Reflections on the Church and Political History

I think our first priority as Christians is the salvation of souls. I believe that’s God’s first priority. It’s the reason He sent his son. My view of political and international relations flows backwards from that. Fortunately we have 2000 years of history (after Christ) to reflect on to help examine the fruit of different beliefs and approaches. I like to examine my ideas through that filter as well.

First, we know that that without Christ the world was lost. This includes everyone except believing Israel. The Greeks, Romans, and all of their “Western” cultural heirs were all lost, along with all other civilizations. All apart from him were bound for eternal hell. As the apostle Paul took the gospel throughout the Roman empire, Christianity and Christian values began to spread, and the church was severely persecuted by the pagan Romans. Then something funny happened. The church gained political power and became enmeshed with the state. Christianity was no longer persecuted but it very quickly corrupted the church.

One thousand years of “dark ages” in Europe lead me to conclude that the union of church and state is a bad idea. So I’m not arguing for that. I think that the small minority in America who want “theonomy” in the same vein with the Puritans for example, are misguided. In fact, I would say that this was part of the significance of the foundation of America — that no church would have political power, but that all would be tolerated. At the time, this was a unique concept in both Eastern and Western Europe. Because of this the Methodists, Baptists and other revivalists were able to quickly flourish here.

On the reverse end of the spectrum, the 20th century especially demonstrates what happens when an Atheistic state takes power. 100 million dead people under communism is a completely staggering number. Even while we write this note Kim Jong Il continues to starve his own people. Why doesn’t anyone talk about that? I think it is because for some the dominant political idea is unequal distribution of wealth. All other sins can be forgiven of those who oppose the capitalist system. For others, perhaps the dominant idea is protection of animals, or of the environment, or preservation of native culture. For me it’s the salvation of souls, and right after this the preservation of human life.

Neo-Pagan Nazism and the Japanese cult of emperor worship have huge body counts as well. Many many of these dead are eternally lost. Or look at Turkey, the site of some the first churches in the Bible. There are almost 0 Christians in Turkey today because the state wiped them out, especially after the end of the 1st world war in the Greek and Armenian genocides. So my observations from these kinds of things is that devil does his work of murder often through the state. In order for the church to exist then down through history there must be a political power to resist what the devil is trying to do. Loss of World War II for example, would have meant complete eradication for the church (not just the Jews) in every area where Hitler set his foot. I think this pattern is pretty well attested in the Old Testament as well. We see in the book of Esther where the devil raised up Haman to try to wipe the Jews out through the political power of Persia.

I don’t think all political powers, or all military force is created equal then. What I see is that throughout history as God’s plan to save people advances the devil tries to stop it using wicked regimes, and God uses other regimes to prevent it from happening. This is not to say that God never uses or allows evil political powers to come against his people. We see that when they get into a state of great apostasy, He allowed the Babylonians, an incredibly wicked empire, to deport the entire population. But I think it’s important to recognize them for what they are — moments of judgment and extreme setback for God’s people.

So I don’t personally feel a need to baptize the America as an entity. But I think that its removal from the world political scene would be a disaster for the worldwide church (aside from the personal safety of my wife and children). Under the shade of any political entity in history both good and bad things are done. Because God causes it to rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. The devil’s plan is no rain at all.

Using salvation as the key political idea for the Kingdom, I feel similarly about missions. Even Christians are sometimes tempted to look at the missionary enterprise and see primarily the ills of Westernization than the salvation of souls. Had there been no Jim Elliott, one thing is certain — all of the Waorani would have been eternally lost, at least until another missionary came to reach them. Perhaps things could have been done differently, or perhaps more work needs to be done now to promote revival and defend against the oil companies, but what ultimately matters is the salvation of individuals. In fact, everyone’s salvation depends historically at some point on a missionary, starting with Paul. No missionary is perfect, but I think most of them are probably more perfect than us, because they lay their lives down, leave their native cultures to go to foreign ones, away from friends, family, security and everything else so that others can hear the truth. I don’t think we should confuse the efforts of colonist puppet “missionaries” with the efforts of people who die to spread the Gospel. To the extent that the East and the Global South are now re-evangelizing the decaying West, I am completely supportive, because the dominant idea is salvation.

The ultimate destination of all of this activity is not a Christianized world, but a world where every tribe tongue and nation has been reached. I see a final showdown between one world secular state (the ultimate Rome, Persia, etc), and one world Christian church, which exists among peoples of all kinds all around the world under the headship of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Political power is only a necessary temporary provision to reach all people. I am not one then who wants to “take over” politically speaking. My political goal is to defend the church and more generally humanity, who, both believing and unbelieving, are hated by the devil.

Five levels of demonic oppression

The perennial question is “Can a Christian have a demon?” There are those (mostly non-Charismatics) who say categorically “no.” Usually, however, these people are also those who don’t really believe much in demons at all. In reality, most of us deal with demons and their effects throughout our lives. I’d like to propose this scale:

• Possession
• Oppression
• Familiarity or “Stronghold”
• Externalization
• Victory

Possession is what only a non-believer can experience. Where the demon can actually take control over the person’s will. A Christian can be oppressed, and in some cases severely, even with manifestations, etc, but it can’t take over your will. You are able to confess Christ as Lord and seek freedom. These two levels are the most common when discussing dealing with demons. This is where they have the most power and the most dramatic deliverance happens and is needed. This is not what I want to talk about in this post, however. I want to talk about the levels that are most common to the dealings of average Christians.

Familiarity is the level that I believe most people operate on with the devil. He has a stronghold in your behavior and/or your mind, but you don’t know it, because it’s a part of your personality. He’s not controlling you, but he’s “set up” or enmeshed in some part of your personality and he holds a specific demonic thought pattern in place. Now I’m drawing a fuzzy distinction between oppression and familiarity. When it’s a strong uncontrollable thought pattern, I’m calling that “oppression”, when it’s a wrong thought pattern that you think “on your own” that’s familiarity. Make no mistake, it’s still the devil who is influencing you to it. As we grow in our walk with God, these are the areas he blows up. He comes into that place and evicts the devil and his thought process, and replaces it with God’s thoughts and Spirit. This can happen in a deliverance session, some kind of “Freedom in Christ” process, your personal prayer time, worship, or a word of prophecy. Whatever does it, the key is that you become aware of something significant that was holding you back that was not in alignment with God, and you repent of it and separate. This could be called “deliverance” but I think it’s something fundamentally different from what happens at the levels of possesion and oppression. This is more of process of externalization or re-identification.

This is God putting his finger on it to be dealt with and it usually results in a funny thing: the demon manifests! Once it’s been exposed and you stop agreeing with it, it’s no longer a part of your personality. It’s not familiar anymore, it’s externalized. You thought all along that it was you, but suddenly you find out that it wasn’t just you. There was something inspiring it. One of the most common ways I’ve seen and experienced this happening is in your dreams. When you evict the devil he tries to come to you to intimidate you or inflict damage on the way out. When you are in agreement with him, he’s happy because the path itself is the damage, so he stays quiet. When you stop agreeing, he turns up the heat. That’s where you have to stand up to him and assert your God given authority. Be aggressive, deepen your repentance, assert your authority in God, and kick him out for good! If you’re above the “oppression” level and he’s coming at you from the outside, that’s usually a good sign, because he’s not on the inside.

Victory is the place you walk when you have dealt with the key personal strongholds that hold you personally back. The enemies goal is keep you at those lower levels with several strongholds. That way if you start to break free of one, he can pull on another to cause the whole door to be reopened. So I believe ever Christian has several personal strongholds to defeat before they see the walk of power they long for. See A.A. Allen’s book “The Price of God’s Miracle Working Power” for a similar perspective on this. Your goal is stay in faith and the presence of God as He breaks the series of strongholds in your life. When you have defeated them, you’ll have the authority that the Bible says you are supposed to have because you are no longer under the authority of the devil in some important area of your life. Now God can and does use people at lower levels — in fact that’s where most of us are. It’s just that there are these huge limitations on us. When a man or woman breaks through to victory they operate on a completely different level. Now I’m not saying that everyone who has a major anointing has victory, but I think they had it at one point.

Part XIII – A Tree and a Tower

In the devil’s first attempt to set up his kingdom on earth, what does he build? A tower. A tower in Babylon (Babel). Now, in modern parlance, a tower is usually thought of as a vertical structure like the Sears Tower, but the ancients did not possess the technology to build tower’s of this kind very high, so if they wanted to build a something tall, they built what we would today call a pyramid. It is not surprise then, that in Egypt, the type of evil in the Old Testament, and of power in the ancient world, they would build massive pyramids. Most likely they were continuing the pattern passed down from their ancestors in the Babel experience. It is no surprise then too that we find this pyramid imagery associated with various demonically inspired groups.

Looking at this “tower” what can we learn about the structure of the devil’s Kingdom? Ever heard the term “pyramid scheme”? In a pyramid scheme, the people at the top benefit from the people at the bottom, in successive layers of financial gain and deception. Such systems are really not businesses, they are wealth transfer systems, where the people at the top take money from the people at the bottom, and the people in the middle get a cut for making it happen. What is remarkable is that every demonic system works just like this. There is only one stone atop the great pyramid (at least originally), yet the base covers 13 acres! As a system, then many many people can be controlled and exploited by a single individual, ultimately, spiritually, the devil. Thus the devil is always trying to set up systems like this.

What do we find God’s Kingdom compared to by Contrast? A close look at Mark 4:30-32 shows that Jesus is not just comparing the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, but also to the tree or bush that grows from it. In fact throughout the Bible trees, and tree-like images are used when discussing the Kingdom of God. In the beginning, the Tree of Life is the centerpiece of the garden of Eden, and in the end the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2). Jesus uses the fig tree as an image in explaining God’s dealings with Israel. In Romans 11, Paul’s extensive discussion of Israel and the church is all based around the metaphor of an olive tree. I believe, then that the tree is the structural foil to the pyramid.

Looking at the elm pictured above it is interesting how a tree is basically the opposite of the pyramid. A massive trunk supports a multitude of small branches and leaves. At the top it is wider than it is at the bottom. In a pyramid, the rulership is expressed from the top down, with each higher stone having only contact with the stones immediately above it, so that only those at the very top have any contact with the capstone. In a tree, however, all are connected. They are connected through the life that is in the tree. This is the spirit of Jesus saying “I am the vine, you are the branches,” (John 15:5). We are all in him, and connected to him, therefore it is possible to organize in a way that is impossible for the dead and dying world. The lifeless stones can only be top down, but because of the life in the tree, it is possible to be all be in agreement and fellowship because of the life (Jesus) in the tree.

Instead of stacked stones, there are dependent branches. A large branch, has many smaller branches which depend on it, and the smaller branches have leaves. Those that are strong support those that are weak, and all are in fellowship, not through fear but through mutual love.

Part XIV – What is a Cult?

The term “cult” is one of those words that gets filled with meanings that vary widely depending on who is using it and in what context. Although some have used the term as simply a way of labeling those on the fringes, I believe that there are important sociological and spiritual patterns that form a true cult.

First off, let me say that being in a cult is not about doctrine, and it’s not even exclusively religious in nature. Being in a cult is about being robbed of personal freedom and morality by a demonic system. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a cult is simply a manifestation of the devil’s Kingdom on earth. The devil will try to set them up wherever he can and make them as large as possible. Therefore the the demonic patterns described by the word “cult” apply regardless of scale.

• The cult could be national: Both Communism and Nazism were cults which robbed entire regions of personal freedom and morality.
• The cult could be a relgious group within a free society.
• Abusive/Dysfunctional families are microcosms of a cult. Personal abuse lacks many of the larger sociological elements of cults, the basic psychology of fear is the same.

The goal of any of these situations is to isolate, control, and destroy people, and the same psychological levers are used to make it happen. Here are some features that I see as indicative:

• A militant corporate goal. The physical establishment of the “Kingdom” is a key uniting feature. Even political cults are based on some kind of millennial vision. Hitler wanted to restore the German people and purge the earth from what he saw as everything impure. Communism was to free the workers around the world.
• Elitism. The cult believes they they are the best of any comparable group because they are the ones who are really pursuing the pure vision that no one else is. Religiously this leads to doubting the salvation of other more mainstream groups and eventually moves from thinking they are just the BEST to thinking that they are the ONLY group with the truth.
• “Enemies” — associated with its elitism and corporate goal, every cult must have enemies. These enemies are often phantoms of the imagination of the leadership, and when they are not, they are enemies created by the sinful behavior of the leaders. These “enemies” serve as the explanation for bad things that happen, as well as why everyone must stick closer and closer together and only obey the leader.
• It’s own historiography. The cult will have its own version of history to support both it’s future goal and its elite status. The radical fundamentalist Baptists for example have a story which explains why they are the only true church.
• Exaltation of a single person. Within a cult, although it may start around an ideal, a single person always gets more and more power, and this power is used to implement the other aspects.
• No Freedom of Speech. In a cult there are always things you are not allowed to say or talk about. Sometimes pastors use sermons on “gossip” to shut down the freedom of speech of the parishoners. A pastor has a sin and it has been discovered, so rather than repent, he admonishes the people not to gossip. In the meantime he gossips by gathering all of his allies together to support him and attack those who are bothered by the situation. If they accept it, it sets up a culture where people are not comfortable with telling the truth.
• Inability to leave. This develops over time. Sometimes the barrier is physical, but often times it is mostly psychological: If you leave you will lose your salvation, your family relationships, your friends, etc.
• Summary Excommunication. Those who they cannot keep silent or who refuse to obey must be either killed or disfellowshiped immediately. So basically the plan is to keep you from leaving, and if you cause trouble take you out.

Many Christian groups that are not cults exhibit some degree of this behavior in the early and milder stages. If you are in a position to influence the direction away from these tendencies you should do so before things get worse, otherwise take it as a warning and get out. There are always several groups of people associated with the cult:

• The committed. The core of the cult is those who have no morality except advancement of the cult. This minority is what makes it work.
• The promoters. Unlike the committed, the promoters are not “in on” the sin in the system, and unlike the compromisers, they are not particularly bothered by what is going on. Instead they are tied in because of relationship. They “trust” and “believe in” the leader or leaders in the committed circle and that is enough for them to basically be blind to anything that occurs. When a victim raises their hand, the promoters basically rally to the defense of the committed almost in spite of any evidence that can be presented.
• The compromisers. This is a group who sees flaws with the cult but are still proponents because of what they see as the good things about it. These people can be some of the most dangerous because they form an important link between the committed, and the victims.
• The validators. These are people outside the system who are used or manipulated by the committed to legitimize the activity of the cult. They are not exposed to all of the problems but are deceived by the leaders into thinking everything is OK. They might be brought into participate in some way or just referenced as a sympathetic voice.
• The victims. Every cult has victims. The system is designed such that the victims cannot speak out. Their testimony may be discredited, or their abuse is legitimized, or they are just reduced to non-human status.
• The escapees. These people have managed to escape the power of the cult and are calling it out for what it is. They fight it from the outside. They can come from either the compromisers or the victim groups originally. Compromisers reach a point where they “see the light,” and victims reach a point where they have had enough. When a committed person defects it is almost always to take over the cult or start a new one.
• “Persecutors” — The often imaginary people who are “out to get” the cult because they have some kind of “agenda.”

Basically the way the devil takes people out is by isolating them. Start with the weak, and blame them for their faults. They “deserve it” for some reason. In the process everyone else in the system becomes more corrupt. Deceive, Isolate, and Destroy.

My wife made an interesting point too about how this happens invisibly The deeper you are in the cult (the higher on the list) the more layers you are aware of. The people at the bottom tend to see everyone above them on the list as a monolithic group. The people near the top tend to realize that there are other groups less committed than themselves.

Part XII – The Party System

God’s Kingdom advances through a pattern of successive reforms. When a reform is completed, people who were believers in the reform, but who themselves are not reformers, but institutionalists, take over. With time it becomes a “party” system, where those who are in power reinforce their power against those who are not in power, not primarily because of an ideal, but because of the power itself.

The “party” system is simple. To be a member of the party you must believe in what the party believes. This protects it from any possibility of internal reform. If the party has fundamentally compromised on a certain issue it is impossible to reform from within because in order to become a member of the part, you too must also compromise on that issue to be accepted within and move up. Party systems operate on a scale from idealogical purity to plain mafia. An idealogical purity party system is primarily based on making sure everyone holds to a shared ideal. Now as long as the ideal is a true one, this can be a good thing — much like ascribing to the core tenants of the Christian faith in a denomiation. On the other hand, the mafia system is based on a shared sin. Once you do your first “hit” for the mafia, you are one of them. You are basically all in on it together, and the bond you have to the party is stronger than any other bond you have, partly because people who have seared their conscience take ease in the presence of others who have seared their consciences in the same way, and partly because the other people “have your number.”

A truly demonic system will always have concentric circles of sin indoctrination designed to slowly move from from an idealist to a completely compromised operative. As you move deeper you become more compromised, more beholden to the system, less likely to repend, and more of an oppressor to the truth. Some parties have enough power to show who they are, but often times they exist as a hidden elite within a particular organization They may not be “hidden” if they are the official leaders of the organzation, but the basis of their shared corruption is. Everyone thinks they are just an elected member of the group, when in reality they are a part of the hidden party.

Now this sounds more conspiratorial than it is. I’m not talking about conspiracies that people knowingly take part in here (althought they work in similar ways) but primarily about how any power functions within a system even beyond people’s conscious understanding. You may be moving into the party and you don’t even really know it. You will really only know the party exists when you try to defy it and see what happens. This happens to fringe political candidates all of the time. When they try to bring an alternative message to the stage, the party will do a lot of things to try and stop or dismiss them. Ghandi said it extremely well when he said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

Part XI – How the Kingdoms Advance Geopolitically

Although the governments of men are legitimate political actors who influence history by seeking their own self interest, behind all political power is ultimately the war between the Spiritual forces of God and those of the devil. The devil’s goal is consolidation of power under one head in order to control and eradicate all of mankind, and God’s goal is bring people out of the devil’s Kingdom and into relationship with him, which politically means less consolidated power and more in the hands of the righteous in order to protect God’s goals.

There are many different factions on the planet which are pursuing the devil’s goal. In fact it is pretty natural for man to desire this kind of power and desire to push out other rivals. It is a complex game of brinksmanship. Although history itself is teleological (directed) the role that a specific political actor plays at a given time may shift. The direction of history is seen only from a distance as the net direction emerges.

The devil wants to use evil governments to set up increasingly evil governments. This is the phenomenon I call “twice the son of the devil.” It is a spiritual principle that Jesus lays out in Matthew 23:15. It is an extension of the phenomenon we observed with the Haman behavior. Haman is a ruthless man who deceives and kills (literally or figuratively) in order to take power. Haman is not the end goal however. As evil as he is, those who are discipled by his regime are even more evil. This is because they have no exposure to good like Haman did in his early days. They only have exposure to evil, and evil being done to them. Therefore, eventually Haman himself will be destroyed by a man more wicked than himself. For example, Stalin was more wicked that Lenin, although Lenin himself was quite evil. I believe that Satan’s goal is to set up a succession of Hamans in order to usher in the Antichrist.

On the other hand whenever one of these Haman figures is defeated, God’s Kingdom will experience a great advance, just as Mordecai and the Jews did at that time. When the US defeated Hitler and later the Soviet Union, what seemed to be the most dire possible future suddenly became a future much brighter than had been imagined. As US political power provided greater shade for the Gospel, the Gospel experienced major advances after each of these two victories. The political power, however, was only a manifestation of the greater Spiritual power after removal of Haman and his empire.

You cannot use the devil’s methods to defeat the devil. Lies and Murder will only give his kingdom more power even if the people who you take out are evil. God’s Kingdom advances through the principle of resurrection. When God raises up a seed, the devil and his Kingdom do everything they possibly can to kill it. If the devil is unable to kill the seed, the seed will come back and do more damage than it did the first time. So while the devil’s kingdom advances through spiritual and physical killing, God’s Kingdom advances by the principle of resurrection. If you play by God’s rules, the devil’s attempts to stop you will fail, and you’ll own the board at the end of the day. The evils you do, however, will reap a harvest in the end. If the devil can make you compromise, he can stop or kill you, but if you don’t compromise, his attempts to kill you will make you more damaging to his kingdom. Therefore more the devil “raises the stakes” the more a victory will accomplish for God’s Kingdom, or a defeat will cost it.

Part X – Authority and the Two Kingdoms

Since the rise of the shepherding movement in the 1970’s the church has been uniquely aware of spiritual authority. The Shepherds looked over to the Jesus Movement, saw the born again hippies and their anti-authority view of the world, and realized that something was wrong with the picture. The answer was to teach people that you could not be submitted to Jesus if you were not submitted to man. What formed around this teaching then was a heirarchy with members submitted to cell group leaders who were submitted to pastors, who were submitted to one of the shepherds, who were in theory submitted to each other. What no one really expected is the ungodly results such a system would produce. Rather than lead people into a healthy respect for and use of authority, it led to a strange web of abuse, which those who played the role of abusers in the system will deny to this day.

What is interesting is that if you look, you’ll find that all demonic systems are set up in just the same way — heirarchies of submission, leading up to one person with all of the power. Each person on the level below owes his position to the person above and is therefore beholden to him. Now in a corporation this kind of heirarchy seems to work at least reasonably well, but in church or government it seems to consistently lead to something unhealthy. Why is that? Because in a corporation people voluntarily submit. If you don’t like things, you can leave. On the other hand, if you don’t submit to an authoritarian government you will be shot, and if you don’t submit to an authority in an authoritarian church, even worse, you’ll lose your salvation. When people involuntarily submit to something because they feel they have no other choice, the person over them has absolute power. This is in fact the structure of the devil’s Kingdom — a heirarchy of fear. Individual impulses are crushed by obedience to the “system.”

The shepherds had observed that the basis of the devil’s kingdom was rebellion. This is true and of course it made even more sense at the time, when they were watching the greatest cultural rebellion in American history and its attempt to overthrow everything that was decent about our country. What perhaps they failed to recognize was that if the rebellion had won, a new totalitarian system would have been set up. The devil’s kingdom may be made up of rebels, but he only allows them to express it in reference to God and Godly authority. In his kingdom, absolute obedience is demanded and individuality is punished.

God’s Kingdom, inaugurated in the New Testament, is not this way. As God and King, Jesus wants to and has the ability to be in direct contact with all of his subjects. Not through an endless hierarchy, but directly. He comes to live in each one of us and rule over our consciences. This means that people have internal government. The more internal government people have, the less is external government is needed. Sin is in the heart, so no external authority can remove it, all it can do is make it hide in fear. The presence of such fear prevents the grace of God from working. The gospel is based on human choice to voluntarily submit to Jesus and everything good. Does this mean that anyone can just do anything they want in the church? No. The devil will always use chaos to bring in dischord, then rebellion, then his autocratic kingdom of fear.

Since the shepherding movement it has been popular to say that “God’s Kingdom is not a democracy, it’s a monarchy.” The inference is that because we have a King, we should have a top down heirarchy. Like worldly kings, Jesus does designate subordinates to carry out his will and lead his people, but becaues of internal government, they function quite differently. The authorities in the church are put in place to keep the devil out and the Holy Spirit in. Whenever forcible submission or rebellion appear, Jesus’ government is deminished, because the instrument of his authority is the voluntary submission of His subjects.

The leaders in his church are compared to shepherds because it is their job to protect and feed Jesus’ sheep from wolves. They also lead them to water and herd them, but if Jesus wanted an analogy of a submissive hierarchy, he would not have chosen a shepherd (pastor) as his description of this leadership. We are a flock of individuals that Jesus and his shepherds care about by name.

Part IX – Spiritual Power and Healing

We know from Daniel, that one of the most righteous, “prayed up” men on earth at the time had to waith three weeks for an answer due to warfare being waged over delivering the answer to his prayer. This gives us a unique window into what is really going on when we pray. It paints a more complex picture than we normally assume. We assume too quickly that when a prayer is not answered, it’s because it was “not God’s will.” In situations where God’s will is ambiguous that may be reasonable to expect, but what about cases where his will is unambiguous? I believe that if you were to build a theology of healing from Jesus’ ministry you find that healing is a case where God’s will is unambiguous, yes most churches don’t really believe that God wants all people healed, and those that do, don’t actually pursue it. We draw the wrong conclusions because we ignore the variables involved in getting a person healed. Let’s look at those variables with regard to healing as a test case for more general prayer issues:

1. The degree faith required (FR). How much power is needed to get this job done? This is a combination of several factors: The amount of spiritual power placed in opposition to a person’s healing, how entrenched the spiritual power is which is causing the sickness, and more generally how significant is this miracle (i.e. are we curing headaches or creating limbs)
2. The degree of faith in the person (FP). In various places in the Bible we see Jesus or an apostle pointing out someone’s “great faith.” When the recipient has great faith, then it is much easier to get them healed. A healer of “little faith” could get the job done. Likewise, a recipient of “little faith” is going to need a lot more faith on the part of the healer.
3. The degree of faith in the healer (FH). Jesus also draws attention to the faith or lack of it on the part of his disciples. Now the amount of “faith” someone has is more than just a general belief, it is an aggregate of who they are and have become. Faith can be built. It is impacted by things like your track record of success, the amount of time you have spent with God, and your theology.

So I think if it were math it would look something like this if FP+FH > FR then the person is healed. Now I admit this is definitely a simplification, but what I’m pointing out is that the factors involved are quite different than we tend to think. We tend to think that the only thing that matters is “God’s will” since of course he is God and nothing is too hard for him. This equation is if GW > 0 then the person is healed. I’m sorry, but God’s will is not the variable! It’s a constant. God’s will may vary for where you should live, but it doesn’t vary about whether a person should get healed or repent at the minimum.

Now the Word of Faith people place all of the emphasis on FP, the Faith of the Person. Of course this is very problematic. Jesus never blamed a person for not getting healed. He just healed htem. In general, people who are sick tend to be in a state of very little faith, and so Jesus rebuked disciples when there was a problem. The primary variable then is FH. Now the key thing to recognize is that faith and the resulting spiritual power is like a muscle. Therefore if you really believed God for someone to grow their limb back, and it didn’t happen, that wouldn’t mean that either you had no faith, or that God didn’t want it. It probably just means that you’re not Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Spirit yet. Now don’t hear me as saying that anyone cannot see a great miracle if they have faith, because they can. We should never be disqualifying ourselves. But the point is that we shouldn’t be discouraged if it didn’t happen and we did everything we knew to do to make it happen. Instead put yourself on a spiritual training program to start building your faith, and soon you’ll be pushing back the prince of darkness.

Grasping the basic variables of healing helps us explain a lot of otherwise confusing situations. How is it that you could go to a meeting and see 5 people healed of illnesses while others are not? Any one of those variables could be in play. First, the healer may not have as great faith for heart problems as back problems, for example. Secondly, a given person’s condition may seem physically worse than it is spiritually. So someone with “cancer” seems like a really hard case to us, but maybe a heart murmur does not. However, the amount of spiritual power required for the heart murmur could be greater. Thirdly, I think it is often the case that a few people with a lot of faith are healed in a meeting. While at first this may seem condemning to the others, it should be a source of hope. If they weren’t healed just because God didn’t want them healed, then there isn’t much they can do about that except be bitter with God. Someone’s degree of faith can be changed. But again, we should never blame them, because Jesus didn’t do that, and it’s never that simple anyway.

In addition, a basic “power equation” helps explain progressive versus instantaneous healing. An instantaneous healing is when FP+FR is immediately greater than FR, but if this is not the case, multiple appliations of faith may be required. It also explains why Jesus always got people healed. Since he had perfect faith, a complete lack of faith on the part of the other person was never an issue, nor was the degree of healing that they needed.

Part VIII – Haman in Geopolitics

The discussion of Haman is important not because he’s the only kind of power player out there, but because he is the primary one that can stop you and hurt others. The people that are just out to save their own necks cannot compete with kind of respect, sacrificial ethic and God-breathed talent you should bring to a situation. Moreover invidual politics with Haman are representative of the way that geopolitics work as well. The devil is always trying to bring “Haman” governments into power. Those which are more than worldly and blind, those which are proactively demonic and evil. Hitler was the best recent example, although Stalin fits the profile very well too. Interesting that these two men went head to head. Stalin’s stunned reaction to Hitler breaking their pact of friendship clearly shows that Hitler was the more evil of the two and therefore more dangerous. Had it not been for the intervention of the Western powers, Hitler would have won it all.

This leads into the key point: every war in the world is either about the more wicked “Haman” powers gaining more power, or they are about challenging the “Mordecai” powers. The devil’s goal is to wipe all of the Christians and Jews off the Earth. If he could do that, it would be game over, because the rest of the world could not resist him, whether he wanted their worship or just wanted to kill them all. Therefore the devil’s goals are political, like it or not. He wants to gain enough political power to accomplish this extermination purpose. Therefore although God’s Kingdom is not political, God uses political powers to protect the church from the Haman powers.

Since the Reformation at least, this has been a very simple story. Catholic countries, incited by the Pope, did everything the could to eradicate the Protestant ones. The gave way to secular powers trying eradicate both Catholic and Protestant powers. In the first era, the “good guys” were Germany, Britian, Holland and the Nordics. In the second era, Britain and the United States have been the key protaganists. Although the political ends of these “good guys” were not universally in line with God’s purposes at any given time, and were never in majority born again people, their orientation in the world was essentially as political defender of the faith against any and every political beast that the devil could raise against them.

Some people are likely to hear this as some kind of “Western” pride, but it should be quickly recognized that the most advanced “Western”, “Protestant” nation also became the most sinister political beast of all time: Germany. It is not beyond belief that America, as the greatest force for Gospel propagation in history, could follow the same path in the not too distant future, and that a non-Western nation like China could play the role of Mordecai. What is however important to recognize is that in the current political moment, America plays the Mordecai role. If the devil were to succeed in removing American political power tomorrow, not only would great political atrocities by the other major powers follow, but the advance of the gospel would be severely curtailed — quite a prize for the enemy indeed. Those who want America to fall are singing the devil’s song.

Part VII – Shrewd as Serpents: Dealing with Haman

With this seeming paradox, Jesus gives one of the most important nuggets of wisdom for dealing with the powers of this world. As Christians we find ourselves in a unique place on the political chessboard. We will most certainly be hated more than anyone else by the Haman figure in the organization. If this person gains power, not only will we be in jeopardy, or near slavery, our bosses are in trouble from the ambition of the Haman figure, and so is the entire organization. Yet, we are likely the only ones with the spiritual discernment to know what is really going on.

The Haman figure will act “innocent” when dealing with authority and ruthless when dealing with all others. We on the other hand, will be actually innocent with authority and kind to all others. The authority is likely unable to tell the difference because of Haman’s ability to manipulate. It is important to know this general principle: anywhere that Haman is found the authority, no matter how much seemingly greater he is, is in grave danger as soon as Haman can gather enough power. Hitler removed Hindenberg, Stalin may have murdered Lenin, Gotti murdered Castellano, Haman himself clearly would have killed Xerces. You may be the only thing that can stop him.

Most Christians are innocent, but they are not shrewd. They are not shrewd because they assume that other people think and act and are motivated like they are. Nothing could be more wrong. People in the world are motivated by selfish ends, not altrustic ones. Even for “good” people, being nice and good will always take a back seat to self-preservation. True Christians have a capacity for and orientation toward Christ-like self-sacrificing love. “Good” people will submit to Haman or avoid him, but they won’t see his evil for what it is, because they are still slaves of the devil’s kingdom. Being shrewd therefore means recognizing Haman for what he is — a power hungry and self-serving person who will do anything to get what he wants. He is not acting in good faith. Once you recognize that he is not acting in good faith and that the only language he understands is force, you understand the first rule of confronting him.

Ronald Reagan understood this principle in history with regard to the communists. They were lying to us, because the “nice guys” who ran our government like Carter and Ford were easy dupes. They assumed that Haman meant what he said. Wrong. Haman used the fact that they were nice to gain more power for himself. Reagan came along and said “trust but verify” and he also said we’d build “Star Wars” which made them sweat, because it meant we’d have power they could never match. Terrorists are the same way. Isreal only exists because the Arabs fear it. As soon as they stop fearing it, there will be another war.

The second principle for dealing with Haman is that his arrogance is his undoing. The legitimate authority can remove him if Haman is exposed in time, but your discernment of his identity or even evidence you present against him will not be very effective, and may cost you your authority. When the authority recognizes Haman is a threat to his own position, the authority will act, but unless you help set a trap for Haman, this will always be to late. If the authority sees Haman as a direct threat from a long way off, he’ll win. Paul Castellano would not have blinked twice in executing Gotti if he had realized Gotti was a threat in time.