THIS NEW BOOK (available for free download as a PDF eBook (v.1.4) at the foot of this preamble), is both polemical (controversial) and didactic (educational). Standing at 167 pages with 61,000 words and more than 350 footnotes, it is based on a much smaller article I wrote exactly thirty years ago, which has been earnestly waiting to be born. My research was interrupted by four years of study in theological college and also while writing “The Serpent and the Cross” (published in 1994). In 1993, during my first pastorate (when I was still ecclesiastically naive), I privately penned an article which had the working filename “Charicon” about the whole Charismatic con(fidence trick) which had already seduced so many churches (though not nearly so many as now). The following year, the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing’ “revival”, which came out of that same stable, hit the visible church and I found myself having to spend the ensuing years proving that it was yet another confidence trick of Satan seducing huge numbers of professing ‘Christians’ (including many ‘evangelicals’) into behaving like lunatics to discredit the Gospel. I made three public video-talks about it all at the time which, amazingly, are still on YouTube nearly thirty years later!
That “Charicon” article remained lodged in my computer archives for all these years until I came upon it recently when I was writing the article, “Parallel Psychic Power-Games in the Church and in the World”, about the real “gift of Languages” compared to the modern gibberish ‘Tongues’, and the more than century-old fake idea of a ‘second blessing’ “Baptism with the Holy Spirit” compared to what the Bible says about the real Spirit baptism. It then became clear to me that I needed to resurrect the entire “Charicon” article rather than just the bits I used in the “Psychic Power-Games” piece and build it into the book that it was always meant to be. So, after adding tens of thousands of words more and updating it all with my current knowledge, it has superseded the “Psychic Power-Games” piece and now become the book you see here.
I believe that this is among the most important works I have ever written. It has needed saying for a very long time. The wilful ignorance of so many appalls me. Thirty years ago, I thought the madness might subside. But it has only gone from strength to strength because too many wimpish beta “leaders” in the churches lack backbone and resolve and only know how to waffle, with their collective ass stuck on the fence, just as they did when the “Toronto Blessing” hit the scene in 1994.
For example, the website Christianity dot com (which presumably imagines itself to be the main voice for the religion of Christianity) has an article about the Pentecostal/Charismatic ritual known as being “slain in the Spirit”, in which a pastor zaps someone on the forehead and makes them fall down. In that article it says that we should not be quick to judge and should listen “to both sides of the arguments”, which it then provides! The lack of discernment and wilful ignorance is breathtaking. Welcome to the modern religion of wimpish emasculated beta ‘Christianity’, in which there is no real leadership but only lily-livered tolerance of whatever is ‘the thing’ in the Christian scene. Research nothing. Accept everything. Offend no one. Embrace everyone. Does all that sound familiar? 😉 Satan has got them all by the short and curlies.
Where is the sweet scent of simplicity, humility and quiet strength which should form the spiritual backbone of gatherings of disciples of Christ? So much empty noise everywhere masquerading as “fellowship”. So much crass showmanship (and show-woman-ship) and vulgarity. The time has come to get back to ways of doing “church” which don’t look like they were designed in Las Vegas and don’t rely on psychospiritual antics and quasi-New Age techniques. It’s all in the book. Please check it out, download it, and share all this with your friends.
Anyway, blessings to you from me. 💝 Please read on through the images below and then freely download the book at the bottom of the page.
The front and rear cover of the book is the primary image attached to this post. Below are two images of the Table of Contents so you can see what is being covered in the book.
Below is an image of the two readers’ reviews given by two of the book’s proofreaders which appear in the front matter of the book.
As you can see from the Table of Contents, there is a mass of information and Bible teaching in this book. It is not merely a polemic. Below is the download link for the book, which is in fully-interactive PDF format as a carefully-designed eBook in which all links will open. While the format allows it to look neat on a good phone screen, it is best viewed on a tablet or laptop/desktop computer screen. Here is the download link, which is currently on v.1.4 (after having a section added refuting the claim that the gift of ‘Languages’ (‘Tongues’) is the language of angels).
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© 2021, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. [The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]
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