JD, that’s a nice job!
Ken,
The revival in Wales 1904-5 was comprised to a large extent of Calvinistic Methodists – no Charismatics among them – although there were phenomena that one might find in the Charismatic-Pentecostal circles. In the book she speaks against “tongues,” saying that certain occult/mystical groups also practice this. Azusa was in 1907, and I believe was related to the Wales’ revival, as some later involved in Azusa had visited Wales to see what was going on. One of my caveats about
War On The Saints is Penn-Lewis’ view of “the baptism of the Holy Spirit” as a second-blessing type thing, which I understand Lloyd-Jones also held to. She was
not pentecostal.
One of the strong criticisms, from a sympathetic commentator (in
The Welch Revival of 1904, by Eifion Evans; pub. by Evangelical Press of Wales; ISBN: 1850490376), is that, although there was indeed an outpouring of God’s Spirit, there was much emotionalism
and a scarcity of Biblical exposition in preaching and teaching. Despite Penn-Lewis’ aberrant view of the baptism of the Holy Spirit (which is not much seen in the book – she mistook a genuine visitation of the Lord, such as Jonathan and Sarah Edwards knew, for a bHS), she discerned, along with the Revival’s chief evangelist, Evan Roberts, deceiving spirits taking advantage of an ill-taught people. Edwards saw much the same; at Azusa there were few checks, and we have the Charismatic situation of today!
From a Pentecostal close to the sources:
http://www.pccna.org/2001_McKinney.php
A wiki article with some historical notes, which tie Wales & Azusa St. together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azusa_Street_Revival
The Toronto Experience (it is no blessing!) was based upon this Pentecostal foundation, but is an extreme form of it, which even some Charismatics disown. When I was investigating it in 1995, a Charismatic elder-friend of mine helped pay for publishing a paper I had written against it (another dear friend of mine, a Messianic Jewish pastor, was one of the two men who brought it into our area, and we discussed it long), to protect the various churches in the Ulster County (NY) area, seeing as the TE folks were bent on exporting it to all the congregations! It was, and is, a travesty. And not subtle!
The 60s movement I spoke of was simply the counterculture / Woodstock generation. Into the midst of that the Lord Jesus waded rescuing a large number of His elect from the strong delusions thereof.
The Jesus People, among others, did come out of that rescue.
Hallucinogens – or sorcerous potions, among which I include marijuana and hashish, along with psilocybin mushrooms and peyote – are often used (as I hear, not ever having been a part of such) in various occult activities, from Satanism, to shamanism and across the spectrum of false and dark spiritualities. Even in the 60s, Tim Leary, the first evangelist of LSD, proclaimed it a gateway substance – he called it a sacrament – to divine enlightenment. That was the sell. It was a lie, and multitudes of us perished in the darkness thereof.
There is a “grandchild” movement of the 60s hippies, often around university towns, often peopled by technologically adept youths, lovers of wilderness and off-trail backpacking, who partake of these drugs. Pockets of precious souls being lured into depths. I think of the American South, Midwest, and West especially. I know such things are distasteful to many, but from thence I came, and these are my people. When I speak of these things in my writings – and speak I do! – it is to reach out to such as one who has been there, and has found the true Enlightenment in the presence and word of Christ Jesus.
I have not a great surplus of patience for those
Christians who in their misbegotten sense of “liberty” promote the “moderate” use of marijuana and other drugs. Grass is a gateway drug to more potent sorceries, and sometimes adequately potent in itself, to propel souls into regions whose depths sometimes brook no return. I set myself against such proselytizers of destruction for the sake of people I love. For these latter say, “If the Christians approve, it cannot be wrong.” And go to their doom.
I have a book I hope to finish,
A Great And Terrible Love, which tells the story of this generation, and our God. It’s not a pretty book – I have sometimes called it the book of terrors and joys – for there are depths therein that are shunned in polite conversation. If it is His will I complete it, He will give me the time and heart to do so.
When writing on another site about literary criticism vis-à-vis the Kingdom of God, considering the works of poet Kenneth Patchen – particularly his apocalyptic-type poems, “The Lions of Fire Shall Have their Hunting” and “A Vision for the People of America” – I state I see this strain of writing as in a sense prophetic:
When Patchen warns about/heralds the “poets of death” and the “lions of fire” I realize he cries out just as did the blood of Abel, crying for justice, for vengeance, and not as the blood of the Lamb, for pardon, reconciliation, and acceptance before the court of Heaven. He only knew the former. So, yes, there are indeed the poets of death, who are lions of fire pouring forth judgment – reflecting the disapproval of the Almighty – into the collective consciousness of humankind. An aspect of this judgment is awareness of the human condition. Being called sinners makes no sense to us anymore; we have denied the basis of authority from which such a term makes any sense. But to be called zombies, the living dead, strikes a chord in our hearts, for we know it is so (unless we have been deceived into thinking reincarnation and eventual illumination the truth, more on which later). And when the Holy Spirit so convicts us of being in this ontologic state before the presence of Him who is life – and that eternal life – we will either love Him or rage against Him with the bitterness of the devil himself.
I think the issues of the gospel in these days will not primarily be in moral terms, but ontological; not in terms of sin and in need of forgiveness, but as being dead and in need of life. How else speak to postmodern man and woman who thinks him- and herself beyond good and evil? To those whose consciences have been seared against all moral constraint, to those who are so sophisticated that they are immune to the old ways of talking of salvation? The understanding of sin will come, but in the presence of life which saves from death, and the holiness that is its essence.
So the poets of death, pitiless and mighty as lions roaring with fiery breath against the refuges of lies, do indeed appear. But they are also poets of life, emissaries from the land of Heaven, with good news for the damned: the Fountain of eternal life has been opened, and its living waters flow into the regions of the walking dead, that whosoever thirsts, and will, may come and take these waters of life freely, being transformed from monsters into archetypal new beings. Is this fiction? Not on your life.
It is true I am a ruling elder in a reformed church – a teaching elder by “battlefield commission” – and I do this for love of the Gospel, Christ’s Kingdom, and souls, but equally I am a poet and writer of the Lord with a commission, I believe, to publish forth the vision of a great and terrible love.
Pardon my speaking so much of myself, please. I am what I am by the grace of God.
I consider the book a weapon in the spiritual warfare.
Steve