The Ecstatic - Volume 11

THE

Spring-Summer 2015

ecstatic MAGAZINE

Also

Jesus As Us Infinite Love Cuba Mission Indonesia Mission Cana Seminary Online

KILLING THE SACRED COW A Beginner’s Guide to why we are so Offensive

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News

Thousands Impacted in Mexico Mission

A Sons of Thunder team comprised of 16 internationals from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK traveled to Mexico in March for a massive gathering of 3,000 people from all over the country. Partnering again with our friends CCI in Monterrey, John Crowder and team shared the gospel of grace, healing the sick and releasing new wine in an event which also drew participants from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In addition, the team ministered at a women’s rehab facility and hosted a street evangelism outreach. Also John spoke with ministry school students and visiting pastors. Sons of Thunder has a number of upcoming future mission trips that are still open to applicants at www.TheNewMystics.com/Missions

Mega Grace Tour Comes to East Coast

John Crowder and worship musician Tim Wright are blasting the East Coast of North America this fall in their Mega-Grace Tour coming to four cities. We invite everyone in the region to come enjoy a big drink of Gospel glory. The two will visit: Toronto, Canada Oct. 21-22 Columbia, Maryland Oct. 23-24 Haverhill, Massachusetts Oct. 25-26 Birmingham, Alabama Oct. 27-28 Space is limited. Early bird registration available online at www.TheNewMystics.com/Tour

John Crowder in UK & Northern Ireland

John Crowder is coming to the UK and Northern Ireland for a nationwide tour of four cities this September. Help us spread the word and come feast on the intoxicating revelation of Christ crucified! John will visit: Belfast, Northern Ireland Sept. 2-3 Edinburgh, Scotland Sept. 4-5 Leeds, England Sept. 6-7 London, England Sept. 8-9 Space is limited. Early bird registration available online at www.TheNewMystics.com/UK

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SOT Takes Mission Team to Middle East

Sons of Thunder will take a mission team of about 20 people to Jordan this summer for an outreach to refugees from the Syrian civil war, as well as to minister at a gathering of people from surrounding Arab nations. We will be hosting a grace conference, sharing the gospel, healing the sick and releasing impartation. Thanks for your support in this endeavor and check out other mission trips that you can join at www.TheNewMystics.com/Missions

News

Indonesia Joy Mission to Slums, Lepers

You have the opportunity to travel with John Crowder as part of the Sons of Thunder team to Havana, Cuba next March 2016, sharing the gospel and releasing the new wine of the Holy Ghost! With travel restrictions relaxing between the US and Cuba for ministry purposes, join us as we hop on the vanguard of proclaiming the gospel of grace on the island. Our team will also pray for the sick and release the saving, healing power of Jesus Christ. We are expecting a supernatural week as we venture where few missionaries have ever been allowed to go! We will have a special charter flight directly from the States, so find out more on Page 13 and visit us online at www.TheNewMystics.com/Cuba

First Marriage From India Orphanage

It is amazing to think that some of the children we have raised and supported in our India orphanages are already growing up and entering the world on their own! Not only do we have a few who have moved on to Bible school, but Varsha - one of the orphaned girls who has lived with us for years - has recently married husband Sameer in the first wedding to date from our home. Sons of Thunder currently operates two homes for abandoned children in India - one in Mumbai and another in Rajamundry.

Cana Seminary Goes Online This Fall

Mission to Indonesia Coming November

Our very next mission trip open to applicants is to Jakarta, Indonesia November 2015 - the largest Muslim country in the world! We will host a national grace conference and minister in the slums and leper colonies to the poorest of the poor. This will be one of our drunkest trips ever! Applications are open now through August 15. Find out more on Page 13 and visit us online for the full scoop at www.TheNewMystics.com/Indy

Due to popular demand, Cana New Wine Seminary will be available as an online classroom starting November 4, 2015. The program will have a one or two-year enrollment option. Cana is a drunken seminary.

Happy theology woven seamlessly with the intoxicating practice of the presence of God. Doctrine is not to be divorced from experience. Cana is a place where you will find doctorate level theologians and mystical ecstatics sharing the same platform. Early bird sign up rates of $275 for the first semester or $650 for the entire first year are available until October 16, 2015. Read more on Page 17 and visit Cana on the Web at www.Cana.co

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From the Publisher ...

It is quite obvious to any observer that we tend to keep the hornet’s nest stirred with controversy here at Sons of Thunder.

The charismatic church is quick to allow its ministers a few moral failures. Sleep with the church secretary, smoke crack, grab a male prostitute or run off with the tithes … no problem! You’ll be back in the pulpit in three months with a slap on the wrist. Plus you can pretty much teach whatever you want to make up. Talk about aliens, nephilim and imaginary dragons or tell about your 500 undocumented dead raisings … that’s fine! Charismatics love that stuff.

However … if you really want to cause some unforgivable trouble with the amen corner try preaching the gospel of grace! The scandal of the cross will get you blacklisted for good. It invalidates religion. On top of it all … have fun! Being happy and not taking your role as a “minister” so seriously really offends the selfimportance of religionists as well. Usually the sense of humor is the first thing to go when you become a Christian.

In this issue Come to think of it … there are quite a number of Biblical ways you can become an irritant to the status quo. After all, most of the chaps in the Bible were mavericks. In this latest issue of The Ecstatic, we have devoted the bulk of the publication walking readers through some of the main ways we’ve caused offense over the years in our extended article Killing the Sacred Cow. In other happenings, you’ll want to check out two mission trips we have planned for the coming months – including ventures to Indonesia and Cuba where you can join us! Our regular Meditations section features another piece by Fr. Richard Rohr.

Plus we have articles from Brad Jersak and Dr. Steve McVey. Plus we drop the big news that Cana Seminary will finally be available online!

Our third digital issue This is our third issue of The Ecstatic since our publication has gone digital, though we do provide some print copies to partners in the U.S. Although we recognize many prefer a print edition of the magazine, our transition to digital allows us to distribute freely around the globe. Be sure you visit our homepage at www.

TheNewMystics.Com/Ecstatic and enter your email address to join our free newslist – this will ensure you receive each issue to your inbox twice a year. Those of you who join the newslist will also receive our regular Jesus Trip teaching videos.

We value your support to keep the magazine and ministry running.

Your generous contributions make the publication available to all and enable us to spread Good News to the ends of the globe.

What we’re all about We at Sons of Thunder produce The Ecstatic as a way to bring a cohesive voice to the growing interest in authentic, mystical Christianity – but a mysticism rooted in the grace message of Christ’s cross – not in human attempt at spiritual disciplines or mental ascent.

In a practical sense, The Ecstatic serves as an information gateway to the ministry of John & Lily Crowder. But moreover, it is a first fruit in publishing toward bridging several important themes that are converging at the moment: finished work theology, the miraculous, divine satisfaction and daily human existence in the divine life. All of these concepts are intrinsically woven together.

A new, reformed Christ-centered mysticism is on the rise. It is bridging many streams. Relevant is its cultural approach. Radical is its charismatic fervor. Reformative is its theology of grace.

These are guiding values of this publication and our own lives. It is a theological journal whose frequency is joy unspeakable.

Fully Satisfied …

John Crowder Founder, Sons of Thunder Publications the ecstatic is published bi-annually Copyright © 2015 Sons of Thunder Ministries & Publications, All rights reserved.

Email: info@thenewmystics.org Phone: 1-877-343-3245 Address: P.O. Box 40, Marylhurst, OR 97036

www.TheNewMystics.com

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Contents 2 News: The Latest from Sons of Thunder 5 Killing the Sacred Cow 12 Find the Party: Sons of Thunder Itinerary 13 Upcoming Mission Trips 16 Jesus Lived As Us - Dr. Steve McVey 17 Cana Goes Online!

18 Can We Make God Love Us More or Less?

19 Meditations of the Mystics

subscribe at www.thenewmystics.com

Join Sons of Thunder on Social Networking

Follow our Public Profile page at: www.Facebook.com/RevJohnCrowder Visit the page and click “Like” in order to stay up to date with posts, exciting events, testimonies and more. In addition, we are also on Twitter – you can follow John’s happenings at www.Twitter.com/TheNewMystics And if you have an iPhone, you will want to download “The New Mystics” Application for free. Besides helping you keep tabs on the ministry, the iPhone app enables you to watch each week’s Jesus Trip video from the convenience of your mobile device.

Killing the Sacred Cow A Beginner’s Guide to why we are so Offensive Over the years there have been quite a few folks who have wanted to help polish me up, or package a palatable version of my teachings – as if this Gospel message could be delivered in a nonoffensive way. If I would just sober it up, watch my language and walk a straight line – they figure my ministry could grow by leaps and bounds and one day I may arrive at the pinnacle of ministry success by landing on TBN or something.

Jesus is the Stone the builders rejected. Just as in the days of the early church, the Gospel remains a stumbling block, an offense to the natural mind.

The wisdom of God is as foolishness to a humanity that has staked it’s misguided hopes on itself and it’s own man-made religious ascent to God. The Gospel is not a scandal because it is difficult, but because it is so easy. Not because it is depressing nor that it elicits striving, but because it is so joyous and liberating. And there is no way around it: the Message brings people to a point of crisis that can’t be explained away – only embraced in the raw mystery of faith.

Over the years I’ve gained a bit of a reputation for tipping sacred cows. Doctrines and beliefs that are deemed so foundation are often really our skewed projections of our own fearful, fallen assumptions about God. Needless to say, there has been a high cost over the years for challenging the status quo.

Those who enter ministry expecting to make a lot of friends either misunderstand ministry or they’ve never preached the Gospel.

But in a postmodern time where everyone is challenging everything sacred it is also quite trendy to be a voice of “reform” on social media. Know for certain that we do not simply tear down because it’s in vogue. Our aim is not simply to offend, but to peel back the blinders of bad doctrine and misunderstanding to bring clarity, truth and freedom.

I’ve heard it said that every new revelation brings a new set of friends! Yes offense does happen. But our motives are to bring the glorious liberty of the Gospel in a way that is shockingly clear – even if it rocks the boat. And our chief goal is to proclaim Jesus – the deconstruction of religious idols is simply a secondary but necessary means to an end.

In this article, I would like to bring you through a short history of our own journey of discovery. It is both theological and experiential. In the following bullet-point sections I want to address some of the major revelations that have defined our ministry over the past ten years. Each section deals with a new turn in the road for us and another sacred cow we began to roast. For many who are new to our teachings, they wonder, “Why on earth are people so offended by Crowder?” To others who have tracked with us over the years, and who have watched the progression in our beliefs, it is abundantly clear why the offense has taken place! With each step of the way and each bend in the river, we’ve longed to fully embrace what the Lord has shown us. What I may have lacked in diplomacy, tact or ministerial protocol I have hoped to make up in honesty, clarity and lack of pretension.

Each of the following sections is by no means a complete compendium of everything we believe.

But to get hold of just one of them inevitably starts

“Our aim is not simply to offend, but

to peel back the blinders of bad doctrine and misunderstanding to bring clarity, truth and freedom. I’ve heard it said that every new revelation brings a new set of friends!” a domino effect that can lead you into the other ones. I am aware that to handle such scandalous topics in such a brief fashion in one magazine may open more cans of worms and prompt more questions than it offers explanations. Nevertheless these are some of the more important and defining revelations we have carried along the way that have not only liberated me personally, but have caused shockwaves of glorious chaos to echo through the halls of religion everywhere we go. If one section provokes your curiosity, we have provided some recommended books for reading along the way.

The Supernatural

One of the first heifers we started to barbecue many years ago was the cessationist, rationalistic notion of a non-miraculous Christianity. The

by John Crowder Gospel is a supernatural message. And signs and wonders follow those who believe. The Gospel is not a matter of talk, but of power (Acts 4:20).

When my first book The New Mystics came on the scene ten years ago, my aim was to reintroduce the church to its supernatural roots by recovering our 2,000-year heritage of documented miracle workers throughout church history. The “unusual signs and wonders” worked in the early church did not cease with the book of Acts. Beyond just the healing, prophecy or gift of tongues you’ll find in your local Pentecostal church today – our history is chock full of bizarre miracles that have testified of the Gospel and changed the course of rulers and nations. There are hagiographies of hundreds of believers who have literally floated off the ground; beheaded martyrs picked up their own heads after they were lopped off; men communicated to animals; others have glowed and transfigured just as our Lord on Mt. Tabor. There are countless stories of mind-boggling exploits.

Considered fanciful renditions of overactive imaginations by critical paper-pushing theologians today, these are not stories locked into the dusty annals of the past. But a line of progression of those moving in a tangible manifestation of power has occurred right up until today and is available for anyone who wants it. From the faith healing movement of the 1950s (men like Jack Coe would walk down a line of 100 wheelchair patients, just ripping every one to their feet), to the widespread modern movements like Bethel Church and many others – thousands are realizing that the miraculous is right here. The Kingdom is at hand. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living and active in us.

So for many years, we were associated with the “supernatural stream” amid the heavy focus that has returned to the miraculous in the charismatic arm of the church over the past 20 years following the Toronto Renewal. We have seen phenomenal miracles in our own meetings. Hundreds healed of tumors, cancers, deafness and blindness. And the more extraordinary displays such as rain falling inside buildings, huge sums of money appearing in pockets or supernatural weight loss of 20, 40 even Continued on page 6

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< Continued from page 5 80 pounds! Nothing strange about it. Supernatural Rather than stopping short with healing, prophecy Christianity is normative Christianity. and “run-of-the-mill” charismatic phenomena and spiritual gifts – we embraced a full Biblical specCritics often speak from a vantage of insecurity. trum of unusual, bizarre miracles, signs and wonThey accuse Charismatics of arrogantly appealing ders. This itself challenges many. But a whole new to the miraculous to prove their “spiritual superi- spectrum of controversy arises when one lays aside ority” over the average Christian. And God knows his pursuit of the gifts and begins to fully embrace many Charismatics do view themselves that way! the person of Holy Spirit Himself. Of course the But operating in the supernatural has nothing what- charismatic mantra of “pursue the Giver not the soever to do with ranking, merit, self-effort or hav- gifts” has long been touted but rarely lived. What ing a bigger Holy Ghost than your neighbor. It is does it mean to fully embrace the presence of God? simply a realization of our inheritance – the simple Biblically and historically the outpouring of Holy fact that this stuff is available as a gift to us thanks Spirit is allegorized as “new wine.” The mystics of to Jesus – and the exploration of that discovery will the church spoke of ecstasies and intoxication on continue to unfold in the days to come. The word the love of God akin to Acts chapter two when the must be preached with power. apostles were mocked as being physically drunk.

Scripture is chock full of individuals experiencing Early on, we realized that the mystics of the church ecstasies, trances, raptures - what is referred to as held a rich key for us today – because the divine the “infilling” or “baptism” of the Spirit. power they walked in was not divorced from inti- John G. Lake writes, “Now what is a trance? A macy. Rather, it was a fruit of it. As much as we ap- trance is the Spirit taking predominance over the preciated the miraculous, the thing that fueled me mind and body, and for the time being the control more than anything was the intimate presence of Jesus. The wine of His love is intoxicating. While “...a whole new spectrum of controversy modern evangelicals think the word “mystic” only arises when one lays aside his pursuit of applies to a new ager with a Ouija board, I had actu- the gifts and begins to fully embrace the ally cracked enough books to know that the church person of Holy Spirit Himself.” mystics had nothing whatsoever to do with the occult. It was a term for those who were enraptured of the individual is by the Spirit; but our ignorance by the mystery of Christ and who spent their lives of the operations of God is such that even ministers enjoying the practice of God’s presence (and their of religion have been known to say it is the devil.” lives too were marked by the supernatural, but only as a byproduct of enjoying Him). Beyond pat an- Giving oneself over to full “possession” by the Spirit swers and palatable theological solutions, there is of God is an intimidating proposition. Because of a place of engaging in the tangible love of God in a man’s tainted perception of a God of wrath and venplace of contemplation and experiential enjoyment. geance – we tend to want a buffer – keeping Him For years I had appreciated the mystics. But more at arm’s length. Religionists even appeal to scripand more it became clear to me the only way for- tures about “self control” in a way that wrongly proward was the ecstatic pleasure of the Lover of our hibits “God control.” But to be infused by Mr. Love souls.

– by Mr. Joy – means that the natural senses are overcome by divine bliss. Not terror, sourness and legalism. We are afraid to hand over the reins to While fear of the unknown keeps many mainline Him in a very tangible, personal way. But this fear is denominations from embracing a supernatural ver- unfounded. The joy of the Lord subverts our overly sion of Christianity – the fact is that Charismatic/ serious, self-important religious notions aimed at Pentecostalism is the fastest growing stream of the pleasing a God who is already absolutely pleased church around the world today. Most Christians be- with us thanks to Jesus. lieve in some form of the supernatural. But we have been equal opportunity offenders to those Charis- Far from swallowing up our humanity in fastings matics as well as the average liturgical Lutheran. and self-deprecating piety – the Spirit of God liberWhy? For one, we have simply lived and followed ates us to have fun and embrace a natural life lived out the “positive” side of Charismatic beliefs sys- out in His presence. More and more we gave ourtems to their ultimate conclusions. For all their talk selves over to this trance-like glory, which was the about “pursuing Holy Spirit” if you actually start to subject of my second book The Ecstasy of Loving enjoy Him too much you’re going to piss someone God. As strange as the “wine of the Spirit” seems to off in the Penecostal world. the analytical mind, it is nothing less than drinking in His intoxicating love. We are made for those riv-

The Wine

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ers of pleasure at His right hand. Humanity is called to delight in the presence of God. He is the only purest satisfaction that we long for in the depths of our soul. Clinically this all sounds reasonable on paper – but to live it – to show up at one of our meetings and see people hammered drunk, sprawled across the room … well that’s something different altogether. It’s too real. Suddenly they weren’t associating us with the “supernatural stream” anymore (even though the miracles just got crazier) … Now we were just the “drunk guys.” It was during this period of writing The Ecstasy of Loving God, I began to provide teaching and historical background on this trance-like glory in the lives of believers.

As I began to delve into church history, I realized that people experiencing a tangible intoxication of His presence marked every significant movement of God in the earth. While the outward displays include things like uncontrollable fits of laughter, shaking, swooning, etc. (or at minimum, a goose bump during the worship service) – at the very core was an individual’s deep encounter with the goodness of God. This wine wasn’t a strange Pentecostal side dish – it’s the wine of His love. We’re made for it in the depths of our being. In the First Great Awakening, men like John Wesley and George Whitfield used terms like “fits” or “enthusiasms” to describe the ecstasies of God’s presence. In the Second Great Awakening, a common term was “the jerks.” The same experience occurred widespread among the massive revival of the French prophets of the 1700s, who were called the “convulsionaires” (due to their literal shaking in the presence of God).

Hence we also get the denominational names “Quaker” and “Shaker” for their similar manifestations. With the advent of Pentecostalism at Azusa Street at the turn of the past century, the term “filled with the Spirit” was coined to describe this activity, and was thus popularized. But it quickly devolved into falling over one time in church, and assuming one’s entire life was “Spirit filled.” While Holy Spirit was indeed poured out on all flesh – and we are all recipients of Him – that does not in any way mean every man is continually, consciously drinking of the love of God on a daily basis. Not actively enjoying and engaging in the One who is already here.

Various Pentecostal revivalists throughout the 20th century (such as Maria Woodworth Etter, known as the “trance evangelist”) would at times appeal to individuals to embrace a fuller life in the Spirit – not just falling over once in a meeting and calling it done. In her meetings in the early 20th century, ten thousand people would corporately fall into trances.

In St. Louis, she was arrested on grounds of insanity.

Renewal movements such as the Toronto Outpouring in the 1990s began to reawaken the church to the need for a lifestyle of the practice of the presence of God. Terminology in this movement included phrases such as “soaking” in God’s presence.

Something that the church mystics always referred to throughout the centuries as “contemplation.” All in all, we are simply referring to the “practice of the presence of God.” It is a simple enjoyment and realization of Him at all times. Trances, ecstasy, raptures – these were all terms pointing to the same thing – actively, tangibly, consciously enjoying God. What has been the result of embracing God’s tangible glory as our chief end? Absolute beautiful chaos! We lost our ability to abide by the rote, lifeless trappings of legalistic religious activity. Every meeting began to turn into a party – a celebration, a love feast. From costumes and rave music to unabashed goofiness … our “Drunken Glory Tours” were wild, frenzied explosions of joy and love. The goal was not merely to provide a good sermon or even work a fancy miracle. It was all about enjoyment of God Himself. Even our language was adapted to try and convey the bliss of the new wine of the Spirit. Not only is the liberty offensive. Not only is joy unspeakable offensive to the depressive religious mind.

Dropping Christianese is offensive enough! The mere attempt to articulate that God is better than drugs, “Get high on Jesus” carried radical offense.

But the fruit was seeing countless people freed from bondage, addictions and depression – even at the cost of gladly losing many speaking invitations to formal megachurches!

of arriving nearer to Him or somehow attaining a greater portion of Holy Spirit. Even in this ecstatic movement that was emerging – where folks were learning to enjoy God for the first time and appreciate a rich life of tangible experience – something foundational was greatly amiss.

human. You are just a sinner … but a ‘forgiven’ sinner.” But every single one of Paul’s letters appealed to something far different – in every one of his letters, he gives you your death certificate! “Your old nature died with Christ … You’re not a sinner, you’re a saint – so live like it!” Finally the pieces were all coming together. So many people longed It was becoming clear that much of the church was for the glory and presence of God. They longed for missing a crucial element: a revelation of the Gos- miracles. Yet they were still trying to fix themselves pel. up, clean themselves up and polish up their old nature – because they were still struggling with a false Of course everyone speaks so glibly of “the Gospel” identity! as though it’s something they learned in Sunday Furthermore, they were trying to clean themselves up to “get more of God” when Colossians 2 clearly tells us that by our union with Christ we are already full of the Godhead! Ironically, our very attempt to grab hold of Him was the very thing holding us back by assuming He isn’t already here!

This was the very substance of our joy and intoxication. It was the realization that my old anxious, depressed, sinful self was dead! And now I am plugged into everything I always wanted. I didn’t need to “press in” to God anymore. I had been pressed into! I didn’t need to be a “God chaser” anymore. He chased me down! I didn’t need to strive to “get closer” to Him. How can you get closer to your Siamese twin! At this time, Romans six was fully solidified as the bedrock of all we knew and built upon. I was co-crucified with Christ. I had been buried with Him and raised to new life in complete union with Him. What an offensive claim to those still working off their checklist to please the Father!

school, yet they appeal to all manner of religious disciplines to get hold of God as if they don’t have Him. The Gospel is the scandalously good news that you have already arrived. Thanks to Jesus you are absolutely one with God, whether you know it or not. There is no separation. The two have become one. You are flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone – one spirit with the Lord. The Gospel is not the delayed message of potentially getting Him in increments, but rather it is the revelation that He has already given you all of Himself! Doesn’t mean We began to see how huge and offensive this It didn’t take long to realize that even “drinking in we know it, feel it or believe it … but as we hear this Gospel message really is … because it invalidates the Spirit” can quickly get turned into a work – as Good News, it changes everything. every ministry aimed at self-improvement. We are people saw it as another attempt to religiously get already fully united to Him … that is not something closer to God. “How do I get drunk in the Spirit?” We gradually began to see that the core of all re- that progressively happens over a lifetime of sanctithey would ask. I would respond, “Stop trying – ligion was an attempt to make oneself right with fication as we were told by religionists. No, sanctifithat’s divination! I’m not ‘trying’ to get drunk in the something outside of oneself – in order to better cation is a person (1 Cor. 1). And we were united to Spirit. I’m believing that I already am!” People didn’t oneself. But the Gospel is the rock solid truth that Him fully on the cross before we ever voted on the realize they were already in the wine room – that God is pleased as punch with us because He has matter. The only lifelong process is the discovery of we are already seated in Heavenly places. Drinking already set us perfectly right with Himself in Jesus. the riches and glory that are already ours, fully bewasn’t a work to climb into union with God – it’s an Not only that, but He destroyed the entirety of our stowed upon us thanks to Jesus. Christian growth is act of enjoying a union that we already have thanks old sinful nature in His own broken body on the not a process of rooting out sin, but discovering the to Jesus. cross – and we can tangibly live a life of perfec- glory of Christ that’s already within us. tion thanks to this reality that we are not sinners Whether they used language like “drinking” or just anymore. And if I am not really a sinner anymore It was at this time that I wrote my most important “being filled” - the denominational catch phrases are – then nothing whatsoever holds me back from His work, Mystical Union: Stuff They Never Told you irrelevant – it became ever increasingly clear that continual, abiding presence. The struggle with sin About the Finished Work of the Cross. The shockmost Christians are generally pursuing the same in our daily life disappears completely when we re- waves were instant. So much of the charismatic thing: more of God. For many who even attended alize the truth of our identity: I am a holy, blameless voodoo formulas for trying to access the heavens, our meetings, they still viewed soaking/drinking/ec- son perfected before Him by no effort of my own. get closer to God, etc. were suddenly seen for what stasies/etc. as a means of “getting closer to God.” So much of what was taught as “grace” was merely they were: religious witchcraft and divination. Our As if the practice of His presence was a process a cover-up for sin. “Nobody is perfect. We’re all human efforts were never required in this salva-

Union & Perfection

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tion/sanctification/glorification process. At the same time, I released my book Seven Spirits Burning, which was more than just an explanation of the Seven Spirits of God (Rev. 1, 4, 5; Isa. 11), but it was also an act of throwing down the gauntlet – a pneumatology book (study of Holy Spirit) that was rooted completely in what Jesus did to give us His Spirit – not what we must do to drum Him up.

looked came screaming off the pages – highlighting the glorious truth that Christ saved us singlehandedly. We realized we could never disappoint God, because He had never been banking on our performance to begin with! He had never expected us to fulfill “our side” of the covenant relationship. Christ, in stepping into our humanity, became our human response to the Father! We were, are and forevermore will be fully represented to God as perfect.

More than ever at this time we resolved to know And this is not just a theoretical, positional, legal nothing but Christ and Him crucified. When so concept. But we can live out that perfection everymany ministries are based upon “your own cross” day in the happiness of holiness.

– blathering about what you must do to kill off your old self to please God or access His Spirit – there Suddenly a domino effect of reevaluation began are few who realize that Jesus carried your cross! to happen as we began to revisit so many “founThe cross of man was being preached, not the dational” doctrines we once held to be true now in cross of Christ. We’ve already been fully baptized the clearer light of the Gospel of grace. For many into His death. Circumcised of our old nature. Christ did it single handedly. This was the one and only “Ever since the early renewal days key to continual, sustained fulfillment and the core I had realized God is in a good revelation that enables us to live in constant unbro- mood. But now I really had to think ken fellowship with His Spirit. It invalidates every strenuous prayer and fasting routine and every it through on all levels.” new charismatic formula that comes down the pike people, one of the first pet doctrines that initially promising added spirituality if you will only “do this get challenged at this point in their walk is a gross or that.” Freedom from sin is a scandal! modern misunderstanding of atonement.

Let me tell you that when we really began to preach the unadulterated message of the cross – this put the knife to the daddy of all sacred cows. It seemed that everyone had been mixing a bit of law and human effort into their grace … but grace has to be drunk straight! The Charismatics got angry because the Gospel invalidates their self-help formulas of inner healing. As simple as the message is, many didn’t understand it, simply saying, “Crowder has gone off into theology these days” (a snide way of insinuating that I don’t just talk about miracles all day long, despite the fact that they still happen in all our meetings!). And of course with a new sacred cow you get a new label. Some thought we were preaching antinomianism or “license to sin.” Greasy grace … or a new term coined by one of our accusers “hypergrace!”

The message of our true identity, our ever-present union and absolute freedom from sin seems so sacrilegious when the majority report is a message of dual nature, death to self, distance from God and delayed promises. But it is the Gospel.

Penal Substitution

It would be a mistake to say that the message of grace hit us all at once like a ton of bricks in just one day. Layer upon layer of bad theology began to strip away like grave clothes. Scriptures which had been mistranslated, taken out of context or over-

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Suddenly I was flooded with a whole different narrative. Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). That was never temporarily suspended on the cross. He also said, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:11). The Father never jumped out of Jesus on the cross. And in John 16:32 He said, “You [disciples] will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” This also spoke of when He would go to the cross. And 2 Corinthians 5:19, ”To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the cosmos to Himself.” The Father was not turning His back - He had better than front row seats! He was in Christ, reconciling the cosmos.

I had thought God was our enemy and His wrath needed to be abated by human sacrifice. But what a twisted immoral monster had been proclaimed to me in my youth. God was never my enemy. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Col. 1:2122). The fact is that God had never opposed me. In my delusion, I had set myself up as His enemy … but He had never returned the favor. He was always Ever since the early renewal days I had realized positively for me, even in my sinfulness.

God is in a good mood. But now I really had to think it through on all levels.

But doesn’t this make light of the wrath of God? No, people have been making light of the love of God. I had always been raised to believe that when Je- I do believe in God’s furious wrath. But God does sus took the sins of the world upon Himself, He not love on some days and hate on other days. He did so to turn away the Father’s wrath. God was does not simply love as an action, otherwise He a schizophrenic – His Jesus-sided-face loved us, could hate as an action. God does not love – God but there was another darker side – a legal face is Love. All He is capable of is love. Even His wrath that was full of anger and bloodlust toward sinners. is merely a hot extension of His love! It is a big reI was taught that Jesus essentially paid God off to sounding “NO!” to sinfulness itself, because of what love us, and that the Father hurled all of His wrath sinfulness does to destroy and molest His children. and anger onto Jesus on the cross so that we could be saved. I was taught that on the cross, the Fa- The blood was never about paying off a sacrificether had forsaken His Son. But in fact, this concept demanding deity. The blood was for us! Hebrews called “penal substitution” was actually a doctrine of 10:22 declares, “Let us draw near to God with a demons. This was never taught by the early church sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith fathers, and was actually more of an “Americanized brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us version” of the Gospel. from a guilty conscience. …” The sacrifice of Christ was never about paying off God to love us or bridge On the cross, the Trinity was not imploding on itself. a gap of separation from His end. Isaiah 59 tells us The Father never once turned His back on the Son. our sins “separated us from God” but they never Jesus never said, “My Father you have forsaken “separated God from us.” Big difference there. We Me.” Jesus asked a question, “Why?” In fact, He were the ones running into the bushes like Adam was asking our question “why?” whenever we feel – we were the ones withdrawing and pulling away forsaken by a God who never forsakes anybody. from relationship, love and vulnerability. But God The Father never turned His back on the Son. The was never pulling away from us. On the cross, Jetruth is that Jesus was stepping into our blindness sus was not twisting the Father’s arm to love us; to the love of God, to fully empathize with our condi- His love is unconditional. On the cross, Jesus was tion and liberate us from it. not twisting the Father’s arm to be gracious toward

us; His grace is unconditional. He was not holding back some dark side of God. To see Jesus is to see the love of the entire Trinity. On the cross, Jesus was not changing God. … On the cross, Jesus was changing you!

earlier, a domino effect begins to occur as the revelation of grace forces us to revisit so many overlapping yet tightly held doctrinal systems. This is not for the faint of heart. But before you have a theological brain aneurism … let us remember that we live from a place of mystery. Truth is not a doctrine; Suddenly the lights came on … if the cross was not He is a Person. And as we keep our focus on Jesus, about paying off a bloodthirsty deity, then what was there is rest in the fact that we need not have all the it all about? The cross was about radically reno- answers – the Answer has us. vating us! Jesus stepped into our darkness, our decay, our insecurity, our fears and inhibitions. He To even begin talking about hell, the narrow-minded embraced our sickness, our disease, our alienation evangelical fundamental mind assumes you only and hardheaded stubbornness. He assumed our have two options: believe in their version of hell or fallenness, our blindness and our coldness … He else you are a universalist. sucked every last drop of it down the black hole of His own broken, servant body – brought it to a final And so at this phase of the game, I released my end – and spit us right back out the other side of the last two books … which are really companion books grave a brand new creation!

The early church fathers never preached that Jesus was saving us from God. He was saving us from sin itself! The atonement means many, many things that are too vast to discuss here. But one thing we realized for certain was that the Father was not afflicting the Son. We considered Him afflicted Isaiah tells us. But the Father wasn’t killing Jesus. We were. The Father was indeed pleased in the bruising of the Son – not because He’s a masochist, but because in the bruising of the Son He saw the adoption of the nations. It never would have been “forgiveness” if blood was demanded by God. That would have been tit-for-tat legal retribution, not absolution. We demanded blood. We killed the Son of God. But He willingly laid down His life so that we could trust Him and display His love and absorb our darkness. The cross was not about God’s wrath, but ours. It was not about some abstract legal exchange … it was about love.

Take away the moody, schizophrenic god of wrath from most churches and they will not know whom to worship anymore. This takes the sacred cow barbecue to whole new level. Without fearful divine retribution hanging over our heads … most people have no real perception of Him. We start to realize that the Abba of Jesus isn’t the angry G.O.D. we were taught to fear in our youth.

Inclusion & Hell

At this point in the game, things start getting more dangerous. To suggest that God really is in a good mood almost instantly prompts questions on the topic of hell. And to begin tackling hell in a sound Biblical way, one must also address the doctrine of election. And to address election, one has to tackle the biggest dogfight in theology for the past few centuries – Calvinism and Arminianism. As I said

“Suddenly the lights came on … if the cross was not about paying off a bloodthirsty deity, then what was it all about?”

– offering a strong dose of theological Prozac to cheer up our perspectives on many of these hot topics. Chosen for Paradise deals with the doctrine of God’s election or “choice” of mankind. It is an addendum to Cosmos Reborn, which radically revisits the new birth, hell, etc. through a lens of the finished work of the cross. Herein, I Biblically dismantle the lie of penal substitution and attempt to reveal the heart of the Father as seen in the Son who died to purge His children from the problem of sin. But in fact, God was in Christ reconciling the entire cosmos to Himself. Suddenly it became more and more clear that God was not against certain segments of society. At the cross, all of humanity was included in the Last Adam. Jesus did not die merely as a man, but as mankind. There were reams of “all” verses that began to leap off the pages to me and my friends. As death came through one man, so also the resurrection came through one man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21-22).

sin of the world” (John 1:29) tells us that, “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself” (John 12:34).

The fact is that all of humanity was included in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To suggest this fact, a person is instantly labeled a “universalist” because unfortunately most folks get their theological labels from Wikipedia and have never studied out inclusion or unlimited atonement. Jesus did not just die for the elect that He “chose” (limited atonement) while intentionally choosing others to fry forever in their own fat in hell, as our Calvinist brothers believe. That would make God Himself (rather than sin, the devil, etc.) to be mankind’s greatest enemy. Nor did He leave salvation up to us in our flimsy, crooked willpower to “choose Him” or by trying to drum up enough faith to make it in the God club as our striving Pentecostal Arminian brothers believe. You did nothing to earn your salvation and you can do nothing to lose it.

Perhaps the biggest lie of Western Christianity is that we are saved by our own faith! No – you are saved by grace! A completely free gift. Faith is simply the lens by which we begin to see, recognize or realize that salvation. But it was given to us before we ever voted on the matter. The Gospel does not demand faith. The Gospel supplies faith. As we hear of God’s love and inclusion of us, faith is an ecstatic “Yes!” to that pronouncement.

Suddenly if everyone is included, people get nervous that you are writing off the hell that they know and love! Of course religionists love to hold onto the hell verses – but they quickly dismiss the “all” verses, the universal texts that suggest all mankind was included in the saving act of Christ. The fact is there are no more outsiders and insiders. All men have been accepted whether they know it or not.

Are you free to reject your acceptance? Of course!

You are free to reject Him all you want. But you can never make Him stop accepting you. As C.S. Lewis said, “the gates of hell are locked from the inside.”

You are free to live in your own self-imposed hellish prison as long as you want. But the gates of Heaven are always open day and night (Rev. 21). Whatever Evangelicals will vehemently deny that the word hell is, or to whatever degree it is populated – we “all” means “all” but there it is over and over and must stop blaming God for it. He is not the enemy of over in the sacred texts … “and through Him to the damned; He is the Savior of the damned. reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through Our perspective on hell has been radically backHis blood, shed on the cross” (Col.1:20), and “to ward. And the western version of hell, which is more be put into effect when the times reach their fulfill- a tradition of man than anything else, must be rement – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on visited in light of the Gospel. Our Orthodox brothers earth under Christ” (Eph. 1:10). Jesus Christ is “the in the East say that “heaven” and “hell” are really atoning sacrifice...for the sins of the whole world” (1 our own human language for what it’s like to be in John 2:2). The “Lamb of God, who takes away the the presence of God. You either love it or you’re

Continued on page 10>

the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 9

< Continued from page 9 going to hate it. But we all ultimately go to the same place – His presence. There is not a single verse that says hell is “separation” from God. David said, “If I go to the depths of hell, there you are!” (Psalm 139:8). And the apostle Peter tells us that Christ Himself preaches to those souls in prison. Maybe just maybe we don’t have all the logical, analytical answers on this topic. But one thing for certain is that we have misjudged and mischaracterized the Father as the supreme, unrelenting torturer of mankind – which is simply not the case.

In Cosmos Reborn I dealt extensively with the inclusion of mankind in Christ, as well as presented a thorough teaching on the subject of hell. And in Chosen for Paradise I showed how God was not choosing/electing some over others – but rather Jesus Christ is both the electing God and the elected man! Jesus is the Chosen One on behalf of all humanity. I revisited the election chapters of Romans 9-11 (i.e. God loved Jacob, but hated Esau) – the most misunderstood section of the New Testament – and cast them in the context of grace and the finished work of Christ who loves everybody.

as the Eastern Orthodox Church – never embraced this mindset over the centuries. For them, God holds all things together; and all things are sustained in Him. He truly exists in all and through all.

The natural and spiritual life were never intended to be partitioned off from one another. And this is most clearly summed up when we look at the incarnation – that God and man exist perfectly united in the person of Jesus Christ.

The fact that Jesus Christ took on a physical body blows dualistic thinking out of the water. Dualism is not a Biblical concept, but a pagan one that is based on an ancient religion called Neoplatonism.

And in the western mindset, our dualisms have radically blinded us to the glory of God that is present and intricately woven into our every day natural existence. We perceive God as “over there” or “in the church building” or at minimum there are parts of our daily natural existence which are somehow

“But one can teach until he is blue in the face. Offense cannot be avoided here. To suggest that all men are loved and included by God is truly the scandal of the Gospel.”

John says that anyone who denies Jesus came in the flesh is of the antichrist! Gnosticism is the core of religion and is the core of the anti-gospel. This is why any physical, material world pleasure is always considered wicked by religionists. For crying out loud, you can’t even wear comfortable clothes to most churches, because anything physically comfortable can’t possibly be spiritual!

There are two forms of gnosticism – Greek and Roman. Both consider the physical world evil, but they deal with it differently. For the Greek gnostic, they move heavily into asceticism, trying to kill off the natural. Fasting is big for the gnostic. Because it’s all about starving off the physical man in order to attain the spiritual. Money is obviously considered “evil” (Jesus never knocked money by the way, only the idolatry of it), so gnostics are often big on poverty. For centuries our Catholic brothers have even taken vows of poverty! And who is the guy that all Christians agree to hate? The prosperity preaching televangelist of course, because we still think of prosperity as being evil.

Then there’s sex. What an area of confusion for the But one can teach until he is blue in the face. Ofchurch! Ever since the early church, it’s been taught fense cannot be avoided here. To suggest that all that sex is sinful and that our bodies are dirty. It’s men are loved and included by God is truly the okay to procreate in marriage – just don’t enjoy it scandal of the Gospel. Feathers will ruffle and too much! Hence the age old “vow of celibacy” and name-calling will abound. I am not a universalist … a centuries’ old misconstruction of Paul’s teachings but I do have hope! Even God “wants all men to be on singleness being better than marriage. saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:4). And if you don’t have this hope … if you “separate” from God that occur “outside” of His And another physical world pleasure is alcohol – actually want men to fry in their own fat forever? presence. We divide life in terms of secular and another gift from God that gets demonized. The list Well guess where you’re probably going … sacred. goes on: music, dancing, etc. Physical world gifts that the Greek gnostic rejects as sinful.

Gnosticism is the ancient heresy that takes dualistic For our final section, I would like to address a topic thinking to the next level. Gnosticism not only per- On the other hand, the Roman version of gnostithat is really nothing new … it’s a sacred cow we’ve ceives a so-called separation between the material cism also views the material world as intrinsically been cooking up for many years. For ages we have and spiritual world – but it goes as far as to say evil – but the Roman gnostic deals with it differtaught against the heresy of gnosticism – which is the material world is evil. And thus for the gnos- ently. Rather than taking the ascetic route of fasting the very core of religion and the church has been tic, spiritual growth is all about escaping the “lower and self-denial, the Roman gnostic figures “There’s riddled with it from the beginning. Almost all of nature” or the physical container of the material nothing we can do about it anyway … so let’s have Paul’s church plants fell into one of two errors – le- world. The goal is to escape our own humanity. For an orgy!” The Roman gnostic turns to licentiousgalism or gnosticism. And while parishioners today the gnostic, the body itself is evil. But such an idea ness and overindulgence as he figures his escape barely know the meaning of the word, their minds runs radically counter to the scripture. In speaking from the “evil world” is impossible. are unfortunately tainted with its influence. negatively about the “flesh” (sarx), the apostle Paul never vilifies our physical bodies. Though he does The fact is that God gives us natural world pleaOn a bigger scale, the entire western world has use the term to reference our “old nature” or our old sures as a gift to be received with thanksgiving! The been greatly influenced by Greco-rationalistic think- inward propensity toward sinfulness in Adam, which Jewish mindset has always understood this (when’s ing. The Greek mind perceives the world through has now been crucified with Christ. the last time you saw a Jewish brother taking a vow a lens called dualism. Dualistic thinking says there of poverty?). But the key is that we filter these pleais a separation between the physical and spiritual Conversely, the apostle John tells us that Jesus sures through the Word! God gives us guidelines on world. A separation between the seen and unseen, Christ did not simply become a man, but that He earthly delights not because He is anti-pleasure, but between the material and non-material world. A became sarx … He became flesh! Gnostics hate because He is actually pro-party! He says to enjoy separation between the natural and supernatural – the idea that God would become flesh, because alcohol, but only in moderation (it’s no fun becomheaven and earth. But our Eastern brothers – such physical, material flesh is considered evil. And thus ing an alcoholic, ending up in the gutter, losing your

Gnostic Dualism

10 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

job and family … that’s no party). He says to enjoy sex in a monogamous relationship between a man and woman (a life of “hit it and quit it” relationships does not produce the fulfilling life that Hollywood and hip hop suggest). Gnosticism has duped us into thinking the scriptures are anti-fun. Anti-earth.

Anti-life. But in reality, the New Testament moral guidelines have always been about enhancing and sustaining our joy! They are about directing us into the full, satisfying abundant life God has always intended for us in this world and the next!

Untangling the spell of gnosticism will be the focus of my next upcoming book, slated for release early next year: Money. Sex. Beer. God. A Biblical Companion to the Happy Life available now for preorder at www.TheNewMystics.com/books

More Beef to Come …

I have no doubt that we will continue to make waves in the days to come. Not that I’ve ever really intended to be a divine troublemaker. It just sort of happens.

There are many who quite honestly love the attention of stirring controversy and causing offense.

Offense will happen as a byproduct of proclaiming the positive truth of the Gospel. But never something we should pursue in itself. Many are indeed called to be reformers, but they often devolve into schismatics. If we are not motivated by love and a genuine desire for the maturity and growth of others, bitterness can easily taint our voice. Shock and awe is often needed to wake people up – and Jesus used edgy language and introduced radically challenging, even confusing concepts. But it was all in an effort to liberate humanity. He never criticized anyone He wasn’t willing to die for.

A couple years ago I counted more than 500 people I had been forced to block on one social media platform alone! I have been the subject of relentless misunderstanding and rejection over the years – countless video exposés, derogatory sermons, excommunications and even entire books written to denounce me. Not saying I’ve always had every theological duck in a row. But I’ve caught as much persecution for our fun and irreverent style as the actual content of my teaching! The offensive fun is merely a manifestation of our glorious liberty in the Gospel. People are still angry over jokes I made in 2007!

But I abide by a general principle to never get on the defensive. Nevertheless if anyone has a reason for a chip on his shoulder - a distaste for mother church - it should be me! But I’ve learned that we have a choice to either take things personally or allow ourselves to grow in humility and compassion.

To remain teachable and not throw the baby out Grace isn’t the problem. It’s the bitterness that pulls with the bathwater. away our Christocentric focus that’s the problem.

Along with the trappings of compartmentalizing A willingness to kill the sacred cow does not mean God. we take nothing as sacred. In these days, it seems everything is being put on the chopping block. The The sacred cow I speak of is not grace itself. In fact inspiration of scripture. Evangelicalism. Charismat- Grace is not a doctrine He is a Person. Living. Movic Christianity as a whole. Many who are burned ing. Breathing. Refusing to be caged up in some out on right-wing Fox News conservatism just figure neutered little box. Some time ago I was in a foreign they’ll switch ships to left-wing CNN liberalism. But country for an event where a fellow had set up a reliberty is never found in an “ism,” and I have never source table on which he had translated dozens of been afraid to offend people on the left and the “grace preachers” into his native language. He was right simultaneously. It is wisdom to neither write packaging a “grace network” and quite literally was off nor to fully embrace every trend and movement wearing a “grace” T-shirt that he also sold at the in its entirety. We need Catholics and Presbyterians table. I could tell that this poor fellow was going to – but neither has a corner on the truth. Truth is a be offended 15 minutes into my first sermon by the Person. One of the reasons we’ve been misunder- “grace message” I was about to preach. Over the stood over the years is because we draw from many years several folks have even asked me to “start diverse streams of the church, yet refuse to align a grace network” that they could join! Just join the solely with just one of them. We don’t belong to one Gospel! Why do we look for safety in masses and camp. But we also can’t demonize entire segments popular trends? The grace of God cannot be celof the Body just because they are mixed up. lophane wrapped, marketed and sold as a product made palatable to the masses. But people thrive I have long predicted that the next sacred cow head- on security in numbers. A Democratic or Republican ed to the barbecue will be the actual “grace move- system. A Pentecostal or Lutheran church. And now ment!” Many who are not grounded in the scripture with social media, the trend is to be on the “cutting edge” by bashing stuff all the time. It has become high-fashion to deconstruct, question and incessantly bitch at the church in the guise of “enlightenment” on Facebook and Twitter. In the name of “grace” the only common bond among many is a shared angst. Having been disenfranchised by religious structures, some make it their sole intent to discredit the Bible, the preeminence of Jesus Christ and thus get tossed about by every wind and wave of doctrine on the news feed that day (whether good or bad). They lose the plot in following the trend of “negating.” It has the appearance of bravery – but you’re not going against the flow when everyone else is going against the flow. Often the “radical” voices of reform sound bold, but they are really cowing to the approval of a few other “fellow radicals” to whose approval they are hopelessly addicted.

“There are many who quite honestly love the attention of stirring controversy and causing offense. Offense will happen as a byproduct of proclaiming the positive truth of the Gospel.

But never something we should pursue in itself.”

or appreciative of the operations of the Spirit are prone to devolve into endless spirals of intellectual deconstruction, criticism and ambiguous relativism. Much of what is called the “grace movement” is just a massive social media complaint session spiraling toward athiesm. I’m not saying “grace” is problematic of course! Nor in saying there’s a problem in “the camp” do I align with the very lemon suckers who equate the grace message with a “license to sin” (a common foil used to label us as “hypergrace”). This grace train is far more hyperactive than we could imagine – we have not begun to search out the riches of this infinite honey pot!

Karl Barth said the mark of a prophet is to be radically contradictory to the existing system. Then as soon as the “new thing” he endorses becomes the popular trend, he knocks the knees out from under the very thing he built! God is looking for original voices. Not echoes. Feast on Him. Enjoy what He’s done. And don’t cower to the majority report when you know the truth is unpopular. There is a lot of glory on being a free person! And yes, there is a place for negating the evils of religion. But that can never be our ultimate goal. Holiness is not the absence of sin; it is the presence of God.

the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 11

Itinerary Find the Party Near You!

Schools, conferences & mission trips with John Crowder

2015 Chicago Mystical School

May 29-31

Chicago, Illinois

Grand Rapids Mystical School

June 26-28

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Alaska Grace & Glory

July 10-12

Anchorage, Alaska

Calgary Mystical School

July 17-19

Alberta, Canada

Phoenix Mystical School

Live Monthly Web Conference: Interact With John Crowder

July 31-Aug. 2

Phoenix, Arizona

UK & Northern Ireland Tour

September 2-9

Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds & London

Gibraltar Mystical School

September 25-27

Mediterranean Region

Louisville Mystical School

October 9-11

Louisville, Kentucky

East Coast Mega Grace

October 21-28

Toronto, Maryland, Mass. & Alabama

Indonesia Mission Trip

November 10-16

Jakarta Slums and Leper Colonies

Northwest Grace & Glory

November 20-21

Shelton, Washington

New Zealand Down Under

December 2-5

Te Puke & Auckland

Australia Down Under

December 6-11

Melbourne, Wagga Wagga & Brisbane

2016

Norway Mystical School

January 8-10

Oslo, Norway

South Africa Tour

January 22-27

Durban, Joburg & Cape Town

Oklahoma Mystical School

February 5-7

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

New York Mystical School

February 19-21

New York City

Cuba Mission Trip

March 1-7

Schedule subject to change. Sign up for events early at:

www.thenewmystics.com 12 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

Our interactive monthly Web seminar, Inner Sanctum, connects supernatural gospel grace drinkers all around the world on a regular basis. The live teaching and exclusive online chat features have enabled us to bring fresh revelation to viewers right to their homes, churches and house groups. Each month, we answer your burning questions and unpackage the glorious gospel in a fresh, intoxicating atmosphere of impartation and glory! If you’re diving into grace revelation and want to plug in deeper with lifechanging messages, we invite you or your group to join as a member of our online community at www.TheNewMystics.TV Newly Relaunched – More User Friendly & More Features!

We just overhauled the Inner Sanctum with lots of new features, including a social media platform where you can create a profile, share pictures and chat with friends 24-hours a day. Here is a list of upcoming live broadcast dates – so mark your calendar.

This schedule is subject to change, so keep an eye on the Web site.

Upcoming Broadcast Schedule: June 21 July 26 August 23 September 13 October 18 November 22 December 20

www.TheNewMystics.TV

All seminars are held on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern/6 p.m. Pacific

Online Community ... Intoxicating Fun! Our ministry events are full of joy and impartation, but let’s face it ... you can’t make it to every conference in the world! Inner Sanctum is a way to plug you into a steady diet of gospel revelation right in your own home. Everywhere we travel, people are always asking us, “How can we stay connected with the Message?” The Inner Sanctum is a great tool as you grow in grace.

Our Most Comprehensive Teaching Resource!

Since we’ve launched Inner Sanctum at TheNewMystics.TV, we have posted more than 40 hours of archived teachings – and as a member, you receive instant access to watch all of this footage, anytime! Your monthly membership contribution ($19.95) also helps support our ministry endeavors all around the world! Gather your family and friends to enjoy each month’s event together!

Each month, you can take part in our live, interactive seminars where John Crowder spends several hours engaging one-on-one with viewers right from his home study.

Ask us your questions live for our real-time Q&A ... or just kick back and have a laugh as other members log in and join the fun. These are NOT recorded church meetings!

Instead, John engages live-in-person with viewers, answering your questions and getting you activated in the gospel message. Join us as we savor the bliss of mystical Christianity and the supernatural realities of the new creation.

Finally, a fun way to feast on the finished work no matter where you live!

UPCOMING MISSION tRIPS Our application process is simple. Just visit us online at www.TheNewMystics.Com/missions and place your initial deposit of $500 for either trip to hold your spot on the team. Space will be limited on these trips, so check the cutoff deadlines for your deposits. Both trips require you to purchase your own airline ticket (either to Jakarta for the Indonesia trip, or to Miami for the Cuba trip). We encourage folks to begin fund-raising at your local church or through family and friends who may want to support your mission, provide air miles, etc. Email us with any questions at info@thenewmystics.org.

John Crowder will be leading a team to visit Jakarta, Indonesia in November 2015 to release the glorious Good News equipping the church with a regional supernatural grace event and imparting the intoxicating revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also, while in the country, the team will be visiting the poorest of the poor, releasing the love of God and bringing the new wine of salvation bliss to the margins of society. We will be visiting the slums and destitute areas of the region, bringing joy and a miraculous display of the gospel of life.

Indonesia is one of the largest muslim nations in the world. In 1998, during a massive persecution, more than 600 church-

Next year, in March 2016 John Crowder will lead a team to Havana, Cuba to minister to local groups, sharing the gospel and releasing the New Wine of the Holy Ghost! With travel restrictions relaxing between the US and Cuba for ministry purposes, join us as we hop in on the vanguard of proclaiming the gospel of grace on the island. Our team will also pray for the sick and release the saving, healing power of Jesus Christ. We are expecting a supernatural week as we venture where few missionaries have ever been allowed to go!

After the communist revolution of 1959, the Cuban government restricted religious practice, which led to an increase of persecution for Christians. Relationships between the new government and congregations became tense. As of

es were burned to the ground, pastors were murdered and rioting took place in the streets. However, since that time, the Christian population has seen a massive growth, with estimates saying it had doubled by 2000 to more than 17.9 million, and has continued to multiply at a tremendous rate since then. Although periodic persecution and bombings continue against Christians, the church there is flourishing and is undoubtedly in the midst of an awakening. Sons of Thunder has hosted several Indonesian missions in recent years, witnessing fantastic miracles and healings and meeting Jesus in the slums. There is a fresh interest in the message of grace that has been stirring, so we are excited to bring not only the tangible power of God, but also solid finished work teaching to equip believers.

On this trip, the team will also visit the leper colonies to splash love and hope on those most outcast by society.

Every one of our trips to Indonesia has been marked by a weighty glory and an intense level of the supernatural. Our goal is to release the True Party – to invite these loved of God to experience the divine pleasure for which they were created. Let us see Jesus Christ latent within the very margins of society!

2013, the government now recognizes the right of citizens to profess and practice any religious belief within the framework and respect of the law.

Although relations are warming between the US and Cuba, travel for Americans is still not allowed by the US State Department strictly for tourism purposes. But due to “religious” exemptions, our team will be allowed to book a direct charter flight straight from Miami, Florida. Total cost of the trip includes the Miami to Cuba flight, hotels, ground transport and food. Team members will be responsible for making their way to Miami on their own.

The majority of Cuban Christians profess Roman Catholicism, but a large segment of the population holds to the syncretistic Santeria cult. It is estimated that 65 percent of the Island aligns with Catholicism, with only five percent active in church attendance. Only five percent of the population aligns with mainstream protestant denominations such as Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, etc.

On this trip, we will be connecting with grassroots local churches to bring a message of grace and gospel clarity like never before!

Total Cost: $1,800 Team Applications Due: AUGUST 15, 2015 Final Trip Payment Due: OCTOBER 15, 2015 Trip Dates: NOVEMBER 10-16 Registration: www.TheNewMystics.Com/Indy

Total Cost: $1,950 Team Applications Due: NOVEMBER 25, 2015 Final Trip Payment Due: JANUARY 25, 2016 Trip Dates: MARCH 1-7 Registration: www.TheNewMystics.Com/Cuba

the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 13

M NORTH TOUR AMERICA TOUR Safe Area Size 8.25”x10.75” Trim Size 8.5“x11” Bleed Size 8.75”x11.25”

GLOBAL AUSTRALASIA TOUR 14 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

UNITED KINGDOM TOUR

TOURS SOUTH AFRICA TOUR the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 15

Jesus Lived As Us The word incarnation doesn’t simply refer to the birth of Jesus, but to His entire ministry as a human being. Can you imagine that God the Son became human? It staggers the mind to consider how great a love it would take to humble Himself to become one of us. He didn’t simply look like a human. He became a human being with all of the inherent physical weakness, emotional vulnerability, and cognitive limitations that human beings know so well. From the splendor of heaven into the brokenness of humanity He came.

Athanasius wrote, “At one and the same time—this is the wonder—as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father.” Jesus didn’t abandon His deity when He came into this world. He continued living in the same union within the triune circle that He had always enjoyed. The circle wasn’t broken by His humanity. Far from it—His becoming a man enlarged the circle so that mankind would be included. He came to us to draw us in. Thomas F. Torrance affirms this amazing truth.

God is not some remote, unknowable Deity, a prisoner in his aloofness or shut up in his solitariness, but on the contrary the God who will not be without us whom He has created for fellowship with Himself, the God who is free to go outside of Himself, to share in the life of his creatures and enable them to share in his own eternal Life and Love.

God’s choice to become a human being was an irrevocable pledge of divine love for the humanity He had created for that purpose. Torrance further affirms, “In Jesus Christ God has actualized his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself.”

Jesus as the Last Adam How did He actualize His love? It happened in ways that will thrill you beyond words when you clearly see them. His life was and is your life before the Father and is an expression of the Father’s life to you. In a literal sense, Jesus was and is the divine mediator from both the Godward and human sides.

He is God standing before humanity and humanity standing before God.

16 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

By Dr. Steve McVey

Jesus was the triune Yes! to Adam’s temporal no.

Just as everybody had been bound up in Adam, so we were united in Jesus. The Scriptures tell us, “‘The first man, Adam, became a living person.’ But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45 NLT). The first Adam answered no to perfect dependence upon the Father, and as a result, sentenced humanity to death. The last Adam’s perfect and eternal yes to the Father had the opposite effect on us.

“The obedience of Jesus so far exceeds anything we could possibly do that it is absurd for any of us to struggle to be obedient.”

This Man, the mediator of divine life, was a lifegiving Spirit to us by virtue of His vicarious life.

He didn’t just do what He did for us; He did it as us. Jesus Christ took our entire human identity into Himself so that we would be able to take His identity into ourselves. The Son of God became a man so that mankind might become sons of God. Jesus Lived for Us The modern Evangelical world approaches the life of Jesus as if He were born for one reason—to die.

That understanding falls far short of the richness of the Incarnation. Jesus didn’t live in this world for more than three decades simply to pass time until He could be crucified. It wasn’t simply His death that was vicarious on our behalf. His life in this world has great effect on us all as well. The implications of the vicarious life of Jesus touch every area of our lives, as Christian Kettler explains.

A vicarious sense of Christ’s humanity signifies that Jesus Christ is both the representative of and the substitute for my humanity. He represents my humanity before God the Father, having taken my humanity upon himself, bringing it back to God from the depths of sin and death. He is High Priest, representing the people before God (the Epistle to the Hebrews). But he is also the sacrifice himself. He is the substitute, doing in my place, in my stead, what I am unable to do: live a life of perfect faithfulness to, obedience to, and trust in God. “Vicarious” at its heart means doing something for another in their stead, doing something that they

are unable to do.

The life of Jesus has vicarious application to our lives in important ways.

Vicarious Obedience Consider the matter of obedience to God. Jesus was perfectly obedient to His Father. On the other hand, how often have we struggled to be obedient to the things we believe He expects of us? Here’s a question worth seriously considering: What if obedience has nothing to do with conforming to demands on your external behavior? What if obedience, at its core, is simple faith in the complete obedience of Jesus?

Does this scenario suggest that our actions wouldn’t matter? Of course not! To the contrary, it suggests that if it all revolves around the obedience of Jesus, we could abandon every self-effort to do the things we imagine God wants us to do and simply yield ourselves to the One whose record of obedience has already been given to us as a gift. Could obedience be as simple as relaxing from a religious struggle and trusting Him to be who He is and to live His life in our daily actions?

What if the issue of obedience had nothing to do with your willpower? The great news about Jesus’s vicarious obedience as you before the Father is this: You don’t have to struggle anymore. In fact, just the opposite—you can give up your struggle and simply rest in His finished work of obedience.

The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t just good news for facing death. It’s also good news for facing life!

The obedience of Jesus so far exceeds anything we could possibly do that it is absurd for any of us to struggle to be obedient. Trusting Him, not trying harder, is the pathway. Jesus was and is the Man who mediates your life to the Father. “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8 ESV). Jesus ascended the pinnacle of obedience through His death. What do we now foolishly believe we have to do? We have no trump card to play on the obedience of Jesus. We have the amazing offer to simply rest in what He has done.

The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563, affirms

Cana Seminary Goes Online Due to popular demand, Cana New Wine Seminary will finally be available as an online classroom starting November 4, 2015.

The program will have a one or two-year enrollment option. Cana is a drunken seminary – not just a dry intellectual course in doctrine. The vision has always been for happy theology woven seamlessly together with the intoxicating practice of the presence of God. Doctrine is not to be divorced from experience, and so the concept of Cana (like it’s namesake) is a place where the water of the word is transformed into the wine of experiential activation.

The vision for Cana has been to establish a strong, revelatory understanding of the finished work of the cross as a basis for mystical, contemplative experience. A seamless union of Spirit and Word.

Speakers At Cana we have a rich roster of doctorate level theologians together with mystical ecstatics sharing the same platform. Founded by John Crowder,

speakers include Dr. C. Baxter Kruger, Dr. Steve McVey, Mirror Bible translator Francois Du Toit, Matt Spinks, Jeff Turner, Dr. Eric Wilding, Rod Williams, Tony Seigh and more.

Early Registration Early bird sign up rates of $650 for the entire first year are available until October 16, 2015 at www.

Cana.co After that date, cost for the entire year increases to $700 (still considerably lower than our live school tuition in Portland). Students also have the option of enrolling for just one semester at a time (first semester is $275 and second semester is $375). A second year course of Cana will become available the following year in 2016.

Course Themes Our course themes cover the finished work of the cross, Trinitarian theology, supernatural experience, contemplative spirituality, New Covenant grace and mystical Christianity. Students are also provided with both required and recommended reading lists. Cana’s course of study is accessible enough for folks with no theological background,

yet deep enough to challenge and train existing pastors and ministers. Whether you want continuing education or an online supplement to your current college or ministry school, Cana promises to deliver groundbreaking revelation for people of all walks of life.

The Online Classroom Online students will receive a weekly video class, along with a web exam. The course load is flexible as students have two weeks to watch each video and complete each exam. Find out more at www.

Cana.co or write us at cana@thenewmystics.com

< Continued from page 16 this. God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me.

The obedience of Jesus Christ has been accomplished for you and given to you by grace. Just as Adam’s disobedience was yours, Jesus’s earthly life was your life of obedience to the Father.

It would be completely illogical for this dance of grace to be characterized by white-knuckled determination to do better. Our life is a divine dance, not some sort of disciplined duty that requires draining determination. What kind of dance would that be?

The vicarious obedience of Christ frees you so that you can relax, listen to the melody of grace, and enjoy the dance, which is your life in Him. Religion requires, but grace inspires. Jesus offers

us an invitation.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?

Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.

Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly (Matt. 11:28-30 MSG).

If your life is characterized by forced behavior that arises out of a sense of duty, you are missing the essence of grace in your lifestyle. It isn’t supposed to be that way! Jesus calls you to “take a real rest.”

Does that mean we live in passivity and do nothing at all? It does not. Rather, it means we stop focusing on ourselves and scrutinizing the minutia of our every thought, word, and deed. Instead, we put our eyes on Jesus. Robert Capon masterfully explains this.

The life of grace is not an effort on our part to achieve a goal we set ourselves. It is a continually renewed attempt simply to believe that someone else has done all the achieving that is needed and to live in relationship with that person, whether we achieve or not. If that doesn’t seem like much to you, you’re right: it isn’t. And, as a matter of fact, the life of grace is even less than that. It’s not even our life at all, but the life of that Someone Else rising like a tide in the ruins of our death.

Excerpted from Beyond an Angry God, by Dr. Steve McVey www.gracewalk.com.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation, chap. 3, para. 17.

Thomas F. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 2000), p. 2.

3 Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard Publishers 1992), p. 94.

4 Christian Kettler, The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2005), p. 6.

5 The Heidelberg Catechism is available online at www.ccel.org/ creeds/heidelberg-cat.html.

6 Robert Capon, Between Noon and Three (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1997), p. 291.

1

2

the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 17

Can we ‘Make’ God Love us More or Less?

by Brad Jersak

“We need to let it soak in that there is nothing we can and love. God can’t become more than perfect or do to make God love us more … and nothing we can more than infinite. God cannot become more loving do to make God love us less.” - Philip Yancey or more God. If he could become one percent more, that would mean he’s only 99 percent now ... and that “We all need to know that God does not love us be- would be one percent less than God. Get it? And he cause we are good; God loves us because God is cannot become less in any way – less God, less ingood. Nothing humans can do will ever decrease or finite, less love – because that would diminish him. increase God’s eternal eagerness to love.” - Richard And to diminish God even one percent would mean Rohr he would no longer be the perfection of love – would no longer be God. I remember when I first heard these kind of statements and sort of cringed. I was suspicious that Now add to this the rather ridiculous notion that those who echoed Philip Yancey or Fr. Richard might something we do could cause God to be more or less employ them to imply, “So it doesn’t matter what than he is. If my behaviour could “make” God love you do.” I don’t think I hear Jesus saying, “It doesn’t me even one percent more or one percent less – that matter what you do,” and in fact, that’s certainly not would be saying I could make God bigger or smaller, what Yancey or Rohr are implying either. I believe it’s more God or less God. That seems to me the height pretty obvious that God (through Christ and in these of arrogance or the depth of ignorance, but don’t we two fine teachers) wants us to love others and emulate his grace and mercy in our lives. That matters “We don’t seduce his love by being a lot! And it seems God has also made it clear that either adorable or pathetic – his love harming others, or judging and condemning them is flows entirely from his nature and is something he’d want us to turn from as we grow up. utterly voluntary.”

Discovering God’s infinite love for us isn’t simply a green light for an “anything goes” attitude. all slip into that thinking now and then? I suppose it’s part of the human condition. But it’s surely not part of But implications and suspicions aside, the more I the divine condition. soak in the New Testament Gospels and epistles, and as I continue through to the early church fathers and This can make God sound rather static. But he isn’t. mothers, the more I see how and why these opening While God is not ever constrained or triggered or aphorisms are exactly right. rattled or seduced or manipulated, this doesn’t mean God is static or stationary. God may be immovable, First, consider the phrase, “there’s nothing you can but he is not immobile. God’s infinite love (that is, do to make God.” This is absolutely true: no one can God himself) is an infinite spring – (the Source never “make God” do or be anything other than what he is. diminishes) – in an unceasing flow – (the River never That is, God loves us with an infinite love, because stops). While every metaphor has its limits, imagine God IS love ... but nothing in heaven or earth or un- the love of God (and God IS love) as a powerful wader the earth can constrain God to love us or not love terfall, infinitely bigger and more powerful than Niagus. His love is what the ancient theologians called ara Falls. Imagine that no matter how much volume a “self-donation.” We don’t seduce his love by be- of life-giving water is poured out, the Source never ing either adorable or pathetic – his love flows en- diminishes at all. There will never be less love in tirely from his nature and is utterly voluntary. He is the infinite Spring that sends the water. And imagine “moved to compassion,” not because we “trigger” him that the waterfall itself constantly and continuously or manipulate him with our pleas, but rather, because gushes in a way that can’t be increased or decreased God is compassion itself and his love flows without ... the gallons per second is measured as absolutely ceasing wherever and to whomever it is received. My steady because it is also infinite. The fact that the waexperience of God’s love may fluctuate as I welcome terfall never ceases, never freezes over, never runs it or rebuff it, but God himself cannot be said to love out and never goes away doesn’t really make it static, us more or less, as if his very nature was dependent does it? It is immovable but it is not immobile. This, on our behaviour or jerked around by our emotional I believe, is what some theologians meant by “God rollercoaster rides. is pure act” and others imply by “God is a verb.” Of course, none of this quite gets at the mystery.

Why not? Because for God to be God means that he is the infinite perfection of all we call goodness But here is the point: what if we hopped into a little raft

18 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

(our lives as individuals) or piloted a huge ship (any human movement or nation) – and what if we ventured into the waters beneath this infinite source and flow of divine love: do we think that turning right or left would “make” the waterfall increase or decrease in its infinite volume? Do we think that paddling harder or just relaxing in the boat would have any impact whatsoever on the flow? Would it diminish or supplement the bottomless Spring at all? Of course not. There is no raft or ship or dam big enough or strong enough that could clog up or slow down the ever-enduring mercies and everlasting loving-kindness of this infinite Love, this eternal God. Now, what we do in our boats or with our boats still matters. God still may say turn right rather than left so you don’t run aground on the rocks. God may still say paddle harder or stop paddling to help us not ram into other boats. We’re not saying “anything goes” or “it doesn’t matter.” But we are saying, left or right, faster or slower, sink or swim – as important as they are – doesn’t increase or diminish the flow of his love.

At the same time, just because our behaviour doesn’t affect God’s love, that doesn’t mean God’s love has no effect on us! In our little analogy, I would only suggest that flowing with God’s love is going to be easier than fighting against the current. And so the great discovery and exhortation of all the great spiritual teachers and mystics has always been, “Surrender.” Surrender to the flow of God’s love. Let it carry you along. Join in with it. Flow with him. Imagine that Source gushing up inside you and flowing through your life through surrender.

In Galatians 2, when Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ,” he means, “I surrendered. I let go. I stopped fighting the flow. Stopped kicking against the goads.”

When he says, “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me,” he means that he stopped making it about religious paddling for God’s love and let Christ’s love carry him along.” When he says, “And now the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God,” he means that he’s trusts the flow of Christ within him and flows with that love. He stopped trying to “make” God love him more because nothing he had done ever “made” God love him less. And so in Ephesians 3, Paul prays for us too, that we too would see how high and wide and long and deep the love of God – oceans of it – is for us.

Lord, let it be!

Find more on author/speaker Brad Jersak at www.bradjersak.com

Meditations of the Mystics The Desert Fathers and Mothers The desert tradition offers a rich teaching of surrender, through contemplation, to the wonderful and always too-much mystery of God. The desert fathers and mothers are like the Zen Buddhist monks of Christianity; their sayings are often like koans that cannot be understood with the rational, logical mind. The desert mystics focused much more on the how than the what. Note that this is very different from the primary emphasis of Christianity in recent centuries – the what of beliefs and doctrine.

Thomas Merton observed that the Western church had largely neglected the teaching of contemplation for at least the last 500 years.

He helped modern Christianity recover an awareness of contemplative practice, in part from his reading of the desert fathers and mothers.

They were surely bona fide Christians and yet knew none of the doctrines which many of us today take as essential orthodoxy, such as the two natures of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the inerrancy of the Bible, and on and on. This early period is a clearing house for essential Christianity.

by Fr. Richard Rohr

The desert mystics’ primary quest was for God, for Love; everything else was secondary. Merton writes: “All through the Verba Seniorum we find a repeated insistence on the primacy of love over

The desert fathers and mothers focused on these primary practices in their search for God: 1) leaving, to some extent, the systems of the world; 2) some degree of solitude to break from the maddening crowd; 3) silence to break from the maddening mind; and 4) some “technologies” for controlling the compulsivity of mind and the emotions. All of this was for the sake of growing a person capable of love and community.

Contemplation became a solid foundation for building a civilization and human community. Contemplative consciousness labels things less easily and does not attach itself to one solitary definitive meaning. In contemplation, one experiences all things as somehow created in the image of God and therefore of equal dignity and deserving of respect.

everything else in the spiritual life: over knowledge, gnosis, asceticism, contemplation, solitude, prayer. Love, in fact, is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of content and become mere illusions. The more lofty they are, the more dangerous the illusion.”

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, Center for Action and Contemplation, www.cac.org 1

Thomas Merton, trans., The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions:

1960), 17.

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MONEY. SEX. BEER. GOD. Pre-order Upcoming Book by John Crowder A Biblical Companion to the Happy Life Ditching Gnostic Dualism for the Joy of Incarnation Get it at www.JohnCrowder.Net Religious mindsets of dualism have blinded us to the God-given joys and pleasures of this world. We have often separated our spirituality from earthiness. But did Jesus really condemn all enjoyment of this world? Is God the creator or the enemy of this worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s delights?

In this scandalous upcoming book, John Crowder exposes the encroachment of Gnosticism over 2,000 years of church history ... the idea that the natural, material world is somehow evil and at odds with our spirituality. He makes the case that God is pro-party, and that Biblical guidelines of morality are issued to preserve and enhance our joy - never to diminish it. Hitting the most controversial, real-life topics imaginable - money, sex, alcohol and more - Crowder exposes unbiblical religious parameters that have worked against us. Legalisms that, instead of curbing sin, have actually caused sin to increase!

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Get it at: www.TheNewMystics.Com/Joypod 20 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

NEW & CLASSIC BOOKS FROM JOHN & LILY CROWDER O U R L AT E S T R E L E A S E CHOSEN FOR

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But what about those who don’t believe? Did God choose some to fry in their own fat forever in Hell?

What if God’s predestination is not about choosing some for bliss and others for destruction? John Crowder explores the volatile passages of Romans 9-11 to shed new light on the debated doctrine of election. God is not choosing one human over another. Jesus Christ is the chosen, elected man on behalf of all humanity. And you are fully included in Him. John’s shortest book ever aims to cheer up theology’s biggest problem ever! Written as a companion book to Cosmos Reborn.

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One of our deepest books!

Grace for the Contemplative Parent Based on the classic Practice of the Presence of God, Lily gears this book for real-time parents whose lives are full of dirty diapers and soccer practice. Don’t have luxurious hours of quiet time like a 17th century monk?

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Ephesians Euphoria Four-part Series on the Cosmic Incarnation

Abiding in the Wine Vine Sap Suckling & Fruit Bearing

Catch the grace of the gospel and the cosmic scheme of the incarnation in this fourpart series as John Crowder walks through the entire book of Ephesians, dispelling our dualistic notions of separation from God and encouraging a practical life lived out to the glory of God in the beauty of holiness.

“Abiding” is a passive work - not an active one. We exist in Christ, and He bears fruit through us. In this teaching, John Crowder expands on the fruit of the Spirit that is produced through our effortless union with Christ. This is a study and meditation on love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control from Galatians 5.

A Better Word

Cruciformity

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The Divine Nature of Self-Giving Love

In this teaching John touches on the topic of the inspiration of scripture, offering a different perspective on the controversial topic. What do we do with tough passages like the flood, genocide and other scriptures that appear to paint God as a moral monster? There is a Word within the Word - an underlying “Yes!” hidden within the “No!”

Christ did not simply die for us as an action.

But the crucifixion speaks of His nature as the cruciform God. It is “because” He is God that Christ emptied Himself. God’s nature is other-giving love. As we explore what it means to have the divine nature - to embrace “theosis” or being God-like - the end result is always self-emptying love.

God in the Unbeliever

Losing Your Salvation

Seeing Christ Hidden in Humanity

Modern evangelicalism has conditioned us with an insider-outsider mentality. Jesus supposedly “jumps inside” a person when they make their salvation “decision.” But is this the message of the apostle Paul? If all of humanity is included in the Last Adam, as Paul clearly articulates, how does that play into our understanding of our fellow man and the dynamics of being “in Christ?”

Woven into the Trinity Grafted Into the Incarnation

Why is a revelation of the Trinity core to our understanding of the nature of God? Unlike the unitarian concept of God that is directly based on our human performance to please him, instead we have been grafted into Jesus’ relationship with the Father in the Spirit. Our relationship with God is fully mediated through the incarnate Son - our salvation rests completely on His faithfulness, His vicarious repentance on our behalf and His baptism into our death. God is family. He is other-giving love.

22 | the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015

Eliminating Fear of Divine Abandonment

A number of passages in scripture are mishandled in a way to instill the fear of losing our salvation. But salvation was never based on our performance or even our ability to drum up faith on our own. In this teaching, John Crowder tackles some tough passages offering a radical grace perspective.

John Crowder’s Joy Clinic Three-Part Extended Teaching Set

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Looking for a quick, easy remedy that seems too good to be true? This is just what the doctor ordered! In this three-part series John lays out a multi-dimensional gospel feast.

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Digital Download Store: www.johncrowder.net Contemplating the Mystery

Renewing the Mind

The Divine Dance of Theology and Contemplation

Gospel Joy Explosions to the Brain

Contemplation is the practice of His presence. Christ is the object of our contemplation. Our intersection between the seen and the unseen, the finite and the infinite. Contemplation - as a mode of enjoyment - is never an end in itself. It does not exist if it is detatched from the Person who is contemplated or enjoyed. And theology is not to become mere intellectualism. When Christ is given His place, the scriptures find their place.

The renewal of the mind is a happy journey of having our thought life infused with the joy of our salvation and saturated with the revelation of our true identity in Christ. Tired of stupid thinking that produces strife and tension?

As we stay plugged into the word of truth, we “know the truth” and the truth sets us free.

Hearing God for Dummies

Manifested Sons of God

New Covenant Prophetic Insights

Effortlessly Shine in the Supernatural Life

Most charismatics think they know everything about the prophetic. But much of the prophetic movement has been derailed in old covenant style future-telling. A new covenant people are emerging who can point backward to the cross, releasing faith for what’s already been given to us. Get practical tips on hearing God!

All of creation awaits the “revealing” of your sonship. You were created for the supernatural life. Manifesting our divine identity is as effortless as realizing who we really are – adopted heirs entrusted with authority in heaven and earth. John explores our miraculous inheritance in Romans 8 from a finished work perspective.

Raising Family in Grace

The Election Series

The Gospel at Home with John & Lily

Seeing Romans 9-11 Through a New Lens

John and Lily Crowder explore the topic of marriage and family life in the grace and glory of God. The gospel radically liberates parents from the stress and fear of religious performance, infusing children with identity and life. This extended teaching features Q&A and practical tips on practicing the presence at home.

Romans 9-11 contains some of the most difficult and misunderstood concepts ... In this 5-part series, John Crowder shoots religious cows on every side of the debate - cheering up your perspective of God, hell and predestination. Going beyond the Calvinist-ArminianUniversalist debate John presents a strong hope in Christ - the Vicarious Man, who is both Elector and Elected. This is one of our most stretching teaching sets.

Drunken Theology 101 Extended Teaching on the Cross

Divine Creativity And the Graven Image of the Law

Get new creation foundations for your bliss as John expands on the revelation of the gospel in this two-hour teaching session from Australia. Tap into the mysticism of St. Paul, the glorious drink of divine union and the beautiful gift of perfection. This is a powerful summation of finished works theology that will cheer you up, infuse you with joy and transform your understanding of Christianity.

Ever notice that religious folk are usually not creative? Longing for the Spirit of Creativity the Spirit Himself - to manifest more through your life? Often, what Christian artists deem to be “creative” is really just a dead, copycat repetition of types and shadows. But now, since you are restored to the true image of God in Christ, you can manifest a fresh expression of the divine.

Drink Grace Straight

Mystical Union Audiobook

Revelations of the Glory

The knowledge of the Glory of God is filling the earth in this hour. Ever wonder what the “knowledge of the Glory” actually is? It is the pure revelation of the gospel. Grace has to be drunk straight. Any mixture of law added to your pure drink of grace, and it ceases to be true grace.

Drink deep of the gospel revelation in this teaching!

Read by John Crowder

In this audiobook recording, listen as author John Crowder reads his newest release, Mystical Union. The gospel is a mystical message, based on an instant and effortless union with God achieved at Christ’s cross.

There is a delicious feast prepared for the believer. This book threatens to turn your Christianity upside down. Makes a great easy listening audio companion to the hardback book.

the ecstatic : spring-summer 2015 | 23

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