Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

With the increase of the power of the Kingdom of God, the demonic realm also
becomes stronger and more destructive. Paul Tillich

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:5)

Dear Ones,

Greetings in Christ’s name. What an inexpressible gift it is to be in

Christ: redeemed, empowered, and filled with the knowledge that the
darkness of this or of any other day cannot overcome the Light in which we
live, move, and have our being. Truly, it is an indescribable grace to be active
participants in the Kingdom of God, pointing always to the Lord’s presence in
our midst, seeing Him mightily at work, and collaborating with Him. As Dr.
Donald Bloesch states in his latest book, The Last Things: Resurrection,
Judgment, Glory:

Our mission as Christians is not to build the kingdom of God but to herald its
coming--not only in the future but in the past and the present. We are also given
the opportunity to demonstrate its power as we put into daily practice the
spiritual gifts that form the legacy of faith. Hans Urs von Balthasar trenchantly
articulates this biblical vision: “We do not build the kingdom of God on earth by
our own efforts (however assisted by grace); the most we can do, through
genuine prayer, is to make as much room as possible, in ourselves and in the
world, for the kingdom of God, so that its energies can go to work.”1

We cannot thank the Lord enough for what we see Him do as we come
together in His name in the Pastoral Care Ministry Schools. It would fill a
book to try to tell what occurs in just one five-day school as we step back,
make room for the Kingdom, and see its energies “go to work.” This work is
wholly incarnational: God with us. Dr. Frank Lake, understanding this
concept so well and especially as it pertains to the healing of persons, has
rightly said: “In a wishful attempt to see the Church as holy its leaders too
often fail to preserve the paradox that it is Christ’s holiness, in the midst of
our unholiness, that Christianity as a gospel message is about2 (italics
mine).

May the Spirit of the Lord empower us as never before to herald the
Kingdom, and to preach with all our might this one and only gospel of good
news. And right up front I want to say how thrilling it has been to see the
many of you who have read our books and attended our PCM conferences

1 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 112. [ISBN 0-83081-417-5] This book
completes Dr. Donald G. Bloesch’s remarkable seven-volume systematic theology, outlining a
theology that is at once Reformed but catholic as well.
2 Frank Lake, Clinical Theology, p. 461.

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come into this transcendent truth in a profoundly new way--transforming

your lives, your families, your professions, and your ministries. We stand
amazed at what God does, and realize how little we yet know of all He yearns
and stands ready to do when we make room for His Kingdom in our midst.

Prayer: Lord, light up the darkness in this world through us; may we be Your
candles, burning brightly by the oil of Your Spirit. Amen.
……..

POINTING TO THE HOLINESS OF GOD:

THAT WHICH IS AT THE HEART OF OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH

To bring sin home, and to bring grace home, we need that something else
should come home which alone gives meaning to both—the holy. . . . If our
gospel be obscure, it is obscure to them in whom the slack God of the period
has blinded minds, or a genial God unbraced them, and hidden the Holy One
who inhabits eternity. This holiness of God is . . . the ruling interest of the
Christian religion. . . . Neither love, grace, faith, nor sin has any but a passing
meaning except as they rest on the holiness of God, except as they arise from
it, and return to it, except as they satisfy it, show it forth, set it up, and secure
it everywhere and forever. Love is but its outgoing; sin is but its defiance;
grace is but its action on sin; the Cross is but its victory; faith is but its
worship. . . . What we on earth call righteousness among men, the saints in
heaven call holiness in Him3 (emphasis mine).
P. T. Forsyth

In the weeks leading up to the Wheaton PCM, God’s holiness was on

my mind and heart so strongly that I sensed the Lord’s leading to start out
the School by pointing with all my might to that profound matter. At the same
time I knew that He would have to help me in a very special way because to
teach this to modern Christians, deprived as most are of solid theological
knowledge,4 is to risk getting them into legalism: keeping of the law.

Therefore, I commenced the PCM week by making it as clear as possible

that no one of us can choose to be holy and be holy. We can, however, choose
to obey the Lord--and that in the teeth of every worst inclination of bad habit-
-and the Lord will robe us in His righteousness. Christ in and with us: our
righteousness, our “perfect everything.” Most truly, in regaining the
knowledge of the holiness of God, we know that

3 P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (Carlisle UK: Paternoster Press, 1997).
4 A. W. Tozer’s classic The Knowledge of the Holy is an excellent place to start out gaining this
theological knowledge.

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it is Christ’s holiness, in the midst of our unholiness, that

Christianity as a gospel message is about.5

All that saves and heals comes to us from out of the holiness of God.
Totally good, and totally other than the world He created, He speaks and says,
“I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst” (Hosea 11:9 ESV).
Therefore, the question was asked of the delegates (upwards of a thousand
folk), “What do you need for God to do in your life this week? Is it salvation
you need, mercy, deliverance, forgiveness, renewal, healing.…For those here
who are dead in sin, those who know your deadness in sin, ask Life of the
Lord, and He will give it.” They asked, and He gave in abundance. The Lord
has never yet failed to descend into our midst as we invoke His presence and
cry out for the grace to repent. He comes with the hosts of heaven, angelic
hosts who do His bidding. And this week, in a special way it seems to me,
besides bringing healing and illumination to His people, He set more firmly
into many of us the priceless knowledge of the Holy, of Himself—and, friends,
it was glorious.

For weeks before the PCM, Schubert’s rendition of the Sanctus and
Handel’s “Holy Art Thou” (“Largo”) were a blessing to me, almost more than
could be contained. I sang them over and over. I lived in them night and day.
What a gift from God that hallowed time was. Carlton Quattlebaum, on the
great Edman Chapel organ, led us in the singing of the Sanctus throughout
the week, and Steve Morscheck6 sang the “Holy Art Thou” both at the
beginning and then in our final Eucharistic Service.7 Brother Riccieri, a
delegate with us from the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt,
Germany (founded by Mother Basilea Schlink), brought me the treasured gift
of the Icon of the Trinity (as shown in this newsletter), and we had it scanned
and put up on our mammoth overhead screen. I have never seen an icon
minister to the people of God in such a way as that one did. Clearly, most left
the room in awe, blessed by this icon, renewed in a greater knowledge of our
triune, holy God.

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a
man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the
formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance
and unconscious holiness, never the other way about.8
Oswald Chambers

5 Lake, Clinical Theology, p. 461.

6 Mr. Morscheck, a Wheaton grad, is new to our PCM readers and attendees, and it is a
pleasure to introduce him. Very briefly, he maintains an active performing schedule of
operatic and concert appearances in opera houses throughout the United States and abroad,
including the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The son of Christian
missionaries, he will in the future be singing, among many other roles, that of Christ in J. S.
Bach’s St. John Passion with John Nelson and L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris.
7 For the words to the Sanctus and Handel’s “Holy Art Thou,” turn to the last page.
8 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1935), Dec. 7.

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Loss of the Holy in Western Culture

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Taken from “God’s Grandeur,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

In the Western world, which was once called Christendom, we find

ourselves in a veritable Tower of Babel. Elizabeth Goudge, in her novel Scent
of Water, speaks into our tragic dilemma: “They’d no silence. Little by little it
had been stolen from them.” We are assailed by words emptied of the good of
reason, of the moral and spiritual good, of that which has transcendent
meaning--of common sense.

As Christians then, we must fully face the fact that we are living and
ministering in a world that finds not only words emptied of meaning, but man
himself. Man is not just debased; he is “de-meaned.” We now see everywhere
the effects of the constant demeaning (loss of reality, loss of content) of man
and woman in the deconstruction of virtue and morality, of gender, of
marriage, of community, of persons. As the great psychologist Dr. Viktor
Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, first published in 1946:
“The collective neurosis of our age is meaninglessness;”…“the existential
vacuum which is the mass neurosis of the present time can be described as a
private and personal form of nihilism; for nihilism can be defined as the
contention that being has no meaning.” This condition has steadily worsened
since 1946, and catastrophically so in the past decade.

Christ our Lord and the Christian walk are increasingly blasphemed
and opposed by a secularism turned sinister, a secularism that dominates
the media, that molds opinion, and that is rapidly becoming not merely
secular but gnostic by introducing the obscene into the holy. All that which
confuses language, generates demonic myths, hates sound doctrine, calls evil
good, and good evil, calls reason nonsense, and nonsense reason describes
the secular turned gnostic chaos in which we now live.

To live in a Tower of Babel where language and man are demeaned is of

course to live in an age of lies, of illusion, of delusion, of a quickly gathering
darkness. It is a time in America (the first in our history) when people can
perhaps recognize a lie but are willing to accept it--if they hear it often
enough. It is a time when unethical politicians (and bishops!) know this and
shamelessly lie as a method in forming public opinion. It’s a time such as
Jeremiah knew, when he heard God say,

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And you shall say to them, “This is the nation that did not accept
discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.” (7:28)

Complicating this situation, which could not have come about apart
from the degree of apostasy in the denominational churches and the passivity
of Christians in general, is our current inability to speak truth and wisdom
effectively in the public arena. Why am I saying these things? Friends, apart
from the church once again fully participating in the Kingdom of God, in
other words, finding the power to stand and be heard, it will soon be unlawful
to teach what I teach, even in America. Already this is so in Sweden, and
there are now impending sanctions against orthodox teaching in Canada as
well.

People are starved for truth, for knowledge today, not just people in the
public square but people who fill our churches. Truth, honesty, wisdom, the
moral and rational good--reality itself is at stake. And all that is good,
beautiful, and true come to us from out of the holiness of God. To lose the
knowledge of the Holy, our relationship with God, is to lose ourselves; it is to
lose everything. Our very freedom as Christians is now up for grabs.

In the context in which we Christians find ourselves withstood and

oppressed, let us prayerfully look at Isaiah’s vision of the Lord, of the Holy:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the
temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two
he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two
he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the
LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! And the
foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called,
and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I
am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of
hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a
burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he
touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips;
your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. (6:1-7 ESV)

Prayer: Lord, cleanse our lips; take the least lie, the least untruth from our
minds and our tongues. And “Save us [our land, our nation], O Lord, from
lying lips (Ps. 120:2). May we, as part of the church and members of Your
eternal Kingdom once again hear You say, “You are…a royal priesthood”
(1Peter 2:9 ESV). “Grace has been poured upon our lips,” (Ps. 45:2 NIV): “and
your lips have been anointed.”

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In the sight of God we speak in Christ:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal

procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of
him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who
are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance
from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is
sufficient [or competent] for these things? For we are not, like so many,
peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by
God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (2 Cor. 2:14-17 ESV)

You may want to turn back now and reread the last five lines of Gerard
Manley Hopkins’s poem. We are to be assured that even though we live at the
utter end, the blackening twilight of what was once referred to as the Western
world, and are fated as Christians to shine our light into the cultural
madness all around us, that veritable Tower of Babel replete with images and
orgiastic sounds that assault our eyes and ears, we are to know that we will
shine because God’s glory is yet over all the earth.

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Our Lord reigns over all!

………………….

Val McIntyre is taking a much-needed year’s sabbatical, beginning

October 1st. It is unthinkable that she will not be with us even in the
upcoming 2005 PCMs, and she will be greatly missed. But there are other
things she must do, and physical rest is chief among them. She has not only
been the PCM secretary but the registrar for the huge Wheaton PCMs as well
for the past eleven years! Anyone who has ever directed large conferences,
especially those such as our teaching and healing prayer conferences, will
know the enormity of her output and service in the ministry of the Kingdom.
And now, along with her much-needed rest, she will be completing a graduate
degree in church history before she returns once again to active ministry in
the conferences. We will miss the many, many ways in which she is so
capable and wise and, most of all, we will miss her servant’s heart. May the
Lord bless and keep her and make this sabbatical one worthy of its name.

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RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Gold there is, and rubies in abundance,

but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel. (Prov. 20:15)

The following recommended books, two new and two older, by Dr. Donald
Bloesch, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, Prof. Michael D. Aeschliman, and A. W.
Tozer illustrate the Proverb cited above.

The Last Things: Resurrection, Judgment, Glory by Donald G. Bloesch.

InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill. 60515, 2004. [ISBN 0-83081-417-5]

This is an important book, one that completes Dr. Bloesch’s remarkable

seven-volume systematic theology. To quote Professor J. I. Packer, “we owe
him profoundest thanks for so enriching a resource.” We most surely do.
Personally, I have greatly anticipated this book coming out and have not been
disappointed. Sick and tired of what passes for end-time eschatology today,
and the burgeoning errors and cultlike heresies that stem from it, I have
longed for a classic treatment of these difficult eschatological subjects, one
that deals with the mind-set of our particular age and even decade, one that I
could recommend to others, to the layperson as well as the scholar. This is it,
and it is by a great Reformed theologian, one whose classic catholic
dimensions are intact.

Like the book that follows, Dr. Bloesch points up our neglect of the scriptural
doctrine of the communion of saints and our need to recover it.

Christ in His Saints by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon. Conciliar Press, P. O. Box
76, Ben Lomond, Calif. 95005. www.conciliarpress.com.

Fr. Reardon, author of Christ in the Psalms, will need no introduction to those
fortunate enough to have his first book. This is another classic work by him.
Fr. Reardon has given special permission to print the following from it for our
PCM readers. This section was selected not only because it illustrates the
value of what one will find in the book, but because it expounds the
communion of saints, a neglected doctrine today, and reinforces some of the
material highlighted in this newsletter. One would have to look far and wide
to find such a clear and concise scriptural teaching on the communion of
saints, who with the “innumerable company of angels” are one with us in
worship of the Holy One.

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The Cloud of Witnesses

The Epistle to the Hebrews, which repeatedly speaks of Christian worship in terms of
“approach” (4:16; 7:25; 10:1, 22; 11:6), “entrance” (10:19), and “drawing near” (7:19) to
God, describes this worship as a complex liturgical gathering: “But you have come [literally
‘approached’] to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to
an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn
who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made
perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that
speaks better things than that of Abel” (12:22-24). That is to say, when the Christian
comes to God, he doesn’t come “one on one,” so to speak; he approaches also the
company of angels and saints.

This text is particularly striking because of its explicit reference to Christ our Lord as the
Mediator of the covenant that gives us access to God. The unique mediation of Christ, an
important theme in Hebrews (Cf. also 8:6; 9:15), has rather often been cited in recent
centuries to negate the role of the saints in heaven with respect to the Christian worship
on earth. Yet, here in this description of Christian worship, along with the mediation of
Christ and His redemptive blood, the author of Hebrews speaks also of “the spirits of just
men made perfect.” The author obviously saw nothing incompatible between the unique
mediation of Christ and the communion of the glorified saints in the Church’s worship.

Although the bodies of the departed saints are elsewhere described as “sleeping” (1
Thessalonians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 15:6-20), their spirits are very much alive and alert;
indeed, they are already “made perfect,” even though they still await the glorification of
their bodies. The departed saints are certainly not “dead,” because those who believe in
Christ will never die (John 11:26). The departed saints did not simply live a long time ago
and now they are gone. Oh no, they are still very much alive, standing in worship with the
angels before God’s throne, and that is why, in the mediation of Christ and through His
blood, we may join them in worship.

These “spirits of just men made perfect” are, of course, identical to the “great cloud of
witnesses” spoken of only a few verses earlier (12:1). Indeed, the previous chapter had
just narrated their biblical stories: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, and the
others, most of whom the author did not name because “time would fail” him to do so
(11:32).

By these heavenly “witnesses” we saints on earth are said to be “surrounded,” as though

to suggest that they themselves form a larger group than we. To describe their company,
the author uses the image of a cloud, a classical metaphor designating a thickly packed
crowd of people (cf. Iliad 4.274; Aeneid 7:797). In the density of their representation these
“spirits of just men made perfect” are comparable to the “innumerable company of angels.”

These texts from the Epistle to the Hebrews, then, indicate that all of these glorified saints,
“the spirits of just men made perfect,” are part of the awareness and experience of
Christians at worship. The reason that the Church adorns her houses of worship with the
icons of the glorified saints is that Christian worship raises believers up in mind and spirit
to pray with those saints at the throne of God.

We believers have access to their company in God’s presence because of the saving
blood of Jesus our Mediator. Symbolized in the twenty-four elders, these saints offer our

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prayers to God with their own and with the praises of the angels (Revelation 5:8; 8:3).
Christian worship is inseparable from the communion of the saints.

Besides this, the departed saints (and so many more have been added since the Epistle to
the Hebrews was written) are also held out as models for our emulation. This was the
whole point of the list of the champions of faith in Hebrews 11. This list invites us to study
the biblical saints especially, “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness,
obtained promises” (11:33). On page after page Holy Scripture tells the stories of these
men and women, members of that ancient family into which, by Baptism, we have been
incorporated. Let us now examine their examples, “considering the outcome of their
conduct” (13:7).

The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism by Michael
D. Aeschliman. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids/Cambridge,
UK, first published in 1983. [ISBN 0-8028-4491-X]

If you want a great study of how we got to our state of nihility and
meaninglessness throughout the Western world, our present moral dilemma,
this is the work for you. Prof. Aeschliman has gathered up the truly great
work and warnings of Lewis and other great minds on these matters, and we
are indeed grateful to him for this volume. Quoting Russell Kirk: “A succinct,
strong book, worthy of Lewis himself….A book evoking right reason and the
permanent things.” This is an important book that all who think deeply on
these matters will want to acquire for their libraries while it is yet available.
Mr. Aeschliman is associate professor of education at Boston University and
lecturer in English at the University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano.

The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer. Widely available, this classic is a

vital study of the attributes of God. It breathes the Christian spirit of faith
and devotion to God. As he writes, The essence of idolatry is the entertainment
of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.

Theophostic “Healing”

The following, reprinted by permission of Dr. Bryan N. Maier, first appeared

in Trinity Seminary’s alumni magazine. A fuller development of these issues is
available (see last paragraph of this article), and we recommend it for those
needing more information. In the fuller exposition, entitled A Theological
Analysis of Theophostic Ministry, the editors indicate plans to deal with other
things besides the issues of sin and healing, and we look forward to those
articles as well.

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Evaluating “Theophostic” Ministry, by Bryan N. Maier, Psy.D.

Bryan N. Maier, Psy.D., is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a member of
the American Association for Christian Counseling, American Psychological Association, Christian Association for Psychological Studies, and
the International Society for the History of the Behavioral Sciences. His area of interest is the integration of theology and psychology.

During the spring of 2001, I received a call from a pastor asking me to articulate the position of the
Pastoral Counseling and Psychology Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on
Theophostic Ministries (hereafter referred to as TPM). Although I responded that our department is
diverse and does not typically take a formal "position" on issues, I had to admit that I myself did not
know enough about TPM to be of any help. After receiving several more such requests, I began to
investigate TPM in some depth. I watched the current set of instructional videos, read the
accompanying handbook, and interviewed people who had attended TPM seminars and several who
claim to have benefited from this ministry. Finally, I had a brief discussion with Ed Smith, founder of
TPM, during a Christian counseling conference in the fall of 2001.

Ed Smith coined the term theophostic from two Greek words that literally mean "God's light." The
main idea of TPM is that God will shine his light on a particular lie that is embedded in the mind of a
trauma victim, thus freeing him or her from the unnecessary emotional associations and reactions
based on viewing the lie as true. The most common paradigm is that of an abuse victim who persists in
blaming herself somehow for the abuse and thus cannot enter meaningfully into intimate relationships
with others. Theophostic protocol would involve [directing] the client to focus her mind back on the
abuse and any corresponding feelings. These feelings will be predictably intense and negative due to the
belief in the lie (i.e., "it was my fault"). It is at this point that the TPM facilitator invites Jesus to come
and speak truth to the situation (Jesus might say, "It was not your fault"), thus breaking forever the
disabling power of that particular lie. This lie never has to be addressed again because its power has
been forever broken. Thus the person can enjoy permanent recovery as opposed to merely "tolerable"
recovery, as Smith refers to more standard forms of therapy.

Soon after launching his ministry, Smith apparently received some criticism that TPM did not have
appropriate theological or biblical support. This prompted him to revise his manual. One of the major
goals of this revision, according to Smith, was to "supplement a more thorough theological basis for
Theophostic Ministry for the ‘show me where it is in the Bible’ group:* Because Smith now claimed that
he had a theological basis for what he was doing, I was very interested to see what this basis was.

After the conference in the fall of 2001, Dr. Phil Monroe (an assistant professor at Biblical Seminary)
and I began a two year project to analyze the theological soundness of TPM. We limited ourselves to
works written by Smith, as the creator and founder of TPM, rather than trying to chase down
everything currently practiced under the name "theophostic:" We further limited ourselves to two
primary theological topics that would be of interest to Christian counselors specifically. These topics
were sin and healing.

Our concerns with TPM's teaching on these two topics were so significant that we concluded our
article in Trinity Journal (Fall 2003) by recommending great caution before using TPM either as a client
or as a facilitator. For this article, I will only outline briefly my concern with TPM's view of sin. We
have three main concerns with TPM's teaching on sin.

First, Smith's emphasis on the dichotomy between a believer's sinless new "heart" and the residual
storehouse of lies housed in the "mind" creates confusion about the nature of sin in the life of a saint.
Smith appears to be advocating some modified version of the trichotomy position (that we are composed
of body, soul, and spirit), claiming that only our minds retain effects of the fall and these effects consist
primarily of lies inserted before salvation. This attempt to "pigeonhole" the exact mental or psychic

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structure from which sin emerges creates more problems than it solves. Scripture either teaches more
structures than Smith advocates or, more probably, Scripture is not as particular about identifying and
itemizing our inner being into discrete structures. (See Matt. 22:37 and other such passages where there
seems to be an overlap.)

Second, Smith emphasizes how a person becomes saddled with lies but minimizes the person's own role
in the construction and maintenance of his or her lies. According to TPM, most of our lies come from
either childhood naivete, an adult's deception, or demonic influence. All of these are external sources,
and yet Scripture seems to teach that our very hearts are deceitful (Jer. 17:9) and that we come into the
world already proficient at twisting and denying the truth (Ps. 58:3).

The final and gravest concern I have is that in TPM our sin is not viewed as seriously as our wounds.
Because TPM views woundedness as the root of sinfulness, woundedness becomes a deeper problem
than our sin. This means logically that woundedness must be addressed first before sinfulness can be
effectively confronted. All of this leads to a minimization of the seriousness of sin, which in turn
minimizes the glory of forgiveness and repentance. Finally, because we need to be healed more than we
need to be forgiven, this approach renders traditional spiritual disciplines practically powerless without
some kind of theophostic experience to "trigger" their effectiveness.

Shedding God's light on a person or a subject is always a good thing. However, in our search for some
new experiential manifestation of that light, let us not forsake the numerous and bountiful means of
light (e.g., God's Word, sanctification by the Holy Spirit, being in community with other believers, and
the spiritual disciplines) which God has already graciously bestowed upon us.

For documentation and a fuller development of these issues, see B. Maier & P. Monroe, “A Theological
Analysis of Theophostic Ministries,” Trinity Journal (Fall 2003). For more information or to subscribe
to Trinity Journal (a theological journal published twice yearly by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School),
call 630.562.4074 or visit www.tiu.edu/trinityjournal.

*Ed Smith, Beyond Tolerable Recovery, 4th ed. (Cambellsville, Ky.: Family Care, 2000), 2.

In the following letter to the Editor of the Trinity Magazine, Valerie McIntyre
expresses some of PCM’s concerns regarding Theophostics, and expresses our
relief that this theological work is being done and will be ongoing.

Dear Editor:
Thank you for publishing Dr. Bryan Maier’s article, Evaluating “Theophostic”
Ministry. His scholarly examination of this ministry raises important
questions about its theological and psychological underpinnings. Dr. Maier
provides vital information for Christian leaders wanting to protect people from
faddish, method-driven conceptions of healing.

Dr. Maier is perhaps too charitable toward this spiritual/therapeutic

enterprise that has been widely disseminated through the Internet, videos,
and a super-easy licensure program for “Theophostic counselors.” Those they
counsel are often deeply wounded Christians who are frightened by
traditional psychology and disillusioned by the institutional church. Sadly,
they are attracted to Mr. Smith’s promises of “maintenance-free healing.”
With this and other consumer oriented slogans Theophostics is being sold to

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undiscerning Christians. The results, however, can be devastating, as

evidenced in the lives of many people I’ve met at our conferences in the last
seven years.

Many, though they received initial help through the Theophostic prayer
method, found that their painful feelings and dysfunctional patterns did not
disappear entirely as promised. Theophostic counselors then led them into
dangerous fantasies to explain the difficulties—fantasies preoccupied with the
occult and what they term satanic ritual abuse (SRA). Furthermore, in most
cases their Theophostic counselors “diagnosed” their difficulty as “dissociative
identity disorder” (DID)—a most serious diagnosis and one that amateur
counselors should not make. The topics of Mr. Smith’s “advanced training
seminars” confirm that his teaching about DID/SRA is a central focus of his
ministry. It is a bizarre, even paranoid, one-size-fits-all approach to Christian
healing.

I sincerely hope that Dr. Maier’s article will inspire other Christian scholars to
tackle what is amiss in Theophostics and to sound the needed alarm to
Evangelicals.

For a Christian leader to get sin wrong is to set the stage for a heretical
movement, and these movements are proliferating at this time. We are
especially aware of them as they impact and pervert the healing ministry of
the church, a ministry that has everything to do with the confession of sin. In
the case of Theophostics, the theological errors move in tandem with the most
egregious psychological ones. These combine to assure failures with regard
to understanding, among other things, the symbolic nature of the imagery
abreacted in prayer and in dreams,** and this has made them the offender in
the false memory syndrome. This is very serious, for there is great need for
understanding healing of memories if we are to see the healing of persons
take place in the church of today. What is healing of memories? For teaching
on this, see chapter 6 of Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer.
The following is a brief excerpt adapted from that chapter:
Healing of memories means forgiveness of sin. It is the heart's experience of forgiveness
of sin at the precise sore spot where it is needed, one that impacts the soul in its totality--in
its emotional, feeling, intuitive, imaginative capacities as well as in its more conscious,
willing, thinking capacities. This place may be at any level of consciousness or
unconsciousness. Nothing illustrates God's Healing Presence more wonderfully than His
way of healing man's deepest hurts and memories.

Agnes Sanford coined the term at a time when very little healing was flowing through the
church's formal confessional or informal prayer groups. The reason was that the central
truth of God's forgiveness of sin, along with all the great spiritual realities of the Kingdom
of God, had been largely relegated to the abstract. Victims of the schism between head and

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heart, we could "talk doctrine" but couldn't experience its healing power. We could not get it
from our heads to our hearts.

Some could still preach great sermons about the forgiveness of sin, but could not administer
it to the heart in need of it. In the church today, this is still largely true.
The soul in need of healing is suffering due to this same schism. The head and the heart
simply are not working in a complementary fashion. The heart perhaps knows something
the head does not, or conversely, the head needs to rightly comprehend and then critique
what is in the heart. As Agnes Sanford writes:

The truth is that any wound to the soul so deep that it is not healed by our own
self-searching and prayers is inevitably connected with a subconscious awareness of sin,
either our own sins or our grievous reactions to the sins of others. The therapy that heals
these deep wounds could be called the forgiveness of sins, or it could be called the healing
of memories. Whatever one calls it, there are in many of us wounds so deep that only the
mediation of someone else to whom we may "bare our grief" can heal us.

When someone bares his grief to us, no matter whether we are a priest, psychologist,
minister, counselor, or layperson, we are to lead the person in confessional prayers. We
may need to learn how to pray for the forgiveness of we know not what in the past history
of his family. For example, Nehemiah and other Old Testament prophets offered prayers
such as: "I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have
committed against you" (Nehemiah 1:6b). Or we may need to help the person forgive the
circumstances of a lifetime. The point I want to stress is that we are hearing confessions of
sin, and after these sins are acknowledged and repented of, we must never forget to
proclaim the forgiveness of that sin as well as release from the bondage of the sins of
others against us. This is the way souls find healing.

Most often, the Holy Spirit leads very specifically in what to confess and whom to forgive,
but when the case is more nebulous (for example, a whole family is sick due to
unconfessed sin that goes back through the generations), we need to look to God for
direction in forming prayers of confession and forgiveness that will break the power of
unconfessed sins over our lives. This is necessary because our woundedness and sin are
related to breaks in our relationships. In order for these breaks to be set right, we must
confess them. Is the break between myself and God? Myself and others? Within my own
inner self am I at war? The fallen condition is a crisis in separation, and within the trauma of
broken relationships resides our illnesses and identity crises. It is through prayer that
relationships are mended (or at least forgiveness extended for the brokenness) and that our
souls are healed of their grievous lacks due to failed relationships in the past.

King David understood this healing very well: "I acknowledged my sin to you, and my
iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord (continually
unfolding the past till all is told) then You (instantly) forgave me the guilt and iniquity of
my sin" (Psalm 32:5, The Amplified Bible).

** For teaching on the symbolic ways the heart knows and images, see Part Three of
The Healing Presence, beginning with chapter 8 and following, and for more of the
practical outworking of this knowledge, see Restoring the Christian Soul Through

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Healing Prayer. All of my books deal with the need for understanding imagery and
symbol, the language of the heart, for that is the “stuff” of the wounded mind and
heart.

IN CONCLUSION
Dear Ones, we hope this newsletter is of help to you in your walk with the
Lord, and want to thank you for your intercessions, your gifts, and your love
(expressed so freely in your emails and letters). We are deeply grateful. We
need your prayers now for the upcoming PCMs in Denmark and Wheaton,
and look forward to seeing many of you there.

Most sincerely,
Leanne Payne

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

Here’s the information on upcoming schools for the outside pages:

Scheduled Ministry Events
Pastoral Care Ministry School
February 14-18, 2005, Denmark
Pastoral Care Ministry School with translation from English to Danish and Dutch.
Contact: Anna Louise Bay, Frederiksborgvej 1B, DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
Email: mailto:[email protected]
For complete information and application, visit http://www.leannepayne.dk/

Pastoral Care Ministry School

June 26- July 1, 2005, Wheaton, IL
Contact: Sile Ni-Chionna
Pastoral Care Ministries, P.O. Box 1313, Wheaton, IL 60189
Fax: 630.510.7659 email: [email protected]
For complete information, applications and to apply online, visit http://www.pcmschool.com/

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

TEACHING TAPES AND CDS [order form]

From the 2004 Wheaton PCM School except where noted.
Qty Topic
Foundational Lectures by Leanne Payne
___ 200401 God With Us and Within Us, I
___ 200402 God With Us and Within Us, II
___ 200406 God With Us and Within Us, III
___ 200407 On Becoming Persons, I
___ 200411 On Becoming Persons, II
___ 200408 Healing Exercises
___ 200412 Healing the Will
___ 200418 The True Imagination
___ 200419 The Disease of Introspection
___ 200423 Healing of Memories Teaching
___ 200425 How to Construct a Soul
___ 200426 Healing of Memories Prayer
___ 200416 Renouncing Baal / Misogyny
___ 200122 “On Hope” (with John Fawcett, 2001)
___ 199019 The Virtue of Self-Acceptance (1990) RE-RELEASE
___ 199930 Listening to God in Prayer Cells (1999)

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

Qty Topic
Other PCM School Presentations
___ 200403 Mark Pertuit, How the Cross Bears Our Pain, I
___ 200404 Mark Pertuit, How the Cross Bears Our Pain, II
___ 200405 Stuart Checkley, Narcicissim
___ 200409 Valerie McIntyre, Sense of Being
___ 200410 Ita Fischer, Testimony: Healing for Lesbian Neurosis
___ 200417 Jean Holt, Healing Co-dependency
___ 200316 Valerie McIntyre, Transference (2003)
___ 200413 Conlee and Signa Bodishbaugh, Healing in the Local Church – Workshop
___ 200414 Esther Daflucas, Emotional Dependency – Workshop
___ 200420 Mark Pertuit, Cycle of Addiction – Workshop
___ 200421 Bob Ragan, Singleness – Workshop
___ 200225 Valerie McIntyre, Training for Prayer Ministers (2002)
___ 199402 Jeffrey Satinover, Gnosticism’s Inroads into the Church (1994)
___ 199402 Jeffrey Satinover, Dream Interpretation (1994)

Order Information
NameAddressCity/State/Province/Postal Code/Country
Total number of tapes/CDs requested($5 per tape/CD) Please check one: .tape .CD
Amount enclosed (U.S. dollars, check or money order)
Please allow 6 weeks for delivery.
Orders to be shipped outside the U.S. should add an additional $1 per two tapes for
postage and send a check or money order in U.S. dollars.
Make checks payable to and mail to: Do Not Send Tape/CD Orders to PCM
F.T.M. Studios 1111 South Pierce St.Lakewood, CO 80232
email: [email protected]

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

The following is for the many who have requested the words of the Sanctus and
Handel’s “Holy Art Thou”:
Sanctus (Schubert, the Bock/Noel arrangement)

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Holy is the Lord.
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Holy is the Lord.
Holy is the Father,
Holy is the Son,
Holy is the Spirit;
Blessed Three in One.

In your hearts enthrone Him,

There let Him subdue
All that is not holy,
All that is not true.
He is God our Savior,
He is Christ the Lord;
Ever to be worshipped,
Trusted and adored.

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Merciful and mighty,
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Holy is the Lord.
He from the beginning
Reigns from sea to sea,
In His might and glory,
Through eternity.

Glory, laud and honor

To His holy name,
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Evermore the same.
-------------------------------
Other choice verses:

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Holy is the Lord!
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Holy is our God!
He who always liveth,
Evermore the same,
Heav'n and earth He ruleth,
Come and praise His name!

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Holy is the Lord!
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Holy is our God!
Glorious and beloved
Is the One adored!
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Holy is the Lord!

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

Holy Art Thou (G. F. Handel, “Largo” from Xerxes)

Holy art Thou, Lord God Almighty,

Holy art Thou, holy art Thou
Lord God Almighty, holy art Thou,
Holy art Thou.
Lord God Almighty, who wert and art,
Who wert and art, and art to come.
Holy art Thou, Lord God Almighty,
Glory and majesty in heav'n are Thine.
Earth lowly bending, swells the full
Harmony, Blessing and glory to the Lamb
For evermore, for worthy, worthy art Thou;
Let all nations and kindreds and peoples
Give thanks to Thee for evermore,
Give thanks for evermore.
Let all nations and kindreds and peoples
Give thanks to Thee forevermore.
Holy art Thou, holy art Thou,
Lord God Almighty, glory and majesty
In heav'n are Thine.
Earth lowly bending swells the full
Harmony, Blessing and glory to the Lamb
For evermore, for worthy, worthy Art Thou;
Let all nations and kindreds and peoples
give thanks to Thee for evermore.
Let all nations and kindreds
and peoples give thanks to Thee
For evermore!

God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Leanne Payne Newsletter – Fall 2004 © 2004, Leanne Payne

The Hymn “The Canticle of St. Patrick”

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of the moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me,
From snares of devils…
From everyone who shall wish me ill.
Afar or near,
Alone and in a multitude.…

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
St. Patrick

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