesied that Indonesia would invade Australia[10] after a fundamentalist Muslim coup d’état.  He spoke in the Lord’s name that Australia would have a severe earthquake and associated natural disasters would weaken Australia, precipitating in this invasion during the year 2000 celebrations.  He also prophesied that Australia would become a republic and severe ties with the UK prior to the invasion happening. Well the Republican movement failed, Megawati was not murdered trying to push for democracy, there were no natural disasters and the Indonesians have not invaded this nation.  This diametric opposite has occurred in everything that he foretold.  There would also be an earth tremor in Melbourne, knocking stock off the shelves, putting cracks in Melbourne’s CityLink roads on August 17^th 1999.  It would be between 9am012pm and David predicting the tremor would be proof of the Year 2000 destruction that he is predicting.  It didn’t happen.

This is just a small sample of hundreds of false prophecies uttered by Kriss over the seven years that I knew him. 

His prophecies are not always predictive in nature, indeed most are revelatory and it is these that can have a disastrous impact upon the lives of his followers.  There are thousands of examples of this, in fact it is through this form of prophecy that Kriss controlled (and his followers currently control) lives and dictate his will.

The most profound example was in 1999 Kriss issued an edict declaring that his community was not living in God’s will as the ‘spirit of Jezabel’ needed to be crushed and they needed to prepare for an Islamic invasion of Australia.  This was accomplished by establishing a female house and a male house, regardless of marriage and family.  Husband and wife were split up and the wife had no contact with her husband unless he initiated it.  This was instituted to break the ungodly hold the wives had over their husbands.  Children lived with their mother and the father could have his children brought to him on occasion.  This was God’s will for all people and God will use Islam across the Western world to establish it, according to Kriss.

Apostle Paul always talks about marriage as a pattern of Jesus and his Church.  When you mess with what marriage is, your mess with what God has done for his people.  I notice that Jesus gives his Church full access to Him at any time, to be intimate with His Church whenever and can communicate with Him whenever they desre.  Jesus relates to His Church very differently than Kriss encourages husbands to relate to their wives.

Kriss had a highly developed theology of the subjection of women.  He believes that the female menstruation cycle is a judgement from God because of Eve’s rebellion.  The women in his group are subjected to all men, especially Kriss.  Women do all the housework and have to prepare three course meals, at restaurant standard, looking like the picture in the cookbook for up to 10 men.  If anything is wrong, even with place settings, she would be subjected to verbal abuse and humiliation.  Sometimes the men will leave her meal on the table and eat out.  Other times if the meal was burnt or didn’t work it was taken to the woman’s house, where they would eat it all themselves and wallow in shame of their service.  Indeed, so far was this doctrine taken that Kriss taught that women were not saved byfaith in Christ, rather in believing what her husband believes, whether true of false, saves a women. 

Kriss demanded that a 50-year old woman who was made redundant by her employer, hand the redundancy payout over to him.  The same woman had a prolapse and, he intimidated her into not having surgery.  The woman was in agony but she could not have surgery until God revealed it to her and the fellowship that it was His will.  I have witnessed and experienced bullying and intimidation that is frightening.  A man had to withdraw $20,000 from his superannuation to fund Kriss’s desire for a 4WD.  The list of abuses, threats of God’s judgment for non-compliance are endless.  This was his ministry.

The approach to children’s discipline is greatly distorted.  One 18 month old child was beaten with a wooden spoon between her bottom and her knees for 20 mins.  She was horrifically bruised; and the crime that she perpetrated was that she would not say ‘yes’ to her punishment, rather she said, ‘no, Daddy, no.’  Children were taught to be afraid of Indonesians and told thay would be locked in cupboards by thes people during the invasion.  The children were told to prepare for it.

Kriss views himself as the ‘rock crusher’[11]; it is his role to crush the parts of people’s lives that are not submitted to God.  The potential for abuse is obvious and his ruthless means of controlling people have left many permanently scarred.  The Bible says that the Father (God) is the vinedresser; no man should be in this role.[12]

This stiff-necked and obdurate man was warned many times by many people, yet to his dying day he pursued his vision, promoted new recruits into his deception.  His followers are still doing this.  These followers are deceived, brainwashed and ever-loyal.  The arguments made in this article will be dismissed because I will be deemed bitter and twisted.  This accusation of my bitterness will be enough to provide the impetus for his followers to ignore the content and perpetuate their lies and self-deceit. 

Herewith I hope for three things that this article can provide; a tool to help those trapped in this lie to get out.  Secondly, to dissuade those contemplating joining David’s group; finally , that it will cause others to thank God that they are not in this deception and prayer fervently for those that are.  May we strive to be humble and true before the One (Jesus) who paid such a high price for our souls.

2,957 words

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[1] The text used to justify such a claim is Malachi 4:5-6

[2] For a good synopsis of Branham see Chapter 3 ‘Beware the New Prophets’ Bill Randles, St Martins Press, London 1999.  Or you can see what the Branhamites say at www.bible-believers.org (acessesed Monday, 23 January 2012)

[3] Exodus 28:30 “And thou shall put in the breastplate of judgement the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in before Jehovah; and Aaron shall bear the judgement of the Children of Israel upon his heart before Jehovah continually.”

[4] See “How to answer a Mormon” p15 RA Morey, Bethany House 1983

[5] “...hardened against moral influence or persuasion; impenitent, subborn.” Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, 7^th Edition. OUP, Melb, 1987.

[6] ‘Gnosticism & Mysticism’ in “Modern Art & the death of a culture” p33, HR Rookmaaker, Crossway, London 1994

[7] A denial or perversion of the Tri-Unity of God is present in any cult.  When challenged Kriss would capitulate as he doesn’t think the church is ready for this truth.  This issue has a profound impact upon our understanding of God’s character, it is no surprise that Kriss’s view of God is highly distorted.

[8] Romans 3:25; 1John 2:2; 1John 4:10; begins illustrate the point.

[9] Here is the recording of him speaking in Melbourne in 2009.  David’s prophecy was in 1995. http://podcast.kcbc.org.au/fileGroup/44.htm (Last accessed Tuesday, 24 January 2012)

[10] Some still believe David’s lies.  See here: http://www.stormharvest.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=650=Itemid=66 (Last accessed Tuesday, 24 January 2012)

[11] An erroneous interpretation of Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not my word like as a fire?  Saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in peices?”

[12] John 15