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Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Wear Expensive Clothes
Prepare to be uncomfortable.
I wrote three years ago about how absurd it is that Christians often are expected to “dress up” as they attend church meetings, wearing clothing that’s more expensive and “proper” than what they normally wear. The reason this is absurd is that the Bible never commands it – on the contrary, it prohibits Christians to wear expensive clothes at all times, not just on church meetings. I’ve made a video when I discuss this:
The New Testament particularly addresses Christian women, telling them to not wear jewelry or expensive clothing:
“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” (1 Tim 2:9-10)
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.” (1 Peter 3:3)
Rules for Christian Community
Me and Sarah Stenmark from the Jerusalem Project with two nuns, who shared with us what community can look like
I’m so excited! Today I’ve had a Skype meeting with some brothers and sisters in the Jerusalem Project, an association I co-founded a few months ago that encourages Christian community of goods in Sweden. We talked about the vision for community that God has put in our hearts, and we listed some basic principles that we want to be foundational for the community that we plan to start, a community where everyone have everything in common.
As some inspiration for such a rule, I have looked at both ancient and modern examples of monastic rules. I will give you two examples here before I showcase what principles we have talked about in the Jerusalem Project.
The Old
First out is St. Basil’s rule, written in the fourth century. These are just the chapter titles, the actual rule is like a small book: (more…)
Come and See: How Community of Goods Can Become Normal Again
My documentary about community life in the Jesus Army – Everything in Common – is almost complete. It still needs some sound mixing and small fixes, but in a month’s time I will release it on my YouTube channel. I have shown the film to some friends here in Uppsala and many have become inspired and fascinated by this kind of living by watching it. Here’s a snippet where some Jesus saints explain what community life means to them:
The people that have joined me on my trips to the Jesus Army have become dramatically inspired as well during the visits. Just seeing community of goods in practice makes so many disciples thirst for it. Asking people to “come and see” where we live, as Jesus did (Jn 1:39) is a simple but effective way to catalyst a movement.
Many communities have historically been quite isolated, which really isn’t a necessary component of community of goods but a natural consequence of many of them being rural due to their means of sustainance as well as skeptical to communication technology due to their values of simplicity. (more…)
Song: Welcome
The World is often a hostile place, but Jesus is constantly welcoming and commands us to be hospitable. This song is written and sung by me, guitar by Andreas Lundström.
Welcome homeless people, welcome to my house
It’s warm inside and I got food and I’ll never kick you out
I’m sorry that my countrymen just let you starve and freeze
The world outside is hostile but you’re welcome to me
I bid you welcome, welcome, welcome to me
I love you and I want you here so please come to me
Welcome refugees, bring your families
Welcome to my country where there’s welfare and peace
I’m sorry that the racists promote inequality
But I will fight for your right to stay ’cause you mean a lot to me
I bid you welcome, welcome, welcome to me
I love you and I want you here so please come to me
Welcome unbelievers, welcome to our church
We offer healing, eternal life and a bunch of other stuff
We’re sorry that we Christians often behaved like piles of sh*t
But Jesus rocks and His Spirit rules so please pay us a visit
We bid you welcome, welcome, welcome to us
We love you and we want you here so please come to us
Welcome Holy Spirit, welcome to my heart
I need your power, strength and love, ‘less I’ll just fall apart
I’m sorry for my egoism and sinful lusts and deeds
I want to serve like Jesus so please, Spirit, wash me clean
I bid you welcome, welcome, welcome to me
I love you and I want you here so please come to me
Welcome my beloved, says almighty God
Welcome to my Kingdom that awaits you in the clouds
You won’t feel sorry any more when I wash away your tears
You’ll be with Me forever, no more days or months or years
I bid you welcome, welcome, welcome to me
I love you and I want you here so please come to me
Separated by War, United by God
Today I write on Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice about Craig and Médine Keener’s upcoming book Impossible Love. After becoming very good friends, the civil war in the Republic of Congo made it impossible for them to contact each other for eighteen months. Craig didn’t know if Médine was dead or alive. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Craig Keener writes in an email correspondence to PCPJ:
“There was no friend I had corresponded with as much over the years as Médine. I was always happy to receive her letters, but the last one threw me into panic: She announced that she didn’t know if she was going to live or die, because troops were closing in on her city.”
The horrors Médine and her family was going through were unimaginable.
“Her cousin was shot dead on Christmas Eve; her father and brother had barely escaped being shot. Although she didn’t mention it, she and her mother and sisters didn’t know how they could flee because her father was disabled and they had no way to carry him. But by the time Médine’s letter reached me, her city lay in shambles.”
Why Most Preachers Never Preach the Gospel
Did you know that the New Testament never refers to church lectures or discipleship edification as “preaching”? Whenever Greek words like kerusso and euaggelizo are used they refer to proclaiming the Gospel to non-Christians in a public or non-Christian environment, like a synagogue or a public square. Christian edification is referred to as “teaching” or “dialoguing with”.
I talked about this in my latest contribution to the MennoNerd vlog. The implications of this simple fact are massive. Firstly, we have to admit that most preachers, pastors and priests hardly preach the Gospel at all, biblically speaking, since public evangelism is extremely rare these days. They teach a lot, but they don’t preach – they just call their lectures “sermons” without actually preaching.
Secondly, this means that Biblical discipleship edification was much less of a monologue and more of a dialogue in small home groups. This is how you learn stuff. Just look at the education system; good schools know that you need smaller groups and lots of dialogue and student participation if you want people to actually learn stuff. Proclamation is better suited for evangelism, when many need to hear about how to be saved and when the message is more simple and straight-forward.
Preaching to the already saved is, according to the Bible, not how we should do church.
Preaching done right!
Muhammad’s Biggest Mistake
The Qur’an includes some embarrassing mistakes, such as describing Jesus’ mother Mary as the sister of Aaron and daughter of Amran (surah 19:27-28 and 3:35-36), which would make Moses the uncle of Jesus even though they lived about 2,000 years apart. Or there’s that passage that portrays the Christian belief in the Trinity as consisting of God the Father, Mary the mother and Jesus the Son (surah 5:116). Muhammad’s biggest mistake however was to argue that Jesus didn’t die on the cross:
And [for] their saying, “Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah .” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. (Surah 4:157)
In this lecture, Christian apologist Nabeel Qureshi shows why the Islamic claim that Jesus didn’t die on the cross is so absurd. If there’s anything we can know about Jesus, it is that He died on the cross. In fact, even the most skeptical and atheistic Jesus scholar will most likely agree that Jesus existed, that He was baptized and that He was crucified. Extremely liberal New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan has said: “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be”. (more…)
More Jesus Army Miracles
As the Holy Spirit filled and renewed a small Baptist church in Bugbrooke, central England, during the mid-1970’s, many miracles occurred. When I visited the Jesus Army last year, Huw Lewis told me and my friends Hillevi and Emil about some healings that he saw, including a man whose sight was restored when he was baptized. He also shared his reaction to seeing a demon being cast out the first time and how the whole church was stunned by the presence of the Lord:
This footage is from my upcoming documentary Everything in Common. It was originally planned to be released last year, but I’ve been busy with book writing and finishing my studies. Now I have time to finish the documentary though, the first live screening will be here in Sweden on a conference that I’m co-organizing on Christian community life in April. I hope to to be able to publish it on YouTube shortly afterwards, there are some music licensing stuff that I need to deal with.
The documentary is about the community of goods that is being practiced at the Jesus Army: how it works, how it impacts people’s lives and what other churches can learn from it. Here’s an epic teaser trailer for the film:
Podcast: Simplicity and Sustainability
I had the privilege of joining the MennoNerds Panel talk on simplicity and sustainiability last Tuesday. I had proposed the topic since fighting personal wealth and promoting a simple lifestyle are issues that God really has put on my heart. Participating were MennoNerds Hillary Watson, Paul Walker and myself, with Mark Groleau as moderator. You can listen to it in the MennoNerds podcast as well as in the YouTube clips down below:
During the first hour, we talked about theological and theoretical perspectives, such as:
- How do we define simplicity?
- What are the Biblical arguments for the need of simplicity?
- What are the Biblical arguments for the need of environmental sustainability and creation care?
- Should Christianity be seen as an anthropocentric religion, i.e. how do we deal with ideas like having dominion over the Earth?
It should be noted that we were a bit divided on anthropocentrism, whereas some questioned this I for example argued that it’s not just Biblical but morally necessary. (more…)
Why All Churches Should Look Like New Testament Churches
Whenever I point out that our churches should be more Biblical and look like the apostolic church in Jerusalem that we read about in the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts, many fellow church leaders argue that there are many equally good models that we can form our congregations after, or that church structure really doesn’t matter much and so we shouldn’t discuss that too much. Allow me to disagree:
In this video I show that church structure does matter a lot, taking the example of Jerusalem and how it seemingly shaped the apostle James’ theology, and I question whether churches with different structures than the Jerusalem church really share the same fruit: conversions every day, nobody living in poverty and an abundance of signs and wonders.
Ending Cell Group Anarchy
Photo from tonight’s cell group in my church, which is basically identical to our Sunday service
In Biblical times, local churches met primarily in homes as a complement to their public evangelism (Acts 2:46, 20:20, Rom 16:5). For at least 250 years home churches were the norm – the earliest discovered church building that wasn’t used as a home is from the late third century. With Constantine stuff changed, basilicas and cathedrals were established, and these were the norm in the state churches.
Radical restorationist groups have often started in the homes, this includes the early Anabaptists, Baptists and the Pietist movement. When less persecuted and more established, they have often built church buildings as their state church counterparts. In the 18th century, Methodist leader John Wesley introduced the concept of having meetings in homes as a complement to the Sunday service in a church building.
In the 20th century this practice has become very popular. Realizing that meetings in church buildings aren’t designed to effectively promote fellowship and discipleship, many church leaders have welcomed cell groups/small groups/house groups in their congregations.
However, there are no fixed standards to what a cell group is and what it should do. Since it’s not viewed as a church of its own, there are usually no requirements of it to include the things that we see that New Testament churches were expected to include. For this reason, there’s basically anarchy when it comes to how cell groups look like. Here are some examples: (more…)
Candy Gunther Brown on Miracles and Democracy
Candy Gunther Brown if professor of religion at Indiana University and an expert on both the global charismatic movement as well as healing and how it is measured scientifically. As content creator for Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice, I was able to conduct an interview with her which you can read here. An excerpt:
MICAEL GRENHOLM: You edited the anthology Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, which discusses various aspects of this international and rapidly spreading movement. In its final chapter, you write: ”The globalization of divine healing networks fuels the twin engines of supernaturalism and democratization, which together forcefully propel the global expansion of Christianity.” Could you expand on that?
CANDY GUNTHER BROWN: People in the Global North are taking cues from Christians in the Global South who tend to pray more expectantly for healing. Likewise, Christians in the Global South have tended to rely on pastors and leaders to do the praying; they’ve taken cues from the expectation of Christians in the Global North that any believer can pray effectively for healing.
This is a very interesting thought. I’ve often said that the North should give more money to the South in order to fight poverty whereas the South should share revival fires to the North in return, and while I think that Brown agrees with that she points at something more fundamental. Church democracy is great and biblical (1 Cor 14:26) and it’s actually something besides finances that us Northeners are able to share to our brothers and sisters in the Majority World. (more…)
The Anti-Community Conspiracy in Biblical Scholarship
Extremely few Protestants live in a community of goods similar to that of the apostolic church in Acts 2 and 4. In fact, most Protestant denominations don’t have any single community connected to them. Just like charismatic, supernatural gifts used to be a rarity within Protestantism due to cessationism, something that has drastically changed over the last century, so is having everything in common. Both miraculous power and community life are biblical practices that many Christians simply don’t want, and both charismatic cessationism and economic cessationism have been defended and strengthened by forms of academic theology which quite frankly use very bad arguments.
Reta Halteman Finger
Mennonite scholar Reta Halteman Finger wrote an excellent paper back in 2004 called ”Cultural attitudes in western Christianity toward the community of goods in Acts 2 and 4” (Mennonite quarterly review, vol. 78, no. 2). It’s a baffling read. An obvious mistake from Catholic and Orthodox theologians during pre-Reformation times was to equate the apostolic community of goods in Acts with the community of goods in the monastic movement, even though the latter is only available for celibates.
When Luther and Calvin protested in the 16th century, they rejected the monastic movement and thereby community of goods. Both argued that the only lesson we should learn from Acts 2 and 4 is that we should give a little gift sometimes to a poor person, not that we should have everything in common with them. They criticized Anabaptists for wanting to live apostolically; Luther argued that it is impossible to do what the apostles did for modern believers. The Hutterites proved him wrong, having lived in total community for over 400 years.
As liberal theology and the historical-critical method in biblical scholarship sprung up during the 19th and 20th century, Protestant academics such as Eduard Zeller, Ernst Hanchen, Hans Conzelman and Luke T. Johnson questioned the historicity of Luke’s account in Acts 2 and 4. Their main argument for this was that community of goods in their eyes is extreme and difficult, therefore the author of Acts must be making it up. Haenschen for example argued that only celibates can manage to live in community, suggesting that Hutterites don’t exist. (more…)
Why the Prosperity Preaching at Bethel Church is a Huge Problem
Kris Vallotton at Bethel Church recently held a sermon called “Poverty, Riches and Wealth” which is nothing less than pure, economic prosperity preaching. His conclusions are basically that all Christians with some few exceptions should be rich and that wealth isn’t a problem as long as it multiplies and grows exponentially. In this video I respond to his arguments and show why they don’t work:
As you may know, I’ve argued that Christians should not be rich in my God vs Wealth series and I recently did a Holy Hangout on prosperity theology with some friends where I criticized the “health and wealth gospel” for being unbiblical and hurtful.
Now, some people have told me that Vallotton’s position actually is “balanced” and even close to my own, that he’s not that off after all. I strongly disagree. I was surprised to hear how radical his prosperity thinking was and how deliberately he ignored or distorted relevant Bible passages.
Vallotton starts off in 1 Tim 6, arguing that love of money isn’t the root to all evil but a root to some evil (the text actually says a root to all evil). He does not mention verses 5-9 at all, probably because they crush all forms of economic prosperity theology. Verse 5 talk about “people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.” (more…)
Podcast: Why Eschatology and Eternity Are Important
A new MennoNerds Podcast episode has been released! It’s on eschatology, Heaven and hell and started off in our vlog as a conversation on waiting and patience, which made me think about waiting on the second coming of Christ and the glorious heavenly realm that He will bring:
Deborah followed it up talking about two things that Heaven is and two things it’s not:
And Paul started to talk about hell and three different theological views on its nature: eternal conscious torment, annihilationism and universalism:
Charismactivism 