Showing posts with label Kenneth Hagin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenneth Hagin. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2014

Seeking Unity With Evangelicals - But On What Basis?

Today Charismanews published a piece detailing a meeting that Pope Francis had with some evangelical leaders - among them Kenneth Copeland.  If I understand properly, the Holy Father recorded a greeting, telecast to several of the leaders' congregations, in which he expressed a "desire that Christians would become family and not be divided".  Ladies and gentlemen, let's "cut to the chase", shall we?  There is only one way that can happen, and that is if these congregations, from the pastors on down, convert to the Roman Catholic Faith - the One True Church.  Only in the Roman Catholic Church can they find the fullness of Christ's teachings and the Sacraments that He instituted.  I realize that most of them were born into their respective denominations and have little culpability for schism, but they still must "cross the Tiber" as it were.

According to James Robison (one of the evangelical leaders in attendance), the Holy Father "challenged Catholics never try to control the Holy Spirit but yield to Him".  We Catholics understand what that means, but do the evangelical leaders have that same understanding - particularly Kenneth Copeland and John Arnott?

Copeland is a huge promoter of a vary dangerous spiritual practice known under various names: slain in the spirit, resting in the spirit, drunk in the spirit, Toronto blessing (owing to Arnott's contribution to it), soaking prayer, holy laughter (I'm sure there are others).  I've seen this with my own eyes - several times.  Before the reform of the Mother of God Community in the mid 1990s, the practice was becoming commonplace there before Cardinal Hickey definitively forbade it.  I myself never joined in for I could sense the spiritual danger in submitting to an experience that had basis in neither Holy Scripture nor the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

Below I post a video of one such "holy laughter" session featuring Kenneth Copeland.  In the beginning, the late Kenneth Hagin is leading the meeting (when he can stand up without babbling, that is).  Toward the middle Copeland can be seen next to him as they're both sprawled on the floor - I believe he's wearing a white jacket and red shirt.  Here is the write-up from where I got the video.  The author's observations closely correlate to my own from almost 20 years ago.  The behaviors of the various people are quite identical to what I saw in MOG before Cardinal Hickey's intervention.  I'd like to point out that I later did some research into this phenomenon and discovered some reason for my own instinctive revulsion; the practice is heretical and is steeped in eastern religious and even occultic practices.

Does it sound like I'm digressing from the Pope's meeting to Copeland's heresies?  Not really.  If we don't understand that without a solid, explicitly-stated basis in the Fullness of truth that can be found in the Roman Catholic Church, practices such as the "slain in the spirit" stuff can seduce the unwary - as it did so many of my friends.  Now the video.