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Some years back, I thought that the New Apostolic Reformation led by C. Peter Wagner would remain a fringe cult. I was wrong. So very wrong.
Listen to a ten minute video of Brannon Howse. I agree with everything he says. The link is below. It is titled:
GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, RICK PERRY BASES CALL FOR NATIONAL PRAYER ON JOEL’S ARMY CULT?
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-tube/video.php?videoid=4450
Then read:
On September 28, 2009, at 1:40 p.m., God’s messengers visited Rick Perry.
source HERE
On this day, the Lord’s messengers arrived in the form of two Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Perry in the governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long both oversee small congregations, but they are more than just pastors. They consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the same gifts as Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles.
The pastors told Perry of God’s grand plan for Texas. A chain of powerful prophecies had proclaimed that Texas was “The Prophet State,” anointed by God to lead the United States into revival and Godly government. And the governor would have a special role.
The day before the meeting, Schlueter had received a prophetic message from Chuck Pierce, an influential prophet from Denton, Texas. God had apparently commanded Schlueter—through Pierce—to “pray by lifting the hand of the one I show you that is in the place of civil rule.”
Gov. Perry, it seemed.
Schlueter had prayed before his congregation: “Lord Jesus I bring to you today Gov. Perry. … I am just bringing you his hand and I pray Lord that he will grasp ahold of it. For if he does you will use him mightily.”
And grasp ahold the governor did. At the end of their meeting, Perry asked the two pastors to pray over him. As the pastors would later recount, the Lord spoke prophetically as Schlueter laid his hands on Perry, their heads bowed before a painting of the Battle of the Alamo. Schlueter “declared over [Perry] that there was a leadership role beyond Texas and that Texas had a role beyond what people understand,” Long later told his congregation.
So you have to wonder: Is Rick Perry God’s man for president?
Schlueter, Long and other prayer warriors in a little-known but increasingly influential movement at the periphery of American Christianity seem to think so. The movement is called the New Apostolic Reformation. Believers fashion themselves modern-day prophets and apostles. They have taken Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on ecstatic worship and the supernatural, and given it an adrenaline shot.
The movement’s top prophets and apostles believe they have a direct line to God. Through them, they say, He communicates specific instructions and warnings. When mankind fails to heed the prophecies, the results can be catastrophic: earthquakes in Japan, terrorist attacks in New York, and economic collapse. On the other hand, they believe their God-given decrees have ended mad cow disease in Germany and produced rain in drought-stricken Texas.
Their beliefs can tend toward the bizarre. Some consider Freemasonry a “demonic stronghold” tantamount to witchcraft. The Democratic Party, one prominent member believes, is controlled by Jezebel and three lesser demons. Some prophets even claim to have seen demons at public meetings. They’ve taken biblical literalism to an extreme. In Texas, they engage in elaborate ceremonies involving branding irons, plumb lines and stakes inscribed with biblical passages driven into the earth of every Texas county.
If they simply professed unusual beliefs, movement leaders wouldn’t be remarkable. But what makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government. The new prophets and apostles believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take “dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an “army of God” to commandeer civilian government.
In Rick Perry, they may have found their vessel. And the interest appears to be mutual.
In all the media attention surrounding Perry’s flirtation with a run for the presidency, the governor’s budding relationship with the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation movement has largely escaped notice. But perhaps not for long. Perry has given self-proclaimed prophets and apostles leading roles in The Response, a much-publicized Christians-only prayer rally that Perry is organizing at Houston’s Reliant Stadium on Aug. 6.
The Response has engendered widespread criticism of its deliberate blurring of church and state and for the involvement of the American Family Association, labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its leadership’s homophobic and anti-Muslim statements. But it’s the involvement of New Apostolic leaders that’s more telling about Perry’s convictions and campaign strategy.
Eight members of The Response “leadership team” are affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation movement. They’re employed or associated with groups like TheCall or the International House of Prayer (IHOP), Kansas City-based organizations at the forefront of the movement. The long list of The Response’s official endorsers—posted on the event’s website—reads like a Who’s Who of the apostolic-prophetic crowd, including movement founder C. Peter Wagner.
In a recent interview with the Observer, Schlueter explained that The Response is divinely inspired. “The government of our nation was basically founded on biblical principles,” he says. “When you have a governmental leader call a time of fasting and prayer, I believe that there has been a significant shift in our understanding as far as who is ultimately in charge of our nation—which we believe God is.”
Perry certainly knows how to speak the language of the new apostles. The genesis of The Response, Perry says, comes from the Book of Joel, an obscure slice of the Old Testament that’s popular with the apostolic crowd.
“With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God’s help,” Perry says in a video message on The Response website. “That’s why I’m calling on Americans to pray and fast like Jesus did and as God called the Israelites to do in the Book of Joel.”
The reference to Joel likely wasn’t lost on Perry’s target audience. Prominent movement leaders strike the same note. Lou Engle, who runs TheCall, told a Dallas-area Assemblies of God congregation in April that “His answer in times of crisis is Joel 2.”
Mike Bickle, a jock-turned-pastor who runs the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, a sort of command headquarters and university for young End Times enthusiasts, taught a 12-part series on Joel last year.
The Book of Joel describes a crippling drought and economic crisis—sound familiar?—in the land of Judah. The calamities, in Joel’s time and ours, are “sent by God to cause a wicked, oppressive, and rebellious nation to repent,” Bickle told his students.
To secure God’s blessing, Joel commands the people to gather in “sacred assembly” to pray, fast, and repent.
More ominously, Bickle teaches that Joel is an “instruction manual” for the imminent End Times. It is “essential to help equip people to be prepared for the unique dynamics occurring in the years leading up to Jesus’ return,” he has said.
The views espoused by Bickle, Engle and other movement leaders occupy the radical fringe of Christian fundamentalism. Their beliefs may seem bizarre even to many conservative evangelicals. Yet Perry has a knack for finding the forefront of conservative grassroots. Prayer warriors, apostles and prophets are filled with righteous energy and an increasing appetite for power in the secular political world. Their zeal and affiliation with charismatic independent churches, the fastest-growing subset of American Christianity, offers obvious benefits for Perry if he runs for president.
There are enormous political risks, too. Mainstream voters may be put off by the movement’s extreme views or discomfited by talk of self-proclaimed prophets “infiltrating” government.
Catherine Frazier, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, wouldn’t respond to specific questions but wrote in an email, “The Response event is about coming together in prayer to seek wisdom and guidance from God to the challenges that confront our nation. That is where the governor’s focus is, and he welcomes those that wish to join him in this common cause.”
For the moment, Perry’s relationship with the New Apostles is little known. Few in Texas GOP circles say they’ve ever heard of them. “I wish I could help you,” said Steve Munisteri, the state Republican Party chair. “I’ve never even heard of that movement.”
“For the most part I don’t know them,” said Cathie Adams, former head of the Texas Eagle Forum and a veteran conservative activist.
Nonetheless, Perry may be counting on apostles and prophets to help propel him to the White House. And they hope Perry will lead them out of the wilderness into the promised land.
Listen closely to Perry’s recent public statements and you’ll occasionally hear him uttering New Apostle code words. In June, Perry defended himself against Texas critics on Fox News, telling host Neil Cavuto that “a prophet is generally not loved in their hometown.”
It seemed an odd comment. It’s the rare politician who compares himself to a prophet, and many viewers likely passed it off as a flub. But to the members of a radical new Christian movement, the remark made perfect sense.
The phrase “New Apostolic Reformation” comes from the movement’s intellectual godfather, C. Peter Wagner, who has called it, a bit vaingloriously, “the most radical change in the way of doing Christianity since the Protestant Reformation.”
Boasting aside, Wagner is an important figure in evangelical circles. He helped formulate the “church growth” model, a blueprint for worship that helped spawn modern mega-churches and international missions. In the 1990s, he turned away from the humdrum business of “harvesting souls” in mega-churches and embarked on a more revolutionary project.
He began promoting the notion that God is raising up modern-day prophets and apostles vested with extraordinary authority to bring about social transformation and usher in the Kingdom of God.
In 2006, Wagner published Apostles Today: Biblical Government for Biblical Power, in which he declared a “Second Apostolic Age.” The first age had occurred after Jesus’ biblical resurrection, when his apostles traveled Christendom spreading the gospel. Commissioned by Jesus himself, the 12 apostles acted as His agents. The second apostolic age, Wagner announced, began “around the year 2001.”
“Apostles,” he wrote, “are the generals in the army of God.”
One of the primary tasks of the new prophets and apostles is to hear God’s will and then act on it. Sometimes this means changing the world supernaturally. Wagner tells of the time in October 2001 when, at a huge prayer conference in Germany, he “decreed that mad cow disease would come to an end in Europe and the UK.” As it turned out, the last reported case of human mad cow disease had occurred the day before. “I am not implying that I have any inherent supernatural power,” Wagner wrote. “I am implying that when apostles hear the word of God clearly and when they decree His will, history can change.”
Claims of such powers are rife among Wagner’s followers. Cindy Jacobs—a self-described “respected prophet” and Wagner protégée who runs a Dallas-area group called Generals International—claims to have predicted the recent earthquakes in Japan. “God had warned us that shaking was coming,” she wrote in Charisma magazine, an organ for the movement. “This doesn’t mean that it was His desire for it to happen, but more of the biblical fulfillment that He doesn’t do anything without first warning through His servants.”
There is, of course, a corollary to these predictive abilities: Horrible things happen when advice goes unheeded.
Last year Jacobs warned that if America didn’t return to biblical values and support Israel, God would cause a “tumbling of the economy and dark days will come,” according to Charisma. To drive the point home, Jacobs and other right-wing allies—including The Response organizers Lou Engle and California pastor Jim Garlow—organized a 40-day “Pray and Act” effort in the lead-up to the 2010 elections.
Unlike other radical religious groups, the New Apostles believe political activism is part of their divine mission. “Whereas their spiritual forefathers in the Pentecostal movement would have eschewed involvement in politics, the New Apostles believe they have a divine mandate to rescue a decaying American society,” said Margaret Poloma, a practicing Pentecostal and professor of sociology at the University of Akron. “Their apostolic vision is to usher in the Kingdom of God.”
“Where does God stop and they begin?” she asks. “I don’t think they know the difference.”
Poloma is one of the few academics who has closely studied the apostolic movement. It’s largely escaped notice, in part, because it lacks the traditional structures of either politics or religion, says Rachel Tabachnick, a researcher who has covered the movement extensively for Talk2Action.org, a left-leaning site that covers the religious right.
“It’s fairly recent and it just doesn’t fit into people’s pre-conceived notions,” she says. “They can’t get their head around something that isn’t denominational.”
The movement operates through a loose but interlocking array of churches, ministries, councils and seminaries—many of them in Texas. But mostly it holds together through the friendships and alliances of its prophets and apostles.
The Response itself seems patterned on TheCall, day-long worship and prayer rallies usually laced with anti-gay and anti-abortion messages. TheCall—also the name of a Kansas City-based organization—is led by Lou Engle, an apostle who looks a bit like Mr. Magoo and has the unnerving habit of rocking back and forth while shouting at his audience in a raspy voice. (Engle is also closely associated with the International House of Prayer—, Mike Bickle’s 24/7 prayer center in Kansas City.) Engle frequently mobilizes his followers in the service of earthly causes, holding raucous prayer events in California to help pass Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, and making an appearance in Uganda last year to lend aid to those trying to pass a law that would have imposed the death penalty on homosexuals. But Engle’s larger aim is Christian control of government.
“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God,” he has said. “We are called into the very image of the Trinity himself, that we are to be His friends and partners for world dominion.”
“It sounds so fringe but yet it’s not fringe,” Tabachnick says. “They’ve been working with Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, and now Rick Perry. … They are becoming much more politically noticeable.”
Some of the fiercest critics of the New Apostolic Reformation come from within the Pentecostal and charismatic world. The Assemblies of God Church, the largest organized Pentecostal denomination, specifically repudiated self-proclaimed prophets and apostles in 2000, calling their creed a “deviant teaching” that could rapidly “become dictatorial, presumptuous, and carnal.”
Assemblies authorities also rejected the notion that the church is supposed to assume dominion over earthly institutions, labeling it “unscriptural triumphalism.”
The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms. They refer to the “Seven Mountains” of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.
Asked about the meaning of the Seven Mountains, Schlueter says, “God’s kingdom just can’t be expressed on Sunday morning for two hours. God’s kingdom has to be expressed in media and government and education. It’s not like our goal is to have a Bible on every child’s desk. That’s not the goal. The goal is to hopefully have everyone acknowledge that God’s in charge of us regardless.”
But climbing those mountains sounds a little more specific on Sunday mornings. Schlueter has bragged to his congregation of meetings with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, state Sen. Brian Birdwell, and the Arlington City Council. He recently told a church in Victoria that state Rep. Phil King, a conservative Republican from Weatherford, had allowed him to use King’s office at the Capitol to make calls and organize.
“We’re going to influence it,” Schlueter told his congregation. “We’re going to infiltrate it, not run from it. I know why God’s doing what he’s doing … He’s just simply saying, ‘Tom I’ve given you authority in a governmental authority, and I need you to infiltrate the governmental mountain. Just do it, it’s no big deal.’ I was talking with [a member of the congregation] the other day. She’s going to start infiltrating. A very simple process. She’s going to join the Republican Party, start going to all their meetings. Some [members] are already doing that.”
Doug Stringer, a relatively low-profile apostle, is one of the movement’s more complex figures—and one of the few people associated with The Response who returned my calls. His assignment for The Response: mobilizing the faithful from around the nation. Though he’s friendly with the governor and spoke at the state GOP convention, Stringer says he’s a political independent, “morally conservative” but with a “heart for social justice.”
Stringer runs Somebody Cares America, a nonprofit combining evangelism with charitable assistance to the indigent and victims of natural disasters. In 2009, Perry recognized Stringer in his State of the State address for his role in providing aid to Texans devastated by Hurricane Ike.
Stringer’s message is that The Response will be apolitical, non-partisan, even ecumenical. The goal, he says, is to “pray for personal repentance and corporate repentance on behalf of the church, not against anybody else.”
I ask him about his involvement with the Texas Apostolic Prayer Network, which is overseen by Schlueter. Six of the nine people listed as network “advisors” are involved in The Response, including Stringer, Cindy Jacobs and Waco pastor Ramiro Peña. The Texas group is part of a larger 50-state network of prophets, apostles and prayer intercessors called the Heartland Apostolic Network, which itself overlaps with the Reformation Prayer Network run by Jacobs. The Texas Apostolic Prayer Network is further subdivided into sixteen regions, each with its own director.
Some of these groups’ beliefs and activities will be startling, even to many conservative evangelicals. For example, in 2010 Texas prayer warriors visited every Masonic lodge in the state attempting to cast out the demon Baal, whom they believe controls Freemasonry. At each site, the warriors read a decree—written in legalese—divorcing Baal from the “People of God” and recited a lengthy prayer referring to Freemasonry as “witchcraft.”
Asked whether he shares these views, Stringer launches into a long treatise about secrecy during which he manages to lump together Mormonism, Freemasonry and college fraternities.
“I think there has been a lot of damage and polarization over decades because of the influence of some areas of Freemasonry that have been corrupted,” he says. “In fact, if you look at the original founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, he had a huge influence by Masonry. Bottom-line, anything that is so secretive that has to be hidden in darkness … is not biblical. The Bible says that everything needs to be brought to the light. That’s why I would never be part of a fraternity, like on campus.”
Why would Perry throw in with this crowd?
One possible answer is that he’s an opportunistic politician running for president who’s trying to get right, if not with Jesus, with a particular slice of the GOP base.
Perry himself may have the gift of foresight. He seems preternaturally capable of spotting The Next Big Thing and positioning himself as an authentic leader of grassroots movements before they overtake other politicians. Think of the prescient way he hitched his political future to the Tea Party. In 2009 Perry spoke at a Tax Day protest and infamously flirted with Texas secession. At the time it seemed crazy. In retrospect it seems brilliant.
Now, he’s made common cause with increasingly influential fundamentalists from the bleeding fringe of American Christianity at a time when the political influence of mainstream evangelicals seems to be fading.
For decades evangelicals have been key to Republican presidential victories, but much has changed since George W. Bush named Jesus as his favorite philosopher at an Iowa debate during the 2000 presidential campaign. There is much turbulence among evangelicals. There’s no undisputed leader, a Jerry Falwell or a Pat Robertson, to bring the “tribes”—to use Stringer’s phrase—together. So you go where the momentum is. There is palpable excitement in the prayer movement and among the New Apostles that the nation is on the cusp of a major spiritual and political revival.
“On an exciting note, we are in the beginning stages of the Third Great Awakening,” Jacobs told Trinity Church in Cedar Hill earlier this year. (Trinity’s pastor, Jim Hennesy, is also an apostle and endorser of The Response. Trinity is probably best known for its annual Halloween “Hell House” that tries to scare teens into accepting Jesus.) “We are seeing revivals pop up all over the United States. … Fires are breaking out all over the place. And we are going to see great things happening.”
Moreover, various media outlets have documented a possible coalescing of religious-right leaders around Perry’s candidacy. Time magazine reported on a June conference call among major evangelical leaders, including religious historian David Barton and San Antonio pastor John Hagee, in which they “agreed that Rick Perry would be their preferred candidate if he entered the race,” according to the magazine.
Journalist Tabachnick says politicians are attracted to the apostolic movement because of the valuable organizational structure and databases the leadership has built.
“I believe it’s because they’ve built such a tremendous communication network,” she says, pointing to the 50-state prayer networks plugged into churches and ministries. “They found ways to work that didn’t involve the institutional structures that many denominations have. They don’t have big offices, headquarters. They work more like a political campaign.”
But if the apostles present a broad organizing opportunity, the political risks for Perry are equally large.
In 2008 GOP nominee John McCain was forced to reject Hagee’s endorsement after media scrutiny of the pastor’s anti-Catholic comments. Similarly, Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign nearly fell apart when voters saw video of controversial sermons by the candidate’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. If anything, Perry is venturing even further into the spiritual wilderness. The faith of the New Apostles will be unfamiliar, strange, and scary to many Americans.
Consider Alice Patterson. She’s in charge of mobilizing churches in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma for The Response. A field director for the Texas Christian Coalition in the 1990s, she’s now a significant figure in apostolic circles and runs a San Antonio-based organization called Justice at the Gate.
Patterson, citing teachings by Cindy Jacobs, Chuck Pierce and Lou Engle, has written that the Democratic Party is controlled by “an invisible network of evil comprising an unholy structure” unleashed by the biblical figure Jezebel.
Patterson claims to have seen demons with her own eyes. In 2009, at a prophetic meeting in Houston, Patterson says she saw the figure of Jezebel and “saw Jezebel’s skirt lifted to expose tiny Baal, Asherah, and a few other spirits. There they were—small, cowering, trembling little spirits that were only ankle high on Jezebel’s skinny legs.”
Those revelations are contained in Patterson’s 2010 book Bridging the Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation. Patterson’s aim, as she makes clear in her book, is getting black and brown evangelicals to vote Republican and support conservative causes. A major emphasis among the New Apostles is racial reconciliation and recruitment of minorities and women. The apostolic prayer networks often perform elaborate ceremonies in which participants dress up in historical garb and repent for racial sins.
The formula—overcoming racism to achieve multiracial fundamentalism—has caught on in the apostolic movement. Some term the approach the “Rainbow Right,” and in fact The Response has a high quotient of African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans in leadership positions.
Lou Engle, for example, is making a big push to recruit black activists into the anti-abortion ranks. “We’re looking for the new breed of black prophets to arise and forgive us our baggage,” he said at Trinity Assemblies of God, “and then lead us out of victimization and into the healing of a nation, to stop the shedding of innocent blood.”
Rick Perry is a white southern conservative male who may end up running against a black president. It doesn’t take a prophet to see that he could use friends like these.
There’s one other possible reason for Perry’s flirtation with the apostles, and it has nothing to do with politics. He could be a true believer.
Perry has never been shy about proclaiming his faith. He was raised a Methodist and still occasionally attends Austin’s genteel Tarrytown United Methodist Church. But according to an October 2010 story in the Austin American-Statesman, he now spends more Sundays at West Austin’s Lake Hills Church, a non-denominational evangelical church that features a rock band and pop-culture references. The more effusive approach to religion clearly appealed to Perry. “They dunk,” Perry told the American-Statesman. “Methodists sprinkle.”
Still, attending an evangelical church is a long way from believing in modern-day apostles and demons in plain sight. Could Perry actually buy into this stuff?
He’s certainly convinced the movement’s leaders. “He’s a very deep man of faith and I know that sometimes causes problems for people because they think he’s making decisions based on his faith,” Schlueter says. He pauses a beat. “Well, I hope so.”
But the danger of associating with extremists is apparent even to Schlueter, the man who took God’s message to Perry in September 2009. “It could be political suicide to do what he’s doing,” Schlueter says. “Man, this is the last thing he’d want to do if it were concerning a presidential bid. It could be very risky.”
There is a local health institute that has done excellent work for the community here in the state of Washington. For that I commend them.
This is from from an article dated August 20, 2009.
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/pat/news/53850762.html
CAPRI’s 12-week cardiac rehabilitation program helps people recover from heart attacks, angina, heart surgery including bypasses and valves, angioplasty and stent insertions, and heart/lung transplants. CAPRI also offers an eight- to 10-week pulmonary rehabilitation program that helps people manage pulmonary conditions such as COPD, emphysema, asthma and pulmonary fibrosis.
Once rehabilitation is done, many clients move on to the cardiac and pulmonary maintenance program to continue improving their health.
Their website says that this is their mission or vision.
CAPRI’s Pulmonary Programs
Our Vision
“STRIVING TO ACHIEVE OPTIMAL HEART AND LUNG HEALTH IN OUR COMMUNITY”
But it seems that some serious issues have arisen.
The director has taken it upon himself to further enlighten the participants of this program. I was given one of the handouts circulated at a June 23, 2011 meeting. It is titled, “Healthy Thinking & Positive Self-Talk.”
There are many great suggestions on the front and back of page one regarding healthy thinking in relation to stress, healthy diet, exercise, etc. The areas I disagree with here are the recommendations of meditation 15 minutes a day and hypnosis to “reprogram your attitudes, beliefs and thoughts”, as “methods of reprogramming the subconscious.”
Page two further develops how such things may be accomplished. It is titled “Notes on Thoughts, Belief and Destiny.” My first reaction was to ask, ” Why is an exercise program delving into spiritual issues? As a Christian I can tell you that my discernment alarms clanged loudly at the following list of quotes.
“There is one secret, and that is the power we have in forming our own destinies.” Dolley Madison 1833
This goes against biblical thinking. There is no secret. God’s plan is laid out openly in the Holy Bible. Consider these verses in Isaiah 45:19, “I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth…I, the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right”, and 48:16. “Come near to me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning.” In Luke 8:17 we read, “For nothing is hidden that shall not become evident, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.”
The buzz from the book The Secret teaches otherwise. In his review of The Secret, Donald Whitney says, “It is not exaggeration to say that this book implicitly ( and sometimes explicitly) denies virtually every major doctrine in the Bible.” [1]
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill, 1937, Think and Grow Rich
Here again we have positive thinking on steroids. False teacher Robert Schuller based his ministry on these concepts and now faces bankruptcy for his ice palace of a church. All the visualizations of money rolling in from the visualized fat wallets of the congregation seems to have fizzled out.
What is behind the man, Napoleon Hill and how was his philosophy created. The answer may surprise you. This is from Mike Oppenheimer of Let us Reason Ministries.
Napoleon Hill wrote about imagery and visualization in his book, Think and Grow Rich. He writes, “The THIRTEENTH principle is known as the sixth sense, through which Infinite Intelligence may and will communicate voluntarily, without any effort from, or demands by, the individual…. Step by step, through the preceding chapters, you have been led to this, the last principle. If you have mastered each of the preceding principles, you are now prepared to accept, without being skeptical, the stupendous claims made here….”Just before going to sleep at night. I would shut my eyes, and see, in my imagination, this group of men seated with me around my council table…. After some months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by the discovery that these imaginary figures became apparently real.” “Each of these nine men developed individual characteristics, which surprised me…. “These meetings became so realistic that I became fearful of their consequences, and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny, I was afraid if I continued them I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences ofmy imagination. …. Whatever you believe that the adviser is a spirit, a guardian angel, a messenger from God, a hallucination, a communication from your right brain to your left, or a symbolic representation of inner wisdom is all right. The fact is, no one knows what it is with any certainty. We can each decide for ourselves….
Sometimes people will encounter religious figures like Jesus, Moses, or Buddha, while others will find an angel, fairy, or leprechaun. People sometimes encounter the adviser as a light or a translucent spirit…. The best way to work with this and any other imagery experience is just to let the figures be whatever they are. Welcome the adviser that comes and get to know it as it is.
Also from Dave Hunt
Though he clung to the idea that it was all imagination, from what Hill wrote it is clear that visualization had opened the door to the world of the occult:
Ah…so Napoleon Hill had spirit guides. The bible is clear on divination, we are not to contact spirits from the other side, because we will indeed be deceived by them.
There are other quotes from James Allen, As A Man Thinketh, and Florence Scovel Shinn. Mixed in we have some scripture about prayer. The Bible verses just don’t fit in the New Age mix, and of course this is intentional for the new thinking involves finding your own truth. The thinking is that you can pick and choose whatever you happen to like at the moment and create your own religion and your very own God..which of course is…youself, because some entity has made you feel divine.
New Age ideas and thought do not mix with Bible teachings because they are completely opposed to each other.
In the new age, truth is found within, but the Bible teaches that we are not to trust our hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 says that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it.” Yet James Allen tells us to seek Ancient Wisdom and that the master is the inner voice which is self. Shinn instructs that the Bible is “a book dealing with science of the mind…telling man how to release his soul from bondage.” This person could not be more wrong about the Bible.
Jesus Christ came to release o free us from our SIN. This is bondage we face daily. The way to everlasting life is to put your faith in Jesus as Savior, who died on the cross, taking our sin upon His sinless self. He rose again from the dead, showing us His power and glory, as the Son of the true and living God.
John Ankerberg wrote this in his book, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs. It was difficult to find a summary passage in this large book. This section tells how children are being indoctrinated at an early age into hypnosis, guided imagery, visualization, and meditation.
In November of 1988 we received a letter from a couple involved in researching a program used in elementary schools in Florida and other states. This program used tapes called “Quieting Reflex and Success Imagery.” A mother had told this couple that her little girl had contacted an inner guide through the hypnotic techniques used in this program. The daughter, commented, “My wise person told me not to pray in the name of Jesus anymore.” Furthermore this wise person was not the guide that the little girl has chosen for herself but rather someone that had appeared unexpectedly and spontaneously in her consciousness. It claimed that it resided in the corner of a “safe place” in her mind. But it proceeded to command her to do mean and nasty things. The mother was distraught and had no idea what to do. [2]
The guidance counselor comes into the second grade class and the regular teacher leaves….The counselor turns off the lights and begins to play the audio tape. The counselor is there to enhance the children’s self-esteem…after the meditation and relaxation exercises they are instructed to picture a rabbit as a friend in the secret place. And they are told that there is a secret and that it is believing in yourself and your self-power. With it you can do anything like magic. Answers to many things come up from a bubbling spring after watching for a white light. The answers come from the deep springs. Sometimes you will hear the words in answer to your question and sometimes you will feel it.
What you have read above is a brief induction method for meditation and hypnosis. In fact, meditation, hypnosis, progressive relaxation and guided imagery or visualization have more commonalities than many people realize.
However these techniques are also taught by the spirit world as a means to become channelers, i.e., one who is possessed by spirits in order to allow the spirits to channel information out of them…..What these spirits encourage is no different than what New Age educators are now teaching children. [2]
Apparently these techniques and beliefs are also being taught in pulmonary programs. I was told by the director at Capri:
Our educational session on healthy thinking and positive self-talk draws upon the teachings contained in several highly-respected books including the Bible. Some of the material is science-based, some of it is belief-based from a variety of beliefs, and some of it is opinion. CAPRI does not subscribe to a particular religious belief, nor do we promote any particular religious beliefs. We provide material from a wide variety of sources because people approach these matters from a wide variety of beliefs and perspectives. As part of our cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs, we encourage people to adopt a positive mental attitude. We trust that they will do that in a manner that is consistent with their core values and religious beliefs. We are not trying to change anyone’s religious beliefs, nor are we trying to conform to any particular religious beliefs.
Thing is….new age teachings are incompatible with Christianity and do not belong on the same page and cannot be lumped together. Jesus said He is the only way to the Father. In John 14:6 it says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This totally goes against what James Allen taught who said the master is the inward voice. You can’t have it both ways. Is this narrow and intolerant?. Yes it is but this is what the Bible teaches.
Using techniques meant to relax the body actually can open one up for demonic deception. New agers always look for the light, but God gives a warning.
2 Corinthians 11:14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
As eastern spirituality grows leaps and bounds, those who cling to biblical faith will be ridiculed and mocked. You will be called intolerant and hateful for your faith. But take heart, beloved, Jesus said, in John 15:21, “They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” Pray for those who persecute you.
So stay in the Word of God. When you hear such things as the law of attraction, or that the universe will fulfill your desires if only you ask, you can compare such teachings against the Word of God and immediately recognize it as a false teaching.
Believer, ask that the power of the Holy Spirit will teach and guide you into all truth and that God’s written Word is absolute truth for all times.
1. Donald S. Whitney, “A Review of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
2. John Ankerberg, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, pgs. 412-413
This video was interesting to watch after a study of two parables in Matthew 13. The parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl. Two men find treasure. One it seems is just in a field and discovers the treasure. The second man is a merchant truly looking for the treasure. The treasure is of course the Gospel.
I thought of the man in the first parable when Kirk Cameron was saying that he wasn’t seeking God at the time. The second man in the parable finds the treasure after seeking and searching for it.
Boice says on the subject of the two men:
“They had never really seen it before. They were not seeking it. (The Gospel). But there it was; and at once, with that insight granted by God’s internal work of regeneration, they saw that this was a prize of far greater value than anything that had ever come into their lives previously. They saw themselves as sinners in need of a Savior.”
God may present truth to you in an unexpected manner. Perhaps after seeking God in all the wrong places, suddenly your search is rewarded. Lay aside all worthless aspects of your life. What both men did after their discovery were the same. They knew the value, and were determined to keep it. They sold everything they had to acquire the treasure.
“In the exchange described by these parables the men who made the purchase received a bagain. They make the deal of their lives, their fortune. From now on they will be the happiest of men. So it will be for you. You are not called to poverty in Christ but to the greatest of spiritual wealth…How could it be otherwise when the treasure is the only Son of God? How can the outcome be bad when it means salvation?” *
*James Boice “The Parables of Jesus”
“Now my friend, that old moth-eaten righteousness of yours that you are so proud of you must sell off and get rid of it, for no man can be saved by righteousness of Christ while he puts any trust in his own. Sell it all off, every rag of it.” **
**Spurgeon, “The Great Bargain”
TAKEN FROM A CIRCULATING EMAIL
At a Tennessee Football Game
Christianity is now the target of persecution…
This is a statement that was read over the PA system at the football game at Roane County High School, Kingston, Tennessee by school Principal, Jody McLeod
“It has always been the custom at Roane County High School football games, to say a prayer and play the National Anthem, to honor God and Country.”
Due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, I am told that saying a Prayer is a violation of Federal Case Law. As I understand the law at this time, I can use this public facility to approve of sexual perversion and call it “an alternate life style,” and if someone is offended, that’s OK.
I can use it to condone sexual promiscuity, by dispensing condoms and calling it, “safe sex.” If someone is offended, that’s OK.
I can even use this public facility to present the merits of killing an unborn baby as a “viable! means of birth control.” If someone is offended, no problem…
I can designate a school day as “Earth Day” and involve students in activities to worship religiously and praise the goddess “Mother Earth” and call it “ecology..”
I can use literature, videos and presentations in the classroom that depicts people with strong, traditional Christian convictions as “simple minded” and “ignorant” and call it “enlightenment..”
However, if anyone uses this facility to honor GOD and to ask HIM to Bless this event with safety and good sportsmanship, then Federal Case Law is violated.
This appears to be inconsistent at best, and at worst, diabolical.
Apparently, we are to be tolerant of everything and anyone, except GOD and HIS Commandments.
Nevertheless , as a school principal, I frequently ask staff and students to abide by rules with which they do not necessarily agree. For me to do otherwise would be inconsistent at best, and at worst, hypocritical. I suffer from that affliction enough unintentionally. I certainly do not need to add an intentional transgression.
For this reason, I shall “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” and refrain from praying at this time.
“However, if you feel inspired to honor, praise and thank GOD and ask HIM,in the name of JESUS, to Bless this event, please feel free to do so
.. As far as I know, that’s not against the law—-yet.”
One by one, the people in the stands bowed their heads, held hands with one another and began to pray.
They prayed in the stands. They prayed in the team huddles. They prayed at the concession stand and they prayed in the Announcer’s Box!
The only place they didn’t pray was in the Supreme Court of the United States of America- the Seat of “Justice” in the “one nation, under GOD.”
Somehow, Kingston , Tennessee Remembered what so many have forgotten. We are given the Freedom OF Religion, not the Freedom FROM Religion. Praise GOD that HIS remnant remains!
JESUS said, “If you are ashamed of ME before men, then I will be ashamed of you before MY FATHER..”
Paul Washer
BOOMERS FEAR FUTURE (Friday Church News Notes, May 27, 2011, www.wayoflife.org
By David Cloud
A sad and telling report in USA Today is entitled “Baby Boomers fear outliving retirement savings” (May 24, 2011).
“Because of the stock market crash, real estate downturn and recession, many Boomers are now terrified that they will outlive their retirement savings. One woman, age 60, who was interviewed by Financial Engines, said that she ‘might be forced to become a bag lady.’”
This is the product of turning away from God and living for vain idols and investing totally in this world while neglecting the next.
The Shack god doesn’t take care of anyone, because he doesn’t exist, but the true and living Creator God revealed in Scripture is there for His people in good times and hard.
My maternal grandmother lived through the Great Depression, and God always provided their needs. One of her favorite verses was, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Psalms 37:25).
Finance is a reality of this present life, and the economy has a real effect on our lives, but God’s people can trust Him with the future. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
Back in the 70’s I was fully immersed in the self-help decade. I had drifted from the Lord and was seeking to improve my sin-riddled life. (without repentance) I read Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”, and “I’M OK–YOU”RE OK” by Thomas Harris. I relied on “strokes” for my mental well-being…but my life spiraled downward into an extremely destructive path.
The teaching of Jesus is so radically different than the teachings of the world or of philosophers.
‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he’s the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.'”
Please read ” The Starting Principle of Discipleship” by John MacArthur.
Here are a few excerpts.
“This is pure gold, biblical gold. Maybe better, this is a diamond of truth, clear and brilliant. The subject is following Jesus, verse 23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me.” This is a text about how to come after Jesus, how to follow Jesus, how to become a Christian, how to be saved, how to be redeemed and born again. That’s what it’s about, it is critical teaching.”
“So, in the new gospel if you want to be saved, you cannot believe yourself to be an unworthy sinner. How twisted is that? How contrary to the truth is that? But it is that man-centered, self-esteemed gospel that was picked up by the number one disciple of Robert Schuller, Bill Hibles[?] and translated into the seeker-friendly movement which has hijacked evangelicalism. It’s a kind of quasi-Christian narcissism, self-love which is characteristic of false teachers, according to 2 Timothy 3, where it says, “Dangerous seasons will come, for men will be lovers of self.” And Christianity has become a “get what you want,” rather than a “give” movement. The divine intention for the gospel has been prostituted. The glory of God has been replaced by the satisfaction of man. Abandoning your life to the honor of Christ has been replaced by Christ honoring you. It’s all twisted and the real gospel is no longer in vogue.”
“So you want to come after Jesus, do you? So you want to follow Jesus, do you? It will just cost you absolutely everything. Oh the Lord might not take your life, He might not take all your money, He might not take your family or your spouse, He might not take your job, but you need to be willing if that’s what He wants. You need to be desperate enough to embrace Christ no matter what the price.”
Full sermon HERE
A Voice in the Wilderness : Discernment : ROCK MUSICIANS AS MEDIUMS
By James Boyd
In the following statements, rock musicians testify of an outside power that has taken over them while writing and performing rock music. Some of them have actually identified this power as demonic:
JIMI HENDRIX’ girlfriend, Fayne Pridgon, said: “He used to always talk about some devil or something was in him, you know. He didn’t know what made him act the way he acted and what made him say the things he said, and the songs and different things like that – just came out of him. It seems to me he was so tormented and just torn apart and like he really was obsessed, you know, with something really evil” (sound track from film Jimi Hendrix, interview with Fayne Pridgon, side 4, cited by Heartbeat of the Dragon, p. 50).
“In the end you have to look at a song and not know exactly where it came from” (BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN, Dateline, Dec. 14, 1998).
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of LED ZEPPELIN both claim that they don’t know who wrote their occultic song Stairway to Heaven. Plant testified: “Pagey had written the chords and played them for me. I was holding the paper and pencil, and for some reason, I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out words. – I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leaped out of my seat” (Robert Plant, quoted by Stephen Davis, Hammer of the Gods, p. 164).
“I’ve always considered that there was some way where we were able to channel energy, and that energy was able to be, from another source, if you like, like a higher power or something, that was actually doing the work. I’ve often thought of us just being actually just the earthly beings that played the music because it was uncanny. Some of this music came out extremely uncanny” (Bill Ward of BLACK SABBATH, cited in Black Sabbath An Oral History, p. 7).
“It’s amazing, ’cause sometimes when we’re on stage, I feel like somebody’s just moving the pieces. … I’m just going, ‘God, we don’t have any control over this.’ And that’s magic” (Stevie Nicks of FLEETWOOD MAC, Circus, April 14, 1971).
ANGUS YOUNG, lead guitarist for AC-DC, is called the “guitar demon”; and he admitted that something takes control of the band during their concerts: “… it’s like I’m on automatic pilot. By the time we’re halfway through the first number someone else is steering me. I’m just along for the ride. I become possessed when I get on stage” (Hit Parader, July 1985, p. 60).
“We receive our songs by inspiration, like at a seance” (Keith Richards of the ROLLING STONES, Rolling Stone, May 5, 1977, p. 55).
“I was directed and commanded by another power. The power of darkness … that a lot of people don’t believe exists. The power of the Devil. Satan” (LITTLE RICHARD, cited by Charles White, The Life and Times of Little Richard, p. 206).
“You can’t describe it [playing rock music] except to say it’s like a mysterious energy that comes from the metaphysical plane and into my body. It’s almost like being a medium….” (Marc Storace, vocalist with heavy-metal band KROKUS, Circus, January 31, 1984, p. 70).
“They [The Beatles] were like mediums. They weren’t conscious of all they were saying, but it was coming through them” (YOKO ONO, The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Berkeley, 1982, p. 106.).
“[Of his music JOHN LENNON said] “It’s like being possessed: like a psychic or a medium” (The Playboy Interviews, p. 203).
“It’s amazing that it [the tune to ‘In My Life’] just came to me in a dream. That’s why I don’t profess to know anything. I think music is very mystical” (John Lennon, quoted in “The Beatles Come Together,” Reader’s Digest, March 2001).
“I felt like a hollow temple filled with many spirits, each one passing through me, each inhabiting me for a little time and then leaving to be replaced by another” (John Lennon, People, Aug. 22, 1988, p. 70).
“When the real music comes to me, it has nothing to do with me ’cause I’m just a channel. It’s given to me and I transcribe it” (John Lennon, quoted by Mickey Hart, Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music, p. 134).
“The music to ‘Yesterday’ came in a dream. The tune just came complete. You have to believe in magic. I can’t read or write music” (PAUL MCCARTNEY, interview on Larry King Live, CNN, June 12, 2001).
“I wake up from dreams and go ‘Wow, put this down on paper,’ the whole thing is strange. You hear the words, everything is right there in front of your face. I feel that somewhere, someplace it’s been done and I’m just a courier bringing it into the world” (MICHAEL JACKSON, Rolling Stone, Feb. 17, 1983).
“When I hit the stage it’s all of a sudden a ‘magic’ from somewhere that comes and the spirit just hits you, and you just lose control of yourself” (Michael Jackson, Teen Beat: A Tribute to Michael Jackson, Summer 1984, p. 27).
“A lot of the songs were written in 15-30 minutes, very stream-of-consciousness, as though it was being channeled through us” (Alanis Morissette, quoted from Hells Bells2 by Eric Holmberg).
“When the Siberian shaman gets ready to go into his trance, all the villagers get together… and play whatever instruments they have to send him off [into trance and possession]. – It was the same way with The Doors when we played in concert… I think that our drug experience let us get into it… [the trance state] quicker…. It was like Jim [Morrison] was an electric shaman and we were the electric shaman’s band, pounding away behind him. Sometimes he wouldn’t feel like getting into the state, but the band would keep on pounding and pounding, and little by little it would take him over. God, I could send an electric shock through him with the organ. John could do it with his drumbeats” (DOORS keyboardist Ray Manzarek, cited by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive, pp. 158-60).
“That certain feeling happened to me in a big way quite often with the first King Crimson. Amazing things would happen–I mean, telepathy, qualities of energy, things that I had never experienced before with music – you can’t tell whether the music is playing the musician or the musician is playing the music” (Robert Fripp, guitarist for KING CRIMSON, Down Beat, June 1985, p. 61).
“I believe inspiration comes through me and that I channel it” (Jim Kerr, SIMPLE MINDS, cited by Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 147).
John McLaughlin, leader of MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, testified: “One night we were playing and suddenly the spirit entered into me, and I was playing, but it was no longer me playing” (The Rock Report, p. 58).
Glen Tipton of JUDAS PRIEST says, “I just go crazy when I go onstage – it’s like someone else takes over my body” (Hit Parader, Fall 1984, p. 6).
In 1974, JONI MITCHELL told the press of a male spirit who helps her write music. “Joni Mitchell credits her creative powers to a ‘male muse’ she identifies as Art. He has taken so much control of not only her music, but her life, that she feels married to him, and often roams naked with him on her 40-acre estate. His hold over her is so strong that she will excuse herself from parties and forsake lovers whenever he ‘calls'” (Why Knock Rock? p. 112, citing Time magazine, Dec. 16, 1974, p. 39).
GINGER BAKER, drummer for the popular ’60s band CREAM, said: “It happens to us quite often–it feels as though I’m not playing my instrument, something else is playing it and that same thing is playing all three of our instruments. That’s what I mean when I say it’s frightening sometimes. Maybe we’ll all play the same phrase out of nowhere. It happens very often with us” (Bob Larson, Rock and the Church, p. 66).
JOE COCKER, who contorts grotesquely during his performances, claims that something “seizes” him when he songs rock & roll (Time magazine, cited by Bob Larson, Rock and the Church, p. 66).
“When I’m singing and in touch with the energy I’m generating, I sometimes literally have no awareness of where I am. The ego disappears, and me and my surroundings with it. – that’s the reason I’m in music–to achieve that feeling” (Daryl Oates of HALL AND OATES, interview with Timothy White, 1987, Rock Lives, p. 592).
The original recording of “I Put a Spell on You” was done after the SCREAMIN’ JAY HAWKINS and his band members got drunk and “some type of presence seemed to seize him.” He began “grunting, growling, screaming, gurgling in strange unknown tongues, and wildly dancing around the studio” (Heartbeat of the Dragon, p. 40).
“Rock has always been the devil’s music, you can’t convince me that it isn’t. I honestly believe everything I’ve said-I believe rock and roll is dangerous. – I feel that we’re only heralding something even darker than ourselves” (DAVID BOWIE, Rolling Stone, February 12, 1976, p. 83).
“[CARLOS] SANTANA keeps a yellow legal pad handy to record the music when it comes to him ‘just like a fax machine'” (Rolling Stone, March 16, 2000, p. 41).
“I really wish I knew why I’ve done some of the things I’ve done over the years. I don’t know if I’m a medium for some outside source. Whatever it is, frankly, I hope it’s not what I think it is-Satan” (OZZY OSBOURNE, Hit Parader, February 1978, p. 24).
I am reading and studying Psalm 119 and finding that I could spend an enormous amount of time in this chapter. I am being deeply moved by the desire of David for God to teach him, to cause him to understand His Word and to be given the ability to obey God’s decrees and laws “to the end.”
Also I am enjoying some of the major and well-known biblical pastors and teachers we see on the internet and in our bible-believing churches but still…..I hunger to simply read God’s Word and to let the Holy Spirit convict, instruct and teach me.
Thinking on these things this morning, I came across this article from Mkala’s Korner, and I wish to share it with you.
Starving in the Wilderness? Not at All.
Yesterday my husband and I met with a group of believers from various places via Skype to have a little study time, to pray and get to know each other. Most of us are out of the visible church, some left on our own, some were asked to leave. Imagine, being kicked out of the assembly of believers because you point out the truth to the leadership. It happens.
Will God leave us to starve in the wilderness? No. As crazy as it sounds, the opposite has proven to be true. In the effort and process to reveal the false doctrines of our time, and all that subject entails, the more I have grown in my own faith. It is in the times of study – the chasing after the truth as if it were gold has proven more precious and more valuable than any time I spent warming a pew. Don’t get me wrong. If the pastor you hear every week can present the truth of the gospel without allowing in the wiggly worms, stay there in the fellowship. I am not against church as a whole. I am against the thing it has become – yes “the thing” – a morphing into a shape and sound it was never intended.
So, let me encourage you. If you have come to that place and have found yourself out-churched, please understand that God has led you to this place to teach you who He truly is, and all that He has for you to become.
Link to full article.
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