CAVEATS: DEFECTIVE PNEUMATOLOGY, KDS, SECULARIZATION, ARTISTIC PHILISTINISM & SHALLOWNESS

The Problem With Perfect Pitch, Artistic Sensitivity, A Substantive Personality, & Love of Christian Fellowship in the Holy Spirit

In The Republic, Plato wrote the allegory of The Cave, in which a trapped man escapes the ingrown, culturally-deprived, oppressive dankness of a subterranean cave and discovers a wonderful world of light and beauty outside and beyond.

This seeker-of-liberty, with great effort, frees himself from the ignorance, solipsism--and even persecution of his fellow prisoners--who will punish anyone attempting to leave the underground hole.

To share his excitement about the beauty of the outside world, he crawls back into the dark place only to be chained up again--and is permanently and irrevocably restrained.

The prophet will invariably be without honor in his home town--and will usually be stoned--in the rock-throwing sense.

A continually painful lesson from God's Word that I seem to have to re-learn several times a month--is that "There is no fellowship (in Christ's love) between (spiritual) light and (spiritual) darkness." There must be no unequal yoking--no marriage--or other intimate entanglements--if i understand scripture correctly--between a Christian and a Christ-rejector.

But I've often had to learn that same lesson over-and-over--even in the context of the Fresno area local churches(Sadly, the mega-churches are the worst!).

I've counseled with folks year-after-year who suffer from (my term) Koinonia Deprivation Syndrome (KDS)--and have no group of sincere and caring Christian friends to meet with, share concerns and needs with, pray for and pray with. (Of course, this is not church attendance, bell choir membership, or even going to Sunday school.)

Many a Christian couple and Christian family suffers from KDS--but, because of their secularization, are too embarrassed, aloof, or self-conscious to practice regular Bible study, and prayer-and-share together.

They will even turn (when KDS is the real issue) occasionally to pastoral or professional counselors--to salve wounds, heal relationships, or find inner peace--when regular fellowship together, sharing and participation in the Holy Spirit, and sincere couple and family prayer times together in Christ--would do all the restoration, reconciliation, and healing necessary. But their secularized mind-set keeps them out in the cold--spiritually, relationally, and emotionally.

With non-Christian ( Christ-rejecting--Cross-rejecting) unsaved friends, I want to show them Christ's love and the Holy Spirit's truth--but not expect fellowship in the Spirit. To aggressive American secular media, the Hollywood Star System, Christless politicians, unsaved psychologists, unregenerate businessmen, or worldling teachers--I can just say, "Hey--don't want any..'deja moo'...heard your bull before...ha!"

But it's more difficult, I believe, to confront professing Christians about their secularized thought-patterns, attitudes, and behaviors--or admit them to myself--or to suggest something as old-fashioned and quaint as Family Prayer Night--and then, in addition, a prayer-with-Christian-friends night.

With secularized believers this is regarded as idiotic and irrelevant.

Years ago, it was my privilege to visit L'Bri in Huemoz, Suisse, and enjoy meeting with the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and many of the residents and staff. I discovered, in discussions, that there was apparently a friendly difference in philosophy between two scholars, Dr. Schaeffer and Dr. Os Guinness. I only talked with Dr. Schaeffer, but it seemed to me that while Dr. Schaeffer was concerned about Secularism (and its iconic windmills he was jousting against such as abortion, pornography, drugs, or crime--all important concerns, of course) Os Guinness was more concerned about the secularization of Christian minds.

I lean more toward the latter concerns which I inferred Guinness held. When professed (only christianized?) Christians allow themselves to regress into secularized thinking, paganized problem-solving, listening to the counsel of the ungodly (cf. Psalm 1), turning their backs on sincere Christian fellowship-- and become ineffective--they will suffer KDS.

When backsliders scoff at 'the mind of Christ' and resist 'the mind of the Spirit'--and consequently develop the sickness of KDS--it is no wonder The Church can seem to be a ninety-story orange juice machine that gives one cup a month--regardless of Mega-Church Row attendance, barns-full-of-strangers, and mega-tron power-point displays.

When a pastor, teacher, seminary professor, or a denomination which has a defective Pneumatology--preaches and teaches against the Gifts of the Holy Spirit being for Today--(perhaps fearful of emotionalism, excess, and wild fire)--they bite the hand that feeds them--and consequently lead their people into works-righteousness-by-default.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Captives are set free, and sight is restored to the blind (cf.: Isaiah 61:1-3). Sinners fall to their knees in confession and repentance. Carnal Christians forgive and make amends. There is blessing and freedom in the Holy Spirit--and protection from secularization of mind and heart. And victory over Pharaoh, Jannes and Jambres, Nadab and Abihu, Cora, the Prophets of Baal, Simon the Sorcerer, Demas, Alexander the Coppersmith, and Diotrephes.

Cessationist preachers, teachers, churches, and religious denominations--hand out spiritual bootstraps via digitalized-Christian-living homilies--so their constituents can fake-it-till-they-make-it--and try bravely to do-God's-work-without-God's-power. Like an atheist at his own funeral, the graduate of this cessationist, Spirit-grieving propaganda is all-dressed-up-with-no-place-to-go...!

Somehow these poor sheeple are supposed to achieve self-help sanctification, do The Great Commission, and fight devils (cf. the seven sons of Sceva in Acts). People are given Schulerisms, Sheenisms, and Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) sermons, "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap...be positive..!" (I love the quote,"I find Paul appealing...but I find Peale appalling..!")

Yet, in reality, the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (remember the movie?) recruits will only be going off to war to fight on the wrong side.

Wannabe ministerial voices will be singing castrata in the religious choir of Evangelicalism.

The Book of Acts illustrates an important truth: as the leaders go--so go the people.

Sadly, many Christian leaders (pastors, para-church leaders, missionaries) I've met around the United States--are not nice people--really not friendly, seem not to have the Holy Spirit's anointing, appear deficient in rapport-building skills, do not bond, are spiritually teflon, and even hostile--up close and personal. (Dr. Fritz Perls believed there are only two kinds of people in the world--nourishing and toxic. True..?) So it is to be expected that some ineffective leaders, in their aloofness, emotional coldness, and lack of empathy (despite their rhetorical platform performance) don't have a shepherd's heart, and thus can't model and teach their folks authentic fellowship-in Christ (not an ice cream social--ha!) with real concerned prayer and sharing together in the Holy Spirit.

A college friend of mine, gifted as a pianist and vocalist, won a scholarship to a major music conservatory on the East Coast. He had perfect pitch. I could ask him to sing an "A" and as he vocalized the "A" I would sound a tuning fork. He would always be on perfect pitch. Sometimes when we attended a concert or heard church music, he would have to get up and leave the room--because the instruments (or human voices) were not tuned to A-440, and the off-key dissonance was intolerable to his auditory gift. His gift of having perfect pitch held challenges for him.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit (which the Heavenly Father God promises to bestow authentically upon the seeker) opens the door to life's harmonies, melodies, and the privilege of being in tune and tuned-up with God's glory, and His nurturing, edifying presence--but also reveals the darkness of sin, the clash of healthy vs. unhealthy cultures (throwing babies to crocodiles, historically--ripping beating hearts out of virgins--or many, less-extreme, examples), dangerous world-views, devious political manipulation, and satanic ideological paradigms.

The moving of the Holy Spirit in drawing a responder to God, bringing a transforming-of-mind, power, deliverance, wisdom and love (2 Timothy 1:7; Zechariah 4:6; Acts 1:8, 2:4), however, may break a glass--or a crystal cathedral--ha!--and will separate the profane from the sacred, the trivial from the profound, the deep from the shallow, and the vulgar from that which is beautiful.

Cacophony (or any kind of 'phony' insincerity--ha!) will be revealed by the Bringer-of-God's-Truth (John 16). Any (not some one predestined-with-a-heaven-chip-to be-saved) responding person (not a card-signer!) transformed in Christ (Romans 12:1-2), will have an allergic (spiritual) reaction to false teaching, untruth, and evil: (occult mysticism, paganism, witchcraft, sin, lies, sinners, perversion, terrorism, criminality, and the spirit of anti-Christ) in the secular world system.

The baptismal fullness of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life will guide, instruct, and bring God's fullness of joy in Christ. However, there may be (because of the Holy Spirit's alertness) sometimes a painful awareness of discord, a root of bitterness, knowledge of a spirit of disunity in the local fellowship. perhaps the cymbal-clashing violation of I Corinthians 13 agape and filial love in Christ. I believe that God, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead--is the healing and therapeutic Minister in the Trinity.

Can the Holy Spiirit heal Personality Disorders (AXIS II on the DSM IV-R)..? social Work, Counseling, Psychiatry--have all given up trying to treat Personality Disorders and Psychopathy.) Yes, I believe so--even disorders like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. (The Anti-Social Personality Disorder is just good a old-fashioned criminal version of Sinner-in-need-of Salvation-in-Christ.) But what about the Borderline Personality Disorder..? (I've learned that the disordered Borderline Personality does not miss people...interesting.

The Borderline is a truely teflon personality which does not bond. (cf.: the book, 'I Hate You--Don't Leave Me" about the Borderline Personality--seems to overlook this point.

A nourishing person can't really hang out with toxic people--unless perhaps he is on a mission and preaching the Gospel of Christ Jesus--but then that's not fellowship. That is Jonah going--even hesitantly--to Nineveh.

The Apostle Paul, even while in prison himself, was concerned and sensitive to the fellowship-threatening conflict between two women in the Church of Philippi.

I believe that once the sincere seeker-of-Christ has experienced authentic fellowship with the community of the redeemed and intimacy with the Heavenly Father in the Holy Spirit, he will never be satisfied with the plain vanilla relationally-teflon programs of churchianity.

Two years ago I realized how impoverished (and spiritually dry) I'd become regarding nourishing (home atmosphere) koinonia. I couldn't find anyone to have regular times of prayer-and-share with. I struck out across the USA looking for it--but really also trying to re-capture what I'd experienced in Fresno twenty years ago. So, perhaps this was a quixotic quest.

My early years in Fresno had been filled with rich fellowship in the Spirit, interesting conversation, a busy counseling practice, beautiful musical concerts, fruitfulness in the production of fine art, and ministry trips across America, to Colombia, South America, the U.K. and Europe--but somehow I lost my way...ran out of songs to play...and Oh Lord...stuck in Lodi again...I was suffering severe KDS.

The person who enjoys the opportunity to reflect profoundly and resonate with others who relish good conversation--or who has the good eye and taste to be an aficionado of fine art, good writing, good music, or poetry--will grow sick of continual idle banter, pop--cultural banality on radio or TV, or the rough crowd--non-substantive personalities. (Think of the proverb, "Shallow brooks are noisy.")

Likewise, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit (perfect pitch)--and sound Pneumatology--has its blessings--but also its challenges.

In pastors' support groups (one for ten years and another for four years) I tried to get the message of this Blog across and it wasn't understood. So don't feel bad if you don't get it either...ha!

(excerpt; unpublished work-in-progress):
'Perfect Pitch: Benefits & Challenges'
Copyright 2009 by Philip C. Brewer
All Rights Reserved

Thou Shalt not Think: If You Meet Buddha On the Road

"Thou Shalt Not Think..Is Emergent Revivalism Turning Eastward...?"

The 3 'Waves' of "Revival' each make 'leader statements' and 'culture statements'--Toronto--Pensacola--Lakeland.

While we pray for conversions to Christ, for the afflicted to be healed by our Great Physician, we are also (not 'paranoid' but) sober and vigilant regarding any 'revivalistc' form of new religious movement--in light of the warnings (Hebrews) against apostasy and falling away from the Gospel (Galatians 1) of Jesus Christ.

I think, initially observing and listening to the 'leader statements' of each religious movement is probably the most important thing to do--with Bible in hand.

For example, in the Book of Acts, we learn the principle: "As the leaders go--so go the people." Study the leader fairly but carefully.

But it is also important to study the cultural, tribal, sociological, and psychological presentation. We can observe, for example in Lakeland, a 'cultural manifestation'--and within culture--various 'tribal statements'...being made

Why shouldn't the thoughful, prayerful evaluator be alert to demagoguery when it is present--to crowd-manipulation, to group think, and any form of brainwashing--when it presents itself..?

Musically...Reflective Worship Music which is melodious, harmonious, beautiful (e.g. like the 'urban gospel' stylings of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir or Christ Church, Nashville Choir) are absent--in Toronto, in Pensacola, in Lakeland. Latter Rain revivalism features the tribal frenzy of indoctrination, keep-em movin' (not very skilled) Rock--and a pitifully-obese man-in-black kid--playing a tiny Wal-Mart-special-from gramma guitar. Aggravating, embarrassing--even boring.

Refledtion... isn't welcomed in mass indoctrination atmospheres. Because 'reflection' deflects 'thought reform' techniques--and heightens discernment, logic, evaluation, and consideration of what is going on.

Reflective "weighing" of what is going on is necessary (according to Paul in 1 Corinthians) but cannot easlily be done in a manicky, pressured-speech, frenetic 'brainwashing' atmosphere of chanting, jumping, adrenaline-pumping, glandular-galloping repetition. (Is this 'vain repetion as the heathen do'..?) Watch the Lakeland phenomenon on GOD TV. The manicky millenial warm-up jumping homonally back and forth across the stage--agitated--with Food Fight pressured speech--perseverating breathlesly--chanting a pseudo-song off-key--is a disturbed person--not a 'worship leader', I'm afraid.

Are televangelists, Emergent Church leaders, and Third Wave Revivalists all swerving into advocacy of some form of Eastern Mysrtical Irrationality..?

'The main 'commandment' of Buddhism is: Thou Shalt Not Think.

Buddhism, Buddhist ideation, and Eastern Mysticism has significantly influenced the Emergent Church Movement, in my opinion.

Anti-evaluative 'koens', the banning of logical thinking, striving toward a 'non-judgmental', quasi-'right-brained' listening-for-the-sound-of-one-hand-clapping constitutes a buddhistic thought-reform approach.

In essence, the musical chanting, breathing, jumping styles of some aspects of Buddhism have been incorporated--via New Age Seattle Grunge--and masqueraded as Emergent Church paradigm-shifting.

Are other Eastern Mysticism influences also seen in some of Todd Bentley's kundalini' resonances and implications..?

(excerpt: unpublished work-in-progress):
Thou Shalt Not Think: Is Emergent Church Revivalism Turning Eastward...?
Copyrigh 2008 by Philip C. Brewer All Rights Reserved

(Satire) Are Baptists Saved..?

Are Baptists Saved..?
by Phil Brewer
"Tip-toe through the tulips..." --as sung byTiny Tim

Three Years in a Row--Then I was Persona Non Grata... For three years straight I was invited to Carson City, Nevada to be the speaker for the Southern Baptist (SB) State Conference. But I was given the left foot of fellowship when they found out I was a classical pentecostal.

Free at Last..! They didn't find out until after the third year that my third-generation Southern Baptist preacher Dad had, as a teen in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky--after experiencing the Holy Spirit's (John 16) drawing, conviction, and conversion to Christ, and later, as a young SB minister, having had a transformational mind-renewing (Romans 12:1-2; Acts 1:8, 2:4; Ephesians 5:18-19) Holy-Spirit-Baptismal epiphany (receiving God's gift of a devotional speaking-in-tongues prayer language, and finding his first authentic and meaningful koinonia-fellowship in Christ with MacArthur Jollay, an Assemblies of God pastor in London, KY) jumped the SB ship and joined the AG--later becoming the AG District Superintendent for the State of Kentucky.

Healthy Dissilusionment..! Prior to his being baptized in the Holy Spirit, Dad had already left the SB rejecting (intelligently and accurately) the erroneous cessationist Baptist teaching that "...that which is perfect is come" meant the (1) closing of the New Testament Canon, and/or (2) the ending of the Apostolic Age (90-95 A.D.). Dad had been a good Bible student already, as a young man, and correctly realized that "tongues shall cease...when that which is perfect is come" refers to the Second Advent of Christ--not the above-mentioned (1, 2).

(The Humor of Christ. When Dad was driving me from Pennsylvania to Florida for my matriculation into college at 17 years old, he laughingly told me, "The Bible states in that passage that 'when that which is perfect is come' knowledge shall also cease...so according to the Reformation Theology T.U.L.I.P. types, we haven't needed Preaching or Teaching either for almost 2000 years...!" We shared a good laugh over that silliness.)

Joyless Crutch-ianity. For three years the Nevada pastors had set up private counseling sessions with me-to complain about their joylessness, spiritual powerlessness, purposeless de-motivation--wondering if they were actually on the positive (implanted heaven chip) side of Louis Berkhoff's robotized Calvinistic, Double-Decree Predestination foolishness and scripture-twisting--versus the condemned to H-E-double-hockey-sticks (the bad place) hinderparts of tulipville.
After my (documented theological alien) disclosure, I enjoyed the Nevada Baptists' facial expressions (picture the constricted affect of someone who'd inadvertently popped a whole jalapeno--or a vegetarian being told the soy burger he'd just gobbled amidst belches was Black Angus steak). One angry Baptist yelled at me, "I don't CARE what the Bible says--tongues are of the devil..!"

Find the Already Found. One year I was invited (once and only once!) to hold an elective seminar at the California State Youth Conference at the Saroyan Theater in Fresno, California. There were about 3000 Lutheran college and high school students in attendance. The huge banner stretched across the front of the stage read, "Finding the Found."

{Tip-Toe Through the TULIPS. In Reformation T.U.L.I.P. Theology, the Elect--who were elected billions of years ago in the mind of God--only need to be Found. If you're not sure the ones you've located belong to the Found--that's okay--they can join the choir, play in the praise band (regardless of character), and help you, the pastor, pay the light bill. Inform your congregation that they hopefully have already been unconditionally elected (yes, implanted in the predestination sense with what I like to call in computer lingo a heaven chip) via God's limited atonement--Jesus, you know, didn't die for everybody, sorry--then that's okay--and even regarding these folks you're really not sure if they'll make the short list--i.e. be, in fishing lingo, big enough to keep.}

Pre-programmed Anyway. Missionary work and evangelism are only going-through-the-motions anyway. The grace--that God sics on The Elect (yes, this is theological elitism!) cannot be resisted by them--yes--they are programmed to persevere. (Yes, Harold Camping Rick Warren, John MacArthur, Dallas Seminary, and all the faithful Reform Theology folks shuffle to this party line.)
Tony Campolo was the main speaker and did his famous "It's Friday--But Sunday's Comin" sermon--based on a something he'd heard a pastor-friend preach in Philadelphia.

LRP, WF, etc. In my elective, I spoke on the problems with dispensationalism, cessationism, and double-decree predestination--in light of scripture and the Classical Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. I also touched on the aberrant distortions and excesses of Latter Rain Pentecostalism (LRP) and Word Faith (WF) teaching (Beall-to-Branham-to-Copeland) which the classical pentecostals (e.g.: AG) had rejected from the late-Forties to the present day.

Showing the Mess in the Backyard. I also admitted that I had been disappointed (as had my ex-reform theology Dad) with the apparent spiritual impoverishment, dissipation, and deteriorating pneumatology of the classical pentecostals--including the AG--and my disillusionment with the tribal customs, impaired rapport, anemic fellowship, shallowness and superfciality of San Joaquin Valley Pentecostal Holiness, Pentecostal Church of God, and Assemblies of God churches--wondering if Ichabod (The Glory Has Departed) was truly inscribed over their front doors by God.

(One pastor of an older AG church bragged to me that he had kicked out several men who'd come to him and told him they thought God's glory had departed from his ministry and from the church. I was in a Christian Leaders' Support Group with this pastor for fourteen years and I believe those kicked-out men were no doubt correct.)

(Peoples Church had already become doctrinally and Pneumatologically compromised with a please-everybody-ecumenical-message and staff--and I'd already become jaundiced about the Episcopal churches I'd held seminars in--and Wesleyan (free will, responsiblity, sanctification-obsessed) Methodist and Nazarene groups I'd visited.)

Why All the Fuss..? In the seminar I focused on the obvious scriptually-based importance of devotional glossalalia and the intercessory comfort, divine communication, empowerment, and even my firm conviction regarding the cognitive and affective edification provided in the mind of Christ and the mind of the Spirit via the gift of devotional prayer in the Holy Spirit. I spoke of the Spirit of God as the non-modalistic Third Person of the Godhead--warning about the error of Jesus Only teaching.

Sound Pneumatology. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete Who comes alongside to comfort, to instruct, to re-direct and correct with God's truth. The Holy Spirit's gifts describe the Giver and not the Recipient (contrary to Rick Yohn (nowadays Rick Warren et al) and all the evangelcal types who keep trying to help people discover their spiritual gift--as if they're administrating some sort of Personality Inventory). We looked at (Ephesians 4; Romans 12; and I Corinthians 12, 13), and the Apostle Paul's cautionary instruction (I Corinthians 14) regarding public-tongues excesses--while proclaiming that he spoke "...with tongues more than you all" in his private devotions before God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit--One God--in three distinct Persons. Some present seemed to have a light turn on in their minds--realizing that the limited and not that common public Gift of Tongues ("Not all speak with tongues") had been a red herring to the cessationist T.U.L.I.P.S.

The Big Question. At the Lutheran Conference I asked the group, "Why do so many evangelicals and ecumenicals fight against devotional tongues--and really bite-the-hand-that-feeds-them by fighting against God the Father's authentic gift of the Holy Spirit (not a scorpion, not a stone) and baptism by Christ into the power and work of God, the Holy Spirit..?"

Then I answered my own question, "Because Satan wants a powerless churchianity-...and he is deathly afraid of Christ-exalting, Holy Spirit-empowered believers who are supernaturally transformed and anointed to be witnesses for Jesus Christ--in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Keep the little do-gooder steeple boxes 'down in the vale' full of spiritual-dwarf gutless wonders playin' bingo..."

Will modern-day Uzzah's and Ananias and Sapphira's who malign the the Holy Spirit and, as profane persons, touch the presence of God--suffer the same tragic fate...?


(excerpt: Part One: Unpublished Work in Progress) Are Baptists Saved..? Copyright 2008 by Philip C. Brewer All Rights Reserved



B.I.B.L.E.
1. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)
2. "Mental Floss to Prevent Truth Decay"