Ecumenical Unity: An Oxymoron
BLOG:
THE UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
A Seminar for Christian leaders
by Phil Brewer
The Faux Unity of Ecumenism. Sincere but misguided Christian leaders gather with churchianity’s standard brands and hold hands with those who hold a defective Christology, Pneumatology, Patriology, & Ecclesiology. These either poorly-trained, non-Spirit-filled, or politically cow-towed impotents behave (as I always tease) like religious Neville Chamberlains trying to get the rest of us to sleep--theologically, emotionally, ecclesiastically--with strange bedfellows. They misinterpret what Christian Unity is all about. Being ‘like-minded’ and of ‘like precious faith’ in Christian koinonia means the Spirit’s symphony in the mutual witness, resonance, and Christ-exalting harmony of the Holy Spirit. Of course, not a saccharine political unity or the faux unity of a let’s-all-march-in-protest-in-front-of-the-adult-theater co-belligerence--in some collectivist, moralizing cause. Thus, Ecumenical Unity is an oxymoron. Failed, ship-jumping wannabe pentecostal preachers who never really apprehended, comprehended, and experientially knew the authentic on fire anointing of God, the Holy Spirit, try to find refuge in ecumenical collectivism--but it is only a refuge for spiritual scoundrels.
Study the life of William Seymour. If all the Pentecostal fellowships which sprung out of the Azusa Street (1906: Los Angeles) Visitation of the Holy Spirit had joined together in the Vision of William Seymour, I am convinced that the Civil Rights Movement would have been unnecessary, and authentic spiritual unity and blessings under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and (non-cessationist) Gifts and Power of the Holy Spirit would reign Today--instead of the fragmented and powerless (Dispensationalist) ecumenical clans and warlords of Evangelicalism which we have cluttering up 'Churchianity' today.
The Holy Spirit, allowed to minister through God's Fruit (Galatians), God's Gifts (I Corinthians 12-13), and the Heavenly Father God's filling of our 'jars of clay' personalities with His bestowal of the authentic (not a stone, not a scorpion) Holy Spirit--will erase (Gal. 5 sinful nature works and) paranoia of the fallen nature--chauvinism, ethno-centricism, racism, 'we-they' jealousies and suspiciousness, class envy, hatred, malice, and even religious and political competitiveness..!!
The Lordship of our Savior, Jesus Christ necessitates having the 'liberty' and fullness of Christ the Baptizer's 'Baptism in the Holy Spirit' (with devotional prayer languages in the Spirit as 'normative'--not exceptional)--for edification, comfort, empowerment, and witness-to-the-sin-sick-world (Acts 1:8; Eph. 5:18-19; Acts).
Not Sectarian or a ‘Movement’ but the Redeemed Community’s Normalization by the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Holy Spirit was desiring to break through dead religion (as He had in past Church History) with sound Pneumatology (a healthy, scholarly doctrine and Christian practice of life in the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity). On the other hand, a powerless (Pneumatologically unsound) religiosity is exactly what Satan wants--and, in many ways what he got--when other 'pentecostals' refused, neurotically, to join in with Seymour's heavenly vision for the Body of Christ at large.
There were other issues emerging (in later years) from the Azusa Street Outpouring of the Spirit which I disagree with--such as New Order of the Latter Rain excesses and anti-Trinitarian 'Jesus Only' (or 'Oneness') teaching. It was the aberrant emotionalism, directive prophecy, glandular and splenetic charismatic subjectivism (which we’ve observed rear its ugly head again at Toronto and Lakeland) that gave its innocent bystander proper classical pentecostalism satan’s broad-brushed smear of holyrollers. Again, ol’ slewfoot desperately wants an anemic, impotent Church that is liked by the alphabet media and National Propaganda Radio--and which doesn’t make sinners feel uncomfortable.
But, in my understanding, Seymour's godly vision of Unity in a sound, classical Pentecostal message and experience, was free of false or aberrational teaching. (Perhaps someone may correct me on this if my research is incomplete here.)
But again, I am convinced that there would have been no need for the Civil Rights Movement if William Seymour's vision from the Holy Spirit had been cooperated with by the Church at large.
And I also believe very firmly that (before Seymour) had Eighteenth Century believers in Christ yielded to the wooing, conviction, leading, wisdom, and true infilling of God, the Holy Spirit--and joined in spiritual unity in the Communion of Saints in Christ--in the Koinonia and Fellowship in the Holy Spirit across ethnic, cultural, and racial lines--that America would not have had to suffer the egregious, murderous, senseless, and demonically-inspired slaughter of the Civil War. (Zech. 4:6)
Only by the Holy Spirit can the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor.) be accomplished. The Holy Spirit (and Classical Pentecostal ministry in the Gifts (1 Corinthians 12-13; Romans 8, 12; Ephesians 5:18-19 especially) is the emergency room of analog (vs digital) Christianity. It is, by nature, messy (‘Where there is no ox the stall is clean. But much increase comes from the strength of the ox.”) The standard brands and Heinz 57 sectarianism of churchianity has always been frightened by messy spirituality (cf. 1 Corinthians 14), and always seeks to appeal to popular culture and to appear legitimate. Even contemporary cults for the past 30 years in America have been manipulating their way into faux legitimization--Hare Krishnas sending their people to Harvard Divinity School for example (cf. writings of Dr. Ronald Enroth, Sociologist, Westmont College).
THE UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
A Seminar for Christian Leaders
Copyright © 2012 by Philip C. Brewer
All Rights Reserved
