zoecarnate

Mike: I totally get the idea of redeeming drug culture for Jesus and ministering to those within it with a ‘tokin’ the Ghost’ motif. And I’m *also* fine with consenting adults - whether they have such a drug background or not - participating in worship celebrations where Jehovah-juana and Godka are in fresh supply. We’re free in Christ, y’know? But I have a question: What about the children? On the YouTube videos I see kids participating in your meetings, which is great as far as it goes - as we’vd discussed. But when you pass spiritual joints to little kids (like I saw on one of Ben’s India videos), don’t you think that *could* be sending them the wrong messages, like that it’s a good idea to start smoking stuff?

John: This is a valid question, Mike, and has been asked before. I think the example you gave (re: Ben in India) is a bit moot though: the person in the video simply looked like a child, but it was actually a crippled person with no legs, who really did need a toke of the Ghost considering the circumstances!

Mike: I’m not sure we’re talking about the same video, John. I mean this one, at around 5 minutes in. It sure looks like a little girl to me [Note: I just noticed this, so John hasn't had the opportunity to respond yet. I'll get the right/additional YouTube on here if he does.]:

John: You first have to understand something about what we are doing here before we tackle the subject of children. To the pure all things are pure. I am not “pretending” to smoke marijuana, I am REALLY getting blasted on the Holy Spirit by faith. I am not “pretending” to inject heroine, I am REALLY being infused by God’s presence. Obviously, I know the package is offensive, and to say this is not entirely intentional would be a lie. But you see, we are not trying to copy a worldly experience. We are offering the “real thing” which are the supernatural pleasures of Jesus Christ. Joy unspeakable (not humanly utterable).

Continue reading ‘Crowder & Morrell: Kids & Cocaine Jesus?’

Over the next several days, John and I will have a 3-4 part dialogue about some questions and concerns that occurred to me about their lives and ministry. Some are specific for them in their unique ministry, and others are general questions I’d have if I was talking to any itinerant prophetic minister or revivalist in this Spirit-saturated stream of faith. I learned a ton; read on…

Mike: So John, what do you’re your and Ben’s wives think about all this recent ministry? Particularly yours, John! I mean, with four kids and all, being out all the time at Holy Ghost House Parties with beautiful sisters in Christ all around…itinerant ministry of any kind can be tough, but poured out in this fun ‘party’ manifestation, I’ll bet it’s extra challenging. Too often we only hear from the ‘alpha-male’ front-line ministers (when the ministers happen to be male)…what do the wimmin think??

John: Not sure why you ask this, but I have a hunch … Of course, my wife can speak for herself [Ooh! Can we have her do a guest blog?], but she loves the wildness of God. She often gets more plastered in the love of God than I do. She has seen me dry, bored and performance oriented. And she very much prefers the joyful, whacked, spiritually inebriated John much better. It does wonders for a marriage when the two of you are actually happy all the time (not just pretending to be so). Understand for starters that we are NOT Pentecostal, just because we interact with Holy Spirit. So you have to do away with all those old AG/holy roller mindsets of dominating women and forcing them to play the part of pastor’s wife (Pentecostal churches on the whole don’t like us very much, by the way). By this, I mean we are not chauvinistic abusers who keep our wives’ heads covered, barefoot and pregnant. We do not take the Mars Hill approach at all in this regard. The first person I ever ordained was a woman. We think the entire family needs to be integrated into the things of the Spirit.

Continue reading ‘Crowder & Morrell Dialogue: What About the Fam? (Or, ‘Sex-Crazed Charismatics?’)’

What great interaction on Charismatic Chaos or (Holy) Spirited Deconstruction! I will be interacting with all of your thoughtful replies soon. And while that post outlined my affirmations of this new bacchanal of the Spirit, I still have a few caveats, which I will be airing this week. But in the spirit of filial kindness or what have you, I’ve emailed Ben and John personally in hopes of getting them to give me some feedback first. I want to hear from them in their own words - whether in the tongues of men or angels.

I know they’re probably busy, so I’m giving them a coupla more days; they can even have a guest blog if they want.

In the meantime I wanted to share with you something my friend/professor/mentor Jay Gary wrote, reflecting on the US & European pneumatic prophetic movement. In studying Strategic Foresight, I interact with future possibilities through a variety of lenses: human, ecological, technological, economic, political and - yes - spiritual futures. I’m often asked by my charismatic and Pentecostal friends how my studies relate to the revelatory spiritual gifts of prophecy, words of wisdom, knowledge, etc…

I have yet to articulate a fully satisfying response. But the good Professor Gary - scholar, consultant, and futurist extraordinaire - sheds some light. Read on!

Continue reading ‘What Is the Future of the Prophetic?’

“Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation’s U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.” More here (AP)

Disgusting. We aided in executing over 100,000 civilians (quite possibly three times that)–including women and children–in summer of 1950, while ‘back home’ we were revving it up for the (supposed) Leave It To Beaver decade. Mass extinction, all because our peace-loving democratic ideals were ‘better’ than their socialist/democratic/communist/revolutionary ideals. Preemptive idealicide. Jesus wept.

Continue reading ‘America-Backed Atrocities in the Korean War Discovered: Troubling Questions’

“If the Central Intelligence Agency screws up another weapons-of-mass-destruction report, we’ll know exactly where to lay the blame: Michael Morell.”

What is this?

A friend of mine (who may or may not wish to be identified!) sent me word that someone from his alma mater and my near-namesake has just gotten a promotion at the ‘ol Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently this fellow has been some kind of CIA Deputy Director for some years now, and is movin’ on up. And this is causing all-American patriots to rejoice.

It’s fascinating to me because in my younger days I saw myself as either a costumed super-hero or an intelligence agent. (I’m talking teenage years, mind you. Though the thought of donning colorful long underwear or spandex still has its appeal…) My life as a friend and follower of Jesus has caused me to choose a dramatically different relationship to power, so seeing headlines like these are kind of like looking at “the path that could have been.” I have no regrets for my life-trajectory thus far. I hope the best for Mr. Morell as well.

Continuing a series of “What If” futures incasting headlines for the world of 2043…

HeadSpace Virtual Commute adds Lunar Line

Top-Traded Immaterial Office Firm Now Lands on Moon

NEW DEL SOL—Virgin Milky Way avatar Richard Branson (III) announced a landmark deal with virtual holoconference provider Headspace today, a 3.5 year exclusive contract to extend their telecommute line to Virgin’s New Del Sol base on the expanding ‘dark side’ of the moon. This came as welcome news to the sagging HeadSpace, who, after their 2018 near-monopoly on virtual workspace solutions, has sagged behind upstart Virtual Kosmos these past twenty months. “They just couldn’t compete with virtual time uplinks,” an NBC Knowbot told us. “But one thing V.K. has never been able to do is transmit to the moon. That HeadSpace has been able to do this is—if you’ll excuse the pun—a Thoth-send.” [Continued, C.381]

Kicking off a week of “What If” futures incasting scenarios for the world of 25 years from now; the good, the bad, and the ugly…

Google Government Launches Today

EasyGov startup application one of many facets replacing outmoded bureaucracy

GENEVA—After passing unanimously in the UN Committees for Better Governance and Clean Tech last year, government.google.com initiated governance interfaces globally this morning at 12:01 GMT. “We are grateful for the trust engendered from the global community,” Google Chancellor David C. Drummond said via YouTube hololink today. “For years we have worked tirelessly to improve the processes of voting, emergency response, law enforcement, and legislation. Today, we are able to bundle all of these services and offer them, without cost, to governments and citizens everywhere.” The efficiency and technological boost was enabled by Google’s acquisition of the Coca-Cola company in 2014, quickly supplanting its trademark drink with Google Gulp, the neuron-organizing, protein-reading potable version of Google Desktop… [Continued, A.428]

Since I seem to be kinda political this week, let me mention one other story that got my attention recently: Frank Schaeffer, scion of intellectual fundamentalist demigod Francis Schaeffer, has come out in support of Barak Obama…on pro-life grounds. Here are a few salient excerpts from his Huffington Post Column:

“I am an Obama supporter. I am also pro-life. In fact, without my family’s involvement in the pro-life movement it would not exist as we know it. Evangelicals weren’t politicized until after my late father and evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Koop (Reagan’s soon-to-be Surgeon General) and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion in the mid-1970s. Our Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book, movie series and seminars brought the evangelicals into the pro-life movement.

“In 2000, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers and oil company’s interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a pro-life Republican Congress that did nothing to actually care for pregnant women and babies. And they took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers…the “pro-life” ethic of George W. Bush manifested itself in a series of squandered opportunities to call us to our better natures. After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (something I know a little about since my son was a Marine and deployed several times). The Bush doctrine of life was expressed by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed thousands of Americans and wounded tens of thousands more.

Continue reading ‘Frank Schaeffer: Pro-Life and Pro-Obama’

Recently for my LMSF 602 Survey of Futures Studies course I was asked to reflect on my own ‘theory of social change’–that is, how does change occur? Some base their guiding narratives on power, others on progress, still others on ideas. As a friend and follower of Jesus, as well as a futurist-in-training, I offer some rough thoughts:

Being thoroughly postmodern and suspicious of neat meta-narratives, I don’t have much confidence in the Story of Progress as was propounded through the Enlightenment era. On the other hand, looking at the broad sweep of history, I cannot come to the nihilistic conclusions that some of my secular and religious friends have come to, that the universe is essentially meaningless or that we’ve all going to hell in a handbasket. There has been real change over the past several thousand years, and it is generally (sometimes very generally) positive. But there is no invisible hand guiding us to some inexorable destiny. I suppose I believe in a realized eschatological world, where emergent nested creativity (which I see as a Triune God with real personality and kosmic-and-personal dreams) abounds, ready for humanity and creation to tap into. I am a realist. History has, in many cases, been guided by self-interest of a powerful few, hell-bent on maintaining and expanding their privilege. But in the midst of this, we’ve maintained humble, celebratory wisdom traditions that give dignity to individuals and communities—thus the spirit of innovation and adaptability continues.

I think social change happens when individuals and communities generate and tap into powerful new ideas rooted in the old. Taking from our store-houses treasures old and new, we can become truly conservative and progressive, preserving the best of the past while reimagining life together into the future. This will happen through humility, foresight, and imagination. It is a good time to be alive.

Interestingly, my blog stats reveal over 20 people coming to the blog today via the search term ‘homeless’–this is fascinating because the post in question is nearly three months old.

But a recent comment by my friend Chris (plus this flurry of interest) brings me to some fresh thinking: How do we as friends and followers of Jesus see social change as happening? Do we even desire it?

Chris writes,

“Unless we can deal with the heart of the problem the most we can offer is love in simple ways (like you described above). I commend people for their acts of kindness, it is good and proper religion. For me, if I really want to do something about the problem I need to work on the solution which is the kingdom of God on earth, the only environment whereby the nations can be healed and provide homes for all of God’s creation. Alone I can do very little but a people together under Christ the head can make visible the environment our Father always intended for mankind to live in. Without community we are all homeless in some form or another.”

But what is “the heart of the problem”? I respond,