“God, says Bill Johnson, has ideas; he puts them into words and speaks them. And those words form inside the heart of surrendered individuals, and from that comes a demonstration of who Jesus is.” Chris Rosebrough asks “where is he getting this – and much else – from? Bible verse please.” (“Birthing the what? Last 45 minutes, Rosebrough’s “Fighting for the faith.”).

Johnson continues: “The Lord wants to bring forth something out of every life, out of every heart, something that is absolutely impossible. God loves manifesting himself through your gifts, your history, your family, the good the bad and the ugly. He loves being recognised by others as your God in the midst of that. I’m not wanting to do a study of the gospels, I just want to say, you’ve got your story too, and Jesus is wanting to bring something out of the impossible through you. I want to challenge every believer. There is a miracle that God has been planning in eternity past, a miracle, something impossible,something that can only be brought forth in its purest form through you. It cannot be done by someone else. it is a representation of this wonderful saviour, this wonderful king, it cannot be brought forth accurately, powerfully, purely except through you. The world is looking for, the expression of Jesus through you. You’re highly favoured (Johnson compares believers with the mother of Jesus, but on a less exalted level), set aside for the impossible.”

And to our title:

“I want to see the expression of Jesus in and through you in ways that the world is aching for. Some of you carry some gifts and praises on you that are so unique that there is a gospel to be written. Every one of you has a gospel story that can be only told through your life experience. There’s a book to be written in and through your experience with this wonderful saviour that will touch people whether it’s the Greeks or the Romans.There’s a gospel story to be written through your life, by countless numbers of people that will represent him (the saviour) well in a way they can relate to. And that’s the miracle of this mother’s day.

The last sentence explains Rosebrough’s title “Birthing the what?” Only mothers give birth. You o man can birth too, so mother’s day is also for you.

I ask: Is the world really aching to see the expression of Jesus in and through me, or Bill Johnson or anyone? Absolutely not. The world doesn’t give a toss. Ask Jesus: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you (John 15:18).

Here, in a similar vein to Johnson, is Walter Brueggemann.

Brueggemann distinguishes between “certitude” and “fidelity.”

For Brueggemann, any interaction between 1. certitude, which he considers limited because it is restricted to a single meaning (univocity) and 2. fidelity, should be frowned upon. We should, therefore, be open, as Jacques Derrida says,, to “an unlimited number of contexts over an indefinite period of time,” and thus for an unrestricted interaction. The main focus of the Bible, for Brueggemann, is suffering persons desiring to tell their personal stories. For Brueggemann, there is no such thing as the (objective) True story, but only hurting people telling their “true-for-me” stories, which are the only stories that ultimately matter. And if the Bible stories are able to buck – and back – them up, thank you Holy Spirit.

Jesus says: The Truth will make you certain and free. Brueggemann says The Truth will make you uncertain and flee.

The Truth necessarily brings suffering and makes you feel very unsafe. Unsafe in the world, yes; for the supernatural reason that the biblical story clashes with the world’s story/stories (the world system).

This is what the Cross means to Brueggemann: “The symbol of that (fidelity) is the way of the cross. The way of the cross is always to be departing certitudes so that we may be in the company of Jesus.” Now, one can feel certain about something yet it may not be true, that is, objectively true (Truth). In Brueggemann, however, “certitude” is synomymous with Truth; as we read earlier, he says “certitude” is restricted to a single meaning (univocity), that is the normal meaning of words; in their context, of course.

According to Brueggemann, fidelity means being in the company of the crucified Jesus, but this can only become a reality if we “depart” from our “certitudes;” If language has consensual meanings, I presume Brueggemann means by “certitudes,” all certitudes. Surely, though, if we are to be faithful (fidel) to the way of the cross, as Brueggemann suggests, we need to be certain that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Derrida, Jean Paul Sartre, Andre Gide, Albert Camus, as well as every postmodernist, poststructuralist, deconstructionist, in fact, anyone who doesn’t believe in Certitude, would ask the question: “What fun’s left once you find the Messiah, once you’ve found the “Cross?” After all, the ideal, says Renan, is fundamentally a utopia. What is more utopian than Truth? (See my Certainty and Fidelity in Biblical Interpretation: The Deconstruction of Walter Brueggemann).

Where do Bill Johnson and Walter Brueggemann get all this stuff from? It seems that Postmodernism has influence Brueggemann. And Bill Johnson? He’s into contemplative Spirituality. In his Sozo manual on inner healing, he writes:

“Sozo is a Christian based prayer ministry helping to heal people from the effects of sin and wounding, of delivering individuals from the resulting influence, control and dominion of the demonic, and of restring them to relationship with God. This is accomplished through prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, during which He uncovers past and present lies believed, reveals sin issues, as well as points of entry or access. When we remove the ground for this access, the spirits lose their ability and right to influence and control our lives. It is then that blessing and obedience can be established. The primary purpose of Sozo, at its best, is to move through healing and freedom, and into restoration of the relationship with Papa God and out of that relationship, to reestablish destiny, purpose and direction.” (Mamma Papa God from the Shack?)

Sozo (which, by the way, means “salvation”) reminds me of the French Jesuit, Jean-Pierre Causssade, famous among Roman Catholic contemplatives for his book “Abandonment to divine providence,” highly recommended by Thomas Keating, founding member and spiritual guide of “Contemplative outreach” beyond the monastery into the home. Here is an excerpt from Caussade. For him, the Gospel is merely “a tiny stream” in comparison to the river that God wants to pour into us. If, however, you want the river to swim in you, you’ll need a guide – like Thomas Keating. Caussade is describing the gospel that he is writing on contemplative hearts:

The Holy Spirit has pointed out in infallible and incontestable characters, some moments in that ocean of time, in the Sacred Scriptures. In them we see by what secret and mysterious ways He has brought Jesus before the world. Amidst the confusion of the races of men can be distinguished the origin, race, and genealogy of this, the first-born. The whole of the Old Testament is but an outline of the profound mystery of this divine work; it contains only what is necessary to relate concerning the advent of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has kept all the rest hidden among the treasures of His wisdom.

From this ocean of the divine activity He only allows a tiny stream to escape, and this stream having gained its way to Jesus is lost in the Apostles, and has been engulfed in the Apocalypse; so that the history of this divine activity consisting of the life of Jesus in the souls of the just to the end of time, can only be divined by faith. As the truth of God has been made known by word of mouth, so His charity is manifested by action. The Holy Spirit continues to carry on the work of our Saviour. While helping the Church to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, He writes His own Gospel in the hearts of the just. All their actions, every moment of their lives, are the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. The souls of the saints are the paper, the sufferings and actions the ink. The Holy Spirit with the pen of His power writes a living Gospel, but a Gospel that cannot be read until it has left the
press of this life, and has been published on the day of eternity. Oh! great history! grand book written by the Holy Spirit in this present time! It is still in the press. There is never a day when the type is not arranged, when the ink is not applied, or the pages are not primed.

We are still in the dark night of faith. The paper is blacker than the ink, and there is great confusion in the type. It is written in characters of another world and there is no understanding it except in Heaven. If we could see the life of God, and behold all creatures, not as they are in themselves, but as they exist in their first cause; and if again we could see the life of God in all His creatures, and could understand how the divine action animates them, and impels them all to press forward by different ways to the same goal, we should realize that all has a meaning, a measure, a connexion in this divine work. But how can we read a book the characters of which are foreign to us, the letters innumerable, the type reversed, and the pages blotted with ink?

Teach me, divine Spirit, to read in this book of life. I desire to become Your disciple and, like a little child, to believe what I cannot understand, and cannot see. Sufficient for me that it is my Master who speaks. He says that! He pronounces this! He arranges the letters in such a fashion! He makes Himself heard in such a manner! That is enough. I decide that all is exactly as He says. I do not see the reason, but He is the infallible truth, therefore all that He says, all that He does is true. He groups His letters to form a word, and different letters again to form another word. There may be three only, or six; then no more are necessary, and fewer would destroy the sense.

He who reads the thoughts of men is the only one who can bring these letters together, and write the words. All has meaning, all has perfect sense. This line ends here because He makes it do so. Not a comma is missing, and there is no unnecessary full-stop. At present I believe, but in the glory to come when so many mysteries will be revealed, I shall see plainly what now I so little understand. Then what appears to me at present so intricate, so perplexing, so foolish, so inconsistent, so imaginary, will all be entrancing and will delight me eternally by the beauty, order, knowledge, wisdom, and the incomprehensible wonders it will all display.”

In the gospel that God is writing on Caussade’s heart, Caussade sees himself in a glass darkly, but when he shucks off his mortal coil, he will see himself as he really is. And in the Gospel written in the scriptures?

1 Corinthians 13:9-12
know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

When Causssade says “At present I believe, but in the glory to come when so many mysteries will be revealed, I shall see plainly what now I so little understand,” he is not talking about “what is written” in the scriptures, but what has been left out of them; what has been written in the mystical realm. What is this extra – outside (the scriptures) – “what” that Caussade is talking about? Why, it’s you and me. If only, as Thomas Keating says, we would enter our closet, sit down, shut up and allow God to write Himself – much of whom is not found in the “little stream” of the scriptures – into our hearts.

Contrast this self-preoccupation of Johnson, Brueggemann and Caussade with the Gospel writers, for example Matthew’s cameo appearance, whose only mention of himself is in the third person. “And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9).

In the three views that these writers represent, scripture is insufficient. So, there’s the universal Gospel story and your story/gospel that God is writing for you or you are screaming, if you’re Johnson, to write. I’m reminded of Paul’s warning in Galatians 1:6-10:

“6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”

In the Roman Catholic Church, tradition interprets and supplements scripture, where tradition” is normally understood as 1. those sacraments not found in the biblical material such as confession and holy orders (for example, the priesthood) and 2. dogmas such as those about Mary, the mother of Jesus, indulgences, purgatory and papal infallibility. There is another domain of Roman Catholic tradition, namely, the mystical/contemplative tradition as in Caussade. In the last decade, many who call themselves “evangelical” such as Bill Johnson are embracing mysticism. As someone said, what begins in a myst, ends in a schism – between two gospels: the Gospel and your own.