Derren Brown

I’ve been fascinated to watch Derren Brown’s ‘Trick of the Mind’ series on Channel Four.

Derren uses what he describes as a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship to seemingly predict and control human behaviour. It’s pretty thought-provoking stuff.

I missed “Derren Brown – Messiah” when it transmitted earlier this year, but I’ve managed to get hold of a recording. In it, Derren successfully poses as a medium, the inventor of a ‘dream recording’ machine, a psychic with the ability to ’see’ pictures drawn in another room and a UFO-abductee who can diagnose illnesses by touch.

On every occasion he re-iterates that he has no actual supernatural power and only wishes us to question whether those who claim to have such powers are genuine. He also makes it clear that if anyone were to ask him, “Are you genuine?” he would own up straight away. It would appear no-one did.

Most interesting to me was his attempt to pose as a man who is able to ‘convert people to Christianity with a touch’. During a session with a group of avowed religious-sceptics, he appears to change the mind of one person who started with strong views against Christianity and then cause one man to fall to the ground. The sequence culminates with nearly everyone in the room ‘falling’ and subsequently claiming a belief in God.

Now of course, I’m not for one minute suggesting that Derren-Brown style techniques are being used in our churches. And I certainly know the value of an entertaining TV programme. But this show does raise one obvious question – when people claim legitimacy on the basis of ‘falling over and feeling good about God’ saying, “This has to be a move of God, look at what is happening to people”, it could quite easily be something else.

Is it a church … or something else?

Could it be a ‘cult’?

I think I’m old and wise enough not to get involved with the UFO/Mass Suicide-type stuff, but could I get into something more subtly damaging?

There are all manner of books and websites on the definition, nature, behaviour, methods and motives of cults. Some see all religion as ‘cult-like’, some are written to justify the behaviour of some of the cult-like major religions.

So I was interested to come across cultwatch.com, a New Zealand-based ministry which describes itself as “a Charitable Trust made up of Christians from many different types of churches, such as Baptist, Presbyterian, various independent and other churches. We are a para-church group which means no one church “owns” or runs us. Instead we have a board of well known Christians who oversee us.”

I’m still making my way through the site, but it’s interesting to note that amongst the warnings about Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, Mormons etc., the people at cultwatch.com have felt the need to warn us about the ‘attack of the Super Apostles’. I’m in the middle of reading this stuff, so expect some more posts when I’ve prayed it through and checked it against Scritpure.

In the meantime, you could try the Super-Apostle Detector – so you can check if your church is on dangerous ground. How very novel!

For any new readers (and there seem to be many judging by my server logs) I want to encourage comment and debate. You can ‘add a comment‘ using the link below. Please note that all comments are moderated. That means I have to approve them before they appear on this blog. If you want to contact me with not-for-publication stuff, you can always drop me a line using the ‘email me‘ link on the right.

End Times

Whether or not we’re living in the end times, and what exactly will happen are massive subjects well beyond my theological understanding. I’ve tended to cling to the belief that ‘I know who holds the future’ so I have no fears about what it may contain. Or to put it another way, I have faith.

Having said that, here are some thoughts on the subject, triggered by a comment added to my post on ’soaking’ which mentioned the ‘great end-time harvest’.

Here’s a chunk of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians which points out a few things that will happen before Christ’s return…

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

‘When the rebellion occurs’. The New King James version calls it the ‘falling away’.
Original Greek – Apostasia - Apostasy – Denial of the basic tenets of the faith.

When the basic truths of the Gospel – our fallen, sinful nature, our need for a Saviour, the unique sacrifice of Jesus – are exchanged for miracle-chasing, ‘me me me’, claim your blessing, name what you want etc., etc., I worry that what we’re actually seeing is not a revival, but something more sinister spoken of in that passage from 2 Thessalonians. It’s the stuff of antichrist and Jesus himself warned of it in Matthew 24:24.

When churches and church leaders spend less and less time studying and preaching the Bible and more and more time crying out for more and more signs, more pictures and visions, something is very, very wrong.

Christ’s Bride – the church – needs to leave behind all sorts of clutter, tradition, pointless ritual and man-made religion. We don’t have time for all that. But if we are truly in the end times, Jesus tells us that many voices will cry out to the bride – the church. How will we know which voice is the Lord’s? Surely by seeing if what He says matches His Word. And when the ‘voice’ says, ‘you won’t find this in Scripture – it’s a new thing!’ – shouldn’t we get worried.

And the more churches talk about amazing times, great blessings, prosperity and ‘everything’s gonna be OK’ – the more they sound like the church at Laodicea. Jesus said this, and John wrote it down in Revelation 3.

The Loadicean church (which some believe to be a picture of the ‘end-time church’) was characterised by self-deception. It thought it was the greatest of all, but the Lord said it was one of the poorest. It was also the church that was told, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” – Jesus was OUTSIDE, knocking to come in! I just wonder what the Laodicean church’s website might look like.

Interestingly, in the book of Revelation the church that Jesus looked upon with favour was the church at Philadelphia…

“I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars and I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.

Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.”

I know it seems like the Bible-believing church has little strength. I believe Scripture says it will be that way until Christ’s return. And as we’ve seen, before that happens there will be a great falling away, deception, false prophets, false miracles, signs and wonders. The Bible does not say that the church will get stronger and stronger, larger and larger, more and more powerful.

I want to be counted in the number who keep Jesus’ Word, endure patiently and hold on until He returns. But that sort of consistent ’slog’ doesn’t sell books, DVDs & conferences and doesn’t make for a snazzy website. You can’t ‘market’ it.

“I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand on the earth” [Job 19:25]