Tech, the Church, and the Death of Community
February 9, 2010
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Benevolence, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Community, Counterculture, Discernment, Godly Character, Hospitality, In the News, Love, Oddities, Relevance, Simplicity Feedback : add a comment
Everybody’s talking at me.
I don’t hear a word they’re saying,
Only the echoes of my mind.
— Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talking At Me”
I now sit behind a Plexiglas wall.
It’s about five feet high and surrounds most of my drum kit. To drown out the deafening wall of sound reflected off the barrier from my drumming, I wear in-ear monitors that seal off everything but the mix (which I’m not in).
When the rest of the worship team talks to each other, I don’t hear them. Or I get a strange, far away echo picked up from the stage mics. Disembodied voices that seem to come from nowhere, yet everywhere, the words mingling into murk.
There’s a vibe you get as a musician playing in a band. When everyone’s doing their thing right, you gain a sixth sense of where the music is going. You can riff off what others do. You feel a part of something bigger than yourself and your contribution to the music. It’s almost a rapturous thing.
Unless you sit cut off in your own little room.
As of the start of the year, I now sit behind a Plexiglas wall. And jammed in my head are tiny, sophisticated speakers supposedly keeping me connected to the outer world.
It’s a perfect metaphor.
I’ve been on Facebook about a year. I think it has replaced my normal community, not because I wanted it to, but because it’s what others I know have rushed to embrace.
I think everyone is rushing. Not a single small group I’m a part of meets regularly anymore. No one can find a place on the schedule. Which is why Facebook is appealing. You and I can maintain the semblance of a relationship to other humans by texting from a Blackberry all the fun things we’re doing by ourselves.
I long ago gave up scheduling parties. Trying get three couples together face-to-face to do anything is akin to mounting an expedition to Everest.
So we text. And the Facebook walls fill up with graffiti.
I read fewer blogs anymore. It’s a lot of text from people who increasingly seem like the imaginary friends of my childhood. I find it a bit disturbing. That line in Ecclelsiastes that reads that the making of books has no end was long before the profusion of text bombarding us from every direction, most of it utterly throwaway.
We have all these high tech devices to help us communicate, but as I see it, there’s never been less genuine, lasting communication than there is today.
Below is just a sampling of news stories I’ve seen recently (and yes, I understand the circular nature of that statement):
‘Internet Addiction’ Linked to Depression, Says Study
Could it be that something about our society today causes depression, and those most affected by it are the ones seeking a respite in the “approved” source of modern comfort, the Internet?
Computers Can’t Replace Us
Tech pundit Jaron Lanier laments the dumbing down of interaction and the lost sense of identity that the Internet fosters.
The Teens Who Can Barely Talk
What happens when a person’s vocabulary reflects only words found in the most commonly texted phrases?
In Praise of Online Obscurity
When Wired magazine wonders if all this social media is only robbing our relational bank accounts and diluting effective communication, well…
The Facebook Myth
Plenty of cause-joining, quiz-taking, and online activity, but does it amount to so much self-pleasuring and sloth?
I look at what is happening to communication and connection and wonder why we need this tech middleman to work as a go-between that links you and me to real life. I wonder if the depressed person is the one caught in the move away from the kind of face-to-face community cachet that used to fill our relational bank accounts. I read the above articles and I’m chilled by them.
And now I want to make one of the most bold statements I think I’ve ever made on Cerulean Sanctum:
In all my years of watching the Church, I’ve never seen an individual church improved by technology, only diminished by it.
I want to add that there is a difference between lifeblood and convenience. Tech can make things more convenient. Having a computer and color laserpinter to design and print the church bulletins is great for convenience. But no computer or laserprinter can build the core functions of the Church. And when we confuse convenience with lifeblood, look out.
Yet how is it that churches are spending collective billions to become more tech savvy? How is it that upgrading the sound system in the church can become more important than helping a member fix her car or pay a bill he cannot pay due to job loss?
And how is it that we think we can insert tech into the basics of the faith and make them better? We had hymnals, then overhead projectors, then Powerpoint slide shows, and now we have the words of the music we sing to God backed by a full-blown media presentation complete with a 24-fps YouTube video of other people worshiping and capped by a Blue Angels flyover.
How can we not understand what we’re losing?
We can plaster our church lobbies with costly flat-panel displays showing stock photo slideshows of smiling, fair-haired people with nice teeth telling visitors to our church just how much we love them, 
yet those very same visitors can walk out without a handshake and a genuine human being who says, “Hey! Come join my wife and me for lunch after the service.”
We can pour line after line of text into Facebook and still not understand that our “friends” are desperate to truly connect with other people, yet no longer know how.
We can grow jealous of the person who has the tech device we don’t, which allows him or her to communicate in a way we can’t afford.
We can continue to buy into the marketing that we must surround ourselves with yet one more tech gizmo we didn’t know we truly needed—and then miss the reality that none of us seem to get together anymore.
And we can fill our churches with millions of bucks worth of tech, only to find each of us behind a Plexiglas wall, our in-the-ear monitors failing to pick up the full conversation, as we wonder what happened to that freeing vibe we used to feel in the music of real community.
I can’t help but think that technology is turning our human conversations into white noise, even as it isolates us and leads us to a place of asking if anyone really, truly cares.
Tags: Church Issues, Communication, Community, Computers, Connection, Depression, Disconnection, Facebook, Humanity, Isolation, Relationships, Small groups, Social Media, Society, TechnologyRelated posts
Recovering the Axe Head
February 5, 2010
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Charismatic, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Maturity Feedback : 9 comments
I thought this article by Lee Grady of Charisma magazine was worthy of note, especially considering many of the posts here at Cerulean Sanctum on charismania:
Recovering the Axe Head of Genuine Anointing
Tags: Anointing, Charisma Magazine, Charismata. Charismatic Movement, Charismatic, Charlatans, Lee Grady, Miracles, Prophetic MovementRelated posts
The New “Revivals” and a Warning…
January 22, 2010
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Charismatic, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Dying to Self, Godly Character, Heresy, In the News, Maturity, Oddities, Revival Feedback : 61 comments
I mentioned last week that Todd Bentley was once again talking about revival, this time at Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries, and as an extension of the “revival” happening at Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer. The juxtaposition of Bentley (plus his mentor, Bob Jones) , Joyner, and Bickle should give us all pause. It’s the old Kansas City prophets group that John Wimber rebuked—but with a new poster boy.
The following has been posted elsewhere by Christians who long for genuine revival and who support the genuine charismata. All of us are concerned that the real presence of God that comes through the baptism of the Holy Spirit is increasingly mimicked in charismatic circles by “something other.” The fruit of the modern charismatic/prophetic movement has been increasingly rotten, and people who are concerned need to test the spirits, rise up, get out, and speak out.
This is hard for me because I have many friends involved in groups that stream from or into what used to be the fringes, but is now the mainstream, of the charismatic/prophetic movement. The unwillingness of the movement as a whole to test all things sold as “of the Holy Spirit” (when even the most simple discernment tests fail) leads me, more than ever, to believe that the words of Jesus questioning whether He will find faith when He returns are the most prophetic, and frightening, words of all.
Andrew Strom, a former name in the prophetic movement, dropped out of the movement back in 2004 after coming to grips with the rotten fruit he was seeing and how what was being pitched as revival did not square with historic interpretations by great Christians of the past who viewed genuine revival. His warning has been making the Web rounds, and I reproduce it here.
Stay sober and awake.
KUNDALINI WARNING by Andrew Strom
I just saw the video of Rick Joyner announcing that Todd Bentley is back ministering every night at Morningstar in North Carolina and now they have so-called “revival” manifestations eerily similar to Lakeland. They also announced that they are streaming these big meetings every night on their new TV channel – and they are greatly promoting the whole thing.
Now I am a tongues-speaking Pentecostal myself – but can I ask a simple question here please? What kind of “spirit” was it operating in the Lakeland revival – when the leader and main focal-point of the meetings (Todd Bentley) was having an adulterous affair behind the scenes? Was it truly the “Holy” Spirit that was anointing something so sensual and unholy? And now that Todd divorced his wife and married his mistress – are we supposed to welcome him back and this “anointing” with him? What is going on here? Rick Joyner has been warned very specifically by high-level ministries not to do what he is doing now – bringing Todd Bentley back into the limelight. And yet it seems he does not care. Apparently the “manifestations” are all that matter.
So what exactly are these ‘manifestations’ if they are seemingly at home in such an unholy environment? Are they from God at all? (I am talking here about the violent “jerking”, uncontrollable laughter, bodily contortions, drunkenness, ‘portals’, strange “angel” encounters, etc.) Why do we not see such an ‘anointing’ in the Bible? Why aren’t Jesus or the apostles promoting these manifestations if they really are true Revival? Why instead do we see these things all the way through the New Age and Hinduism, etc? Do we not realize that many false religions have their own version of “laying on of hands” that results in these very types of manifestations? This ’spirit’ is not in the Bible – but it is all the way through Kundalini-type Hinduism! Don’t you think this should alarm us?
WHAT is KUNDALINI?
If you search for Kundalini and Shakti on the Internet, you will find that multitudes of people in the New Age and Eastern religions still experience these powerful manifestations. Often this is with the help of a Guru, who touches them on the forehead so that they can experience a “Kundalini Awakening”.
As researcher Robert Walker wrote in 1995:
“The meetings which mystic Hindu gurus hold are called ‘Darshan’. At these meetings devotees go forward to receive spiritual experience from a touch by the open palm of the hand, often to the forehead, by the guru in what is known as the Shakti Pat or divine touch. The raising of the spiritual experience is called raising Kundalini? After a period when the devotee has reached a certain spiritual elevation they begin to shake, jerk, or hop or squirm uncontrollably, sometimes breaking into uncontrolled animal noises or laughter as they reach an ecstatic high. These manifestations are called ‘Kriyas’. Devotees sometimes roar like lions and show all kinds of physical signs during this period. Often devotees move on to higher states of spiritual consciousness and become inert physically and appear to slip into an unconsciousness…”
And as the guru Shri Yogãnandji Mahãrãja wrote: “When Your body begins trembling, hair stands on roots, you laugh or begin to weep without your wishing, your tongue begins to utter deformed sounds, you are filled with fear or see frightening visions? the Kundalini Shakti has become active.”
In China there is a popular Kundalini-type movement called ‘Qigong’. When a Chinese Qigong spiritual master spoke in the USA in 1991, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that many in the crowd began to experience “spontaneous movements”. The master told his audience, “Those who are sensitive might start having some strong physical sensations – or start laughing or crying. Don’t worry. This is quite normal.”
When you see videos of these “kriyas” or other Kundalini-type manifestations, you would often swear that you are watching a modern “Impartation”-type church meeting. (And I say this as someone who believes strongly in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I just don’t believe in “alien” anointings infiltrating the Body of Christ! There is a big difference between Kundalini and the real Holy Spirit).
Since 1993-4, I believe a foreign spirit has been allowed to invade the church – first through Rodney Howard-Browne’s ministry – then Toronto, then the Prophetic movement (which I was part of at the time) and on into Lakeland and many other ministries and movements. I urge people now to “test the spirits” just as we are commanded to in Scripture. Do not let just anyone lay hands on you. This is a powerful spirit and it has the backing of a lot of big-name ministries. In fact, these men and women are the very ones responsible for allowing it to spread right through the body of Christ. And one day they will be answerable to God for doing so.
We are specifically warned in the Bible that the Last Days will be a time of “seducing spirits,” false prophets, ‘lying signs and wonders,’ and that we always need to watch for “angels of light” masquerading as the real thing. Why does the modern church not take these warnings seriously? Aren’t we living in the very days that the Bible warns about?
Right now I need to do something that I have never done in such a way before. I have never before published a list of ministries or movements to watch out for. But this time I have to. This sickness has gone on long enough. I urge you to cut yourself off from the following ministries and their tainted “anointings” my friends. Even though some of these people say “good things” at times, it is simply not worth having any involvement with them due to the tainted anointing that they endorse or minister in themselves. Here is the list-
(1) Todd Bentley.
(2) Rodney Howard Browne – the so-called “Holy Ghost Bartender.”
(2) Rick Joyner or anyone connected with Morningstar Ministries.
(3) John Arnott & any connected with TACF (The “Toronto Blessing”).
(4) Peter Wagner of the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ who claims to be head of a worldwide network of ‘apostles’ – who publicly endorsed Lakeland and will soon preach at Toronto TACF alongside other “false anointing” advocates.
(5) Mike Bickle and IHOP Kansas City (-I lived nearby for over two years – and know how much they are into all this stuff. Mike Bickle promotes it in his book).
(6) Bob Jones – the Kansas City prophet whose ministry is utterly tainted by it all.
(7) Patricia King and anyone else from ‘Extreme Prophetic.’
(8) John Crowder & anyone connected with “Sloshfest.”
(9) Bill Johnson of Bethel church, Redding – who says some good things but publicly endorsed Lakeland and promotes the “false anointing” very strongly behind the scenes.
(10) Heidi & Rolland Baker of IRIS Ministries – who do good work amongst the poor in Mozambique – but who have also carried and promoted this tainted anointing for years.
(11) Randy Clark, Wes & Stacey Campbell, and other key figures from the “Toronto blessing.”
(12) The Elijah List – and almost anyone featured on it.
Of course there are a huge number of lesser-known preachers and ministries who carry or endorse this Kundalini-type “anointing” around the world. But I have concentrated here on the most influential that I know of. It really is an enormous issue in the church. I urge anyone who is a supporter of any of the above ministries to really check them out thoroughly. If you find (as I have) that they carry or endorse this false Kundalini spirit in the church, then please stop supporting them in any way – and whatever you do, don’t let them “lay hands” on you!
I am putting everything on the line to be “naming names” like this. But I believe it is that serious. How on earth did we get to the point where “kriyas” just like Hinduism are spreading through the church?
Tags: Andrew Strom, Bentley, Bickle, Bob Jones, Charismata, Charismatic, IHOP, International House of Prayer, Jones, Joyner, Kansas City Prophets, Kundalini, Lakeland, Lakeland Revival, Mike Bickle, MorningStar Ministries, Prophecy, Prophetic Movement, Rick Joyner, Strom, Todd Bentley
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The Desperate Need for Statesmen
January 20, 2010
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Boldness, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Discernment, Dying to Self, Faith, Godly Character, Holiness, Humility, In the News, Leadership, Love, Maturity, Men, Perseverance, Relevance, Simplicity Feedback : 10 comments
So a Republican whose major claim to fame is going nude in Cosmo is the new senator from Massachusetts. And conservatives everywhere are rejoicing.
Forgive me if I don’t blow a horn and wear a silly hat.
No, I can’t get pumped about yet another political lightweight who drank the party-line Kool-Aid and talks about real change. Frankly, the Democrats and Republicans are true to one goal only : their own political ambitions.
Can I ask a simple question? Here it is:
Where are the statesmen?
America is in bad shape. Honestly, I think the collective wound is deeper and more threatening than anyone in D.C. cares to admit. And that wound is only going to get deeper if we don’t throw the bums out and put some serious people on Capitol Hill. People who do what is right, not because it is makes the bigwigs happy, but because they fear God.
What we need are statesmen. Folks who don’t go all weak in the knees when the GOP party chairman calls ‘em up on the line or Barney Frank blows ‘em a kiss. People who remember the point of this country. People who don’t pass laws just because. People of deep convictions that can’t be sold to the highest bidder. Intellectuals with big hearts, who are widely read and understand history. People with a spine, who can stand up to dictators around the globe and not flinch (or bow).
We need guys like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Remember them?
And this terrible lack of statesmen applies to the American Church. The national stage of Christian leaders is littered with lightweights who have the wrong motivations, wrong answers to difficult questions, and no vision.
Jesus called Simon a rock. He said He would build His Church on a rock like that.
But where are those rocks today? Where are those kinds of Church statesmen in America 2010? Seriously, can you name a half dozen Christian players on the national stage today considered to have a brilliant mind and a heart of compassion?
I admit that part of the problem here is that the kind of personality that makes for a genuine Church statesman is the humble one that stays out of the limelight and isn’t listening to himself on Christian radio.
Still, desperate times call for humble, nameless Church statesmen to rise up.
Call them prophets if you will. Call them the mighty heroes of old. But for all our sakes, someone, anyone, please call them! We need Christians like that from every profession and walk of life.
And we need them now.
Tags: Clay, Conviction, Democratic Party, Democrats, GOP, Hous of Representatives, Humility, Intellect, Leaders, Leadership, Massachusetts, Politics, Republican Party, Republicans, Scott Brown, Senate, Statesmen, Webster, Wisdom
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