Derek Prince (1915—2003)
Country of Origin
-
United Kingdom
Countries/Regions of Ministry
- England
- United States
- India
- Israel
- Kenya
Traditions
- Charismatic
Ministries
- apostolic leader
- pastor
Born in Bangalore, India, to British parents, Derek Prince returned to England for his early education--first at Eton, the elite boys-only boarding school, then at King’s College, Cambridge, where he secured a fellowship in ancient and modern philosophy. He wasn’t devout (“Religion doesn’t do much for me,” he said)—but when packing up for military training in the early days of World War II, he added a Bible out of mild curiosity for what philosophical material it might contain.
During off-duty time, he began reading it. He was about halfway through the Old Testament when, late one night, a dramatic encounter with Jesus Christ took him by surprise. Less than two weeks later, he found himself praying not in English but in something that sounded like Chinese. Throughout the war, while serving as a medic, he continued to grow in spiritual understanding.
At the end of WWII, he was discharged from the British Medical Corps while posted in Jerusalem. Now thirty years old, he happened to meet a mid-forties Danish woman, Lydia Christiansen, who ran an orphanage for girls. In time, they were married, but overnight, Prince became the father of eight daughters Lydia had adopted: six Jewish, one Palestinian, and one British.
The 1948, the Arab-Israeli War chased the family out of the Holy Land. Upon returning to London, Prince established and led a Pentecostal church for eight years. After that, he and the family moved to a third continent—Africa, where he became principal of a Kenyan college that trained teachers. Another daughter was adopted at this time.
Only in 1962, when Derek Prince was in his late forties, did he and his family set foot in North America, first in Canada and then Seattle. It was while he was pastoring there that he experienced his first confrontation with the demonic. There was an outburst during a Sunday service, which he would speak and write about extensively later. His speaking style was always serious and straightforward, without flair or cleverness. He used few illustrations as he expounded the Scriptures. At one point even evangelist Billy Graham called him “my favorite Bible teacher.”
Prince's books included mainstream titles as Praying for the Government and Shaping History through Prayer and Fasting and Faith to Live By. Having served and lived extensively in Israel during an important time, he especially championed what he viewed as God’s plan for their modern state.
But his name is most connected to the role he played in the controversial Shepherding Movement that swept the Charismatic landscape during the 1970s and ’80s. After moving to south Florida, Prince and four like-minded teachers (Bob Mumford, Don Basham, Charles Simpson, Ern Baxter) became known as “the Fort Lauderdale Five” and taught widely on spiritual maturity, accountability, and systematic pastoring within the church structure. The group initially sought to address the surging numbers of Spirit-filled believers who were leaving the traditional churches to do Christianity on their own. Many of these were coming from the Jesus Movement or mass revivals of youth and young adults who had had no prior experience with church. Prince emphasized Hebrews 13:17 (“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (KJV). Also, 1 Corinthians 16:15-16 regarding church leaders (“I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it”). If the rising Charismatic movement was, to use Jamie Buckingham’s colorful phrase, “a balloon with no tether cord,” the Fort Lauderdale Five urged enthusiastic converts to find a shepherd, a “personal pastor,” to help them stay on a good path.
However, personal pastors needed to be “under spiritual authority” themselves, and soon, “covenant relationships” began to resemble a pyramid with the Fort Lauderdale Five at the top. In 1974, respected Foursquare pastor Jack Hayford spoke privately with Bob Mumford. By the next year, Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) directed his staff not to bring Shepherding proponents onto the popular 700 Club telecast, and to erase such recordings from CBN archives. Demos Shakarian likewise banned Prince and associates from Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship events. In 1975, when Kathryn Kuhlman learned that she would have to share the stage with Mumford at the Second World Conference on the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, she said she wouldn’t come. Mumford quietly backed out.
In the midst, Prince’s Discipleship, Shepherding, and Commitment (1976) tried to re-anchor the movement on biblical grounds, but the wave was already in motion. Testimonies came in of “shepherds,” many of them young, dominating the lives of their “sheep,” advising which jobs they should take, who they should date or marry, or in extreme cases, receiving their tithe. The call to maturity and accountability was mutating into authoritarianism. Three different summit meetings between the Fort Lauderdale Five and their critics were held between August 1975 and March 1976, with little resolution. Concern grew in 1977, when the massive Kansas City Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Churches was held in Arrowhead Stadium, and the Shepherding track drew more than 9,000 attenders, second only to the Catholic track.
By 1983, Derek Prince was the first of the Five to withdraw, admitting “we were guilty of the Galatian error: having begun in the Spirit, we quickly degenerated into the flesh” (cf. Gal. 3:3). In 1988, Bob Mumford penned a formal repentance letter, which Jack Hayford read aloud to a pastors’ conference at his church. The next night, in Ridgecrest, North Carolina, Mumford himself read it at a major Bible conference. The scheduled speaker that night was to be none other than Derek Prince. As the crowd of 3,500 politely applauded Mumford’s confession, the tall, angular Englishman came to the podium. He followed with his own word of explanation: “I never was involved in asking people to submit to me—I tend to let people go their own way. But I don’t believe it was ever God’s intent to start a movement. All of us have to share the responsibility … of failing God and failing the body of Christ.” Speaking personally, he continued, “I felt God had put us [the Five] together. [But] I allowed loyalty to my fellow ministers to supersede my loyalty to God.”
For fifteen more years, Derek Prince continued to speak, write, and travel. At age eighty, he gave a series of talks on the Shepherding Movement to his staff, which were collected into a book entitled Protection from Deception. It evidenced regret and chagrin at what he and followers had engendered, urging readers to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:20-21 KJV).
When he died in his sleep--in Jerusalem, at age eighty-eight--Prince's radio broadcasts were still being heard around the globe, not only in English but also Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Malagasy, Mongolian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, and Tongan. CBN, his one-time critic, posted a gracious tribute on its website that summarized him well: “Derek Prince—father, friend, and teacher to the nations.”
Further Reading
- Derek Prince.