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The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Charismatic Theology among the Early Anabaptists
From now on this blog is a part of the MennoNerds network, a bunch of bloggers (or nerds) who like Anabaptism. Ana-what? Anabaptism, the grandmother of the Baptist, Pentecostal and a bunch of other movements, which was and is characterized by pacifism, economic equality and radical theology. While I’m not a part of an Anabaptist church (they simply don’t exist (yet) in Sweden), I was involved in forming the Anabaptist Network of Scandinavia, and together with my friend Andrew Meakins I’m administrating a facebook page called Charismatic Holiness Anabaptist Theology.
While several modern-day Anabaptists eagerly seek miracles and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, there still are many who don’t. Not necessarily because they don’t believe in miracles but rather that they believe it isn’t part of their tradition. But it is. In 1995, Stuart Murray, one of the leading Anabaptist theologians in Europe, wrote this article about the early Anabaptists’ view on spiritual gifts. Here is an excerpt:
Stuart Murray
Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement: Diverse Phenomena in Early Decades
What would sixteenth-century Anabaptists have made of the “Toronto Blessing” that has impacted many churches in Great Britain in recent months? How did the Radical Reformers respond to such spiritual phenomena’? The charismatic aspect of Anabaptism has not received much attention from historians, but evidence of spiritual phenomena in early Anabaptist groups is substantial. Some welcomed manifestations of the Holy Spirit, while others were wary and attempted to regulate or discourage such expressions. Basic to the Anabaptist view of charismatic gifts, however, was a belief that a transformed life was the true measure and sign of Holy Spirit presence.
[…]
For Dirk Philips, the Spirit had a vital role as agent of regeneration. The Spirit writes the new convenant on the hearts of believers and enables them to participate in the divine nature. The Spirit is the earthly presence of Jesus, empowering ministers called by God and helping believers interpret the Scripture. Anabaptists equated “baptism in the Spirit” with conversion, but expected more to happen experientially than did the Reformers. The radicals were not satisfied with forensic ideas of grace, typified by the legal terminology of “justification by faith”. Rather, they saw grace as “the inner light that directed a life of righteousness “.
When Heaven Invades Africa
The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news are being preached to the poor. – Mt 11:5
From a Crusade with Christopher Alam
I’ve known Andreas Cucca for over a year through the internet, but today I got to meet him in person for the first time. He is working with the Swedish organization Go Out Mission and has participated in almost 20 crusades all over the world, primarily Western Africa and Southern Asia. I kindly asked him if he could share some miracle stories, and he just went off like a cannon ball:
“Wow, where should I start? The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, cancer tumours disappear! I prayed for a mute man in Guinea that hadn’t been able to speak since he was born, now he was between 20 and 30 years old and his first words were Jesus, hallelujah, amen. Another time I proclaimed that the lame were healed and a lame beggar outside the campaign area was instantly healed, everyone went wild when they saw it! And another time we had prayed that the blind would be healed and a man came to the stage and said that he used to be blind but now he could see. However, his eyes still looked really blurry so we wondered if he really was telling the truth, but he could grab my nose when I asked him and while he was there on stage, I saw with my own eyes how all bluriness disappeared and his eye became normal. It was a creative miracle!”
And so on and so on. These things I expect from missionaries to Africa nowadays, I get surprised if they haven’t seen the blind see and deaf hear. A couple of weeks ago I met James Thompson, an Australian guy who together with his wife Sarah had served for Iris Ministries in Zimbabwe. He shared the most amazing testimonies about a sweet, blind old woman that could see her grandson for the first time after God healed her, as well as about a deaf-mute who started to hear and speak:
John Wimber: Justice Goes Hand in Hand with Revival and Renewal
“Sometimes I wish we still were Quakers”, Christy Wimber said this morning at the Nordic Vineyard Summer Camp, which I am currently enjoying. Christy belonged to the Yorba Linda Friends Church where John Wimber and his family worshipped, and joined them as they got kicked out of it when they started to heal the sick and baptize converts. She has been a Vineyarder ever since and married one of John’s sons. But she still wishes she was a Quaker.
I can see why. Quakerism, with its teaching on radical discipleship, pacifism and social justice, never left John either. I’ve already collected some quotes from him about poverty and social justice, but now I got hold of a book here at the conference, The Way In is the Way On, where chapter three is totally devoted to John’s teaching about this issue. Here’s an excerpt:
I love to teach on social justice! It really is one of my passions. Justice always go hand in hand with true revival and renewal of the Spirit. Justice – setting things right for the poor and marginalized – is one of the primary purposes for God sending His Son into the world. He came in order to set things right. Great leaders in the history of the church have always understood the relationship between faith and justice. There has never been a movement of God started on fire that did not have a ministry to the poor.
Videos from my Trip
Heart for filming
The first prophetic word I recieved in SA was that I would use my video camera to spread God’s glory. So here are some of the glorious stuff i filmed down there:
Mama Tesia Nicole, South Africa’s version of Heidi Baker, asked me to do a video for them about Village of Hope, their community center in Backdoor which works to improve people’s lives and spread the Gospel of hope. In Backdoor, the unemployment rate is around 80 %, the HIV rate is extremely high and only one third of the youth finish high school. To tackle these problems, Village of Hope includes a pre-school, a feeding programme, a youth center and more.
In this video, Pastor Surprise Sithole shares two testimonies in Iris Revival Church, Nelspruit South Africa: Firstly, a church member has been healed from cancer; secondly, Surprise’s wife Tryphina and their son Enoch saw a castle in the sky. The castle was levitating in the air. Both of them saw it clearly. Suddenly the castle was covered by clouds, and when they disappeared the castle was gone. “What do you think it means?” some one asks Surprise. “Well, a castle belongs to a King.”
The Life of Surprise
Mr Sithole and me
On the third day of my visit at Iris Ministries South Africa, I was helping the men and children to cook food on a women’s conference. Suddenly a jeep with the Iris logo appeared, and out stepped a man whose big smile I recognized so well. “Surprise! Wow, I’m so glad to meet you! I’ve read your book!!” The smiling apostle shook my hand, told me I was welcome, guided some ladies to the jeep and then pointed at me: “Micael, get into the car!”
We dropped off lady after lady until we arrived to the house of the last one, where all three of us entered. There was a very, very thin and weak man. I didn’t catch what condition he was suffering from, but I eagerly joined Surprise in praying for his healing. Then we left, and Surprise drove me back to the conference.
I met this man’s wife last Thursday. He has had severe problems with his liver and kidneys as well as TB, and has not been working since October last year. However, now he started to feel much better, he went to the doctor last week – and the doctor pronounced him 100 % well. He started working again last Wednesday. Glory to God!
This first meeting of mine with Surprise Sithole was very Surprise-ish. In his book Voice in the Night, he shares his amazing life story. He was born in a family of witch doctors in a small village in Mozambique. At the age of 15, he heard a booming voice in the middle of the night: “Surprise! Get out of the house! If you do not leave, you will die.”
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The Kundalini Myth
Andrew Strom is a Christian who believes that large parts of the global charismatic movement is demonic. In his video Kundalini Warning, as well as in the book with the same name, he claims that false spirits have invaded ministries like Catch the Fire (the “Toronto Blessing” church), IHOP, Bethel Church, Morningstar, and more. These false spirits originate in the Hindu kundalini cult in India, Strom argues.
Now, you expect some strong evidence to support these radical claims, don’t you? Perhaps Strom have discovered some documents proving that before the Toronto Blessing began, pastors John and Carol Arnott went to India to receive kundalini teaching from a guru. Or perhaps Strom have made an interview with Bethel Church’s pastor Bill Johnson and found out that his greatest inspiration is Lama Rama Ding Ding from Uttar Pradesh?
Nope. On the contrary, none of these ministries have ever preached kundalini teaching, nor have they had any association with Hindu groups whatsoever.
So how does Andrew Strom then know that the spirit through which these ministries experience miracles isn’t the Holy Spirit but a kundalini spirit? The answer is of course: YOUTUBE VIDEOS! In Kundalini Warning, Strom shows us recordings from a kundalini meeting, where people according to him behave just like charismatic Christians. The guru lays his hands on people, and they start to shake, laugh, cry and praise the gods. Thus, when John Arnott lays his hands on people and they start to shake, laugh, cry and praise God, it is the work of the devil. If they are quiet, say amen and go and drink coffee afterwards, it’s the Holy Spirit, I guess.
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“I Saw You in a Vision”
Tryphina Sithole
Two weeks ago, Surprise Sithole took his kids to Kruger National Park to look at the wild animals. His wife Tryphina and their oldest son Enoch stayed at home in Nelspruit. Suddenly, they saw something amazing through the window: a castle levitating in the sky.
When Tryphina told us about this in Iris Revival Church, she emphasised that it wasn’t a vision. Both she and Enoch saw this castle with their very eyes. They went away quickly to get a camera, but when they came back to the window the castle was covered by clouds. When the clouds disappeared, the castle was gone.
“What do you think it means?”, one church member asked. “Well, a castle belongs to a king”, Surprised said, and revealed that he actually had seen the same thing a couple of years ago in Florida. The Kingdom of Heaven is near.
God is truly speaking to His people here in South Africa. Shortly after I had arrived to Block B where I am currently staying, I was attending a cool wedding. Cool because it was lead by a “prof. apostle” and included prophetic messages and prayer for healing. As a European I’m however not so used to eight hour weddings, so after a while I went outside.
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Village of Hope
The story of Iris Ministries South Africa is to a large extent the story of Surprise Sithole, a man of God who has experienced many miracles. In the mid-90’s, shortly before he connected with Iris, he received a prophetic word from the Lord about moving to a white river. At first he didn’t understand what it meant, buy then he found out that there’s actually a place named White River in South Africa. So he and his wife Tryphina moved from Mozambique to SA.
God continued to speak to Surprise about ministering on “the mountain” – Backdoor, a township outside White River. Back then, Backdoor was known to be a very dangerous place, where the crime rate was very high and robbery was a part of daily life. The Sithole family moved there anyway, and they were severely tested – once they were almost killed by a violent gang. But as their church plant grew and their social ministry expanded, the community started to change.
As I wrote in my previous blog post, there are still many problems in Backdoor, but the crime rate really has decreased a lot since Iris started working there. Of course, it’s hard to tell if that would have happened anyway, but surely Iris has contributed a lot to the good trend. Its community center, Village of Hope, includes a preschool, a bible school, a feeding programme, a sowing center, a youth ministry and soon also a carpentry. Everything they do is aiming to bring help and hope to the people.
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Testimonies from the Durban Awakening
With four days left before I’m going to South Africa, I get really excited when I hear about the current outpouring in KwaZulu-Natal. Famous and controversial healing evangelist Todd Bentley is leading meetings at a church in Tongaat, and people come from all over the world to take part in what God is doing. Many get healed, saved and filled with the Spirit. Christian News Wire reports:
Todd has been touring South Africa this month and many healing miracles have been documented. These include a girl who was born deaf in both ears and mute, who spoke for the first time and a man blind in his left eye who was instantly able to see. Over 10,000 people have attended the meetings in Durban and hundreds of Muslims and Hindus have committed their lives to Christ.
“Something is really happening here in Durban SA. It’s a move of God,” said Todd Bentley. “It’s an explosion of power. The hospitals are calling for prayer. They are bringing the sick from the hospitals too. One man that was crippled and blind from kidney failure was healed. This is the closest I have been to revival since Lakeland!”
The meatings are being broadcast live at God TV, and people watching the outpouring get touched as well. On their website, God TV share some testimonies:
NAME: DR H
FROM: TONGAAT, SOUTH AFRICA
I am a registered medical doctor and the revival is taking place at my church. I have a patient who has been diagnosed with a large cyst on her uterus 2 years ago. She came in yesterday for consultation saying that she wanted an ultrasound done. Upon asking her why? She replied that the day before whilst she was seated at church, Todd Bentley said “Place your hand on the body part that needs healing.” She did, she felt electricity going through her uterus. I did the ultrasound upon her request… THE CYST IS TOTALLY GONE!!!
Heading to Africa
People from Michael’s Children’s Village
You may have noticed that I’ve written a bit about South Africa lately. Well, that’s because I’m going there. Lord willing I will go to White River, Mpumalanga, in May, and visit Iris Ministries there. They have a children’s home called Michael’s Children’s Village which is led by Mozambiquians Surprise and Tryphina Sithole and Americans Teisa and Jean Nicole.
They’re practicing true charismatic activism. Surprise have seen food miracles as well as people raised from the dead, and at the Village they combine social work and compassion with prayer for signs and wonders. The reason it’s called Michael’s Children’s Village is that the arch angel Michael appeared to them and told them to start it.
There are huge needs of this type of social ministry in SA. Many may think of the country as a prosperous, emerging economy; however, it is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The traces of apartheid are still visible, damning millions of people into poverty while the richest only get richer.
Half of SA’s children live in poverty. 5.6 million South Africans suffer from HIV and over 200 000 die from AIDS annually. And the social unrest make crime very prevalent, making the rich isolating themselves from the poor even more.
School Revival in Port Elizabeth, South Africa
From an article by Gateway News, published a year ago:
Shannon-Leigh Barry
St Thomas High School in Gelvandale, Port Elizabeth has been transformed by a move of God over the past two months during which hundreds of learners have committed their lives to Jesus Christ and a number of miracles have been reported.
The revival began at a school assembly on Monday, March 5 when about 500 learners put up their hands when former St Thomas learner, Shannon-Leigh Barry, 25, asked for a response from anybody who wanted to know the Jesus that she had been speaking about. Shannon-Leigh was leading the assembly at the invitation of her father, Mark Barry, a teacher at the leading Northern Areas school which has more than 1 000 learners.
Since the March 5 assembly, several hundred more learners had turned to Jesus, and there were regular manifestations of spiritual gifts such as healings, prophecy and speaking in tongues at the ongoing revival meetings at the school during breaks and after school, said Shannon-Leigh in an interview yesterday.
Living in Resurrection Power
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Eph 1:18-21)
Christ is truly risen from the dead!! This is an undeniable cornerstone for our faith and should be central in the gospel we preach. If miracles cannot happen and Jesus has not risen, Christianity is worthless according to 1 Cor 15. But if miracles do happen and Jesus has risen, Christianity is the most important thing in the world.
But not only is the resurrection of Christ the basis for our doctrine, it should also be the fuel for how we live our lives. As Paul writes above, the same power that rose Jesus from the dead is in us. Through the Holy Spirit we have the same authority to do miracles like He did, the power of the resurrection is available for everyone who wants it!
The Role of Suffering in the Charismatic Movement
Image: Michael Clarke
We have now entered the holy week, the last step of lent in which the liturgical year remembers the passion, that is suffering, of Jesus. In my experience, it is not so common among Pentecostals and Charismatics to talk about suffering as something achievable. Rather, our emphasis on healing has often made us think that pain is always evil. And while I am convinced that we should always pray and work to alleviate involuntarily suffering, we should also be ready to suffer for Christ’s sake – and even count it as a joy! (Mt 5:11-12)
After all, we follow a crucified God who told us to take up our crosses and follow Him (Lk 14:27). He told us that we should expect persecution and turn the other cheek when attacked (Mt 5:39). We are also told in the Scriptures that we will experience spiritual trials and hardships (Jam 1:2ff.).
This may seem hard to sync with the Kingdom message of fighting suffering through healing, deliverance, poverty reduction and peacemaking. But it is one of the Kingdom paradoxes – while we should alleviate suffering, we should be ready to suffer. We should not seek suffering or be happy when others suffer, but when we are affected by suffering, which undoubtedly will happen from time to time, we should not interpret it as being abandoned by God but see it as a humiliating experience for us to identify ourselves with Christ.
Many Charismatics who experience a lot of miracles and breaktrough has also gone through deep pain. Smith Wigglesworth, the British Pentecostal healing preacher who raised several from the dead, lost his wife in the beginning of his ministry, and he himself got very sick in kidney stones. John Wimber prayed för thousands of people who got healed, but he died in a very painful fight against cancer. Heidi Baker is living in revival in Mozambique but just before the breakthrough she, her husband and her daughter were very, very sick and they had barely any money to continue.
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Holy Spirit Explosion in Stockholm, Sweden
One and a half year ago I attended a Healing School conference in Malmo here in Sweden, arranged by Global Awakening and New Wine Sweden. Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Tom Jones and Will Hart were speaking in 26 different sessions about how to pray for the sick and seeing the Kingdom of Heaven manifest on earth. Many miracles happened during that conference, as can be seen in the video above that I made. For example, a guy named Magnus was damaged in a car accident 21 years earlier and got metal plates to stabilize the body, something that made it impossible for him to bow down entirely. He named and claimed his healing and bam – he could touch the floor.
With this wonderful conference in mind, I was excited when I attended the New Wine leader’s conference in Stockholm this week where Randy was the main speaker. It was the same message – healing does not belong to the church margins but is at the heart of the Kingdom – but he had some new wonderful testimonies that illustrated his points. For example, he showed us this powerful video about a woman getting healed from metal constraints, just like Magnus:
Randy Clark
I like Randy. Even though I think his former mentor John Wimber (someone I keep comparing him with) had a slightly sounder theology at some points, I love his passion for Jesus, the Kingdom, and the spiritual gifts. His ministry, labeled by Wimber as apostolic, has changed the life of millions – including Heidi Baker. And God surely blesses his meetings through marvelous signs and wonders.
At the first night of the leader’s conference, a man started to shout joyfully and clap his hands. It turned out to be Pekka Liljeblom, a passionate Pentecostal evangelist – and a Facebook friend of mine. He got up on stage and explained that about 30 years ago, he got hurt in a boat accident and damaged his left eye. Since that day, he could only see ten centimeters with it. After receiving prayer at the conference however, his vision got restored with 90 %. He could now see to the other end of the room! I spoke with him two days later and his vision continued to improve.
“Show us that Jesus loves Zulus, and show us that whites can love blacks”
Flag of SA
From Jesus Army’s Radical Christian History series:
A building seating 10,000, crammed to capacity each week. 1,000 seekers daily. Healings. Deliverance. Radiant joy. A story from a revival of old? No. It is happening today in South Africa.
When Afrikaner Erlo Steegen was converted as a teenager he found the cry welling up inside him:
“Lord, I want to preach like You did!” He also felt his heart drawn to his black brothers. After some missionary training he acquired a tent and for twelve years preached the gospel among the spiritually starved Zulus.
Many came to the Lord as a result, yet few continued in the faith. Erlo was indignant that God was not being glorified and so he gave himself to prayer and the study of the Bible as well as reading about past revivals.
As a result God dealt with Erlo, humbling his ambition. Once he was approached by a widow, who begged him to prove the power of Jesus’s name by healing her mentally deranged daughter. With three others he prayed day and night for three weeks, but without success. A broken man, he returned the girl to her mother still unhealed.
Worse still, in a country racked by apartheid and centuries of oppression, the Zulus constantly challenged him: “christianity is a white man’s religion. Show us that Jesus loves Zulus, and show us that whites can love blacks.”
Charismactivism 