Spirit Filled Life

Sand Creek Massacre

2012-01-28T13:19:00.005-05:00

Sand Creek Massacre
Monument

Good Teaching by Mark Virkler on Dreams

2011-12-11T14:10:00.001-05:00

Mark Virkler on Dreams

Merry Christmas

2011-12-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS

PSYCHOLOGIST SAYS SPEAKING IN TONGUES IS FOR REAL

2011-11-01T20:54:00.001-04:00

The following is a rewrite of an earlier post of how, in 1980, I began to speak in tongues. Since writing that, I have looked at many blogs on the subject. Some are distressing because they ridicule this fastest growing group of Christians in the world. Because I am a Board Certified psychologist I feel it is important for people to know that Christians who speak in tongues are not nuts. Actually, research indicates that in many cases those speaking in tongues are more emotionally healthy than the general public.

Here is my story followed
by three other posts in elaboration

I am laying on the floor of a little store front church proclaiming “I love you Jesus!!!” and laughing uproariously. My life was changing forever.

What was a psychology professor doing on the floor in the first place?
In August 1980, my son dragged me to a storefront church. Although reluctant, what can you do when all four of your children challenge you with “What are you afraid of, Mr. Psychologist?”

I needed to know what they were getting in to.

Surprised, I was impressed when the young preacher spoke with authority.

The following Wednesday night, I showed up, startled to find only the pastor, the piano player and me. Catching me off guard, the minister inquired, “Have you ever received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?”

As a seeker after spiritual experiences, I was interested. Earlier, as a Baptist minister, I had led the singing at revivals that had gone wild. I once gave an invitation to which an entire church responded by rededicating themselves. Scared the fool out of me.

I had seen some amazing things, but the only thing I knew about what they called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was that it had something to do with speaking in tongues. As kids, we had peeked through the windows at the crazy goings on in the local Pentecostal churches. But they were on the other side of the tracks.

Still, I had always been a high risk person when it came to spiritual things and that night I said to myself, O.K. you’ve danced with the Sufis, chanted with the Yogis, beat drums with the Baktis, so what the heck? I blurted out: “Well I want everything God has to give. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Then the young man said “O.K.., do what I do.” He began saying words of praise to God. I did what he did. All at once he said, “Now, no more words in English.” Pointing to my chest, he said, “Praise Him from there.” He began to make strange sounds.

One of the many meditations I had tried in the past, involved hours listening to various sounds deep within me. The Hindus teach that these are the sounds of the Chakras, energy centers of the body. Following his instructions, I focused on the region he pointed to. There were sounds! Not like his, but sounds. So I spoke the sounds I was hearing.

Along with the sounds bubbling up, came the most joyous sensations. They gushed up like I had tapped an oil well. (To be continued).

PSYCHOLOGIST SPEAKING IN TONGUES CONTINUES

2011-11-01T20:34:00.000-04:00

Days followed my first experience of speaking in tongues with many thrilling events. We laid hands on a woman who had congenital heart disease from birth, and she was healed. A few sundays later, a group of us laid hands on a man with prostate cancer. He was healed and the healing was certified by his Urologist.

I began to notice changes in me. I could not get enough of reading the Bible. I would lock myself in my office and read for hours.

Like many people, I had suffered from what I called the Paranoia of
the Father. I just did not trust Him. Either He was going to get mad at me and hurt me, or if I was enjoying something, He would take it away to keep me from having any fun, or on the other hand, He would love me and send me off to die in Africa just to prove myself. Whatever, God was scary.

I woke up one morning and the Paranoia was gone. Shortly thereafter I was riding down Poplar Grove Rd. in Boone, NC, right past the Winn Dixie. Suddenly I was lifted into another level of consciousness. There was this incredible sense that God had stopped taking care of the Universe and was now focused only on me. I was all that existed in His attention. No one else. Nothing else. Now words begin to fail. But Love was communicating, “ Donald has come home. All of Heaven stopped to listen. “Donald I love you. Nothing that you have ever done, are doing, or ever will do, will make any difference to Me.” From that day on, I have never been without that sense of His love and His presence.

Over the years, I have discovered in the writings of the great mystics, that others had this experience of a moment of God’s total focus. Mystics are defined as people who have a direct tangible experience of God.

In Living Flame of Love, the great Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross wrote: “For the soul now feels God to be so solicitous in granting it favors and to be magnifying with such precious and delicate words, and granting it favor upon favor, that it believes that there is no other soul in the world whom He thus favors, nor ought else wherewith He occupies Himself, but that He is wholly for itself alone” p81

The great English mystic, Julian of Norwich in Revelation of Love wrote: “It is God’s will that I see myself so bound to him by love as if he had done all his deeds just for me.” p145

One of the phrases God implanted in her heart went as follows: “All shall be well, All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. This was said so tenderly, without blame of any kind toward me.” p55

Julian understood her experience in much the same way as I do. Also, like me /
over these past 27 years, her experience remained with her throughout her life. AND ALL OF THIS FOLLOWED BABBLING IN UNKNOWN TONGUES! AMAZING!

A PSYCHOLOGIST DISCUSSES SPEAKING IN TONGUES

2011-11-01T20:28:00.000-04:00

Right after my experiences of tongues began, I wrote down some ideas as a psychologist on the subject. The following is what I wrote at the time.

I wonder how surprised my printer would be if it could be aware that it is not creating these words on this page by itself. Perhaps it would be no more surprised than I was when words from an unexplained source came out of me.

As to my printer, if it could reflect on its own inner workings self-consciously as I can, it might try to explain to itself this unexpected discovery of words already formed somewhere in its circuitry. The words were there for a few moments before in some inner labyrinth. Deeper still, and even more impatient to get on with matters, are the ideas which I am now placing into the printer’s circuits. My printer would be quite humbled to learn that it is not creating these words. Rather, it has become an outlet for phrases and ideas already present.

Now, back to me. As I reflect inwardly, like the printer, I find a similar situation. As I focus, I soon discover words and phrases, already existing within me. To my fascination, language and thoughts are right there, waiting for my typing fingers, or for my vocal cords to give them an outlet. I sense that I possess a great deal more words and ideas than I can express. In addition, any problem of expression I have, lies merely in bringing to the surface already existing sounds, words, and phrases within me.

The whole process of speaking and writing, actually seems to be more an act of focusing awareness and then giving vent to what is already there. It is less of an act of self-consciously creating the thoughts I speak. The process is much like Plato’s metaphor of the bird cage full of birds. We reach in and release them. Thus the word “educe,” meaning to “pull out.” From educe, comes the word “education.”

One day, I discovered an entirely new language system within me that I did not know was there. That was the day, I spoke in tongues.

Pentecostals then informed me that what I was hearing within, was the Holy Spirit forming those words. The mind-blowing thought was that He had probably been carrying on that praying in me from the time, as 12-year-old youth, I had invited him to indwell me. HE HAD BEEN THERE ALL THE TIME JUST WAITING FOR ME TO DISCOVER HIM! When I finally did, He erupted like I had hit an oil well. He has been erupting ever since.

ISRAEL MATTERS!!

2011-09-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

I RECOMMEND THIS LINK Why Israel Matters to Us TO THOSE WHO ARE 24/7 CHRISTIANS, WHO KNOW THE BIBLE IS THE TRUE WORD OF GOD, WHO UNDERSTAND PROPHECY AND WHO CARE ABOUT ISRAEL AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA.

Following the Voice of God--a Letter to My Granddaughters

2011-08-13T12:21:00.024-04:00

Dear Granddaughters,
Now you have both graduated from your universities and taking the bold step forward of following God’s call on your lives. You are off to Rhema Bible Training Center. Just before you left, you both seem to be concerned that your Papa would not understand your brave decision. So, I am sending you this history of my own lifetime of following God
in hopes that it will reassure you that I understand better than anyone.

One good thing about getting old is that you get to look back and see clearly the incredible way He leads. Now I can also see that during each turning point, I could never have dreamed how well it would work out.

When I was in high school, the war was on and many of those who had graduated earlier had already been killed in the war. For that reason none of us young males planned a future, expecting we could very well not have one. I enlisted at age 17 and was called up the next year.

In the service, we had no idea when the war would end. Suddenly, one day, it’s over. There I was sitting in the barracks with out a single idea of a future. Home life now would be boring, so for more adventure, I took off in the Merchant Marines. But, I was horribly seasick as soon as the ship began to move. So, after several trips to Europe, I knew that could not be my career.

For more adventure, my best friend and I bought a surplus Army plane and began to fly for his father who had a hunting lodge in the Laurentian mountains of Canada.

One day, sitting on the front steps of the cabin, for the first time, I heard what was almost an audible voice and which I can still hear inside me today.   I heard the voice of God! He said “Donald I want you to be a psychologist.” At that point, all I knew about psychology was some books I had read in the Air Force camp library. An older soldier had taught me that if you wanted to goof off and not get caught when they wanted a work detail, hide in the library. They easily found you in the PX or the theater but they never thought of the library.

Immediately after God spoke to me, I agreed to sell my half of the airplane, and leaving my friend in Canada, I came home and immediately enrolled in George Washington University. Of course, I learned quickly that to be a psychologist required a doctorate and all I had was two and one half years of the GI bill. Somehow though, in those days when I knew next to nothing about how God worked, I knew I was going to be all right. I lived in converted army barracks and waited tables (I had learned that if you work in restaurants you get fed. So I always did that.)

After graduation, with only a BA, I didn’t know what to do next. Because I suffered excruciating terror at speaking in public, I attended the Dale Carnegie class. I overcame enough of my fear that I became a poster boy for the course, so they hired me. That was exciting because being in Washington, D.C., we had congressmen and governors and other important officials in the course.

Besides giving speeches for public groups, I also began to deliver a few youth sermons at the church. One day on the way to work, I heard that voice again: “I want you to be a minister!” I quickly exchanged buses and went to see my pastor. My pastor was Dr. Ed Pruden who was pastor of the important First Baptist Church which had President Truman in the congregation.

I blurted out to this incredibly important preacher that God had just spoken to me to become a minister. His response was: “I know. We have been waiting for you.   We would like for you to attend Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.” At that time, I did not know that because of the men coming home from war, the seminaries had years of waiting lists. Also, my Aunt Virginia who was the Bursar at Wake Forest College on the same campus as Southeastern Seminary informed me immediately I could not get in because there was no housing for new students. Dr. Pruden said not to worry, he was on the boards of several of them. In less than a month, bumped to the front of the line, I was on my way to Wake Forest North Carolina to the seminary. Once again I was living in converted army barracks.   I was actually so green that I wrote on my application “Babtist” instead of “Baptist.” I thought I would be disqualified right then, but the registrar thought it was hilarious and told me I was not the first.

By that time, I was beginning my family so I had to support myself with restaurant and store work plus song leader at a big rural church. Finally, I begin to get a few calls to supply preach.   During my Sophomore year, a good friend asked me to ride with him to his church which was about an hour away.

As I sat in the pew while he preached, a strange new sensation came to me. “I want to be pastor of this church.” Obviously that was impossible as my friend was the happy preacher there.   But then, a few months later, I heard that he had been called elsewhere and because my name came up next on the supply list, the seminary sent me up one Sunday to fill in.

After I preached, the chairman of the board of deacons stopped me at the door and said: “Brother Clark I hope you don’t mind waiting out front as we have some church business to take care of. Then we will be taking you to dinner.”

I was about to learn that God was now shifting me to a new way of directing me! When they came back out, they said, “We just voted and want you to come be our pastor.” I don’t have to tell you what that did to and for me. Later, I was to read in Katherine Marshall’s famous book “A Man Called Peter” where Peter Marshall says to her, “Katherine, you know, God plants a desire in your heart and then he fulfills it.”

While in seminary I fell in love with my Professor of Pastoral Care, so at graduation, I applied to the Department of Pastoral Counseling at Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem. Once again, I did not realize that there were a ton of applications for just five openings. Once again, I am moved to the front and was even given an internship.

Now I was learning another way that God communicates with me. I apply for what seems the next step and all the lights on the railroad track turn green!

The director of pastoral care became like a father to me and soon I was traveling with him and doing pastoral care of ministers at the seminary as well as working as chaplain and teacher at the hospital. Again, I am living in converted army barracks. After a year I became a Resident and now moved out of the barracks to the first nice place we had lived in–the Residents’ apartments.

As the time of my study was ending, a student of mine who was Appalachian State University Campus Student Worker, invited me to visit in Boone. This is the gospel truth. Before lunch, he had me registered in the Master’s Counseling Program, obtained an internship in the ASU counseling center, and found me a cute little house. Green lights all the way!
At ASU, I taught and counseled and obtained my Master’s degree. At that point, God began to add another way of leading. I won’t go into the details, but it is a cute God that can do what he did. He let them lose a letter with a job offer which would have been a dead end to my career. Then he opened the door to a residence hall position and admission to the doctoral program at the University of Florida in Counseling.

At graduation what I now wanted was to be back in my original call as a psychologist and at the same time keep serving in the Baptist church. So, God opened the door to a little Baptist College in Mississippi and it was perfect.

Unfortunately, the civil unrest of desegregation broke out and because I had been secretly meeting with the Freedom Riders at a Black college, I began to get alarmed for the family. When dead bodies began to show up, I said to them one day “We have got to get out of Mississippi.” The telephone rings: “Would you be interested in coming to Kentucky?” It was my major professor from ASU. I said yes so fast, I got a little embarrassed. You were suppose to be a little coy in those situations asking about salary etc.

Kentucky was wonderful. (There I married Suzannah, the most powerful woman I ever met. But how God worked that out is another story.)   Because we were adventurous souls, when we heard they were recruiting for the Peace Corps, I applied along with many others all across the country. Again, I was put at the head of the line, and practically overnight we were in Honduras.

Those were happy days. Then the tour of duty was over and we had to decide what to do next.   One morning sitting in bed, I said “Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to Boone. Suzannah, you could finish your undergraduate degree that I had interrupted and I could teach at a school I loved.

That day was a Sunday, and I went into the office to do a little work. Mail did not come on Sundays, however there in my box was a letter! It was from the chairman of the Psychology Department asking if I would like to come to ASU and teach! We had not even applied! And, to this day no one knows how the letter got in my mail box!

Now God was upping the amperage! That event was my first supernatural manifestation!
However, after happy years at ASU, I got bored. A job was offered in Hawaii, the most beautiful place we had ever been. We sent Suzannah to sign the contract. Meanwhile, I was getting physically ill. Everything physical that was happening to me should have been screaming No! But I was trying to override my feelings because I wanted so badly to be in Hawaii.

Then, God did a new kind of supernatural event. God seated a contract lawyer next to Suzannah on the plane. The lawyer offered to go over the contract we were going to sign. She slashed with her pen all over it saying “No! You don’t want to do that!” And finally convincing Suzannah we were getting a very bad deal.

I called the ASU president at five o’clock in the next morning (he was an early riser). He informed me that at 7:00 a.m. that very day, my position was to be advertised and that if I had not called, I would have had to reapply along with hundreds of other applicants. Of course I would no longer have tenure.

Not too long after that, the man we were about to sign a contract closed his company and disappeared. It was almost food stamps for us. So I learned another way to hear from God (We will always wonder if Suzannah’s seat mate was actually an angel.)

You may have heard of the story of how after I received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I almost went to be head of chaplains at Oral Roberts new hospital and how, just as we were about to sign, God yelled inside of both of us “NO!” (Another new way) We both sensed it at the same time. That night we put out our first fleece, opening the Bible and pointing at a Scripture. I won’t go into detail, but the Scripture yelled at us so loudly we can still hear it. It confirmed our no. Today, as you know, the hospital is gone and because I would have lost my tenure at ASU and because by that time jobs were getting scarcer, we could now be living on food stamps.

Later, we were asking a prophetess, what in the world was that experience all about as we actually thought we were following Him. Everything had been green lights. We had favor with everyone. Then He yells Stop! The prophetess informed us that it had been a test.   Will we keep pushing in the natural because we had begun to want the job so badly? Or, would we obey God.   God knew the hospital’s future. It is gone.   He was training us to be disciplined so completely that we could hear Him and do only what He said at the moment without explanation.

During this same period, Suzannah and I were driving to Myrtle Beach. Just as we were passing over a short bridge, I heard the voice again “I want you to become a priest.” Putting my hand on Suzannah's arm, and with a serious tone, I said God is speaking to me again. I began to tell her what I was hearing when she stopped me saying: "In a dream last night I said to you "Just get on with it." (a new way-- confirming through my wife’s dreams) but I did not want to say anything until He spoke to you."

When we returned to Boone, I went straight to my Episcopal priest. Because I had a full time position at the University, and because the position of Deacon is also an ordained ministry, I thought that had to be what God meant. My priest said “No, you should become a priest.” And, once again green lights. Within a year, I was ordained as a priest. I was not even asked to return to seminary as many in my situation were having to do.

So, know that your Nana and I are very excited for you both. Perhaps if you pray for us, God might say “Now that the two of you are retired: “Go to Rhema!” Who knows? By the way, your Nana’s life of hearing from God has been equally awesome, but she likes to tell her own stories.
Love, Papa

School Prayer

2011-06-07T13:34:00.001-04:00

This was posted on my political blog about the school prayer in Texas. students can pray at graduation The school officials and a federal judge forbid the valedictorian from asking audience members to join in prayer or to bow their heads. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
overturned the lower court and granted an emergency appeal filed by the Medina Valley Independent School District.

Most people know that it is well established that public prayers are allowed if it is a student and not a school official leading the act.

As a minister, I have often been called on to lead public prayer. It has always made me uncomfortable and sometimes, I would suggest the group use one of their own members rather than a minister. I was not always comfortable even with my discomfort, as the whole issue is so complicated.

On some occasions when pressed, I would always acknowledge that we were aware that the founders of our country had prayed, giving Him the credit for their divine inspiration and that we were now following that tradition. One time, a Jewish member of the group even praised me for the best prayer he had ever heard under those circumstances.

Although I have never understood fully my uncomfortableness, I am now very aware that we are headed for some awkward moments in our near future. That day is when the leader says “let us pray”–Allahu Akbar. For Jews and Christians we are no longer then in a benign situation. The Scripture is clear: Deuteronomy 5:7 Thou shalt have none other gods before me.

9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them,nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, 10 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Or, if not out of godly fear, then out of love, we can not bow. My guess is that Muslims face the same problem.

On the other hand, I have no sensitivity to the atheist who claimed he is offended and thus brought the law suit. If there is no god, then the valedictorian will be talking to the empty air. She will be followed by the guest speaker who will bloviate to empty air for an interminable time. Big whoo.

Prayer I Delivered at Opening of Fall Election Republican Headquarters

2010-09-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

Heavenly Father, We, members of the Watauga County Republican party, come to truly seek your wisdom and guidance. We do not do this in some perfunctory ritual as a way to start a meeting. We have many reasons for praying to you.

First, we are aware that when your people Israel acknowledged you and sought your guidance, you were able to prosper them and make them a great nation. We also know that when they turned away from you, their enemies overran them and destroyed them. Even nature turned against them with a vengeance.

Also, today is the anniversary of our amazing Constitution which has created the greatest nation in the history of the world.

We know that many of our founders sought your guidance throughout the process. We know that many knew they were receiving your divine guidance in fashioning documents far beyond human wisdom.

We know that afterwards when each congress met, they continued to thank you and to ask for your continued help–a tradition which comes down even today.

Father, many of us call ourselves conservatives and by that we mean that we are sworn to conserve the values of this great document You helped to produce.

Father, we know that founders like George Washington and John Adams came out of that convention realizing they had produced a document made for moral and religious people. They said it was wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

For all these reasons Father, we are bold to ask you to guide us. Help us to send to Washington, to Raleigh and to governments of our communities--people who will protect and defend that constitution.

And to you be the glory.

Amen

Why We Pray at Public Meetings

2010-09-21T13:57:00.001-04:00

THE PRAYER I DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF OUR WATAUGA COUNTY REPUBLICAN HEADQUARTERS.

Heavenly Father, We, members of the Watauga County Republican party, come to truly seek your wisdom and guidance. We do not do this in some perfunctory ritual as a way to start a meeting. We have many reasons for praying to
You.

First, we are aware that when your people Israel acknowledged you and sought your guidance, you were able to prosper them and make them a great nation. We also know that when they turned away from you, their enemies overran them and destroyed them. Even nature turned against them with a vengeance.

Also, today is the anniversary of our amazing Constitution which has created the greatest nation in the history of the world.

We know that many of our founders sought your guidance throughout the process. We know that many knew they were receiving your divine guidance in fashioning documents far beyond human wisdom.

We know that afterwards when each congress met, they continued to thank you and to ask for your continued help–a tradition which comes down even today.

Father, many of us call ourselves conservatives and by that we mean that we are sworn to conserve the values of this great document You helped to produce.

Father, we know that founders like George Washington and John Adams came out of that convention realizing they had produced a document made for moral and religious people. They said it was wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

For all these reasons Father, we are bold to ask you to guide us. Help us to send to Washington, to Raleigh and to governments of our communities--people who will protect and defend that constitution.

And to you be the glory.

Amen

EXCLUSIVE! BREAKING! OIL SPILL IN GULF - Hand of God? Connection to Isr...

2010-07-02T14:26:00.000-04:00

Dearborn Police: Defending Islam against the Constitution

2010-06-27T12:31:00.000-04:00

Christian Rapping by Tamara Lowe

2010-05-03T15:07:00.001-04:00

Man Praying In the Spirit Finds Missing Child

2010-04-18T18:52:00.004-04:00

Charisma mag

I had this experience once with my daughter. She had just lost her job and called and said she was going away for a while. I was really frightened as I did not know how much the loss had affected her.

God showed me exactly what motel and what town she had gone to. There was no reason at all for me to think of that particular place.

The best part about it was that my daughter was not even surprised when her mother knocked on the motel door. She just said through the door, "I'm o.k. and I will be home soon. Love you."

Oak Initiative Calls For Prayer to Stop Bad Bill

2010-03-20T19:44:00.002-04:00

We are asking all of our members to pray in earnest, and for those who feel called to fast to do this for the resolution of the crisis over the pending healthcare legislation. We believe the passage of this legislation will
create serious crises in the nation on a number of fronts, including constitutional issues, because of elements in the bill. Because of the manner in which congress is seeking to manipulate passage of the bill will even further exacerbate growing divisions in the nation that are already at dangerous levels.

1 - For America: Our past (repentance) and our future (seeking His will and ways)
2 - For our Leaders: At all levels - in secular and church government.
3 - Regarding the Healthcare Bill: For truth to be revealed and courage to be granted to our leaders to read it, to stand and vote with conviction, courage, and character.

2012--End of the world?

2010-02-26T10:51:00.004-05:00

The following link was put into a comment by one of our readers. I found it interesting. 2012 Does it all end?

Fallen Christian Leaders

2010-02-09T13:33:00.004-05:00

The following is from a Special Bulletin written by Rick Joyner. To me it is very insightful.

"Look at the condition of the leadership in the church when the Lord went to the cross and basically left everything in their hands. They were fighting over who was the greatest on the very night He was crucified. They could
not even stay awake for one hour to pray with the King of kings in His most desperate hour, then betrayed and denied Him, fleeing from Him when He needed His friends the most. This is after three years under the greatest Mentor there will ever be!

It is hard to understand why the Lord would trust so much to men in any degree, much less to be representatives of His kingdom. In looking at the great heroes in the Bible, it seems that every one of them had failures and were a major embarrassment in some way, often in many ways. He is the King, so I have resolved to keep it simple and follow Him regardless of whether I understand everything or not. I am also resolved to do my best to stand for His truth and His people, regardless of the consequences.

It is interesting that the person who is considered the very first evangelist in Scripture is the woman at the well, since she was the first to go forth proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah. She had been divorced five times and was living in sin at the time. It would be much easier to explain if the Lord had chosen someone far less controversial for this great honor.

Then there is the embarrassment of Peter, who lived with Jesus for several years, had seen all of His miracles, and had the revelation from the Father of who Jesus was, then denied Him three times in one night—one of the worst things he could do. Just a few weeks later, he was again in leadership preaching one of the most important evangelistic messages ever preached on the Day of Pentecost. I’m quite sure most of those new converts wondered just what kind of leadership the Lord had given them in the church. From the beginning, we certainly have had a leadership that would definitely be a stumbling block to those who care about appearances.

Many leaders feel that these embarrassing falls from those in high visibility in the church are causing many to stumble, and doubtless they do. However, the self-righteousness manifested by many when this happens is probably causing far more to reject the church and our message. How can anyone trust our message of redemption and restoration when we will not even restore our own fallen?"

SPEAKING IN TONGUES AND POWER

2010-01-03T20:40:00.001-05:00

When I returned to the storefront church the next week after my initiation into speaking in tongues, there was a young man with a guitar strung over his shoulder. While he talked, I was preoccupied with an inner conversation with God. Suddenly the man stopped, pointed at me and began to reveal the exact dialogue I was having between myself and God. Then he gave me God’s response to the question I had been asking.

My mind began spinning. How did he read my mind?

Then, inviting me to come to him, he lightly touched my forehead.

And that is when this psychologist discovered himself on the floor.

I had no idea how I got there. I could hear myself calling out: “I love you Jesus!” Then I laughed uproariously because I also had this thought of some colleague walking by and looking through that storefront window. It did not happen; yet what a hoot!

But that was just the beginning. The leader said, “Get him off the floor and bring him up here. Brother the power of God is all over you. Lay your hands on these people!” At that moment an energy poured through me. I felt like what Popeye demonstrated when he downed his can of spinach and his fists turned into power drivers.

Barely touching people, sometimes just pointing at them, I watched them go down like bowling balls. My knees began to buckle from the surges, and then I felt my wonderful wife, arms wrapped around me, holding me up. Finally, overcome from all the excitement, I had to sit down.

At that point, my rational mind kicked back in. “What is this? Suggestion? Maybe, hyperventilation?” As a psychologist, I had studied and practiced hypnosis. “Is this all this is?”

As I sat there, I looked down beside my chair at a young man who had crashed face down on the floor. The scientist came out in me. The man started to get up, at first on all fours. Making sure he could not see what I was doing, I sneakily put my hand about a foot above his back. If he could not see what I was doing, then it wasn’t hypnosis.

Ka Bam! He slammed to the floor as power shot through me again. He tried to rise and I sneaked my hand above him again. He was pinned to the floor as if an elephant had his foot on him.

This was not hypnosis!

PSYCHOLOGIST EXPLAINING WHY HE SPEAKS IN TONGUES

2010-01-01T20:12:00.001-05:00

Generally when we psychologists want to explain behavior, we fall back on our understanding of simple things like animals. It has long been noted for example, that an animal’s behavior can be accounted for by observing its response to the consequences of its behavior. Animals repeat a behavior which is followed by a positive consequence and cease behavior which is followed by a negative consequence, or by no consequence at all. We believe the same can be said for humans. Thus, when we see someone do something, we examine the consequences resulting from his or her behavior in order to understand why the person repeats that behavior.

This principle of positive and negative consequences to behavior can be applied to many things, including how and why we learn to speak a language, any language. For example, my mother recorded in her diary what occurred when as a baby. I made my first meaningless (to me) sounds: “ma ma” and “da da.” The whole world exploded in positive consequences.

“He said mama!” “No, he said daddy,” my parents exclaimed. Naturally, like babies all over the world, I kept making these sounds, and like fathers and mothers everywhere, my parents provided me with interesting and stimulating consequences. So I learned my native tongue by mouthing meaningless sounds coming up out of me which were followed by positive results.

Now, as an adult, when I made meaningless sounds arising from the region of my heart, God, suddenly and completely unexpectedly, showered positive consequences upon me. So, I learned my new tongue the same way I learned my native tongue, watching God reward my sounds.

Southern Baptist Can't Pray in Tongues

2009-12-30T19:31:00.001-05:00

I notice that at a recent convention, Southern Baptists are still fighting over speaking in tongues. Originally, I was ordained a Baptist minister. Though I am now a liturgical/sacramental priest, I do like to look in on my Baptist friends from time to time.

Two Christian writers can help shed light on Southern Baptists’ problem with tongues–the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, and St. Paul. Both of these men recognized that we possess two mental systems. Discerning his two minds, Paul declares “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also...I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also”(1 Cor 14:15).

St. John of the Cross describes one of the mental systems like this: (Bk. 1 IX 4) “....The sensual part of a man has no capacity for that which is pure spirit. He uses the words sensual” and“soul” indicating “understanding, will, and memory

He describes the other mental system like this.(Ch. 4-2 Bk.1) “The spirit (on the other hand) is moved to pleasure and delight in God,”

St. Paul describes one system like this: 1Co 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him.” St. Paul also liked to use the word “understanding” which in Greek is “the intellect.”

He describes the other mental system like this: 1 Co. 2:12 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (Both writers use the Greek word “wind” for spirit, a good analogy for a power whose effects can be seen, but whose substance cannot.)

The two writers are aware that the two minds get in each other’s way.

For St John, (Bk. 1 IX) “For anything that the soul (read intellect) can do of its own accord at this time, serves only, to hinder inward peace and the work which God is accomplishing in the spirit.”

For St. John, Bk. (1 IX 4) God communicates directly with the spirit mind, outside the intellect’s ability. He “binds (the intellect's) inner faculties and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. When once the soul (intellect) begins to enter therein, its inability to reflect with the faculties grows ever greater.” At this point, the soul can go dark (flat lines). Thus, the title of St John’s book is: "Dark Night of the Soul”

The intellect’s flat lineing is a good thing spiritually, but painful to the intellect.

Each man, St. John and St. Paul has his own way of working with this contest between the two minds. For St. John, As God infuses Himself into the spirit, (Bk. 1 IX 8) ...”the soul (mind) can no longer meditate (think discursively) or reflect in the imaginative sphere of sense as it was wont, however much it may of itself endeavor to do so....For God now begins to communicate Himself ... no longer thorough sense, but by pure spirit.”.. The intellect is temporarily sidelined by God Himself.

St Paul recognizes the struggle for dominance between the two minds like this: (Rom. 8:7) “...the carnal mind is enmity against God.”

The contest between the two minds is resolved in the following manner for St. Paul (1Co 14:4) “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself (Greek: “is a house builder,”, i.e. a beautiful metaphor–“building up his house”). Further, (1Co 14:14) “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding (intellect) is unfruitful (Greek: “barren,” not producing intellectual fruit”, the state of consciousness he is trying to produce). (For the record, he adds: 1 Co 14:5 “would that ye all spake with tongues” and, 1Co 14:18) I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all)

In our present age of reason, most intellects refuse to go dark and will fight furiously to keep domination over our consciousness. The word hegemony is useful. Hegemony is used to describe the dominance of one state over another. It is mostly used about political states, but it can be used with states of consciousness. The intellect demands hegemony in the modern mind.

Which brings us back to the Southern Baptists. The intellects of Baptists just don’t like to give in. Two historical forces are at work. Fundamentalists among the Baptists get their title as the guardians of the fundamentals of the faith. Guarding the fundamentals is a cerebral activity.

Secondly, Baptists got their name for their insistence upon reaching an age of accountability before being baptized --i.e.believers baptism. Again a cerebral activity. Psychologists attribute this age of accountability which occurs around puberty, as resulting from the interconnections of the brain’s neurons reaching a level of maturity which makes rational thought possible. In other words, a core Baptist belief is the demand that you must be capable of understanding what you are doing.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES, BAPTISTS, AND OTHERS

2009-12-28T19:34:00.002-05:00

Originally, I was ordained a Baptist minister. Though I am now a liturgical/sacramental priest, I do like to look in on my Baptist friends. I wrote a post on the Baptists’ problem with speaking in tongues. It became my most read post. Meanwhile, the issue became hotter, so I decided to revise the article and print it again with some of the good comments added. Basically, the problem involves the intellect vs the spirit.

Two Christian writers can help shed light on Southern Baptists’ (as well as others’) problem with “tongues”. One is the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, and the other, St. Paul. Both of these men recognize they possess two mental systems. Paul uses the word “understanding” (in Greek, the intellect) to describe one of the systems. He uses the word translated as “spirit” for the other system. We hear him describing how he works with his two systems in 1 Cor 14:15 “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also...I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also”. In other words, he is fully aware that he is using two distinct “mental” systems in his spirituality.
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St. John of the Cross, similarly describes two systems. He uses the word “sensual” (the understanding, will, and memory) for one system and “spirit” for the other.

Both men were conscious that the two systems had real problems with one another. For more on this. St. Paul describes the problem as follows: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him.”1Co 2:14) St. John of the Cross describes this same problem as follows: "The sensual part of a man has no capacity for that which is pure spirit.” (Bk. 1 IX 4). . St John goes further: “For anything that the soul (the intellect) can do of its own accord at this time (i.e. when God has infused Himself), serves only, to hinder inward peace and the work which God is accomplishing in the spirit.” (Bk. 1 IX) The intellect is getting in God’s way.

For St. John, God communicates directly with the spirit mind, outside the intellect’s capabilities. God even deliberately “binds (the intellect's) inner faculties and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. When once the soul (intellect) begins to enter therein (arrive at that state), its inability to reflect with the faculties grows ever greater.”Bk. (1 IX 4) At some point, the soul can go dark ( flat line). Thus, the title of St John’s book is: "Dark Night of the Soul”. Flat lining is a positive thing spiritually, but intolerable to the intellect.

St. Paul also wants to flatline the intellect, but unlike St. John of the Cross who lets God do it, St. Paul works on the experience himself: He tells us how he does it. 1Co 14:4 “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself (in Greek: “is a house builder,”, i.e. “building up his house”). He describes then how this gets his intellect to “go dark.”. “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding (intellect) is unfruitful (Greek: “barren,” not producing intellectual fruit”).(1 Co 14:14).

Today, if you read the attacks on “speaking in tongues”, you will quickly discern the resistance of the intellect to “go dark”, “to be unfruitful”, to enter “The Dark Night of the Soul”. Some attackers are appalled by an intellect becoming unfruitful. Others, only mock what they see or hear. In our present age of reason, most intellects struggle furiously to maintain domination over the consciousness. The word hegemony is useful. Hegemony is used to describe the dominance of one state over another. It is mostly used about political states, but it can be used with states of consciousness. The intellect demands hegemony in the modern mind. The idea of losing your mind temporally for the sake of making direct contact with God is unacceptable to most. See another take.

Which brings us back to the Southern Baptists. Baptists have two historical forces at work that give them problems with “tongues”. Fundamentalists among the Baptists get their title as the guardians of the fundamentals of the faith, i.e. correct theology. Guarding the fundamentals is a cerebral activity.

Secondly, Baptists got their name for their insistence upon reaching an age of accountability before being baptized -- believers baptism. Psychologists attribute this age of accountability which occurs around puberty, as resulting from the interconnections of the brain’s neurons reaching a level of maturity which makes rational thought possible. In other words, a core Baptist belief is the demand that you must be capable of understanding what you are doing. Spirituality as rational.

Following is a thoughtful comment received:
Anonymous said...
Fr Don has demonstrated something I have observed about the evangelical mind. Movie and TV often portrays evangelicals as emotional or simple-minded. In fact, behind some of the emotions of conversion is a tremendous rationality. Rather than conversion being a matter of emotion, Baptist theology tends to cast it as an act of the mind or will - the opposite of many of the images that are used to slam evangelicals like Southern Baptists.

I am wondering about the origins of this intellectual view of faith. The Baptist opposition to speaking in tongues seems rooted in their public embracing of dispensationalism. Rather than asking how to do the works of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, their rational theology reasons that the absence of those works today is proof that they were temporary gifts given to establish the Church until the canon of scripture was set. This position leads them to misinterpret Paul's state about spiritual gifts ceasing when that which is perfect is come (1 Corinthians 13). Clearly Paul is envisioning the coming of Christ and the life of the kingdom of God when partial revelation will give way to the fullness of God's presence and relationship with us.

In his books, "Surprised by the Power of God" and "Surprised by the Voice of God", former Baptist theologian Jack Deere shares a compelling account of his shift from dispensationalism to embracing the power and gifts and the Holy Spirit as described in the bible. I have come to a place where I cannot preach about a Jesus who cannot, or will not, do today all that the bible says he will do. This has not been a rational change and much as a change of heart. Speaking in tongues has become a wonderful means of prayer that helps me go beyond the limitations of my intellect. The child-like faith I exercise in praying from my born-again spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit helps me open up to God's ability to do beyond my wildest dreams. Like others, I constantly fall short of the fullness that is truly available - and is what I believe to be God's highest will for us. But I can't rationalize that reality away based on my short-fall because I have tasted enough of the real to know that there is gold in those hills that is worth the effort to mine it.

Young Christian Expresses His Opinions

2009-12-09T15:59:00.001-05:00

A young reader (age 15) put a comment on the web page. It was thoughtful enough to answer. Here is a part of what he wrote:

I am a Baptist, but we don't believe in speaking in tongues unless another person is able to understand what you are saying. We do not believe that it is the necessary, & I am not convinced otherwise unless someone is able to give counter evidence towards 1 Corinthians 14:6-12. Neither do I understand why there is need for argument. Why can we not just accept that every denomination has true believers, despite our minor contradictions? I have no doubts that my presbyterian friends, calvinist teachers, catholic grandmother, & non-denominational mother are all going to heaven. And once we get there, we'll all find out the truth.

Furthermore, I have no problem in admitting that my speculations might be wrong. As every person is made sinful, I believe that every denomination has flaws & imperfections. The devil is ever present & the temptation to convert to the most convenient denomination at the time is much stronger than people care to admit. Whatever a person's denomination, I just wish they would stick to their beliefs instead of swaying to whichever way the wind blows. However, me being a young child of 15, I don't suppose any of you adults will take into account any of my arguments as valid. At the moment, the only thing I'm worried about is entering college & being assimilated into the evils of this atheist world. They've already claimed my aunt. I pray that God will guide & protect me as I prepare to enter the unsheltered adult life.

I responded as follows: Dear Anonymous, Thanks for your comments. As a retired college professor, I know the dangers to peoples’ faith when they get in college. I always advised my Christian students, to spend a lot of time praying during a class when they sensed an attempt to undermine their faith. My daughter use to do that in her New Testament class. Then when God gave her the go ahead, she would either ask a question or make an observation. By that time, God had the man so confused, he would become incoherent.

The other thing I use to advise students was if they sensed the professor was trying to challenge faith, begin to learn all they could about his or her private life. Typically they would discover that the professor’s philosophy of life was not working–drugs, alcoholism, failing marriages, rebellious children, and the like. Many college professors have never done anything more in life than go to school. For that reason they often don’t develop mature personalities. Always tell yourself when professors stands in front of young people, they are a public advertisement of their beliefs: Without realizing it, they are proclaiming: “If you adopt my way of thinking, you will turn out to be like me.” Yuk! Who wants that!

As to tongues, keep in mind, all the disciples spoke in other tongues. From experience, I know it is a gift from God that is too good to miss out on. (In addition, praying under your breath in the Spirit as the Spirit gives utterance, is the best way to do something for your lost and confused professor as you endure a boring class.)

Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome

2009-11-24T17:14:00.005-05:00

Here is a letter I sent to a TV talk show:

This morning, you raised the question: “How to explain Palin Derangement Syndrome?” Because many have noticed the excessiveness, here is a suggested cause which will never be considered except by those who know of these things.

I am a Board Certified Psychologist, so naturally the question is intriguing. What is it about Sarah Palin that makes otherwise rational people,irrational? As a psychologist who tries to be honest with himself, if I went choleric each time a particular person was mentioned, I would be suspicious of myself.

Can this over-the-top reaction to Sarah Palin honestly be seen as rational? Looking at Palin’s history as mayor and governor, there is nothing in the record that is alarming. Her approach was bipartisan, sweet-spirited and in the interest of the people of Alaska. She never shoved her moral values down anyone’s throat. She had one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the land. The people loved her.

At the same time, we see her values match up with a majority of Americans, so there is nothing radical about her. Thus, I am stumped.

So, unable to make rational sense of it from a psychologist's viewpoint, I have to put on my other hat. Besides being a Board Certified Psychologist, I am also an Anglican priest. As a priest, when something seems unexplainable in the rational arena, I turn to the spiritual arena.

From the church’s inception, there has been an awareness that there is an inexplicable rage against those who are filled with the Spirit of Jesus–from Jesus’ crucifixion, to the disciples first public appearance, to today when this rage is turned against a Spirit-filled person who is doing nothing to provoke the loathing.

Early Christians began to realize that not only is there a Spirit of Christ, there is also a spirit of anti-Christ.

It has often been observed that God’s problem is to convince people He exists and that the anti-Christ’s work is to convince people he (anti-Christ) does not exist. So far, the anti-Christ is ahead, which creates a conundrum for anyone suggesting that the reactions to Palin’s spirituality might be anti-Christ. To suggest such is a good way to get dismissed as a religious kook.

Even so, when those of us who do know about these things listen to those who attack Palin’s devoutness, it becomes quickly obvious they are reacting on something way above their pay grade. So, that leaves them to their own devices to make sense of senseless behavior.

Catholic Church Changes

2009-10-22T17:22:00.001-04:00

PAUL THE EXPERIENTIALIST

2009-09-28T15:07:00.011-04:00

This article is to explore the incredible rewards Paul experienced by his trips into Heaven.

As a psychologist, I am always interested in descriptions of peoples’ authentic experiences and naturally that includes Paul’s. As the Pentecostal, Kenneth Hagan often said about direct experiences, “The man with the experience beats the man with the theology.” Or, as another famous writer wrote: “It is best not to have a good theology, you might mistake it for being a good Christian.” And, Paul says about his message: Gal. 1:12 (Msg) “I didn't receive it through the traditions, and I wasn't taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ. “

Searching for experience, I was baptized at age 11 by Southern Baptists, attending church until the customary hiatus of the university. I returned to the church and attended a Southern Baptist seminary. Later I continued my spiritual search through Buddhism, Hinduism, metaphysics, the writings of native spiritualists and finally returning to Christianity becoming a sacramentalist in the English Catholic Church. During that journey through other religions, true to my first calling as a psychologist, I always practiced their spiritual disciplines and did have the experiences they described.

Through all my search, I puzzled as to why, unlike Paul, there were no direct experiences in my Christianity. Then around the age of 55, I spoke in other tongues. As I have described in earlier writings, (See MY EXPERIENCE) that is when I was ushered into that divine encounter with God that I had always longed for. That experience of Pentecost has also granted me insight into the experiences of the New Testament writers, all of whom themselves were pentecostal. Because I had learned that all the spiritual systems I had studied have initiation rites that carried the practitioners into the spiritual dimension, I will always wonder what took me so long to realize that from its very first day, Christianity did as well–baptism plus the pentecostal experience.

I now understand that what I believed was Paul writing theology was not theology at all, but actually his descriptions and the results of his direct divine encounters.

If I parallel my journey through the legalism of my Baptist youth (never knowing for sure if I was in right standing with God,), to Paul’s attempts to win God’s favor by keeping the Torah, I think I understand him better.

For Paul his real life began on the road to Damascus and mine began in a little store front church.

With Paul, the power of God knocked him to the ground. With me, the power flattened me to the floor. With Paul, he had a direct encounter with Jesus in the heavenlies. With me, I had a direct encounter with God the Father and I don’t know where I was.

As I take my experiences and compare them with Paul, I truly believe they were the same; so now the psychologist in me begins to examine Paul’s experience.

Backing up for a minute. I have this fantasy that when I meet Paul, he will tell me the following. “Don, I was riding along on that donkey in what you psychologists call a state of sleepy reverie. The strangest thought occurred to me. ‘What if these people I am persecuting are on to something? What if God did raise the Hebrew Jesus from the grave? I even went so far as to address the question to their Jesus. ‘O.K. if you are alive, let me know’. (The fantasy includes that thought because the following statement was important to Paul: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, . . . . thou shalt be saved.”) Continuing: “The next second I was on the ground, then ushered straight into the presence of Jesus in the heavenlies. I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL!” (2 Cor. 12:2)

I ask myself what it must have been like for Paul to realize he was through the veil. His first thought almost had to have been: “What am I doing still alive?” I should have been barbecued!

To digress for a moment--I don’t know if Paul had studied Plato, but Plato’s thought permeated that part of the world in which Paul traveled. Plato had written an allegory of prisoners in a cave. They only saw the shadows of the real world outside their cave and according to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. When someone understands that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, he is then able to perceive the true form of reality making the shadows.

For Plato, our material world of change known to us through sensation are shadows of the real world. The real world are the forms making the shadows.

In Platonic fashion, Paul tells us in Hebrews 8:5 that the temple on earth with its curtain between the priest and the Inner Sanctum was actually “a shadow” of a real temple which is in Heaven. Paul has told us that everything he learned was by direct experience, so it follows that he was there in the real temple and knew it.

Describing the earthly temple as the shadow of the real temple. . . .” (The priest) serves unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. (Heb 8:5)

“But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper." (Hebrews 9:7-10)

Even the earthly Most Holy Place was said to be so holy that if someone brought in an unclean sacrifice, or someone not eligible entered, he could be struck dead. In order for the unclean not to go into the Holy of Holies, legend even had it that a rope was tied around the priest to pull him out if he was killed.

So, if you are Paul and you find yourself in the real Holy place and still alive, there can be only one conclusion: a sacrifice has been made and accepted–a perfect sacrifice--one with out spot or blemish. Standing before him is Jesus, obviously Himself, not dead. It follows: “This one has to be that perfect sacrifice. “

Paul can then declare: “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. …But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:24-26)

Now here comes the wonderful part: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place . . . .by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain,” (Heb. 10:19)

That declaration is not theology, it is his direct experience! Even more incredible it explains to us where we are now and how we are having divine encounters! We are passing back and forth through the curtain!

Which brings us to the next awareness that Paul must have had. If I am through the veil. If I am on the other side and still alive, then obviously an acceptable sacrifice has been made. Also, it follows that standing here within the Holy of Holies, I can legitimately know I have somehow gone through that whole cleansing ritual. Paul declares: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.“ (Heb. 10:22)

What I am doing next in this article is to give Paul’s descriptions of the person who is on the other side of the veil. I have collected all the descriptions I can find that Paul uses. At the same time, I call to your attention, that it is obvious that those to whom he is writing have shared those same experiences and so Paul is not even bothering explaining them.

Here are the words and phrases they use as they share with one another what was happening to them. I have collected them by books and am using the Power New Testament (3rd Ed) because the translator William J.Morford is revealing the Jewish Roots.

Experiential direct experiences from Book of Romans (in the order they appear)

We took grace; power of God; power of the Gospel; Torah is written in their hearts; Jewish inwardly; circumcised in his heart; without Torah the righteousness of God has been revealed; blessed are the lawless ones who have been forgiven; making righteous the one who has faith in Jesus; made righteous by faith; evidence of His righteousness; abundance of grace; gift of righteousness; old unregenerate man was crucified; body of sin condemned; sin will not rule you; you have been set free from sin; you have your fruit into sanctification; serve in newness of spirit; rejoice together in the Torah of God with respect to the inner man; righteousness; Jesus set you free; Spirit dwells in you; the spirit is alive because of righteousness; you took a spirit of adoption as children we cry “Abba Father”; Spirit bears witness with our spirit; spirit sighing in ourselves; Spirt helps together with us in our weakness; makes known the riches of his glory; Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; sanctified with ongoing effect by the Holy Spirit; fill you with joy and peace when you believe.

Experiential direct experiences in 1 Corinthians (in the order they appear):

been made holy; testimony of the Messiah was confirmed in you; called out into fellowship with His Son; message of the cross is the power of God; proclaiming the power and wisdom of God, Who became wisdom from God in us, righteousness and also holiness and redemption; has revealed them to us through our spirit; so that we would know the things freely given to us by God; and this is what we are speaking, not in teachings with words of human wisdom but in teachings of the Spirit; But natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know, because they are discerned spiritually; but we have the mind of Messiah; we know what He has taught; Spirit dwells in you; washed and made holy; made righteous by the name of the Lord Jesus Messiah and by the Sprit of our God;

Experiential direct experiences in 2 Corinthians (in the order they appear):

Who is in you since He was proclaimed by us; One who establishes us with you in Messiah; Who has anointed us; Who has sealed us, and has given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts; revealing everywhere through us the fragrance of the knowledge of Him; but whenever someone would turn toward the Lord, the veil is taken away; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom; and we all by raising the veil are transformed from glory to glory; just as by the Spirit of the Lord to behold for one’s self the glory of the Lord; reveal the knowledge of the glory of God; and the One Who worked the same thing in us is God; the One Who gave us the pledge of the Spirit; since we are always confident; a new creation; the one who reconciled us to Himself through Messiah; He placed in us the message of reconciliation; would know the righteousness of God by means of him; you must not ever touch the unclean; then I will take you in

Experiential direct experiences in Galatians (in the order they appear):

so that we would be made righteous by faith; we could take the promise of the Spirit through faith; sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts crying “Abba Father;”

Experiential direct experiences in Ephesians (in the order they appear):

Ephesians
the One Who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies by Messiah; glorious grace by which He favored us: given you a spirit of wisdom and revelation for your knowledge of Him; eyes of your heart have been enlightened for you to have known what is the hope of his inheritance; the riches of His glory; while we were dead to our sins, He made us alive in Messiah; caused us to sit down together in the heavenlies; introduction to the Father by means of one Spirit; set apart apostles; in whom we have boldness and access; strengthened in power by His Spirit working in your inner man; to make the Messiah live in your hearts though faith; when you have been rooted and established in love, so you would be able to seize, according to the power which works in us for our benefit; grace was given to each one of us; put on the new man, the one which has been created corresponding to God in the righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Experiential direct experiences in Phillipians (in the order they appear):

fruit of righteousness; consolation of love,; if any fellowship of the spirit; righteousness of God based on faith; surpassing worth of the knowledge of Messiah Jesus My Lord; peace of God which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your thoughts and purposes on Messiah Jesus; the God of peace be with you; the One Who strengthens me;

Experiential direct experiences in Colossians (in the order they appear):

growing in the knowledge of God; Whom we have the redemption and forgiveness of sins; He made peace through the blood of his cross; which is being worked in me in power; certainty of the understanding, in knowledge of the mystery of God, of Messiah; you took the Messiah, Jesus the Lord, to be joined with you; constantly filled through Him; He made you alive;

Experiential direct experiences in 1 Thessalonians (in the order they appear):

our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit; with joy from the Holy Spirit; You and God are witnesses; Who is working among you who believe; the Lord might enrich you and might abound your love; the One Who sanctifies you; establish your hearts blameless in holiness; the God of peace purify you completely in all respects.

Experiential direct experiences in 2 Thessalonians (in the order they appear):

He would fill you with every delight of goodness and work of faith in power; first fruits in salvation by means of sanctification of spirit; obtaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Messiah; Who loved us and by His and by grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope; the Lord of Peace give peace to you.

Here is what Paul prayed for us using the Greek word “epignosis–epi meaning “beyond” “gnosis” means knowledge. The translation used here is by a Greek scholar who translates “epignosis.” as “realization”. Colossians 1: 9,10, 2:2: “Therefore we also, from the day on which we hear, do not cease praying for you and requesting that you may be filled full with the realization of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, you are to walk worthily of the Lord for all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the realization of God…that their hearts may be consoled, being united in love, and to all the riches of the assurance of understanding, unto a realization of the secret. (Greek “mysterion”) of the God and Father, of Christ.” Merritt
And all of God’s people say “Amen.”

Obama says US is a large Muslim Country

2009-06-05T17:19:00.001-04:00

End Times?

God Breaks Up Tornado

2009-05-18T12:42:00.000-04:00

WORTH WATCHING

New Anglican Church

2009-03-20T16:52:00.002-04:00

NEW ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA

Atheist's Holiday

2009-03-19T12:47:00.001-04:00

FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLIDAY (Received in my e-mail, author unknown)

In Florida, an Atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays." The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant." The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fool's Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned." You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!

Colson On What to Do in Exile

2009-02-06T17:51:00.002-05:00

SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES IN EXILE

The Arab Israeli Conflict

2008-12-31T11:02:00.002-05:00

This was originally posted on my other blog.

From the dust jacket of the book “From Time Immemorial” by Joan Peters. “Joan Peters strikes a heavy blow against the broad consensus about ‘the Palestinians’ and the assumption that Palestinian rights are at the heart of the Arab Israeli conflict . . . From Time Immemorial supplies abundant justification for reversing the moral and legal presumptions that have cast Israel in the role of defendant before the court of world opinion.” And from the Washington Post, “A remarkable document in itself. . . . The refugees are not the problem but the excuse.”

Starting out to write a book supporting the Palestinian cause, her exhaustive research caused her to turn 180 degrees. What Peters uncovered was that the Palestinian problem, blamed by so many on Israel, turned out to have resulted from a monstrous historical hoax. Piecing together documents tucked away in old Ottoman and British records, dating from the beginning of the Israelis return to their homeland, like an expert detective, Peters uncovered the crime against the Jews.

The real history of this middle east conflict goes like this. The League of Nations granted the Jews their homeland which was to include both the East and the West side of the Jordan. Like many people, I had thought the land was teaming with people know as the Palestinians. Quite the contrary.

As the Jews began to resettle the Holy Land at the turn of this century, there were approximately 55,000 Muslims and 60,000 Jews living in the area. At the time, many of the Muslims were even wandering nomads.

The International community, under the League of Nations, assigned Britain to oversee the return of the Jews to their home land with Britain pledging under the Mandate that the land would be “closely settled by Jews.”

The Jews and British began creating an infrastructure in this once barren land. Attracted by the Jews success, just like today with our success, illegal immigrants began to sneak into the areas granted to the Jews both on the East and the West side of the Jordan. The British, motivated by the need to form military alliances with Arab countries at a time Europe was in turmoil, fraudulently reported to the League of Nations that the tens of thousands of explosive Arab growth was resulting from high birthrates of indigenous people.

By the time, the Jews needed to flee persecution in Europe, the British conspired with Arab nations to perpetuate the hoax that the Jewish homeland was overpopulated and that Arabs were being displaced. To add to the travesty the British made secret alliances with Arab nations. Then when the illegals began to become unhappy in Israel and tried to return to their countries of origin, they found themselves prevented by the leaders of the nations from which they had migrated. These countries had rid themselves of unskilled people, and even more insidiously, the Arab leaders realized that by pushing the people into the face of Israel, they could establish claim to the land for Islam. Much like walking the plank, the illegals faced Israel in front with guns, Arab countries at their rear with guns.

Finally, when the Jews faced the Holocaust and were fleeing Europe, the deceitful British claimed there were now too many people in what was finally being called Palestine. Many Jews lost their lives because of that British treachery.

As I watch the present crisis unfold, I am looking through the lens of this wonderfully documented book.

Christianity Light vs The Real Thing

2008-12-31T11:00:00.001-05:00

Recently, I posted the following:Mushy Christianity

Then, in the comment section the liberals piled on me. One implied I was arrogant and another, that I was unlearned. One (RV) suggested: “Blogger, read again the story about the loaves and the fishes. Matthew 14: 13-21.”

To which I replied to them: “In picking the feeding of the multitude, you could not have picked a better Scripture to disprove your point and support mine.”

Later RV came back with “I have read the story again. I am not sure what you are referring to unless it is the miraculous nature of taking five loaves and two fishes and feeding all the people. But in order for this miracle to take place, Jesus had to want to feed them (because he loved them).

Meanwhile a reader who had been tuning in on the running debate in the comment sections of many of my posts, weighed in with “Blogger is simply stating the fact - Jesus did far more than give money to the poor and treat people kindly.(A point, I, Blogger, had been trying to make for months.) He also cast out demons,healed the sick through supernatural power, cleansed lepers, and raised the dead. The overwhelming weight of New Testament passages and church history support Blogger's claims - believe it, or not “

As Blogger, I then breathed a sigh of relief and am now writing to RV. “RV Thanks for working at this. You are finally hearing me.

You probably know your recent church history and are aware of the Social Gospel. Social Gospel. Many today believe that the Social Gospel by taking over the main line churches and distancing people from the supernatural, was the cause of the decline of influence of Christianity in the world, especially in the Western World.

However arising almost concurrently with the Social Gospel and beginning with a revival in California and one in Wales, the supernatural reappeared and those who are seeing these miracles today are becoming the fastest growing segment of Christianity. Rise of Pentecostal/Charismatic Apart from growth in Islam (chiefly through high birth rates), the supernatural element of Christianity is outstripping all other forms of spirituality in the world.
This post was originally posted on my other blog.

Jesus’ disciples, through the work of the Holy Spirit, were able to duplicate the healing and the deliverance miracles of Jesus then and now. However, the manifestation of food by extra ordinary acts seems to have eluded them. Scripture says that Jesus leaped for joy when the disciples demonstrated His healing and deliverance miracles. On the other hand, as you read, He seems to have been disappointed that they did not get the feeding miracle.

My concern is that those who want to emphasize only the love part which you noted, but are not working on learning to reproduce the manifestation miracles (or other miracles for that matter), suck all the oxygen out of the room. The miracle of the fishes and the loaves have appeared from time to time in church history and are now being reported more often as people return to trying to learn to do what Jesus told them He would help them do.

Of Interest to my Fellow Anglicans

2008-12-04T18:36:00.001-05:00

New Anglican Province in America

American Anglican Church, Finally

2008-11-17T14:58:00.003-05:00

New Province

Judge Says Can't Sue God

2008-10-15T15:40:00.000-04:00

Can't Sue God

Interview with Archbishop Akinola.

2008-10-05T12:50:00.008-04:00

The following is from an interview of Archbishop Peter Akinola of
the history of why he has been selected to be the reluctant
spiritual leader of the new worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop: "First of all, in the Christian Association of
Nigeria - which brings together all our Christian people, Roman
Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal - my colleagues elected
me president for four years. So, I had to play the fatherly role though
I was much youngerthan many of the other elders, because they
looked up to me for leadership and guidance.

At the regional level we have the Council of Anglican Provinces of
Africa - we have 12 primates in Africa, like Dr Rowan in
England is Primate of All England. And the very first time I attended
their meeting, they elected me their chairman. So, again, a huge
responsibility. Each of my colleagues has his own sovereign church,
and yet they call me 'Baba', they call me 'chairman'. I have to work
very hard to ensure that we achieve whatever we want to achieve by
consensus. So, we discuss as gentlemen, as elders, as fellow fathers.

Beyond Africa is what is called 'the Global South' [a grouping of
the 20 of the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces that are in the
southern hemisphere]. Again, my colleagues chose me to be their
chairman.

Whatever they saw in me, I don't know. So, the same principle, all
the way. You have to bear in mind that each primate, each bishop is
an authority in his own right, with his own jurisdiction, and for
him to submit to your leadership he must be given due respect. And
so you consult with him, you share with him, you don't dictate
to him and so you achieve results.

I've applied the same principle to Gafcon [the Global Anglican Future
Conference], and this afternoon its Primates' Council made me their
chairman.

NO DARK NIGHT FOR TODD BENTLEY

2008-09-30T10:41:00.003-04:00

Recently we all witnessed the crashing and burning of the powerful evangelist, Todd Bentley. In reaching for an explanation of what happened to himself, he claimed he was “passing through the Dark Night of the Soul.” Then person in charge of his rehabilitation, Rick Joyner, of Morningstar Ministries, trying to help people understand what was happening, picked up the same term: “the Dark Night of the Soul.”. All of which prompted me to write the following letter: to Joyner,

Dear Rick,
You wrote in your newsletter, that Todd Bentley is suffering the Dark Night of the Soul. The reason I am writing this to you is to say that we in the medical profession, know that wrong diagnoses result in wrong treatments. Our friend is the least likely person I know to suffer what St. John of the Cross means in his classic “Dark Night of the Soul.” If you read on, I will explain.

(At the same time, included in my reason for writing this, is to protect St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul from being misunderstood and dummied down. Both Christians and New Agers alike are casually tossing the term around, emptying it of its profundity.)

One of the best ways to approach St. John is to come at him first from other systems of mysticism. What mystics of all faiths have discovered is that, before you can enter the mystic realm, the cognitive system must shut down. In Zen for example, an unsolvable Koan (sound of one hand clapping, etc.) brings the discursive mind (the intellect) to its knees, causing it to flat line. With the discursive mind out of the way, the psyche can enter the mystic realm. In Hinduism, some meditation systems accomplish this state by overloading the discursive processes. Others under load them. Islamic Sufi’s dance and twirl. The outcome is the same. The cognitive processes flat line and the person breaks through into direct encounters of the mystical experience.

St John has given us the Christian way of accomplishing this entrance into the mystic realm. True to our belief system, it is God Himself (not our meditation efforts)Who does the work. He achieves this by challenging the discursive system to the point it accepts that reaching the mystic realm is above its pay grade.

St John includes in the discursive system, the “understanding,” the will,” and “the memory”–all our mental processes except “the intuitive”. He uses the words “soul” and “sense. (I translated “soul” as “psyche”*) St. John writes:

“. . . .it is God Who is now working in the psuche; He binds its interior faculties, and
allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason
with the memory. For anything that the psuche can do of its own accord at this time serves only, . . . .to hinder inward peace and the work which God is accomplishing . . . . p. 67

Thus, the Dark Night is actually a negative experience only from the point of view of one’s intellect. This darkness is not a pleasant experience for the intellect which believed itself capable understanding everything. St. John explains:

. . . .the Divine wisdom is not only night and darkness for the psuche, but is likewise, affliction and torment . . . because of the height of Divine Wisdom, which transcends the talent of the soul and in this way is darkness to it. p. 100

Most of us have had the experience of our mind hurting when it works on an unsolvable math problem. Most of us are also aware of how our mind annoyingly intrudes into our quiet times with God which it can’t understand. St. John was describing the mental anguish that comes as the mind is being forced to surrender. His fellow monks were straining with every technique they had been taught to reach God. He was teaching them to let go and let God take the mind into darkness. Those who rely on their intellects would never make such a journey.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the entire psychological system, The Dark Night is a positive experience and has a happy outcome.

“When God leads the soul into this night of sense in order to purge the sense of its lower part and to subdue it, unite it and bring it into conformity with the spirit, by setting it in darkness and causing it to cease. . . . He brings it into the night of the spirit, and (although it appears not so to it) the soul gains so many benefits that it holds it to be a happy chance to have escaped from the bonds and restrictions of the senses of its lower self. . . .” p. 74

Of all the people on this planet, Todd is the least likely to be suffering from St. John’s Dark Night of the Soul. More than most people, he has poked through the mental cloud of unknowing into that mystical realm--to paraphrase Star Trek “where no mind has gone before.”

What many who are suffering what they want to call a dark night is more likely what we psychologists diagnose as Dysthymia. Some of the depression can result from an intense overload of emotions which can knock neurotransmitters out of whack.

Another possibility is what I am seeing in all the Charismatic leaders with whom I interact. Agnes Sanford observed years ago, that when the Holy Spirit pours through a person, any glitches will be blasted out into the open. The more powerfully the Spirt moves, the more any blockages can expect to be dislodged. She wrote:“ The subconscious will not peaceably store memories which are contradictory to the nature of God. Attention is constantly drawn back to these unstored memories. If unattended, these memories become problematic.”

As I travel among Charismatic leaders, I see a lot of unexamined pathology. The higher the power of the Spirit works through them, the more these unacknowledged glitches are going to flush up.

So to conclude, please don’t let St. John of the Cross’ great contribution to Christian experience be depreciated.

Sincerely,

Donald L. Clark, EdD, FAACoP
Board Certified Psychologist
Emeritus Professor of Psychology

*(In order to keep any reader from putting his or her own unique meanings into the word “soul,” I have substituted the Greek word ‘psuche” to keep the purity of St. John’s use of the word. In addition, psuche is closer to our word psyche or the psychological system.)

Reference: St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, N. Y.: Image Books Doubleday (Translation 1990)

In the Beginning

2008-07-30T12:23:00.002-04:00

As a psychologist, I have learned that some times when you get lost, it is a good idea to go back to the beginning when you knew where you were. Another thing I have learned is when you aren’t sure you understand what a person is saying, watch what they do.

The disciples watched Jesus and listened to him for three years, plus 40 days of teaching from the resurrected Jesus. So, when they began their work, I have to believe they did exactly what they were told to do. This is what I found in the Message translation:

Act 2:43 Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! Act 3:6 Peter said, "I don't have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!"
Act 3:7 He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm.
Act 3:8 He jumped to his feet and walked. The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God.
and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk?
Act 3:13 The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus
Act 3:16 Faith in Jesus' name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet--yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes.
by means of his name this man stands before you healthy and whole.
Act 5:12 Through the work of the apostles, many God-signs were set up among the people, many wonderful things done..
Act 5:15 They even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on stretchers and bedrolls, hoping they would be touched by Peter's shadow when he walked by.
Act 5:16 They came from the villages surrounding Jerusalem, throngs of them, bringing the sick and bedeviled. And they all were healed
Act 6:8 Stephen, brimming with God's grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them.

Doesn’t look at all like where the church down the street is going? Someone fiddled with the compass.

American Church Causes Great Peril for African Anglicans

2008-07-26T14:57:00.000-04:00

The Anglican Church just had its gathering which occurs every 10 years. Some of you who keep up with these things may have read that for the first time in history, a substantial number of bishops boycotted the meeting. Most notably absent or registering protests, were the bishops from Africa who represent the largest segment of the denomination, dwarfing the American division of Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church.

In order for people to realize that these boycotts and protests were serious, I am quoting from one of the reports. In a statement released on the second day of the Lambeth Conference, the Sudanese church called upon the American church to "respect the authority of the Bible," refrain from ordaining gay priests or bishops, halt gay blessings, and "cease court actions against traditionalists with immediate effect." The American Church's experiments with gay blessings and bishops had led to the deaths of Sudanese Christians, Dr. Daniel Deng said in an impromptu press conference in the Lambeth Conference media room. Because of the actions of the American church, "we are called infidels in the Islamic world when they hear of the same-sex blessings," he said. "It will give [Islamist militants] reason to kill" Sudanese Christians he said.

Face to face with Islam in Africa, the African bishops had tried to warn the American church that their actions could have grave consequences in Africa, which is exactly what has happened.

Criticizing--Minister's Occupational Hazard

2008-07-13T14:58:00.004-04:00

Criticizing other ministries is an occupational hazard of ministers. I have done it myself and it requires me to constantly repent, probably boring God.

I ran across the following quote from Rick Joyner which should be helpful to me. Speaking of these attacks on one, another, Rick wrote: “However, if someone is going to criticize, we need to check their credentials. If someone has a significant healing and miracle ministry, we should listen to them in relation to the ministry of healing and miracles. If someone has been used to start and shepherd a significant revival, I would listen to him much more about his views of a revival than someone who has only read or written about them.”

Big amen Rick.

Chinese School Girls Getting Slammed by Holy Spirit

2008-07-02T14:40:00.001-04:00

Anglicans Score

2008-06-29T20:15:00.002-04:00

For those interested in the Anglican Church

Keeping Religion Out of Politics

2008-06-28T19:57:00.001-04:00

Religion was in the news this week.
When Moses led Israel to the promised land, he instructed them in how things would work. They followed his instructions and for a period of years, they basked in extraordinary manifestations of God’s sovereignty. Over time, in encounters with other systems, they diluted the teachings and their fortunes went down the toilet.

Finally Jesus came, trained his disciples to heal the sick and cast out unclean spirits, revealing God’s sovereignty. Before leaving He gave his followers the following information. "These are some of the signs that will accompany believers: They will throw out demons in my name, they will speak in new tongues, they will take snakes in their hands, they will drink poison and not be hurt, they will lay hands on the sick and make them well. Then the Master Jesus, after briefing them, was taken up to heaven, and he sat down beside God. And the disciples went everywhere preaching, the Master working right with them, validating the Message with indisputable evidence.” (Mk 16: ff MSG)

The Book of Acts reveals that the followers heard what He said, and did exactly as told. They received the results promised. Then, just as before, over time the message was watered down with syncretism from secular and other sources. The extraordinary began to dissipate.

Why put this post on a political blog? Well because it is time to get religion out of these political discussions. After all, Jesus declared: These are some of the signs that will accompany believers, healing the sick, casting out demons, the Master working right with them, validating the Message with indisputable evidence.When politicians speak publically, they don’t tell people what signs to look for. Instead it is “Jesus, social worker to the poor.” or “Jesus, the moral teacher”, religion comprehendible to secular minds.

Then Dobson who thinks Jesus was a moral teacher blasts Obama who thinks Jesus was a social worker. And they both in turn are blasted by secularists who believe all religions are the same and thus don’t matter. Can you imagine any political candidate saying and demonstrating: “these are the signs that reveal the authentic. They supernaturally heal the sick and cast out demons.” Are you kidding?

I’m with McCain. Keep religion at a distance, and let them guess.

http

England--A Muslim Nation?

2008-05-29T12:25:00.002-04:00

Link to political blog

Hagin Clarifies Before His Death

2008-03-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

Anyone reading the article on Kenneth Hagin on this blog, might run across criticism of him. You will find the following article interesting.

INTRODUCTION TO DOING PRAXIS AS A PSYCHOTHERAPIST

2008-02-13T18:22:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION TO DOING PRAXIS AS A PSYCHOTHERAPIST

“We need to turn the field of psychology upside down.” That was the rallying cry of the young revolutionary professors in my doctoral program. “We have studied the abnormal. Now is the time in psychology’s history to study the supernormal. Enough of what makes people sick. Let’s study those who function at high levels.”

I have always been grateful that God led me to that doctoral program. It was a good fit. From then on, I was searching for the vein of gold called the super-well. When I had the Charismatic experience, I knew I had hit the mother load!

Before that however, I went down many side shafts. In some there was gold. In others, rock. I will speak of this later.

I have already mentioned the experience that empowers my life, but now I have a specific purpose. First, I want to establish my credentials for writing this.

My psychological career has been dedicated to the study of the praxis of psychology. In psychology’s case, to do praxis is to practice the art of healing the psyche while simultaneously theorizing about what one is doing. Our great-grandfather Freud, started us in that direction from the beginning.

I was able to demonstrate my mastery of praxis to my colleagues and was granted Board Certification, a level only one other person in my department achieved. Later, my national professional organization awarded me the Life Time Contribution Award. Some of that award was based on how many students credited me with inspiring them, not only to pursue doctorates, but later to achieve Board status as well as positions of leadership in the profession.

Two audiences in particularly which I hope will find this part of my blog useful, include Christian psychology college professors who teach about their faith while avoiding proselytizing in the academy. The second group I hope will read this, are college students, especially psychology students, who don’t realize what a gold mine their Christian faith is. Some times their faith is damaged by the secularists who themselves, cheat on the “no proselytizing” convention.

PRAXIS OF SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2

2008-02-13T18:20:00.001-05:00

PRAXIS OF SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2

I promised I would describe some of the shafts I explored searching for super-wellness. Even before I entered my doctorate program, I was already on a search for super-health but did not know it. My first job out of undergraduate school was with the Dale Carnegie Schools in Washington, D.C. In our classes we had governors, congressmen, business men, etc., all working on improving themselves beyond where they were.

Another fortunate break before graduate school was that I had my first clinical training in a Freudian school. One of the beliefs of Freud was that before you psychoanalyzed others, you should be psychoanalyzed yourself. I had several years then of personal psychoanalysis. My analyst actually could say he had Apostolic succession to Freud himself, having had his own analysis from a direct early disciple of the master. I still believe that Freud was right and anyone who delves into another’s psyche should go into his or her own first. For me, that was a profitable vein in the mine of the psyche and many of my dreams revealed psychological empowerment.

During graduate school, I encountered the stories out of the East of people with exceptional abilities. So the search led Eastward and for a number of years, I assiduously practiced a form of Yoga–Kriya.Yoga. Again, that was a profitable mine as I learned that when you alter your consciousness, you live at higher levels of spiritual insights and abilities.

Then I had the Charismatic experience which I have discussed earlier in this blog. As I have told the readers, the Charismatic experience is the absolute most empowering experience I have had to date. Nothing before it, even compares. That does not mean I don’t want anything else if God has any more surprises up His sleeve.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAXIS OF CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY CONTINUES CHAPTER 3

2008-02-13T18:15:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAXIS OF CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY CONTINUES CHAPTER 3

Because my expertise was the praxis of psychology, the task became, how to introduce a Christian health-giving theoretical model into the curriculum without violating rules against proselytizing in the university. How I answered that dilemma, I will now share.

My intellectual mentor was Joseph Rhylak PhD of Loyola University. To me his textbooks on personality were always the best in the field. Rhylak had taught me that those doing praxis needed to be able to answer the following seven questions: 1) How to describe the essential structure of personality (Freud’s id, ego, and superego are examples.) 2) How to describe what moves that structure? (Motivation). 3) Does the personality change over time, and if so, in what way? (Growth and Development.) 4) How does one account for the variety of differences among individuals? 5) What does it mean to be ill, and how does illness happen? 6) How does the personality get cured? 7) What unique procedures does the theorist utilize to create cures?

Praxis was my work.

Having taught Rhylak’s approach all my academic life, I immediately saw that Pentecostal/Charismatic healers were doing psychological praxis. They were healing the sick while simultaneously theorizing as they went along. So, all I had to do was to apply Rychlak’s seven requirements to the writings of the prominent schools of healing in the Charismatic/Pentecostal movements and the personality theory of praxis would be evident.

Three of these Charismatic/Pentecostal movements that had most satisfactorily addressed at least most of these seven essentials, were the Word of Faith movement, the Inner Healing movement and Jessie Penn Lewis of the great Welch revival. In extracting the praxis from these movements and then publishing the results in scholarly journals, I could then introduce these models legitimately into my classes. That is what I did.

That I did an acceptable job of describing the systems can be seen in the following: Kenneth Hagin the leading proponent of the Word of Faith Movement, after reading my manuscript, wrote giving me permission to use his material and called my work “interesting.” The Sandford’s of the Inner Healing Movement, wrote me a personal note that my work was one of the best analyses of their writings to date. The present minister who carries on the work of Jessie Penn-Lewis invited me to come to Wales where I stayed in his home for several days. Topping it off, after showing my work to his classes, my mentor Joseph Rychlak, came from Chicago to speak at my university in North Carolina. The day was one of those Carolina blue autumn days and we strolled about the campus. To my surprised joy, our conversation was mostly about the Lord.

HOW I INTRODUCED CHRISTIAN THEORIES INTO MY CLASSES

2008-02-13T18:13:00.009-05:00

PRAXIS CLASS METHOD CHAPTER 4

I go back for a minute and describe how I successfully introduced Christian psychotherapeutic praxis into my classes. I had always taught my class entitled Theories of Personality by allowing students to form groups and choose which theorist they wanted to study. Because I knew that some would go on to graduate school, in order to start them toward excellence, I actually used the format of the exam for psychotherapist excellence of the American Board of Professional Psychology. I hoped that some day they might all go for that highest standard in our field.

The Board exam was given in the following way. While being taped and watched through a one way mirror, the candidate conducted a session with a patient using his or her chosen theoretical approach. Afterwards, the psychologist met with four board certified psychologists, and explained what was done and why. Being able to do praxis, that is applying and explaining at an exceptional level, was the criteria of excellence.

In my classes, the students repeated the above format, role playing a simulated session before the class, then following with the class members grilling them on what they did and why. Just as in the Board exam, grades were given for their ability to articulate the theoretical position they had chosen.

Because my articles on Christian theorists followed the model of what makes a good theory, each term, there was always a group of Christian students who chose one or the other of the two Christian theorists I had written about. The only rule for them was that they were to follow the same model as the others in class, with no proselytizing allowed. The approach worked like a charm and over the years, many Christian psychology students were able to feel their Christian theory held its own with the other more well known theories of psychotherapy. Thus, their faith was not undermined by exposure to competing theories.

HOW THE THEORIST DESCRIBES THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

2008-02-13T18:13:00.008-05:00

FIRST QUESTION: HOW DOES PRACTITIONER DESCRIBE THE STRUCTURE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY? CHAPTER 5

The Faith Teachers
The first article covers the Word of Faith Teachers who do praxis in much the same way as practitioners such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, and the like. That is, they heal personality dysfunction while self-consciously explaining their work. For those readers not familiar with the Word of Faith teaching, the best known is Kenneth E. Hagin (now deceased). Some of his ideas appear to come from the earlier works of E. W. Kenyon who wrote in the early part of this century. In a personal conversation with the James Buckingham, former Editor-at Large of Charisma magazine, he suggests that E.W. Kenyon was the grandfather and Kenneth E. Hagin Sr. the father of the Faith movement who popularized the teachings and then spawned others such as Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, Norvell Hayes, Fred Price, Jerry Savelle, John Osteen and others. Other famous names who, around the same time, arrived at similar conclusions about faith, but from different traditions were P. Cho, T. L. Osborne and Lester Sumrall. Today, there are many others all over the world who have their original roots in this school of thought, not to mention how much of these teachings have permeated throughout Christian practice.

In order to make the writings of the Faith Teachers parallel the major psychologist’s theories of personality, all I had to do was to answer Rychlak’s questions of a theory of personality.

FAITH TEACHING STRUCTURAL CONSTRUCTS

The first question required of a personality theory is to describe the structure of personality, i.e., “What theoretical analogies and metaphors are used in creating the outline of consistent behavior enabling us to speak of personality?” (Rychlak, 1981 p.31)

Again, most people know of Freud’s id, ego and superego. Just as Freud had his id, ego and superego, Kenyon (1970) describes a three part division. There are the spirit, the soul and the body. “Man is a spirit being. He has a soul, and he lives in a physical body.” The three different structures of the personality are further amplified by Hagin (1979) as serving three different functions: “With the body I contact the physical realm. With my spirit I contact the spiritual realm. (and) with my soul I contact the intellectual realm”

Spirit
Hagin apparently became aware of this tri-partite division of his personality after an “out-of-body” experience in his youth. The experience left him with the distinct impression of these three structures to his personality. Later Hagin and others were influenced by Kenyon’s writings as they developed the concept of the spirt as a distinct structure. Kenyon (1966) taught that God is a spirit, angels and demons are spirits and humans are spirits. When the Holy Spirit infuses the human spirit, then the personality is returned to God’s class of Spirit. Now the individual’s spirit can make direct contact and communicate spirit to Spirit.

Although St. Paul was not careful in systematically using words for his own personality, in 1 Cor. Chapt 14:15 he reveals clearly that he was aware of two distinct structures to his personality, each with its own function. “ What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

Soul
Kenyon (1966) departed from the popular use of the word “soul,” the one my denomination used in the seminary at the time I attended, in describing this second structure of personality. In those days, I was just taught we had a soul and a body. Kenyon and Hagin’s use of the word “soul” is similar to Paul’s use of “understanding” in the Scripture above. For Kenyon, the soul is that which is derived through the senses: this then includes the cognitions, the will and the emotions. The term he preferred was “sense knowledge” which he used interchangeably with the term “soul.” Just as Paul taught in 1 Cor. 2, sense knowledge is incapable of knowing God.

The clearest teaching of this inability for sense knowledge to access God is found in the mediaeval mystic St. John of the Cross. In his classic “Dark Night of the Soul,” he describes how the sense knowledge, or soul, panics and goes dark (flat lines) when it suspects there is another part of the personality “the spirit” carrying out actions which cannot be accessed by its mental activity.

Kenyon points out that a central problem of sense knowledge is that it produces a form of faith in information obtained through the senses, which then claims hegemony over the entire system. He paraphrases Romans 8:5-7 “For they that are after the senses have the mind of the senses, but they that are after the spirit, have the mind of the spirit. . . . The mind of the flesh (that is, the thinking that derives its evidence from the senses) is enmity against God.”

Body
Hagin equates the body with the senses. The body is the source of the information which is creating the soul’s experiences. It is also the outward man that is perishing, in contrast to the inward man, or spirit. The spirt is being renewed day by day. The body has to be brought under the control of the spirit eventually (not soul or mind control such as in Christian Science).

FAITH TEACHING MOTIVATIONAL CONSTRUCTS, TIME CONSTRUCTS AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CHAPTER 5

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MOTIVATIONAL CONSTRUCTS, TIME CONSTRUCTS AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CHAPTER 5

Rychlak’s (1981) second, third and fourth questions ask: On what basis does the personality structure act or behave? How does the personality change over time? And, how does one account for the individual differences of people? The questions boil down to understanding what motivates people to grow and change and to answer the question of why we are all different from one another.

Kenyon and Hagin discuss motivation in a way similar to the discussion of the struggle between the id, ego, and superego in Freud’s theory. There is an ongoing striving for dominance (hegemony) among the three different parts of the personality. Just as in Freud, the id, ego, and superego struggle for primacy, in the Faith teaching, the physical, the sense knowledge, and the spirit struggle for hegemony. Just as in Freud, the process of this struggle and the outcome, explain how one’s personality comes to be, in a similar manner, so it is with the Faith Teachers.

The Process of the struggle to grow as mature Christian personalities

Kenyon (1971) writes: “When the spirit receives Eternal Life, it begins a war against the senses that rule the mind that has received all of its impulses from the human body. It demands ascendancy over the mind.” (p. 6)

Hagin (1978) adds: Even though your spirit is born again, even though your spirit has the Holy Spirit abiding within: if the mind isn’t renewed (or as James says, the soul saved) with the Word, then the mind, which has been educated through the body and through the physical senses, will side in with the body and the two will frame up on your spirit to keep you a baby Christian.(p 69)

Bottom line is that the personality is being formed as its different parts struggle with each other. We can reveal a fleshly dominated personality, a mentally dominated personality, or a spiritually dominated personality, as the different parts assume control.

FAITH TEACHING THEORY OF ILLNESS CHAPTER 6

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THEORY OF ILLNESS CHAPTER 6

How do we get sick?

According to Rychlak (1981), a personality theory must answer the question: “How does a personality get sick?” The answer to this question, together with the complementary question“How does a personality get well?”–issues seamlessly from each specific theory of personality. Faith teachers have a cohesive relationship between their personality theory and their theory of illness and cure.

Of course, like most Christians, Faith teachers believe that sickness came to the human race when Adam fell under “the curse.” The curse’s effects are outlined in Deuteronomy 28. Hagin (1981) gives his interpretation of these Deuteronomy passages of how sickness comes about as follows:
“The King James’ translation of these Scriptures would lead us to believe that God Himself puts sickness and afflictions upon His people, for it reads, ‘The Lord will smite thee’ . . . In the original Hebrew, the verb is in the permissive rather than the causative sense. Actually it should have been translated something like this: ‘The Lord will allow you to be smitten. . . .’” (p. 15)

For the Christian thinker, sin is what makes us eligible for the curse. Faith on the other hand is what breaks the curse. From the Faith teachers point of view, to know how much faith one has, faith can be revealed by what we say. In relationship to sickness for example, if our words reveal a total confidence in God, then one demonstrates eligibility for the breaking of the curse. If on the other hand, one’s words expose lack of confidence in God, the person remains under the curse with all its pain and suffering.

How do we stay sick?

Kenyon (1971) expressed the situation like this:

“Every time you confess your doubts and fears, you confess your faith in Satan and deny the ability and grace of God. When you confess your weakness and your disease, you are openly confessing that the Word of God is not true and that God has failed to make it good.” ((God) declares that: ‘With his stripes you were healed’; and: ‘Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases.’

Instead of confessing that He has borne my diseases and put them away, I confess that I still have them. I take the testimony of my senses instead of the testimony of the Word of God. . . . The believer who is always confessing his sins and his weaknesses is building weakness, failure, and sin into his consciousness.” (p. 60) Broadcasting words that reveal panic rather than trust in God during a crisis, is a dead giveaway as to one’s level of faith. We have to be especially careful what we say to our own self.

As Paul said over an over, we are made righteous through faith. God’s revelation to us informs us that a righteous person is not subject to the curse, therefore, does not qualify for sickness and disease. Such is the theory of illness as explained by the Faith teachers.

FAITH TEACHING THEORY OF CURE CHAPTER 7

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THEORY OF CURE CHAPTER 7

When sick, how do we get well?

THEORY OF CURE
The theory of illness sets up the theory of cure. Rychlak’s sixth question is “How is cure effected.” If you accept that your problem is that your body and mind have fallen under the curse, and that your sense knowledge has taken control of your whole psychological system, and if you add that faith can break that hold and make you eligible for your cure, then the answer to cure becomes self-evident.

To begin with, the problem is that when sense knowledge has a dominance over the system, the God type of faith becomes impossible. As Kenyon points out, sense knowledge gives us aa type of faith built upon our experience that is hard to break. Faith reveals to us that we can be healed. At the same time, sense knowledge built on information coming from within and without can tell us that we cannot.

So, Paul talks of the necessity of renewing of the mind. Even if we are in pain, there is access to higher knowing that co-opts the lower sense knowledge. Faith teachers found that the best way to renew the mind was with the Scriptures–God’s Revelation.

Renewing of the mind can go on in two ways. One is a natural way much like the teaching of modern cognitive theorists with their teaching on “cognitive restructuring”: The other renewing of the mind is more supernatural.

Hagin (1978) explains the cognitive way like this: “When the mind has been renewed with the Word of God, the soul can take sides with the spirit because it now knows what God says.” (p.11). In other words, even though you are in a situation that seems impossible and your body, part of your mind, and the medical people are confirming it, there is a part of you that knows a higher truth. Thus, the sense type faith can’t totally dominate. Then God’s Spirit through man’s spirit can get control.

A similar insight into cure was discovered by Freud when he wrote something to the effect that “Where id was, there must ego illuminate.” In Freud’s case ego (soul) must become aware of the id and id must relinquish its grip. In the Faith Teaching, if the soul can entertain the possibility of a higher power due to its saturation in the written revelation, it will loosen its grip on the psychological system and let the spirit do its faith work.

Besides this cognitive function of the Word’ ability to break the hold of sense knowledge type of faith, Faith teachers also discovered in the Word, a form of life force in and of itself. There is mind renewing power in the Word. St. John teaches us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In John 17:17 “Make them holy--consecrated--with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth.” Kenyon (1966) writes: “Just as Sense Knowledge is developed by reading Sense Knowledge literature, so the spirit grows by reading and meditating in the Revelation that was designed to be its food.” (p. 16)
Building on Paul’s statement in Romans 10:17–“faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” Capps explains how the process works. “Take the Word which is filled with Spirit power, the power of God, and speak that Word. Then that Spirit life in that Word gets inside of you because your voice is picked up by your inner ear and fed directly into the human spirit.

Faith that breaks the curse is now possible.

FAITH TEACHERS THE TECHNIQUES OF CURE CHAPTER 8

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FINALLY WE COME TO THE TECHNIQUES OF CURE CHAPTER 8

The theorist then has the idea of what causes illness followed by what can cure. So the next question is how do you do it? Rychlak’s (1981) final question is “What unique procedures are followed by the theorist in readjusting the disordered personality?”

For the Faith Teachers, we cure people the same way Jesus did. Jesus cured by speaking to the illness. Kenyon (1970 explained the technique as follows:

The Word in your lips becomes a living thing, just as the Word in Jesus’ lips could rule the sea, the winds and the waves. . . . so His Word now in your lips will take the place of Christ on earth. There is a sick one. If Jesus were here, He would say, ‘Son, you are healed.’ You are using His Word. That is your confession, that His Word, now has become the healer in your lips–the pulpit of Jesus Christ. (pps. 96-97)

When you affirm that the Word of God cannot be broken, you affirm that the Word and God are one, that when you trust in the Word, you are trusting in God the Father. You affirm to your own heart that behind the Word is the throne of God, that the integrity of God is interwoven into the pattern of His Word. (P. 106)

Another writer Norvelle Hayes (1984) has a track record of successes. He says: “The Holy Spirit lives within you, He manifests Himself according to what he hears. If He hears any Scripture (He will do what He hears).” Hayes is noted for persistency. In his talks, he tells believers to speak the Words of God to their mountains, i.e., their problems “every day, every day, every day.” He loves to tell the story of his daughter who was covered with ugly warts. Every day, he spoke to those warts telling them to go. His daughter would exclaim, “Daddy, you are driving me nuts!” Then one day she began screaming, “They are gone! They are gone!” In one moment they had completely disappeared!

In a sort of worldwide Zeitgeist, a Korean was picking up similar ideas and those in the know do not believe he had contact with the Americans or the other worldwide Christians in forming those ideas. Cho (1983) taught what he called “incubation.” Taking the verses in Hebrews 11:1 concerning faith: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” He has four points in his system summarized as follows: First you must have a clear goal. That goal must be in line with the promises of God in the Scriptures. Often God gives this goal to you as a desire of your heart. Secondly, you must be able to visualize the end result of that goal. He illustrates this with how God anchored Abraham’s faith in a figure for his imagination by having him count the stars. From then on, Abraham could visualize those children that he would father that, like the stars, could not be numbered. The image then becomes the “substance” the actual evidence of things hoped for, to hold on to even though the reality seemed impossible. Third, you pray that God will give you assurance thus giving real substance to your faith. Fourth, then you must confess with your mouth, the outcome.

The Scripture that launched Hagen, the most influential of the Faith Teachers was Mark 11 23 “verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” That Scripture inspired thousands of teachers to go out and heal the sick all over the world.

REFERENCES:
Capps. C. (1976). The tongue a creative force. Tulsa, OK. Harrison House
Cho, P.Y. (1979). The fourth dimension. Plainfield, NJ. Logos.
Copeland, K. (1976). Our covenant with God. Forth Worth, TX. Kenneth Copeland Publications
Hagin, K.E. (1979). Man on three dimensions. Tulsa, OK: Faith Library
Kenyon, E. W. (1970). The hidden man. Lynnwood, WA: Kenyon Gospel
Osborn, T. (1981) Faith speaks. Tulsa, OK: Harrison House
Osteen, J. (1984) Reigning in life as a king. Houston: John Osteen
Price, F.K. (1976) How to obtain strong faith. Tulsa, OK: Harrison House
Rychlak, J.F. (1981) Introduction to personality and psychotherapy (2nd ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Savelle, J. (1981) Godly wisdom for prosperity. Tulsa, OK: Harrison House
Sumrall, L. (1984) Faith to change the world. Tulsa, OK. Harrison House.

THE INNER HEALERS INTRODUCTION

2008-02-13T17:59:00.001-05:00

This is a continuation of some previously published articles on the praxis of psychotherapy. The first series was on the Faith Teachers. This series is on the Inner Healers.

The name Inner Healers, comes from their emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal and to heal, inner psychological traumas. In this as well as the prior series of articles, I am taking the approach historical psychology has used, by applying a set of questions that a psychotherapist theorist must ask. In my case I use Joseph Rychlak’s (1981) model as my guide.

A number of prominent spiritual healers doing praxis are the Sandfords (1985) the MacNutts (1974) and Stapleton (1978), who have acknowledged their debt to the early healing work of Agnes Sanford and her School of Pastoral Care.

My intellectual mentor was Joseph Rhylak PhD of Loyola University. To me his textbooks on personality were always the best in the field. Rhylak had taught me that those doing praxis needed to be able to answer the following seven questions: 1) How do I describe the essential structure of personality (Freud’s id, ego, and superego are examples.) 2) How do I describe what moves that structure? (Motivation). 3) Does the personality change over time, and if so, in what way? (Growth and Development.) 4) How does one account for the variety of differences among individuals? 5) What does it mean to be ill, and how does illness happen? 6) How does the personality get cured? 7) What unique procedures does the theorist utilize to create cures?

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAXIS OF INNER HEALING CHAPTER 2

2008-02-13T17:57:00.000-05:00

The two Sandfords, John and Paula, (1982, 1985) have continued to develop Agnes Sanford’s approach in their theory of the praxis of inner healing. In developing Sanford’s work, the Sandfords have put their emphasis on the effects of sin in the personality structure. Before developing their ideas of what they call ‘the sinful self,’ one more theorizing concept from Rhychlak needs to be introduced.

Responding versus teleosponding
Personality theorists are divided into those who believe the personality is constructed in response to its environment and those who believe personality is inherent, inborn. The best examples are the Behaviorists who believe we are born a blank tablet and the environment writes upon that tablet to create our personality.

In contrast are those theorists who postulate a pre-existing person, a sort of ghost in the machine, even before we start. God says to Jeremiah .for example, ”Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.” For this second group, Rhychlak proposes a new term to be used in psychology.. In direct contrast to the Behaviorists word “response,” he proposes the concept of the word “telosponse.” To telospond is to perform a mental act prior to an environmental stimulus. Telosponsive behavior proactively frames human purposes in relation to stimuli rather than merely responding reactively to stimuli. Telosponses thus change stimuli to fit human purposes apriori, that is, before we even respond.
In the following quote you hear the proactive telosponse of what the Sandford calls the “sinful self.”
“As Christians, we believe that what is already in us, by inheritance from Adam, colors our interpretation of all that happens to us, and influences drastically our choices in responding. Further, Adamic sin often initiates many wrongs done by us before events happen to form us wrongly. It is not merely that life does things to us; we first do some things to life.” (p 7, italic emphases added by this writer.)

Thus, prior to development of any characteristic of the personality, sin actively telosponds, distorting all inputs to the personality. Therefore, there is no such thing as a neutral stimulus in that every stimulus is fouled by “the deceitfulness of sin” from the start. This proactive distortion of experience at every point, guarantees malformation of every human personality on the planet from the beginning. (The proactive consequences of sin will be further discussed under theory of illness.)

THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY FOR THE INNER HEALERS CHAPTER III

2008-02-13T17:52:00.000-05:00

THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY FOR THE INNER HEALERS CHAPTER III

The first question someone doing praxis as a psychotherapist or spiritual healer must answer is the question “what is the essential structure of personality?” As discussed in the previous chapter, a personality theorists tend to divide approaches into two models: In his discussion of personality, Rychlak divided personality theories into reactive and proactive models. Reactive models are represented by the laboratory theorists, such as the Behaviorist. They try to capture the structure of personalty as an effect. The personality structure is something built up from environmental inputs. On the other hand, proactive models tend to come from those who do praxis. The phenomenologists, for example, who see the personality as cause. The personality is a proactive, a priori entity that acts upon the environmental inputs.

The spirit
Sanford (1958), has taken a strong proactive stance in her structural constructs especially the spirit. The spirit is that part of us a priori from our beginning. Our spirit is that which was originally breathed by God into every human (Gen. 2:7)–the light that is in the world by which the world was created (John 1:9-10). The spirit, enfolds the other two parts of the personality structure, the conscious and the subconscious.

The conscious mind
The second structure is the conscious mind which she equates with the cognitive processes–the reasoning capacities of the individual. She describes the conscious mind as that which allows us to cooperate with God in a reasonable manner.

The subconscious
Her third structure, the subconscious, is a more complicated construction which Sanford does not always use in a consistent manner. For that reason it will be discussed in the next chapter. Sometimes subconscious merely means anything which is not conscious. At other times, she uses the term to indicate the process of storing memories. At still other times, she uses the term to indicate something similar to Cannon’s “wisdom of the body,” that is, an inherent bodily knowledge of what is good for the organism.

For example, in speaking of the subconscious as a process of memory storage, Sanford writes: Now let us come to the most important point concerning the action of the subconscious, that faithful servant stores away all the memories in neat files, permits the conscious mind to forget many of them, and produces them as needed. . . . all of the memories except those of fear, anger, pain, and guilt. (concerning these latter memories) the subconscious mind is like a careful housekeeper who will not put away dirty clothes or dishes, but insists in keeping them in plain sight until they are cleaned. (p. 66)

When she used the term subconscious to mean an inherent bodily wisdom, she wrote: “(There is ) a hidden engineer within our bodies, placed there by God to see that we. . . .(get through life). The subconscious engineer acts under a blanket order from God. . . .There is also a captain in our heads: the conscious mind, which enables us to cooperate with God in a reasonable way.

The engineer within the body cannot read the captain’s mind. The subconscious mind does not respond to reason, but only to suggestion. Every time we think, “Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m catching cold,” the subconscious mind picks up the suggestion, “Catch a cold,” (and we catch one) (Sanford, 1972, p. 31)

To summarize her meaning of the subconscious, first the subconscious functions to store memories, filing them away in a special type of psychic filling system that sorts and files the positive and the neutral experiences. The subconscious resists storing negative experiences. Second, there is a process which works correctly if not interfered with, but which concretely follows suggestions from both the spirit and from the conscious mind.

INNER HEALERS THEORY OF ILLNESS CHAPTER 4

2008-02-13T17:48:00.000-05:00

Rychlak’s (1981) next question for a personality theorist is: How does a personality become sick? The response to this question, along with the complementary question–How does a personality get healed? needs to proceed logically from the theory of personality.

In regard to personality dysfunction, Sanford (1958) believes the subconscious will not peaceably store memories which are contradictory to the nature of God. Attention is constantly drawn back to these unstored memories. If unattended, these memories become problematic. She describes the dysfunctional personality as follows:
The spirit cannot endure to abide therein and cries aloud to be set free. Therefore, the subconscious loses its grip on life, obeying the order of the spirit toward the dissolution of the body, so that the spirit can escape to its own place. Inherent in this cry of the spirit is the unshakable principle of justice, as much a part of God’s nature as is the principle of mercy. The spirit, being made in the holiness of God, demands that wickedness shall be destroyed so that His holiness may remain unsullied. (p. 105)

The Sandfords, continuing Sanford’s theme on the disintegration of personality, emphasized how the teleosponsivity of sin, exacerbates the person’s problem. Sin distorts a particular experience negatively. Each ensuing experience is then viewed through the lens of the original experience so that the effects become cumulative.

Sanford and the Sandfords have described how the decomposition of the personality occurs. The subconscious accepts concretely what both the spirit and the conscious mind commands and then acts upon that. The Sandfords called these orders to ourselves “inner vows.” For example, a hurt child may bow with the conscious mind “I will never love again.” This act is received by the subconscious as a direct order to be carried out. At the same time, the spirit being in direct contact with God, will not accept anything so foreign to God’s nature as the refusal to love. The unity of the personality is disrupted.

INNER HEALING WELLNESS CHAPTER 5

2008-02-13T17:46:00.001-05:00

HOW DO PEOPLE GET WELL WITH INNER HEALING?

Rhylak’s (1981) next question was: How is cure effected? The following is a brief review of the entire system as described by Sanford (1958)
1. “First, (is) the soul of the infant–tat is, the total personality–as it comes from God into this world; small, complete, the conscious and the subconscious mind in embryo, inactive, but still enfolded in the light of the spirit.” (p. 163).
2. There begins “the partial withdrawal of the spirit and the darkening of the subconscious mind as it comes into contact with the sin of the world.” (p. 164).
3. Through “the rite of baptism, through the faith of parents, minister and loving congregation, and though the sanctified water charged with God’s creativity, the spirit of the infant is regenerated and endued with a new power, so that it can now make a connection with the subconscious mind” (p. 164).
4. The subconscious is troubled “with certain sins and hurts (holding them down) by an act of will” (p. 165).
5. “The forgiveness of Christ. . . . opens a door into the subconscious mind, heals the memories and redeems the whole personality” (p. 165). “The marks–the wounds–the little prickly arrows of old guilty memories–can be washed away as though they had never been!” (p. 122).
6. The reborn Christian is filled with the Holy Spirit. “The spiritual centers are then activated to the fullest extent. ,. . . The spirt of man being quickened by the Holy Spirit, becomes integrated with both the conscious and the subconscious mind of man” (P. 165).
The Sandfords (1982), rather than emphasizing the obliteration of the memories, choose to concentrate on the effects of the “transformation” of those memories. They wrote: “Healing of memories as taught by some seems to say that we should erase the old. . . . Transformation (on the other hand) holds implicit that nothing in our lives is ever wasted. . . . For this reason, we have lived and sinned and have been redeemed that out of the ashes of what we have been and have done has grown the ministry we are” (p. 19).

INNER HEALING TECHNIQUES OF CURE

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TECHNIQUES OF CURE INNER HEALING (PRAXIS OF CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY CONTINUED)

Rychlak’s (1981) final question asked: What unique procedures are followed by the theorist in readjusting the disordered personality?

Agnes Sanford (1972) had great success in spiritual healing. She discovered that she could use the same approach in the healing of the psyche as she had found successful in healing the body. She describes her method as follows:
“The first step in seeking to produce results by any power is to contact that power. . . . The second step is to turn it on. . . .The third step is to believe that the power is coming into use and to accept it by faith ( p. ix.)”

Building on Agnes Sanford’s work, the Sandfords (1985) described their steps as following: They pray for the little child inside the person and they conceptualize Jesus as being outside time and space, able to identify with the wounded spirit all the way back to the time of conception. When they sense that the Lord is identifying with that child or that prenatal being, they speak his words of comfort, reassurance and affirmation directly to the inner spirit of the person.

They state that they are placing “the cross of Christ (the stopping place for all sin)” between the child and all those who have hurt him or her even “back through his generations declaring that all of his inheritance be filtered through that cross.”

As they are praying, they are watching for the imagery and the impressions which the Holy Spirit produces in them as well as in the client. They then describe the images or impressions, encouraging the counselee to do the same. They especially watch for health-affirming images.

John Sandford (Sandford & Sandford 1982), for example, gives an illustration of how the process works by describing a vision God gave him for the healing of one homosexual. God showed him two poles like anode and cathode poles, radiating to balance each other. Then he saw the homosexual as having the poles crossed. The Lord said, “John, when you have done all else for a homosexual, by vision, see the poles reversed as I have shown you, and then stand and see as I reach in to disentangle those poles and set them in order.” (Pp. 314-315). Sandford “saw” the poles reversed and the man reported his homosexual desire was replaced by the desire for a woman. This change in personality persisted for more than 10 years at the time they wrote.

Other healers acknowledging the teachings of Sandford include the Linns, the MacNutts and the Pytches. Like the Sandfords, they are extending Agnes Sanford’s work. The Linns (1978) take the one being healed through Kubler-Ross’s five stages of bereavement. They call their technique the five stages of forgiveness. MacNutt (1974) developed a team to do what he called “soaking prayer,” believing from experience that if the team would pray long enough, the person would either be healed or vastly improved. Influenced by Wimber’s (1987) success in working with large gatherings, the Pytches (1985) adapt the inner healing techniques to mass audiences. Their technique, like Wimber’s is to invite the Holy Spirit to come upon the people and to reveal childhood traumas to individuals. Helpers pray with the person with whom the Holy Spirit is sealing. The helpers are instructed to keep asking the person seeking healing to “describe what the Holy Spirit is doing” during the process.

Linn, D. & Linn, M. (1978). Healing life’s hurts. New York: Paulist (a more recent edition is 2004)
MacNutt, F. (1974). Healing. New York: Bantam (a more recent edition is 1999)
Pytches, D. (1985) Come Holy Spirit. London: Hodder and Stoughton
Rychlak. J. (1981). Introduction to personality and psychotherapy: A theory-construction approach (2nd ed). New York: Harper and Row
Sandford, J. & Sandford, P. (1982) The transformation of the inner man. South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge (a more recent edition is 2007)
Sandford, J. & Sandford, P. (1985) Healing the wounded spirit. South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge
Sanford, A. (1958). The healing touch of God. New York: Ballentine (a more recent edition is 1987)
Sanford, A. (1972). The healing light (rev. ed.) New York: Ballentine (a more recent edition is 1983)
Stapleton, R. C. (1978) The experience of inner healing. New York: Bantam
Wimber, J. (1987). Power healing. San Francisco: Harper and Row

Living In Samaria

2008-02-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

2Ti 2:23 Refuse to get involved in inane discussions; they always end up in fights.
2Ti 2:24 God's servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool,
2Ti 2:25 working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth,
2Ti 2:26 enabling them to escape the Devil's trap, where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands.
I had been pondering these great scriptures when I ran across a thoughtful article from Christianity Today.

Candidates Pure Vanilla Christianity

2008-01-23T11:03:00.000-05:00

This post is from my political post. VANILLA BEANS
Following are quotes from major candidates describing their Christianity: Hillary Clinton: “For many of us the golden rule calls on us to act,” Huckabee: “Loving your neighbor” and “Except you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.” During last Saturday’s debate, Obama”: “Except you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.” Mitt Romney says: “I am moved by the Lord's words: 'For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me...”

Can people really get excited that the Creator of the universe went through all He did, intruding into His creation, just to tell the children to make nice with each other? As I have said before, my problem with the candidates expressing their religious beliefs is that right now they control the microphone. On the other hand, a strong Bible believer can only dream of a time when people will pick up their Bibles and spend a day with Jesus for themselves.

My grandmother taught me that actions speak louder than words, and if you can’t understand what a person is saying, watch closely what he does. Here is a day in the life of Jesus “And when He had called unto Him his twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. (Mt 10:1) He told his disciples to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils (Mat 10:8). And, declare “the reign of Heaven has arrived.” (Phillips translation) Scripture then records that the disciples returned with joy, exclaiming Lord, “even the devils are subject unto us in your name!” And Scripture adds that at that moment Jesus jumped for joy. (Picture a happy feet’s touchdown dance.)

What kind of dance would He have done if they had declared: “We helped a little old lady cross the street.”

A Gathering of Charismatic Saints

2008-01-17T20:11:00.000-05:00

I just returned from the exciting meeting of the Charismatic Leaders Fellowship (CLF) in Jacksonville, Fla. That meeting, by invitation only, is the annual gathering of those original leaders whom God chose to introduce the move of the Holy Spirit into mainline churches. Among the 60 attendees were the great pioneers who wrote the early books on the Holy Spirit for their denominations.

Although I can’t remember all of them, I will list those that I do. The person who is credited with the Holy Spirit move into the first major denomination, the Episcopal Church, was of course, Dennis Bennett, who has now passed on to glory. (I always thought it was God’s sense of humor when He picked the stuffiest and most uptight of the major churches to introduce tongues and other supernatural manifestations.) Present at the Jacksonville meeting, from those very early days in the Episcopal Church however, were David and Ginny Collins. Following are others who were at the beginning outpouring into major denominations: Francis and Judith MacNutt, and Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan at the outpouring on the Roman Catholic Church; Scott Kelso and Linda Kelso at the outpouring on the Methodists; Jim and Anne Bevis at the outpouring on the Disciples of Christ; Larry and Nordis Christenson at the outpouring on the Lutherans. A scheduling conflict prevented attendance by Gerald Derstine who was at the outpouring on the Mennonites. There were others there at the gathering that I did not meet.

I am sure these old saints, many of them now in their 70s and 80s, suffered many scars and disappointments. Over the years they watched as the Pentecostal and the Spirit-filled independent churches exploded, while their denominations froze up in theological battles.

Two observations were my main impressions: Through it all, they stayed the course, never wavering. Secondly, I know of no scandals among this group, even though most of them became quite prominent in their movements. There were lots of husband and wife teams who had been together since the beginning.

It was an inspiring group to be among and I am grateful that I was invited.

Let's Have Church!

2008-01-05T18:51:00.000-05:00

People charge that what Pentecostals and Charismatics are doing in their churches today is not the same as what the early Christians were doing. How would anyone know? None of us were there. When you read critic's exegesis of First Corinthians 14 for example, you soon see that everyone is having to read between the lines and then wing it. In a babel of tongues, they talk about tongues.

However, without any confusion or doubt, we can categorically assert that what people call church today in the mainline churches (non-Pentecostal) could NOT possibly be what was going on in the Corinthian church. Whatever they were doing sounded pretty worked up and resulted in Paul asking them to tone it down as it was off-putting to nonbelievers. The only actions that might be off-putting to the nonbeliever in most churches today would be the sounds of loud snores.

Important Anglican Conference

2007-12-30T13:46:00.000-05:00

Archbishop+Jensen
A Global Anglican Future Conference is planned for June 2008. The aim of the Conference is to discuss the future of mission and relationships within the churches of Anglican Communion. The Conference will be chaired by Archbishop Peter Jensen. In a message to his people, he explains why the meeting is necessary. As some of you who read this blog have probably guessed, I am among those former Episcopal priests who found it necessary to realign myself with the main body of the church. One of the statements that Archbishop Jensen made in his communication really weighs heavy on me:

“The American actions. . . . impacted churches all around the world. In particular the churches of the Global South had to own the name ‘Anglican’ while living in societies where the actions of the Americans was condemned by all, especially Muslims. The action of some North Americans severely hurt the witness of these churches. It also hindered the good effect that membership of the Anglican Communion has for those who live in a situation where Christians are in a minority.”

My Christmas Message

2007-12-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

There is Christianity lite and there is Christianity heavy. Christianity lite is “loving our neighbor” and the story of the Good Samaritan. Christianity heavy on the other hand is distilled in Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” It goes like this: (I suggest you study each phrase carefully.)

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

During the current run for presidency, most of the candidates have felt called on to give a statement of their faith, and those who did, treated us to Christianity lite. During the You Tube debate, even the minister Huckabee described his belief as “Loving your neighbor” and “Except you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.”

If that is the sum of being Christian, then who needs a major revelation from the Creator of the Universe to tell us that? Most world systems from Communism, Atheism, Islam etc. have their systems of helping their neighbors. Loving your neighbor is what the secular mind believes religion to be all about and is the type of doctrine a secular mind would develop should a person be so disposed to make up his or her own religion.

We live in a very dangerous and evil world. Christianity lite does not give us an explanation of evil. With Christianity lite, politicians can end up looking for only psychologically understandable sources of evil and consequently psychological remedies such as: People in the ghettos are violent because they are physically or psychologically deprived. People in the Middle East attack us because they feel under cultural threat from us. People throughout the underdeveloped world butcher each other because they are exploited. If we would only love our neighbors, meet their needs, reduce their frustrations, we could have peace on earth.

Naive explanations lead to naive solutions. Naivete regarding evil leaves people exposed to evil. Posted by the Rev. Don Clark, Ed.D.

Jesus Prepares

2007-12-23T11:31:00.000-05:00

Just finished listening this morning to the TV preacher John Hagee. He was describing the Father’s last minute instructions to His son before He would be born on earth. He was to be born in a manger so He could understand human poverty. He would be kicked around a lot so He could understand human suffering. And, He would be a small business carpenter so He would know what it was like to live under a tax and spend government.

God Changed the Rules

2007-12-16T17:29:00.000-05:00

Fifty two years ago, in the movie “A Man Called Peter,” the Rev. Peter Marshall said to his wife: “Katherine, the Lord puts a desire in our hearts and then he fulfils it.” I paid attention to what he said, and God has done exactly that for me all my life. I was accepted into all the graduate programs I had desired, all the churches in which I desired to be their pastor, the clinical programs I wanted, and the exact university I wanted to teach in. I was selected for the Peace Corps. I met and married the perfect wife after only two dates and after seeing her in a dream. All the opportunities seemed impossible at first and all supernatural when they happened.

I decided to write this post today because I realize that after all these years, God changed the rules. Five years ago, as I was retiring from both the university and from the church, people were asking me, “Now what?” And for the first time in my life, I did not know. However, life happened: One day my wife said, “Look what I found in the paper, they are starting the first Tai Chi classes for seniors at the Senior Center.” So off I went, hardly knowing what Tai Chi was.

The next important chapter post-retirement, was attending a conference at Morningstar Ministries on learning to use the new media in spreading the Gospel. The folks from Charisma Magazine taught us about blogging. I had never heard of blogging. I came home and started my first Christian blog. In a short while, my local Republican party heard about my blogging and said, “Hey, we need you to blog to counteract the very active local blog on the Left. So, I started political blogging.

As always a very active person, it would be hard to admit that I was aging. As I look back now, I can see how, without me being aware, the Lord was fixing it so I did not have to deal with limitations. He knew I had to stop the pounding of my 10 K races. So, he dangled in front of me something I had hardly heard of, Tai Chi–the perfect exercise for one as they age. Secondly, He knew it was stressful to be supply preaching all over the place, so he slipped me into a ministry from my easy chair–blogging. He knew it was getting harder to handle all my volunteer work, traveling all over, so he gave me a community action work to do while settled in my warm, cozy home. Not one of these activities had I known about before so that I could desire them. God is so good!!

Holy Days, Are They Comparable?

2007-12-08T19:32:00.000-05:00

The diversity police want us to stop saying Merry Christmas at this time of the year, substituting instead Happy Holidays or the like. For centuries in our country, this season of the year has been to celebrate the night the Creator of the Entire Universe visited his creation!!
Now we are being asked to make room for other Holy Days as follows:

Chanukah the Festival of Lights, is a celebration of the victory of the Maccabees and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple. It also commemorates the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days.

The Bodhi Day signifies the day when Lord Buddha achieved ‘Bodhi’ (Release From The Bodily Imprisonment). It was the day, when He attained “Enlightenment.

Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday bringing a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense.

Eid al-Adha is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for Allah. It does not always fall in this season.

As the kids like to exclaim: “Big Whoo!”

Beautiful

2007-11-19T20:00:00.000-05:00

So beautiful in so many ways

Leaving the Sinking Ship

2007-11-14T11:12:00.000-05:00

For those puzzled over the meltdown of the Episcopal Church, I ran across this quote: “The Church must be taken back from the shallow ephemeral wedding of Church to current culture and morality measured by social acceptability. Or as G.K. Chesterton would say, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

Christmas With a Capital C

2007-11-12T19:07:00.001-05:00

How the Episcopal Church Tore Itself Apart

2007-10-21T14:29:00.000-04:00

The Episcopal Church in America has split. Following is an op-ed piece I ran across which goes straight to the heart of the cause of the split. Some of you may not even care one way or another, but for those of us who went through the split, it has been painful. The op-ed piece: “This is what it comes down to: Conservatives vs. liberals, constructionists vs. activists. You want to know how this argument is going to end? Look at the personalities of those involved in the decision-making, look at how they apply their personal overarching views and you, too, can play prognosticator.

That’s how it works when you are trying to discern how the U.S. Supreme Court, which began its 2007-08 term last week, will rule on the myriad cases before it. Will the conservative constructionists, who believe that the Founding Fathers actually were pretty clear in their intent and that that intent hasn’t changed over the years, form the majority?

Or will the liberal activists, who believe the Founding Fathers always meant for the Constitution to be interpreted in the context of the current times, be the deciding factor in cases this year?

Take away the discussion about the Supreme Court, insert the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and you could be having the same discussion.

The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American branch, is divided in the same way between conservative constructionists and liberal activists. The former believe that the Scriptures are plainly written, can be plainly interpreted and that the meaning has not changed over time.

The latter believe the Scriptures are to be understood both in the context in which they were written and the context in which the believers now live, and that their meaning does change with the times. The former believe that culture cannot and should not influence interpretation. The latter believe that culture always influences interpretation.”

Another Christian in the Crosshairs

2007-10-13T19:42:00.000-04:00

The Left wing media are now after another Conservative. This time it is the outspoken Conservative, Ann Coulter. The latest furor erupted over an exchange Coulter had Monday with CNBC host Donny Deutsch on his show, "The Big Idea," during which she said the country would be better off if everyone were Christian. When Deutsch -- who is Jewish -- asked if she wanted to get rid of Judaism, Coulter responded, "We just want Jews to be perfected."

Some Jews are outraged and are calling for Ann’s head. The picture that immediately came to my mind was St.Paul standing before King Agrippa. Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” And Paul replied, “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

There was neither prejudice nor superiority in Paul’s profession. Paul just wished for King Agrippa, all the blessings of recognizing the king’s own Messiah. Can’t you just imagine the trouble for Paul today if he suggested something like that?

The Prophets Dilemma

2007-09-26T18:56:00.000-04:00

The following comes from my political blog
Is George Bush a modern day prophet? Because the story of the prophet Jonah is quoted by Jews for Yom Kipper this week, two editorial writers, Michael Oren and Mark Gerson, were inspired to editorialize in the Wall Street Journal regarding the plight of prophets.

Ordered by God to go down and call the people of Ninevah to repentance in order to escape destruction, Jonah found himself in a Catch 22. He realized if the people of Ninevah listened to him, destruction would not come. Then when nothing happened, they would be furious at him for making them give up their good times for no reason. On the other hand, if he did not go and they were destroyed, he would have to live with that. So Jonah cut and ran. Forced later to prophesy anyway to the people, everything happened like he expected. The people were angry with him.

The writers then give modern examples of Jonah’s dilemma. Churchill predicted that a rising Germany was a threat. But, if he pre-emptively attacked, would people thank him for averting World War II or accuse him of unnecessarily starting it. Truman prophesied that Japan would never surrender and that a quarter million Gis would die taking the mainland. He dropped the bombs, ending the war. Then he faced the judgement of historians who claimed it was unnecessary. God alone knows if those two made the right decisions and He is not telling us.

Which leads to George Bush. He prophesied that Islamic fascists would get weapons of mass destruction. He took the battle to them. Has that action kept the jihadists off balance for these past five years of no attacks on our homeland, or caused the problem, as some charge? Only God knows. We can never know.

The next president also has to be a prophet. Should we nuke the rogue nations before they use theirs and risk accusations of provoking Armageddon? Or, do we wait and see what happens? No wonder Jonah tried to high tail it out of town. Why does anyone want to be a leader?
Posted from the WSJ 9/21/07

Prayer Failed? Don't Look to the New Testament

2007-09-16T19:03:00.000-04:00

The other day, someone reading my blog was upset about what I had written on prayer. She had lost her son and she was the type who would take what I said and blame herself for her failed prayer. Once again, I became aware of how difficult it is to teach on the prayer of faith. I asked God to help me answer her pain, but I had to admit to her that He gave me no response.

If you include Jesus commanding sicknesses away as His type of praying, none of His prayers for healing went unanswered. If you omit one prayer of Paul’s, I don’t think there are any instances of prayers in the New Testament not being answered. (As to Paul’s prayer about his thorn in the flesh, I am among those who thinks his thorn was the persecution he suffered. I know other’s think it was an illness, however his statements are ambiguous at best). Therefore, if I tried to explain a failed prayer, I would have to go outside the New Testament to make up an explanation. There are no examples to point to.

So, I fell back on a story. When I first started learning to pray for healing, God put me together with three of His experienced prophets–all itinerant mountain preachers/prophets. They invited me to their regular prayer meetings.

Shortly after beginning with them, I read an article in Charisma Magazine by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in which he was outlining reasons why sometimes God did not heal. The article irritated me and I wrote a letter in which I said the following: “Babe Ruth was known as the home run king but he was also known as the strike out king. When I pray for healing, I would rather go for a home run every time. Even if in doing so I would sometimes strike out, I still would rather go down swinging.”

Charisma published my letter, and the night it arrived was a prayer night. Arriving a little late, one of the prophets entered the room saying, “Don I had a vision about you. It was strange. I saw you in a baseball cap and God said to tell you that you would not strike out.”

With no experience of prophecy that on target, I went ballistic. I accused all three of them of conspiring together in order to sell me on prophecy and I did not think that was funny. However, in a few moments, experienced psychologist that I am, I could see total confusion written on every face.

Not one person in that room knew what I was talking about! The poor young man who had given the prophesy had never even heard of Charisma Magazine! I spent a lot of the next hour apologizing and asking for forgiveness for my false accusations. (In atonement, I later bought the prophet a year's subscription to Charisma.)

When one of the presidential candidates was asked recently if he would be willing to be a vice-president, he indignantly responded that you don’t run for president thinking about being vice-president. No, and you can’t hit for the bleachers already making up your excuses as to why you might strike out. You can’t pray the prayer of faith if you are thinking of what you will tell yourself if you fail. Like Paul, I have to be true to the heavenly vision given me.

Unfortunately, in our Christian walk we have to become grownups. If we have a failed prayer, we can not look to the New Testament for our explanation. The only thing we can do when we fail is dust ourselves off, pick up another bat and practice, practice, practice.

Christians say yes to tongues

2007-09-04T17:36:00.000-04:00

ChristiaNet.com, the world's largest Christian Portal with twelve million monthly page loads, recently asked, "Is it Biblical for Christians to speak in tongues today?" ChristiaNet's president. 5,000 Christians responded to the question of using the gift of tongues in today's times and 71% said "Yes."
Read the rest

Loving God with all we have

2007-09-04T15:25:00.000-04:00

I was riding in a truck the other day. The owner had two well-behaved boxer dogs in the back seat. However, the moment the owner left the truck to buy something, I was set upon by these two giant dogs. They licked me. They nibbled me. They slobbered all over my head, shoulders and arms. One jumped in my lap, licking me in the face; the other on my back nibbling the top of my head. It was hilarious. It reminded me of the commercial in which puppies are giving all this love to a little boy and he is giggling with delight. I was doing the same. Never had I experienced such total demonstration of affection!!

I have written on this subject before of our animals’ devotion to us as model for our love for God. That experience in the truck drove the message deeper. The first commandment–Love the Lord thy God with everything in you. I could just hear the Lord saying: “Donald, I sent you these devoted creatures for you to model how I want to be loved–with everything that is in you.”

I still say, if God enjoys being loved on half as much as I did that day in the truck, I can understand why He created us.

Social Conservatives and Rudy

2007-09-02T15:54:00.000-04:00

Interesting new thought on Sunday talk show regarding choices for Social Conservatives/Christian Right. Because of his success with crime in the Big City, and because of his cool headedness after 9/11, many Republicans believe that Giuliani has the best track record to protect us from our enemies. The observer said the question was whether Social Conservatives would be willing to make the trade off of their regular issues of abortion and traditional marriage on the one hand, for the struggle against the threat from a fast growing world-wide anti-Christian movement on the other hand.

Jesus Doing Back Flips

2007-08-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

Our teacher at church Friday night hit another home run. I will give my interpretation of what he said and I will go over the top a little. Anyway, as he talked the picture coming to me was of Jesus doing back flips and shouting “We did it! We did it! Father!!

Jesus sent the seventy disciples out two by two. (Luk 10:1) He gave them similar instructions that he had given the twelve disciples earlier. That earlier time, he told his disciples to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils (Mat 10:8). And, declare “the reign of Heaven has arrived.” (Phillips translation)

Scripture then records that the seventy returned with joy, saying Lord, “even the devils are subject unto us in your name!”

It was at this point I envisioned Jesus doing hand springs. Luk 21 records that Jesus was rejoicing in His spirit and was thanking the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus was also shouting, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven!”

This is what I was hearing. The disciples were now establishing the sovereignty of God over the sovereignty of Satan. I see Jesus shouting, Father, we did it! They are doing what you sent me to show them and they did it! We did it! We are now on our way and nothing can stop us! We can leave it in their hands finally!

Of course at that point, he revealed to the disciples that now they were winning, get ready for everything to hit the fan; which of course it did. (Mat 10:15 ff)

CNN, God's Warriors, Christians as Taliban

2007-08-25T18:07:00.000-04:00

Following CNN’s Christiane Amanpour’ series on God’s Warriors this week, I sent her the e-mail below. The program was well worth watching. She describes how the members of the three major religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are reacting to the perceived threats of encroaching secularism as well as from each other. She called the responders God’s Warriors. I hope a lot of people saw it, or will see it in the reruns. However, because it was a secular program, I was not surprised that all the weapons of warfare of all three groups were only understood through a secular lens. As a Christian, I was concerned that portraying only the secular approaches of Christianity, she made us appear as equivalent to the Taliban.

After the series, I sent Mrs. Amanpour the following e-mail.
That was a great piece of work! The young people of Islam were scary. There is one group of Christians however, that you missed who theoretically will be their match. If you had searched a little more, you would have discovered a substantial number of Christian God’s Warriors who approach the battle differently than those you interviewed. If you are planning to continue your study, I would point you to ministries such as Morningstar Ministries of the Rev. Rick Joyner. The Rev. Joyner has taken over Jim and Tammy Faye Baker’s PTL buildings and property. His young people go through an entirely different boot camp from what you described and they take it to the streets. You will also discover that he probably represents the real cutting edge of modern Christianity in the world. So, you may have totally missed the big story as far as Christianity is concerned.

This group of God’s Warriors believes that the cultural and religious war has to be fought not on this plane, but on another plane of reality. St. Paul in the book of Ephesians 6:12 puts it this way: “For ours is no struggle against enemies of flesh and blood but against all the various Powers of Evil that holds sway in the Darkness around us.” And again in 1 Cor. 10:4 “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.” In other words, the battle against secularism as well as the battle against radical Islam is to be fought not against an earthly enemy but against the spiritual forces that are behind that enemy and that energizes it. This approach is much closer to New Testament Christianity than any you described.

Thanks again for your contribution.

Holy Spirit Gifted Women Called Witches

2007-08-20T18:22:00.000-04:00

Today on her program, Patricia King had Mary Goddard whom Patricia credits as being the person who mentored, raised-up, and released her into the ministry. When Mary Goddard related the story of her own start, she included a familiar story.

She described how she was in a small women’s fellowship. One of the women began to demonstrate exceptional spiritual gifts. She frightened the other women. Some even wondered if she might be a witch. However, one day the lady lead a hardened sinner to Jesus with a radical change of his behavior. That got the other women’s attention including Mary’s.

I wondered how many women do you suppose started their ministry by being a part of some small female study group, discovered the Holy Spirt, and suffered persecution?

At my university graduate school, we were encouraged to not study why people became psychologically ill, but rather to study those people who manifested exceptional abilities. So, observing the exceptionality of those receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I did what I was trained to do. I took my tape recorder and traveled through several states interviewing them.

After listening to Mary Goddard, I went back through my taped notes. I found the story of Sharon. Sharon and her husband were a ministry team. Her husband would sometimes run up on the stage when others were ministering and get outrageous. Reluctantly shy Sharon ran after him interpreting, making all the bizarre sounds and gyrations, he would make, and the crowd would go wild. Sharon was impressive.

I asked: Sharon, do you remember when you first started? Yes, I was in a Southern Baptist Church and there was a group of females we called 007 secret agents. Even at that time I had discernment enough to know that if I wanted an answer to a spiritual problem, I bypassed my pastor and went to them.

Were they Holy Spirit filled and speaking in tongues Baptists?

Yes, but it was as though the Holy Spirit wooed the people to that group and people who would be unnerved did not show up. There were other women’s groups in the church, but I could see something was going on there. One day, the pastor let a Charismatic Bible teacher instruct us if she promised not to mention the Baptism. But she invited me to her home and I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. After that, I too became a teacher.

Another person, Jane, got my attention because every time I was with her and she would start teaching in her small fellowship, people literally seemed to stop breathing in order not to miss a word. I thought that must be like it was around Jesus. I know I felt that way. I taped her interview.

Jane told a similar story to Sharon. She was in a small women’s Southern Baptist fellowship. Early in her life, she discovered she knew things about people that she could not have known by ordinary ways. After she received a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit in her life, the women in her group asked her to teach. The little fellowship grew quickly from a few people to a point where the room would not hold them anymore.

Needless to say, when the pastor realized she was teaching by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, she received the “left foot of fellowship.” Like the woman in Mary Goddard’s group, the pastor thought she had to be a witch.

Over the years, I have also met women who are now practicing metaphysicians. Early in their lives, they had profound spiritual sensitivities. They were cruelly treated in their churches, so took a different spiritual path than the Christian women I interviewed.

Two thoughts I have always pondered: How many small groups of women are out there as 007's manifesting the gifts of the Spirit, but either having to do it secretly, or undergo attacks, or be driven away? Secondly, how many of the metaphysicians out there might have stayed on and grown in the work of the Holy Spirit if only their supposed shepherds had not been so spiritually underdeveloped?

Results of Speaking in Tongues Survey

2007-08-16T18:24:00.000-04:00

These results of a survey on speaking in tongues are revealing. It is also sad because of all that people are missing in their walk with the Holy Spirit. Being a Christian and never discovering speaking in tongues is like being married and never discovering sex goes with it.

Cast Out Demons, Heal the Sick and Get Lynched

2007-08-07T19:36:00.000-04:00

Our teacher taught a timely message for me this week. To His disciples, Jesus laid out the outline for their ministry in Matthew 10. I think if I had been there and He had said, “I am giving you power over unclean spirits and you will heal the sick,” I would have jumped up and down shouting “hot diggity dog!”.

But then He said, “that’s the good news.” “And the bad news, Lord?” “Oh that,” the Lord would answer. "Well there is this little matter that they will deliver you up to councils and they will scourge you and you will be a lamb among wolves.”

The pastor pointed out though, that that model of ministry, was exactly how it went with Jesus Himself–cast out demons, heal the sick and get lynched. Because that is the pattern, along with this is the realization that as we follow in His footsteps, the rougher it gets, the more we know we are in His presence.

There was also some small print in the contract. He said to be as wise as a serpent, and as harmless as doves.

The reason this sermon was important to me was what was going on at that moment in my life. I have created a politically conservative blog for local Conservatives. My best friend was concerned that getting into the political arena cannot only put me among wolves but also turn me into one.

Sure enough that is exactly what happened. For several weeks I had fun. Then the night before church, the left wing bloggers in town discovered me. They attacked, including having my blog temporarily shut down. Because they were people I knew and who knew me, storms of emotions were unleashed in me--hurt, rage and desire for revenge.

Then at church, I had to ask myself, how much of this did I ask for, and how much was unfair? “Harmless as a dove” jumped out at me and I spent the time during the sermon going over every attack article I had written and repenting where needed. I came away refreshed and full of the goodness of the Lord. In the future, I promise to try to be both as harmless as a dove, but not giving up “wise as a serpent.”

I do believe the 2008 election is pivotal for Christians as well as for Israel and worth getting involved.

Patricia King Under Attack

2007-08-01T16:50:00.000-04:00

A ministry that is powerfully annointed by God is that of Patricia King. Amazing supernatural manifestations occur in her services. She is careful to always point what is taking place to Jesus. He gets the glory.

Over the past year, like all supernatural ministries, she has come under attack. Contacting her partners, she finally responded to each accusation. You can hear her defense on Extreme Prophetic with Patricia King. However, you have to first register on her webpage. Then click on “Watch Extreme Prophetic TV Now!”. Then go to "Extreme Moments" and click on the appropriate icon “Patricia King - Controversy.”

As she points out, every time God does a new thing, those who have settled into what meant a great deal to them, become uncomfortable and lash out. The test of any move of God is, does it lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus?. One thing I know for certain is, people who become obsessed with attacking other ministries are not leading people deeper with our Lord.

Anyway, I sat down and wrote Patricia King the following e-mail

Dear Ms. King.
I watched your clip telling us about the lies being circulated about your ministry. I watched it all experiencing deep empathy and sorrow. I am a Board Certified Psychologist, an Anglican priest, a former Baptist minister, a retired university professor and a lifetime friend of the Rev. Charles Osborne. It was Father Osborne who turned me on to you

Spending my adult life doing psychotherapy tenderized me to psychological suffering. So I probably experienced more pain for you than you feel yourself. Anyway, I did go into intercessory prayer.

I know you realize that what is happening to you in these attacks goes with the territory. My son is a successful Rhema pastor, and no one suffered more attacks than his teacher, Kenneth Hagin. As you know, Hagin was called everything from new agey to heretic. Right now, I attend a Morningstar fellowship, and when I first heard of Rick Joyner and Googgled him, I knew he had to be on to something, as all I saw was him being accused of everything short of murder.

I know you had to let us who love your ministry know what was going on, but you have done it. As a minister and psychologist with over 45 years of experience behind me, I do hope you will take Jesus’ advice and now just shake the dust of your sandals off as a testimony against them.

Over the years watching Kenneth Hagin and Rick Joyner, I have never heard them waste a minute on their detractors. Please save your energy for your work.

Following Nehemiah,
“And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?” (Neh 6:3 )

Faulty Assumptions About Iraq

2007-07-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

In the August edition of Elijah Rain, C. Peter Wagner had some sharp insights into the Iraq situation. Summarizing of his article, he first acknowledges that obviously Saddam Hussein was a genuine threat and had to go. Then he asserts though, that the design for the rebuilding was flawed from the beginning. He continues, with four questionable assumptions.

The first questionable assumption was that a people who had lived a long time under oppression could quickly embrace Jeffersonian democracy. The second questionable assumption was that Iraq really is one unified nation. Third, that free elections would work, when they obviously would produce a Shiite majority with past grievances against the long reigning Sunnis.

The fourth questionable assumption is that Allah is just another name for the true God. Wagner writes, “The reality is that Allah is a high-ranking demonic spirit who has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” If one makes that assumption, then the worship of it grants it to have authority over that part of the planet.

Therefore, we have dropped our young men and women into very unsafe spiritual territory. Thus, there is the need for serious intercessory protection around them in the spiritual realm. The article can be obtained from Elijah List.

Liberals and Conservatives at Tai Chi Camp

2007-06-14T11:42:00.000-04:00

Just returned from a week at Tai Chi camp. There is something about Tai Chi students that connects them to Liberalism, so there is a lot of friendly banter with me because I am the only Conservative in the group.

One morning, as I was listening to our teacher tell us the importance of keeping the study pure as it was handed down through tradition, the thought came to me: “My fellow Tai Chiers are actually all Conservatives.” Most of them teach Tai Chi, and they would not dare tamper with the traditional ways passed on to them. None of them think they are smarter than their great teachers of old and should be free to fiddle with the accepted ways.

Thus, they are all conserving and protecting that which was handed down to them through antiquity. That is what Conservatives do.

I kept my thoughts to myself because we were at camp to learn the ways of our forefathers, not to get into political haggles. That would have spoiled the comradery.
END

Breaking News

2007-06-13T15:31:00.001-04:00

In case you missed this breaking news today see STAND FIRM
END

Time Out

2007-06-04T19:53:00.000-04:00

I had hoped to make my blog mostly about spiritual matters, however this political scene is getting so exciting, I can't stay out of it. I will have to apologize to any readers on the Left, but I just came back from being a delegate to our state GOP Party Convention. Going to a convention is like going to a revival meeting. I came home so pumped that I have been using my writing energy to fire off Letters to the Editors of my local papers. So far, they have been publishing them although like so much of the media, they lean left. I know my letters must pain them. Here is one of them:

BUT WHERE DO WE GO?

As conservatives and libertarians, for the sake of truth in advertising, suppose we grant that we are not comfortable with the war in Iraq. We can even tell ourselves that when we voted for George Bush, he promised he would not get into nation building. We may even confess our uneasiness of having to support him, not because we now believe his mission of creating a democracy is doable in this sick part of the world, but because he is our man and we must stick by him.

We have not been attacked in five years. Now where do we go? We do have an enemy. They speak clearly that they intend to either convert us or if unable, then to kill us. What part of those words are hard to understand? The desire to conquer us did not start yesterday. Historians say conquering may have been in some people’s minds and pursued off and on since 630 A.D. What makes today different, is that some of the worst of this group now have the weapons, the money, the communication abilities, the leadership, the expertise, and the will, to be serious. They also sense a spiritual vacuum in our part of the world.

In front of this peril, those against our president appear clueless. Instead of telling us how they plan to protect us, each candidate scrambles over top of the other trying to convince the base that he or she can hide deeper under the bed than the other guy. That is scary.

Psychics, Parapsychology, and Faking It

2007-05-29T11:42:00.000-04:00

When I would come home on furlough, I would always visit my grandmother who helped raise me. Loving to test her extra ordinary abilities, I would never let her know I was coming. Every time, as I sneaked in the door (those days, people left their doors unlocked), her familiar voice would ring out “Donald, is that you?”

Because my grandmother’s paranormal abilities were so amazing, no one should be surprised that when I became a psychologist, I would have a great interest in the field of parapsychology

Paranormal abilities seem to run in families, and as a psychotherapist, when I first began listening intensely to my patients, I would sometimes hear what they were thinking. Believing they had spoken aloud, I would respond back to them. When they realized I had read their thoughts, both my patient and I would be startled. Sometimes however, my intuition would misfire, so over time, relying more on training and experience, I dampened down the ability until it nearly disappeared entirely. (I hope to write more about that later.)

In America, William James began the first scientific study of the paranormal in the late 1800's at Harvard. Of course he was criticized by colleagues because so many psychic practitioners were being exposed as fakes. He tells a funny story on himself when he faked once.

His story goes like this. Scientists of his time were very excited over the discovery that electrical impulses stimulate reactions in the nerves. In order to demonstrate this phenomenon in front of his class, James would apply an electrical impulse to the muscles of a frog, creating movement. However, one day, he applied the stimulus and nothing happened. (He discovered later that the muscles had just worn out from use.) Quickly, he secretly jammed his finger inside the frog and as he continued his lecture, kept the dead frog wiggling.

He would tell that story to make a point. The point was, sometimes from many experiences, you know a thing is supposed to happen but it doesn’t. He knew those failures could unexpectedly happen to genuine psychics. When the expected didn’t happen, they sometimes faked it. Sometimes they were caught.

James was willing to cut them some slack and continued studying paranormal experiences throughout his life and so have I.

Cutting Onions

2007-05-27T14:13:00.000-04:00

My wife saw this on TV. Cutting onions with my safety glasses on. It works!

After Jerry Falwell, but the Fat Lady Hasn't Sung

2007-05-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

Jerry Falwell is gone. There may never be another solid religious block like the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority to counterweight the large voting blocks on the Left. However, there are stirrings in the religious world that can be like leaven, peeling people out from these Leftest blocks. Specifically, I am thinking of the Pentecostal/Charismatic (called Renewalist for short) phenomenal growth.

The Left pulls its strength from those who tell themselves they are disempowered or are victims. In an, earlier post I wrote how a direct encounter with the living Jesus can be empowering. and turn a person around.

Polls indicate that the new Hispanic immigrants (not the earlier ones) are forming a block vote for the Left. At the same time, polls also reveal that the new Hispanics are being drawn to Renewalist churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Following is a quote from the Pew study: “Renewalist Christianity, which places special emphasis on God's ongoing, day-to-day intervention in human affairs through the person of the Holy Spirit, is having a major impact on Hispanic Christianity. Among Latino Protestants, renewalism is more than twice as prevalent as among their non-Latino counterparts.” I predict the Left cannot count on these new immigrants to feel disempowered forever.

Following the idea of the impact of the Renewalist movement on traditional blocks of voters, another group are the African Americans.
Again, the same concept of the Renewalist movement and empowerment can be made for them One of the characteristics of Renewal churches which has been there since the beginning at Azusa Street in 1901, is that in these churches, red and yellow, black and white have worshiped side by side on equal ground. Many African Americans attend churches whose major message is empowerment. So, the Left can watch as empowered leaders arise in the Black communities.

Another group of interest, are those Southern Democrats, sometimes called Blue Dog Democrats. They are my neighbors here in the South, and when I ask them how they stay in a party whose Hollywood values violate everything they believe, they often say, “My daddy was a Democrat, as was his daddy and his daddy’s daddy, and I will live and die a Democrat.” Here in the South, there are families who have never forgotten what the Northern Republicans did to the South during Reconstruction days. It is no accident that in my state of North Carolina, ruled by Democrats, the most powerful of them come from former slave holding areas of the state. Hatred of Republicans is in their DNA. One day, however, they have to notice the world changed.

A last group that may some day be impacted by the Renewal movement, are the Jews. For a long time Jews have been solidly on the Left. However, it is beginning to dawn on many, that the only real friends they have on this planet are those in Renewal churches. These are people who live by the Scriptures. God says of Israel in Gen 12:3 “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curse thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Some day, Jews have to wake up and recognize who their friends are.

Personal Prophesying, the Big Woo

2007-05-19T17:28:00.000-04:00

The Morningstar fellowship that I attend, does training in personal prophesying. If you are not acquainted with this concept, following are two illustrations of the gift and the powerful impact it can have. When Nathaniel first met Jesus, the Lord revealed a secret about Nathaniel that He could not have known by ordinary means. Nathaniel was so blown away that he became a disciple. A similar example was with the woman at the well. Again Jesus revealed something that could not be known in ordinary ways, and this time the woman became Jesus’ evangelist. (John. 1:48 and John 4:18) Later St. Paul describes the impact of prophesying in 1 Cor 14:24 ff.

The first time someone revealed something extraordinary about myself that they could not know ordinarily, I had the same reaction as the people in the New Testament mentioned above. The medium was the message. It was not what was said that changed my life forever, it was the overwhelming awareness that Someone out there had me on His radar.

I have a friend who knows how excited I get developing this gift, but who always says “Big woo. What good is it?” Last night, our teacher said something important in this regard: “At all times, God has every one of His children on His mind. He wants them to know it. Our giving a personal prophesy to a person that could only have been known supernaturally, lets the person know that God is thinking about him or her.”

We can understand why Paul said we all should be “zealous to prophesy.” (1 Cor 14:39) Fortunately, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit that can be sharpened.

Lanny Davis, Watchdog Committees and Bureaucrats

2007-05-16T15:47:00.000-04:00

Lanny Davis, former Clinton White House counsel and lone democrat on the privacy oversight committee, resigned this week. He faulted no one, saying only that Congress had made an error by putting the committee into the White House, allowing the committee to be co-opted by White House staff.

Listening to Mr. Davis was deja vu. I reminisced over my own oversight committee experiences for which legislators had good intentions, but officials cleverly subverted them. I learned two things. Bureaucrats are insidious sabotagers of watchdog committees, and secondly, resigning is an act of integrity.

My first experience was being appointed to the NC Commission on Mental Health, Developmental Disorders, and Substance Abuse Disorders. Ostensibly, this citizens’ oversight committee signs off on all the laws for those disabilities.

As a college professor, I had a long experience of faking out students in to believing they were a part of university governance. Often, students did not recognize they were being had, or if they did, they did not care because everything looked good on a resume.

Years of such experiences, made it easy to spot the fakery on citizen’ oversight/watchdog committees. In the case of the Commission, the state officials would come in, give us their dog and pony show, apologize for getting the material to us too late to study it, then ask us to rubber stamp what they had already done. We did. Then, my political party lost an election, and I was replaced.

Through that experience I learned to never underestimate bureaucrats. They may not get much done, but they are the masters of faking it and of keeping their jobs. I soon became aware of what presidents learn and that is, no matter what they want to do, the bureaucrats can keep it from happening.

Then, I was appointed to another committee. This committee’s mandate was to have citizen’s input in to and oversight over the spending of money that had been block granted back to the states from Washington. Again, legislators had good intentions. This committee was half made up of bureau chiefs and half citizen stakeholders, the disabled themselves and their advocacy groups.

Now I was to learn a new lesson. Bureaucrats hate oversight committees. So, no matter whether they agree or disagree, they scratch each other’s backs. This time, it did not take the stake holders long to see they were being had and one by one, they would move back to their own more effective advocacy groups.

Once again, the bureaucrats came in with their dog and pony show, apologize for getting the material to us at the last minute, and ask us to sign off on it. Finally, as the chair, I went to the top officials, who with a wink and a nod, informed me that the director actually believed the money was his personal money.

I then turned to the officials in Washington. Block Grants are to be locally controlled, so they had little authority. But, we hatched a scheme in which they would visit and in front of the stakeholders, they would make it clear what was the intent of the Congress. First, of all, I had to get the state officials to agree to their visit.

To my shock, the state officials agreed with enthusiasm. Two days later, I received the following telephone call. “Oh, Dr. Clark, we just discovered that your term of office has expired” (a move never enforced before). Surprise, surprise, the president elect cancelled the government visit. This time I resigned.

What I learned is, no matter what the legislators want to accomplish with civilian oversight committees, the entrenched bureaucrats are too clever to let it happen.

My second learning is that many watchdog committee members are political pay backs. They don’t have a clue what is going on and could care less. They enjoy the status and the meals. We had one dear lady on one local committee who for 20 years, loved to be the one who said “I move we accept the proposal.” Didn’t seem to ever matter what.

Bottom line, I wrote this to get it off my chest. I can say as a Conservative, I believe in citizen watchdogs, but no one should underestimate the ingenuity of a bureaucrat.

Giuliana on Abortion

2007-05-15T13:12:00.000-04:00

I posted a letter to the editor that I sent to our local newspaper, then added it as a comment to another blog. The local paper comes out today so I will see if they posted it. Meanwhile, tonight, Giuliana will have another shot at in in the debate.

Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

2007-05-15T12:50:00.000-04:00

As I wrote in an earlier post, Google sends me links to every new post on speaking in tongues. After witnessing people praying in the spirit, some bloggers come away, mocking what they observed. Those, remind me of the old nursery rhyme:

Pussy cat, pussy cat,
Where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat,
What did you do there?
I frightened a little mouse under the chair.

Then came back and blogged about it?

Anyone Else for President

2007-05-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

Last election, people had bumper stickers reading “Anyone else for president.” Somebody must have read them. The Dems are ga ga over a pretty boy with absolutely nothing in his resume that qualifies him for president. (He hasn’t even run a tiny town.). Now the Republicans are doing the same, going ga ga over a TV actor whose only claim to fame was a dismal performance as Senator. (On his one committee assignment investigating the Democrat’s fund raising, they ate his lunch.).

Looks like Americans really think "just anyone" can do the job.

Speaking in Tongues

2007-05-11T20:29:00.000-04:00

Whenever any one writes in their blog on the subject of Speaking in Tongues, Google notifies me. I had really hoped bloggers would be sharing their exciting experiences and insights. Instead I have found mostly tiresome, theological yakety- yak.

I am being reminded of when we young males were going into puberty. You would hear us say, “Girls! Yuk!” A few years later, our hormones kicked in and it was “Girls! Yippee!”.

Amazing how a little experience changes our conversation.