With respect to Becky Sampson for asking for clarification.
DISCLAIMER: Hard language ahead.
Not an exhaustive list, but…
Ready or not, here is my perspective, in no particular order
1) Lack of interaction with/bad interaction with healing and deliverance ministry.
The church has spent a lot of time with its collective head in the sand in many ways, denying the presence of the demonic, and refusing to engage in spiritual warfare and deliverance and healing of those who have pervasive struggles against which the normal methods of ministry and counseling have not even made a scratch. It’s not a counseling session where you follow the trail of pain that we need, but rather an encounter with the true and living G-d through a willing vessel who is not going to call you crazy, and who is capable of dealing with you in light of Father’s love and His power. For far too long, the rest of the church that denies the need for deliverance needs to admit it.
But that is not all; many wings of the church that practice deliverance, suck at it. And they need to increase in their skill and trust-building in effectively handling the demonic without making the person the are counseling into a war zone. Enough with the competent powerless, or the powerful idiots with no people skills. We need to fuse skillful counseling with a willingness to take out the trash when it’s needed, by which I mean real demons, and do it in a tender fashion without being jerks.
2) Lack of interaction with survivors of SRA/DID/CRA.
Again. Head in the sand to a problem that “does not exist if you cannot see it.”
For those who do not know, SRA is short for Satanic Ritual Abuse, DID is short for Dissociative Identity Disorder, and CRA is short for Christian Ritual Abuse.
DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, is a label that covers a broad variety of conditions that mostly cover the segmentation of the human soul into what we call “parts”-and each part has its own unique personality. Unlike the undissociated person, which we call an integrated person, the dissociated person or the person with a part is dis-integrated.
Unlike Satanic Ritual Abuse, with DID and parts, the spirit may or may not be affected. The root cause of DID is usually some kind of trauma (intentional or unintentional), such as a hard childbirth, neonatal surgery, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or some form of abuse. A part of the human psyche peels apart from the rest and serves as a container for the abuse, so protecting rest of the person’s soul (hence the term part) and when abuse of some sort happens in further instances, that part or another part of the soul comes to the forefront in order to endure the difficult situation.
Basically, SRA typically involves those that are part of a coven (a group of witches) or Satanists (as the perpetrators of the abuse) that work to destroy the human spirit and divide the soul of an victim through a series of rituals whose hallmarks include violent death and resuscitation, sexual abuse, physical abuse, or other forms of torture and nasty treatment. Usually, those who are survivors have any number of different personalities and parts of their spirit that have unique identities, and some of whom may hate Jesus as a result of the process that resulted in their mental and spiritual state becoming separated and parsed out (think of a glass shattering, and you will have some idea). Separate parts and fragments. These fragments are often the age of whenever the trauma took place, and they can each have a unique identity.
CRA, which is a term I coined, is regular abuse that is perpetrated by Christians, especially those in positions of authority or leadership, on victims in a regular way. Given this is a relatively new and little-understood term, it has not made its way into the mainstream, but I would not be surprised, given the level of authority that believers carry, if there are not quite a few of those who are no longer walking with the L-rd because of massive trauma or abuse. Just some thoughts for y’all to chew on.
I am rather vexed at the lack of flexibility or pulpit-guarding that happens at the expense of helping real wounded and damaged people with skill. That goes for those who are hammered and whose spirits and souls (a spirit is different from a soul: Hebrews 4:12.) are shattered by the practitioners of darkness and wickedness.
We need people who are willing, even if they are not capable, and are willing to grow into the capacity to love on angry parts, altars, full systems, and switching, and are not scared when their clients move between personalities.
We need people who will handle and work with a portfolio of those who have survived the abuse dished out by covens, termed survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse. .
And we need people who will handle and work with those who have survived the regular abuse dished out by pastors, what I term Christian Ritual Abuse.
With a stubborn refusal to grow embittered and jaded.
The church is greatly screwed up in places, if you will ask many a pastor. But it can be fixed and repaired.
3) Lack of equipping and releasing.
It is not just about equipping the saints for the work of ministry, but, per John Wimber, it is about releasing and letting go of your finest talent so they can reproduce in accordance with the command of G-d.
4) The Spirit of Jealousy, a perversion of the Father.
Father gives every good and perfect gift. Jealousy focuses you on what someone else has, and blinds you to what He gave you. We need to stop focusing on the infinity in someone else’s life, and work at unpacking the infinity in our own lives.
5) The Victim Spirit, a perversion of the Son.
Sons have resources and create. Victims cannot see the resources to use in order to implement. Jesus implemented the Father’s vision on earth using the tools the Father gave him.
6) The Mesmerizing Spirit, a perversion of the work of the Holy Spirit.
This is an issue of focus. The Mesmerizing Spirit is a pickpocket and a thief, and our job is to not get distracted by the one bad thing that would cause us to jettison a good package, or focus on the one good thing, and thereby swallow a camel of bad issues. Do not strain out a gnat and swallow a camel, gang. See the whole package, and yet honor G-d’s design.
7) The refusal to equip AND release.
It is one thing to not see the need to do this which is the difference between this and #3, but to plainly see it and refuse to release, is a form of rebellion against the work of G-d going forward and multiplying, and yet, pastors, full of envy and covetousness, refuse to equip, and refuse to release. As a result, the Holy Trinity has to operate apart from the usual structure of leadership and sovereignly teaches people by Himself and then has to release those people.
What leaders often do, instead of this, is what I like to call (per my friend, El Jefe de California) “equip and annex.” Annexation is another word for “control”, or “take over”.
Wait a minute, with all this authority, should we not be outwardly focused and not focused on how many people kiss our rings and touch our robes, or pay homage to our likenesses?
We were made to tread upon the serpent, not tread upon each other.
8) The barrenness caused by the Spirit of Jealousy.
The Spirit of Jealousy likes to perform spiritual hysterectomies among believers, both male and female. Father will avenge those who have been stricken with barrenness and will care for them. We need to call it out when we see it and correct it, no matter the manifestation. Our job is to speak to those corrupted or those in the process of being corrupted by it in order to awaken them so they can move forward and reject the SOJ’s grip.
9) The denial of the supernatural.
This as well as #11 just need to be blown apart to smithereens. Craig Keener, in his masterful, two-volume work called Miracles, blew apart every argument against the veracity of miracles. Our faith is designed for the miraculous to be seen as the normal.
10) The usage of Christian Humanism, by which I mean we use our natural faculties to provide answers to spiritual problems.
I was in London last week visiting with my friend, El Jefe De California, and he made mention of this concept of Christian Humanism, and assaulted it without mercy. Basically it is taking a naturalistic mindset and using it to solve every problem. The problem with it should almost be self-evident. Namely, that if we can use our natural brains to solve problems, then maybe we are not solving big enough problems, and our vision is too small, and we are not touching the problems with the level of problem-solving acumen that the Spirit of G-d can use in us. Are the weapons of our warfare spiritual, or are they merely natural or mental? Are we solving problems smaller than our skillset, and are we even tackling spiritual problems. Such as deliverance from Bipolar, the healing of Alzheimer’s, the healing of Downs Syndrome, and a whole host of problems from the chin up. Spiritual answers, rather than the grey matter of book knowledge between our ears.
Having solid argumentation that utilizes the best of the mental faculties that were given us by our all-knowing Father is one thing.
Basing the totality of our faith upon that savvy is something entirely different.
11) I numbered my list wrong and missed #11.
12) The paradigm set in place by David Hume that denies miracles.
David Hume basically argued that because all humans have basically the same experience (called the Uniformity of Human Experience), because one group of humans has never seen a miracle, miracles do not exist. This argument of course is absurd, because if any human has a different experience than another human being and witnesses a miracle, then the argument is completely and unequivocally refuted.
13) The obsession with defining discernment only in relationship to detecting true or false doctrine.
Many “naturally-thinking” Christians, especially cessationists, have come to view discernment as only the capacity to discern whether a message is sound (See “Strange Fire” by John MacArthur, pp.37, 38. 72, 124, 125, 241, 242, where MacArthur only relates discernment to occasions where a message is being spoken, and not one occasion where discernment of the presence of a demonic or unclean spirit is discussed).
14) The belief that children have a junior Holy Spirit.
We send our kids for 40 hours a week of instruction in a public school that does not honor G-d, and in that institution they learn how to think critically and analyze, and then, on Sunday Mornings, expect them to color a sheet featuring Noah’s Ark, complete with smiling animals (the Flood was a global judgment, complete with drownings and suffering), and then expect they will grow spiritually precisely because we act like they are not perceptive enough to be receptive to spiritual things, when we have not even taught them the lesson of Noah’s Ark. Instead we dress it up and make it child-friendly. Because the human spirit cannot be engaged until the child has been baptized in the spirit of this age and critical thinking that could rip apart those flannelgraphs and coloring sheets that we have been teaching them to subsist on. The kids are not going to be hungry for meat if we feed them Goldfish and Kool-Aid for DECADES!
I rest my case.
If we raised them and engaged their spirits from conception and blessed that spirit to be dangerous, then they would grow in the things of G-d VIGOROUSLY!
For further material on ministering to the spirit of your child, whether he or she is in the womb or outside of the womb, see the following:
https://theslg.com/cd-albums/ministering-to-babies-in-the-womb
15) The denial of women their rightful place to minister in accordance with their design.
A woman was designed to possess her birthright. If her birthright is to pastor, and if Father has called her to pastor, you best not act like the pot questioning the Potter, demanding to know why He thinks he has to right to call her to pastor.
16) The misogyny and the misandry rampant in the church.
See point #15, where we expect women to only stay home, fat, pregnant, submissive, and teaching children, or women of their own sex.
And based on pop culture, we treat men like the castrated, brainless, drunken, perverted idiots that they most CERTAINLY WERE NOT DESIGNED TO BE.
If you spend your life castrating and performing hysterectomies upon fellow believers, then you will rob it of its vitality and it will live its like believing its a disempowered mass of bitches and bastards, whose primary jobs are to drink and screw. Period.
I hate to use that language, but we are so messed up when it comes to our identities, that we think we are legitimately illegitimate.
Rather, our job should be to raise MEN and WOMEN to be the DANGEROUS SONS and BRIDES that they are! Equip and release! Do not administer IV sedatives, narcotics, Ritalin, and other controlled substances, and then two decades later wonder why the hell these men and women won’t do the dangerous jobs of rescuing us, when we abused them by drugging them.
17) White-knuckle Christianity.
Obedience is not the point. Rather, freedom is. We were not made to be slaves. Rather we were made to be the Brides of Christ, and the Sons of G-d.
18) The caste system between leaders and the common folk.
Forced submission between a pastor and his congregation where there is no trust, is not life-giving. Rather it fosters the spirit of slavery that yells, ” Take Us Back to Egypt! We don’t want responsibility for our lives. Provide for us, and we will build your pyramids and live in tolerance of a backwards existence.
19) The heretical doctrine of covering.
Covering as it is taught in Scripture has NOTHING to do with people in positions of leadership in the church. The doctrine of covering that is currently taught in many churches, especially those of a Charismatic/Pentecostal Persuasion, is rooted in the Shepherding Movement and teaches that believers must be submitted to someone who mentors them and leads them in EVERY DECISION they make. This is fueled by a spirit of Antichrist which wants to micromanage and control others.
The only places “cover” is used in Scripture have to do with blood covering sin, love covering sin, and covering the nakedness of Noah’s wife. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that submission to a covering somehow increases our protection over those with no covering, and this is seen in practice across the board.
20) The practice of anti-Semitism against those of us who are of Jewish blood.
As a man of Jewish descent, I am insulted on every point from diet to dress, by every non-Jew who commands me to eat ham when I don’t want to, to remove my tallith, and why do I not celebrate Christmas or Easter. And then there are Jews who are killed and gassed, and hated for the favor of the L-rd on us. Christian mistreatment of the Jewish people does happen, unfortunately.
21) The lack of affection and tenderness among believers.
Speaking the truth has to be done with love and some eye toward how the conversation is framed. We either practice sloppy agape or we just bash people prophetically. Both extremes are not as effective as tempering the one with the other.
22) The viewpoint that our chief birthright is to hunt for and lambaste heretics (witch-hunts).
We have a deep tradition in Calvinist, Reformed, and Protestant Christianity of looking for why someone is wrong in their practice of Christian teaching, and for exposing them before the world, because, in our eyes, they are unfruitful works of darkness. And we waste time that could be put to better use pursuing what we were made to do in chasing those we think are heretics (cue the obsession with Joel Osteen and Mark Driscoll and Arthur Burk and Bill Johnson and….and…and) that someone think our job is to be the whiniest group of jerks on the planet.
Look, your job as a follower of Christ, Jew or non-Jew, is to do what He designed you to do, not whine about how sinful someone’s sin is. Exposing really unfruitful works of darkness, and telling it like it is, is not but a small part of our life. Instead of tearing at others, go do what G-d made you to do.
23) Our refusal to live in accordance with all three parts of Revelation 12:11.
We love yelling about the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our Testimony, but that part about “not loving our lives so much that we shrink back from death” is part of the deal too, and it is required if we want to overcome the Dragon fully.
24) Our unwillingness to care for the widows and the fatherless and the poor.
The Mormons have it hand over fist over us on this point.
25) Our choice to treat and ostracize those who have committed certain sins that we hold above all others.
Pick your sin, gang.
There it is, gang. Just some thoughts here for your pondering. Please make sure you eat the meat and spit out the bones.
