Prosperity Christianity Part II

Critique of the Bethel "Glory Cloud" from tbckawaii on Vimeo.

In part 1 of this series I introduced the "Signs and Wonders" ministry of Bethel church-chain supremo Bill Johnson. Originally this post was intended to look at an interview with Bill Johnson found in the January 2015 edition of Premier Christianity. I have, however, since discovered the video above and will be discussing this instead. I will look at the Christianity article in part 3. The above video gives us an example of one of Bethel Church's signs and wonders, the so called glory cloud.

The video is a critique of the glory cloud phenomenon and Bethel's accompanying apologetics. This critique comes from a Christian who probably classifies as a "Word" Christian; that is, someone whose main engagement with Christianity is mediated by reading the Bible.  I have to agree with him that the glory cloud is rather underwhelming and hardly leaves me in a state of great wonder. As the video suggests it looks suspiciously like dust (or glitter) catching the light as it is caught up in the circulating convention currents one might expect in a crowded auditorium and which is necessarily air conditioned in the hot Californian weather.

So, you have difficulty believing this "glory cloud" is anything special? Well, Bethel has ways of  making you believe....

The video then goes on to provide clips of Bethel's glory cloud apologist Danny Silk. In front of a supportive laughing crowd he ridicules any who might attempt to question the Bethel interpretation and look for explanations in anything less than supernatural terms. He advises disobedient people to "Shut up! You don't know, you so don't know!". 

The video rightly points to the psychological pressures, to the point of duress, being applied in the Bethel social environment: e.g. the peer pressures of group think, the emotional costs in contracting out once a commitment to the Bethel culture has been made and above all the guru status of authority figures like Bill Johnson who preside over the glory cloud meetings and interpret its meaning to his followers. The video also points out the glaring hypocrisy of Silk: Silk will tell critics that "You so don't know" but of course Silk thinks that he himself "So does know!"; one rule for him.....  Silk then goes onto lecture the audience on the need for discernment and yet his words make it clear that he wants to close down the questioning and analytical attitude that is necessarily implicit in any genuine discernment. He attempts to block genuine discernment with a mix of group pressure, ridicule and spiritual intimidation. For Silk genuine discernment equates to the subtext of Silk's address; that is "Agree with me or else risk divine displeasure!" 

The video then moves onto the night Bill Johnson was addressing his followers when the glory cloud appeared. Johnson explains the glory cloud as follows:

The church gathered for decades round a sermon. Israel camped around the presence (approving gasps from the audience). And we've known there are going to be some dramatic shifts in how we do life, how we do church. The presence of God is the greatest gift we have and to shut everything else down because of that is absolutely worth it to me....it's happening tonight as the church is camping around the presence..... (whoops and shouts of joy). ...finally the main thing has become the main thing...

That Johnson is regarded by his lieutenants as a guru and authority figure is evidenced when Silk says of Johnson's words "Yoda speaks!".  Notice how Johnson's words compare exposition of the Word unfavourably to the "presence", a "presence" which to him is the "main thing". For the sake of what Johnson is claiming to be a kind of theophany everything else, in his view, must be closed down; especially, no doubt, a questioning spirit and the exposition of the Word.

God, as we should know, is omnipresent although in spite of our finitude we may feel and/or see unusual tokens of his presence. But God is bigger than any experiences and/or revelations finite beings can have.  Such experiences are just one thing and  never can be the main thing. But I suppose it does become the main thing if you want to close down everything else and use the putative "main thing" to manipulate people. I have no a priori reason to reject out of hand the account of people who claim to have had an epiphany they cannot articulate or explain easily: In the historical church there has always been a tension between Word-laden and Wordless encounters with the divine. But Bethel weighs in to exacerbate the fault line between the analytical & intuitive and comes out in favour of a shut up! and shut down! fideism.

The creator of the video is a bit of a hard cop; I myself like to give Christians the benefit of the doubt knowing that confirmation bias and gullibility can fully account for this kind of stuff: But if Bethel  persists in maintaining its spiritually intimidating stance toward all who might at first cautiously balk at what they are claiming, hard cops are what Bethel has brought upon itself. 

Prosperity Christianity Part 1

Bill and Brenda Johnson with prosperity teacher Benny Hinn.  Hinn has recently recanted
of his long time association with prosperity teaching.  Hinn's lieutenant Rodney Howard-Browne 
was an influence on Randy Clark who initiated the Toronto blessing. Johnson acknowledges his
debt to the Toronto culture. 

Bill Johnson, the Redding based supremo of the "Bethel" church-chain, is thought by some to be the natural successor of John Wimber's "Signs and Wonders ministry". But Wimber, who died of cancer in 1997, was in my opinion of an entirely different frame of mind to Johnson: Wimber attracted traditional evangelical scholars like Wayne Grudem and  Jack Deere, people who would likely to have otherwise cold shouldered Charismatic Christianity. Wimber was a thoughtful man of conciliation and reconciliation. This is why Wimber's Wiki page can say this of him: 

Wimber strongly espoused Kingdom theology, and this approach to the charismatic differed from many of his peers and predecessors. Wimber's embrace of this new approach led a friend, C. Peter Wagner, to coin the phrase, "The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit" to describe the concept he taught. The Third Wave differed from classic Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement, foremost, in their approach to speaking in tongues. Whereas the previous groups had emphasized the gift of tongues as the only evidence for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Wimber and those he influenced emphasized that this was just one of the many spiritual gifts available to believers, as taught in the Bible.

His teaching revolutionized what was a major theological stumbling block to some mainstream Evangelicals, and normalized the demonstration of "signs and wonders" in current times.[11] Wimber held influence with a number of them, most famously Jack Deere, C. Peter Wagner, and Wayne Grudem.

Services led by Wimber often included activities, described as Holy Spirit manifestations, where congregants appeared to be drunk, dazed, or uncoordinated.[12] But in the mid-1990s he led the Vineyard movement to split from the Toronto Blessing church primarily on the issue of bizarre manifestations and the church's extreme latitude for them.[13]

Wimber also differed from contemporaries in his rejection of the Word of Faith movement, and the associated doctrines and showiness. The pursuit of authenticity was at the core of Wimber's idea of church, and this was reflected in the worship as well.

I myself was generally left with a favourable impression of Wimber whenever I read him. However, the fact is his Third Wave of the Holy Spirit, a wave which was hoped would unite "holy spirit" charismatics and traditional "Word" based evangelicals failed to return the spiritual revolution hoped for. In my opinion this was because Wimber and scholars like Jack Deere failed to break a dualistic mold which was inclined to give an exalted place to direct inner light "touches of God" & mystical intuitive encounters with the divine and set them over and against Christians whose experiential joy & encounter with God was largely mediated through an intellectual engagement with the Word. This is the criticism I leveled against Jack Deere in his defence of Wimber. So, even someone like Wimber was unable to take on-board the idea that some Christians simply don't experience divine-gnosis events; in the "Third Wave" such personal events were still regarded as the acme of Christian experience. In consequence Wimber's Third Wave never really fixed the fault line between so-called "holy spirit" Christians and Word Christians. Its failure is evidence that the holy-spirit vs logos division isn't founded on a mandated one-size-fits-all blessing being resisted by Word Christians, but instead represents a combination of differences in Christian culture and personality types. After all, apart from these inner light epiphanies "holy spirit" Christians have trouble pointing to any other fundamental difference between themselves and devout logos Christians. Moreover, they are seldom able to point to miracles absent of evidential ambiguity.which authenticate their claim to have an exclusive spiritual superiority.

However, in spite of all that Wimber can nevertheless be credited for his gallant attempt to walk a conciliatory third path between "holy spirit" charismatics and traditional "logos" loving evangelicals. Not so Bill Johnson. Johnson epitomises the failure of the Third Wave to bring evangelical harmony  and he's turned the clock back to the bad old divisive days of the "holy spirit" vs "logos" war; tough on you if you are one of the latter.  Moreover, Johnson has been accused of teaching a prosperity gospel; Johnson's Wiki page says:

Johnson was featured in the 2018 documentary 'American Gospel: Christ Alone' as a prominent figure in the prosperity gospel movement, emphasizing supernatural miracles as evidence of salvation. Johnson has also the been the subject of criticism.

The prosperity gospel is sometimes referred to as "health and wealth" teaching and this is an acknowledgement that prosperity teaching often comes with two components; that is, the spiritually superior Christian is thought to prosper both in health and wealth: This is the teaching that one-time prosperity teacher Benny Hinn now disowns (See Pride and Prosperity, Premier Christianity, Oct 2019). But to be fair to Johnson I myself haven't heard him extolling the role of wealth as a mark of spiritual superiority (although he may have done). He has, nevertheless, been pretty heavy on the subject of health and healing. In fact in the February 2018 edition of Premier Christianity magazine, in article entitled "When God Doesn't Heal" Wes Sutton director of Acorn Christian Healing Foundation says this of Johnson:

Three years ago in Premier Christianity Magazine (Jan 2015), US church leader Bill Johnson said that he did not have a theology of suffering because "I refuse to have a theology for something that shouldn't exist". There is much in Bethel's ministry that is helpful, but I find his statement a little disingenuous as he clearly  does have way of pastorally ordering the world  when his prayers have not been answered. .....we are not yet seeing everyone healed (or saved) and we need a way of understanding this tension.

When faced with suffering, whether due to bad health or poverty etc, does Johnson back off and offer no spiritual consolation or explanation? Doesn't "it shouldn't exist" itself cloak an underlying theology? The cornerstone of the Christian faith is the suffering of Christ and yet does Johnson refuse to have a theology of salvation and atonement? In the garden of Gethsemane there is a schism in the God-head typical of human life as different levels of goal-seeking compete with one another: On one level Jesus didn't want to go through with the suffering before him and yet on another level He knew it was the will of his Father. At once the God-head both wanted and didn't want the ordeal before them. But the high level objectives entailed by the incarnation required it (Philippians 1:1-11).

For hundreds of years Christians have grappled with the problem of suffering & evil (which includes illness) and it is at the heart of the Gospel. But Johnson in his pastoral arrogance can confidently put a didactic red line through all that and erase the consolation many have found in theodicy.  And what is the Book of Job but a theology of suffering? When Johnson is faced with suffering that hangs around and as one who is inclined toward prosperity teaching we find that he is tempted to explain it all away in terms of the spiritual failings by someone somewhere and thereby actually introducing his own theology of suffering whether he admits it or not!

Johnson is a didactarian with a vengeance, much more so than John Wimber ever was. In part II of this series I will look back at the Premier Christianity article quoted by Wes Sutton. This article took the form of an interview with Johnson and is very revealing. Johnson tends to speak in indirect, coded & connotative terms, but with sufficient experience his words can be decoded and the article thereby provides an insight into Johnson's didactic persona..... and his theology.

Meanwhile, Back in Theological Toy Town....

Good News maybe, but it didn't last long! 
[Click to enlarge]

This post was triggered by an attic clear out. During that clear-out I happened across a 1994 Good News Christian newspaper for Norwich. The headline article was on the conversion of Samantha Fox (See above). Samantha Fox was a popular Sun newspaper Page 3 girl and that seems to be her main claim to fame. However, she eventually turned pop-star. I don't think she was ever a tip-top pop talent, but probably had enough of it to pull off a performance; except, that is, when she co-hosted  the Brit pop awards in 1989 with Mick Fleetwood. It was by all accounts a complete disaster and although certainty not her fault, I doubt if poor Samantha had the calibre to retrieve the situation. After the debacle at least one tabloid treated her cruelly; for them she was a slapper who could safely be made fun of. Not surprisingly she subsequently talked about moving to America where she thought her talent would be viewed more positively.

In spite of her treatment as a bimbo by some, she clearly was a thinking person and was looking for meaning and purpose and this may have lead her to Holy Trinity, Brompton's Alpha course. It was 1994, a bad year for evangelical Christianity; the so called "Toronto blessing" was at large and found fertile ground among Christians who were looking for spiritual fireworks to escape from the humdrum run-down cultural rearguard action that had so characterised Western Christianity since the 1960s. It seemed that as long a touted "new move of God" smacked of the supernatural anything would go, no matter how bizarre. As the article above makes clear the Toronto Blessing was identified by spontaneous bouts of laughter, crying, fainting and ecstasies. Rumour had it that barking, roaring and other animal noises were also among the manifestation of the blessing. As I have remarked before the whole phenomenon had suspicious similarities with the dancing mania of the middle ages. The "blessing" also came with a fair measure of spiritual pressure: People who didn't buy it were regarded as resisting the Holy Spirit and in one case even accused of being in danger of committing the unforgivable sin. This sort of intimidating behaviour is a proud conceit often found among super-spiritual Christians who readily equate any disbelief of their words with a disbelief in the Almighty himself.

HTB ran with the "blessing" (for a while) and it seems likely that this is what Samantha must have witnessed. In the light of her later rejection of HTB (and perhaps even Christianity itself) her testimony of Holy Spirit enlightenment in Good News comes as a grating jar; it is evidence that at least some of these testimonies of epiphany, testimonies which can sound so convincing, are little more than the aping of the words of a group think and are as shallow as an evaporated puddle. 

Not long after Samantha must have moved away from HTB circles because around 2000 she came out as a lesbian and was in a relationship with a woman; this would not have sat comfortably with HTB.  Her wish to disassociate herself with the HTB experience is expressed in a 2003 article in the Guardian:

'Well, on the Alpha course, you learn a lot. And what I learned was I've got my own faith.' She laughs her fizzy laugh and adjusts her two-tone hairdo. 'The people I met there... I felt more Christian than any of them. To me, it looked like a fashion show. I felt I didn't need to be there. I felt everyone there was a poseur. All the women were looking for these rich guys. I wasn't,' she pronounces a little sniffily, 'brought up like that.'

She must have started visiting Holy Trinity Brompton at the time when she was coming to terms with being gay, so I ask how she coped with the evangelical hostility to homosexuality. Actually, she says, Holy Trinity's position struck her as so bananas that her confidence in her own beliefs, about her faith as well as her sexuality, grew stronger.

'I think we've come a long way since the Bible was written. No, Alpha never made me feel bad about my sexuality, because I believe in love: at the end of the day, I think all God wants for us is to be happy and love each other. But Alpha was good because it helped me find myself a bit. It has taken me a while.'

This account is just so utterly at odds with the testimony of her HTB epiphany that I wonder where the truth lies. I wonder if Samantha's reference to "bananas" applies to the weird aspects of the Toronto blessing? In order to uphold their world-view some charismatic evangelicals may attempt to explain away this situation by telling us that perhaps Samantha had a genuine "touch of God" but is currently resisting the Holy Spirit: This is a common explanation among charismatic fundamentalists who, putting their world view first, are sometimes conceited enough claim to have privy to one's inner thought life; so much so that they will boldly offer such condemning judgements.

Another Christian account of Samantha fox's conversion can be found in this 1994 Cross Rhythm web article. Interesting is a comment from a Christian reader in the comment thread of this article. This reads:

Posted by Marion in Birmingham @ 21:58 on Aug 6 2016

 Any chance this could be removed after years passing waiting for confirmation of Faith, fruit. So sad. But please keep praying

In case this Cross Rhythm article should disappear from the web, I have a copy of it here. This tendency to erase inconvenient and perplexing Christian history only serves to feed a confirmation bias. In contrast the Gospels didn't erase Peter's or Judas' failures, as is so often remarked.  When the failures and the vexed questions are forgotten, a sanitized plastic version of Christian history emerges and salutary lessons and cautions are lost to posterity.

This now brings me to an article in the September edition of Premier Christianity magazine about the high profile Christians Joshua Harris and Marty Sampson renouncing their faith. Harris was known among fundamentalist Christians for writing a dreadful book on marriage and sex early on in his Christian career (which he later disowned) and Sampson was a well known song writer and worship leader for the the mega-church chain, Hillsong. The article quotes Sampson as giving the following reasons for rejecting Christianity (Presumably among others). Viz:

How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen? Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send 4 billion people to a place, all coz they don't believe. No one talks about it. 

The article then goes on to quote Free Church minister David Robertson who addresses Sampson's complaint in an open letter:

You seem to have been living in some kind of sheltered cocoon. In the Christian circles I inhabit people never stop talking about these things!  Was your faith or your church background  really so superficial and shallow that these questions were never discussed? Little wonder that your faith collapsed like a house of sand, if it was built on such flimsy foundations  and was never tested! 

This is in fact an implicit criticism of the Hillsong culture*. But Robertson is right to contrast Sampson's experience with his own and question Sampson's undiscriminating and blanket accusation: For example, Christianity magazine itself  is not shy of facing and discussing awkward questions and issues. Also, theologians like Tom Wright and Alistair Mcgrath don't strike me as the sort of guys who wouldn't talk about and face up to theological conundrums. And yet I have to say that there are Christian subcultures out there where confirmation bias is rife and where toy-town and authoritarian doctrines are preached with little or no talk about their difficulties & inconsistencies and where a group think pressures uncritical acceptance. Any attempt at analysis and criticism is looked at askance as the thin end of the Satanic wedge. As Ellie Mumford, an aficionado of the Toronto Blessing, put it  "Don't analyse it". This is fideism. Moreover, sometimes diverging interpretations of scripture are rounded on as tantamount to rebellion against God. As might be expected the authoritarian fundamentalist theme park manager Ken Ham yet again provides a fine example of the kind of spiritual pressure one can expect if one doesn't tow the line. He accuses Christians who might be tempted to accept evolution of;

...undermining the biblical doctrine of sin and death being a result of Adam’s fall. Really, when someone rejects a literal Genesis, it affects the way they view the rest of the Bible and the Christian message, as can be seen with this author.....Once we abandon the Bible as absolute truth, anything goes, and anyone can just make God and his gospel message in their own image. But that gospel won’t save—only the biblical gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation  ("Progressive Children's book to offer a different picture of creation" 17 Oct 2019)

Once again Ham thrusts his perverse & paranoid thin end of the Satanic wedge logic into the mouths and minds of those he disagrees with and attempts to manipulate them onto a collision course with the Almighty. As one might expect from his inquisitional tactics he all but denies access to Gospel truth to his antagonists.This is the way fundamentalists attempt to forestall critical analysis of their position. (See also here)

So, although David Robertson is right, he is only right for selected Christian subcultures. Elsewhere the kind of toy town plastic theology bolstered by spiritual intimidation and which has deceived Sampson reigns supreme. As for those who are self-critical, analytical, exploratory, tentative, experimental and ask hard questions, they may find themselves being accused of at best resisting the Holy Spirit and at worst of being heretics!

Footnote:
* One of the factors at work here is the almost exclusive premium that is so often placed on purely intuitive engagements with God: Sensings, epiphanies, sublime revelations, touches of God, gnosis etc are regarded as the acme of faith; a more analytical approach is not just a poor relation in this context, but sometimes explicitly put down as mere head knowledge in comparison with the  superior "heart knowledge" of the super-spiritual Christian. The trouble is that when people like Sampson come out of their quasi-gnostic stupor they find roaring lions waiting for them, ready to devour their faith. Robertson's criticism is then justified.



Quoted links
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2017/11/confirmation-bias-and-terry-virgos-bad.html

http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Samantha_Fox_The_Page_Three_girls_Christian_conversion/40205/p1/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6584193/Samantha-Fox-52-turns-years-spangled-cheerleader-inspired-ensemble.html

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/feb/02/features.review7 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/what-really-like-disastrous-1989-14319405

In Search of Spiritual Fireworks

I've complemented Premier Christianity magazine on its mix of articles before: It doesn't present a plastic, sanitised or sectarian Christianity but instead an authentic version with all its warts, messy contradictions, unresolved questions and raw tensions. So if it's going to be representative of the true state of Christian affairs then along with what to me is agreeable I would expect to find articles by commentators that I wouldn't necessarily see eye to eye with; for example it has recently published another article by the fundamentalist leaning R T Kendall (See here for an earlier article). But even in Kendall's article we find him candid and up front about one significant aspect of Christianity as we shall see.

The article in question appears in the September 2019 edition of Christianity and is entitled Word vs Spirit. As I suggested in my earlier blog post Kendall is a dualist and probably a "gnostic" dualist at that;  that is, he sees Christian conversion only rightfully completed if one has gone through some kind  initiation into the "deeper things of the Spirit". In my previous post on Kendall  I quoted a certain Jonathan Hunt (Hunt seems to be associated with the conservative evangelical Metropolitan Tabernacle) who comments on Westminster Chapel in the days of R T Kendall's tenure (See here):

The sad decline of Westminster Chapel into the charismatic extremes of today was begun even then. (See the Rev Iain Murray’s comments upon RT Kendall’s ministry here)

Although this quote comes from a rather sectarian source and must be treated with caution*** it is evidence of Kendall's charismatic credentials. Given this background it is no surprise that in the current article we find Kendall taking it for granted that there exist "Word" and "Spirit" versions of Christianity which fall into quite distinct categories: For him one can major in "Word "Christianity and minor in "Spirit" Christianity or alternately one can major in "Spirit" Christianity and minor in "Word" Christianity. His desire is that this dichotomy is resolved.  But is it really such a clear dichotomy as Kendall makes out?

***

As in my first article on Kendall we find him once again casting aspersions on the church for its failure to live up to his expectations. His expectations are in fact predicated on his world view, a world view which filters his observations through a Word vs Spirit polariser. In his mind the church is culpable for not bringing together Word and Spirit. To solve the problem we must...

...all see the urgent need  for both Word and Spirit to come together as in the book of Acts. 

As is so often the wont of stern evangelicals like Kendall, he is not the kind of guy who minces his words about what he identifies as sin in need of repentance:

Those who read this (i.e Kendall's words) may - just may - be gripped to lament and repent over our situation and intelligently pray that the honour of God's name which has long been behind a cloud will be restored....there is no fear of God in the land or in the church....we are in a deep deep sleep with little or no expectancy and no great concern  or outrage over the conditions around us

Kendall has a low opinion of both Word centred and Spirit centred Christians :

Those [Spirit] people who run to church because they know they will be riveted by exciting and fearless preaching are hard to find. So much of what comes from Word pulpits  is "perfectly orthodox perfectly useless" as Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say. 

For Kendall large swathes of the Church are in the doldrums of an utter uselessness. People who love the Word are not seeking power and people who love the power of the Spirit are not seeking the Word.

But what does Kendall mean by power? To this end he alludes to the signs, wonders and miracles in the book of Acts. Fair enough; a few restored amputated legs, the raising of the certifiably dead, authentic prophecies and miraculous insights etc would be a welcome manifestation of divine power.  (Although Kendall doesn't mention miracles of revival where there is seemingly inexplicably rampart conversion in response to preaching). Things like this are measurably hard evidence of God's paranormal power.  But in a candid admission Kendall tells us that this kind of thing is exceedingly rare:

I believe many need to hear this message - myself included. I long to preach with power and authority. I personally experienced that kind of power and authority only once or twice so far in my lifetime. I have seen some miracles and healings over the years but very few. True miracles and verifiable healings are exceedingly rare. 

Well at least Kendall has got something right; we see very little overt evidence of divine paranormal power.  So why this dearth of miracles and conversion avalanches? But Kendall thinks he knows the answer to that: He blames their absence on church people who have failed to address his dichotomy. Yes, he's that kind guy and his message of a lack of faith, expectancy and failure is common in charismatic churches who seek to rationalise and explain away the absence of what their version of Christianity leads them to expect. In an inversion of Peter Abelard* one can hear sentiments very similar to the following among Charismatic  leaders:

How many times have you said, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” That’s the traditional approach, based on the ability to tangibly see things to know they exist. But from a spiritual level, we want to switch that around. The Truth principle is this: I’ll see it when I believe it! This means we see it with our spiritual eyes, before it actually manifests in the real world.

This kind of philosophy provides a ready means of explaining away crushed expectations by apportioning blame for lack of faith. In practice what "I’ll see it when I believe it! " really means is "I'd better believe it when I first hear it from my spiritual guides".  What's being asked for here is that the "evidence" planted in the ears by the these guides should not be the subject of observation and critical analysis. "Don't analyses it" is a phrase that has been used by Ellie Mumford about the notorious Canadian Toronto Blessing. These epistemic attitudes disenfranchise the Christian's intellect and encourages the notion that a sheer teeth gritting belief is what is needed to conjure up the miraculous when the evidence, apart from the vehement assertions of one's spiritual guides, simply isn't there. When the promised miracles fail to materialise then the explanation that there is someone out there with deficient faith who is to blame is likely to cause bitter disappointment, recriminations, angry backbiting and division; when what they are hoping for and expecting doesn't come about a witch hunt may ensue as they seek for whoever is stultifying the power of the Spirit. What these people are unlikely to accept is that manifestations of divine paranormal power are not under the control of human strength of belief and that the appearance of this power is probably humanly inscrutable. There are times when divine paranormal power is very overt and other times when it is more covert. Overt measurable displays of paranormal power is an act of divine fiat and does not necessarily have a link with belief, expectation, holiness or prayer because the plan behind it may be beyond our understanding.

Given the bitter recriminations that often follow in the wake of the kind of world view that Kendall promulgates it is no surprise to me why many traditional evangelical "Word" orientated Christians (Such as we see in the Metropolitan Tabernacle quote above) have washed their hands of the likes of Kendall and even go as far as to suggest that overt Pentecostal power is confined to the early days of the New Testament. That may be going a bit too but I'll say this: In my experience many Christians cannot be blamed for a lack of motivation in seeking that the power of God's Word.  As the saying goes the pen is mightier than the sword and seeking sensationalist spiritual fireworks before something is declared to be "in the Spirit " is going to underrate and devalue much of what goes on in churches. Word and power go together; they cannot be separated into distinct Spirit vs Word categories. Sometimes divine paranormal power is overt and sometimes it is covert. But Kendall's dualist world view prompts him to dichotomise sight and sound even though both are active information bearers:

Most of my own preaching over the years - I wish it were not true - has been entirely Word preaching  with little power. When people listened  to me they would say "Thank you for your word". That is what they came for, that is what they got. They did not  come to see anything.; they came to hear.

You can't separate word and power like this: hearing and seeing are both God given senses. Words are never empty and sights always convey a message.

But the absence of hard measurable miracles doesn't mean to say people don't have their own anecdotes of experience of paranormal power; it's just that anecdotal miracles have an epistemic distance which means that only those who directly experience them can imbibe their reality. But for the rest of us the human weaknesses for unreliability, gullibility and confirmation bias can compromise the value of anecdotal testimonies which report on one-off events and erratic phenomena. Kendall simply hasn't  taken into account epistemic distance when he has declared his sweeping write-offs. Instead he embarks on a blame game which has all the potential to trigger off damaging witch hunts and divisions. Moreover, the spurious Spirit vs Word dichotomy can take Christians eye off the ball as they undervalue what they can do, what they see and what they hear and instead merely mark time waiting for enough holiness and prayer to usher in those spiritual fireworks. They then become perfectly useless. Kendall is part of the problem, not part of the solution: He is imposing his dualist categories on the church. No fear of God? Really? Am I really to believe that, say, reformist Christians who are so diligent in their study of the Word have no fear of God?  

Charismatic gurus have a tendency to fall for a version of gnosticism: They cannot identify God's power in the everyday, the prosaic and the common place especially so as the church becomes increasingly marginalised from and irrelevant to the surrounding culture and its learning. So in the absence of measurable paranormal power they turn in on themselves seeking God in the inner life and in inner-light revelations of gnosis. The mass swoon for Jesus events then become the vicarious measure of power and an existential fix for an existential crisis.  But such events are far too close to trance like states and group hysteria to be immediately classified as authentic. One has to be cautious about these "outpourings of the Spirit": They resemble too closely the phenomenon of dancing mania (and also this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48850490) for them to be automatically and uncritically classified as authentic. 

Lastly we've got what is very likely going to be another entry in my false prophecy list: 

I truly believe that the Word and the Spirit are going to come together maybe soon. If Smith Wigglesworth has been quoted correctly, we are long overdue to see his 1947 prophecy fulfilled. He reportedly forecast that the Word and the Spirit would come together and that this move would eclipse the Wesleyan and Welsh  revivals and spread all over the world. 

Who knows; we may well see a display of overt divine power, but we won't see a coming together of Word and Spirit simply because it is predicated on the fallacies of a dualist world view. Whilst the activity of the "Power of the Spirit" is registered by dualists only in swoon for Jesus and mass trance  events you can be sure that the polarisation will remain in place; for many people swooning for Jesus  just isn't sympathetic to their personality and rides roughshod over their God given way of appropriating and expressing the faith.  Let us remember that John Wimber's "Third Wave"  never really infused the whole church**; that's in spite of the fact that Wimber's charismatic stance was more intelligent, more conciliatory and more inclusive than other charismatics before or since. The old divided order has reasserted itself probably along cultural and personality fault lines. But in the final analysis this may actually be a good thing: God doesn't keep all his apples in one basket. If one lot of apples go bad, there are still a lot of other baskets!

Postscript (19/9/19)

In the absence of the overtly paranormal (which isn't under human control, prayer or no prayer, holiness or no holiness) I can see straight away that Kendall's concept of a union of "Spirit" and "Word", will never happen. As I have said in the text Kendall's underlying dualist ideas are spurious.  What Kendall thinks of as a dichotomy is in fact nothing more than cultural and personality differences in the expression of faith; some people lean toward analytical and verbal expressions of the faith (Logos) and others a more mystical and intuitive union with the divine (Mythos). The fault lines here are  archetypal and can be observed throughout Christian history.

In my opinion what counts most is that different personality types and cultures cultivate mutual respect and appreciation. But even this is, I believe, a tall order given the human susceptibility toward spiritual conceits and deceits.. Kendall is an example of why mutual respect is difficult: The foible he exemplifies is that humans are precious about the maintenance of their own sense of spiritual one-up-manship and this leads to mutual badgering and the inflaming of mutual antagonisms. The irony is that Kendall himself is feeding these polarising fires and the harder he and others like him blow the more mutually hostile the opposing sides will become. As I have said below, although Wimber's "Third Wave" never broke the charismatic gnostic mould, the days of John Wimber do feel like a more reasonable albeit short lived era.

Kendall's article is evidence that the goal of some Charismatic Christians to "convert" the whole church to a quasi-gnostic version of the faith has failed: They brought no covert "supernaturalism"  to the church (as Kendall admits) and only succeeded in dividing Christians along personality and cultural fault lines. They would not accept that these fault lines can be resolved by rising to the challenges of reciprocal relationships and complimentary service. Instead they only succeeded in inflaming and polarising the differences with talk of initiation into superior forms of spirituality.


Footnotes
* "I seek understanding so that I might believe" rather than "I believe so that I may understand". Probably the truth is an iterative combination of these epistemic approaches.

** That may be because Wimber's new wave never really broke free from the old Pentecostal gnosticism. Since Wimber the "Bethel" brand of churches represents an example of a return to the old ways of thinking. See here for example. See also here for a reference to Grantly Watkins who is pushing Bethel thiinking.

*** Sectarian groups have a tendency to solve the problem of unity by drawing a line round one particular uniform (and sometimes controlled) Christian sub culture and then declaring it to be the one and only true representatives of Christianity. In some ways Kendall is only getting from the Met as good as he gives!

The Mouth of God (??)

In a post entitled "Good Morning Christianity"  evangelical atheist PZ Myers publicises an example of the devout badgering he gets:

Click to enlarge

Here's Myers' not entirely surprising response:

This is how some Christians think they’ll win hearts and minds for their religion. It’s pretty much typical for what I wake up to every morning.

There’s a phrase these fanatics like to use: “hardening the heart against God”. I’ve been dealing with this stuff for decades, and they’ve succeeded in turning my heart into a gristley, fibrous lump of black contempt for religion. Thanks, gang, I wouldn’t be the atheist I am today without you!

I would also remind my fellow atheists now that reversing this tactic against them will not persuade them that your intellectual rejection of the supernatural premises of religion is valid, either.

I suppose I ought to allow the possibility that Myers has landed himself a troll here, but I don't think so; It's entirely consistent with some of my experience of the slighted fundagelical and the threatening spiritual abuse (s)he can direct toward outsiders whether atheist or Christian;  (See also here). So, if even I have had more than enough aggravation from fundagelicals you can be sure that Myers would have! The Christian evangelist Myers has picked up sounds more like the proud, cruel, and slandering voice out of hell than the voice of the Father of many prodigals!

Myers would no doubt regard me as an utter nincompoop for being a Christian (which I can hardly blame him for given the state of the above quote). But that's a relatively minor personal slight which, as far as I concerned,  isn't sufficient warrant for him to become fuel in the fires of eternal damnation: Rico Tice can say what he likes. Fundamentalists tend to fall for a spiritual conceit whereby they project their own very considerable offence at being slighted onto the Almighty Himself.

It's no surprise that persons who have little compunction about registering the nominal rejection of Christ as clear evidence justifying the eternal tortures of hell, should have little inhibition in proactively and aggressively accusing those they consider beyond the pale of having committed the most heinous of sins. For myself I would certainly bulk at equating nominal rejection of Christ with an authentic rejection. After all, Christians like "asparagusman" are hardly projecting the authentic Christ of the Samaritans and the God of prodigals. So who knows, if Myers doesn't have that promised heart-attack before I pop off, I'll put a good word in for him when I pass through the pearly gates.

Teetering on the Brink of the Nihilist Abyss

Cartoon from: http://chainsawsuit.com/tag/nihilism/

Evangelical atheist PZ Myers recently reproduced the English lyrics of the Icelandic entry to the Eurovision song contest. He prefixed it with the comment:  They get bonus points for reflecting my mood so well.

The revelry was unrestrained

The hangover is endless

Life is meaningless

The void will get us all

Hate will prevail

Happiness comes to an end

For it is an illusion

A treacherous pipe dream

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

Multilateral delusions

Unilateral punishments

Gullible poor fellows

The escape will end

The emptiness will get us all

Hate will prevail

Europe will crumble

A web of lies

Will arise from the ashes

United as one

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

Hate will prevail

Love will die

Hate will prevail

Happiness comes to an end

For it is an illusion

A treacherous pipe dream

Hate will prevail

I would guess (or at least hope) that the author of the these bleak lyrics would tell us that they are a warning to the human race of the consequences of failing to get its cooperative act together; for example, we can see how in the 1930s a web of lies arose out of the ashes of WWI!

By couching these consequences in such a negatively nihilistic way with a strong hint of these consequences being inevitable the author might feel that the warning comes across with that much more force. In conjuring up a stifling sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness, emptiness (and any other anti-superlative you can think of) the lyrics barge their way into the emotions and badger one to ponder the meaning of life if any. In this sense it would classify as a kind of modern day Book of Ecclesiastes. On the other hand perhaps the song writer truly is a hard core nihilist and sees no way but down into the nihilist abyss.

At least Neitzsche did eventually find a way to say "Yes!" to life, but if you are looking for hope in Iceland's Eurovision entry there is very little to go on! The best we can find is that the first person gave all ..... but needless to say received nothing in return!

As I have said so often, atheism teeters on the brink of a thorough going nihilism and these lyrics are eloquent warning of what happens when one goes over the brink. Spelling it out: There is no long term hope and a very ephemeral illusory happiness. Hate will prevail. The irony is that when humanity works hard to bring purpose to life via self-defined goals, there will be inevitable clashes between epistemically challenged less than perfect, human beings with their very different visions of how to go about creating a world of meaning. The very search for meaning has the potential to create hate!

But as the cartoon above suggests in true nihilism it is not hate which prevails but cold indifference. The existence of hate does at least tell us that there is some one out there with the motivation to strive for a purpose although that striving probably gets up some else's nose! If we want to discover the likely consequences of cosmic indifference, however, H. G. Wells book "The Time Machine" can also be read as a warning to atheist man about his grave responsibilities in a world without God.  No wonder then that PZ Myers is feeling so bleak!

Genesis Literalism: Vineyard Fellowship

 Biblical literalism could look like this if taken  far enough!

My friend James who takes as keen an interest in the state of Christianity as I do drew my attention to a Vineyard fellowship's statement of faith and pointed out that the statement's article number 4 (See below) likely suggests they are Genesis literalists. He is very probably right, unfortunately.  We are both concerned about the rundown intellectual state of parts of the church as so often manifested by its embattled fundamentalist wing. For example, the claim that the age of the cosmos is a mere 6000 years is particularly absurd and beyond Christian academic circles this belief is surprisingly widespread among scientifically illiterate & gullible evangelical Christians who are spiritually intimidated by extremists like Ken Ham and his small retinue of tame credentialed scholars. Because young earthism has rather weak arguments in its favour that these weak arguments are tendered by "credentialed scholars" is a very important piece of supporting evidence for the scientifically illiterate rank and file who believe these arguments.

Below I reproduce the parts of the statement of faith that are relevant to our concerns. There is however one caveat to make: A statement of faith, however literalist, doesn't necessarily imply fundamentalist attitudes in the fellowship itself. In any case it is quite possible that the statement was written by the fellowship's mentoring organisation and that the members themselves don't use it as a way of sharply distinguishing the sheep from the goats, the outsiders from insiders, as a fundamentalist would do.

***

VINEYARD: #2 WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds, and governs all that exists, the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living thing and mankind. God created all things very good.

MY COMMENT: No problem: The above, I think, is a fairly standard folk concept of God's ultimate sovereignty and cosmically comprehensive creative action. However, I wonder if Vineyard would accept Denis Alexander's interpretation of "all things very good" meaning "fit for purpose". I suspect that they wrongly interpret "very good" as connoting "perfection". In fact they probably haven't twigged the difference between connotative language and notational language.

VINEYARD: #3 WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him. He was cast out of God's presence and, as a usurper of God's rule established a counter-kingdom of darkness and evil upon the earth.

MY COMMENT: Satan's rebellion and fall is well established Christian doctrine. But has Satan really established a counter kingdom on earth? In his vanity he might think he has (Luke 4:6) and try to act like a king (see Rev 13:1-2) but given the totalising nature of God's sovereignty it looks to me as if there is only room for one King in the cosmos! How can the power of such a King be "usurped"? As Daniel 4 makes clear in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, it is only God that rules even when vain kings try to act like God. See also Romans 13. Having a view of Earth as a kind of dark satanic almost hell like place is unbiblical and cult like. See for example the following quote from a Jehovah's witness with whom I corresponded over some years. He expressed his opinion on the subject of Satanic sovereignty as follows:

Jehovah has allowed Satan to rule this Earth and set up governments, knowing that a bad government is better than no government at all (anarchy). But he does not approve of the various governments, in fact he says through Jesus Kingdom will do away with all of man's governments See Dan 2:44. (February 1982)

If we read Dan 2:44 we see that this Watchtower Follower is reading too much into it. This reading is encouraged by the JW's who see themselves very much as a holy competing counter-culture marginalised on the edge of the much hated greater society. If one reads Daniel 2:44 we see that it is telling us that God is going to set up a new kingdom in place of the old corrupt kingdoms - that isn't to say that those old kingdoms weren't God's kingdoms: There are God's kingdoms albeit abused by Satan and human beings.  Romans 13:1-2 makes it clear that God does approve of governments and in fact they have been established by the sovereign God himself:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.  (Roms 13:1-2)

Typically of a fundamentalist extremist our Watchtower follower has gone far too far in his assessment and understanding of the Bible which he interprets through the lens of the teaching of his spiritual superiors in the Watchtower. The world is still God's approved kingdom although many abuse their delegated power. Given that government is God's government it must be treated with respect and not despised as Satan's domain providing pretext to be used and abused according to corrupt selfish ambition.

I see Vineyard's statement of faith as coming too close to the Watchtower model that earth's governments are a Satanic counter-kingdom. I read that as evidence of a reactionary response of an increasingly marginalised christian culture which in consequence sees itself as something very other and contrary to the powers that be and has difficulty identifying with the wider social sphere. This is the realm of Trump popularism which all too easily lapses into conspiracy theorism.

VINEYARD: #4 WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God's judgement of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born in sin, subject to God's judgement of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness.

MY COMMENT:  This is the article James draws our attention to. Things start to go badly wrong here; see my reply to James below where I explain this more fully and also James comments on it: As we shall see a pathological Western Christian dualism shines through the above statement.

VINEYARD: WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the exercise of all the biblical gifts of the Spirit. We practice the laying on of hands for the empowering of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.

MY COMMENT: I wouldn't say I have a big issue with any of this but it betrays something I have always maintained QUOTE: We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today UNQUOTE: Regarding the latter I note this: Presumably given  "often a conscious experience",  it follows that the empowering of the Spirit is often not a conscious experience! As I point out in this blog post, Charismatic Tony Higton also admitted that "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" doesn't necessarily entail a conscious experience. Therein lies the rub: Many who seek of the "Baptism of the Spirit" expect it to be accompanied by some kind of epiphany ushering in a spiritual power game changer. This may not always happen thus causing disappointment to be internalised and suppressed. Moreover, subsequent to this spiritual non-event the promise of spiritual power is not always be very noticeable: False prophecies, failed healing, authoritarian leadership, spiritual spin, young earthism and prosperity teaching are all presided over by fellowships which claim to be under the auspices of so called privileged charismatic power!

VINEYARD: #9 WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments as our final and absolute authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

MY COMMENT: "The Bible is without error in the original manuscript"!!. That is often the refrain of fundamentalists; They know that in the transmission through history copies and translations of the Bible will accumulate errors if only small errors and therefore can't be absolutely error free. But for the fundamentalist mind anything less than 100% truth tends to register as nothing short of 100% error! And so there is a need to posit the "infallible original manuscripts"; (as if anyone reads them!). What they don't acknowledge is that this immediately tips the whole discussion of what is "God's Word" into the domain of human reasoning and debates about historical provenance: For who is going to decide what are the original manuscripts and by what criteria? Such a decision will depend on our fallible extra-biblical historical knowledge and understandings. Just what constitutes the "originals" will be arguable. In any case aren't the original documents the texts generated by the inspired writer before they underwent any copying? If not then how many copying processes are allowed before a text is deemed not to be original? Is the humanly developed understanding of information redundancy allowed to be invoked to show how it can be used to recover truth in the face of error? But worst of all for the fundamentalist doctrinaire concept of infallibility is that large portions of Biblical meaning are transmitted not via notational language but by connotational language; that is, text which is just a trigger or key opening up huge domains of cultural association; in this process the recipient is highly proactive in assigning meaning. It could be argued that only the texts in their original language "hold" the right connotational meaning because connotational language is highly culturally specific and therefore the source text must be packaged together with its source culture before any infallible meanings can be arrived at. If so then the fundamentalist mindset would suggest that our much copied and translated bibles, set as they are in our own culture, are of dubious value since it is impossible for them to be infallible. This is especially so because so much biblical meaning is derived from a proactive connotational reading, a process largely driven by the fallible recipient and his fallible cultural mental resources. But to regard the highly complex biblical reading process as too error prone to be of value is an absurd conclusion which naturally follows on from the fundamentalist tendency to equate anything less than 100% truth as nothing short of 100% error! The fact is our Western Bibles and the Western culture providing  the lens through which we recover biblical meaning are clearly fallible channels, but that doesn't prevent those channels delivering truth about salvation; it's just means we have to be little less epistemically arrogant about our grasp on Biblical truth. The embattled fundamentalist mind seeks to anchor indisputability & infallibility in a revered static object, but given that information involves propagation and a highly proactive interpretation by the recipient we start to understand that "God's Word" is much more a process than it is a static material object.

Hand waving jesters in the direction of so called "final and absolute authority and infallibility" are used by authoritarian fellowships in an attempt to settle disputes about meaning in an authoritarian way, completely oblivious to the implicit epistemic uncertainties in their position. These fellowships really do need a lesson in epistemic humility. Since the "extraction" of Biblical meaning entails information transmission, the resources of cultural thought forms and connotational processes entailing much  heavy cognitive lifting done by the human recipient, there is no room for the arrogance of infallibility that we so often see in fundagelical fellowships. The incoherent doctrine of "infallibility" is there to give embattled fellowships the secure authoritarian barriers behind which they can feel both epistemically safe and find a pretext to condemn outsiders for heresy. 

VINEYARD: #11 WE BELIEVE the whole world is under the domination of Satan......

MY COMMENT:  No, the world is not under the domination of Satan although Satan and (wo)man introduce much corruption; the world is under the sovereignty of God although that authority is the light touch of God's permissive will. This sort of article of faith is so easy to use to write off modern science in favour of a medieval fundamentalism and/or conspiracy theorism.

***

Here is my original reply to James: 

It is difficult to interpret 4 as unambiguously young earthist, but I suspect that young earthism is the view they hold, although I hope I am wrong. However, I can do business with young earthists as long as they don't make it a faith test, unlike extremists such as Ken Ham.

What I do see here, however, are hints of dualism. Well OK, there is the dualism of God vs his creation. But superimposed on that by Western Christianity is a dualism in the created world. i.e a "spiritual world vs matter" dichotomy. Sometimes this "spiritual" world is all but elevated above creation. e.g. notice that in the Vineyard statement of faith it is not clear that the world of Satan is part of the created order: It goes straight in with the fall of Satan and his Angels without making it clear they must be created beings and that their disobedience represents a pre-Adamic fall in the created world order and who knows what effect that had on creation. Notice that the Vineyard's points on the Satanic fall come before the doctrine on creation expressed in point 4.  Moreover, notice that in 4 we read: "Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".  Access to God's good creation? But didn't Satan and his Angels have access to creation anyway because they were also created beings? Hence there is no recognition that the fall of Satan and his angel  had any effect on creation or that they are created beings. There seems to be a taken-for-granted subliminal assumption here that Satan and his cronies live in a separate world and that they only had access to the created world via man's fall. Does that make them uncreated "gods" then?

This is dualism, bordering on gnosticism. This is where I find the origin of many of the problems of contemporary Western Christianity: I suspect that it helps motivate a young earthist doctrines. For them, matter is seen as somehow "inert" and often bordering on the profane, part of Satan's kingdom, recalling somewhat the gnostic ideas of a creative demiurge.  It also explains why Western minds cannot make any sense of the paranormal: "Billiard ball" matter is not supposed to have the properties such as we see in hauntings, UFO events, crypto-zoology etc. The paranormal starts to fall into place if we see the created world as consisting of differing modes of conscious cognition akin to the difference between a rational waking state and a dream state.

That the kind of dualism implicit in Vineyard thinking is an error is suggested by Colossians 1:15-18 where we find that Christ created all things and that includes Satan. 

I further suspect that there is a tendency in Vineyard toward leadership authoritarianism and the usual "holy spirit" Christians vs non-holy Christians dichotomy.

***

Below is James reply to my reply, which I include because it adds materially to the case in view; in particular James noting  "the absurd idea (occasionally posited in some extremist circles) that there was no death of any kind in the world until Adam sinned, as per this Vineyard quote" is very significant and probably clinches the case  that we are dealing with Genesis literalists. 

 Hi Tim,

Yes indeed - thanks for the reply.

I agree. I don’t detect any unambiguous alarm bells ringing for me here, but a couple of cautionary observations. Number 4 looks like an inferred nod towards a rigid Biblical literalism and a creationist doctrine. However, like you, I too can do business with folk like that, as long as they remain outside the ‘my way or the wrong way’ camp, and don’t take creationism as the exclusive sine qua non of Christian faith.

Like you, I’m also somewhat unclear what this is all about -- “Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".

If it’s to do with the absurd idea (occasionally posited in some extremist circles) that there was no death of any kind in the world until Adam sinned, as per this Vineyard quote - “Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God's judgement of death to the earth” - then we are dealing with a ridiculous, although probably internally harmless, viewpoint, as it obviously isn’t true.

“Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".

I don’t know what to make of this statement, especially the “access to God's good creation” as it’s rather ambiguous. This ambiguity is quite common when you take Paul’s obviously non-literal exposition in Romans 5:12 and turn it into an historical commentary - it gets rather muddied. Satan and all his demonic hosts are part of God’s creation too - there is a strict category distinction between God and everything else, including the demonic world, as St. Paul reminds us:

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” Colossians 1:15-18.

Given the foregoing scripture, it makes little sense to talk of Satan and his cronies “gaining access to God's good creation” because they were always part of God’s good creation to start with, until they fell through pride (see Ezekiel 28:15–17 and Isaiah 14:12–14). It could be just a bit of harmless doctrinal sloppiness, or it could be a rabbit hole into some more perturbing beliefs, but I guess we’ll find out in due course.

Best Wishes

James

Character Assassinators

Cowboy Bob knows the answer to that!

I get an emailed newsletter from an atheist called Ashley Haworth-Roberts who spends much of his time harrying the anti-science Christian fundamentalist culture. As I am a researcher of sectarian brands of Christianity I find that Ashley actually succeeds in drawing my attention to a lot of useful material. In one of his latest newsletters he quotes a Trump and Ken Ham supporting fundamentalist who calls himself "cowboy Bob".  What interested me was the following quote from the cowboy's blog. It's an indication that for at least some of the Christian right-wing young earthism is a faith test, a test you fail if you don't go along with their young earthist views  Here's the quote with my emphases:

Some folks reject the Bible's authority. We expect that from atheists and other non-believers, but there are professing Christians who also downplay the Word of God. Scripture plainly says that everything was created in six days. Instead of humbling themselves and submitting to Christ, they light a shuck out of there and head for the comfort of riding the owlhoot trail. (Cowboy speak for "outlaws") They are degrading Scripture.

Why would a supposed believer want to compromise? It seems to me that these owlhoots don't want to look like one of those people who reject deep time, so they seek the praise of men rather than God. Another reason is that they want to accommodate atheistic views of science and their interpretations of evidence so they can allow for evolution. Some of these alleged Christians get a notion to add millions of years to the Bible by pretending it doesn't mean what it clearly says. 

People who try to compromise with theistic evolution, old earth creation, and hybrid creation accounts do not accomplish anything of value. Indeed, such tinhorns mock God, his people, and Scripture. Do they really believe? Their insistence on eisegesis over exegesis**, ridicule of Bible-believing Christians, and giving comfort to enemies of God causes me to lack belief that they do so.

(See http://www.biblecreation.com/2019/02/making-hybrid-creation-stories.html)

It never occurs to people like this that even on a literal interpretation Genesis 1 is hardly a description of the process of creation for it says very little about the details of this process; that is, the actual sequence of events that the commands of God entail. The Genesis 1 narrative, by all accounts, is (necessarily) a mere summary of an immense burden of creative activity  See here.

But what I would like to focus on here is the fact that the above quote reveals just how full of assumptions the cowboy is about  the underlying motives of those Christians who don't agree with him: The cowboy is quite sure that Christians who beg to differ are harbouring malign ulterior anti-Christian attitudes. Moreover he, like other young earthists, is unlikely to make known that his views actually originate from the 1960s, a time that Ken Ham thinks of as the young earthist reformation.

The character deformation implicit in the cowboy's words allied to his all too obvious profound suspicions of Christians beyond the pale of his subculture are of-a-piece with the right wing & fundamentalist affinity for paranoid conspiracy theorism: Let's not forget that Trump and professional Christian conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have in the past engaged in mutual support. 

As the Watchtower egged on its followers to believe that 1975 was going to be the likely end of this system of things and then claimed that it never made a prediction, so likewise we can see how Ken Ham is egging on the cowboy's behaviour and yet turns round and tries to claim that he's not making young earthism a salvation issue...... Oh yes he is!. 

Apart from research purposes I would warn reasonable Christians to avoid engaging with people like the cowboy (along with fundamentalists in general).  As we can see one doesn't start on a level playing field with them. Reasonable Christians (who are in fact in the majority, I'm glad to say), in fundamentalist eyes, are the lowest of the low, traitorous apostate spiritual outcasts on the "owlhoot" trail! Fundamentalists like the cowboy are so full of a priori suspicions & potential recriminations that the trusting and mutually respecting relationship  needed for constructive dialogue just isn't there to start with. Interaction with them just catalyses further accusations, slandering, anger, aggravation and polarisation. However, it helps to realise that these people are not out to intentionally deceive, but their pathological paranoid vision of the world is very real to them; it takes a long time and a lot of effort to deconstruct that world view.  Unless one is specifically lead to engage these kinds of rabid sectarians there are better things Christians can occupy themselves with!

Relevant links
As the following links suggest there are parallels here with a sect like Jehovah's witnesses.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeemhBVURGSExVaFE/edit?pli=1

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2018/05/fundamentalist-publicity-sects.html

Footnote:
* I doubt the cowboy would be able to tell us much about the relationship between "eisegesis & exegesis" and the difference between "notation and connotation".