The New Church Landscape: 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Theology - The Queen of Sciences

There is growing up a generation that was not taught the Bible stories, taken to church or much experience of Christian prayerful living. Small wonder that these one see little need for 'religion.'
They claim, "One does not need a god to be moral.' Meaning they do not believe in God and do not think it relevant to themselves as moral people. They can make 'good' choices without the guidance, background and education of Bible training, exposure to Christianity, or understanding of the ethical attitudes of Jesus.
My father was the son of a missionary and deeply scarred by the experience. However, growing up in China of the early 1900's, he also learned about the ethics of people without the Christian ethic. You could not trust the Chinese in their business dealings. You always had to be on guard against trickery - the stone in the pile of wood when you got paid by the weight of the wood.
Dad's conclusion was that you cannot have a highly developed society without built in ethical training developing ethical character in which one could trust. He observed that much trust was involved in western business and financial transactions. He discerned that things would not be the same if we lost the religious training and ethical training that was the foundation of character in the West.
That is why mom and dad took us all to church. They believed that this grounding is important. They were right. It is important to be exposed to the religion and ethic that is the backbone of the West.
In my generation television came in and replaced religion as the major influence on morals and ethics. The driving force behind television was not developing character but training people to consume goods. This is a battle that religion, to a large extent, lost and commercial interest won.
Now we can see that dad was right. We will see what it is like to live and work with people without an ethical backbone - people you cannot trust.

Now to the question as to why Theology can be considered the Queen of the Sciences, I will quote:

"we strongly believe that no education is a useful education without the study of theology. One's theology (understanding of God and his eternal law) determines how facts, events, and philosophies are judged. It is necessary to have a good (correct) theology in order to make good moral judgments, rightly discerning between right and wrong.
     A popular phrase we often hear is "you can't legislate morality." However, every law in every land legislates somebody's morality. We see the strife in medical arenas concerning abortion, cloning, grafting, etc. Difficult choices have to be made about what is right and wrong. Many of us are under the counsel of psychologists, psychiatrists, ministers, and others. Depending on the counselor's view of man, God, and true mental health, is the success of the treatment. In the arena of the structure of authority we have to know what man's inherent rights are and where those rights come from before we can determine if a government is righteous.
     One's theology affects his every action and belief. It is the framework upon which hangs all we learn from history and the framework upon which the future is built. The "Queen of Sciences" should order and illuminate all the other disciplines, providing one with a genuine liberal education.  The Tanglewood School Curriculum, recognizing the importance of the study of theology, provides a place for planning and record keeping in the teacher's Corebook. We encourage each parent to study and to aspire to a correct theology and to instill in the child an understanding and love for this sacred discipline.
     After all, as was once said, "The only rightful purpose of education is to know the truth and to live by it."

This is from http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com/queen.htm

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Matthew 18:18 - what means 'bind' and loose?

This e-mail arrived with a question about binding and loosing in Matthew 18:18. Here is the letter.

Hi,

I just read you information on cursing from the Internet – via Google.

Most of it I agree with and see the wisdom of not continuing a practice of prayer that I really thought was correct. So now, what about Matthew 18:18, which says “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” what are we to “Bind” and what are we to “Loose?” What does that in your opinion refer to?

Thank you for your input.

God lover

"Study to show thyself approved..." 2Tim 2:15

I explain this on the Listening-prayer web site in the section called Demonic, negative and unhealthy Spiritual Warfare under the title Spiritual Warfare: Binding and Loosing.

In the Jewish New Testament (David Stern, 1989), the translator explains the meaning of "bind" and "loose" to the Jew. This would mean that the leadership had the authority to set up a new religious community and establish the rules of this community. The new community formed around Jesus was not to be bound by Jewish law. They could, in effect, establish new rules for the new community. God's authority would be behind them in this. And so it was as we see in the Book of Acts.

In North America it has fed in to the power drive and wrongly interpreted as 'I can take authority in Jesus name over Satan and territorial spirits. That, in fact, is very dangerous advice as it puts us in a position of rebellion against authority. It encourages acting in pride and arrogance.

It accomplishes the opposite of what is intended. One loses protection. One's position in the battle is exposed. The enemy penetrates and attacks supply lines. This is experienced as money always disappearing, losing jobs, just about to get a job and it goes to someone else.

Read more of my articles on listening-prayer.com and this should all be explained.

George

My articles on the internet about cursing include the following:

Friday, September 23, 2011

Am I in a cult? How to discern a cult.

Calling a church a cult is pretty extreme so I need to suggest some criteria for such a label.

One definition of a cult-like church is that there is spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse also needs to be defined because that is a strong term. Spiritual Abuse is when the agenda of the church or the pastor overrides the needs, gifts and calling of the person.

Unfortunately that is a very abstract and general definition. Unfortunately most institutions calling themselves 'Churches' will tend to fit into that definition to some extent. Unfortunately, most churches exist to some extent, for their own sake or to benefit the pastor more than they exist to nurture, encourage and equip the Christian to live out their life in their home, community or workplace in victory.

Let be more specific in guidelines or markers. An unhealthy church does not leave you feeling encouraged and built up but you leave the Sunday worship service feeling burdened or guilty.

Jesus said "come unto me you that are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest." If the service ministers that Jesus then you will find relief from guilt and pressure to perform 'religious' duties and encouraged and empowered to live your life with Christ in you and the Kingdom of God invading your places of home, work and study. This will happen without striving.

Freedom is present where Christ is present for he came to set us free. What that looks like in the local congregation is that everyone is expressing themselves in their own unique way. People dress different. You can look around and see many different ages, colors, genders, dress, financial levels. The people are not all dressed the same.

In some churches there is a drift toward a 'deliverance' ministry or to 'spiritual warfare.' It is a danger sign if the focus of prayer, preaching and song is on attacking evil, binding demons and naming different powers of darkness. Flee such a place because they are attracting demons by giving them so much attention.

Are people in leadership so 'super spiritual' that they do not manage their everyday affairs well. It is unhealthy to be so focused on 'saving the world' that you neglect your family. It is unhealthy to be so focused on 'spiritual things' that you neglect your earthly responsibilities. You need to feed your rabbits, take the dog for a walk and have food in the refrigerator for the household. Practical stuff, believe it or not, is spiritual stuff.

A healthy church will have healthy small groups. People will be able to study the bible and not always the sermon notes from the pastor's sermon. There should be some personal sharing and getting to know one another. If you can sense a healthy refreshing sense of freedom and encouragement.

As a church becomes more controlling it comes closer to being an unhealthy church or a cult.

The teaching suggests that other groups are wrong and you would lose out by leaving this church.
More extreme, the teaching suggests you are lost from salvation if you leave this church.
The pastors speaks and teaches that bad things happen to those who leave the church.
The pastor or others pray negative prayer (curses) against those who leave their church.

I have talked about 'exit control' in another blog. These are some guides as to whether you are in a healthy or unhealthy church or a cult. Learn to discern and to trust your gut feeling.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Survival Handbook for the Church

We know that we are in a war, it is how we engage in spiritual warfare that will mean blessing or cursing for the Body of Christ.
I thank John Paul for his book: Needless Casualties of War. I call it a survival handbook for Christians because those that do not read and following Jackson's warning are being decimated.
Personally, I lost my marriage, my home, my children, my job and ran home to my mother with my tail between my legs. I was whipped and all the time I was boldly binding the principalities over my city and workplace.
After I attended a PCM with Leanne Payne and heard and heeded her warning, I began to see my life turn around.
Friends who I knew were "binding" dark powers were also suffering in theirs lives: children in rebellion, ill health, loss of marriage relationships and, for each of us, financial difficulties.
The teachings that John Paul Jackson addresses - Peter Wagner and others - might as well be demonically inspired because they will drag the church into defeat faster than anything else I know.
Before Jackson's book, I already had the warnings of a few isolated teachers as to stopping the focus on demons, spiritual mapping, binding territorial spirits.
There was a warning in Let Us Praise page 71. There was a warning in the teaching of John Dawson about an incident in New Zealand which backfired on a native Christian leader in the midst of a large praise and teaching gathering. There was a story in a vision of Rick Joyner where he is up on the mountain and given the cloak of humility and, in contrast, some leave the mountain to attack and are devastated.
This stuff is life or death, health or sickness, victory or defeat for any that have got involved in 'binding' Satan or Princes of the air.
And, of course, Leanne Payne, she has been on this and written about it in two books: See Restoring the Christian Soul: Overcoming Barriers to Completion in Christ through Healing Prayer on wrong ways of doing spiritual battle, especially chapter 14 and and Listening Prayer: Learning to Hear God's Voice and Keep a Prayer Journal, chapter 4 on Intercession, and chapters 14 and 15 on the related problem of neo-gnostic ways of prayer.
Big mistake. Big strategic error. Do not continue with this stuff. Read John Paul and the others and heed.
I have several articles on Listening-prayer.com about this: