Spirit Filled Life

The following is from an interview of Archbishop Peter Akinola of
the history of why he has been selected to be the reluctant
spiritual leader of the new worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop: "First of all, in the Christian Association of
Nigeria - which brings together all our Christian people, Roman
Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal - my colleagues elected
me president for four years. So, I had to play the fatherly role though
I was much youngerthan many of the other elders, because they
looked up to me for leadership and guidance.

At the regional level we have the Council of Anglican Provinces of
Africa - we have 12 primates in Africa, like Dr Rowan in
England is Primate of All England. And the very first time I attended
their meeting, they elected me their chairman. So, again, a huge
responsibility. Each of my colleagues has his own sovereign church,
and yet they call me 'Baba', they call me 'chairman'. I have to work
very hard to ensure that we achieve whatever we want to achieve by
consensus. So, we discuss as gentlemen, as elders, as fellow fathers.

Beyond Africa is what is called 'the Global South' [a grouping of
the 20 of the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces that are in the
southern hemisphere]. Again, my colleagues chose me to be their
chairman.

Whatever they saw in me, I don't know. So, the same principle, all
the way. You have to bear in mind that each primate, each bishop is
an authority in his own right, with his own jurisdiction, and for
him to submit to your leadership he must be given due respect. And
so you consult with him, you share with him, you don't dictate
to him and so you achieve results.

I've applied the same principle to Gafcon [the Global Anglican Future
Conference], and this afternoon its Primates' Council made me their
chairman.

Recently we all witnessed the crashing and burning of the powerful evangelist, Todd Bentley. In reaching for an explanation of what happened to himself, he claimed he was “passing through the Dark Night of the Soul.” Then person in charge of his rehabilitation, Rick Joyner, of Morningstar Ministries, trying to help people understand what was happening, picked up the same term: “the Dark Night of the Soul.”. All of which prompted me to write the following letter: to Joyner,

Dear Rick,
You wrote in your newsletter, that Todd Bentley is suffering the Dark Night of the Soul. The reason I am writing this to you is to say that we in the medical profession, know that wrong diagnoses result in wrong treatments. Our friend is the least likely person I know to suffer what St. John of the Cross means in his classic “Dark Night of the Soul.” If you read on, I will explain.

(At the same time, included in my reason for writing this, is to protect St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul from being misunderstood and dummied down. Both Christians and New Agers alike are casually tossing the term around, emptying it of its profundity.)

One of the best ways to approach St. John is to come at him first from other systems of mysticism. What mystics of all faiths have discovered is that, before you can enter the mystic realm, the cognitive system must shut down. In Zen for example, an unsolvable Koan (sound of one hand clapping, etc.) brings the discursive mind (the intellect) to its knees, causing it to flat line. With the discursive mind out of the way, the psyche can enter the mystic realm. In Hinduism, some meditation systems accomplish this state by overloading the discursive processes. Others under load them. Islamic Sufi’s dance and twirl. The outcome is the same. The cognitive processes flat line and the person breaks through into direct encounters of the mystical experience.

St John has given us the Christian way of accomplishing this entrance into the mystic realm. True to our belief system, it is God Himself (not our meditation efforts)Who does the work. He achieves this by challenging the discursive system to the point it accepts that reaching the mystic realm is above its pay grade.

St John includes in the discursive system, the “understanding,” the will,” and “the memory”–all our mental processes except “the intuitive”. He uses the words “soul” and “sense. (I translated “soul” as “psyche”*) St. John writes:

“. . . .it is God Who is now working in the psuche; He binds its interior faculties, and
allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason
with the memory. For anything that the psuche can do of its own accord at this time serves only, . . . .to hinder inward peace and the work which God is accomplishing . . . . p. 67

Thus, the Dark Night is actually a negative experience only from the point of view of one’s intellect. This darkness is not a pleasant experience for the intellect which believed itself capable understanding everything. St. John explains:

. . . .the Divine wisdom is not only night and darkness for the psuche, but is likewise, affliction and torment . . . because of the height of Divine Wisdom, which transcends the talent of the soul and in this way is darkness to it. p. 100

Most of us have had the experience of our mind hurting when it works on an unsolvable math problem. Most of us are also aware of how our mind annoyingly intrudes into our quiet times with God which it can’t understand. St. John was describing the mental anguish that comes as the mind is being forced to surrender. His fellow monks were straining with every technique they had been taught to reach God. He was teaching them to let go and let God take the mind into darkness. Those who rely on their intellects would never make such a journey.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the entire psychological system, The Dark Night is a positive experience and has a happy outcome.

“When God leads the soul into this night of sense in order to purge the sense of its lower part and to subdue it, unite it and bring it into conformity with the spirit, by setting it in darkness and causing it to cease. . . . He brings it into the night of the spirit, and (although it appears not so to it) the soul gains so many benefits that it holds it to be a happy chance to have escaped from the bonds and restrictions of the senses of its lower self. . . .” p. 74

Of all the people on this planet, Todd is the least likely to be suffering from St. John’s Dark Night of the Soul. More than most people, he has poked through the mental cloud of unknowing into that mystical realm--to paraphrase Star Trek “where no mind has gone before.”

What many who are suffering what they want to call a dark night is more likely what we psychologists diagnose as Dysthymia. Some of the depression can result from an intense overload of emotions which can knock neurotransmitters out of whack.

Another possibility is what I am seeing in all the Charismatic leaders with whom I interact. Agnes Sanford observed years ago, that when the Holy Spirit pours through a person, any glitches will be blasted out into the open. The more powerfully the Spirt moves, the more any blockages can expect to be dislodged. She wrote:“ The subconscious will not peaceably store memories which are contradictory to the nature of God. Attention is constantly drawn back to these unstored memories. If unattended, these memories become problematic.”

As I travel among Charismatic leaders, I see a lot of unexamined pathology. The higher the power of the Spirit works through them, the more these unacknowledged glitches are going to flush up.

So to conclude, please don’t let St. John of the Cross’ great contribution to Christian experience be depreciated.

Sincerely,

Donald L. Clark, EdD, FAACoP
Board Certified Psychologist
Emeritus Professor of Psychology

*(In order to keep any reader from putting his or her own unique meanings into the word “soul,” I have substituted the Greek word ‘psuche” to keep the purity of St. John’s use of the word. In addition, psuche is closer to our word psyche or the psychological system.)

Reference: St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, N. Y.: Image Books Doubleday (Translation 1990)

As a psychologist, I have learned that some times when you get lost, it is a good idea to go back to the beginning when you knew where you were. Another thing I have learned is when you aren’t sure you understand what a person is saying, watch what they do.

The disciples watched Jesus and listened to him for three years, plus 40 days of teaching from the resurrected Jesus. So, when they began their work, I have to believe they did exactly what they were told to do. This is what I found in the Message translation:

Act 2:43 Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! Act 3:6 Peter said, "I don't have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!"
Act 3:7 He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm.
Act 3:8 He jumped to his feet and walked. The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God.
and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk?
Act 3:13 The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus
Act 3:16 Faith in Jesus' name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet--yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes.
by means of his name this man stands before you healthy and whole.
Act 5:12 Through the work of the apostles, many God-signs were set up among the people, many wonderful things done..
Act 5:15 They even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on stretchers and bedrolls, hoping they would be touched by Peter's shadow when he walked by.
Act 5:16 They came from the villages surrounding Jerusalem, throngs of them, bringing the sick and bedeviled. And they all were healed
Act 6:8 Stephen, brimming with God's grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them.

Doesn’t look at all like where the church down the street is going? Someone fiddled with the compass.

The Anglican Church just had its gathering which occurs every 10 years. Some of you who keep up with these things may have read that for the first time in history, a substantial number of bishops boycotted the meeting. Most notably absent or registering protests, were the bishops from Africa who represent the largest segment of the denomination, dwarfing the American division of Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church.

In order for people to realize that these boycotts and protests were serious, I am quoting from one of the reports. In a statement released on the second day of the Lambeth Conference, the Sudanese church called upon the American church to "respect the authority of the Bible," refrain from ordaining gay priests or bishops, halt gay blessings, and "cease court actions against traditionalists with immediate effect." The American Church's experiments with gay blessings and bishops had led to the deaths of Sudanese Christians, Dr. Daniel Deng said in an impromptu press conference in the Lambeth Conference media room. Because of the actions of the American church, "we are called infidels in the Islamic world when they hear of the same-sex blessings," he said. "It will give [Islamist militants] reason to kill" Sudanese Christians he said.

Face to face with Islam in Africa, the African bishops had tried to warn the American church that their actions could have grave consequences in Africa, which is exactly what has happened.

Criticizing other ministries is an occupational hazard of ministers. I have done it myself and it requires me to constantly repent, probably boring God.

I ran across the following quote from Rick Joyner which should be helpful to me. Speaking of these attacks on one, another, Rick wrote: “However, if someone is going to criticize, we need to check their credentials. If someone has a significant healing and miracle ministry, we should listen to them in relation to the ministry of healing and miracles. If someone has been used to start and shepherd a significant revival, I would listen to him much more about his views of a revival than someone who has only read or written about them.”

Big amen Rick.

For those interested in the Anglican Church

Religion was in the news this week.
When Moses led Israel to the promised land, he instructed them in how things would work. They followed his instructions and for a period of years, they basked in extraordinary manifestations of God’s sovereignty. Over time, in encounters with other systems, they diluted the teachings and their fortunes went down the toilet.

Finally Jesus came, trained his disciples to heal the sick and cast out unclean spirits, revealing God’s sovereignty. Before leaving He gave his followers the following information. "These are some of the signs that will accompany believers: They will throw out demons in my name, they will speak in new tongues, they will take snakes in their hands, they will drink poison and not be hurt, they will lay hands on the sick and make them well. Then the Master Jesus, after briefing them, was taken up to heaven, and he sat down beside God. And the disciples went everywhere preaching, the Master working right with them, validating the Message with indisputable evidence.” (Mk 16: ff MSG)

The Book of Acts reveals that the followers heard what He said, and did exactly as told. They received the results promised. Then, just as before, over time the message was watered down with syncretism from secular and other sources. The extraordinary began to dissipate.

Why put this post on a political blog? Well because it is time to get religion out of these political discussions. After all, Jesus declared: These are some of the signs that will accompany believers, healing the sick, casting out demons, the Master working right with them, validating the Message with indisputable evidence.When politicians speak publically, they don’t tell people what signs to look for. Instead it is “Jesus, social worker to the poor.” or “Jesus, the moral teacher”, religion comprehendible to secular minds.

Then Dobson who thinks Jesus was a moral teacher blasts Obama who thinks Jesus was a social worker. And they both in turn are blasted by secularists who believe all religions are the same and thus don’t matter. Can you imagine any political candidate saying and demonstrating: “these are the signs that reveal the authentic. They supernaturally heal the sick and cast out demons.” Are you kidding?

I’m with McCain. Keep religion at a distance, and let them guess.

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Link to political blog

Anyone reading the article on Kenneth Hagin on this blog, might run across criticism of him. You will find the following article interesting.

INTRODUCTION TO DOING PRAXIS AS A PSYCHOTHERAPIST

“We need to turn the field of psychology upside down.” That was the rallying cry of the young revolutionary professors in my doctoral program. “We have studied the abnormal. Now is the time in psychology’s history to study the supernormal. Enough of what makes people sick. Let’s study those who function at high levels.”

I have always been grateful that God led me to that doctoral program. It was a good fit. From then on, I was searching for the vein of gold called the super-well. When I had the Charismatic experience, I knew I had hit the mother load!

Before that however, I went down many side shafts. In some there was gold. In others, rock. I will speak of this later.

I have already mentioned the experience that empowers my life, but now I have a specific purpose. First, I want to establish my credentials for writing this.

My psychological career has been dedicated to the study of the praxis of psychology. In psychology’s case, to do praxis is to practice the art of healing the psyche while simultaneously theorizing about what one is doing. Our great-grandfather Freud, started us in that direction from the beginning.

I was able to demonstrate my mastery of praxis to my colleagues and was granted Board Certification, a level only one other person in my department achieved. Later, my national professional organization awarded me the Life Time Contribution Award. Some of that award was based on how many students credited me with inspiring them, not only to pursue doctorates, but later to achieve Board status as well as positions of leadership in the profession.

Two audiences in particularly which I hope will find this part of my blog useful, include Christian psychology college professors who teach about their faith while avoiding proselytizing in the academy. The second group I hope will read this, are college students, especially psychology students, who don’t realize what a gold mine their Christian faith is. Some times their faith is damaged by the secularists who themselves, cheat on the “no proselytizing” convention.

PRAXIS OF SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2

I promised I would describe some of the shafts I explored searching for super-wellness. Even before I entered my doctorate program, I was already on a search for super-health but did not know it. My first job out of undergraduate school was with the Dale Carnegie Schools in Washington, D.C. In our classes we had governors, congressmen, business men, etc., all working on improving themselves beyond where they were.

Another fortunate break before graduate school was that I had my first clinical training in a Freudian school. One of the beliefs of Freud was that before you psychoanalyzed others, you should be psychoanalyzed yourself. I had several years then of personal psychoanalysis. My analyst actually could say he had Apostolic succession to Freud himself, having had his own analysis from a direct early disciple of the master. I still believe that Freud was right and anyone who delves into another’s psyche should go into his or her own first. For me, that was a profitable vein in the mine of the psyche and many of my dreams revealed psychological empowerment.

During graduate school, I encountered the stories out of the East of people with exceptional abilities. So the search led Eastward and for a number of years, I assiduously practiced a form of Yoga–Kriya.Yoga. Again, that was a profitable mine as I learned that when you alter your consciousness, you live at higher levels of spiritual insights and abilities.

Then I had the Charismatic experience which I have discussed earlier in this blog. As I have told the readers, the Charismatic experience is the absolute most empowering experience I have had to date. Nothing before it, even compares. That does not mean I don’t want anything else if God has any more surprises up His sleeve.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAXIS OF CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY CONTINUES CHAPTER 3

Because my expertise was the praxis of psychology, the task became, how to introduce a Christian health-giving theoretical model into the curriculum without violating rules against proselytizing in the university. How I answered that dilemma, I will now share.

My intellectual mentor was Joseph Rhylak PhD of Loyola University. To me his textbooks on personality were always the best in the field. Rhylak had taught me that those doing praxis needed to be able to answer the following seven questions: 1) How to describe the essential structure of personality (Freud’s id, ego, and superego are examples.) 2) How to describe what moves that structure? (Motivation). 3) Does the personality change over time, and if so, in what way? (Growth and Development.) 4) How does one account for the variety of differences among individuals? 5) What does it mean to be ill, and how does illness happen? 6) How does the personality get cured? 7) What unique procedures does the theorist utilize to create cures?

Praxis was my work.

Having taught Rhylak’s approach all my academic life, I immediately saw that Pentecostal/Charismatic healers were doing psychological praxis. They were healing the sick while simultaneously theorizing as they went along. So, all I had to do was to apply Rychlak’s seven requirements to the writings of the prominent schools of healing in the Charismatic/Pentecostal movements and the personality theory of praxis would be evident.

Three of these Charismatic/Pentecostal movements that had most satisfactorily addressed at least most of these seven essentials, were the Word of Faith movement, the Inner Healing movement and Jessie Penn Lewis of the great Welch revival. In extracting the praxis from these movements and then publishing the results in scholarly journals, I could then introduce these models legitimately into my classes. That is what I did.

That I did an acceptable job of describing the systems can be seen in the following: Kenneth Hagin the leading proponent of the Word of Faith Movement, after reading my manuscript, wrote giving me permission to use his material and called my work “interesting.” The Sandford’s of the Inner Healing Movement, wrote me a personal note that my work was one of the best analyses of their writings to date. The present minister who carries on the work of Jessie Penn-Lewis invited me to come to Wales where I stayed in his home for several days. Topping it off, after showing my work to his classes, my mentor Joseph Rychlak, came from Chicago to speak at my university in North Carolina. The day was one of those Carolina blue autumn days and we strolled about the campus. To my surprised joy, our conversation was mostly about the Lord.

PRAXIS CLASS METHOD CHAPTER 4

I go back for a minute and describe how I successfully introduced Christian psychotherapeutic praxis into my classes. I had always taught my class entitled Theories of Personality by allowing students to form groups and choose which theorist they wanted to study. Because I knew that some would go on to graduate school, in order to start them toward excellence, I actually used the format of the exam for psychotherapist excellence of the American Board of Professional Psychology. I hoped that some day they might all go for that highest standard in our field.

The Board exam was given in the following way. While being taped and watched through a one way mirror, the candidate conducted a session with a patient using his or her chosen theoretical approach. Afterwards, the psychologist met with four board certified psychologists, and explained what was done and why. Being able to do praxis, that is applying and explaining at an exceptional level, was the criteria of excellence.

In my classes, the students repeated the above format, role playing a simulated session before the class, then following with the class members grilling them on what they did and why. Just as in the Board exam, grades were given for their ability to articulate the theoretical position they had chosen.

Because my articles on Christian theorists followed the model of what makes a good theory, each term, there was always a group of Christian students who chose one or the other of the two Christian theorists I had written about. The only rule for them was that they were to follow the same model as the others in class, with no proselytizing allowed. The approach worked like a charm and over the years, many Christian psychology students were able to feel their Christian theory held its own with the other more well known theories of psychotherapy. Thus, their faith was not undermined by exposure to competing theories.

FIRST QUESTION: HOW DOES PRACTITIONER DESCRIBE THE STRUCTURE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY? CHAPTER 5

The Faith Teachers
The first article covers the Word of Faith Teachers who do praxis in much the same way as practitioners such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, and the like. That is, they heal personality dysfunction while self-consciously explaining their work. For those readers not familiar with the Word of Faith teaching, the best known is Kenneth E. Hagin (now deceased). Some of his ideas appear to come from the earlier works of E. W. Kenyon who wrote in the early part of this century. In a personal conversation with the James Buckingham, former Editor-at Large of Charisma magazine, he suggests that E.W. Kenyon was the grandfather and Kenneth E. Hagin Sr. the father of the Faith movement who popularized the teachings and then spawned others such as Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, Norvell Hayes, Fred Price, Jerry Savelle, John Osteen and others. Other famous names who, around the same time, arrived at similar conclusions about faith, but from different traditions were P. Cho, T. L. Osborne and Lester Sumrall. Today, there are many others all over the world who have their original roots in this school of thought, not to mention how much of these teachings have permeated throughout Christian practice.

In order to make the writings of the Faith Teachers parallel the major psychologist’s theories of personality, all I had to do was to answer Rychlak’s questions of a theory of personality.

FAITH TEACHING STRUCTURAL CONSTRUCTS

The first question required of a personality theory is to describe the structure of personality, i.e., “What theoretical analogies and metaphors are used in creating the outline of consistent behavior enabling us to speak of personality?” (Rychlak, 1981 p.31)

Again, most people know of Freud’s id, ego and superego. Just as Freud had his id, ego and superego, Kenyon (1970) describes a three part division. There are the spirit, the soul and the body. “Man is a spirit being. He has a soul, and he lives in a physical body.” The three different structures of the personality are further amplified by Hagin (1979) as serving three different functions: “With the body I contact the physical realm. With my spirit I contact the spiritual realm. (and) with my soul I contact the intellectual realm”

Spirit
Hagin apparently became aware of this tri-partite division of his personality after an “out-of-body” experience in his youth. The experience left him with the distinct impression of these three structures to his personality. Later Hagin and others were influenced by Kenyon’s writings as they developed the concept of the spirt as a distinct structure. Kenyon (1966) taught that God is a spirit, angels and demons are spirits and humans are spirits. When the Holy Spirit infuses the human spirit, then the personality is returned to God’s class of Spirit. Now the individual’s spirit can make direct contact and communicate spirit to Spirit.

Although St. Paul was not careful in systematically using words for his own personality, in 1 Cor. Chapt 14:15 he reveals clearly that he was aware of two distinct structures to his personality, each with its own function. “ What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

Soul
Kenyon (1966) departed from the popular use of the word “soul,” the one my denomination used in the seminary at the time I attended, in describing this second structure of personality. In those days, I was just taught we had a soul and a body. Kenyon and Hagin’s use of the word “soul” is similar to Paul’s use of “understanding” in the Scripture above. For Kenyon, the soul is that which is derived through the senses: this then includes the cognitions, the will and the emotions. The term he preferred was “sense knowledge” which he used interchangeably with the term “soul.” Just as Paul taught in 1 Cor. 2, sense knowledge is incapable of knowing God.

The clearest teaching of this inability for sense knowledge to access God is found in the mediaeval mystic St. John of the Cross. In his classic “Dark Night of the Soul,” he describes how the sense knowledge, or soul, panics and goes dark (flat lines) when it suspects there is another part of the personality “the spirit” carrying out actions which cannot be accessed by its mental activity.

Kenyon points out that a central problem of sense knowledge is that it produces a form of faith in information obtained through the senses, which then claims hegemony over the entire system. He paraphrases Romans 8:5-7 “For they that are after the senses have the mind of the senses, but they that are after the spirit, have the mind of the spirit. . . . The mind of the flesh (that is, the thinking that derives its evidence from the senses) is enmity against God.”

Body
Hagin equates the body with the senses. The body is the source of the information which is creating the soul’s experiences. It is also the outward man that is perishing, in contrast to the inward man, or spirit. The spirt is being renewed day by day. The body has to be brought under the control of the spirit eventually (not soul or mind control such as in Christian Science).