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Category Archives: Signs & Wonders
The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Documentary on Medically Verified Miracles is Coming
Elijah Stephens from Redding, California is a former Vineyard Pastor with the ambition to make a documentary about evidence for miraculous healings. The film’s working title is Prayer Movie, and in a recently released video Stephens describes the project idea as following:
In the video you can spot professor Candy Gunther Brown who has written Testing Prayer: Science and Healing dealig with this very issue, as well as Craig Keener who has documented several medically verified healings in his big book Miracles. Heidi och Rolland Baker along with Randy Clark will also be a part of the film.
While the documentation of inexplicable events is far from new, films on this topic are quite rare other than looking at specific, individual cases. Stephens give some really compelling arguments on his website for why Christians should welcome evidence to support miraculous claims rather than brushing it off as a sign of weak faith or as a way to test God. He refers to how Johsua commanded the Israelites to put stones in the middle of Jordan so that their grandkids can be reminded of the miracle God did there (Josh 4:4-7).
If you want to support the project you can donate to Stephens’ Kickstarter. If the target isn’t met you wont have to give your money away. I myself am very excited for this movie and will pray and give for it to become a reality!
It’s Official: Jason Westerfield Preaches New Age
One of the most popular and controversial blog posts on this site is Does Bill Johnson rebuking Jason Westerfield prove that Bethel is New Age? In it, I commented on how Bethel Church pastor Bill Johnson warned against the false teachings of a friend and student of his, Jason Westerfield. I pointed to some indications that Jason is preaching astrological new age, and therefore I thought that Bill had done the right thing.
However, no public comment on this from Jason himself could be found online. Because of this many people questioned whether we should take the claims of Bill Johnson, along with film producer Darren Wilson who knows both these guys and affirmed that he had heard Jason talk about aliens, at face value. What if they’re wrong?
Well, they weren’t. Now there’s official proof that Jason is, in fact, a new age consultant, as I explain here:
Fundamentalist Non-Religion and the Limits of Apologetics
Church Outreach at a Come In, Go Out-meeting
At least one Sunday a month we have “Come in, go out”-meetings in my house church, where we firstly gather in my living room for some worship, prayer and Bible study, and then we go out on the streets of Uppsala to hand out coffee and evangelize. Yesterday, we had two remarkable encounters during the outreach phase.
A Kurdish man came, received a cup of coffee and then loudly announced “I don’t believe in religion! Not in Islam, Christianity or anything else!” Thinking that this was an atheist, I started to bring up some apologetic arguments for God’s existence, but they fell flat to the ground. “I do believe in a creator! But not in religion! It is impossible for humans to understand God and to have contact with him!”
Oh, so it’s a deist then, I thought. My friend Tryggve and I then started to question him on how the Creator is able to create an entire universe without being able to cure a disease or talk to those that He has created, but our attempts were unsuccesful as the man repeatedly just stated “It’s impossible! It’s impossible! You don’t understand!” I then started to testify about miracles that I have witnessed and how Jesus revealed Himself to me, but I could hardly finish a sentence before the man shouted “No! Those are just illusions! You don’t understand the truth!”
The man furthermore claimed that we all believe what we believe because of our upbringing, whereas I told him about the amazing church growth in Nepal, where millions have converted to Christianity during the last 30 years mainly due to visions, healings, signs and wonders. Again, his response was that it was impossible. I asked him how he knew that it was impossible, and he claimed that “everybody” knew miracles are impossible. When I pointed out that this was a lie since we Christians know that miracles exist, he again said that miracles are impossible and that God does not reveal Himself to people. (more…)
Swedish Miraculous Jesus Hippies
Jesus March in Stockholm, 1974. Photo: Jan-Gunnar Jansson
The Jesus movement in the 1970’s impacted Sweden quite a lot. Lonnie Frisbee and other American Jesus hippies visited the country, multiple communities called “Jesus houses” sprung up, and Jesus people were evangelizing in the streets and parks. People like Ylva Eggehorn, Stefan Swärd and Ulla Österjö-Jansson arranged Jesus conferences and Jesus marches – no wonder they were called Jesus freaks.
In my hometown of Uppsala, a theology student called Hans Sundberg were impacted by the Jesus movement and started to evangelize. Once, he was sharing the Gospel in the street together with some Christian friends, when an Iranian man who believed in Baha’i started to argue with them. Hans argued back, and their discussion went into sort of a stalemate until Hans’ friend Maria started to speak loudly in tongues. Hans was initially a bit embarrassed (after all, the Bible says that nonbelievers will think that we are lunatics if they hear us speak in tongues (which it is right about)), but he then realized that the Iranian man understood everything Maria said. She was speaking farsi, about how Jesus is the only way to God and salvation. Hans saw prophetically how an arrow came out from Maria’s mouth and gently hit the heart of the Iranian man with peace and eternal life.
Meanwhile, a small Swedish town called Surahammar (which means grumpy hammer) was struck with a youth revival as the Jesus movement came to town. Youths from the local Pentecostal church gathered daily in a bakery to pray, study the Word and then hit the streets to evangelize and heal the sick. One of the kids involved in the revival was Simon Ådahl, who after refusing military service due to theological reasons became a musician and, eventually, a prophetic evangelist. You can read more about him here. (more…)
Prophetic Evangelism on Rhodos
Simon Ådahl is a friend of mine who’s prophetic, poetic and passionate for God. A musician and evangelist, he loves to tour around Sweden to share what God can do for people. He’s written a book called “The Unexpected Journey”, and while it contains less trolls and dragons that Tolkien’s classic novel it is still an amazing testimony about the supernatural: it contains many testimonies about miracles, and here’s one of them:
TLDW (Too Long Didn’t Watch): Simon and Maria are eating dinner with a Greek friend called Christos in Rhodos City, Greece. Simon starts to prophesy about Christos, his wife and daughter about the secrets of their hearts (1 Cor 14:25) and eventually Christos receives Christ! Glory to God!
Finger of God Movie Review
Darren Wilson’s documentary Finger of God is one of the best and most influential films I have ever seen. It introduced me to Heidi Baker and Iris Global as well as to Bill Johnson and Bethel Church, it showed me amazing miracles at a time where I doubted that those really happen, and it stirred me to create Christian film clips of my own. This week, Wilson’s new film Holy Ghost Reborn has been released, and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to review all his previous films, starting up with Finger of God. Here’s the review:
To what extent can a Christian be demonized? Part 1
Guest blog by Lars Gunther.
This is a reworded and expanded version of a comment that I wrote on this blog. Micael wrote a post on the issue of demonization, arguing that a believer can indeed be a victim of demons afflicting him or her from within the body, and thus be in need of having that demon being cast “out”, and not merely cast “away”. It is clear from the depictions of how Jesus defeats the demons that they can dwell within a person and that they upon being confronted with the presence of Jesus sometimes manifest themselves or that they produce loud noises and/or shake the bodies of their victims violently during their departure. (Note that demons in the New Testament do not cause their victims to shout and/or shake all the time, but that this happens as a result of the encounter with Jesus or a follower of Jesus ministering in His authority and power.)
Instinctively western Christians, being unused to these kind of phenomena, may wish to avoid the subject. However, demons are real even if they usually hide themselves. and the question of deliverance being necessary will sooner or later appear for a follower of Jesus, trying to obey his every command (Matt 28:19-20), including the ones to heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out demons (Matt 10:7-8).
In this post I will defend the proposition that Christians can indeed be in need of having demons cast out and the general approach to this topic as it was taught by John Wimber and his associates. (more…)
Resources on Evangelism and Apologetics
Pancake Evangelism
Hello charismactivists and all you others who follow this blog! I got two pieces of fresh news for you. The first being that the URL to this website has shrunk to the much simpler name of holyspiritactivism.com. All the old links are still functional and redirects to this site. God bless WordPress for making this transition so easy and convenient 🙂
Secondly, I’ve created two new resource pages on the website to equip your work for the Kingdom of God. One is about street evangelism which provides some tips on how to share the Gospel as well as arguments for why all churches should make public evangelism as common as Sunday services:
7 Reasons Street Evangelism Rocks
Why All Christians should Participate in Street Evangelism
Why Did the Early Christians Go to the Synagogues?
How to Make a Mainline Church Evangelize on the Streets
William Lane Craig on the Resurrection of Jesus
I have mentioned previously that I really enjoy the apologetic work of William Lane Craig, and regularly listens to his podcasts and lectures. I find Craig very intelligent, theologically sound and mostly quite easy to understand, and he oftens pinpoints thoughts and arguments that I have developed on my own. The other day I was listening to a talk he was holding in Southampton in the UK a couple of years ago on the resurrection of Jesus:
In the talk, which he has held multiple times in different locations, he defends five historical facts about Jesus and early Christianity which he argues that there are sustainable evidences for. These are:
- Jesus died on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem
- He was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea
- On Easter Sunday his tomb was found empty by a group of women
- On multiple occassions individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus
- Jesus’ original disciples believed that he had rose from the dead, despite their having predispositions to the contrary
Can Christians be possessed by demons?
Jesus Exorcism
The Assemblies of God (AoG), the biggest Pentecostal denomination in the US, has famously argued that it is impossible for Christians to be possessed; no one who has received the Holy Spirit, they say, can be overtaken by demonic forces. This differs from the view shared by many neo-Pentecostals, charismatics, Catholics as well as many Pentecostals in the majority world (Asia, Africa and Latin America), who all say that Christians might actually become demonized.
When John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement, was asked if he believed that Christians could have demons, he provokingly replied “Well yeah, I’ve cast them out of pastors!” His wife Carol wrote in her biography about her husband something like: “When we encountered a demon, we simply cast it out – without checking baptismal records. What else could we do? Wait until they become Hindus and then cast them out?”
Now, AoG-folks and like-minded may object that such allegorical evidence does not mean much compared to arguments from Scripture. Which is generally true, although in this particular case the usual claim concerning extra-Biblical supernatural phenomena – it’s a demonic deception! – is quite counterproductive. But the Bible is always important in theological matters, so let’s have a look. (more…)
Lecture: Signs, Wonders and Social Justice
You know what’s awesome? Miracles! You know what’s also awesome? Social justice! Let’s combine the two, like Jesus did. The Spiritual gifts that God has equipped His church with are supposed to be used to serve others (1 Peter 4:10), and obviously our activism for a more equal and just world will be even more effective when the Holy Spirit empowers us with supernatural abilities. A couple of months ago I hold a lecture on this core idea of Holy Spirit Activism:
It’s super-obvious that miracles and social justice go hand-in-hand in the Holy Scriptures: the Old Testament prophets exercised many miraculous gifts while promoting the rights of the poor and marginalised (see for example the book of Amos); Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons right before His famous Sermon on the Mount about social ethics (Mt 5); and as the apostolic church was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues they eradicated the gap between rich and poor through community of goods (Acts 2).
In the lecture I go through these and other relevant Bible passages, as well as sharing testimonies from people today who combine miracles and social justice, like Simon Adahl and Heidi Baker. I also bring up and criticize theologians and philosophers who deny the existence of miracles or at least its presence in the life of the ordinary believer, like David Hume, Rudolf Bultmann and John MacArthur. Enjoy the video!
William Lane Craig on Miracles
William Lane Craig is in my view a very good Christian apologist and philosopher, and I regularly listen to his Reasonable Faith podcast. Even though I think he could use some more revival fires and hands-on mission work in the dirt, his intellectual defense for the Christian faith has undoubtedly helped many and led several people to the Lord. In a recent podcast, Craig and Kevin Harris discussed miracles and whether it is rational to believe in these. As a charismactivist, I find the topic highly interesting.
There are many different forms of philosophical and theological objections against the existence of miracles that all are quite easy to respond to. Cessationism is a Christian view which says that miracles did exist in the times of the Bible but then ceased when the Bible was written; ironically, this idea is not found in the Bible. Naturalism is the idea that the supernatural – obviously including miracles – does not exist, but this cannot be proven just as atheism cannot be proven. In fact, as long as the existence of God is not disproven and thus possible, it is entirely possible that miracles exist, as Craig points out in this short video:
In the podcast, Craig and Harris discussed another form of objections against miracles that is quite unique. Philosopher Hans Halvorson has argued that under no circumstances should one believe that a miracle occurs today: “for any event you experience in your life, no matter how strange, surprising, or wonderful, you should not believe that it is a miracle. Similarly, if somebody tells you that a miracle occurred, you should not believe him.” Yet, he also says “it can be rational to believe in the miracle stories of the Bible—because the miracle stories in the Bible are relevantly different than the purported miracles of today.” This is some kind of secular cessationism – miracles don’t happen today, but it’s possible to believe in Biblical miracles because they’re different.
Listen to Craig’s and Harris’ response to Halvorson’s article below:
Atheist Hears the Audible Voice of God
Yesterday I met a very friendly brother from England, Mike O’Leary, who is in Sweden for two weeks on a short missions trip. We’ve been in contact for at least a year on social media, and it’s evident that he’s on fire for Jesus. Yesterday when we went back to my place for some tea (my experiences from the Jesus Army has taught me that Brits like that drink), I asked him something that I often try to ask brothers and sisters I don’t know well: how did you became a Christian? His story was truly amazing, and I asked him if I could record it when we got home:
Mike used to be an atheist who found belief in God ridiculous. As he says in the video, he loved to debate with theists and show them how wrong they were. However, in 2007 he heard the external, audible voice of God three times, saying “Follow Me”, when he was out in his garden. That changed things.
You can follow Mike at his Sheep of Jesus blog or on Twitter, as @sheepofjesus.
Imams Receive Jesus in West Africa!
We have this wonderful little missions organization in Sweden called Go Out Mission, which regularly organizes evangelistic campaigns in Africa and Asia. The following report is from one of their local leaders, Oury Sow, who shares about a campaign they recently had in Guinea-Bissau, where the lame walked, the blind saw and Muslim leaders gave their lives to Christ. Here’s his report, translated to English:
First, we had the opportunity to hold a campaign in a small town inside the country. Already at the first evening there was about 1,500 people gathered during the sermon, and during prayer it increased to about 2500 people. 300 responded to salvation when I made the call, and after we prayed for the sick was three people who had the courage to come up to the stage to testify. A Muslim man from Gambia contacted me after the meeting and told me that he had come to Guinea-Bissau in order to get money, but now he said: “I have found Jesus instead and I feel so rich!”
The campaign continued to grow; many children were there early and were quick to the scene to respond to the invitation. A little girl who was now five years old had been born both deaf and dumb, but after prayer she both heard and she spoke her first words in life! What joy for the mother to hear her daughter say her name. What a Jesus we have! One woman who came to the first meeting had had problems with bleeding for 32 years, but after prayer the night before, she had gone home and all the bleeding had stopped! The woman and her husband were so thankful to God.
The third evening there was over 3000 people on site who heard a clear Gospel. The atmosphere then exploded when a 15-year-old girl who was unable to walk since birth, suddenly stands up, causing such a joy chaos that we had to let go of control and could not give testimonies from the stage. The girl’s mother fell to the ground in fear of God and people danced completely wild with joy just everywhere!
Has Science Disproven the Existence of Miracles?
Craig Keener
One of the best books I’ve ever encountered on the topic of miracles is simply called Miracles, and is written by Craig Keener. A professor of New Testament Studies, Keener started his book as a footnote in another work on the book of Acts where he explained why he didn’t rule out the possibility that the miracles described there actually happened, and when his footnote had grown to a couple of hundred pages he decided to make a book out of it (and it’s pretty clear that this guy likes footnotes, there’s such an insane amout of them that the book had to be published in two volumes!)
Keener covers a various of fields such as exegesis, history, philosophy, natural science and journalism as he provides hundreds of testimonies about miracles, most of them from recent times and several of them medically and scientifically verified. It’s a very good read. And I would like to share with you the essense of his philosophical argument, which also can be viewed in this video:
It is common to hear, especially in the Western world, that miracles “clearly” don’t exist, that belief in miracles is a medieval relic, that “modern” people can’t believe in supernatural superstition etc. Quite often this is simply viewed as an axiom, a self-evident premise that does not have to be proven; it is often believe that science has already denied the existence of miracles so arguments for the premise is not necessary. However, science has not proven that miracles don’t exist, science is agnostic on such matters just as science has not proven that God does or doesn’t exist. I’ll come back to that shortly. (more…)
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