Karen Wheaton is a popular charismatic Pentecostal singer and musician and also a self-proclaimed Bible teacher and minister. Wheaton is a disciple of the financial fraudster, Jim Bakker, as well as Jimmy Swaggart and Janet Paschal. Karen is the founder of a ministry called “The Ramp” – in Hamilton, Alabama. It is a global ministry. It also has a School of Ministry with the theme “AWAKENING A GENERATION.”
According to Wheaton’s bio, she “received the Holy Spirit” at 8-years-old and from that point on, she wanted to tell everyone about her “god” encounter. “As a child, I promised God if He would let me sing,” she stated, “I would only sing songs that would bring Him glory.”
According to Wheaton, God then led her to one of the most heretical movements in the nation to begin her singing career at PTL School of Evangelism outside of Charlotte, NC. This school, of course, was set up and run by the aforementioned financial fraud, Jim Bakker, who himself spent time in prison after defrauding people of millions of dollars in the name of Jesus. This is who Wheaton believes God led her to for ministry and music training.
“It was there God used a man by the name of Jim Bakker,” she writes, “to open a door for me on his television network that carried my message in song around the world.”
In a video she published of her “story,” she says that she desired to have “that power,” and then went on to explain how she felt the presence of God in the wind while she was walking in a pine forest and then heard an audible voice tell her that she was being called to preach and that she was consumed with a desire to sing.
Now, let that sink in—she asserts that God is calling her to do something that is in direct contradiction to what the Scriptures say. Of course, women preaching today are par for the course in mainstream Evangelicalism, but few dare to blatantly say that God audibly told them to contradict His own word. Most of them just do it and ignore the Scriptures that refute them.
Side note: her first marriage blew up in 1987, and though she is now married to Rick Towe, she continues to publicly go by her divorced name.
Wheaton often speaks of these times where she “feels God’s presence” or “hears His voice.” She again “heard a voice” that told her to work with the youth. She stated God said the words “what you invest in the lives of other young people, you will reap for your own.”
But even worse than all of that, she demands that God do things. “It’s alright to get mad at the devil sometimes. In my hurt I asked god for one thing; “I want vengeance on the devil who did this—not the people who hurt me but the devil. I want vengeance on Satan and l too God.”
“And Here’s The Way I want it,” she demands. “Number 1. I am going to ask you to give me a song of healing and deliverance. Two, if there is a hurting man, woman, marriage out there, I want YOU to send them to ME and let me take the healing and let me POUR it into them and in doing so, let ME make Satan wish that he had never done this to me. Let me make Satan regret the day he ever touched my heart. Take your anger and put it on your real enemy (Satan). Jesus says the reason I am here is to set the captives free and if you have bitterness it’s time for you to walk out of the prison of unforgiveness and anger and get up and go to god’s will for your life.”
Karen has appeared with the arch-heretic, Sid Roth. She claims at one point she was in the basement and told God she would NOT come out of the basement until she has a miracle.
Finally, Wheaton teaches the heresy known as Dominionism. According to her, “The Ramp” ministry which she founded is “A global company of awakened hearts passionately pursuing God’s presence to establish His kingdom on the earth.” Her mission statement: “The Ramp exists to awaken a generation, so they can live fully activated in their God given purpose influencing their world for His kingdom.”
She then asserts that “Awakening begins with an encounter,” a reference to the kind of “encounter” she had in the forest where she felt God’s presence and heard him tell her to do things contrary to Scripture. She also holds Ramp conferences for children to indoctrinate them into these false beliefs.
To sum up, basically, her ministry revolves around the practice of “name it and claim it,” a type of prosperity gospel heresy that essentially teaches that you can cause God to act in accordance with your own words. It is similar to treating God as a genie-in-a-bottle figure.
Her entire ministry is largely devoid of any message of grace and salvation.
