MalcolmDow.com

In comments on previous posts Stuart Onans raised some concerns, saying people involved in prayer ministry are spiritists. I quote one of these comments in reply to my asking for his idea of what a spiritist is:

You must know the meaning spiritist: contacting demonic spirits.
The Holy spirit you contact is not the Holy Spirit of God. You have been fooled by unsound doctrine. 20th century methods who broke away to get more Holy Spirit and formed the pentecostal movement are a bunch of subjective Heretics. The tongues and prophecy in the early church were attributed to the apostles who planted those churches. The ordinary gifts stopped when the apostles died. However, the extraordinary gift of healing continued. This is Calvin and this is Biblical. I pray that God may destroy the Pentecostal movement within my lifetime.

Regards
Stuart

More recently Stuart sent me this email:

Hi Malcolm, 
 
I have a question. 
 
Are you a spiritist or a Christian?
Because the prayer activities you engage in at with prayer ministry groups 
is subjective and spiritist by nature. 

How about that! 

Cheers
Stuart

Hi Stuart,

 Thank you for your concern about our welfare, and the welfare of those you probably think we are leading astray. I appreciate you taking the time to correct what you see as our errors. The points you raise are certainly important ones, and we always wanting to learn more about how to live as true believers in an increasingly godless age.

 You write:

   >Are you a spiritist or a Christian?
  > Because the prayer activities you engage in at with prayer ministry groups
  > is subjective and spiritist by nature.

I will attempt to answer your question. I am indeed a Christian, as I understand the term; and in no way a spiritist, as I understand the term. However, because there are so many different views on just what constitutes a Christian today, and a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation, I don’t think this conveys very much. The word ‘Christian’ has become a debased label – it means whatever each user intends by it, and something else to each listener. Because of this I prefer to call myself a follower of Jesus, which is what I believe the early church also did before the Romans bestowed the label on them as a term of abuse. They proudly accepted and adopted this epithet, and I would do the same, except that in their case each knew what the other meant, which is no longer true today. You will need to tell me what you mean by ‘Christian’ if you desire a more useful answer.

 However, I will give you are short version of my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, come in the flesh, born of the virgin Mary. He renounced the privileges of Godhood and became a human, lived a life pleasing to Father God, in total obedience, and committed no sin. He worked wonders on earth, as a man filled with the Holy Spirit, who came upon him at his baptism by John. He was falsely accused of blasphemy when he truthfully declared who he really was, was tried without attempting to defend himself, and executed by the Roman authorites at the instigation of the Jewish leaders. However, they did not take his life – he willingly gave it for us, to pay the price for our sin. As the Second Adam he descended to hell where he preached about who he is, and took back the keys of authority handed over to Satan by Adam. God vindicated him on the third day by raising him from the dead. The resurrected Jesus met with his disciples, both men and women, breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He then commissioned them to do the same things he had been doing, and to teach subsequent disciples (followers) to do the same. He ascended to his Father, who gave him all authority in heaven and earth. Jesus asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to live within all who would accept what he did for them and commit their lives to him. This Holy Spirit is the very presence of God, and the Spirit of Jesus, by which we are able to do the same things Jesus did while he was on earth in the flesh. The Holy Spirit is the source of our eternal life, which begins now, not when we die. To be a follower of Jesus (or Christian) is to live as Jesus lived, in obedience to the Father, and to do his work by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is possible because of the gifts the Spirit provides. The Holy Spirit is also regenerating those he lives within, giving them a new nature that is able to resist sin, and is no longer subject to Satan’s rule. A follower of Jesus once again has the spiritual authority that Adam had before the Fall, and has the ability to know the presence of God, to hear and see with spiritual ears and eyes in a way they did not have before, and the power to obey what they hear and do what they see the Father doing, like Jesus did on earth.

 Now some questions for you:

 1. You use the word subjective as if it is a bad thing. Why?

 2. You use the word ’spiritist’. What do you mean by it? If, as you say, it simply means one who contacts demonic spirits, then Jesus is guilty as well as the early church apostles and disciples, and the church fathers that followed them. Surely the reason for talking to demons must have a bearing on this!

 3. Which particular activities are you refering to as spiritist?

 4. In what way are those activities spiritist?

 5. You say, “your subjective procedures for contacting God are not scriptural.” If you would like to thoroughly read our teaching on this in the website www.listening2god.com you will see that our ’subjective procedures’, as you put it, are scriptural. If you rule out the possibility of God using the subjective as well as the objective a number of difficulties arise. First, you are limiting God and telling him what he may and may not do. This puts you in the place of God. You are also casting doubt on the wisdom of God creating in humans the ability to be subjective as well as objective. Without the possibility of subjectivity there would only be logic – no love, beauty, joy, faith, and so on. After all, faith is the evidence of things NOT seen!

 To me, the test of the objectivity of something is not whether it is strictly logical, or physically concrete (that is Greek thinking, not Christian) , but whether it produces the results it is supposed to produce. In the case of being a Christian, surely the test is whether you are able to do what Jesus commanded his followers to do. And what did he command them to do? To preach the gospel, to heal the sick, cast out demons, to raise the dead. In fact, he said we would do GREATER works than he did! In what way they are to be greater is not clear, but we are certainly seeing wonderful healings, having people come into the Kingdom, and even hearing reports of people being raised from the dead. But this would not happen if we relied on our own understanding without constantly listening to God’s voice, and using his spiritual gifts. We tried it that way for decades, with very little lasting fruit. If you are interested, I was brought up in a reformed, fundamentalist, protestant church. They were VERY zealous for the Lord, but to little effect. They were excellent at arguing their doctrinal positions, and had an explanation for everything, but it brought death to my spirit, not the life I experience more and more since leaving that church and seeking the reality of Jesus in other circles. Far from throwing my intellect out the window, I discovered that the Holy Spirit is now able to teach me and show me things that my heart has long desired but could never see before. And it is very intellectually satisfying. Do you expect me now to go back to what I had as a child? That’s not a very attractive proposition. Once having tasted …!

 A Christian lives in the same reality as a non-Christian, but that reality is enormously greater than the physical world. It is a spiritual reality that encompasses earth and heaven, humans, angels and demons, and God (although he is not contained by it). The difference is that the Christian can be aware of what is around, and live accordingly. Too many ‘Christians’ live in a diminished, impoverished subset of what is actually there for them to possess. When we learn to engage with all of reality, with the authority and fearlessness that being an eternal, spiritual being makes possible, life takes on a new, truer meaning. One of my favourite Bible passages is the one in 2 Kings 6 where Elisha and his servant are surrounded by an enemy army. Elisha asks the Lord to open his fearful servant’s eyes, and he sees that the hills surrounding them are filled with horses and chariots of fire. He then asks the Lord to blind the eyes of the enemy and singlehandedly leads them into a trap. This is the sort of spiritual vision and authority available to the follower of Jesus today, but so few desire it. They appear to be afraid of it. They would rather remain blind and themselves be led into a trap by the enemy of their souls.

6. In your posts to the group you use the word ‘Reformed’ as if this makes everything you say correct. Would you like to justify this position for me please? For example: Which particular type of ‘Reformed’ are you? Was Jesus ‘Reformed’? Were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter or Paul ‘Reformed’ the way you are? Or do you have to follow Calvin to be ‘Reformed’? Or Luther? (Neither were very nice men, and both had some very strange ideas, even though they were both mightily used of God). Perhaps you prefer Zwingli? (One has to wonder about the ‘Christianity’ of all of these ‘Reformers’ given their murderous treatment of fellow believers such as the Anabaptists). Are you Calvinist? Hyper-Calvinist? Dispensational? Pre-mil, post-mil, a-mil … I could go on and on.

 There are many other varieties of ‘Christianity’ – Arminian, Lutheran, Anabaptist, Baptists of every doctrinal perspective you care to name, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Uniting Churches of many kinds, Churches of Christ, Anglicans, Anglo-Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, non-Charismatic, Coptic, Orthodox, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Emerging, Modern, Premodern, Postmodern, Ancient, Contemporary, Fundamentalist, Liberal, Reformed, Messianic, etc. Then there are the many mixtures of these. I even heard the other day of a group of Calvinistic Methodists!!! And there are many groups that call themselves ‘Christian’ but explicitly do not follow Christ as Messiah, such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Spiritualists (not Christian but certainly spiritist), and Christian Scientists (neither Christian nor scientists) – what does this say about the meaning of ‘Christian’? You see, the trouble with allowing only objectivity is that EVERYTHING then must be defined and labeled. Then the labels are thrown around as if knowing a thing’s name exempts the user from having to be able to explain what they understand it to be.

 7. You say, “The Holy spirit you contact is not that of God’s.” Who is it then? Do you know this because you heard it from God?  Is it knowledge formed from your own experience of how God still speaks to people today? Or is it a deduction from your theology about how God has changed and no longer does what he once commonly did? It would be wise for you to also consider the ramifications of your being wrong. You will then be declaring that something that is of the Holy Spirit is of some other spirit. This is a risky position to be in. How did the early church decide it was the Holy Spirit speaking in Acts 13:2 which resulted in Barnabas and Saul being sent off on the missionary journey?

 8. You say, ”You must stop your tongues and word’s of knowledge.” Why? You have said this before and when others contradicted you you ignored them. Would you like to tell me why you think this way? After all, Paul very clearly teaches that tongues is a gift of God and that he wished more people used them more. He said he himself used tongues more than any of them. Peter used words of knowledge - the story of Ananias and Sapphira being a prime example. Was he wrong to do so? After all, God certainly vindicated him in the resulting events.

Because your charges against us have been made in a public forum, it would be more appropriate to continue the discussion there. So I will put this post up on the blog and Google group and we can discuss it with others in the comments.

Regards

Mal

While trying to think about what I might write about in this blog, I discovered it can be quite hard to prioritise one’s passions. I should talk about my faith, because my walk as a follower of Jesus Christ is most important to me, around which everything else revolves and has meaning. However, I then risk devaluing other things, such as family, work, education, aspirations and hobbies. All of these things are important parts of who Malcolm Dow is.

The solution is obvious. I’ll write about them all, and more, as each seems significant at the time.  So, what are some of the main themes you will find here?

As I have already mentioned, I am a Christian, but it will soon become evident that I do not like the term “Christian” very much, for many of the same reasons I dislike the phrase “going to church”. Not that I discount the value of the Church. On the contrary, it is extremely important to me (after all, my wife and I are pastors!) but the words I have mentioned no longer convey the meanings to the world that they once did. I prefer to describe myself as a follower of Jesus. I don’t “go to church” – this has always been a nonsense phrase. Church is something I am a part of, not a place or building or organisation one can attend but an organism. More of these ideas later.

Another theme I will write about is my passion for effective use of the World Wide Web. Many years ago, when I learned how to build websites, I sought a less expensive way of having a number of sites. The result was the establishing of a small business through which I provide low cost web hosting and design. When I discovered blogging as an efective way of producing easily maintained sites which can more easily attract viewers, I began to generate some income using Google AdSense. This enables me to presently host 50 websites which pay for themselves, enabling me to provide sites for churches and community groups. This was the motivation for the business name Roaring-Mouse.com, derived from Leonard Wibberley’s book The mouse that roared. The idea is power for the little guy, as anyone who has read the book or seen the film by Peter Sellers will realise. The online publishing and web hosting section of Roaring Mouse is Roaring Mouse Publishing. This also focuses on optimising websites for the purpose for which they are intended.

A glance at the range of blogs I own (and there are too many of them, which makes it hard to keep them up to date) will indicate the breadth of my interests, both religious, philosophical, and technical.

I love books and reading. I’ve confessed elsewhere to being a full time student since the age of five (1955), and I have no intention of ceasing to explore and learn new things in a wide range of fields. In my early days I was more of an analyst, but in more recent years I have found the joy of taking all of those bits and pieces of knowledge and synthesising something new out of them. This has been especially true in the prayer counselling and training my wife Diana and I carry out through Williamstown Baptist Church and Beth Tephillah Ministry Centre and Roaring Mouse Counselling. As we try to bring healing to people Jesus teaches us new and more effective ways that bring more peace in a shorter time. It’s exciting, and as Dr. Charles Kraft says, “You can get addicted to the smiles on people’s faces”. You can read more about this in some of my other websites: Prayer Counselling, Listening to God, Intimacy with God and the Healing Prayer Ministries Network.

Then there is the more philosophical side of this, seen in A Reasonable Mystic, Mal’s Meanderings, Controversial Christian, Dark Night of the Soul, Godly Science, and Speak in Tongues. Or, if you just love books, as I do, there is A Book About.

Another of my lifelong passions is amateur radio and electronics, and I have a few websites and blogs under construction about these. I’ve held an amateur radio licence, with the callsign VK3ZDD since the early 1970s, and now hold VK3HL. I designed my first minicomputer long before the PC became a household appliance, and taught propgramming and computer technology at university for many years. Even now i still prefer to build my websites using real code, not the bloated website generating packages common today. One of my blogs, The Blog Works, is intended to help people master blog design and construction and use blogs effectively. The radio and electronics is covered by VK Web, Ham Search, Free Electron, and the Antenna Blog which is being rebuilt at present. The business side of this will use Roaring Mouse Electronics.

There are numerous other fields of interest and related websites which I will write about as they arise. Enjoy!

This morning I was reading “My Prayer Journal” in the Victorian Baptist Witness. Part of the diary for Wednesday and Thursday went as follows:

Something interesting happened today. Saw Greg put ‘religion’ and ‘new age’
books together (in the ‘new age’ section). He even put the Bibles there! It
really upset me and I was surprised at the intensity of my feelings. …
…
Well I spoke to Greg and thank you God, he was really cool about it. It
actually opened up some discussion about my faith. And it felt so natural
talking about it. … he was relieved that I could advise him on what should go
in the ‘religion’ section and what should go in the ‘new age’ section (he didn’t
mind at all when I said they were very different).

There is so much here that I could comment on – the assumed difference between religion and New Age, for example. But considering that this was an issue of the Witness devoted to exploring being a Christian in a secular workplace, I want to look at where the books should have been placed.

Being married to a librarian myself I can understand the desire to have things in the right place. However, given that New Age would definitely fit the criteria for a religion I expect they wouldn’t be far apart. It raises two questions for me. Why would we prefer to put Christian books in a place a New Ager might never look? And why put them where a Christian will never encounter the New Age books?

If we are truly interested in ministry in the marketplace, then we must not hide Jesus from those in the market, while at the same time we need to learn how those in the market think if we are to expect to impact their lives.

The depth of the secular/sacred divide for the person writing the diary might be guaged from the intensity of their feelings when the Christian and New Age books were innocently placed side by side. Should we be offended? Can’t Jesus take care of himself? Where would he be found – hanging around the church or out in the market?

Lots of questions. I’d like to hear some of your answers.

This Saturday Di and I are running our first day seminar on ministry to people with dissociation. By dissociation we do not just mean Dissociative identity Disorder (DID, or what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder – MPD). Nor do we mean specifically victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), which seems to be a bit of a focus of some Christian counsellors workingin this area.

Rather, we have learned from our training with Anazao Counselling, and from subsequent experience ministering to others, that almost everybody dissociates to some degree. Not just daydreaming or zoning out, which are actually not varieties of dissociation, but protecting themselves from many difficult childhood experiences by creating alternate parts in their minds.

While preparing the lessons and resource sheets for Saturday’s seminar we have been going over case notes about sessions with people we have counselled in this way, and I am once again amazed at what Jesus will do with you when you are willing to get out of your comfort zone and ngage with something new and familiar.

Even more inspiring are the testimonies from people who have received ministry. It takes great courage to open up your very inner being and expose your deepest secrets to someone you might not know well. It might be even harder with people you do know well! This is especially true in the case of dissociation. You may not even know those secrets yourself until a dissociative part gains confidence in that Jesus will protect you and allows you to have the memory and feelings of some event about which you have little or no knowledge.

When I have obtained permission I will share some of these testimonies, but I just want to say now that there are some people around who were once in despair and who are nor rejoicing in their new found freedom and love for Jesus.

The Transformation of the Inner Man is one of the most important prayer ministry books you could ever read. A reader from Ihio said: “John and Paula Sandford are to be applauded for their dedication to God and His principals. They have shown great wisdom in their approach to the many issues we face in the busy days of modern living. Having put many of their suggestions to the test, I can state that John and Paula are not only Biblically sound; they are practical as well. Their teaching is setting people free throughout the world.”

I agree. This and their following book Healing the Wounded Spirit are the core of any prayer ministry library. Healing the Wounded Spirit is for everyone who suffers from hurts–past or present. God can help you to discern a wounded spirit in yourself and others, and, best of all, He will show you how to receive His healing power in your life.

The good news is that the material from these classic books is being updated in a new series called The Transformation Series. The first two of the four books in this new series have been published.

The first is Transforming the Inner Man: God’s Powerful Principles for Inner Healing and Lasting Life Change (Transformation).

The second is God’s Power to Change: Healing the Wounded Spirit. I highly recommend them to anyone in the healing or counselling ministry.

Many people have questions about prayer ministry, from basic ones about what it is, to queries about what practices should and should not be a part of prayer ministry, through to questions about where to find ministry and how to be trained to carry it out.

To help answer these questions we have set up FAQ pages on the website.

If you have questions not answered in the FAQ pages then email us and we will try to answer them. We are presently developing a more extensive set of questions with more complete answers on another prayer counselling resources website, and will post the details here when it is ready.

The seminar on dissociation to be run by Beth Tephillah Ministries in November is fully booked out. We are sorry that so many have missed out, but are compiling a waiting list for a repeat seminar early next year. Contact Beth Tephillah Ministry Centre if you are interested.

September’s Generational Iniquity seminar was packed out, and the comments of those who participated were very positive. We are having a follow-up afternoon on Saturday 13th October for those who attended the seminar and need help with their genogram.

We are preparing a new seminar series for 2008, with many new topics. Information will be posted as it becomes available.

Welcome to a new ministry centre – New Horizons Ministry Centre, hosted by the Uniting Church in Colac. Details are available on the HPMN Centres page.

Thanks to Rob Sterner-Lind for the following details:

Last year Colac Uniting Church had a vision for a prayer ministry centre that would develop into a centre providing many other ministry functions. Late last year they were able to purchase a beautiful 10 acre property situated on the edge of town. God’s hand was obviously on the purchase as approvals went through in what can only be described as a miraculously short time frame.

They now have a team of ten people some of whom have trained at Ellel, some at Restoration, some at Sonrise with all of the team undergoing in-house training in healing prayer ministry since early this year.

New Horizons’ doors have recently opened to ‘real’ clients and there is an air of excitement as we see clients’ lives being changed through the power of the Holy Spirit (not to mention the changes we have seen in team members over the past six months).

New Horizons is headed up by Rev. Kevin and Anne Cranwell.

A traditional Pentecostal doctrine says that every case of baptism with the Holy Spirit must be accompanied by the ’sign’ of speaking in tongues. They deduce this from the incidents in Acts where the two appear together.

Of course, the difficulty with this deduction is that tongues are not mentioned in all of the accounts of Spirit baptism. For example, there is this incident with Simon in Samaria, but there is also the baptism of Paul in Acts 9:17-19, where the only evidence reported after Ananias prayed for Saul to receive the Holy Spirit was that he stopped being blind. Of course, we know that Paul spoke in tongues – he tells us so himself later – but it would be an argument from silence to say it was when Ananias prayed for him. There are many instances in Acts where people became believers and the Holy Spirit is not even mentioned, which would be strange if the disciples had an understanding that Spirit Baptism accompanied by tongues was so essential to true salvation. I feel sure they made sure that all were baptised in the Holy Spirit. It was certainly vital for a believer then, as it is today. But they didn’t seem to see a need to mention it. It was just a normal part of becoming a follower of Jesus.

Receiving of the Holy Spirit was assumed as a normal part of the process and only remarked upon when a particular theological or historical milestone was reached, such as the conversion of the first Jewish belivers, the first Samaritan believers, and the first Gentile believers. This is similar to the only teaching on tongues being in Paul’s response to a behavioural difficulty that needed to be confronted in the one church in Corinth. Apart from this it is just normal Christianity – everyone does it and it needs no further mention. But again, some feel the need to build a whole doctrinal structure around that one aberration, and so again placing limitations on the freedom of the Spirit to move in the people they ’serve’. In a very real sense, what was intended to be a wide-ranging spiritual ‘tool’ becomes redefined in terms that only relate to its misuse. All that Paul did not refer to because the Corinthians did not have a problem with it is now ignored, or even forbidden,  because Paul didn’t mention it. 

Back to Simon the Sorcerer. In Acts 8, after Philip had preached in Samaria and people believed, Peter and John were sent to them so they could receive the Holy Spirit. They placed hands on them and they were filled with the Spirit. Simon the sourcerer, who had also believed, saw this and wanted to buy the ability to bestow the Spirit, but Peter rebuked him for his wrong heart, and he repented.

What had Simon seen that got his attention? Many Pentecostals insist it must have been their speaking in tongues. The passage says nothing about this, but because they have a doctrine that speaking in tongues must immediately accompany filling with the Spirit, they can not see any other possibilities.

Even if tongues was the most likely answer to what Simon saw, this can not be used to make a doctrine. The passage says nothing, and it is just a guess.

Personally, I believe he could have seen a number of the manifestations we have seen when a person is filled with the Spirit, such as prohesying, praising God, shaking, falling over, perspiration, healing, and experiencing and describing real peace and joy. Quite likely it was speaking in tongues, which is more easily ’seen’, but the peace and joy is also a good candidate. However, while this seems likely, and might even be a reasonable assumption, we can not actually know. So we should not use our guesses to fill a gap in the story so we can ‘prove’ a doctrine, which is what I have seen done so often to ‘prove’ that tongues is ‘the’ necessary sign of Spirit baptism.

Why does being baptised in the Spirit need a sign anyway? I knew when I was baptised in water because I got wet. I didn’t need a supernatural revelation. I knew when I was filled with God because I experienced his presence in a way I had not known before. Years later I found I could speak in tongues. But long before that I was already healing people, prophesying, having words of knowledge, casting out demons, playing keyboard in the spirit and making music that I could not play alone, teaching effectively, and giving wise advice far above my own knowledge or ability. All this despite being an introvert. Should I conclude that this wasn’t the Spirit because I hadn’t yet spoken in tongues?

By making a doctrine out of a denominational distinctive we risk limiting what can happen in our experience. This places unnecessary restrictions on what the Spirit will do among us, because we do not give him permission to do so. Perhaps this also explains why we do not see many people raised from the dead in our culture, whereas in some other places it is not so uncommon. After all, Jesus does expect us to do this too.

Another result of making tongues into a ‘mere’ sign’ is that we lose sight of its more important purposes. It has become one of the most useful tools in our ministry, as well as a reliable means of spiritual, emotional and even physical refreshment.

If you are reading this post you would probably also be interested in posts in some of my blogs:

a reasonable mystic

• Praying Hypertext
• Charismatic Mysticism
• Defining Christian Mysticism
• Reason, Mysticism and Christianity – Part 1
• Re: Atheism and Experiencing God
• Atheism and Experiencing God
• My ‘Spiritual’ Journey – Episode 2
• My ‘Spiritual’ Journey – Episode 1
• Report on Anazao Conferences
• Welcome to a reasonable mystic

Listening 2 God

• Theology of Lying
• Prophecy Versus Preaching
• Purifying the Prophetic – Sanctified Psychic Reading
• Tell him he’s dreaming!
• Ministry to Children
• Step Out and Prophesy
• Welcome to Listening 2 God blog

Mal’s Meanderings

• The Law and the Prophets
• Barbers don’t exist – irrefutable proof.
• Please, Mr Einstein
• The things you are asked in counselling
• Is prophecy the same as inspired preaching?
• Purpose-Driven?
• Noctaphobia
• Why ‘Beth Tephillah’?
• Doppler Shift
• Being Made One
• What we believe
• Top Ten Truths That Shape My Teaching
• Jesus and Walls
• A Vision for the Church
• The perfect pastor
• The words ‘charismatic’ and ‘pentecostal’ have passed their use-by dates
• Managed Friendship
• Crossing Over – a word from Rick Joyner
• History of Medicine
• I’ve just discovered a great website on open theism
• I am greatly enjoying the stimulating lecture series
• If you’re wondering how this blog came to be called Mal’s Meanderings
• This morning I felt like taking a short break
• “If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy”
• In this blog I plan to talk about many things