Tag Archives: Charismactivism

Economic Justice, Politics, Racial Justice, Spirituality

Why Justice activists need spiritual healing

04/15/2021 Faith Van Horne Leave a comment

(This article also appears at Just Theology.)

Christians who take Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats seriously understand that we are called to serve “the least of these” in love. In addition to individual acts of mercy, many have come to understand that providing aid to “the least” means addressing the systems of inequality that skew our collective resources toward “the most” instead. This leads to various expressions of justice activism.

I am by no means a fervent activist. While I have attended some protests, I am more likely to express my convictions through letter writing, phone calls, donations, conversations, prayer, and service. Yet I know members of my seminary, friends, and those in local activist communities give more of themselves and take much greater risks. And I know activist efforts take a toll. My friends have suffered compassion fatigue, burnout, and shame and guilt at not being able to offer more when community demands are pressing. Working for justice takes a physical and emotional toll. It takes a spiritual toll as well.

Continue reading →

Nonviolence, Spirituality

Three Biblical Methods for Handling Conflict

07/05/2020 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

We are called by Jesus to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), resolving conflicts as we go forth to spread the Gospel about his love. Peace is always dependent on at least two parties, which is why we might experience conflict even when our intention is peace.

This is why Paul writes “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom 12:18). We try our best on our part, and pray that the other respond constructively.

What does this look like in practice? God seems to be very concerned with us asking that question, since the Bible provides us with several practical tools for conflict resolution and peacemaking.

1. Breaking the cycle of hostility

The first tool is given to us by Paul right after he says that we should seek to live at peace with everyone. He continues: Continue reading Three Biblical Methods for Handling Conflict →

Spirituality

Some Great Charismatic Bible Teaching to Keep You Occupied in Self-Quarantine

03/31/2020 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

I have a tradition: when I get sick, I listen to John Wimber. The former leader of the Vineyard movement who went home to God in 1997 is my absolute favorite theologian and he often talks about healing and hope, which is encouraging when one’s own health fails. His Bible studies on evangelism, poverty reduction and discipleship are just as good.

I especially love when he connects these topics with his charismatic theology as a true charismactivist! Wimber’s charismatic ministry is characterized by a great deal of realism, caution and humility, where suffering finds room alongside healing.

My wife Sarah and I are, like millions of others around the world, isolated in our home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In my case, this means more time for writing and reading, but I also like to listen to good teaching and this is a golden opportunity for me to return to John Wimber’s fantastic lecture series from the “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth” conference in Pasadena 1985. Fortunately, these lectures are still on YouTube.

In addition to teaching, Wimber devotes much time in these videos to his “clinic” with prophetic words and prayers for the sick, where several healings are captured by the camera in real-time. Continue reading Some Great Charismatic Bible Teaching to Keep You Occupied in Self-Quarantine →

Spirituality

Great Podcast Episodes to Increase Your Worship and Compassion

07/28/2019 Micael Grenholm Leave a comment

In the 1990’s, the Vineyard movement was given the prophetic name “Worship and Compassion”, which accurately portrays the double-edged sword of the movement as it tries to find the radical middle between evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. Other Pentecostals and Charismatics can learn a lot from how Vineyarders integrate peace and justice in their charismatic life.

Our friends at Vineyard Justice Network recently promoted The Ferment Podcast in which Vineyarders as well as other Christians are asked about their thoughts on worship and transformation. I would like to highlight a few episodes of special interest to PCPJ members:

Tina Colón Williams, on being both a worship pastor and an immigration attorney.

Sam Yoder, on journeying from being old-order Amish to a worship song writer.

Carol Wimber-Wong, on the origin of the Vineyard movement and its roots in evangelical Quakerism.

See our other podcast tips here.

Micael Grenholm is editor-in-chief for PCPJ.

Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Economic Justice, Spirituality

Liberating Fire: How a Christian Activist Was Transformed by the Gifts of the Spirit

01/21/2019 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

Heidi Baker and Bill Johnson were transformed at The Toronto Blessing. But, have you heard of Bob Ekblad?

He was a radical. Rejected by evangelical churches. Opposed by Central American dictatorships.

But he felt like his gospel wasn’t strong enough to meet the needs of the poor he was serving. Then, God did something new.

Watch this brand-new documentary by our friends at The Wind Vane Project right here:

Read more about the ministry of Bob Ekblad and The People’s Seminary.

Gender Equality, Nonviolence, Spirituality

The Prophetic Foresight of Denis Mukwege

12/14/2018 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

I’ve just had the privilege of listening to Dr. Denis Mukwege as he visited Stockholm. PMU and Läkarmissionen, two Christian aid organizations that have supported Mukwege and the Panzi Hospital for decades. We celebrated Mukwege with music, speeches and donations. Among other things, we sang Mukwege’s favorite hymn, “The Promises will Never Fail” (Löftena kunna ej svika) by Swedish Pentecostal leader Lewi Pethrus, in Swedish and Swahili.

Missionary and nurse Kerstin Åkerman pointed out how prophetic Mukwege is. He has this ability – naturally or supernaturally – to have a visionary mindset and see things before they happen. For example, he stressed the importance of starting the building process of the Panzi Hospital quickly in 1998. Nobody understood why.

One week after the governor had initiated construction, the Second Congo War broke out. Kerstin realized that if the hospital had not claimed the land, the government would have wanted to use it for their purposes. Mukwege could see that before everyone else.

Skärmavbild 2018-12-15 kl. 12.52.53 — Mukwege at Stockholm Waterfront. Photo: PMU on Instagram (@pmuinterlife)

As Mukwege received the Nobel Peace Prize last Monday, I had the privilege of being published in Sojourners, one of the biggest Christian journals with a focus on peace and justice. Among other things, I pointed out:

Historically, Pentecostalism originated from the Holiness Movement, which had a clear emphasis on social justice and helping the poor. It also had a high view of gender equality, allowing women to preach. This was also true for early Pentecostalism, even though it quickly conformed to the normative patterns of male dominance that was prevalent in other church movements. Early Pentecostals were also predominantly pacifist and champions for peace in times of world wars.

With this history in mind, it makes sense that Mukwege does not need to fuse his Pentecostal faith with something else in order to become a feminist activist, fighting for peace and women’s rights. I believe this is at the heart of Pentecost. We read in the Holy Scriptures that the consequence of the Holy Spirit’s outpouring on the apostolic church was not merely tongues and healing, but also economic redistribution and social equality (Acts 2:42-47).

Mukwege is a great representative and role-model for the world’s 600 million Pentecostals and charismatics. I hope that we will follow his example of combining spiritual gifts with activism for a better world.

To support the Panzi Hospital, please donate to PMU or donate to the Panzi Foundation.

Micael Grenholm is editor-in-chief for PCPJ.

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Creation Care, Spirituality

Why Are We To Choose Between Healing the Sick and Caring for the Environment?

10/22/2018 pcpjwriter Leave a comment

by Vincent Mossberg.

We Christians believe that God is the creator of the world. In Genesis 1:28, God gives mankind the original plan for our existence – to be fruitful and multiply – but also to have dominion and stewardship over the animals and the earth that God has given to us. God is generous in character and by nature good, and He made us free and responsible. So what? How should we humans then steward the earth?

An analogy that for me has become a symbol for the lack of stewardship is the deprivation of the blue whale population. The blue whale is the largest creature that we have seen and identified on the earth, even larger than the largest known dinosaur. Yet they are so shy that whenever they see humans, they dive into the depths of the sea. Also, we don’t know where they give birth or really much about them.

In the beginning of the twentieth century there were 400,000 blue whales in the ocean, but today there are only 10,000 left because of whale hunting. Yes, species have always gone extinct, but today the extinction rate is a thousand times faster than before the time of man. Within the freedom that we have been given, these things are possible, but they are not responsible. Might these be examples of mankind straying away from our original purpose? Continue reading Why Are We To Choose Between Healing the Sick and Caring for the Environment? →

Creation Care, Spirituality

Four Ways an Apostolic Lifestyle will Solve the Climate Crisis

10/15/2018 Micael Grenholm 2 Comments

You thought that we had enough wars, hunger, and diseases. You thought that the current refugee crisis was big. You thought that natural disasters were too severe already.

Well, you were wrong.

The recent IPCC report cannot be taken lightly. It is based on 6,000 scientific studies and has received input from 40,000 peer-reviews. This is the scientific consensus. It’s time we stop getting distracted by climate change deniers and face the facts.

And the facts are that we are heading right into enormous environmental disasters that will kill and hurt hundreds of millions of people.

There is still time to change course, but it has to be done immediately. The modern, Western lifestyle is doomed. Either we choose to abandon it, or we will be forced to do so when the climate crisis hits. Many are confused as they are not sure how they ought to live in order to reduce their ecological impact on others.

What if I told you that we as Christians have had the solution to this problem for 2,000 years? What if I told you that if we simply lived like the early Christians, there would be no climate change? Continue reading Four Ways an Apostolic Lifestyle will Solve the Climate Crisis →

Economic Justice, Spirituality

Signs, Wonders and Social Justice

05/11/2018 Micael Grenholm 3 Comments

You know what’s awesome? Miracles! You know what’s also awesome? Social justice! Let’s combine the two, like Jesus did. The Spiritual gifts that God has equipped His church with are supposed to be used to serve others (1 Peter 4:10), and obviously our activism for a more equal and just world will be even more effective when the Holy Spirit empowers us with supernatural abilities. A couple of years ago, I held a lecture on this idea of charismactivism:

It’s obvious that miracles and social justice go hand-in-hand in the Holy Scriptures: the Old Testament prophets exercised many miraculous gifts while promoting the rights of the poor and marginalised (see for example the book of Amos); Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons right before His famous Sermon on the Mount about social ethics (Mt 5); and as the apostolic church was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues they eradicated the gap between rich and poor through community of goods (Acts 2).

In the lecture, I go through these and other relevant Bible passages, as well as sharing testimonies from people today who combine miracles and social justice, like Simon Adahl and Heidi Baker. I also bring up and criticize theologians and philosophers who deny the existence of miracles (or at least its presence in the life of the ordinary believer), like David Hume, Rudolf Bultmann and John MacArthur. Enjoy the video!

Economic Justice, Spirituality

Shane Claiborne on His “Charismatic DNA” and When He Ministered With Bill Johnson

04/11/2018 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

Shane Claiborne’s Red Letter Revival in Lynchburg, Virginia, was a success. Not only did it gather 300 people celebrating Jesus and justice, but it also caught a lot of media attention thanks to Jerry Falwell Jr’s Liberty University.

The letter sent to Shane Claiborne (click to enlarge)

Shane had asked Falwell Jr., who is a passionate Trump supporter, if he could come and pray at the University. Rather than receiving a respectful “no”, he was sent a letter from the Liberty University Police Department telling him that he would be put in jail and/or fined 2,500 dollars if he just showed up at the University grounds. The threat was similar to the one Pentecostal speaker and author Jonathan Martin received in November when he tried to organize a prayer there.

It’s ironic, to say the least, that a Christian University will arrest and prosecute those who pray – I’m telling you, pray – at their campus. It’s also ironic that Falwell Jr. killed the campus newspaper story about the Claiborne incident while claiming that free speech is a core value of his school.

If you haven’t already, you should check out the comments Claiborne made on Trump and American idolatry in an interview with us. In this post, I want to share some of the other things he said in that interview regarding miracles, revival, and Bethel Church pastor Bill Johnson.

I asked him if he thinks that it’s possible that God can help us in our social justice campaigning by doing miracles? Continue reading Shane Claiborne on His “Charismatic DNA” and When He Ministered With Bill Johnson →

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