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. 

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!

Vulnerable Mission and Mythos vs Logos in the Walled City of Kowloon

Kowloon's walled city, now demolished.

The January 2019 edition of Premier Christianity magazine has an interview with Jackie Pullinger, a Christian whose mission field was the notorious Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong. The story of Jackie Pullinger's foray into the dangerous labyrinth of the Walled city is the stuff of living legend. This is heroic Christian mission as Christians love to hear it. An ill-prepared maverick with no ties to an official mission organisation pits themselves against the darkest elements that often lurk in human community and comes through triumphantly. Pullinger's story has some similarities with that of Gladys Alywood.

Christians love this sort of stuff especially as most Christian's "walk with God" is a fairly unexciting affair in comparison. Through the lives of people like Pullinger Christians can live the exciting, adventuress and miraculous Christian life vicariously. Above all, it lends hope for the humdrum lives of many Christians because we hear how, from a most unpromising starting point (Which most rank and file Christians can identity with!), God can confound us by raising up some big new thing. However, therein may lie the rub: Some Christians might think: "Why doesn't God work for me like that? What am I doing wrong? Why is the supernatural missing from my life?". Thus a subliminal sense of guilt can set in under the surface. Sometimes that guilt turns outward into anger and blame against local churches that by-and-large don't show Christians how they too can live these supposedly "super-duper-supernatural" lives.  I have seen this happen.  Anyway, Pullinger's story has been told many times so I need say nothing more of it here

***

In response to a question from the interviewer about how she learnt the local language Pullinger replied as follows:

Pullinger: Well it was a good thing I didn't begin too quickly because I just had time to do a short evangelism course before I got on the ship, and if I'd known Chinese I would have said too much. I thought that preaching the Gospel was explaining how Jesus came to die for your sins and, of course, that's no preaching the Gospel at all....

Interviewer: Why isn't it?

Pullinger: Because that's not necessarily good news to anyone who doesn't know love, who doesn't understand your language, who doesn't follow your logic. So, it was a good thing because I found out that the people there were not listening anyway, they were watching to see how I acted, whether  I really did love them. And if I really did love them, maybe God really did love them.                                                                                                                                                                                     
MY COMMENT: I'll be commenting on this very important inter-cultural question later. Pullinger then goes on to talk about her first Chinese convert who, after his meeting with Jesus, she plied with follow-up literature and information about the faith. She tells us that given Chinese culture this was one of the worse things she could have done: Because in Chinese culture learning is taken so seriously, a lack of academic success is tantamount to being a failed person. Hence Pullinger's first convert was intimidated by all the follow-up books which he mistakenly interpreted as proof that a grasp of all this information was a condition of faith.

Interviewer: Is there a lesson there that Western Christians can be too bookish?  

Pullinger: I think that the Word of God is terribly important but it depends on how you access that. Nowadays when people come to know Jesus, we pray  with them for the gift of tongues  immediately. It's not an optional extra, we say, but the way he'll give you a new language to help you talk to Him....No, it's not a prerequisite. The prerequisite is "Would you like to help pray somebody off drugs?". OK now, can you manage four hours of praying non-stop? Tongues would be a really great help. That's it. It's not the tongues that makes it special, it's just quite hard to keep going in your own language.

MY COMMENT I'll read the foregoing to mean that Pullinger sees tongues as an all but necessity in her kind of work, work which, of course, she will know best about.  So, giving her the benefit of the doubt I assume that she would reply "No" to the rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30:

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

After all, one finds that for many Christians who seek an "experience" or "tongues" when they have hands laid on them for the "Baptism of the Spirit", nothing really noticeable happens. In fact you can find Charismatic Christians who will admit this. For example, Tony Higton, a C of E charismatic admits in his book Called to Serve: A Local Church Study Course that when a Christian goes for a "Baptism of the Spirit" there may be no accompanying special experience or tongues to be had. I will be giving another example in my next post. 

I have heard of several cases where the believer is expecting some kind of spiritual down-load or epiphany and nothing happens; sometimes this can challenge their faith if their expectations are crushed. Moreover, some Christians seeking the "Carpet Blessing" (another name for the "Toronto Blessing") have, on occasion, been disappointed to find that they have not been blow over by God's Spirit but instead are simply pushed over by the "priest" administering the blessing. In general the question of whether a Christian seeking an epiphany, perhaps to fix a spiritual existential crisis, actually has some kind of experience or spiritual down-load seems to depend on the personality involved, although the hard-line Charismatics will not likely accept this and are inclined to witch-hunt for "spiritual blockages"  if their expectations of an "experience" are not fulfilled. 

***

There are important things to learn from Pullinger, although there may be some things to unlearn as well. In the West Mythos and Logos (See footnote* for more on Mythos and Logos) expressions of belief sit uneasily with one another. They may try to be friends but the relationship can be tense and stormy. We see hints of this in the interview with Pullinger. 

1. MYTHOS

In my opinion rank and file Western Christians (that is, Western Christians outside the intense academic culture of colleges and universities and those who classify themselves as traditional reformed Christians) are not "bookish" enough about their faith: Today the premium is on an existential faith that seeks satisfaction, validation and authentication through supernatural encounters with the divine. Anything else is likely to be regarded as less than the ideal divine plan. In this context Christian learning tends to be thought of as at best as having an ancillary supporting role and at worse utterly inferior to "Touches of God". However, I must add my usual disclaimer that I am certainly not in the business of offering a blanket and unqualified denial of people's epiphanies, baptisms, touches of God, divine encounters, speaking in tongues, prophecies and what have you: I don't automatically write-off such experiences anymore than I expect my particular spiritual experiences and pilgrimage to be written-off. Proprietary experiences can be very helpful. The stickler is though, that many have a one size fits all philosophy consistent with the gnostic-like tendencies of some parts of fundo-Charismatic Christianity. (See here for more on the Mythos vs Logos divide)


2. LOGOS

Where Pullinger has important lessons for us is on the subject of inter-cultural mission: Her approach looks as though it classifies as what missionary Jim Harries would call Vulnerable mission; that is, mission which is:

a) Determined to meet people where they are at in their culture and properly understand and engage that culture before thoughtlessly spouting formulaic evangelical cliches at them as if those cliche's can somehow magically "speak Christians into existence". Principally the cultural immersion of the Vulnerable Missionary is achieved  by learning the local lingo in its context so that the connotative content of the language is taken on board along with its notational content.

b) Avoids as far as possible destabilising relationships within the local culture with the promise of the introduction of developmental funds and Western resources. This avoidance prevents the missionary being put into the role of a rich benefactor or "bwana", thereby helping to foster authentic relationships rather than locals being tempted to kowtow to their rich missionary patrons. A client-patron relationship probably has the effect of obscuring many cultural oddities from the missionary, as the clients are inclined to curry favor with their rich patrons by keeping up appearances.

For whatever reason it seems that Pullinger naturally followed this "Vulnerable" approach. This form of mission is called "Vulnerable Mission" by Jim Harries because it opens up the missionary to dangers, misunderstandings, isolation and that of becoming a servant learner rather than a leader. Vulnerable mission can also sometimes result in fraught relations with other Western missionaries and their mission organisations, organisations who see their task exclusively in terms of a leading developmental role: i.e. "holistic mission". This is not to say Christians shouldn't be involved helping to develop and industrialise the poorer nations of the majority world.....the purpose of VM, as I see it, is to introduce another method in the missionary toolbox of methods, one which circumvents some of the conundrums caused by holistic mission. VM is mission which reaches the parts that other forms of mission don't. The Vulnerable Missionary needs to be a supreme diplomat. But unfortunately there is potentially an inner contradiction here; Vulnerable Missionaries have to be strong characters and strong characters are not natural diplomats, as I can testify from my own experience. 

We see from Pullinger's account how she inadvertently was prevented from using a one size fits all approach to her mission field. As she makes clear, if she had arrived in Hong Kong with just enough Chinese to think that she understood the language it would have been a disaster. To properly understand a language one needs to understand its cultural context and therefore the connotational content of the local natural language. One cannot learn the connotational content of a language without being immersed in the local context.

Because Pullinger had to learn the local language, effectively on the job, she had to first get to know her people, understand them and above all demonstrate her love for them. She could then share the Gospel in a way that was meaningful to them. Even so, as she admits, it was ignorance over Chinese culture which meant she made at least one mistake from the start. But she knew she had to learn and learn fast!

Footnote: Mythos and Logos

* Mythos: Often indescribable and intuitive, "Mythos" connotes experiences that may be referred to as "sensing God's presence", "touched by God", "empowered by God"  etc. These experiences  are often difficult to analyse and articulate. Sometimes a state of consciousness rather than a demarkable experience the whole thing can be very mysterious. 

Logos: Strong on content, analysis and thinking based experience: Very theologically inclined this articulated content will, in varying degrees, revolve around theology and the Bible,The Word; hence "Logos". This category actually embraces the paranormal, such as healings, tongues and prophecies as these events can be analytically investigated for authenticity.

The Parachute Parable

Disclaimer: None of the following subject matter is intended to cast aspersions, or unqualified doubt upon any intimate revelation a Christian may have been given and which they may call, whether rightly or wrongly, "Baptism in the Spirit", or for that matter upon any other form of revelatory wonder to which they may have been witness. About such things I here make no comment whatever, deeming them to be matters well beyond the scope of the present discussion. My concern here is largely with the causes of, and description of, a Christian culture often found riding on the back of such experiences; a culture that categorizes Christians, limits them, labels them, antagonizes them, divides them, and with a partisan spirit makes implicit valued judgments about Christian diversity..... 
April 1997

***

A comic caricature of the actual situation I know, but it gets the point across: Trance-like states of consciousness and sublime inner gnosis of the Divine are de rigueur in some churches.

  

Recently in an email I found myself writing the following in regard to the ethos found among many contemporary Christians: 

Today’s postmodern/existential Christians believe that the highest form of faith is expressed in those highly intuitive states of mind involving experiential epiphanies, inner-light revelations, ecstasies, high passions, emotional unravellings, swoonings, sublime “gnosis”, altered states of consciousness etc etc (call them what you will). In this context Biblical “head knowledge” tends to be regarded as second best to these more sublime “power” orientated spiritual states of consciousness.  In these days of a marginalised and troubled Christian culture many seek this kind of “deep soul” faith as a fix for a spiritual existential crisis and/or to authenticate faith. Bible study for its own sake doesn’t sell well here. None of this is to say that Christians don’t, from time to time, have indescribable epiphanies & ecstasies; rather, I’m referring here to an underlying postmodern/existential influenced philosophy that nowadays tends to put a premium on the “passions” of the inner life. 

I have, in the past, related this seeking of sublime experience of God to the almost sensual revelation depicted in Bernini's image of St Teresa. But before I go any further let me make it clear that the foregoing certainly doesn't apply to all evangelical and fundamentalist Christians: For example, the hyper-conservative Christians who identify strongly with the reformation patriarchs tend not to go in for this kind of experience bending Christianity; in fact it is something they regard as most unhealthy and recommend instead a "Word" based faith; Logos as opposed to Pneuma is their preferred slant.  Also, many reasonable Christians in academia would not be attracted by an over emphasis on Christian "gnosis".  Let me also mention here a group of charismatic Christians I refer to as  reformo-charismatics.  They are Charismatic Christians who were completely put off by the bizarre excesses surrounding the "Toronto Blessing" as it reached its demented crescendo in the mid 1990s; for them enough was enough! The reformo-charismatics continue to strongly critique Christians who are constantly on the look out for supernatural novelties. The reformo-Charismatics see the so-called  "Baptism of the Spirit" as a one-off initiation into "the power of the Spirit" and would likely condemn Christians who constantly seek to "get high" on novel experiences; which is, in fact, what a portion of Charismatic sub-culture has degenerated into. 

Interestingly, and very significantly in my opinion, you will also find an interest in "gnostic" states of mind among new-agers as they seek some inner connection with ultimate Truth in reaction against the seemingly profane "materialist" worldview which has, apparently, swept the cosmos clean of sacred mystique. But the new-ager can be just about as wacky as the gnosto-fundamentalists!

I have posted on this subject of the "gnostic" drift of Christianity many times before. Here's a sample:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2017/04/mythos-versus-logos.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2012/10/dallas-willard-catches-up-on-gnosticism.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-existential-drift.html
https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2010/05/once-more-unto-breach-dear-friends-once.html

https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2010/12/another-manifestation-of-logosmythos.html

https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007/12/having-sex-with-god-sometimes-life.html

It is true to say that an interest in "inner-light" and altered states of consciousness are not always quite so pronounced and bizarre as we see in the "Charismatic Dubstep" video above. More usually we see gnostic interests manifested in a spiritual value system which regards the inner encounter with God (Or as it used to be called "the touch of God") as the pinnacle of spirituality. Here is an example of a quote which, I submit, comes out of a spiritual value system biased toward initiations into the transforming power of "God consciousness":

Pray for the Encountering God for all of us. How we need so much more of the Holy Spirit and to truly encounter God to be totally transformed”

Another piece of evidence which I believe comes out of a gnostic slanting world view is the habitual quip which refers to the "18 inch gap between head and heart". By and large the users of this quip don't mean the difference between knowing about something and actually believing it and practicing it; for if you practice and believe as hard as you might, to the Christian gnostic belief is pretty second rate until you have had an experience the Spirit or had the touch of God or Encountered God  or had what ever cliche may be used to  describe the required sublime epiphany.

I believe in the science of parachutes, but
put one on my back and ask me to jump at
10,000 feet is another thing....!

I myself reject this false dichotomy of head vs heart. Emotions, feelings and deep intuitive states are useless unless they are channelled as a kind of fuel driving the organisation imposed by the so called "head"; head and heart can not be separated anymore than a working car can be separated from its fuel. That head and heart, so called, are inseparably linked becomes clear in the following illustration.

***

If you sent me up in an aircraft and put a parachute on my back and asked me to jump out at 10,000 feet I couldn't do it! This wouldn't mean, of course, that I don't have a deep belief that parachutes work. But if we were to think about this scenario in polarised gnostic terms it might be claimed that I only had a second rate "head knowledge" of parachutes as opposed to the "experience of parachuting". But this dichotomy is really to misrepresent the situation. I certainly believe "in my heart" that parachutes work; the trouble is that my lower level preservation instincts don't believe it! But if, say, I had decided to start doing parachuting as a hobby then I would seek enough training in order to re-educate my low-level instincts. What would be the deep seated motives driving this training period? Firstly there would be the desire to join in the fun of parachuting, but secondly there would also be the underlying "intellectual" belief in the science of parachutes and this deep seated intellectual belief is entirely necessary to drive the project.

In this parachute scenario we see that what might at first sight be classed as "head knowledge" is in fact an important factor in motivating the project; without it parachuting as a hobby would never get off the ground, so to speak. It is ironic then that what today's existential Christian is inclined to identify as second rate  "head knowledge" is in fact at one level actually "heart knowledge"! Intellect and heart can not be portrayed as a sharp dichotomy.  It is the deep beliefs located in our worldview, and not the emotional froth and bubble, which drives the faith.

But let me end once again with my usual disclaimer: None of this is to deny that some Christians have ecstasies and epiphanies; it's just that not everyone does and the gnostics need to acknowledge that and stop underrating Logos Christians. 

The Emperor's New Faith

Self deception

Premier Christianity is a broad church magazine; although it keeps within the moderate evangelical tradition it will, nevertheless, publish articles from gay-marriage endorsing Steve Chalk right through to the censorious charismatic fundamentalist R T Kendall. The May issue held a sympathetic interview with the non-evangelical Christian theologian Robert Beckford and the April edition held an interview with radical rebel Christian "Moby" (Richard Melville Hall). The magazine seldom carries the kind of spiritually superior editorial diatribes against "heretical" Christians or atheists that one sometimes sees in strictly orthodox evangelical publications; if anything Christianity's editorial staff endeavor to adopt an empathetic understanding of those who do not hold their views. And yet Christianity will also include guest articles by RT Kendall in its mix. There have been two recent articles by Kendall, one in August and another in April. As you would expect given Kendall's background, in both articles he severely censors the UK church. He would very likely condemn Steve Chalk and Moby as typifying the spiritually "dead" Christians who are the cause of Christianity's demise in the UK!* Such, then, is the diversity of opinion that Christianity magazine is prepared to showcase. For that I would give it full marks! .....show things as they really are not what you think they are or would like them to be. 

But there's more. Every so often one of the contributors to Christianity magazine writes an article that is close to my own interests; in particular the mythos vs logos dichotomy which is superimposed on modern Western Christianity. One of those articles appeared several years ago, But the latest article which piqued my interest can be found in the April edition of Premier Christianity; the self same edition in which the gnostic Kendall lets rip. The article has been written by evangelical leader Krish Kandiah. Given the modern ethos among many Charismatically oriented Christians which expects (moreover demands) that a state-of-the-art spirituality should be a very existential affair of the heart involving deeply felt mystical epiphanies (or "encounters" or "touches of God") I was absolutely fascinated to read the following candid admissions from Kandiah:

I'm in the middle of a worship service. The band is in the zone, the song choice is perfect, the congregation are absorbed in worship. And yet I am surprisingly unmoved and underwhelmed. Sometimes I go to prayer meetings and while everyone else seems to be enjoying God's undivided attention I feel disconnected. 

Apparently this isn't just Kandiah's "problem" because (My emphases):

It turns out I'm not alone...others talk of an emotional distance from God, while others bemoan a practical  isolation from God.  We're embarrassed to admit it. but it is often as though there is a huge obstacle between us a God. and we don't know what to do about it [The big difference is that the true Gnostics, of course, know what to do - get an inner light initiation!- TVR]. We the estranged, struggle to admit it at church, because week in week out we are taught that God wants to be our friend, our confidante, our rock, our aide and has died to make that possible. But what if he is not that to us?

Frank admissions indeed! Well done Kandiah! I'm glad to hear that his next job is principle of London School of Theology (Although unfortunately Christian academics have a way of being ignored in favour of spiritual rabble rousers). Some parts of evangelicalism really need a dose of this kind of authenticity and realism. But unlike the popular old fable revelations like this are not echoed generally and no one else remarks that yes, the emperor is actually naked!

Kandiah goes on to say that the epistemic distance of God is a Biblical theme. None of this is to say that people don't have intimate encounters; of course they do. But his complaint, if I'm reading Kandiah right, is that these encounters have too often become the gold standard of Christianity, particularly Charismatic Christianity with its quasi-gnostic tendencies leading it to focus on inner-light experiences as a required initiation into the true fellowship. In today's gnostically influenced church music errs toward  a one-size-fits-all walk with God (my emphasis):

It can be disconcerting when our worship songs speak to eloquently about experiencing the presence of God. We sing of how we feel God near us, his comforting presence enfolding us. This language is there in the Bible but alongside that  there is also a lot about God's absence and distance. 

Kandiah then goes on to justify that statement. But he seems to be aware of the difficulty that this "emperor's new clothes" lesson will have in getting a purchase:

The problem is doubly compounded when everyone else gives the impression that they are permanently in touch with God. But the Bible does not promise us an uninterrupted experience of the glory and presence of God....

What if we're made to wrestle with God, rather than blindly accept what we've received?

Wrestling with God is certainly more in line with my own personal experience of Christianity!

***

I don't know whether an article in the May Premier Christianity magazine was intended as a follow up to Kandiah's article but in this latest issue we can read an article entitled "Mid-faith Crisis" by Nick Page. Here's how the article starts:

You're standing in church, singing a worship song and suddenly nothing makes sense. Admittedly that's often the case with worship songs, but this is a more powerful, more overwhelming avalanche of nothing makes senseness. 

Deep breaths, It's Ok. Don't panic. You're just having a mid-faith crisis. 

Page goes on to develop the thesis that this apparent faith crisis is more a metamorphosis toward higher things than a death of faith

***

Both articles are worth reading. They are candid admissions that being an "in-the-spirit-Christian" isn't quite such a spiritual quick-fix  that some make out. As Nick Page says:

The thing is that church is really built for the early stages [of faith]. It's good at delivering certainty and security in the early years of your faith but for this bit [i.e. the mid-faith crises] you are on your own.

...and whilst swathes of the charismatically oriented church err toward a gnostic existential fix paradigm of faith, mid-faith Christians with a mid-faith crises will remain on their own.  Trouble is, if other articles I've seen like this are anything to go by their lessons will be ignored because they simply don't mesh with the ingrained false dichotomies of contemporary Western Christian gnosticism; Viz: Spirit vs Word, head vs heart, mythos vs logos, supernaturalism vs. naturalism, fideism vs reason. 

In my experience gnostic Christianity has an inner logic which brings about an all but inevitable sequence of events: When Christian gnostics see a church where intimate encounters with the divine are not formally promoted as an initiation rite into gnosis, gnostics  will  sometimes wheel in a "high-priest" from a Gnostic church in the hope of trying to force the pace of spiritual change. In the process valuable spiritual work is ignored and marginalized, perhaps even looked down on as "not-in-the-spirit". Because Christian gnosticism's one-size-fits-all paradigm is actually false church's will often fail to graft the new initiation into inner-light. If the church doesn't respond to the opportunity for initiation gnostics will find themselves deeply frustrated by an apparent lack of progress toward their spiritual aspirations and may then loudly blame the church for resisting the Spirit. I have seen this scenario played out more than once. If only these gnostics would take a more complementarian view that different Christians have very different pilgrimages, then we might have a church that is comfortable with both "encounters" and "mid-faith" crises and knows how to cope with both.



Footnote:
* For Kendall the solution is a new Pentecost. Viz, in his April article he writes: "It is when the word and spirit ultimately come together as on the day of Pentecost. This simultaneous combination of the Word and the Spirit resulted in spontaneous combustion" (In this article Kendall then goes on to prophesy a huge world wide revival involving millions of conversions, a revival which he says is "coming soon") That Kendall, from the outset, conceives a "Word" vs. "Spirit" dichotomy is symptomatic of Western dualism. Go to a black church and they simply won't make sense of this dichotomy. For them there is no such thing as a difference between a Christian of the Word and the superior gnostic Christian who is "moving in the Spirit". For them there is only a spectrum of power and not a fundamental distinction.

Mythos versus Logos

 Exactly 20 years ago to the month I wrote the essay included in this document. It was a response to my reading of the book Surprised By the Power of the Spirit by Jack Deere. Deere started out as a reformed evangelical but as a result of contact with John Wimber (and also I think the notorious Paul Cain) he converted to charismatic evangelicalism; so, in some ways he is representative of both sides of the  logos vs mythos dichotomy, a dichotomy I explore further in the essay referenced here.

This essay really focuses on the contemporary vulnerability for what in the jargon of today is an “encounter” expression of Christianity. Here’s a recent and very typical example I came across:

“Pray for the Encountering God for all of us. How we need so much more of the Holy Spirit and to truly encounter God to be totally transformed”

Notice the implicit valued judgement here; Viz that without these mystical encounters  Christians are unlikely to be transformed. This version of Christianity places a premium on deep intuitive and indescribable experiences of the divine. Sometimes this includes what appear to be altered states of consciousness: Viz Swoonings, trances and ecstasies. When these experiences are formalized and articulated using doctrinal formulae such as “Baptism of the Spirit” or “in the Spirit” and then used as identifying markers for a kind of elite spirituality the whole thing starts to look very like Gnosticism.

By 1997 evangelicalism, especially in its fundamentalist Reformed and Charismatic manifestations, had lost a lot of my goodwill; as various evangelical sects engaged in very human looking mutual slagging-off matches I was left wondering what really identified Christianity as authentic. Adding fuel to my fire was the rampant anti-science doctrines found amongst Christian fundamentalists in both the reformed and charismatic traditions. If these Christian fundamentalists could be so wrong about science what credit could be given to their highly affected devotional language and their loud claims to be anointed into the Truth? Such claims had become dubious. And it remains so today. As far as I’m concerned these Christian subcultures have lost the right to be taken seriously and must re-earn that right, although I don’t hold out much hope of that. In the final analysis I will probably just have to accept that beyond the Open Gospel partisan and naive expressions of Christianity are very much the natural state of human affairs.  

Reading through my essay of 20 years ago I feel that I’d be much more hard-cop if I wrote it today: The Christian community Deere represents have learnt very little about reciprocity; but then neither have the reformists.

T. V. Reeves April 2017

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2006/09/character-assassination-stibbe-in-back.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/spiritual-artifice.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/big-preacher-guy-phenomenon.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/bent-oddly.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/same-old-lines.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/bondage-fairies-at-bottom-of-garden.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/bentley-looking-rather-sheepish.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/mythos-versus-logos.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/worshipping-worship.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-existential-drift.html

The Existential Drift

There are as many definitions of existentialism as there are philosophers, but to be noted here is the negative view on reason and science. Existentialism is first and foremost about addressing a cognitive and emotional crisis in Western thought.

It was around 1990 when I became aware of the similarities between certain practices of the contemporary evangelical church and traditional Gnosticism. Gnosticism majors on the dualist belief that in a superior spirituality God is known through an initiation into the inner light of an inexpressible intuitive knowledge, or "gnosis". With the coming of the 1994 Toronto Blessing the similarities between traditional Gnosticism and the new big experience of God became all the more clear. When I look back today I marvel at how slow I was on the uptake; I'd been a Christian for over 15 years before I made this connection! One of the essays where I documented some of my thinking can be picked up from this post. Another essay on the subject can be downloaded from this post. 

I'm glad to see, however, that I'm not the only one who has made the gnostic connection of some modern manifestations of Christianity. After an all too favorable article in the January edition of Premier Christianity magazine on the excesses of a church specialising in bizarre manifestations such as trance states, angel feathers and gold dust clouds I was pleased to see that the March edition of the magazine carried three negative responses on the letters page (with no other responses on the subject). One letter in particular piqued my interest and I reproduce it below:

Andy Peck finds only one aspect of Bethel's theology troubling. But Bill Johnson does not believe that Jesus was both human and divine. He therefore denies the basic Christian message of the cross.

Examples of his typically gnostic search for esoteric knowledge to gain redemption proliferate.

Johnson misquotes scripture and texts taken out of context in a manner that denies the foundations of the Christian faith; Jesus is subordinated  to God, and the gross heresy  of  'experience' , whatever the source, is elevated over truth.

Cynthia Walker.

Now, I haven't studied Johnson's theology, but I find the reference to gnosticism very interesting. Also of interest to me is that the letter is an example of the tendency of Christians (understandably enough) to use the crucial doctrine of the God-head as a faith testing shibboleth. However, I myself I'm inclined to be generous with people's attempt to over-clarify the doctrine of the Trinity in terms that fit in with their perceptions but which so often end in grief; after all the doctrine is notoriously vague and the temptation to clarify it is immense. But the real trouble comes when the new "clarification" (if such it is!) is pushed as yet another literalist shibboleth, rather than its true status as a limited human metaphor which to a greater or lesser extent assists in an understanding of the Godhead. In any case it seems the wisest course is to leave the doctrine as a cluster of contrasting metaphors, else someone is bound to shout "heresy" at the hapless clarifiers! So lets be generous about the weakness of the human mind and its need for sometimes crass metaphors that are often taken too literally. But in the case of Bethel I suspect its gnosto-spiritual elite are unlikely to return generosity for generosity so Cynthia Walker's condemnation is probably well deserved!

 A generalised form of gnosticism seems to be a Christain way of attempting to get an existential fix for an existential crisis and that crisis traces back to a crisis in Western thought.  Hence, I have framed this post with references to existentialism. Recently I have found myself corresponding on the existentialist drift in churches and the creeping existential "fix" of gnosticism found in many contemporary Christian circles. For the record I reproduce that correspondence below:

***

Like many other evangelical churches [our church] is skewed toward the existential belief that authenticity and truth are found in experience rather than in narrative. Hence, there is a spiritual premium placed upon intimate, sublime and deeply intuitive encounters with God.  There is nothing wrong with these things in and of themselves, but it’s all a question of right balance.  At its most extreme this malady can turn into fully blown Gnosticism. Gnosticism seems to be an extreme religious response whereby the heart turns in on its self as it fails to come to terms with or make sense of the puzzling and alienating narratives that explain, or fail to explain, the world beyond. It thus seeks solace and escape in its inner life and that’s where it believes revelation will largely be found. For the extreme existentialist only experiential truth is relevant.

There is an existential drift in many Western churches today that probably has come about, I guess,  because strong existentially satisfying narratives no longer exist for many Westerners. Hence there has been a retreat into a more esoteric experience based faith among Christians because this seems to address the existential crises that  many Western minds face, post  Copernican revolution. Conceivably it is this existential drift that is helping to drive Western dualism, the bugbear of mission in Africa.

Many mainstream Christians are completely unable to detect the "Gnostic" drift of many Western charismatically orientated churches because for them it's just normalcy. But evidence that it has a strong perspective element perhaps could be gained from a probing to contact with the Strict Baptist Chapel just over the road from us. They are part of the ultra-traditional evangelical reaction against existentialism and as a church they are as culture specific as any African indigenous Church! They eschew the experience based existentialism of many mainstream churches. and have reacted strongly against it by resort to very authoritarian narratives and doctrinal formulae.

The above really outlines the existential crises in Western thought. Unless the existential crises is fixed the outcome may be nihilism and extreme postmodernism in the secular case. For the religionist an escape is sought in gnosticism and fideism; basically an escape into the inner life, with the promise of a sublime inner life intimacy with God.

Relevant Links

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/mythos-versus-logos.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/here-we-go-round-again-hearthead.html

http://noumenacognitaanddreams.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/james-camerons-avatar.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/generous-orthodoxy-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/planet-narnia-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/planet-narnia-part-2.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/planet-narnia-part-3-consciousness.html

Christian Apologists Against Fideism

The atheists would agree!

An article appeared in the October edition of Christianity magazine entitled “Let’s be reasonable”. It’s about the presentation of Christian apologetics and debate. Let me just explain here that my own motives for studying and thinking are not primarily apologetic but rather motivated by a desire to unravel selected mysteries. This has a tendency to intensify my focus on very particular issues and away from the broad “jack-of-all-trades” focus required by an apologist because he or she is servicing an audience. However, there is a lot of very good stuff that comes from Christian apologists. In this particular connection what piqued my interest were these quotes from the article:

David Robertson, pastor of St Peter’s Free church, Dundee says:  “People say no one is ever converted through arguing. That is rubbish. Of course people are only converted through the Holy Spirit, but he uses different means”

Alister McGrath, theologian, says: “As an apologist, I occasionally meet some people who are aggressively anti-Christian. What made them like this was somebody taking a very anti-intellectual viewpoint; that faith is all about not  using your head, refusing to think and just trusting. People who say this kind of thing do create a lot of damage”

I agree completely: The Holy Spirit is as much immanent in reasoning as he is anything else. Fideism is one of the byproducts of a Christian dualism that sharply separates out the supernatural from natural. Fideists are complete failures in what they may think of as the profane field of apologetics and so make their escape into the esoteric "supernatural" knowledge of those who claim to have the inexpressible inner light of the gnostic. Well, fair enough, perhaps they do have esoteric inner light; who knows how the Holy Spirit works in the inner man. However, the ultra-fideists believe they have a superior epistemic based on their arcane intuitions and they are intolerant of those who might claim that reason is a facet of revelation. Here’s an example of fideism that I picked up from a TV program which showcased a Christian “teacher”. As always with fideism it is ultimately self-contradictory: Unless the fideist shuts up completely (I wish they would) one can observe the amusing spectacle of the fideist justifying fideism with reason!

Fideist Number 1: If you always process salvation through your mind you will never enter the fuller things in your walk. You must move from a place of cognitive reasoning ability to a place where faith and belief flows through your spirit and not your head … God is beyond your logic.

Now, below is another farcical example of a fideist using reasoning to justify his fideism. This example is a particularly unpleasant and nasty specimen betraying a self-centered spiritual egotism: The quote has been taken from the post of an anonymous contributor to the comments section of the Christian web site Network Norwich and Norfolk: I have highlighted (in bold) some parts of this text, in particular those parts showing the use of the extreme anti-superlatives to which this kind of person is readily attracted. I have also highlighted those parts which evidence a resort to his "inner light"; that is, his intuitions and feelings which of course he identifies with Christ's authority. As a consequence notice that he has little respect for Bible study because to him intuitive inner light trumps reason; that’s just another way of raising his opinions and feelings to the level of divine authority!

Fideist Number 2:  Debate, debate, debate, even if you win sometimes you lose! What is the church? I want to tell you that in the heavy load that we carry called "the local church" it is very difficult for us to really slow down long enough to not just study the bible but to eat and drink that which it really speaks of which is the very person of Jesus Christ Himself. To intimately fellowship with Him even romantically as His bride even to eating His flesh and drinking His blood. I mean really doing this not just drinking a cup of grape juice and a piece of cracker and acting all introspective and holy in some ritualistic form. Brethren we have been ignorant of the devices of Satan. We have not known that religion and spiritual thinking in the minds of men is SATANS THROWN! (sic) I have had some conversations with members of the Jehovah’s witness cult and I was instructed at the time by the Holy Spirit not to debate with them from their intellect. The Spirit showed...that is EXACTLY what they want. They want to debate with you the scriptures. The moment you want to disprove their interpretation of the scripture with the scripture...they got you RIGHT WHERE THEY WANT YOU! Even if you outdo them with your wisdom... you lose. Because they will never know anything of what you are talking about because they are forming their argument even to "twisting" your words and guess who wins. Satan. You have just participated in and played his game. You want to tell the truth to someone and really help them to know the truth. Direct them to the teacher inside their spirit. Christ in them. Now if you don’t believe Christ is in them...well your gonna have to keep picking up that sword of the word and fighting it out but hear the echoes of our Saviour in the pressure of His passion....(He who lives by the sword SHALL DIE by the sword) The Carnal mind is DEATH the mind of the Spirit (within even deeper than intellect) is LIFE and PEACE. The letter KILLS but the Spirit gives life. Christ the teacher is in all men. Don’t debate with men direct them to Christ within. John said that which denys (sic) Christ in the flesh is the Spirit of Anti-Christ. That simply means "instead of Christ." Watch out if you get pleasure in debate...and pleasure in your doctrine...your church...your way of believing...watch out what spirit you really are in. Of whose domain really has dominion in that realm? Jesus told Peter Get behind me SATAN you do not know the things of God but THE THINGS OF MEN. Christ IN YOU is the hope of glory and Christ in others also!

I hardly need say that I don’t see eye to eye with the Jehovah’s Witnesses but it is very unfair to accuse them of being Satanic; in fact their methods, customs and epistemic philosophy are very similar to other fundamentalist Christians.

Like other fundamentalists the fideist I have quoted sees the world very much in the black and whites of depraved baddies versus spiritual goodies like himself. Unable to see the world in shades of grey he goes straight for the maximum fire power of the spiritual nuclear option, accusing, with loud shouts, those of whom he is unable to successfully reason of heinous sin and being instruments of Satan. Christians who do engage in reason are written off as falling for Satan’s wiles. In the fractious world of Christian sectarianism abusive accusations like this are as bad as it gets. This conceited spiritual bigot, of course, believes that he is above reason and instead receives direct instruction from God and the Christ within Viz “I was instructed by the Holy Spirit”. "The Spirit showed [me]". Moreover, notice that he is very ready to rubbish other Christian's experience of communion over his own.

And yet in spite of the pretensions to a having a deep mystical union with Christ it is ironic that this conceited bigot is engaged in a spiritual ego trip that is manifestly all too humanly motivated. McGrath is completely right “People who say this kind of thing do create a lot of damage”. The only people that a testimony of the above sort attracts are fellow egotists who are tempted by thoughts of being part of a spiritual elite from where they can scream down hell and damnation on all who disagree with them.

Some relevant links:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/human-predicament.html  

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/dallas-willard-catches-up-on-gnosticism.html