More Pollution in the “Mystic” River

Here’s an outstanding example of the kind of gnostic magic that is going on in the church today. Keith Luker, an associate of Bill Johnson and Bethel church from Redding CA, performs a ceremony where he is calling down the “mantle” of Lonnie Frisbee over the congregation. For those who don’t know Lonnie Frisbee was the acid dropping hippie preacher from the Jesus movement who helped reach the counter culture. His evangelism among the hippies helped explode both the Calvery Chapel and the Vinyard churches. Later on Lonnie was exposed as a closeted homosexual and both the leaders of these movements distanced themselves from him. He died of AIDS in the early ’90’s.

Notice in these videos that there is absolutely NO mention of Lonnie’s past history. Luker is using ceremonial magic and mystically trying to call down Lonnie’s “mantle” and the people in the congregation are eager to “receive” it.

The mystic river continues to flow among the signs and wonders crowd …. and there is NO discernment!!

Freemasonry, Gnosticism, the Kabbalah and Christianity

by Truthspeaker

 In researching the NAR and the Latter Rain we find many  disturbing things and false doctrines (doctrines of demons) that have infiltrated the Church. 

Let me start with Freemasonry and its impact on Christianity….. and I am only scratching the surface here!)

IHOP’s connection to Harry Truman -  A 33rd degree Freemason whose portrait is hanging in the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington DC.

“In May of 1983, the Metro Vineyard conducted a 21-day fast. During that period of prayer and fasting, Bob Jones– a prophetic speaker from Arkansas not affiliated with Bob Jones University- revealed to Bickle that he would some day begin a 24-7 prayer ministry that would be linked to Harry Truman’s home. “You are an intercessor and a youth pastor,” Jones said in his prophecy to Bickle. “You will lead a worldwide youth movement of prophetic singers and musicians that God will use to touch Israel…You will have a ministry of intercession for Israel like Harry S Truman…The Lord will place you near his home as a prophetic sign.”

IHOP purchased President Truman’s portion of his family’s farm-the 125 acres across from Truman Corners Shopping Center-from the Goldberg family 50 years to the day that the Goldbergs purchased it from Truman himself………There is another connection between the group’s mission and Truman. The birth of the modern state of Israel has been seen by many Christians as a sign that the End Times foretold in the Scriptures were near at hand. Truman, a Baptist, played a direct role in the creation of the State of Israel……The members of IHOP-KC plan to call their new world headquarters, “The Truman Prayer Center.” ” http://iwka.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/ihop-kc-in-a-jackson-county-advocate/

Is IHOP tapping into a freemasonic spirit by aligning itself with Harry Truman?  One article I read said that Harry Truman only agreed to support the modern state of Israel because they gave him 2 million dollars and he needed money for his campaign. 

“In his book, “Jewish Religion – Jewish History,” Israel Shahak records that Harry Truman had been abandoned by everyone when he came to run for President. Then an American Zionist brought Truman $2 million dollars in cash in a suitcase aboard his whistle-stop campaign train.

“That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast,” John F Kennedy had remarked to Gore Vidal. And thus occurred yet another Zionist event in the corruption of American politicians.”  http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jewhis1.htm#Foreword

Here is Mike Bickle telling the story in his own words:

Someone told me recently that a friend of theirs was in the prayer room at IHOP and saw a lot of people with masonic rings there at that time.  This person told me that they have confirmed that the late John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard, was a freemason.  (he called the lodge and they confirmed it indirectly by saying “we can’t give out  information on our MEMBERS!) 

Dave Clausen, who was with Grace Fellowship from the time of that 21 day fast until May 200, states in his testimony (found here)

“……they (Bickle and the KC “prophets”) became the major reintroducers and popularizers of Latter Rain, Manifested Sonship and Restoration/Dominion ideas back into the Church world, whether they or anyone else understand what that means or not.  As a result, they over time actually became part of a wide-spread and majority network of false prophets in the Body of Christ that continues to this hour.”

John Wimber was highly connected to Mike Bickle in the early days of the Kansas City Fellowship and it was a Vineyard Church at that time.  John Wimber taught at Fuller Institute with C. Peter Wagner and has greatly influenced the likes of Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle.  The Toronto Airport Fellowship was also a Vineyard church when the signs and wonders movement broke out there in the 1990’s. 

One of Wimbers mentors was Robert Schuller (also a freemason http://www.geocities.com/endtimedeception/robert.htm ) of the “positive confession”, who has also had a great influence on emerging church members ….. see this 

http://www.cephas-library.com/purposedriven/purposedriven_robert_schullers_long_influence_on_warren.html

Wimber was also connected to Bill McCartney of the Promise Keepers:

 

“Because of his Latter-Rain beliefs, Paul Cain was received in 1987 as a great leader by Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, and the others in the Kansas-City leadership…at about the same time that John Wimber, founder of Vineyard, was connecting with them. Then Cain prophesied that stadiums the world over would be filled with Christians en route to building “Joel’s Army,” and wouldn’t you know it, that almost suddenly Bill McCartney from the Vineyard church in Boulder, Colorado, started preaching to stadiums filled with Christian men en route to building Promise Keepers!!! Clearly, the agenda to fill stadiums came before the prophecy, and the prophecy was then uttered expressly to initiate the agenda. It was uttered again in 2001 to reinforce the agenda.

You can deduce the world-conquest mission of Promise Keepers in that its leadership has gone to bed with the Vatican. Moreover, PK officials have in the past invited members of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam to participate in their rallies (what kind of Christians could they be???). ecumenism is the word here! PK is not interested in shepherding the people of God into the Way of Jesus Christ, therefore, but is gathering and bonding as many men together as possible, regardless of their doctrinal positions. “  http://www.tribwatch.com/promkeep.htm

Here’s a picture of the back of a man’s tee shirt from the first Promise Keeper’s meeting on the great lawn in DC.

 

 

Notice the direct link to Freemasonry with the phalic symbol / obelisk on the back of the man’s shirt. 

 

 

Bickle was also (and still is in some cases) closely related to Paul Cain and Rick Joyner, who were both initiated into the Knights of Malta (see testimony here).  Paul Cain has since been disgraced for sexual sin and has now been “restored”.   The Knights of Malta is an off shoot of Freemasonry and is part of the military arm of the Catholic Church.  (See my other blog post about the Knights of Malta and Todd Bentley’s commissioning service.  This was attended by Peter Wagner, Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner, John Arnott and others:  http://truthspeaker.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/todd-bentleys-occult-commissioning-service-part-3-william-branham-anointing-and-the-knights-of-malta/ )

 Other associates of Bickle are Bob Jones (also exposed for sexaul sin), Bobby Conner, John Paul Jackson and Jack Deere and Todd Bentley who led the Lakeland “Revival” and committed adultery and got re-married to his nanny. 

 

It is important to understand that one of the  big goals of this movement is ecumenicism.   According to one of my contacts who was close to Mike Bickle in the early days, Mike is very eccumenical and friendly toward Catholics and he tells me that IHOP has become more and more monastic.   Mike Bickle also teaches contemplative prayer and sells 32 books on that subject in the Forerunner bookstore.  Many of these books are written by the ancient catholic mystics.

 

The link to the kabbalah:

 

” The strategy of many groups such as Freemasonry, the Illuminati, para-church organizations such as Promise Keepers, is to unite men spiritually. Freemasonry, the Illuminati and similar groups make it necessary for men to go through rituals and ceremonies to unite as “brothers” and to grow closer to whichever “Supreme Being” they believed in. This is supposed to lead to healing between religions, races and families. Some believe world peace and the one-world religion and government will be the final result. Rallying cries’ of many of the religious right and leadership including Promise Keepers, are family, peace, morality, rights, and next to that, patriotism.

 

The Cabala, Gnostics and Freemasons are all working towards the same goal of unification of their thoughts and beliefs with those of Christianity. J.M. Ragon, a freemason, made the following statement in regards to the issue of Christianity and the occult:

“the Cabala is the key to the occult sciences. The Gnostics were born of the cabalists..(2) “… The result of Gnosticism was thus not to christianize the cabala, but to cabalize Christianity by mingling pure and simple teaching with theosophy and even magic. (3)”…The central doctrine of Gnosticism– a movement connected with Jewish mysticism–was nothing else than an attempt to liberate the soul and unite it with God”; … “through the employment of mysteries, incantations, names of angels,” etc.

 ”….the role of the Gnostics was to reduce perversion to a system by binding men together into sects working under the guise of enlightenment in order to obscure all recognized ideas of morality and religion. It is this which constitutes their importance in the history of secret societies.” (4)” http://www.seekgod.ca/nonew.htm

 Constance Combey also notes on her blog “What Constance Thinks”:

 

“I’ve been reading Alice Bailey’s From Bethlehem to Calvary in an attempt to find references to the Manifest Sons of God heresy permeating charismania in order to refute it in an article. Interestingly, I found this quote on page 20 of the paperback:
“Christianity will not be superseded. It will be transcended, its work of preparation being triumphantly accomplished, and Christ will again give us the next revelation of divinity.

“I find this interesting in light of IHOP’s Mike Bickle’s ‘prophetic word’ while in Egypt in 1983, “The face of Christianity will change in one generation.”

A friend of mine has done 10 years of research on the NAR and the NOLR and found the esoteric roots connecting these movememts to the Kabbalah and theosophy.  The kabbalah teaches that the goddess Sophia is actually the Holy Spirit and is the shekinah (which is a feminine noun in Hebrew) and she is God’s wife!  See info here (this is an esoteric site:   http://shekinah.elysiumgates.com/ ) 

 

  And this site  http://mysticismmeditation.blogspot.com/2008/02/contemplations-on-divine-sophia-kees_16.html

which mentions Jacob Boehme, who was the German Kabbalist / Theosophist whose writings were translated to English and who influenced Jane Leade (an English mystic/ christian), the Philidelphia Society, and also George Fox of the Quakers. (Interesting to note that John Wimber started out his ministry in the Quakers).    The Latter Rain based what was going on in Canada in the late 1940’s on Jane Leade’s prophecies.  This was proven by my friend who contacted George Warnock and asked him and who confirmed this as true.

 

  

Ultimately, Sophia is just a more modern form of the Queen of Heaven, having come out of the Greek pantheon. 

 

“There are several female Deities that can lay claim to the title Christian goddess.  Mary, the Mother of Jesus/Yeshua,  first comes to mind. There is Mary Magdalene the “Goddess in the Gospels” the Church refused to acknowledge as the wife of Yeshua and probably co-Messiah. “Mary” is a Greek pronunciation of the Hebrew name Miriam or Miriamne. There are many theories about this name, such as Mary might not even be a name, but a title meaning Priestess of Goddess.

 

So the bottom line is that what we have going on today in many so called Christian circles is NOT true Biblical Christianity but a mixture of ancient kabbalistic teachings mingled with Christian doctrine.  The whole signs and wonders camp is filled with this …… it’s a virus that has been resurrected from the past and repackaged as something new. 

 

Many theologians and scholars believe the Holy Spirit written as, Pneuma in Greek everytime it appears in the New Testament, is a feminine being.  Note that Pneuma is a neuter word in Greek, but in Hebrew the word Ruah (Spirit) and in Aramaic the word Shekinah (Presence) are feminine words and imply a feminine divine presence.  The Holy Spirit is possibly a Christian Goddess, not a mysterious invisible member of an all-male Trinity “club.”  Or more provocatively, maybe there is a Feminine Trinity of God-the-Mother (Sophia and Mary?), God-the-Daughter (Mary Magdalene) and Goddess-the-Spirit-Presence (Shekinah, Ruah). The Holy Spirit appears at Yeshua’s baptism in the form of a dove.  The dove has long been a symbol of the Goddess in the Ancient Near East, and was never used to symbolize any male Being or God.” http://www.northernway.org/goddess.html

Interestingly, Paul Keith Davis’ ministry is called “White Dove“.  Davis is a close associate of Bob Jones and says this on his web site:

“WhiteDove Ministries was founded August 11, 1995 by Paul Keith and Wanda Davis. At the beginning of 1995, Bob Jones had prophesied that dual storms were going to strike the U.S. with prophetic significance. Although he had seen the two distinct major storms, he was unclear as to the location of their landfall. During the latter part of that year during late July and early August, we were hosting a prophetic roundtable meeting at our home in Orange Beach, AL, approximately 18 miles west of Pensacola. Several respected prophetic voices were in attendance including Bob Jones, Bobby Conner, Rick Joyner and others. Our meeting was interrupted by a hurricane that entered the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Erin came ashore on August 3, 1995 with the eye passing directly over our home. Following Erin, hurricane Opal also struck the same area in October 1995 fulfilling the prophetic revelation of dual storms highlighting a corporate season of significant spiritual emphasis.

 

 

Eight days after Erin, on August 11, a beautiful white dove landed on our balcony. Uniquely, it remained although it was apparent that it was not domesticated. We clearly heard the Lord speaking to us involving this sign as an indication of the “Dove Company” who will emerge in this generation possessing hearts desperate for intimacy with Jesus. The Holy Spirit will come and remain upon this body of believers as they find their rest in Him and He finds His rest in them.”

Notice this poster from White Dove Ministries (Paul Keith Davis)

 

This poster is for an upcoming conference and puts together all that I have been  saying.  This picture is symbolic of Hieros Gamos…. the temple marriage or divine union.   First of all as noted earlier Sophia’s symbol is a dove, so it is no accident that this ministry’s name is “white dove”.  The bride (sophia… wisdom) is dressed in white, but she has the sword in her hand.  Notice that her hand on the shaft of the sword and that it looks like a phallic symbol.  The top of the shaft is actually piercing the word “HER” in the lettering.  The first part of the word is IN HER where the sword’s phallic is penetrating.  (sorry to be so graphic).  I believe that the enemy is saying that he is planning to POSSESS the BRIDE.  This is very blatant temple worship of the Babylonian mystery schools and NOT Biblical Christianity. 

This connection to wisdom/sophia is what is behind contemplative prayer (connecting to the god within!)  and the whole bridal paradigm of IHOP and Mike Bickle…… “passion for Jesus”, and being married to Jesus, intimacy with Jesus,  (hieros gamos, the sacred marriage to the divine) ….. bringing the practicioner into a state of “ecstacy with God”  (ie; the likes of John Crowder of the “new” mystics)…. It’s a sick and convoluted interpretation of the truth.   This is what Mike Bickle and friends are really promoting…. a false gospel and a false Jesus.

Wisdom Sophia, the Zohar, Christian Kabbalah

The following is excerpted from blog comments by NOLR History.  It is important for Christians to understand the occult roots of the Latter Rain movement that has infiltrated the modern church.  For more on this topic see my original post:  Is Tantric Sex Taking Contemplative Spirituality to the Next Level?

Wisdom Sophia, the Zohar, Christian Kabbalah Exposing the Forerunners, Exposing the Cause and Effect

We can say that John was indeed a forerunner for Jesus Christ.
We can also say that Madame Guyon and Zinzendorf were also forerunners, but for a hybrid antichrist that was developed during renaissance-era Europe and imported into North America. This history behind the belief system that Guyon and Zinzendorf endorsed is well-documented in many history books. That NOLR leaders re-animate the original quests and objectives of Guyon, Leade, Zinzendorf, Beissel, Kelpius, etc. as they played out their utopian communities in America should provide a blatant expectation that the NAR/ICA will fail is the very same spectacular manner as did the originators.

God expects Christians to use historical studies to identify and counteract the theosophical infection that these occult leaders have brought in. We can actually use this as an opportunity to demonstrate the power and grace of the Word coupled with a full history to eliminate all conjectures that we are dealing with an identifier stream of the occult. The treatment is exposing the history of their forerunners in identifying their occult practices and objectives. This will simultaneously expose the longterm occult doctrines and practices. All the hard work; the research, has already been done.

Your going to have to get beyond the metaphysical however. Yes, there are indeed powers, principalities and spiritual wickedness bound up in the mix, but the Bible tells us that it is the “Doctrines of Demons” that provide the demons a place within the minds, hearts and communities of these Christian Kabbalists. You’ve already seen the video confirmation in numerous places where NOLR leaders like Chuck Pierce, C. Peter Wagner, Barbara Wentroble and dozens of others leade their congregants into physical actions based upon a Christian Kabbalist interpretation of the beginning of entering into a New Age. Their 2008 Denton, Texas meeting “Starting the Year off Right” shows that the NOLR/NAR admit they believe the Kabbalah is divinely-inspired and equal to the Bible. Their actions speaks louder than words.

Summary

Central questions that already have been answered:

1) For the Christian, is the Kabbalah a divinely-inspired set of writings from with to spiritually and practically embrace i.e. for doctrine and practice? If so, why? If not, and they are embraced, what are the consequences?

2) Can the doctrines and practices that the NOLR/NAR promotes be historically identified with those leaders/spiritual heros that they embrace? If so, what are the consequences?

3) Is the Christ of the NOLR/NAR the same Christ of the Bible, or is their Christ really the Adam Kadmon of the Lurian Kabbalah coupled with the mysterious fourth part of the Godhead known as “Wisdom Sophia” as identified by Jacob Boehme, Jane Leade, Count von Zinzendorf, etc. etc.?

These and other question can be answered and serve as direction for reaching out to the young occultists led by Lou Engle, Mike Bickle, Francis Frangipane, Rick Joyner, Barbara Wentroble, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, C. Peter Wagner, Bill Johnson, Bill Hamon, and many, many others

IHOP, MorningStar, Every Nations, NAR/ICA, Bridal Mysticism, Kabbalah, Creation, Zinzendorf, Hernhutt, Bob Jones, Paul Cain, Bride Company, Corporate Christ

*********************************************************
Excerpts from:
Lachman, Gary. Politics and the Occult : The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books/Theosophical Pub. House, 2008) pp. 56-57.

p.56

Sexual Metaphysics

By the time Zinzendorf established the Fetter Lane mission, he was convinced that the mysticism of the Jewish cabala—the esoteric reading of the Jewish holy books—could bring Jews and Christians as well as Catholics and Protestants together. His belief that followers of different faiths could unite in a common piety chimed in many ways with Masonic notions of universal brotherhood and a common belief in a Supreme Being, and it certainly resonated with the Rosicrucian ethos. His epiphany in Dusseldorf concerning Christ’s carnal nature seemed to prime him for cabalistic notions of what we can call “sexual metaphysics.” According to the cabalists, the unmanifest source of creation, in the Ein Sof, performed an act of love when “He” manifested his essence in the male and female emanations that make up the ten sephiroth, or “vessels,” of the Tree of Life. The sexual polarities expressed in the different sephiroth lead from the Godhead to the material world, and in meditating on their combinations—usually through visualizing the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as male and female figures in various sexual positions—the cabalist can unite the emanations and trigger a vision of the androgynous source of things. But this unifying vision wasn’t reached via inward meditation alone; as in forms of Tantric spirituality, sex itself was a means of both unifying the opposites and of mirroring the original act of creation.

As in spiritual alchemy, for the cabala, in sexual union, the male and female overcome the rifts in the fallen world and achieve an ecstasy that echoes the original unity of being. Likewise, the climax of intercourse, when the male explodes into the female, echoes the Godhead’s original emanation of the sephiroth, which gave birth to the cosmos—a rather different take on the big bang. God himself has sex, the cabalists believe, in the cosmic lovemaking he enjoys with his Shekinah, his female emanation, Zinzendorf Christianized this cabalistic holy marriage and declared that the Holy Spirit was feminine, the Mother of Christ. Sex wasn’t sinful and degrading, as the Church preached; for the cabalists it was perhaps the most important part of religious life—provided, of course, that one’s spiritual intention, one’s kawanah, remained pure and didn’t sink into mere carnal satisfaction, an accusation that, understandably, Zinzendorf and his followers had to face on more than one occasion.

********************************************************************
There are consequences with Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner and the rest of the NOLR leaders modeling themselves after Rosicrucian leader Count von Zinzendorf and his vision for a utopian society in Moravian Falls. There are numerous eyewitness testimonies from followers successfully escaping the occult trappings from the IHOP compound in Kansas City and the MorningStar Moravian compounds in North Carolina.

The adepts under the Christian Kabbalah mesmerizing spell are led to visualize themselves as being married to Christ, but upon further investigation, Tens of thousands of youth are being made formed into a “Bride” where the leaders are the “Bridegroom” in a magical act of psychical and sexual theurgy. They claim to hear directly from the Holy Spirit through their many apostles and prophets and undershepherds. If they really did, then the following questions demand answers:

1) If the Holy Spirit was really present at IHOP and MorningStar, then why didn’t He tell IHOP leaders Nick and Rebecca Candler to “Feed your baby!!!!”? Does Bickle play this off as some sort of “Test from God” or what? This act of starving their newborn baby Jeremiah was not only murder at IHOP, but also speaks volumes about the real spirit behind the entire NOLR/NAR movement. Because they continue to draw from their 17th century occult sources, we can only expect to see even more people die – both spiritually and physically – as time goes on. History shows this is the inevitable penalty for embracing the occult.

2) “As in spiritual alchemy, for the cabala, in sexual union, the male and female overcome the rifts in the fallen world and achieve an ecstasy that echoes the original unity of being.” If the Holy Spirit were really present at IHOP in Kansas City and other IHOP boiler room compounds around the country, why wasn’t there any prophetic warnings when Bob Jones sexually molested women in an attempt at sexual theurgy? Why didn’t IHOP and MorningStar’s Holy Spirit warn the congregants that Paul Cain, Reuven Doron, Todd Bentley and others were sexual deviates? Are you really convinced that these supposed “leaders” can be rehabilitated after Joyner tells them to go through a “restoration process” with “Apostle” Larry Alberts in Minneapolis and then afterwards to continue spreading their Spiritually Transferable Disease (STD) aka the “Anointing” to 1000s more youth all under the pretext of “Revival”??

3) What new “spiritual positions” will Bickle, Joyner, Haggard, Wagner, Sheets, Hamon, Jones, Cain, Jacobs, Cocking, Broocks, Murrell, Weiner, etc. engage their followers in with their ongoing quest toward the birth of the “Many-membered Manchild” from the quasi-sexual union between the “Corporate Christ” and their corporate “Bride Company”??

If the starvation murder of baby Jeremiah Candler and homosexual activities of Paul Cain and Ted Haggard along with the sexual theurgies of Bob Jones are any indication of the prophetic future, then perhaps local law enforcement should stock up on handcuffs because they will soon need them…

Quotes:

From his booklet entitled, “Three Witnesses” Rick Joyner writes:

“Without fanfare the Moravians possibly impacted history more during the past 500 years than any other single spiritual…force. [but was the “spiritual force from God? Not!]

There are no memorials to the Moravians except an almost three hundred year old prayer tower that stands overlooking a much too filled cemetery at Herrnhut. Only Heaven knows the immeasurable fruit of their labors. One thing they did do was to spark a fire in the hearts of the then Christian Church to evangelize the world. It would take about fifty years before other denominations would begin to travel the well worn paths that the Moravians had cleared, finally answering the call of the ” GREAT COMMISSSION.”

From IHOP – KC Overview booklet, “Our Part in the Global Prayer Chain”:
http://www.fotb.com/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=1000011161

AD 1727: COUNT ZINZENDORF AND THE MORAVIANS
Within two weeks of an unusual outpouring of the Holy Spirit, twenty-four men and twenty-four women covenanted to pray “hourly intercessions,” thus praying every hour around the clock. The community was committed to see that “the fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out” (Leviticus 6:13). This prayer meeting would go nonstop for the next one hundred years, and is seen by many as the spiritual power behind the impact that the Moravians had on the world.

Suggested Reading:

“When Visions Come Together”: The Kansas City Israel Mandate Conference
http://www.tikkunministries.org/newsletters/dj-jun04.asp

Lachman, Gary. Politics and the Occult : The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books/Theosophical Pub. House, 2008).

Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Jesus is Female : Moravians and the Challenge of Radical Religion in Early America, Early American Studies; (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

Comment by NOLR History | September 17, 2009 <!– @ 4:21 pm –>

Frank Viola Promotes New Age Contemplative Spirituality

One of the most disappointing discoveries I made recently was that Frank Viola was a practictioner of contemplative prayer.  I had read several of his books a few years ago…. Pagan Christianity and Rethinking the Wineskin were great and impacted my life and changed my view of the church.  I was on Frank’s email list for several years as well, but recently as I was reading his blog I discovered a link between him and Leonard Sweet, a known contemplative from the Emergent Church movement.  This sent my red flags up and I started to steer away from Frank Viola. 

The following is taken from his newsletter from April 2007 where he shares his experiences with contemplative spirituality.  His new book, “From Eternity to Here” is all about the Bride and Bridegroom and sounds like something straight out of IHOP.  It’s true what a friend said to me recently, “All the streams are converging”!

Not only is Frank Viola involved with contemplative spirituality, he’s now linked up with the emerging church movement.

“I had the privilege of spending hours with Wright last year where we both spoke at an Emerging Church conference (along with Brennan Manning, another giant in the faith). There are few men who I respect more in the Lord than Tom Wright. He’s one of the foremost figures that God is using in this hour. “

His new book has reviews from several people in that movement, such as Leonard Sweet and Brian McLaren, as well as NAR member Jim Goll.

From: PTMIN [PTMIN@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 7:57 PM

Slaughtering Sacred Cows: Part 3
“The Felt-Presence of God”
by Frank Viola

I would like to say a word in preface about the following article. In 1994, what came to be known as “the Toronto Blessing” hit the United States. Rodney Howard-Browne held his first convention in the Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland, Florida. That convention went on for weeks. From there, it quickly spread to other parts of North America . . . most notably Toronto, Canada; Melbourne, Florida; and Pensacola, Florida.

Upon hearing about the new move of God in 1994, I traveled to Lakeland and sat in on those first meetings where ” the blessing” had just begun. The following year, I traveled to Melbourne, Florida and sat in a meeting officiated by Randy Clark when the phenomenon had spread there in full force.

I will not share my observations of “the blessing” in this article. But I’m glad I went to those meetings. Ever since I’ve been a Christian, I’ve had an insatiable hunger to know my Lord more deeply. Consequently, if I hear a report that God is uniquely at work in a given place, I will move heaven and earth to visit it. This is what prompted me to check out those early meetings in Lakeland and Melbourne.

1995 marked an important year in my life. Not because of my encounters with “the Toronto blessing.” But because of what occurred as a result.

One of my closest friends is a man named Frank Valdez. I met Frank in 1992. He is the wisest Christian I’ve ever met. He is also the most knowledgeable and spiritually insightful. (I have often told people, “If you don’t want to know the answer to your question, don’t ask Frank Valdez!”) Further, unlike many gifted Christian men, Frank is completely honest, straight-forward, and has no trace of a manipulative or deceptive spirit. He is one of the most Christ-like men that I know.

Sometime in 1995, as we were sharing lunch together, I told Frank about my observations on “the Toronto blessing.” This led into an invaluable discussion that marked a turning point in my life. Frank said to me, “There is a Christian tradition that practices a form of prayer that employs no words. It’s beyond speaking in tongues and deeper than the Toronto blessing.”

He had my attention.

As I quizzed him about his comment, Frank began to share with me about the contemplative prayer tradition. He spoke about centering prayer, lectio divina, and other ancient spiritual practices that were unfamiliar to me at the time. He also used a word that I wasn’t too keen on. I’ve since learned that this word has been historically used to honor people . . . and with equal rigor, it has been used to damn them. Frank introduced me to the Christian “mystics.”

Paranthetically, to offer some overly-simplistic definitions, contemplative prayer is a prayer of interior silence that is beyond words.

Centering prayer is a silent gazing upon the Lord that employs the use of a “sacred word” like “Lord” or “Jesus” to center one’s attention upon Him when the mind begins to wander.

Lectio Divina is a form of spiritual communion where the Scriptures are turned into prayer.

None of these practices are new to the Christian faith. They are all quite ancient. Only very recently have they been getting air-play in evangelical circles.

Back to the story. As we sat at lunch, Frank gave me a brief history of the Christian “mystics,” as they came to be known. These were Christians who sought experiential union with their God. They had a fervent love for the Lord that had landed them into hot water. That love caused them to think and experiment “outside the box” of traditional religion. In their desperation to know the Lord intimately, some of them discovered ways of communing with God that went beyond petition-prayer, Bible-reading, and speaking in tongues.

In short, I was intrigued by what Frank shared with me that day. I then launched into a quest to read the writings that were part of this tradition. More importantly, I began to implement some of their discoveries into my own devotional life. As the years passed, I met others who were on this same journey. They too had gleaned from the same writings that had helped me so much.

I later discovered that there were some in this same tradition who are my contemporaries. Most of them, however, are outside the evangelical tradition. Rather, they are part of high church denominations like Catholic, Episcopal, and Anglican. Their writings have uncovered practical forms of spiritual communion that I’ve found to be of great profit personally.

That being said, this article owes much to my discussions with Frank Valdez. We have talked about the subject of “the felt-presence of God” at length. And we’ve arrived at many of the same conclusions. A number of the ancient mystics held to this same viewpoint. Most notably, Nicholas Herman of 17th century France. He is better known as “Brother Lawrence” and wrote the spiritual classic, The Practice of the Presence of God, of which his fame rests.

Please note that my intention in writing this article is to set at liberty a vast number of Christians who have grown pathologically dependent on “feeling God’s presence” or who have unwittingly used it as a benchmark to measure their spiritual condition. It is also to set at ease those who have unsuccessfully sought “the feeling” of God’s presence without success.

My hope is that the Spirit of God would use this article to give His people a proper perspective of God’s holy presence. A perspective that will de-mystify the mystical in their lives and set them at liberty to love their Lord beyond feelings and sensations. A perspective that will encourage them to walk by the highest spiritual sense of all . . . faith. And faith transcends the realm of the senses. As Paul put it, “we walk by faith, not by sight.”

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I spent most of my early Christian life drinking deeply from the wells of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement. There is much in that movement that is helpful and authentic. I am thankful for what it taught me about one aspect of God’s present activity. At the same time, there is much in that movement that is not so helpful. And a good bit that’s not exactly authentic.

The propensity to seek the felt-presence of God in that movement is central and overwhelming. I’ve watched Christians struggle with this quest to the point of concluding that something was wrong with them . . . that God loved them less . . . all because they weren’t “feeling” or “sensing” God’s presence on a regular basis.

I have known Christian women and men who were utterly devoted to the Lord, extremely gifted, spiritually insightful and fruitful. Yet in private, their confession was that they had never “felt” the presence of God.

I’ve also personally known Christians who were in dire spiritual straits. Some were living a double-life. Yet they didn’t wince at their poor condition because during worship services or prayer times they regularly “felt the presence of God.”

This being said, I believe that there is a great deal of confusion over this matter of God’s presence. Part of it is rooted in semantics. Another part is rooted in bad theology.

Let’s look at the semantic problem first. (Semantics refers to the words we use to express certain concepts.)

Stated simply, some Christians have a way of overstating their experiences. Others understate them. Two people may experience the same exact phenomenon . . . whether it be a church meeting, a conference, a retreat, a convention, a particular manifestation of the Holy Spirit, or a shared encounter. One person will describe it as “unbelievable!” . . . “incredible!” . . . “awesome!” . . . “beyond description!” Another will describe it as “good” . . . enjoyable” . . . “encouraging” . . . delightful.”

People often use different vocabulary for expressing the same thing. For instance, Watchman Nee used a unique phrase when he referred to his fellowship with the Lord. He called it “touching the Lord.” Others use the phrase “sweet communion.” Others use “Divine encounter.” Others use less phenomenological phrases.

To describe fixing one’s heart upon the Lord, some people use the phrase “turning to the Lord.” Others use the word “gazing.” Others say “beholding.” Still others say “contemplating” or “centering” or “abiding” or “partaking.” Others describe it as “meditating.”

By and large, it’s semantics.

I’ve observed this principle all of my Christian life: People express the same experiences differently. This is due to many different factors. Some of which are the person’s temperament, the specific vocabulary that is used in one’s fellowship circle, or a specific “effect” they wish to have on those who hear them testify. (Sometimes this isn’t so well motivated.)

In addition, to say that a Christian is to “seek” a feeling of God’s presence is bad theology. Plain and simple. There is no such exhortation in all of Scripture. Try to find it in the New Testament, and you will discover that it is glaringly absent. There is no such example either.

An oft-quoted passage used to support the idea of seeking God’s felt-presence is Psalm 22:3. In the KJV, it reads: “You, God, inhabit the praises of Israel.” This text has been traditionally used to invoke or summon God’s presence by singing praise and worship songs.

Strikingly, except for the KJV, the New Jerusalem Bible, and the New Century Version, all of the other versions take a different tack on the translation. For instance, the Revised English Bible translates it this way: “You, the praise of Israel, are enthroned in the sanctuary.”

The New American Bible takes the same approach: “Yet you are enthroned in the holy place, O glory of Israel.” The New International Version does likewise: “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.” The New Living Translation translates it as follows: “Yet you are holy, the praises of Israel surround your throne.”

The term “praise” here is seen as a reference to the One who Israel praises. The text is an affirmation of an Old Testament commonplace. To wit, that the presence of God dwells in the holy of holies in the Temple at Jerusalem. It in no way indicates that God is somehow made present by our praises.

According to the scholars who have translated this passage in the above versions: (1) The text must be understood in the context of Old Testament Temple worship, and (2) It is God Himself in His presence in the Temple who is called “the Praise (or Glory) of Israel.” What’s more, we must be cautious about literally applying to Christian worship statements about Old Testament Temple worship. Consider the implications of Jesus’ words in John 4 in this regard. “Believe me . . . a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

Let me begin by drawing some distinctions about God’s presence. These are my own linguistic handles and definitions. I know no other way to communicate about this matter as it can tend to be complex:

1) The Reality of God’s Presence – refers to when God is actually present in or with a person or group of people.
2) The Felt-Presence of God – refers to the perceptible and evident sense or feeling of God’s presence.
3) The Active Consciousness of God’s Presence – refers to when one’s mind and heart is actively set upon God.
4) The Background Consciousness of God’s Presence – refers to the mostly unnoticed, but ever-present consciousness of God’s presence. More on this later.

Now some candid observations on the presence of God that I hope will bring clarity to the issue:

* God is always present in the life of the believer . . . whether one actively feels His presence or not. Jesus Christ Himself promised His followers, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” To put it another way, the reality of God’s presence is always with the believer, and it changes not. It is not dependent on or evidenced by feelings or senses.

* The New Testament is quite loud in its proclamation that God in Christ dwells in every believer by the Holy Spirit. That is an unmovable fact. To state it personally, you dear Christian, are always in God’s presence! His presence is not something you need to seek. It’s not something you need to acquire. The presence of God is not something to be invoked, summoned, or sought after. It is an ever-present reality for all Christians. As Paul said to the Romans, you don’t need to go to heaven to bring Christ down. Nor do you need to go to the depths to bring Christ up. He is in you . . . nearer than your breath is to your mouth. You have access to Him at any moment (Romans 10).

* There is a great difference between the “felt-presence” of God and the “active consciousness” of His presence. To be conscious of His presence is to be “actively aware” that He is with you and in you. How do you become actively conscious of His presence? By simply putting your attention upon Him. In Paul’s words, to be conscious of God’s presence is to “set your mind on the Spirit” (Romans 8). Some of the mystics called the active consciousness of God’s presence “being in His presence.” Technically, that’s not correct. We are always in His presence for He lives in us. Practically, however, to be “in His presence” is simply to turn your attention upon Him.

* One can be actively conscious of God’s presence by a simple act of faith. I give you as an example what I call “the analogy of the nose.” Your nose is always with you, correct? It is a part of you. It is inseparable from you. However, you can go all day long and never once give attention to your nose. Does this mean that you are no longer in the presence of your nose? No. It simply means that you can be unconscious of it. In the same way, the Lord is always with you. But you can go about your busy day and never once acknowledge Him or think about Him. You can set your mind on earthly things and never once be conscious of the Lord’s presence. On the contrary, by setting your mind and heart upon Him, you become actively conscious of His presence.

* The secret to spiritual formation is to be conscious of God’s presence as much as possible. How is this? There is a surface element and then there is a deeper spiritual element. I will only address the surface element in this article. Imagine with me that Jesus Christ physically appeared to you right now. And . . . He went with you wherever you went. That is, you physically saw Him at all times. He was physically with you every waking moment. Would this have any effect on your conduct and behavior? The answer is obviously yes. The disciples were changed simply by being with Him! (“And they took note that they had been with Jesus.”) Brother Lawrence called the active consciousness of God’s presence the art of “practicing His presence.” For Brother Lawrence, to practice God’s presence is to be mindful of Him all day long. It is to converse with Him and turn to Him throughout the day. It would be a kin to drawing my attention to my nose constantly. Although my nose is always with me, I may or may not be conscious of it. It all depends on where my attention is centered.

* A few words about the felt-presence of God. It is possible to have experiences where one is overwhelmed with the “feeling” or “sense” of God’s nearness, His majesty and power, His love, His favor, and His union and oneness with the believer. To put it another way, it is possible to have a “sense” or “feeling” of His presence. However, I am of the strong opinion that we should never “seek” for such feelings. Nor should we make the profound mistake of employing such feelings as a gauge or measure of spirituality or spiritual formation. Permit me to speak personally for a moment. In my own life, I have had numerous occasions where I felt overwhelmed with God’s love, grace, and nearness to the point of weeping profusely. (I used to be embarrassed by this, but I’ve learned to just accept it. It’s how I typically react when I’m overwhelmed by the Lord’s love.) I’ve had times when I felt God’s power so strong that I physically couldn’t contain it. I literally felt that I was going to explode. I’ve also known times when I literally “smelled” the fragrance of His presence and other times where I had ecstatic experiences too deep for words. (I cannot explain any of these experiences rationally by the way.) However . . . none of these experiences were a measure of my spiritual condition. Nor did they display God’s sentiments toward me at a particular time, as though His feelings for me changed with the wind or were based upon my conduct. Further, I have learned not to seek such experiences. If they come, they come. If I never have them again, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m always in His presence, and He is always with me. His love and favor toward me remain unchanged. They cannot be altered for they are not based on my work, but upon the work of Another. Further, I have learned to delight in the quiet rest that comes from just turning my attention upon Him . . . whether that be in a time of quiet stillness before Him . . . or it be it throughout the day where I’m constantly in fellowship with Him. This discovery is not novel. It is echoed in most of the writings of the mystics. A number of them have written rather strongly that to seek “spiritual” delights is just as harmful as seeking “worldly” delights.

* In the 16th century, a Spanish monk who was very short (he was only five feet tall) known as John of the Cross wrote extensively on the Lord’s presence. John became a priest at 25 years of age. He wrote his best-known books between the ages of 35 and 37. In one of his books, he described what he called “the dark night of the soul.” This experience is when God removes the “sense” of His presence from a believer’s life. Some Christians believe this is an exotically rare experience that few have. Others believe it’s much more common. According to John of the Cross, “the dark night” is when God tosses out the moral compass from a believer’s life. The Christian feels as though God simply does not exist! I have no desire to expound on the dark night except to illustrate one point. Consider this analogy. During the course of the day, you are virtually always unconscious of the presence of your nose. The exception is when you have a sniffle, a nose itch, a nose bleed, or when you look in the mirror. But if you were to have surgery and your nose was removed, you would certainly be conscious that something essential was missing! And that consciousness would remain for quite a long time. Point: There is something that I call “the background consciousness of God’s presence.” If God were to remove this background consciousness, you would know it immediately! The background consciousness of God’s presence is largely undetected and unnoticed by us Christians. We don’t notice it for one simple reason: It’s always present. It’s not dissimilar to why you don’t notice the ring you wear on your finger or the watch you wear on your wrist every day . . . you don’t notice it because it’s always there. However, if the consciousness of God’s ever-abiding presence were removed, it would register heavily upon us. So in one regard, we are always conscious of the Divine presence in that we are used to it. The light of God is always on. But it looms in the background. At another level, we can be actively conscious of His presence . . . we can be centered on His presence in the foreground. . . we can be aware of it . . . and attentive to it. Again, consider the analogy of the nose.

At this point you might ask: How do I become actively conscious of God’s presence? There are many ways. I am presently writing a book that will discuss a number of them practically that I have gleaned from various ancient spiritual instructors and that I have built into my own life over the last decade. (A note to the curious: I’ve only written two rough draft chapters for the book. But it’s progressing.)

For the purposes of this small essay, I shall introduce you to one of the simplest ways which will also help make my overriding point.

At this very moment, turn your attention on the Lord who is always with you and who is always in you. Open your mouth and say, “Lord, I am thankful that I belong to you and am known by you. You dwell in me and are always with me.”

At that very moment, you are in His presence . . . at that very moment, you are conscious of His presence . . . at that very moment, you are practicing His presence . . . or whatever other name you wish to assign to it. This is true regardless of what your senses or feelings may say. God’s presence is deeper than any human sensation or perception.

Continue this simple practice the rest of your life, and you have found the wellspring and mainstay of spiritual formation.

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End Note:

In connection with one of the closing sentences of this article, “God’s presence is deeper than any human sensation or perception,” I would like to add a few words about three people who Frank Valdez introduced me to. I think it will prove helpful to help unearth the unhealthy roots of “the felt-presence of God” sacred cow.

Meister Eckhart was a 13th century German mystic who is generally regarded as the fountainhead of “Rhineland mysticism”. He taught that God was beyond all conceptualization. This conceptualization included the “concept” of god itself. Meister pointed people to the “God beyond god”, i.e., the God who exceeds any concept we have of Him. This means that God cannot be possessed as an idea or an experience or a feeling. Our knowledge of Him is a poor reflex of His knowledge of us. He graciously owns us as His redeemed creations and we should see ourselves as being His rather than seeing Him in any sense as being ours as an object or possession.

Thomas Merton was very influenced by Eckhart. Merton added a social and historical dimension to Eckhart’s critique of religion. According to Merton, modern people define themselves by what they can buy and own. We want to “own” God as if He were another consumer good which adds to our sense of self-worth as an especially valuable possession. But God cannot be owned because He is not an object.

The great Christocentric theologian Karl Barth also said that God is never an object. He is never the passive recipient of our investigation. God is always the revealing Subject who reveals Himself to us and is knowable only in faith.

[ Note: Slaughtering Sacred Cows Parts 1 and 2 can be found at www.ptmin.org/articles.htm ]

SOME THOUGHTS on MYSTICISM

Andrew Strom sent this out today and it is a very timely article by Dr. Eddie Hyatt!

-by Eddie Hyatt.

In a recent church gathering a well-known evangelical pastor led
his congregation in a “breathing” exercise in which they were
exhorted to take “nice, big, deep breaths.” He went on to explain
that such breathing exercises, along with meditation, reflection,
and silence, have been central to the Christian tradition for thousands
of years. He then sought to buttress his argument by pointing out
that, “In Yoga, one of the central tenets of Yoga is your breath
needs to remain the same regardless of pose. And the Yoga
Masters say this is how it is when you follow Jesus and surrender to God.”[i]

Pastor Rob Bell is typical of many today who are looking to the
medieval mystics (and to Eastern forms of mysticism) in their
search for spiritual reality. But while many of the medieval mystics
can be admired for their passion and devotion, they cannot be
followed in many of their doctrines and experiences. Being loyal to
the medieval church and sharing in its lax (and sometimes hostile)
attitude toward Scripture, they often exhibit a glaring lack of
discernment and common sense. So while some of their experiences
are, no doubt, genuine, many are obviously psychic and some are
probably demonic.

Commenting on medieval mysticism and its neglect of Scripture,
Dr. Hans Kung, the most widely read Catholic theologian in the
world today, says,

These new revelations not only overshadowed the Bible and the
Gospel, but also Him whom the Gospel proclaims and to whom
the Bible bears witness. It is striking how rarely Christ appeared
in all these “revelations,” “apparitions,” and “wonders.” Catholics
who followed in the wake of every new “revelation,” which often
turned out to be fantasy or deceit, and indulged their desire for
sensation by looking for the latest reports of miracles—and yet
who had never once in their whole lives read the Scriptures from
cover to cover.[ii]

The Origins of Mysticism

Medieval mysticism arose in reaction to the lifeless, outward forms
of the medieval church. During the same period evangelical revival
groups also emerged for similar reasons. But whereas the revival
groups, such as the Waldenses and Albigneses, gave their loyalties
to the Scriptures, and looked there for models of faith and spirituality,
the mystics tended to give their allegiance to the pope and the
institutional church.[iii] This meant that the mystics were more
susceptible to non-Biblical approaches to spirituality and this
resulted in their adoption of many beliefs and practices that were
rooted in pagan, mystical thought, particularly Neoplatonism.

To READ MORE-
http://www.biblicalawakening.blogspot.com/

[i] www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/robbelltranscript.doc
[ii] Hans Kung, The Church (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1976), 257-58.
[iii] See my book, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity (Lake
Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2002) for a more thorough discussion
of this issue.