"APOSTOLIC" APOSTASIES ATTRACT

Extreme Charismatics Increasingly Adopt "Emerging" Pagan Practices

Yoga. Centering Prayer. Lectio Divina. Evangelical Monasticism. Practicing the Presence. Stations of the Cross. Labyrinth Prayer. These are but a few of the teachings and techniques we've noted that are bombarding evangelical churches of all denominations, largely in association with the Emerging Church Movement (ECM). But while much recent biblical discernment has been focused on the errors and excesses of the ECM, another "renewal" has been taking place in the revived Latter-Rain and Kingdom-Now camps related to C. Peter Wagner's "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) that poses equal concern with regard to the Emerging Apostasy.

It may surprise some that the best-selling author/leaders in the NAR have key beliefs in common with the best-selling author/leaders of the ECM, which position both groups for a "melding of the minds." Among the common denominators are a general distaste for exegetical (verse-by-verse) preaching, a disdain of dispensational teaching (particularly the rapture, which is frequently mocked), and a "dominion mandate" doctrine that expands the gospel of God to include redemption of the earth through social-spiritual activism. The NAR and ECM also share a "trans-denominational" (ecumenical and pluralistic) mission of "inclusion" at the expense of sound doctrine.

Not surprisingly, then, is perhaps their greatest common denominator: an affinity for (and outright embrace of) Contemplative Spirituality. A particularly visible example is the Arizona-based organization of Patricia King called "Extreme Prophetic." Through a myriad of conferences and audio/visual media that includes a TV program, her ministry promotes not just "ordinary" miracles but "extreme signs and wonders" as taught by a variety of Christian seers and psychics--such as interpreting dreams, providing "spiritual readings" for the lost, "opening the heavens" to release the "manifest presence" of God (i.e., oil and "glory dust"), working with angels, raising the dead, "spirit-traveling" to the third heaven (throneroom of God), communicating with departed saints, and more.
Once recognized by a majority of the church as New Age occultism, these practices are now becoming commonplace (or at least commonly sought) at an alarming rate by confused Christians, immature believers, and unsaved spiritual seekers who are all hungry for a "manifest" encounter with God, "here and now." As occultism gains popular acceptance in the world, so does the craving for "genuine" (tangible) signs as encouraged by neo-prophetic teachers.

One of the more recent and blatant examples of neo-paganism in the church, however, is Patricia King's endorsement and embrace of trance-dancing as a Christian form of worship that she and Caleb Brundidge, one of her itinerant ministers, call "Ekstasis Worship." Brundidge is a traveling "prophetic" D.J. that calls his show "Club Mysterio." (Repetitive "rave" or "trance" music has been so-called because nightclubs around the world use it to enable patrons to enter a euphoric altered state of consciousness--with or without the assistance of drugs such as "ecstasy"--through extended freestyle and sensual motion set to repetitive music tracks.

It doesn't take an anthropologist to recognize parallels between modern trance dancing and ancient forms of ritual dance that is still used in many cultures to produce identical altered states and "spirit travel." But what many may not know is the increasing popularity of "yoga trance dance," which could well become the new "jazzercize" that turns this form of Hindu worship into an aerobic activity for "everyday" gym members.

Space does not permit a full analysis with comparison to Scripture, but as the quotes below reveal, patrons of Brundidge's "Club Mysterio" may indeed feel "ecstasy"--but rather than realizing the true joy of the Lord, they might experience either a "head rush" from spinning in circles (a practice of the "whirling dervishes" of Islamic mysticism) or they could meet instead an angel of light--one of the same "divine" deceivers as encountered by yogic dancers seeking all-night tantric pleasure with Hindu deities.

Which brings us to an ancient-future spiritual law: "apostasies attract." With "Christian yoga" and mystical methods for "meeting God" on the rise--and "Christian trance-dancing" now in vogue, what other "Christianized" demonic practices lie ahead?

[D.J. Caleb Brundidge's quotes below are transcribed from Patricia King's "Extreme Prophetic TV" show, interspersed with quotes taken from online testimony and promotion of yoga trance-dancing to show the parallel experiences.]

          
          Yogic Nightclub Dancer:

          "In searching for my personal connection with Shiva Nataraj, to best explain these roots of 
           trance dancing from ancient India, I felt I needed to go deeper than books, however."
 

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:

"You no longer have to study the word, when you're inside of an infused atmosphere, it becomes part of you."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:

"Infused with pure love for the Lord [Shiva Nataraj] and all that he represents, I let myself drift back through the ages until I was a young devadasi performing a tantric [sensual] trance dance somewhere in South India."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:

"Ekstasis worship is worship that when you go outside of your mind, and just release yourself into abandoned worship with God, going into the ecstasy [as in sensual union] of God."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:

"Lost in this ancient trance, I felt my love for Shiva grow deeper all night, consuming me. I saw his essence in everyone and everything around me....The techno beat morphed in my head into the shrill song of a shenai, the rhythmic clanging of temple bells reverberating in an ancient stone temple, and the mesmerizing drone of devotional songs being repeated over and over again."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:

"With the rhythm, the sound, and the repetiveness of the music, the word is driven into your body, not just your mind, not just your soul, but the whole mind, body, and soul."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:

"Ecstatically allowing the Nataraja trance to overtake me, I felt my body gyrate in unfamiliar ways that seemed as old as Shiva himself. What were these odd movements, these provocative dance steps from another millennium?"

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:

"Ekstasis worship, even in our prayer and in our movement, it's about dancing...feeling it in your body, giving your body to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. Begin to whirl and twirl.... [Unexplained] things begin to happen...."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:

"I was able to leave my body and observe myself in this new/old incarnation. I realized that every motion the devadasi makes carries import, a message of devotion. The trance dance spiraled me into the deep meanings of these movements, and I instinctually found myself expressing a vast range of emotions that described the many manifestations of Shiva Nataraj."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:

"When you dance out...your emotion and love for Jesus Christ, something happens, not only in the spiritual, but in the natural, and in the force.... When we're making decrees and we're praising God, the music and you're jumping, and you're dancing and you're moving around, the words that we're speaking becomes one at a cellular level in your body. An' its not like you're learning it, it becomes part of who you are."

Yoga Trance Dance Website:

"The contemporary explorations of this state of rhythmic-induced meditation are reclaiming "trance" as an accessible experience of embodied communion where the observer dissolves into the power of now, the flow, the dance."

["Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." --1 Timothy:4:1]