I recently received the following from a person on the mailing list who has asked to remain anonymous, Brad Cullen is a pseudonym.

“Hi James, I trust you to take this to Yah to confirm and/or cleanse as you are  directed. My instruction given just now is to give you permission to use or not use as guided. Included in this instruction was the reminder that I was directed originally to write it anonymously.

“When the novel Leapfrog was finally accepted by the publisher, noted in in the foreword, it was submitted anonymously. The publisher accepted it on two conditions: One that an author's name be attached and the other that Terry D…, the agent, would write a screenplay and get acceptance by a recognized movie producer for simultaneous release.

2022.10.02 A Powerful Example of what is possible when one is deeply Led by Yah

I recently received the following from a person on the mailing list who has asked to remain anonymous, Brad Cullen is a pseudonym.

“Hi James, I trust you to take this to Yah to confirm and/or cleanse as you are  directed. My instruction given just now is to give you permission to use or not use as guided. Included in this instruction was the reminder that I was directed originally to write it anonymously.

“When the novel Leapfrog was finally accepted by the publisher, noted in in the foreword, it was submitted anonymously. The publisher accepted it on two conditions: One that an author's name be attached and the other that Terry D…, the agent, would write a screenplay and get acceptance by a recognized movie producer for simultaneous release.

“One of Terry's agency readers who'd urged him to take Leapfrog on in the first place, came up with the suggestion that "Brad Cullen" one of the main characters in the story be named as the author.

“The point of all this is simply that it is not "mine" and I release it to you - with no restrictions, including deleting any reference to "Brad Cullen" or "xxx" (period). “ d/"b"

I read the entire article yesterday and was excited by the number of examples of the moving of the Spirit of  Yah through a person who is committed to Yah, fasts and prays regularly and gives the glory to Father.  I encourage you to read this as an example of what YOU can do IF you do the necessary spiritual work to draw close to Father.

This reinforces the message in the recent article “Revival Revisited” at https://www.ETI-Ministries.org/revival-revisited where the point is made that the most effective revivals are where an individual acts as a conductor (as in lightning conductor) to bring the Spirit of Yah into a situation so that Yah can move freely and then steps back into the background to allow Father to work through the people who are touched, see particularly the Azusa Street Revival in the above article.

I encourage you to read this article prayerfully from a perspective that YOU can do comparable works.

As always where there are differences between my teachings and the article I leave it to you to go to Father Yah for clarification.

Title of the email I received “James, the attached is a result of much fasting and prayer . . .”

“The Leapfrog Manuscript”

A transcript of the Interview of “Brad Cullen” by “Jeanne Stockwell - updated September 15^th 2022

Foreword

 - By Dxxx xxx, author of Brad Cullen books and articles.

Port Bell, Uganda: I had just gotten off the phone with my agent, Terry Dawson, also a screenplay writer of some note, in Los Angeles.

It was Friday May 30, 2003, just over 19 years ago. I had called him to let him know I had just signed the revised agency agreement covering the publishing and movie rights for the Brad Cullen novel Leapfrog and had put them into a DHL package that would get to him on the following Tuesday, June 2^nd 2003. . .

Terry’s last words to me were, “Dxxx, you won’t be sorry.” 

Leapfrog, had been accepted by a major New York publishing company, after having been  rejected by seven others, but Terry had proposed pulling it and using Leapfrog as the “Flagship novel” for a publishing company to be founded by him and his two partners of 25 years at their literary agency in Los Angeles.

He had already floated the book by a movie production studio in Hollywood and he had proposed that he write the screenplay; the studio agreed and became a major financial backer of the new publishing company.

The plan was for the movie and the book to be released simultaneously within a year.

---

The DHL packet was never picked up and that would be the last time I ever spoke to Terry. The most terrifying day of my life was about to unfold.

In just a few minutes I would be kidnapped and not be relatively free again for seven years. The temptation to tell the story from that dramatic perspective is very strong, but is counterproductive to the purpose at hand.

--

The original “manuscript,” an Interview of Brad Cullen by Jeanne Stockwell, was referred to often throughout Leapfrog and segments used as an integral part of the storyline. The Interview Manuscript became an appendix to the novel.

I had never before written fiction and Leapfrog came into being at the suggestion of the businessman husband of a physician whom I had to convince of the truth that “I” had NOT healed his wife or her teenage girl patient.

He became convinced through a series of papers I wrote for him explaining the spiritual phenomena underlying her healing and it was he who suggested that since few people would believe it anyway, that I should put it into a work of fiction to get what he considered to be an important message a broader audience.

Leapfrog was basically a compilation of real life events, with names and places changed to maintain a privacy covering for the real players.

NOTE: the original 65 page Manuscript, which is based on my own experiences and fact, with only the names of people and places changed. The interview actually took place. It was added to Leapfrog as an “appendix.” 

Leapfrog

An Interview

By: Jeanne Stockwell

Prologue

THE IDEA FOR WRITING A PROVOCATIVE PIECE on religion came to me while I was vacationing on an island in the Pacific.

My own religious background is one of attending various churches and coming to the conclusion that they all seemed to present their own particular slant on things—and implied that everyone else didn’t quite have the truth put together as well as they had.

What is the truth?

          I was sitting by the pool sipping an iced tea when a strikingly good-looking man probably around 40 started a conversation with me. He asked me if I was enjoying my stay, and I said yes, but was also anxious to get back home to work. “I’m John Wilcox,” he said with his hand outstretched.

“Jeanne Stockwell,” I said as I shook his hand. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him that I was a freelance writer. He asked me what kind of writing and I told him for the past several years that I had specialized in interviewing people from many walks of life and would submit the finished piece to a variety of publications I thought might publish it.

When he asked me why I was in such a hurry about getting back to work, I told him I had this idea to do a series on religion and I had never written on the topic before.

“Why religion?” he asked, I told him that I had not had a very satisfying experience in my own church attendance and I was going to start looking for people who had positive experiences, but from different perspectives than the mainstream of Christianity and other religions.

“I think there are a lot of people out there,” I explained, “who have interesting experiences to tell that will pique my own interest and should make for a good read and a marketable series.”

He looked thoughtful and then asked me if I had ever heard of Brad Cullen. When I said no, he said, “Well, I became a Christian about ten years ago and I ran into Brad in Florida, near Orlando, about a year ago. He had some pretty outlandish things to say and moreover it was like he could read right through me. He told me what was wrong with my marriage, and actually told me how to pray to straighten it out.

“I had a painful and ugly infection on the back of my left hand that was bothering me and he asked me if I wanted it to be healed. When I said yes, Brad just reached for my wrist and didn’t say anything for several seconds, then told me it was healed. I looked at it and it looked the same to me, but I said nothing. I found him to be very interesting and asked him for his business card. He handed me one with his name and phone number. I asked him if I might call him sometime. He told me anytime and we parted.

“When I got back to the hotel where my wife, Barb, and I were staying, the first thing she asked me was, ‘What happened to your hand?’

“I looked down at it and all the swelling was gone, the red inflammation was cleared up and it was just my normal hairy hand—like this.” He held it out for my inspection and described how bad the infection had looked.

“I took Brad’s card out of my shirt pocket and showed it to Barb, and said, ‘that’s a funny thing…this guy and I got into a conversation’ and I told her what had happened.

“Then I told her that it had looked the same to me at the time and that was a couple of hours earlier; I had forgotten all about it until she mentioned it. I told her a couple of other things he had said, and Barb declared, ‘Sounds like you met the answer to my prayers. I’ve wanted to talk about our problems, but didn’t know how to bring it up.’

“I asked her if she would like me to call him and see if he would have dinner with us. She enthusiastically endorsed the idea. I called and we made a date for the next evening at our hotel.”

At that point, John laughed and said, “Jeanne, I’m sorry that I’ve rattled on and on, I hope I’m not boring you with all of this.”

I assured him that I wasn’t bored at all. How interesting it is that I got the idea for doing a piece on religion this very morning. It seemed a magical coincidence to meet John and hear the rather odd, but convincing, story about his encounter with this Brad Cullen. I urged him to go on.

“Well, at dinner,” he continued, “Brad kept amazing us with the things he said. For example, he told us we were in bondage to religion and to the Bible. Jesus never intended the church he founded to be this organized system we have today. Barb and I both got a little defensive; we thought our church back in Montreal was wonderful.

“Barb told him, ‘Our pastor preaches on healing all the time, and you healed John’s hand.’

“Brad then said the most amazing thing. ‘I didn’t do anything that you couldn’t have done yourselves—basically, that’s what Jesus said. Anyone who believed would perform the very same miracles he performed.’”

I interrupted and said, “I’ve never heard that one before, do you believe that is true, John?”

“Jeanne, we not only believe it…we do it. Everything that Brad said that night has proven to be true.”

Sensing that maybe I had the opener for the series I wanted to do, I asked John if he could tell me anything else about Brad, and could he give me any names of other people who knew Brad. “Does Brad have a church?”

“No, Brad doesn’t even believe in attending church. He was telling us about the time a neighbor asked his seven-year-old daughter, ‘where do you go to church?’ She answered immediately, ‘Oh, we don’t go to church, we are the church!’ He then laughed very loudly, Jeanne, and said ‘Out of the mouths of babes, eh?’ ”

“If he doesn’t have a church, then what does he do for a living?” I asked. “Did he charge you a fee for marriage counseling or healing?”

“He’s a business consultant—involved in helping people with setting up and improving their business operations—that kind of thing. By the way,” John added, “we asked him if he would accept some money from us for some of the help he had given us. He just said, ‘Nope, I got it for free and I give it for free.’ ”

“Sounds like an amazing man,” I said.

“Jeanne, I will tell you that he is more Christ-like than anyone I have ever met.”

About that time, Barb, a tall slender young woman with blue eyes and straight, short, naturally blonde hair, whose facial features reminded me of the American actress, Carmen Diaz, walked up with the two cutest little girls I had ever seen and John introduced his family to me.

He quickly told her that I was a writer and that he had been telling me about Brad. “Oh wonderful, we’ve been telling him for almost a year now that he needs to write a book or something. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could do that for him, Jeanne?” She said this very intensely with her bright blue eyes flashing.

One of the little girls said, “I bet you’ll like Uncle Brad.”

“I bet I do too, honey,” I said with a laugh, wanting to ask about the uncle bit, but it was obvious that John, Barb and the girls had plans to go somewhere. Instead I just quickly asked if I might be able to get a list of people who know Brad and their e-mail addresses. John promised to have it at the front desk by morning.

We all shook hands and they went on their way. Interesting, I thought again, here I get the idea for a series this very morning and this delightful man starts a conversation, and there just might be something interesting to write about this Brad Cullen fellow.

I had a list of 32 e-mail addresses of people John said knew Brad. A rather puzzling note was attached to the list. “Nice meeting you, Jeanne, and good luck with your book or whatever it turns out to be. By the way, you will find that some of these people neither like nor approve of Brad Cullen—but in the interest of good journalism, thought I’d give you a balanced group. Good plan, what?”

Because John and Barb had spoken so enthusiastically about Brad, I had just assumed that everyone on his list would also like him.

Out of the 27 replies I received over the next two weeks, I was surprised at the spectrum. One man who referred to himself as a “man of God” said that Brad was a deceiver, an adulterer and a crook. Then he implied that if I wanted to write a good story on the truth of religion he’d be glad to help me. I wrote back asking for specifics on his allegations of Brad being a crook, adulterer and deceiver. His reply was well written, lucid and detailed—and certainly gave me some pause about Brad Cullen.

Another one was entirely favorable. Not only was Brad Cullen an excellent businessman, but he was totally honest and this particular individual claimed he would entrust his life to Brad Cullen.

How could two men—one a minister of a church and the other a businessman—say such contrasting things about the same person?

On a hunch I wrote back to the businessman, and forwarded the preacher’s accusations for his comment.

He wrote back with a startling statement. “I don’t know what Brad Cullen says or does to clergymen, but I’ve met this minister and he seems to be nice man. Unfortunately, he gets venomous at the mention of Brad. There is one other preacher type I also know who is very cool about Brad and yet I don’t know of any business person with whom Brad has had any dealings who doesn’t speak well of him. Go figure…” is how he signed off.

This was getting more and more curious. One woman wrote, “I consider Brad Cullen to be my pastor.” A man wrote, “Brad Cullen is too lazy and too poor a communicator to be effective in business.”

All of the other replies were varied and some had some astonishing claims about the healings and other miraculous things that Brad did apparently routinely. Most of them made mention of how he had dealt with them in business.

One respondent wrote that he couldn’t understand what Brad Cullen would have to do with my writing an article about Christianity. “As far as I know, Brad doesn’t even think about spiritual things. In the six weeks he worked with us, we never once had that kind of conversation. I’m a born-again Christian and I talk about Jesus every chance I get; Brad responded to nothing like that.”

One man who wrote back from Frankfurt, Germany sent a single-spaced 12-page email about Brad Cullen! He included that he had been raised in a strict Catholic environment, but tended to follow the teachings of the Buddha now. “If there is such a thing as a Christ-like businessman then Brad Cullen is it,” was one of his many lines extolling the virtues of one Brad Cullen. Who is this man? I asked myself. I finally wrote a simple e-mail to Brad Cullen:

Dear Mr. Cullen:

I am a freelance writer and want to do a series of articles on Christians that have different views than the mainstream of Christianity.

How I like to enter into an interview process is to ask questions via e-mail for you to answer in any way you wish. When I am finished I edit it for final draft and send to you for approval and/or changes. I prefer that the subject (you) always be in control of the final piece; in that way we get to the truth from your perspective. Please let me know as soon as possible if this format suits you and if you have the time to enter into a productive dialogue, otherwise I will pursue another interview.

Thanks,

Jeanne Stockwell

Brad Cullen’s reply was elegantly simple and to the point.

Please fire away...on the condition that I can reproduce and distribute your final piece without restrictions—just as you write it. I hope I turn out to be a worthwhile subject. Thanks for the opportunity to participate.

I will budget one hour per day to the project until complete.

bc

Who signs their correspondence with lower case initials? I asked myself, and then sighed as I began compiling the questions I wanted to ask this “Christ-like,” “…deceiver, crook, conman and adulterer…” “my pastor…” and finally, “too lazy and too poor a communicator to be effective in business…” enigma.

Who is this man?

1

The Interview

THIS IS AN INTERVIEW BY FREELANCE AUTHOR Jeanne Stockwell that took place via e-mail correspondence with Brad Cullen, an American business consultant, who has some rather controversial opinions on the subject of Christianity.

Brad Cullen makes no claims to any special powers—yet healings and other rather miraculous events are attributed to him by others.

JS: In doing research into your background, I received some rather varied replies. For example, some called you “Christ-like,” one man, a minister called you a “deceiver, crook and adulterer;” a woman referred to you as “her pastor” and another man said that you were “too lazy and too poor a communicator to be effective in business.”

One man who was complimentary about you commented that he didn’t know what you did to clergymen…but some he knew didn’t like you very well. One comment I found very intriguing was a man who said he was a “born again Christian” and that you had consulted with his company for six weeks and he didn’t know that you had any spiritual inclinations.

Could you just freely respond to these remarks?

BC: Well, I guess I like this format, since I can just answer each question as written. That is quite a bale of hay you’re throwing at me, Jeanne.

Christ-like…hmmm, by what definition? I know a preacher who defines “Christ-like” by his own brand of kindness, gentleness, well-mannered, soft-spoken and so on—certainly not me!

As to being a deceiver, crook and adulterer, I rather like Jesus’ definition of adultery. If somebody looks at another person with sexual lust in their heart, then that “somebody” has already committed adultery. Just about applies to all of us, except those who are so sexually dead that they never have any such thoughts. I should have added that one to the preacher’s definition of “Christ-like”—trust me, sexually dead would be included in his definition.

One of my favorite stories told by Jesus is about the two guys that went up to the temple to pray. He pointed out that the guy who was guilty of being what I’m being accused of here—didn’t know what else to do so he beat on his chest and cried out, “God be merciful to such a sinner as I.” Jesus said he was the one who went home dressed in God’s righteousness, instead of the religious guy who was standing there telling God how good he was in contrast. He’s still a good Christian, and I, the sinner, after beating on my chest and crying to God for mercy walk home free!

Not a bad deal as I see it.

I dearly hope the woman who told you that I was “her pastor” reads your final article. She needs to get her head examined. Anyone who knows me knows my feelings about the term “pastor.” Whoever she is, I say to her—go get a life!

As to being a lousy communicator and lazy…guess so. Certainly must have been that guy’s experience at least.

As to the “born again” Christian—I generally (not always) avoid talking to people who profess to being “born again.” It is certainly a term that Jesus used, but to quote a business acquaintance, “Every time I’ve ever been screwed in business it has been by somebody who has told me that he is born again.” Enough said on that topic I guess.

JS: What do you have against the word “pastor?”

BC: Very simple…Jesus said that people should minister to one another in the same kind of equality as brothers and sisters. He said that nobody should allow somebody else to call them by a title that implies spiritual authority and superiority. He underscored the remark by saying we all have just one Father; we all have just one Leader and Teacher, the Christ.

The word pastor means shepherd and that means the rest of us are sheep. Well, Jesus said that there was only one shepherd and the rest who refer to themselves as such were usurping the title and were a bunch of thieves. I didn’t say that—Jesus said it. When I quote it, those who call themselves pastors get ticked off. Let ‘em—it’s their problem.

JS: I guess that explains some of the hostility. The first time I heard your name, was by somebody who said they had been healed at your hand. Could you elaborate a little?

BC: Of course. Anyone can do that. Jesus said that anyone who believes can do the very same things he did. Those “things” come from a word that means very clearly and simply “supernatural.” What’s more amazing is that he said people who believe will do even greater things than Jesus did.

What most people also miss is how Jesus said he did these things. He said it wasn’t him that did them, but the Father in him. It’s the Father in us who does the healing; very simple, very straightforward. A question that needs to be asked I guess is, why is it that so few people who call themselves believers are able to do what Jesus said they would do if they believe? I have a theory about that, but if you want to hear it I guess I’ll leave it up to you to ask.

JS: One person wrote me that you had cast a demon out of her son that was causing asthma. Another wrote that they had seen you cast a demon out of an elderly woman who had been bent almost double for ten years and walked with much pain and she straightened up immediately, excitedly exclaiming that she was pain free. That particular person wrote that you had cast demons out of people that had cancer, diabetes, arthritis and so on and they were completely healed afterward and that he had personally witnessed these things.

There was one story about a person who had lost all her hair due to chemotherapy and after being healed that her hair came back in its original color—and she had been totally gray for many years. Are all these stories true? There are several other questions about which I would like to have you comment.

Do you really believe that demons are real? If so, what are they? Why do they cause certain kinds of diseases? The man who first told me about you didn’t mention anything about demons…just that you had touched him and that he had been healed. What is the difference between healing and casting out demons?

2

JEANNE, ALL I CAN SAY IS YOU WILL PROBABLY lose a good percentage of your audience with this topic. In my experience most religious people are offended by the notion or mention of demons or evil spirits.

As to whether all these stories are true…. Maybe you should get sworn, notarized affidavits from people who have told you about them. As I have already written, anybody can do it if they just follow Jesus’ instructions, so why make a big deal over one man doing it?

I’m going to go way out on a limb here. The problem with Christianity, in my opinion, is that Christians spend a lot of their time talking about whom they believe Jesus is and very little time taking seriously about what Jesus said they could and would do.

It is interesting that you ask what the difference is between “just plain” healing and healing that comes as a result of casting out an evil spirit or demon; interesting because I’ve never thought of it before. I guess I should have; it is a logical question. Frankly, I don’t know. I just know when I sense somebody is under the influence of evil entities, and if I get the go ahead from God’s Spirit—I get rid of them. Somebody asked me once if I thought all diseases were caused by demons; my answer then is the same answer as today. I really don’t know—I do know that every time I get rid of a demon causing some disease or another that when the demon goes, so does the disease.

I guess that kind of answers your question; do I believe that demons are real? What are demons? My response is, what difference does it make? The answer some people give is that they are “fallen angels” a part of the original rebellion of Satan—spoken about, I believe, by the Jewish prophet Ezekiel as recorded in the Old Testament.

I’ve heard other explanations and none of them make any difference. When you have seen and heard them manifest you have no doubt about their reality. But even saying that leaves all kinds of room for discussion. Some people don’t believe in their existence or have all kinds of psychological explanations for the phenomenon. I’ve had some even tell me that what I do is mass hypnosis—whatever that is.

This is really more than I care to get into it as a topic. I like what Jesus said, “Even if somebody were raised from the dead they wouldn’t believe.” He was talking about the religionists of his day. Rather apropos, no?

3

BRAD, I’D LIKE TO REVISIT THE COMMENT YOU made about why most Christians are unable to do what you are apparently able to do and say that anyone who believes can do.

BC: Jeanne, those words didn’t originate with me. It has been more and more amazing to me to see people who say they believe in Jesus Christ and the Bible to reject what the Bible reports Jesus as saying.

I can only share what I have personally experienced—and what others have also experienced—once we began to take Jesus’ words seriously.

When I stumbled onto his words about not calling any other human being teacher, leader or “father” in the spiritual sense and determined to no longer refer to any man or woman by any such title, it was like a blanket of spiritual dullness had been removed from over me. My relationship with God became quite personal and I continually found myself being excited by insights to all kinds of reality in the spirit realm. Then when I saw the simplicity of Jesus’ words—that anyone who believes in him will perform the same miracles that he performed—I began to ask why nobody with whom I was personally acquainted had the ability to do these things?

Oh sure, there were some famous evangelists such as Oral Roberts and more recently Benny Hinn who was a product of the Kathryn Kuhlman ministry that I had either read about or heard on the radio or TV…. But there was no one who was just an ordinary person like me.

I finally began asking if it was God’s will to even want to do such things? Not long after I began thinking and praying about it, I stumbled onto a story that blew me away. A man brought his young son to Jesus and asked for help because the boy had epileptic-like seizures, referred to in the original language as moon madness or lunacy. He told Jesus that the seizures caused the boy to fall into bodies of water and even fire.

The part of the story that I found the most interesting was that he told Jesus he had brought his son to Jesus’ disciples, but they couldn’t help him. At which Jesus yelled out to his disciples that they were a bunch of faithless perverts. These are literally the words he used in the original language.

Then the narrative simply says that Jesus rebuked the evil spirit causing the problem and the boy was immediately cured. Now comes the astonishing part of the story: the disciples went to Jesus later in private and asked why they had been unable to cast the spirit out of the boy. This was astonishing to me because I realized that they thought they clearly were supposed to be able to do it; it also made sense of Jesus calling them a bunch of faithless perverts. He clearly expected them to be able to do it as well. After all, it is recorded that they had done it with much excitement earlier in their relationship with Jesus.

There’s more to the story, but here are the simple answers that you asked for. Why do I say that most Christians cannot do it? For one thing, they don’t go to the Source to ask why they can’t.

Secondly, they are under a church covering that stifles God’s Spirit from operating. Most often the church they attend actually has doctrines that boil down to excuses why ordinary people cannot do things like that.

The third reason is found in what Jesus says in the final part of the above story. In the original version and language he tells his disciples that the reason they couldn’t do it was that they didn’t have sufficient faith. He goes on to tell them that if they did have sufficient faith nothing would be impossible for them.

Then, he went on to say that this kind goes out only by much fasting and prayer. Now I took this to mean that this particular demon was more difficult to get rid of than others and that it took preparation through a lot of fasting and prayer to be able to do it. I, again, was putting together the fact that he had called his own hand-picked dozen followers a bunch of faithless perverts and the reason is that he had expected them to have been following his instructions about preparation through much prayer and fasting.

Now, Jeanne, I want to be careful to say a couple of things here. Shortly after I first discovered this, I was invited to speak at a missionary conference of the denomination to which I then belonged.

During the conference I was asked to speak to a group of pastors in a morning session. I shared this passage and my own experiences with them; I was totally flabbergasted at the response totally negative and argumentative. It was like getting a wake-up call.

That and a couple of other incidents made me realize that I wasn’t going to be able to personally follow what I believed God was showing me and stay in the church. I have since found when others like me who are honest enough to ask why they cannot do what Jesus clearly stated we could do if we believe. When they put the question to me, I usually simply say because you call some man or woman “pastor” (or equivalent) and you are with a bunch of unbelievers.

Those who see this and determine to live according to what Jesus said get free and move onto doing the same things he did.

The final clincher for me was coming across a passage in Mark that said that Jesus could do very little in the way of the miraculous where he grew up as a boy, because of their unbelief.

Think about it! If Jesus was restricted by the unbelief of those around him, and we are to do the same things that he did, wouldn’t it follow that the primary reason that Christians cannot do what he said believers would do is unbelief? Nazareth was the district in which he could do very little; for me and others the “church” has proven to be our Nazareth.

If you recall, in some earlier instructions to me you said not to try to be efficient with my answers, but to just “free-write” and leave the editing to you. I just re-read the foregoing and the temptation is to cut and slash, but I leave this long-winded diatribe in your good hands.

4

AS A WRITER, ONE OF THE THINGS I TRY TO DO IS maintain objectivity. I find myself being intrigued by some of the things you say. What started me on the idea to write a provocative piece about alternative thinking among Christians is my own dissatisfying church-going experience. While I am not looking for a church, you have defined for me a few things I certainly would look for if I was inclined. But that brings me to a pressing question. Couldn’t you do a lot more to promote what you apparently see as a God-given purpose from within the organized church rather than from without?

BC: My immediate answer to that made me laugh out loud, because it tells me how far outside the norm my thought processes have gone. John the Apostle said about Jesus, “He came unto his own and his own received him not, but as many as do receive him are given the authority to become the children of God.” So let’s be totally outlandish and say, ‘I did go to the church and they do not want to receive it.’ I find people every day who are eager to hear some of the things I have to say. Let’s be even more outlandish for any detractors who will say my answer proves that I am suffering from some kind of delusional thoughts of grandeur…let’s leave it at that.

JS: I had an interesting exchange with a man that placed the title “Senior Pastor” right after his name, which was preceded by Dr. and ended with a Ph.D. He refused permission to use his name because he said he didn’t want to engage in “self aggrandizement.”

I had told him that since I had received his e-mail—referring to you among other things as a deceiver—I had checked out a number of statements by others attesting to faith healing by you. Also, I pointed out that the overwhelming majority of all my correspondence about you was favorable.

I would appreciate your comment on two excerpts from his letter. “That so many people are favorable just underscores the fact that Brad Cullen is a con man.” And, “Ms. Stockwell, you would do well to read your Bible: ‘Faith is a gift of God that no man can boast.’ ”

BC: As to faith is a gift, of course. There is no argument. Jesus just explains where the gift is and how to take off the wrapping and use it. As to the former, if what I do is by the presence and power of God’s own Holy Spirit, then who is this “Dr. Senior Pastor” attacking? If what I do is under my own power, which I have never claimed—God help me! Or, if the “good” Doctor is implying that what I do is by the power of an evil spirit, then God help him! The only unforgivable sin according to Jesus is saying that which is of Holy Spirit is emanating under the control of an evil spirit. I have had more than a few “men of the cloth” level that charge at me.

5

WHAT WOULD BE THE IDEAL CHURCH? AND why don’t you put together a formula for the ideal?

BC: The problem with your question, Jeanne, is that it goes to suggest that church is a place where people gather together. We are the church. It is not a place to go.

However, it is a good thing to get together, but in what fashion? When I was involved in the organized church I used to say that there was only one scriptural edict for how to have church. In the 14th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth, he lays out pretty clearly what he thinks should typically happen at a gathering of believers. It certainly might be an ideal to pursue and it certainly is consistent with what Jesus instructed about ministering in equality.

The above referenced chapter is the only definitive instruction of which I’m aware in the New Testament for what a gathering ought to be like. I think it is funny though that some “Dr. Senior Pastor” of some church tells you to read your Bible and you can just bet he would refuse to allow any such things to happen in his church. Here’s what the passage says:

“Whenever you meet together, each of you should be prepared in the power of God’s own Spirit to sing a song in the Spirit, or bring a teaching under the power of the same Spirit, or speak in a spiritual language not learned, or speak a revelation, or an interpretation by the same Spirit. Let all things be done for the building up of one another in the Spirit.

“If anyone speaks in a language not learned naturally, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let the one who is able to speak in such a language keep silent in the meeting, and let him speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others listen and be prepared to say if this is from God’s Spirit or not… But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the one who was originally speaking be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints.”

Before anyone gets excited about following this particular recipe for a gathering, it is best to read what comes before and after. For example, immediately following is a statement that sure wouldn’t have worked in any church I have ever been in.

“Let your women keep silent in the assemblies, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.”

I used to toss that part out to Bible thumpers who insisted that everything should have a scriptural basis. To say that the passage gave them pause is an understatement. On the other hand, immediately following that the writer, Paul, makes this statement that emphasizes that he believes what he says to be a commandment from God.

“Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.”

So, Jeanne, if you throw these very clear scriptural instructions into the mix of religious tradition and stir up the pot, what would be the “ideal” gathering for which you could be looking if you were so inclined? I don’t know. When I first started refusing to go to any church and refused to take any more speaking engagements in any church I did it to make a statement. The statement I was trying to make is that what is called church has nothing to do with anything I can find in the Bible. And, further, what is called Christianity has nothing to do with anything Jesus said.

In our culture, there is no doubt that churches perform a useful function in a variety of ways. My own relationship to God certainly started there. But that relationship deepened only after I started questioning everything.

I have been called a rebel. Okay, but a rebel against whom or what? If you take the words of Jesus to the ultimate end of actually following them, it seems like the religionists are the rebellious ones, not I.

For example, Jesus asked this rhetorical question: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord,’ and yet refuse to do what I say?”

Why indeed? And indeed why—and then call the refusal Christianity? Jesus said that Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. John wrote that we don’t really need a human teacher. If there is a message I want to leave with anyone about getting together as believers it is that—ask God’s own Spirit for guidance and stop listening to men…myself included.

I guess I’d finish on the note that Jesus instituted a time of eating together in completely open fellowship and said to remember him while doing it. The wine was to be a symbol of his blood which was shed for us and the bread was the symbol of his body which was broken for us.

That this has been reduced to half-ounce glasses of Welch’s grape juice and little bits of stale crackers solemnly distributed by church deacons is a mockery. But the point is perhaps just getting together over a simple meal and celebrating God’s expression of love for us a reasonable choice.

Formalizing it or formulating the “right way to do it” ought at best to be an individual thing guided, again, by God’s own Spirit. It would soon degenerate into just another dead tradition, because that is what we human beings tend to do.

6

BRAD, YOU’VE ALLUDED TO WHAT YOU CALL Jesus’ simple instructions for performing the supernatural. You wrote about the passage regarding Jesus’ remarks about fasting and praying being the prime, prerequisite preparation for being able to cast out a particularly difficult demon. But could you give some examples of Jesus’ instructions about how to pray? One couple told me that you taught them how to pray specifically in a way that healed some ills in their marriage. Could you share how you pray?

BC: Hmmmm…that will take a book, Jeanne. First thing that had to happen for me was to have my eyes opened…really opened. I picked up a little blue booklet on a supermarket book rack for one dollar. I don’t remember the title, but it had something to do with faith. I do remember the author, Kenneth Hagin. In that little book he pointed out a direct mistranslation of a passage from the Gospel of Mark. Let’s lay a little ground work first.

“And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.

“Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, ‘Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.’ And His disciples heard it.

“The next day, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.’

“So Jesus answered and said to them, (here comes the mistranslation), ‘Have faith in God.’ ”

Hagin pointed out that the preposition “in” in the original language was not there, but “of.” That the correct and literal translation should have been, “Have the faith OF God.”

I looked up the passage in the original and couldn’t believe my eyes!

Sure enough, “Have the faith of God,” or “have God-faith” was the correct translation into English. My first question was why on earth had the translators of each of the several Bible versions with which I was then familiar missed this?

This passage had always puzzled me because it made no sense to have Jesus say have faith IN God in response to Peter’s exclamation of surprise—especially with what immediately followed.

This unraveled the mystery. Jesus was actually saying, “Hey guys, you can do the same kind of thing if you will acquire the same God-faith that I have and use.”

This is the point that Hagin was making and he was literally correct in the scriptural sense. The implications were mind boggling. I looked up the following verses in the original language and was amazed at how watered down the English version had been.

“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”

Here is an accurate translation into today’s English…and my own interpretive paraphrasing in [brackets].

“For I tell you the truth, whoever commands any mountain [spiritual obstacle] and emphatically says, I lift you up and throw you violently down into the sea and does not allow himself to waver between two mindsets [spirits] but believes [has a picture held in his mind] that what he is emphatically saying will be done, Then in most English versions the verses that immediately follow are set apart as if it is a different thought.

The original simply (and to me obviously) continues on the SAME subject. "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."

Again, a literal and accurate translation into today’s English. “And whenever you stand [in this way] emphatically speaking toward God, if you are holding anything against anyone, release and send away [by telling them you are lifting them up and throwing them violently down into the sea] these judgmental and critical thoughts so that you can live in the complete release that your Father has already prepared for you.”

What I saw, Jeanne, was that in order to acquire the same kind of faith that Jesus had in order to do the same things that he did—kill a fig tree that didn’t have any figs because it wasn’t the season for figs, no less—I had to remove all spiritual obstacles to acquiring such faith.

What were these obstacles? Obviously, from what Jesus said, hanging onto critical and judgmental thoughts about anyone whom I perceived had wronged me was one necessary ingredient. So I asked God to show me who I was holding anything against.

Talk about a list—it was practically endless! So with each one, I began admitting that I was holding onto whatever thoughts were being shown to me and began picturing myself lifting the thoughts over my head while telling them emphatically that I was casting them down into the sea.

It was such an emotional cleansing process. I found myself laughing at all the baggage of anger and bitterness I had been carrying around needlessly. Once on that path I discovered the practicality of Jesus’ teaching of walking in God’s perfect release, by releasing everyone else. Talk about joy! Amazingly, people who I had put out of my mind for years because I hadn’t liked something that they had done would flash into my mind—and I felt nothing but love toward them, realizing that they were children of God and who was I to place judgment or criticism in my thoughts or speech about somebody whom God had already forgiven?

The practicality of what Jesus taught is amazing…it is too bad that the word diakrinos is translated into “doubt” when it literally means to be divided by two opposite thoughts or spirits.

I still find today when my speaking into existence on this seen plane what God in the unseen realm has already decreed to be his desire and purposes seems lacking, it is always a signal that I am harboring resentment over some wrong I perceive someone has done against me.

Another thing this event did for me was to begin to question all traditional thoughts and traditional meaning of any Bible passage. One of the things I began emphatically speaking is, “I lift up and cast down into the sea all preconceived ideas that are keeping me from operating in the fullness of God’s own presence and power.”

I have much more I want to say on the topic, but this has taken up so much space already, I’m going to toss it back to you to see if I am even answering the questions you were asking.

7

WELL, BRAD, YOU DID SAY THAT IT WAS GOING to take a book! A wonderful and intriguing first couple of chapters!

Can you be specific about what you taught the married couple as to how to fix their marital problems?

BC: I’d have to ask which married couple. Each situation is different and I’ve had the good fortune of being used by God to help quite a few married couples overcome some of their problems.

I’ll tell a story about a couple I’ll call Donna and Phil. I’d helped them prepare their business for sale and wrote the contract and negotiated the terms. They were very religious and were leaders of their own small church. Donna approached me and told me that she and Phil were on the verge of divorce.

She started reciting all of the qualities in him that she had begun to harbor in her mind as “bad.” I asked her if she wanted to get a divorce; she assured me that she did not, but didn’t know what else to do. She asked me if I did marriage counseling. I told her that I refused to take that role anymore, “but if the two of you want a brother that will just go with you guys and together see what Holy Spirit might have to say, I’d love to be involved.”

I forgot all about the conversation until Donna called me a few weeks later and said that she had mentioned our conversation to Phil and that they would like to get together.

We picked a time the following day to meet at a picnic area on the beach. When we sat down at the wooden picnic table it was obvious that Donna was overloaded with hostility and that Phil was very defensive. I sat for a moment quietly asking what to do and got a flash. I asked Donna if she would mind taking a walk on the beach and let me talk with Phil for awhile.

“Gladly,” she almost snarled as she snatched her purse off the table and practically stomped off.

“Phil,” I started out, “what I am going to say is going to go against some of your theological grain, but it will save what appears to be a rapidly deteriorating marriage.”

“I’ll say it’s deteriorating. She has become an insufferable bitch. Frankly, at the moment, I’d just as soon see her go.”

I told him that what I had just “seen in the spirit” was that if he was willing to take the total responsibility for the problems in the relationship, he could solve it. He had a great deal of difficulty with that concept. Donna and he were committed to a co-ministry in their church as full and equal partners.

I told him that I understood and even agreed with the concept, but I was getting that if he took total responsibility for the problems, God had shown me how he could pray to get beyond all of it.

He started asking questions that showed basic defensiveness and wanting her to share the blame as a “partner.”

I finally saw that we were not going to get anywhere, so I just said, “Phil, I know what I got—if you want it, I’ll share. If not, I gotta get back to work.

He apologized and asked me what it was.

I asked him how well he knew the story about Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden in the 3rd chapter of Genesis. He was quite familiar with the passage and we were on the same page regarding the details.

Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

“Here’s the deal, Phil, and it is really quite simple. You know that the cornerstone of most mainstream Christian thought is that because of this first disobedience to one of God’s commands, not only did Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden, but this was the act that separated us all from God, Right?”

He nodded, so I went on. “I know we both discard a great deal of the theology that gets attached to this passage, but here’s what I’ve been shown.

“Had Adam taken his rightful authority as had been given him over all the things in the garden he would have avoided the whole mess; and saved us all a bunch of trouble.

“Now, the dynamics of his problem is the same as the dynamics of your problem with Donna. You have authority that you are not using in the right way. Adam had more sense than to say anything to his wife. He could have said, for example, for her not to listen to the serpent—but he knew better.

You are trying to tell your wife things and instead she is listening to the serpent.

“Had Adam simply told the serpent to get out of the garden because of his authority over it, the serpent would have to have gone. Instead he stood by while the serpent conned his wife into eating the fruit, which obviously was a hallucinogen—it made them think they knew everything. Note that the passage simply says that she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate also. That’s what’s been going on here.

Donna is wrapped up in this blame game and you are eating the fruit she is handing you.

“Without getting into all the doctrinal garbage that gets attached to that stuff I just want to give you a challenge. You have authority over your marriage. Take the blame for everything that has gone wrong and tell the serpent to get out of your garden.

Don’t say anything to Donna because she won’t understand it anyway. I’m not being sexist here, Phil—I am simply telling you right now to take the position that you could and should have prevented this by taking your rightful authority. You failed and you are being just like Adam and now trying to blame Donna. It will get you nowhere.

“Just say out loud right now, ‘Serpent, get out of my garden and quit talking to Donna. Don’t talk to me about her either; God has made her perfect. Stop talking to Donna about me and stop talking to me about Donna. Get out!’ ”

Phil repeated the words exactly as Spirit had given them to me. “Now comes the easy part, Phil, let me wave Donna back over here. You just tell her we’ve had a long conversation and it has come to you that the problems in your marriage are your entire fault and tell her you are sorry and ask her to forgive you.”

“But what about when she—”

“Phil,” I quickly interrupted, “when you say that, who are you saying has the responsibility for your marriage, you or Donna?”

“This is amazing, Brad, I know what you’re saying is the truth. And I still get caught right back in the same problem.”

“Yep,” I answered, “happens all the time. It’s tough, but the solution is the same over and over and over—every day. You are going to be amazed at what happens. Can I get Donna to come back; can you just take all the blame for everything, because it is your fault for not taking authority over your garden. Got it?”

“Wow,” is all he could get out, barely above a whisper. I couldn’t see Donna, so I left Phil to go look for her; she was chatting with some people who were lying on the sand. I walked up and apologized for interrupting and said, “We’re ready for you.”

We walked back and sat with Phil. “Donna,” Phil said, “Brad and I have been talking and all of a sudden I just saw how all this has been my entire fault. I am really sorry, will you forgive me?”

“Well, Phil, I am really upset with you,” Donna said with no apparent change in the level of hostility, “particularly over your lying.” I could see Phil was about to go over the edge defensively so I jumped in.

I said, “Donna, until very recently all I’ve ever heard out of your mouth about Phil is that he is a beautiful and wonderful man. Would you do me a favor and just look at him; remember that he has already said that it is his entire fault, so just forgive him and tell him he is a beautiful and wonderful man.”

Donna just looked at Phil and said, “You are a wonderful and beautiful man.” Then the most amazing thing happened, she looked like she just awoke from a trance and said, “You are, Phil, you’re a man of God and Christ is fully in you—you are beautiful.

I don’t know what has come over me.”

“Donna, it’s my entire fault and I see it.” Phil said calmly and sincerely, “I’m not going to be stupid and tell you it will never happen again, but I can tell you that I pretty much know now what to do about it.”

It was just as if they had not gone through about six weeks of emotional terror of a marriage well on its way to breaking up.

Jeanne, I don’t know if that is what happened with the couple you talked to, but I can tell you that anytime I can get a man to take all the blame and understand his authority, this “prayer” (hardly fits our idea of prayer I realize) and the attitude of realizing that it is his fault—works every time.

8

BRAD, IT’S DIFFICULT FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND why anyone who believes sufficiently that it is possible to do what Jesus did as a man, would not also want the ability to do what Jesus did. What I am trying to articulate is this question: why do

Christians, particularly the professional clergy, so vehemently resist this teaching? I have taken my research beyond the list of people I was originally given when your name was first introduced to me. I’ve been amazed at the excuses and attacks against the concept—and not against you personally, because the people I’ve been talking to have never heard of you. What can you tell me?

BC: I can only speculate and theorize, Jeanne. You have summed up my frustration with the system quite well with your question. Why would the very people who say they believe in Jesus Christ—and who promote their brand of Christianity—be so opposed to really looking at what he basically said was the destiny of all believers? It just doesn’t make sense to me. It is just as if they took a razorblade and carefully extracted all references Jesus made to us being able to do what he did and his instructions for getting there.

Not all men and women who are listed on their church signs as “pastor” refuse the message. I am flashing on five individuals and I hope it will demonstrate one answer to your question. Four of these incidents happened while I was still in the system and speaking at churches. One happened after I made “my statement” by leaving.

The first one, whom I’ll call Bob Patterson, was with a very fundamentalist and evangelical branch of the Lutheran organizations, a denomination called the Missouri Synod. He was listed as “Senior Pastor” on the bulletins of two churches of small towns about 15 miles apart in the Southeast. He conducted two Sunday morning services, 9:00 a.m. at one church, 11:00 a.m. at the other one, two Sunday evening services at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and two midweek services, one of them on Wednesday night and at the other church on Thursday night. Bob relied heavily on the involvement of “lay” members in his churches.

Bob was also part of an organization referred to as Charismatic Lutherans. These are people who openly believe in what the Bible refers to as the “baptism in (of or by) Holy Spirit.”

Some refer to this movement in general as “Full Gospel”—in fact, there is a large organization of Christian businessmen that go by that title. Basically, with both these groups and many like them, the focus is on experiencing the baptism of Holy Spirit with the “evidence of speaking in tongues” (real languages, but not learned by normal means), supernatural healing, aggressive personal evangelism and other such phenomena.

I felt a high degree of kinship with many of the people within a wide variety of these groups.

Bob Patterson was highly respected in a broad range of Charismatic Christian circles. He had some rather amazing stories to tell. He heard me speak at a several day deliverance ministry conference at a Bible camp in the Carolinas. He came up afterward and asked if I would speak at his churches some time and we made a date for a Sunday night at which there would be a combined service at the bigger of the two churches.

There were about 150 people scattered throughout this church that probably had 300 seats. The Missouri Synod carries a lot of the traditional Lutheran church trappings, one of which is a tall, broad pulpit set high up on a platform at the front. Bob’s church was blessed with a large degree of informality, I suppose because of the heavy involvement of the laity.

After the typical opening hymns, announcements and the like, Bob introduced me from the pulpit and invited me to come up to use the microphone.

I told him that I preferred being down on the floor and would make sure that I was heard, and he hurriedly came down to sit in the front pew. I do not remember at all what I spoke about that night, but three significant things happened.

One, Bob announced that he was removing the title pastor from his name and told the congregation that from that day forward the church had one Pastor—Jesus Christ. Then he announced that he was instituting a change in the format of the church so that anyone could “in decency and order” signal a desire to speak something that they believed was a message from God and he would stop preaching.

The third thing he announced that night was that he was only going to be at each church every other week. The congregation could decide if on alternate weeks the laymen would conduct the services.

After the service Bob, his wife and I went out to a local restaurant. He said, with a laugh, “Cullen, I read in the Old Testament where a prophet got sawed in half—you’re going to get yours.

“That poor congregation of mine gets exposed to more things than most people hear in a life-time. But if you can show it to them in the Bible as you did tonight they generally listen. But you made some of the old saints uncomfortable in there.”

“Me?!!?” I chided, “What about all your profound announcements? I saw narrowed eyes and sensed a lot of internal gasping as you did some tradition-chopping there tonight.”

His wife sat there shaking her head. I asked her how she felt about all of this.

“Brad, since I received the baptism of Holy Spirit I want only what God wants. Two years ago I would have been scared to death that Bob would be kicked out of the church—and it has come close many times—believe me. I can see that our 11 years here is about to end. Not everyone has liked all the things that Bob has started. This will start the murmurings up to a new level of vibration,” she said with a peaceful smile on her face.

I asked her again how she felt about it. “Relaxed, but I know we will be leaving and that’s kind of an upheaval for the kids, but they are really tuned in to where we are and will welcome whatever God has for us.”

We stayed in touch for some time after that, and about six months later Bob was offered a post with some “lay” organization as a traveling speaker and teacher and simultaneously was asked to resign as pastor of the two churches.

I’d sure love to know what the Patterson family is doing these days, but we both moved out of the area and finally just got out of touch.

Second example was a rural, independent community church on the Gulf Coast. The fellow had been preaching there for 20 years. His wife had recently died of cancer. I happened to be going for a walk and he was out in front of the church and we said “hi” to each other and a conversation was on.

He and his wife had left a large denominational church pastorate somewhere up in Michigan near Detroit. They felt that God was calling them to start a church in this little southern community.

We talked about his wife’s bout with cancer and her death. After about an hour he said, “You don’t think it was God’s will that she died, do you?”

“No,” I agreed, “I don’t.” We talked on and he asked me if I would speak at the church the following Sunday. I had something else scheduled.

He asked, “What about tonight?” It was on a Friday and I had no conflict—and I said okay. I had told him about Bob Patterson and he was deeply moved and when he was about to introduce me to the congregation he announced, “As of today this church has a new pastor. I am resigning.”

I was sitting a bit sideways on the front pew so I could see the reactions of most of the people. Most were shocked and they turned to look at me.

“The new pastor,” he quickly said, “is Jesus Christ. God sent Brad here,” pointing over at me, “to help me see a couple of things I have never seen before. One is, and I’ve never been surer about anything in my life that Anne could and should have been healed; I clearly see what caused her illness and death and how it could have been prevented.

“The second thing that God has shown me through Brad today is what has been wrong with how we have been playing church.

“Now, Brad, I can see some of these good friends are a bit surprised at this, and to keep me from getting burned at the stake for heresy, would you please come up and explain how this has all happened—because I’m not sure myself.”

Jeanne, I only spoke for a few minutes and felt that we were just supposed to talk together; the congregation and the former pastor—on the spot, that night, while I was there — decided to sell the building and meet together in homes. I never saw that man   again, I don’t remember his name and I’ve never been back— I cannot even tell you why I stopped there on my drive toward Florida to take a walk!

9

AS I SAID, I FLASHED ON FIVE MEN, BUT I FEEL like I am supposed to stop with the following one.

This is not a success story; and it happened after I had gotten out of the system. In my mind it provides one vivid answer to your question about why many Christians resist the message. I was in a fairly large metropolitan area in the Southwest on a somewhat prolonged business consulting assignment.

The desk clerk at the small motel where I was staying was a leader in the local Mormon Church. He and I were quite surprised at the fact that our theology was quite similar. His knowledge of the Bible was quite extensive and he was overwhelmed at the fact that I had translated the first six chapters of Genesis in exactly the way he had. We came to the joint conclusion that we were brothers in Christ and that we were just supposed to leave our (what turned out to be minor, compared to what my preconceived notions about what Latter Day Saints believed) theological differences to our own individual relationship with God.

One morning I walked into the office and saw that Rick’s jaw was swollen. He said he’d had a horrible toothache. I asked him if he believed he was supposed to have it, and he looked at me quizzically for a moment before saying, “Of course not.”

“Then why are you putting up with it?”

“Hey men,” he responded, “ever notice how hard it is to maintain faith in the midst of pain?”

“Why didn’t you call me?” I responded, “That’s what brothers are for, to stand with each other.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think about it.”

I held my hand up close to the area that was swollen, and felt the heat of the pain go into my hand. The swelling went down immediately and Rick just said, “That’ll work, man.”

The manager of the motel—a young woman in her early 30s—and her friend who was the housekeeping manager came to the door of my room and asked if they could talk with me for a moment. The manager, Sandy, said that she had gone down to relieve Rick so that he could go to the dentist and he had told her what had happened. She and Lynda wanted to talk to me because Lynda was diabetic and Sandy had scoliosis (curvature of the spine).

They wanted to know if I thought God could heal such things. We had a rather long conversation which culminated in them suggesting that we get together with their husbands.

I simply said to set it up.

Lynda called my room the next morning and asked if we could all meet in the motel’s small conference room at 7:30 that night.

It turned out that both Sandy and Lynda were completely healed—both quite dramatically, with interesting side effects. One of which was that the pastor of the church that Sandy, Lynda and Sandy’s husband Al attended (Lynda’s husband did not go) wanted to meet me, since they had excitedly told the pastor and his wife what had happened. As Al, Sandy’s husband, told the story later, “Man, I couldn’t help it—we went home and I watched Sandy’s spine shiver and shake and that curve,” he demonstrated with his hand how severe the curve had been, “just straightened up, it took about two hours. I had to call Mel and June (the pastor and his wife) and tell them, and the three of us went over to their house.”

A couple of days later, Mel called me and asked if he could meet with me. He asked if I would mind coming to his church office. I said I’d rather not, but why didn’t he come by the motel and we could sit in my room and talk.

We had a long conversation about his background and how he and his wife had come to take over their church. He was quite excited about the changes in Sandy, Al and Lynda that had been brought about by Sandy and Lynda’s healing. He asked me if I would come to the church and speak.

I told him that I didn’t do that anymore and why. He took it well and we parted with the thought voiced by Mel that some day we ought to get together for lunch.

Sandy, Lynda, Al and Chuck wanted to get together with me to talk. They wanted to ask some questions Sandy said when she called. That turned into a weekly dinner in Sandy and Al’s apartment, where we would just have a discussion about the Biblical basis for what I did.

One night, Al made the statement that our times together were more meaningful to him than church, and said that since Chuck didn’t go anyway, they were wondering if I would agree to start inviting other people to our meetings.

I shared my reservations about that—particularly if they were going to invite people from the church.

A week later Mel called and asked to meet with me. He asked if I would pray with him over a matter. When he got to my room he told me that Sandy, Al and Lynda had come to him and told him that they were leaving the church.

He asked me if I knew about it. I replied that they had hinted as much and told him what they had suggested and that I had also told them my reservations, which basically were that they were transferring their dependence on Mel to me. I didn’t believe that it was healthy, because they were just setting themselves up to repeat the same mistake.

Then I changed the subject and asked him what he wanted to pray about.

He startled me with, “Whether I should leave the ministry.” I shared with him about Bob Patterson who, I pointed out had actually gotten into an expanded ministry, and the fellow down on the Gulf Coast who had made the announcement that he was resigning and that Jesus Christ was the new pastor.

I pointed out to him that there was such freedom in letting go control and just watching God do all the work and let Jesus do the Pastoring.

I asked him, “Mel, do you want God’s will no matter what the cost?”

“I think so; I hope so. June is really uncomfortable about this. I wanted her to come with me tonight, but she said she had a real check in her spirit about you.”

I told him that this wasn’t a matter about me at all. I suggested that he might want to get off by himself for a few days and go without food and just beat on God’s door and demand some answers. “Just tell God you want His will and nothing else. It works every time,” I assured him.

“June’s afraid that we will be letting the people of the church down.”

I looked at him and said, “Mel, I hate to tell you this, but I believe I am supposed to. You are letting the excuse of what your wife says keep you from seeking God. That is a very dangerous position to be in and I am telling you that from experience letting anything get in the way of seeking God makes for a disaster.” I never saw Mel again.

Why did I tell this story? I’m not really sure…just that I felt it should be included.

Okay, Jeanne, I spent some time asking and here I believe is why I told this last story. People, me included, do not want to take personal responsibility for their lives. The concept, as you call it, that Jesus is saying that anyone who believes will do the same things that he did … this takes some drastic changes. Bob Patterson was already used to going way out on a limb for anything and everything he believed was what God was calling him to do, No equivocation. But look at the fact that his wife and children were on the same page.

The guy down on the Gulf Coast wanted whatever God wanted and had no wife to interfere—and he didn’t care what the congregation thought. He told it the way he saw it and change didn’t threaten him.

I am deeply sympathetic to Mel’s and June’s predicament. They had sacrificed a great deal to prepare for a church ministry. They were also steeped in the tradition of their particular church, tough things to give up. Mind you, I wasn’t trying to get him to give it up. I was trying to get him to seek God for clarity about what to do, which may have been a whole lot different than he was assuming. Instead he made excuses and refused to take personal responsibility.

What is interesting as I think about it is Bob Patterson and his wife were not holding on to anything. They believed that God’s best is their best. He had something else to do simultaneously with losing his position in his church that suited him far better; likewise with the fellow on the Gulf Coast.

The real issue with Mel and June is trust. I am not being critical here, not at all. The tragedy of Christianity in its many forms is the doctrinal excuse it provides for not doing what Jesus said to do. There are many things that Jesus said that are simply impossible to do in the natural. Rather than to deny or ignore what he said, wouldn’t it make far better sense to go to God and say, “this is a tough one—I cannot do it on my own, help me! Or show me clearly that I don’t have to do it.”

The answer to your question about why Christians resist what Jesus said, seems to be fear, does it not?

Jesus introduced God as a perfect Parent. In the original the word is equivalent to a deeply informal and personal “Dad, Papa or even Daddy.” I presume that perfect Mommy/Daddy is probably all right too for those who don’t resist it. God is such a perfect Parent that you can address him/her any way you choose and He/She is not offended. Jesus did say that God is Spirit to be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth. Why do we insist upon gender?

As a child, you can trust a perfect Daddy/Mommy to help you in every situation. If you resist either—choose the other.

I just got this marvelous insight, Jeanne, and my excitement about sharing it is bowling me over! Here it is. Christianity has for the most part taken the story of Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden as an act of God for their disobedience to His command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I don’t think that it was an arbitrary command as much as a warning of a parent to his child, because of the inherent dangers of eating the fruit.

This is the insight: as parents we want to warn our children against many dangers that could inflict pain and even death. Here is an analogy that I believe may be closer to truth.

A family lives on a busy street that has rapid and unpredictable traffic. A father, wanting to make sure his son doesn’t run out into the street, takes him out to the curb and says

you must never cross this street unless mommy or daddy holds your hand and goes across with you. Otherwise you will be hit by a car and killed!

The little boy is quite obedient. But a bigger neighborhood kid is playing with him one day and says, “Let’s go across the street and climb that tree.”

The little boy says he can’t because his dad has told him not to.

The older kid asks why. The little boy says, “My daddy says that if I go across the street I will be hit by a car and killed.” 

“Nah, that’s not true, watch me.” At that the older boy dashes across the street and yells back across, “See?” Then he repeats crossing the street several times, and finally comes back to the little boy. “See? You won’t get killed. Your dad just wants to scare you so you won’t have any fun. All you gotta do is look both ways before you cross and then run. Watch me.”

The boy made exaggerated looks to the left and to the right, “See?” Then he ran across the street. “See?” He yelled again. Then he said, “Watch!” as he again exaggerated the swing of his head from right to left and ran back to the other side. “See? That’s all you have to do. Look both ways and then run fast. C’mon, let’s do it.”

The little boy finally ran across the street with the bigger boy. Sure enough he wasn’t killed. What was killed was something he didn’t understand. The former trust he had had in his father’s wisdom.

As with all analogies this one has flaws and breaks down. But Jesus tells us that we have a Dad of whom we can make some pretty far-out demands—relentlessly and impudently just like a little child that runs to his dad and says, “Daddy, daddy, daddy…I want an ice cream. Please can I, please?”

At first, the dad may ignore the plea, but the little kid doesn’t give up and the dad finally gives in. That is exactly the illustration that Jesus used to tell us how to get something from our Father. It is an astounding promise because the “something” he said to demand was more of our Father’s own Spirit for certain situations. His promise was that if we continued to impudently demand, knock UNTIL we see evidence of an increase of our Father’s Spirit…we WILL see it!

10

YOU TALKED RATHER OBLIQUELY ABOUT THE need for much fasting and prayer as a necessary preparation for casting out certain kinds of difficult-to-remove demons. (Please correct me if I am not quoting you correctly.)

My research has gotten me answers that run the range of, “fasting is not necessary,” and “it can be useful, but one needs to be quite careful,” all the way to, “it is a dangerous practice and the man (you) doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

That latter, the “dangerous” one piqued me into asking if that particular man had any experience in casting out demons. Not surprisingly, he had no experience and discarded the whole topic as preposterous, any further comments?

BC: I used to work with a psychiatrist whose practice was limited to Christians who had emotional problems. He believed deeply in what I do to the point that he insisted on sending me a monthly check because he said he felt led to support me financially. He would assemble groups of patients at his office for me to give a little talk. When I mentioned fasting, he asked me in front of a group if I thought it was really necessary.

He asked it in a way that clearly implied that he didn’t think that it was necessary. I told him and the group that all I knew is that until I began fasting I had no idea what faith was and in my experience I had never known anyone who could cast out demons and otherwise operate at an increased level of faith that hadn’t come to the point of knowing that food was unnecessary.

After that particular evening he told me he wanted to try a fast, but he had hypoglycemia. I told him that my experience with both hypoglycemic and diabetic people was that they had absolutely no symptoms during fasting—any more than anyone else—and that fasting was a great precursor to getting rid of the real cause of both diseases.

He wanted to know if I had any suggestions. I told him just to ingest nothing except pure water and not to take any kind of food or medication, even vitamins. I told him to just pray about it to see if fasting was the direction he should go.

His first fast was for four days. The next ten days; I believe his longest fast was 21 days. His faith grew in leaps and bounds. When he would invite me to speak to some of his patients and the subject of fasting would come up he would now attest to its value in his own life and would give rather exciting examples of his own faith at work including that his hypoglycemia was gone!

Many wonderful things happened during that time. Patients with severe mental illnesses who had been in his care for many years were completely freed.

He invited me out to dinner several weeks after an experience with a female patient whom he had been seeing professionally for over 12 years. She’d been on a high level of an anti-psychotic medication he had prescribed for her and was dramatically healed and freed from needing the drug. Any other time she had gotten off the drug or forgotten to take it, she had wound up in the hospital with a severe psychotic episode.

“Man, you keep this stuff up,” he said with a wide grin, “and you’ll have me out of business. Hallelujah!” he exclaimed, with a fist thrust upward—to the notice of people at tables nearby. I laughed.

We worked together up until his retirement. Those who fast with the intent of increasing their faith to be able to do what Jesus said believers would be able to grow in faith.

Skeptics who disdain the practice grow in their skepticism. The dynamics, Jeanne, seem to be to understand at a very deep level that we do not really need food. I knew a guy who lived in a remote area who believed we could live on air, literally, who would go six months at a time without eating anything. He was a bit strange and would express anger because he could only go a few days without drinking water and thought he should be able to get all the water he needed from the air he breathed.

I am not advocating anything here—just pointing out that we don’t need food. I once read an article that the god or archangel of this earth—which Jesus referred to as Satan—uses food, sex and other things we deem necessary for a normal human experience as a way to trap us into dependence on the things of this earth…perhaps there is something to that line of thinking?

11

BRAD, THIS THING ABOUT FASTING HAS CAUSED me to begin to narrow my research into what I can only say for me is a rather bizarre arena. I was directed to those who are in what they call a “deliverance” or “exorcism” ministry.

They all agreed with you completely about the need for fasting. I was invited to a couple of different deliverance sessions. What I saw disturbed me and I am not sure whether anything was accomplished.

One man invited me to come to his office where he conducted deliverance at a time when a session was scheduled.

His instructions to the lady who had come to him for help—who was lying on a couch with several of us watching—was to close her eyes and just to think about Jesus silently in her mind and not to pay any attention to what he would say because he was going to be talking to the demons, not to her.

He talked in low tones telling demons to manifest. He wanted to see them. He said something like, “In the name of Jesus, you must obey me. I want to see you.” He did this for about 45 minutes to an hour. Then he finally held up his hand and waved for

us to look where his finger was pointing as he was saying, “I see you now, identify yourself.” He was pointing at a small lump on her forehead, just above her left eyebrow that was moving slightly.

He said, again, “Yes, I see you; I want you to manifest more. Demonstrate to me so that we can really see you. I command this in the name of Jesus.” The lump started to almost vibrate as the speed of its movement increased.

He started to tell it to speak using the same kinds of commands. Finally, a guttural male voice came out of the woman’s mouth and said, “I am who I am.” He told it that it was a liar.

He then began asking it several questions. (I had asked permission to record the session and he had said that I could take no notes, nor use a tape recorder. I could witness what happened, but I could not ask any questions or speak during the process).

Two or three questions and the answers from this voice I remember vividly. One revolved around when it had entered the woman—when she was seven years old during a temper tantrum, the voice said. Another question was how many of them were there? The answer was something like, “we are many.”

The whole session lasted about 3 hours. That it was dramatic and that something unusual happened I have no doubt. He scheduled another appointment for the lady for the following week.

Then he asked her what she had experienced during the session. She said simply that she had felt detached. The voice startled her, but she believed that it was something “real,” while insisting that it wasn’t her speaking, and when it started talking she just tried all the harder to concentrate on thinking about Jesus.

He then told us that in his experience the process of getting rid of all of them could take anywhere from six weeks to six months and even longer.

His parting words to everyone there were, “When you get into this ministry you have to put all ideas of time aside and be prepared to stick it out until all demons have been cast out.”

I realize I haven’t given you much to go on, but what are your reactions to this approach? Do you believe that the manifestations, the moving lump (that totally disappeared when the session was declared over) and the voice were actually that of a demon?

BC: When I first was exposed to this kind of ministry, I was attracted to it only because I did see people get freed up from bondage. It was actually good training because of some of the things I learned and am still careful about today.

After about two years of being involved in a deliverance ministry I began to pray about some of the things that disturbed me.

1) In the passage that turned me on to fasting and prayer, Jesus simply rebuked the demon and that was it; poof, gone. Why did we have to go through all this silly questioning and answering with lying demonic entities? It was beginning to make no sense at all.

2) Why did everyone seem to want to turn it into a specialized “ministry” when Jesus said all believers were supposed to be able to do it?

3) Why did those who got involved in it fulltime rent office space and the like, to justify what they did? And so many seemed to wind up having a fascination with demons and a tendency to play experimental games—to the point that some of them became emotionally unstable and seemed to be controlled by demons in certain areas of their lives.

4. Why did this ministry seem to give more attention to the activity of demons and draw away from focusing on God and what God can and does do when we believe?

The answers I got for me was that I should be involved only when I was led to be involved. When situations arose I would just depend upon God’s Spirit to lead me. If God’s Spirit gave me the go ahead we’d go fight the battle together. A “no” meant to wait until the time was right. I have found that I don’t have to go out searching for people who need ministry; I just stay in tune with God and I get all the walk-in trade that I can handle.

None of this should be construed as criticism of anyone. It isn’t. It is just the answers that I got for me. As I used to say to my psychiatrist friend, “you shouldn’t be so amazed at God using you. If God can use the jawbone of an ass, it is fitting that he uses a medical doctor—especially a psychiatrist.”

God works in myriad and strange ways through myriad people, including strange ones such as me.

12

YOU MENTIONED YOU LEARNED SOME THINGS that you are careful about and use today. Can you explain?

BC: Sure. Demons are extremely legalistic and they totally respect and are obedient to enforced legal authority. There is a passage in Acts, the fifth book of the New Testament that demonstrates this in an interesting way.

Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out."

Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?"

Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

What that told me, if you don’t have authority over demons don’t mess with them. Or, if you don’t understand your authority, don’t mess with them—for reasons that this passage makes evident. Most people in the deliverance ministry understand that their authority comes from the fact that demons have really already been defeated by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ is not just some religious symbol, Jeanne, it is real and it is powerful.

I’m going to digress here for a moment. Christians in many groups pray “in the name of Jesus Christ.” For the most part, why are their prayers ineffectual? For one thing, the word “name” in this context in the original language means, “in the character and authority of Jesus.”

Any honest seeker after the truth, who looks to the Bible in the original language as at least one viable source of truth, will discover two things about the character and authority of Jesus: One, He only wanted to do the will of the Father—that’s his character. Two, the Spirit who became the man historically referred to as Jesus created the Universe and everything in it, including those entities that became demons. That’s his authority.

The secret of the Universe, Paul wrote in his letter to believers in Colossae after explaining that the Spirit who had indeed created everything is: Christ in YOU!

The prime prerequisites to operating in authority are to make a determination to want only the will of God, and to understand that the Creator of the universe lives within you.

This may seem like a lot of fuzzy-sounding theology, but I can tell you that everyone that I know of who operates in the same character and authority of Jesus to do what he did, has this as a basis of understanding and has gone through a time of fasting and intense praying to get there.

Two things I want to point out: One, the detractors to this thesis are unable themselves to do what Jesus did, and two, why then should anybody listen to what they say? They obviously speak with no authority and obviously are unable to do what Jesus said any believer will do if he or she believes sufficiently.

As to what I learned back then and use today—most of the time—is to forbid demons to manifest. I tell them that they cannot cause any smells, vomiting, or any kind of discomfort as they leave, that they cannot transfer and that they cannot communicate

or call for replacements.

This probably sounds like hocus pocus to the uninitiated, but in the early days of my experience in the deliverance ministry I saw green vomit, ghastly (I don’t use this word normally) odors, demons transferring into other people present causing disturbing behavior in them…. You think what you saw was bizarre, Jeanne, I have seen BIZARRE! Again, the point I made earlier—I believe Spirit was telling me that allowing them to act out was giving more attention to what demons did than to the wonder of God’s power at work getting rid of them.

There is another interesting side to this. A friend of mine on the West Coast tells an amusing story. He had cast a demon out of a woman in a small gathering. When the demon went out it caused the woman to choke, causing her face to turn red. When it was all over—the lady of the house got in his face. She told him, “I’ve watched you do this for five years, and you always say things like, ‘I bind all demons present by the blood of Jesus, I am going to cast you out and you will not transfer, call for replacements or cause any discomfort or smells or vomiting as you go.’ Why didn’t you say these things this time?”

My friend said that he didn’t know, that he had simply prayed for Holy Spirit to guide him, and he did what he did.

The lady’s husband had his head bent over the kitchen table and said that he knew why it had happened. He said that he had watched my friend say these things for five years, and just figured he had faith in saying them, so whatever worked was fine with him. “I needed to see this—I believed that demons existed, but now I know!”

My friend asked the woman how she felt about having to go through the pain and trauma of being choked just so her friend’s husband could learn a lesson; her response was that she was glad it happened too because now she knew also. If it hadn’t happened, she said, she never would have believed it.

So, Jeanne, we go back to the thesis that God works in strange and myriad ways through strange people even such as I.

One more thing about legal authority and the care I use to make sure that I have it. Sometimes a person doesn’t want the demon to go. Sound strange? They don’t realize they want it to stay, and don’t even realize that a demon is causing the problem.

For example, somebody will come to me for healing and I sense a conflict. I remember an elderly woman a friend had brought to me; she had a great deal of pain in her legs and had difficulty in walking.

I told her I sensed a conflict and that part of her didn’t want to get well. As I questioned her more deeply, I realized that her granddaughter who was living with her would move out if she was healed. Obviously she didn’t want the young lady to leave.

I confronted her with this and she owned up to it. I could never get her to move past seeing that her granddaughter would leave. I sensed the problem was demonic; she wanted the problem to continue because it was the only way she saw to hold onto the girl so the demons causing the problem had a legal right to stay.

I have learned the practicality of something Jesus said. “A demon went out of a man and went out over the water. He returned and finding the house swept clean and empty took seven other spirits more evil than he and the last stage of that man was worse than the first.”

When there is conflict I just point out the conflict and leave it at that. Because they don’t want the illness I have the authority to get rid of it and can. Because they want the perceived “benefit” the problem will come back. This takes great care, and I believe makes a lot of things that happened in Jesus’ time that seemed inexplicable perfectly understandable.

13

I’VE BEEN GOING BACK OVER MY NOTES DURING my early research for this…whatever it’s going be. I think you’re writing a book as told to me, Brad. I wrote the word “sin” out on a margin, and I wanted to ask you a question about it.

I don’t know if you remember the 12-page letter attachment I told you I received from a man in Germany. He said he had a Roman Catholic background and that you explained what the word sin really meant and that I should ask you about it. He said it was one of the most freeing things he had ever heard, and should be easy for anyone to embrace.

Could you give me that rundown?

BC: Sure. Many others have written on the word far more eloquently than I. In fact, I’m sure that I heard the concept from somebody else; I just did some historical background and a word study.

It is interesting how traditions are started, maintained and then vigorously defended.

First a little background on the King James Version of the Bible (KJV). There is no doubt that the KJV has been the most popular and best loved version of the Bible for over 300 years.

Loving a Model T Ford—a car designed and built for the common man, for its historical value—would still be a ridiculous reason to attempt to use it on today’s Interstate highway system. It wasn’t designed for those speeds or conditions.

Using the KJV because of its historical value is a ridiculous reason when many of the words in it no longer mean the same thing they did in the 1600s. It is obvious that the translators of most modern versions are heavily influenced by and make a hard effort to accommodate the doctrinal traditions imbued by the KJV—some words have been woefully misapplied.

The goal of the KJV was a good one. Put the Scriptures into the simple language of the common English-speaking man. Case in point “thee” and “thou” and “thy” were used in personal interaction by the working class.

We still have a hangover from all the high-toned religionists who insist on using such words when publicly praying—“Thou art”—because they believe the words are sacred; all this from the question about sin The word in both the Hebrew and the transliteration of the word into Greek means basically the same thing; depending, of course, on the context.

It basically means in both languages to miss God. Where did the English word sin come from, and why did the KJV translators use it? …and those translators of modern versions who were aware of the KJV’s influence, including the Roman Catholic Douay Version and the later Confraternity version? Yep, still sin.

The word was well understood by the English common man. It had its roots in archery going all the way back to the twelfth century. The word had a singular meaning and was invented to be used in archery competition. A meet official would stand close to the target, but protected by a tree.

If an arrow missed the target completely, the official would yell SIN! In that way, even in the foggy bogs, the archer knew that his arrow had not hit the target; the word sin in old English meant miss the target. That’s it.

A lovely, meaningful (at the time) paraphrase which was intended to make the concept of missing God more understandable—probably did back then.

Now, let’s look at some theological stretches. The New Testament states clearly that Jesus never sinned. He never missed God. The average Christian makes the application that Jesus never did any of the things he or she was raised to believe were sins.

One of the craziest ideas is that Jesus never got angry. I wonder where their minds are when they read some of the verbal cannonballs he threw at the religionists of his day. He told them they were children of a snake. In my way of thinking that is unequivocally saying their mother was a snake.

He told them that they were like painted-over grave markers. He didn’t say these things while he was lisping and drifting along with the breeze above the ground in a gorgeous, fresh from the local dry cleaners, white robe.

He said their religious traditions had made God’s own commands of no effect, and that their worship was worthless! He said these things angrily. He was without sin—got it? He didn’t miss God in his anger.

He was focused, knew what he was doing and where he was going, and told anybody off in no uncertain terms, even his own handpicked disciples with anger and with graphic language when they were not living up to what he expected; the tragedy of a misapplied paraphrase corrupted by years and years of religious tradition.

How do you avoid missing God (i.e., sinning)? Jesus tells how with clarity. We have turned that instruction into a song or a chant to be solemnly said or sung in unison while sitting in a pew with an organ playing in the background. That is sin! Because that is missing God!

The preceding paragraph illustrates something that I am trying to get across about sin—Jesus told the religious of his day that they were making the words of God null and void by their traditions. Jesus instructed his disciples how to pray in a way to get results.

To reduce that prayer into a paraphrase for common consumption was an excellent exercise. To have built it into a chant or a song to repeat solemnly and mindlessly is a tradition that misses Jesus’ whole point. It misses how to effectively stay in touch with God—the REAL meaning of the word paraphrased as sin. Got it?

14

THE NATURAL SEQUENCE WOULD BE TO ASK YOU to give us your version of Jesus’ specific instructions about how to pray. But I’ve had this nagging thought, so I’m going to change the sequence to accommodate it.

You brought up the idea that apparently the original language does not specifically refer to God as “Father,” but could just as easily be “Mother” as well.

This was a shock initially and I began to realize how steeped I was in my own religious preconceived notions. Frankly, Brad, I have never thought of myself as a religious person. I have tried to go to church, but it has always been a negative experience for me. I believe you have helped me see why!

The question I have is two-fold. First, you seem willing to allow that God has a feminine side as well as masculine. It doesn’t seem to bother you one way or the other. Why?

Second, if it is no big deal to you one way or another, why do you make an issue of it? I have a confession to make. My idea at the beginning was to interview several people who have “offbeat” and provocative thinking about religion…simply to make an interesting and readable series. I’ve gotten stuck on your story and have taken on ownership because I want it to be read—both because of my selfish inclinations as a writer and because I believe your story should be told.

From the beginning of my research I have found that you provoke religious people into shock and it seems to be your primary intent. Why?

BC: Well, Jeanne, look who is being provocative now. You are provoking me to think. I’m hung up on wanting to think through and answer the latter part of your question…. So, before getting off on a tangent that will make me forget the first part, I’ll take first things first.

The word in the original translated as “Father” means initiator of spirit life. I’m going to make a stretch here that I don’t usually talk about except one on one. We’re not talking about the progenitor of a human body, but of the spiritual side. But if we were talking about the human side, it takes both the male and the female to reproduce. Both are equally important in that process. Both have different functions.

Why do we resist a Perfect Parent having both male and female attributes? If we look at ourselves individually, which parent had the most influence in what we have become?

As I continually deal with people in business and in spiritual matters who want some objective third-party advice, it never ceases to amaze me that they discount the influence of one parent or the other.

An absent father, for example, strongly influences his child by his absence. Does it have to be negative? It does not. Children are amazingly resilient beings, and the absence of a father or a mother is just part of the ultimate molding process.

I made a decision to let my children verbally know that I loved them. I told them so continually. Why? Because my own dad never said the words and I was 30 years old before it finally dawned on me that he did love me. Talk about insecurity! So I determined to tell my kids.

In retrospect, I am a product of that seeming lack of reassurance of love during my formative years. I am comfortable with who I am as a person today—so the obvious question then is, so what?

Are my children any better off for my having continually told them that I loved them? I don’t think so. In fact it probably cheapened the word. I tell everyone I love them because the Father (Mother) in me does love everyone and I simply cannot help expressing it.

Here’s the thing. My mother had all kinds of faults, as do I. My father had all kinds of faults, as do I. I forgive them and I forgive me. Our physical parents are not the issue. Jesus introduced God as a perfect Parent of our spiritual side and specifically said that there was neither male nor female in that realm.

“Mother” and “Father” are human terms that have no relationship to God—other than the fact that, whatever we lacked in our upbringing, we can get fulfilled on the spiritual side of things. This equals reconciliation with everyone as well as God and we can quit resisting either male or female and just accept both.

I am going to get into a touchy area, but it is my experience. One of my favorite people from the past was a lesbian. Mary had more mature and practical fatherly advice for me in my early 20s than any man has ever provided. Mary and Agnes were raising a teenage boy when I met them. He was very well adjusted and received some excellent advice from Mary about how to deal with his girlfriend!

Homosexuals have never been a problem for me. Because gay men knew I was not judgmental of them (even though repelled personally about any such involvement of my own. It was a simple matter for me—I prefer girls! I therefore was not hung up about any homosexual tendencies that might be prevalent at some level in me—so what)? Friends would bring them to me to be healed of AIDS.

Here’s the part of my story that gets touchy and there goes some more of your audience, Jeanne! Believe it or not—here is my experience and it is the truth. Those who got “delivered” from AIDS got delivered from homosexuality. In each incident those who were delivered also were delivered from the hatred of their fathers. Obviously I have a little osmotic training from having spent a few years working with my psychiatrist friend about unresolved “Oedipus-rex” complexes, the gender identification problem that supposedly is at the root of homosexuals and like so many other problems—that in itself is just the mask for a deep-seated spiritual problem.

Why get into this? Not sure, just felt like I was supposed to…resisting “mother” or “father” in God is our own inability to By the way—and this is an important part of the equation.

As a result of deliverance a formerly gay man of my acquaintance hooked up with a formerly bisexual woman. The role reversal was amusing, enough that they were able to laugh at themselves.

They had invited me over for lunch as they wanted to discuss a problem they had. As I approached their little log house in the country, I saw Joan, a petite and very attractive blonde outside in a flannel shirt,  distractingly tight faded jeans, boots and a shovel, digging a trench for a septic line for their country home. Meanwhile, Ray was inside preparing our meal.

I made a comment that she looked like she was hard at work, and I almost collapsed in laughter when she said, “Yeah and if I could get my faggot husband out here to help me, I could get it done.” She laughed as she put down the shovel and told me to go inside. She said she had to go around back and take off her boots before coming in or Ray would kill her.

We had lunch and just generally chit-chatted about the beautiful countryside and how they liked the area and their new home.

When we finished, Ray said he just wanted to clear away a few things and why didn’t Joan and I take our coffee into the family room and he’d join us in just a minute.

Joan and I continued the general chat until Ray came in and sat down with us. He started right in, “The reason we asked you to come by, Brad, and I’m sorry we didn’t invite you before, just because we love you….” I waved it off and he continued, “Joan and I have a few problems and we kind of hoped that you’d help us sort them out.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“Here’s the deal, as a homosexual I was always the aggressor and quite active. I enjoy sex with Joan, but sometimes I feel that all she wants to do is use my body.”

I asked Joan how she felt about it. “Brad, if you want to know the truth, I honestly just can’t get enough of Ray. It’s funny, because I was only moderately active when I was a ‘Bi’—but now I sometimes want to devour him.”

“You both realize, of course, that you two are a classic case of cultural male—female role reversal, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Ray said, “we’ve talked about it. I complain because she won’t help around the house…and she gripes because I won’t help her overhaul the engine in the tractor, for heaven’s sake.”

“Are you comfortable with it?” I asked.

“More or less,” Joan answered frankly. “We’ve talked about it some and are kind of concerned that maybe this is a mistake. I mean we both admit to temptations revolving around our former sexual orientation.”

“I’m curious,” I said, “are you really tempted or just have occasional fantasies?”

“You flat-out amaze me,” Joan said. “The reason I paid any attention to you in the first place was that for a straight guy you never seemed to judge sexual stuff. Yet I was so amazed when I was delivered that my whole orientation about sex and all the excuses I had been making were just that. Ray and I love each other and all in all this is a good marriage—and yeah, just occasional fantasies, when he won’t put out.”

“But,” Ray chimed in, “we’re a little concerned that maybe we need further deliverance.”

“Have you prayed about this?”

Their silence was their answer.

“Can I share something with you guys?”

“Sure,” Joan said, and Ray just barely nodded his head.

“You are both delightful. I do not sense any demonic activity at all. I only wish that most married couples I get involved with were as open as you two are about what is going on inside. I also think your comments to each other are hilarious. Joan made the statement outside, Ray, that she wished her faggot husband would come outside and help so she’d get the trench done.”

Ray put the back of his hand up to his forehead in mock dismay and said, “How dare you, Joan!”

I convulsed with laughter all over again and they joined in.

“Here’s the key. Pray about this stuff. Holy Spirit will guide you. Sex is such an individual thing. The biggest thing homosexuals get delivered from is their need to justify what they do. Getting rid of self-justification is what gives us freedom.

“We all miss God continually. The antidote to that is just to recognize that we all are in a state of sin, beat on our chests and move on under the guidance of Spirit.”

“I’ve got a question, Brad,” Ray asked, “do you believe that all homosexuality is caused by demons?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I believe that we all miss God because we try to hide. We try to hide because we don’t believe God will accept us the way we are.

In both your cases, you were desperate enough to want God no matter what; homosexuals are just like everyone else. So busy justifying their lifestyles that they shove God aside.

People who are addicted to any number of things including religion and their own opinions about everything, do the same thing. In that sense it is probably all caused by demonic influence.”

“In other words,” Joan said, “it’s okay that I work outside and Ray works inside, right? Is it okay if I want to rush in the house and attack his body?”

I just laughed and said, “Talk to God, Joan, talk to God.” You don’t need my answers or the answers from any other human being. The promise is Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. Christianity has perverted that to the Bible will lead you into all truth and some man or woman who is steeped in the Bible will guide you into all truth. You know better, go directly to the source, you don’t need me.

This is funny, Jeanne, I got so wrapped up thinking about Ray and Joan and gender identification and all that stuff that I forgot the second part of your question. I had to go back and reread it—and here I was, all anxious to answer it and didn’t even want to get into the mother/father issue.

Okay, I’m looking at my motives for trying to shock people. I really don’t think that is my intent consciously or unconsciously. I guess, what I think about it is inconsequential. I do it; and I certainly don’t do anything to change my behavior, so in that sense I guess it is my intent to shock.

I mean, looking back at telling the story about Joan and Ray, if that isn’t a shocker, what is? Was it necessary to tell? Of course not—but I bet I’ll get comments from some readers that the story set them free. It’s just the way it works. Am I justifying my proclivity to shock? Knowing human beings as I do, the answer is: probably.

Jeanne, I could play around with all kinds of introspective questions. For example, one answer is maybe I do it as an attention-getting mechanism. So what? Holy Spirit, you lead and guide here; should I stop or continue?

The answer is if it shocks it shocks. If it soothes it soothes. The truth sets us free. For some it is soothing love and for others it is a slap in the face. If the truth ultimately frees us, how it does its job depends upon the recipient.

15

SINCE YOU TOOK THE LID OFF THE KETTLE OF homosexual fish, I want to go there for a minute. Since a cure for AIDS was effected through the deliverance from a spirit causing homosexuality, couldn’t the conclusion be drawn that homosexuality is not normal and is wrong?

BC: No matter what I say in response to that one will gain me no friends. Since when has that ever stopped me? The arguments about that topic are endless and there are no winners.

Our problem as a society and culture is that we want to have tightly defined rules of right and wrong. That is eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and doing it gets us kicked out the garden just like it did our predecessors.

A couple who are pastors in a large denominational church in Alabama welcome and have a sizable homosexual contingent in their church. An acquaintance asked me if I didn’t think that was a bad thing. My response was that it’s not my problem. If God is calling that couple to have a church in the first place, that is what God is calling them to do. God isn’t calling me to have a church.

If God is calling that couple to welcome homosexuals, then that is what God is calling them to do. Since God isn’t calling me to have a church, at least at this particular time, it’s not my problem. I don’t even have to go!

Somebody asked me once if I believed in gay rights. I really don’t know the issues. I know that Jesus said not to judge. So I don’t. If I was homosexual I’d probably be more in tune with the issues. I’m not and I don’t feel that is my call. Is the fact that I am a heterosexual making me righteous, ipso facto? Is the fact that I occasionally look at a woman with lust in my heart somehow less adulterous than a man looking at another man that way…or a woman looking at a woman?

God, be merciful to a sinner such as I. End of story (period).

JS: I showed this last segment to a minister of a small Baptist church and asked what he thought. His answer was surprising. “This man has a good handle on what the grace of God means.” Does that concept ring true in your mind? Also, can you explain what the grace of God means to you? This minister said it means unmerited favor of God toward everyone.

BC: The “grace of God” is a religious doctrine. The first introduction of the term in the sense of how this minister is using it is by Luke, the writer of Acts (the fifth book of the New Testament), who quotes Paul saying, “However, I consider my life is worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” Prior to that the word was used interchangeably to translate a word in the original that meant God’s power, one that meant God’s mercy and in one place I remember, simply God being God.

Paul also wrote extensively about “grace,” particularly in his letters to some believers who were living in Rome and also to some believers in Corinth.

Arguments abound in Christendom as to whether we are “saved” by grace or by being obedient to the commandments of God. Paul’s argument in the original is that it is by the grace of God that we follow the requirements of the law which is Christ and that the law was merely a teacher that led us to Christ because we couldn’t keep the dictates of the law.

A rather thorny issue raised by a giant intellect. What do I think of the concept, Jeanne? It is by the grace of God that I breathe, that I live, that I do anything including running to God at this moment saying, HELP!

16

BRAD, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THROUGHOUT our exchanges that I have sensed you being uncomfortable. You usually answer my questions with confidence and conviction. Are you uncomfortable and if so can you identify the reasons for it?

BC: My, my, are you ever perceptive! Yes, I am uncomfortable with this particular line of thinking—probably because of some experiences with people whom I believe (maybe wrongly) hide behind the concept.

I remember so many times as I began seeing what Jesus said and how it contrasted with what Christianity practiced, I tried to discuss it with Christians. “Grace” was always their excuse for not even looking at what Jesus said to do. One statement I remember almost as if it is ringing in my ear, “I’ve had all that legalism I want. I just depend on the grace of God.”

Well, in the final analysis, me too! But I revert to something Jesus said and I’ll leave it to you and any reader who wants to examine it.

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. “He is like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.

“But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

The implications to what Jesus said are pretty horrific—are they not?

Yep, Jeanne, it makes me uncomfortable.

Here’s the other side…. Peter asked Jesus one time, “If somebody wrongs me, how many times must I forgive him—seven times?”

Jesus’ response was, “No. Seventy times seven!” If Jesus is making a rule that we are supposed to forgive somebody 490 times (and in context if the culprit repeats the same

wrong over and over) then it stands to reason that God is committed to forgiving us infinitely more times.

But why refuse to hear and do what Jesus said on the basis of “Grace?”

17

LET’S GO BACK TO WHAT YOU SAID WERE JESUS’ specific instructions about how to pray —I believe you said to “get results.”

BC: Maybe we should write a separate book on the subject and just call it the “Lord’s Prayer.” Actually it is what Luke records Jesus as saying in the 11th chapter of the Gospel under his (Luke’s) name. I take some liberties with the passage, but only by

extrapolating what Mark reported that Jesus said, and using some other quotes to make what Jesus is saying here a little easier to understand and totally consistent in the mix.

Before we start, we need to see clearly that a word by word translation from one language into another—because of grammar differences—creates confusion of its own.

For example, there’s a movie with Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal in it called “Throw Your Mama from the Train a Kiss.” The title in itself is humorous to the average American mind.

People of most European extractions who speak both their native tongue and an American brand of English find this syntax comfortable. I am told that this is actually a Hungarian maxim, which properly translated means simply that anyone going on a long trip should honor his mother by saying goodbye. But if we play with what an American who insists on being legalistically obedient to a word-by-word and word-for-word translation….

We get the image of a man on a train who sees his mother, jumps off the train, grabs his mother and hauls her onto the train, then throws her back onto the platform, jumps off the train and runs over to kiss her and then jumps back onto the train—all the while believing he has been wonderfully obedient to the maxim.

So let’s just read the passage in the New King James Version (NKJV), which again is an accommodation to the KJV even though certainly far easier to read and understand.

Then we’ll make some general remarks and then begin to dissect it—word by word.

1 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."

2So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 3Give us day by day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is

indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one."

5And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him;’ 7and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you?’

8I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

11If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"

I believe we covered this earlier, but it is worth repeating. The Greek word aiteo (pronounced ah-ee-tay-o) translated here as ask means “ask” in the same sense that somebody who lends 20 dollars to somebody who has promised to pay it back on payday asks to be repaid.

If payday comes around and he cannot repay, the man who made the loan asks for his money back in this fashion. “Look, I loaned you the 20 because you promised to pay me back today.”

The other fellow says, “I know I promised, but I just don’t have it.”

“I don’t care that you don’t have it; I’ve got to have it, you promised—go get it somewhere else.” He is relentless about “asking” for his money back, until the borrower in exasperation finally goes and borrows it from somebody y else and pays him back.

The word in the original is a financial term today and its English equivalent is the contractual “due on demand.” We’re a little bit ahead of ourselves, but the example is exactly the picture that Jesus was painting here.

 ⁸I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

The NKJV replaced the word used in the KJV “importunity” with “persistence.” This is rather interesting because a 17th century Webster’s dictionary defines the word importunity as “impudence” whereas today’s dictionary gives the definition persistence.

The word in the original means lack of awe, and the context certainly indicates that it means persistently without any awe.

Do what persistently without any awe? Demand that God gives us something. Keep impudently demanding UNTIL we get what it is we are promised. What is it that is being demanded? Remember “throw your mother from the train a kiss?” That is the kind of balled up (to an American) syntax as in this passage.

The object of this persistent, impudent demanding is more of God’s own Spirit all the way down in verse 13 for a particular need!

We will come back to the end a bit later, but let’s go back and start at the top with what is commonly referred to as the “Lord’s Prayer.”

First thing we need to see in Luke’s account is that Jesus gave this instruction in response to his disciples nagging at him: “C’mon, Rabbi, show us how you pray. After all, John (the Baptist and Jesus’ cousin) taught his disciples how he prayed.”

Jesus replied, “Okay, when you pray, emphatically state….”

Several years ago I saw a videotape of a guy who had a huge church in some town outside of Dallas. He was giving a teaching on the “Lord’s Prayer” and he pointed out that what Jesus was doing was telling his disciples that when they prayed they were to stand…and stomp their foot to emphasize their demands.

My aforementioned psychiatrist friend and I would walk and pray together on the beach (anywhere from 25 to 50 yards apart) out of earshot of each other due to the sound of the surf, and I would catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye jabbing his fist into the air for the same reason, emphatically talking to his Dad.

By the way, the only way to accurately translate the word Jesus used that was translated as “Father” is Dad, Daddy or for those more inclined to the European flavor, Papa. It is a very informal and intimate word, but to translate it as an austere Father just goes to prove the problem with religious tradition.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Remember “throw your mama from the train a kiss…” (from now on tymfttak)

How would we say it in good old American English? “Our one and only perfect Daddy who lives in the unseen realm of the Spirit” —one and only perfect is the exact meaning of the words lumped into “hallowed”—as far as the seeming jumble just remember tymfttak.

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done,” “The place from which you alone rule is firmly established in me, so that I will speak into existence here on this physical plane what you have already declared in the unseen realm to be your desire and purposes.”

“Give us this day our daily bread” “Give me today the perfect food, Your own Spirit *”

* “who became the man Jesus” is the addition of one friend.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“I release and send away all feelings of criticism and judgment that I am holding against anyone I perceive to have wronged me—so that I can walk in your perfect forgiveness.”

(tymfttak).

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one…”

“Lead me away from temptation to criticize or judge anyone; deliver me from the evil one who prompts me to do this” (tymfttak).

Then Jesus continued his instructions on how to pray. “Get a picture in your mind of an old friend who is passing through in the middle of the night and you have nothing to feed him. So you go to your closest friend and neighbor and you knock on his door. He yells down from his bedroom that his family is asleep and to go away.

But no, you persist and keep knocking and tell him to lend you three loaves of bread so you can give your friend passing through something to eat. I tell you that just because you are his good friend and neighbor he wouldn’t give to you, but because of your lack of awe and your persistence he will come down and give you everything you need. So I tell you that whoever demands and knocks in this way will get; whoever keeps on doing this until he sees it actually happen, it will happen. So keep on doing this until it does happen.”

If a child asks for bread from any dad among you, will you give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will you give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being far less than perfect, yet know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more of His own Holy Spirit will your perfect Dad in heaven give to those who keep on demanding in the way a child demands?

Jeanne, when I am up against any situation that I don’t know what to do about, I start knocking. Literally; I get off somewhere by myself and simply tell my perfect Dad that I have a promise and that is to have his Spirit and I Demand and continually knock or stomp my foot and continue until I see with clarity that God’s Spirit is upon me and I know exactly what to do.

Other than that, I know that Jesus prayed this very same model prayer. If we want to quit talking about Jesus and—as one of my friends says—start being Jesus, he has given us a road map to follow.

I want to get into a bit of interesting theology related to this last bit, if you will permit. But I put it in your hands—you’re the interviewer.

18

WELL, BRAD, THERE GOES OBJECTIVITY. I received your response almost four hours ago. For four hours I have sat at my desk and my knuckles are sore (literally) from knocking and telling our Dad that I didn’t understand all this and I didn’t care. I wanted my Dad’s Spirit (I even said I didn’t care if it was Mommy or Daddy—but this made all the sense in the world to just trust) and kept knocking and demanding. I have never had such clarity in all my life; I know we are doing the right thing. I asked where we should go from here. And I heard loud and clear to ask you! (Over and out)

BC: Exciting, is it not? You have just played leap frog and sailed over the heads of loads of people who call themselves believers. Tragic but beautiful! Since you don’t know what to ask, I’ll just tell you what I want to tell you—two bits of theology.

One is totally relevant and pure truth (if you want to accept a Bible passage in the original language as a viable source).

The second is purely speculative even though I believe deeply in the probability that it is true.

It is offbeat and more than likely will provide the rationale for the mainline Christian folks (if there are any left in your audience) to discredit me. I will take a deep breath in between one and two and ask you for your comment, and give you the opportunity to get back in control of this interview. Here goes.

The passage is Acts 1: 1-8 and I will explain a little of the difference in understanding between two prevalent evangelical Christian groups. One is the Pentecostals, the other are primarily in the Baptist camp—although there are a number of groups within what I’m calling Baptists that have opened their minds, hearts and spirits to Charismata… Charismata are basically the supernatural moves or force of Holy Spirit through people, and this is the focus of those groups who refer to themselves as Pentecostal.

The primary doctrine that is similar between non-Pentecostal Baptists and Pentecostals is that they both believe in the “born again” experience of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and through which salvation and the entry card to heaven upon death of the physical body is gained.

Most Baptist-leaning groups fall into the “once saved, always saved” doctrinal position and most Pentecostal groups fall into the “salvation can be lost” position. It’s a verbal and doctrinal battle that neither side can win because on this side of things there is no way to prove either thesis.

What we are going to look at in this passage is something about which both groups, I believe, are misled through the obvious and apparently deliberate mistranslation of this passage.

Digression for a moment on the word translated as salvation. There are actually several words translated into the English word “saved” or “salvation.” The common passage that Baptists and Pentecostals lean on is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” The word in the original means to be “completed,” in other words, not saved from something, but actually brought together again—ending the separation between man and God.

Shortly after I first discovered this word sozo, pronounced so-dzo—a Greek man who owned fishing boats and a Greek Restaurant and a Greek foods market retained me for some consulting work. I asked him what the word meant; he told me it was a word that he would use to describe one of his boats when repairs are completed. So-dZO’ he said emphatically emphasizing the second syllable by bringing the palms of his hands flat together. Re-paired…joined together again…complete!

Back to the passage at hand; the writer is the same author that wrote the Gospel of Luke. Generally thought to be a physician and very precise and thorough in his writing.

¹” In my former book, Theophilus, ²I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

³After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. ⁴On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. ⁵For John baptized in water, but in a few days you will be baptized with (in or of) Holy Spirit.”

I have underlined the last sentence to emphasize that the term “The Baptism in Holy Spirit” has a legitimate Scriptural basis…here and in other passages.

⁶ “So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" ⁷He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when Holy Spirit comes on you; …”

This underlining is for the purpose of explaining that the word “power” here comes from the word dunamis pronounced doo-nah-meese. It is the same word that was used to translate what Jesus said in Aramaic—anyone who believes in me, will do the same works (dunamis) you have seen me do. The word means the ability to perform the supernatural. It is the same word from which the English word “dynamite” is derived. But dunamis is not that word.

“…and  you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The underlining in the foregoing is for the purpose of seeing the difference in beliefs of those in what I have lumped together as the “Baptist camp” and those among the Pentecostals. First, let’s look at the word translated as “witnesses” then we’ll see another example of KJV paraphrasing that causes some major stumbling, and is carried over into the accommodating of tradition by other translations to continue the misleading.

By the way, Jeanne, when I first discovered these words I went to a guy in the Assemblies of God organization who was known to be an expert in Biblical Greek—he agreed with my translation, but said, “Cullen, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.” A friendly argument between us ensued with him finally conceding, “Okay, you’re right, you’re right.”

Whether he conceded just because I wore him down, or because he saw it from my perspective I don’t really know, although he did seem to sincerely assure me that he agreed with my interpretation.

Back to “witnesses.” The word supplanted (notice I did not say “translated,” but supplanted, i.e., replaced by “witnesses” is martus pronounced mar-toose. martus is the root from which we get our English word “martyr.” Martyr, of course refers to an individual who is so committed to a person or a cause that he is willing to give up his life for it. But that’s martyr—not martus.

Martus literally means to be taken over by another power and to lose one’s identity to be replaced by another.

When Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will no longer be “you” but others will see (“witness”) me in you. This is what Jesus was saying and the original language leaves no doubt.

“Witnessing” waters down the Baptism in Holy Spirit that Jesus described—into talking about Jesus…where the passage clearly says that those who are taken over by Holy Spirit will be seen as Jesus!

Those in the Baptist camp say that being taken over by Holy Spirit is for the empowering to “witness” about Jesus Christ…a KJV invention!

Pentecostals make the argument that Holy Spirit baptism results in the ability to speak in languages learned supernaturally.

There is certainly a Scriptural basis for this in Acts chapter two… “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues.”

Literally, in the original language, languages not learned; in context, real languages— not gibberish as some would claim and perhaps engage in. Refer to the second chapter of Acts to see that these are real languages.

Some of the theological confusion comes from Paul’s discussion of “tongues”— in the 14th chapter of 1st Corinthians. That word is glossalia which has been translated as ecstatic speech and other like terms. Paul said about the subject, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all. But not in public gatherings where, unless there is someone to interpret it so all could understand, the speaker should keep it between himself and God.”

Later in the same chapter, he spoke regarding how to meet together; he clearly states that the speaking in tongues must not be forbidden, then laid out some rules for it.

To summarize what Paul said, it is a language from God to be used in conversation with God. He was proud of the fact that he had the ability and used it more than everyone else, but knock it off in public meetings unless somebody is there to interpret.

I would go further and say knock off the silly arguments about the subject. When I was still accepting engagements to speak in Pentecostal churches, I was fond of saying, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all—but that’s not the point,” and then  would launch into what Jesus was saying the Baptism in Holy Spirit was all about as per the foregoing discussion of Acts 1- 8.

Well, Jeanne, time for my promised breather. I leave it to you as to whether you want to change gears.

19

I HAVE BEEN AMAZED AND FASCINATED FROM THE beginning, Brad. As you started down this particular path, I was thinking editorially about how much of it had to be blue-penciled.

Now, I’m not at all sure it shouldn’t be left in. I am on the path of demanding God’s truth and I will keep on demanding what my part in all of this should be.

I do feel free to ask some questions, and hope that some of these questions are being asked by readers as well. I am convinced (now) that my role in all of this is not coincidental. This is a life changing experience for me.

What you said earlier about Mel’s and June’s problem being a “trust issue” went right over my head. I thought I was going to have to come back to it later and make some suggested changes.

For me, trust has become a leap of faith into the abyss I’ve referred to as God. If anyone had told me just a few weeks ago that I would be saying that I am demanding that God tell me something and I am going to continue demanding until I hear directly from God, I would have thought they were out of their minds!

I remember reading somewhere how it is dangerous to want anything—because you might just get it. This is what trust is all about for me. My perfect Daddy/Mommy is not going to give me a serpent when I ask for an egg. I want God’s truth and I am no longer afraid to demand it from God—and know that I will have it! Is this amazing or isn’t it?

Did you think it would happen to me when we started this project? One question that comes to mind, is it of any value to ask or demand to be able to speak in a language I haven’t learned by natural ways?

BC: Jeanne, I’ll leave that one between you and Holy Spirit. I’ve said it all with, “I thank God that I do.” Why not just continue demanding to receive more of God’s own Spirit and let God put the perfect package together that is tailored for you personally. I know many highly spiritual people within whom Jesus can be seen operating who do not speak in “other languages.”

As to your question, “Did you think it would happen to me when we started this project?” My answer is simply, it always does. I have met people in situations—mostly in business—that are practically atheists, who have had dramatic life changes by doing exactly what you are doing. Getting past the mind of the body we occupy and demand and keep demanding God’s own Spirit to guide us.

Recently a woman doctor had a life-changing experience. What is beautiful is that she now sees God in all her relationships and sees how she is being supported in them. In other words, I’ve merely been an insignificant vessel in the process. This is what is so freeing and what I was trying to get across to Mel. Just give up and let God work. You’ll do your part and God gets all the credit! Because it is God within that does the work. Exciting, no?

JS: Exciting yes! Dependence upon God is so simple. Just know that God is the Perfect Parent, and keep running to Spirit for everything! Every question; everything. Brad, I am ecstatic!

Well, Brad, you’ve had your breather. Get back to work!

20

OKAY, JEANNE, I’M BACK. I WROTE SEVERAL paragraphs and it was a struggle. I finally realized that I was attempting to write theology in a totally mental (as opposed to spiritual) state.

Your experience spoke volumes to me and I just deleted almost two pages and an hour’s worth of writing. Holy Spirit, I want you to write this or I want you to show me that it shouldn’t even be written!

Ah, Jeanne, back to freedom! It doesn’t need to be written and it is no big deal. It is/was an intellectual exercise that leads nowhere.

Now that I’m back on track…it is time for you to play your role of interviewer and me to respond. YOU get back to work! (Grin)

JS: Well, Brad, I just asked Spirit what I had intended to ask you. This is intriguing. I am beginning to see how easy it is to allow another human being to take on the position of spiritual mentor. I am so new at this that I just naturally wanted to lean on somebody who has more experience.

Why should I ask you, when Spirit is readily available and actually wants to guide me?

BC: Perfect question and answer, Jeanne. One of the guys who got delivered from being a church pastor, but stayed on at the church, Jim told me that it’s so much easier to just be one of the sheep and go eat in the pasture and invite his fellow sheep to come eat with him.

“When you approach ‘church’ this way,” he said, “the other sheep get to share the food they are getting, and it is such a feast!” He told me that by insisting on ministry in equality, a high percentage of the phone calls and visits he gets from church members are people wanting to share fresh insights from God, rather than coming to him with problems.

Pastoral counseling has been replaced by going to God together to get God’s counsel.

“Brad,” he said to me one day, “it just won’t work. Too many people want a leader other than Jesus, and it’s too tempting to fall back into that role. My ego loves being called ‘pastor.’ I never realized what a trap the whole thing is.”

Jeanne, my first reaction to not being needed by you was the very same thing. I was reveling in your spiritual breakthrough and wanted to control the direction of God’s leading. Totally ridiculous! I am beginning to see that this project of ours is also ego-driven.

JS: Amazing, Brad. That is the very same thing that I am getting. I am getting so comfortable in asking my Perfect Parent everything…. Spirit of God, should Brad and I be interviewing You and just get Your direction?

BC: Yes, Dad, this seems a way of escape for both of us. Is this from You? Jeanne, talk about bizarre, but truth. The answer I got so powerfully is, “yes.” Here is the reason that it is bizarre. I got that we should get “Dad,” or “Spirit” to answer and print the answer as

God’s in the same format that you’ve been using with JS: and BC:— how will this affect the audience? It is such an abrupt departure.

G: So? It seems to Me, Sunno, that you just said you wanted My direction and not that from human beings. Are readers your god?

BC: Who is “Sunno?”

G: Sunno is your spirit name. Do not be alarmed. The closest you could come in English to the meaning is being at once frivolous and fierce—a playful warrior….

BC: Is it all right to invite Jeanne back into this conversation?

G: Of course, henceforth you shall refer to her as Novi. It means seeker and finder of meaning and ultimate truth.

Novi: Who am I to argue. I noticed Sunno used “G” as Your title. How do you want us to refer to You?

S: You learn very quickly, Novi, and you are not as deliberate and calculating as Sunno. I want you to use S so that you will think of Me as totally separate and totally Spirit, for that is who I AM.

Sunno: I know that you said not to be frightened and I also know you called me deliberate and calculating. I immediately see why. This is such a departure from my theology—on the one hand it is totally freeing because I have no reference and cannot use the Bible or my past experiences as reference points that what Novi and I are caught up in and welcome so readily is of You.

On the other hand that is what is so freeing about it. I see the possibility of being calculating and deliberating in my thought and writing disappearing into the spontaneity of trusting Your voice.

How many times I have used the term “bondage” to describe the hold that religion and tradition has on others. Your question, “are readers my god?” jolted me into acknowledging not only that implied truth, but my own opinions, albeit—born out of my own experiences—have been my “god.” The questions in my mind now all reflect the truth of that!

I am not even going to attempt to articulate these questions…all of a sudden the questions don’t even matter. If what Novi and I are apparently discovering together doesn’t mesh with the thought processes of whatever audience has stayed with us this far—it could mean that the only benefactors of our “hearing” You directly, instead of needing some other reference, will be Novi and me.

S: No comment, Sunno, you are on a roll.

Novi: What I am seeing is that our individual proclivities to come at what appears to be “new” thought are basically the same. I do not see new personalities emerging, at least as yet. Can you explain this to me, or am I missing something?

S: This is why I introduced you to your real identities, that is, Sunno and Novi. These are not new names as you both suppose. These are your names from the beginning, which have brought their individuality to your physical identities.

Sunno: When you say “from the beginning….”

S: Novi, you will see that Sunno is already breaking new ground. He stopped his thinking process to tune into Me. This allows for My truth instead of speculation. The mind of the body you occupy, Sunno, has had small glimpses of who you really are for some time, that is, a spirit occupying a body rather than being a body with a spirit.

When I say “from the beginning” I AM not referring to “time” as the mind of the body you occupy understands it. To give you a new reference, “from the beginning” simply means before you were trapped in the body called Brad Cullen. You are not Brad Cullen, you are Sunno from the beginning.

You, Novi, are not Jeanne Stockwell; you are Novi from the beginning.

Novi: I see. There is no seniority here. Spirit is spirit and transcends the process of education and experience. I see the flaw in my previous thoughts about re-incarnation. Those thoughts are not relevant. It simply does not matter whether I occupied another body in the “past.” “Past lives” have nothing to do with who and what I am. I am Novi and have always been. I am one with You and have always been.

When I chose to occupy the body called Jeanne Stockwell to experience humanity I didn’t lose anything, I just lost sight of who I am. I also see the struggle Sunno is having remaining Sunno. As Brad, he has been able to see some things that enabled him to compare himself favorably to others. As Sunno he is purity and purity is.

Sunno: Yes, I see the struggle. It is the ego of Brad Cullen. Brad has wanted others to see what he was seeing and was frustrated because they couldn’t see it. Brad wasn’t seeing those things, Sunno is and was. Identity crisis merely wants to hold onto the unreality of the physical realm.

S: Where do you two want to go with this writing project?

Novi: You mean it is our choice?

S: Of course. Have I taken anything away from you?

Sunno: Well, Novi, we got here by asking S to take over. S, I prefer that you continue to guide and lead.

Novi: That is what I want as well. I do not want to go back to the blindness of physical “reality.” The song “Only You” comes to my mind—and I now understand without ever meeting her or talking to her (nor does that matter) Debbie Boone’s, “You Light Up My Life.” That was You.

S: Here is what I suggest: with your new understanding of who you are, go back to using your physical identities, but don’t revert to depending on the minds of the bodies you occupy. Rather than writing a book which would have an ending and would require you to write sequels, simply start circulating your e-mail addresses and let people write their questions and comments.

Answer each one individually and I will show you which to include in your dialogue between Jeanne Stockwell and Brad Cullen. Watch what I do with this; many will come and you do not need to worry about publishing or support. I will provide. Remember, I AM with you always.

Write your comments or questions to either Jeanne Stockwell or Brad Cullen. NOTE: We will reproduce questions and comments only that, in our judgment, stimulate general interest. Differing opinions will not be discarded because they differ, but this will not be a forum for religious disagreement.

You can reach both Brad and Jeanne at brad@spiritualhealingsource.com  Jeanne is frequently on assignment for a magazine article or series in various places around the world and prefers to stay in touch with Brad through his email.

This question was addressed to both Jeanne and Brad: “Novi” seems to have absolute clarity that does not, or did not exist before in “Jeanne.” The offhanded way she discarded whatever previous thoughts she held about reincarnation was nothing short of fascinating. I am interested in any comments that either of you have about the subject.

JS: I used to believe that I probably had a preexistence as one or more human beings in past lives—in other words, I was somebody else at some point. What I am seeing is that Novi could have observed and experienced the physical world many times over in a variety of people in history. It just no longer matters to me and I don’t feel the need to speculate about it.

BC: That is interesting, because I came to the same conclusion years ago. Most Christians resist the idea of reincarnation almost violently. The concept was certainly threatening to me and for years I refused to get into conversations about it. Until one day I stumbled onto a conversation between Jesus and one of his disciples. They came upon a man who was born blind.

“Why was this man born blind? Did his own sins cause it, or was it the sins of his parents?”

It is obvious from the question that the disciples believed in previous lives since he was born blind his own sins, if they were the cause, would have to have been committed in a former life.”

From Jesus’ answer there is no indication that he cared one way or the other about the possibility of reincarnation. He certainly didn’t correct the belief. He merely said that neither the man’s own sins, nor the sins of his parents caused his blindness. I like how Jeanne has come to rest with it…it just doesn’t matter.

This question was addressed to both Jeanne and Brad: Do you feel differently than you did before you were told your spirit names, Novi and Sunno?

JS: I certainly do. I am looking through the eyes of Jeanne, but thinking and seeing as Novi. It was an odd sensation at first, now it seems quite normal.

BC: Yes. Before, at some level, I had adopted the belief that I was a spirit occupying a body. Now I simply “know” it. The physical plane does look and feel different to me. Certainly far less important.

This question was addressed to Brad:

Have your beliefs about demons changed? And why couldn’t this “S” be a demon masquerading as God?

BC: My beliefs have not changed in the least. Your question is a legitimate one. I came across a formula for testing to see whether a spirit is of God. I have sent this formula by e-mail to this questioner. I am willing to share it with others who ask specifically for it.

This question was addressed to Jeanne:

What are the most significant changes in your life since you’ve become a Christian?

JS: To answer your question as honestly as I know how I will have to rephrase it. Before going through this interview process with Brad I would have referred to myself as a “Christian.”

For the reasons Brad has articulated, I find myself resisting applying the term Christian to myself. Therefore the question I will answer is, “What are the most significant changes in my life since I stopped calling myself a Christian?”

The answer to that question is that the most significant thing is taking what Jesus said seriously and applying these things to my own life. And when I see myself failing to do so, I’ve stopped making excuses, and started demanding more of God’s own Spirit so that I can stop failing.

This question was addressed to Jeanne:

I’ve noticed that you have changed the format. You are no longer interviewing Brad, but answering questions yourself along with Brad. I am wondering why?

JS: It was not a conscious decision. Being a writer I still revert to the thought about publishing. S told me not to worry about publishing, but the thought still crosses my mind. I’d make the title of a book—if it ever comes to that—“An Interview.” Now both of us are being interviewed and you are one of the interviewers.

I don’t look at Brad with the same kind of awe that I first did. As he says, why make a big thing out of one man doing what Jesus said to do? Since I can go directly to the Source, I don’t even feel curious about what Brad does or says. Brad, would you mind adding your “two cents” here?

BC: Amen, sister! I am writing “Amen, Sister” here with fierce intensity…and smiling to myself because S said that Sunno means frivolous and fierce—a playful warrior and I see that simply as a truth.

I fiercely agree with Jeanne on not giving one whit about what I say or do, because she goes directly to the Source. But I cannot help (nor do I want to stop) being playful about it!

This question was addressed to both Brad and Jeanne:

I really have difficulty referring to God as “S;” it seems almost blasphemous. Am I wrong?

JS: This one is all yours, Brad.

BC: Jeanne and I were told to refer to S as S as a reminder to us that S was separate and Spirit with a capital S…and I might add in my own freedom, “Source.” What does that have to do with you?

When God’s Spirit revealed himself to Moses and told him to go speak to the leader of Egypt to tell him to release the Jews from slavery he asked God whom he should say sent him?

God said, “Tell Pharaoh that ‘I AM’ sent you.” God didn’t seem to make a big issue out of everyone calling him I AM. What I am trying to say to you is, if you are uncomfortable in calling God “S,” then don’t. But why not follow Jesus’ instructions and demand your perfect Daddy to tell you what to call Him. I have a good friend that always refers to God as “Dad.” It makes some people very uncomfortable.

Most people that believe in God are more comfortable referring to God in the masculine gender. That’s tradition. Jesus said that God is genderless and Spirit—in that light, why don’t we refer to God as “it?” Why are we hung up on referring to God as a Him?

Tradition seems to be a reasonable answer.

Some prefer calling God “She.” Why are they hung up on that? Anti-male, anti-tradition…or perhaps anti-male-tradition? Who knows?

Is it a bad thing?” It is a non-issue unless it is an issue. To you, currently, it is an issue. Continue to demand and knock until you know what God wants you to call it/him/her—or combination thereof—get peace about it from the Source by whatever name.

This question was addressed to both Brad and Jeanne:

I have two questions. The first is why do you not ask S to answer questions rather than either of you? The second is would each of you describe the differences you see in the way the other responds to questions subsequent to your experiences with Sunno

and Novi?

JS: Brad and I agreed that we would each “pray” before we answered, but leave it up to the individual questioner as to whether our answers were inspired, or prophetic. As to your second question, I see Brad being less doctrinaire in his responses.

BC: I have an additional reason. I wish that everyone one would go to “S” or however they want to refer to Holy Spirit. Why go through a third party when you can go directly to the Source?

On the other hand it is fun to share how I am experiencing things. How I see Jeanne? I see her as being totally open…to God and to people. Before, she seemed focused on her career and identity as a writer. Now she just seems relaxed and at peace in her new awareness of who she really is without regard to anyone or anything.

This question was addressed to Brad:

You told Jeanne not to worry about pursuing tongues. My background is that of being urged to seek the Giver not the gift. Isn’t that what you were saying essentially?

BC: When I started questioning everything, not only pet doctrines, but even “plain Scripture” I saw that Paul indeed ranked gifts. Prophetic utterance outranked languages acquired supernaturally. On a closer look, in the original language, he was saying to eagerly hunger after them all.

He also asked the rhetorical questions, do all speak in tongues? Do all wield exceptional miracles? Do all heal? etc., clearly implying that no, “all” do not.

Looking back on what I said to Jeanne—why not want it all? I don’t have an answer for that. Hopefully what I said to Jeanne at the time was from Spirit. If it was, then it was for

Jeanne….

This question was addressed to Brad:

In all of your stories it seems implicit that healing must always come as a result of another person physically touching someone or as the result of demons being cast out. Is that your position?

BC: Good grief, I hope I don’t have any position whatsoever. Since God does the work I would imagine that there are unlimited ways that God would choose to do whatever God wants.

I remember reading a book about 20 years ago written by a man from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Don’t remember his name, but I do remember something of the title. I believe it was “Seven Ways Jesus Heals.” I highly recommend it to anyone as a real faith builder. He had a friend that was a dwarf…just three and a half feet tall who was healed and grew to some “normal” height—six foot, I believe. It was just one of many incidents that author wrote about. I remember sharing that story with someone who said, “Why wouldn’t it be a healing for the man to accept his height and rejoice in it?”

Okay…yet another way God can heal, why not? The reason I bring up this particular book is that while it opened my eyes to myriad possibilities, I realized later that seven ways didn’t cover it all by any means!

NOTE: Jeanne no longer uses an e-mail address. Brad still replies to all e-mail inquiries, though neither inquiries nor responses are any longer published.

>>> End of Article <<<

Conclusion – James Robertson

This account of low key miracles performed by someone who took it seriously that they could do the same and greater works than Yahooshua should challenge EVERY Believer – this is available to YOU.

May Father bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you and grant you His Peace

May Yah judge me severely and correct me harshly and show me the level of my present deception and how to correct it with regard to everything that I write and publish

Warm regards and blessings,

Dr James A Robertson

Spokesman and Emissary of Yah

End Time Issue Ministries

02 October 2022

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Friday’s broadcast -- The Essence of my message regarding the Poverty of Believers

I was requested to write a piece about how Believers in financial lack could get out of that situation.  That is the aim of this broadcast.  Following are the points to consider, as always this article is only relevant to committed Believers.

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6980171606882934784/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbAZVtVoW8E

Audio on DropBox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ji46abdo20zbos/2022_09_30_Essence_of_Poverty_of_Believers.mp3?dl=0

Back issues of broadcasts at:

Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/relationship-with-creator/id1447290561

Audible https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Relationship-with-Creator-Podcast/B08JK2WLHN

Podchaser https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/relationship-with-creator-772533   

See also:

The biggest error crippling Mature Anointed Believers see https://www.ETI-Ministries.org/biggest-error-crippling-mature-anointed-believers

YouTube Why Seek Relationship: https://youtu.be/bvSLs-T0Q0U  

YouTube on Global Flood: http://www.YouTube.com/user/ProofOfGlobalFlood  

Copyright: You are free to use this material any way you choose subject only to consideration of what you will face on the Day of your Judgment.

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