Raised in the Depression era in a wealthy and distinguished family, he went to Harvard University and then served in the Navy as a medic during WWII. MacNutt converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult and entered the Dominican Order to become one of its outstanding preachers and writers. As a Dominican monk he first encountered the Spirit-filled healing ministry of Agnes Sanford at a CFO camp in 1967 where Agnes was the principal speaker. They formed a strong friendship and she mentored him into the healing/deliverance ministry. It was MacNutt who introduced the term “inner healing” to what was then called “the healing of memories.” He personally had a strong anointing for healing prayer and during the course of his frequent healing conferences prayed for many thousands of persons.

MacNutt became perhaps the most important leader of the Catholic Charismatic renewal from 1974-1980, serving many offices in that movement. His presence in flowing Dominican robes during the mega-rallies of the 1970s charismatic renewal is a cherished memory for many who attended. However, his marriage to Judith in 1980 abruptly ended his association with the Catholic Charismatic renewal and resulted in his excommunication. He then focused on his writing and teaching ministry for a more ecumenical reach, and developed CHM as a great teaching institution.

The website for Christian Healing Ministries is: www.christianhealingmin.org.

For more information about Francis MacNutt see Francis MacNutt’s Biography.
For more information about Judith MacNutt see Judith MacNutt’s Biography.

Update: Francis MacNutt  passed away on January 12, 2020. He was 94 years old.

Francis: As far back as I can remember I believed in God. I went with my dad to church every Sunday. I was always serious about God and very intent on wanting to do His will.

David: How did that evolve into a call to be a Catholic priest?

Francis: It took a little time. I never was sure what I wanted to do with my life. It was only after graduating from Harvard and from Catholic University that Thomas Merton’s book, Seven Story Mountain, helped persuade me to become a priest. I was ordained a Dominican in 1956.

David: As a Roman Catholic priest, how did you become involved with Agnes Sanford and the healing ministry?

Francis: In 1967, I met Agnes Sanford at “The Camp Farthest Out” in Tennessee. I was fascinated with the idea that God still healed today and she prayed for me to receive the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” She also prophesied that God would use me to bring healing back to the Catholic church, which largely came true.

A year later, I attended a school of pastoral care that was taught by Agnes Sanford, Tommy Tyson and John Sandford. I learned a lot in those days.

I then began to share the news about the baptism of the Holy Spirit while giving talks to different groups, especially to priests, and there would always be some who would ask to receive prayer for it.

Eventually, I became the president of the Catholic Homiletic Society in St. Louis—an organization of 1,100 Catholics. While there, I simply followed Matthew 10, where Jesus said to preach that the kingdom of God is at hand, to heal, and to cast out evil spirits. I wrote and spoke about this quite openly, and many asked me to pray for them.

David: Did your bishop approve?

Francis: It was amazing how well it was received. Many sisters got baptized in the Spirit during weekly meetings that were often attended by as many as 300 people. I’d give talks on the baptism of the Spirit, they’d receive it and take it back to their parishes. By the time I left St. Louis in 1980 there were 60 priests involved in 100 charismatic Catholic prayer groups in the city. It was extraordinary.

David: Were your audiences all Catholic or was it a mix?

Francis: It was a mix, but mostly Catholic. Frequently, however, we had ecumenical teams, often with Tommy Tyson. Ruth Carter Stapleton worked on a number of those teams before her brother got elected president. In the 1970s I took extensive trips to Latin America and Africa – perhaps 30 countries in all. At one retreat in Australia, almost all of the 220 priests asked for the baptism of the Spirit.

David: When did you write your first book?

Francis: I wrote Healing in 1974, which has gone on to sell about a million copies.

David: Judith, how did you meet Francis?

Judith: I was living in Jerusalem, running a house of prayer called Jerusalem House. My pastor, Dr. Robert Lindsey, was a respected scholar in the Southern Baptist Convention who had just experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He encouraged me to go to a meeting to hear Francis.

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Can postmodernism tell us something about how the church is to function, how we tell the story of Jesus, and how the Spirit works in our lives?

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

The wind (pneuma) blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit (pneuma).
John 3: 8

Can Jacques Derrida, a Jewish philosopher who confesses that he “rightly passes for an atheist,” possibly make any meaningful contribution to the understanding of Christian proclamation in the postmodern context?¹ After all, is Derrida not the prophet of humanistic relativism or, worse, the Antichrist of textual meaninglessness? He most certainly approaches texts with the genuine suspicion that they are not always as objectively transparent as conservative readers may take them to be. He insists that a close reading of texts will always disclose places where they deconstruct themselves by calling into question their own assertions.² Furthermore, he contends that every attempt to interpret the meaning of a text results in yet another instance of hermeneutics, which is to say, that interpretation always begets more interpretation. Of course, the authorized keepers of orthodoxy, those who defend religious certainty and objective biblical knowledge, fear that if one never escapes hermeneutics, but endlessly struggles with multiple interpretations without ever discovering the stability of cold, hard facts, then theology succumbs to only relativism and intellectual chaos. Certainly such Derridean suspicion should find no place in Christianity, in a religion predicated upon Jesus’ Great Commission to go forth and proclaim the truth of divine salvation. Consequently, Derrida’s “atheistic” philosophy must represent all that is religiously reprehensible in postmodern culture and cannot but be the enemy of Christian faith and proclamation.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004).
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Yet the depiction of Derrida specifically and of postmodernism generally as merely the most recent expressions of secular relativism and anti-religious pluralism might well be a misinformed caricature. I personally believe that to be the case. I disagree quite strongly with those who identify Derrida’s approach as destructive of Christian faith, hope, and love and as dismissive of the potentiality of language to communicate divine grace and theological knowledge. Indeed, nothing in his philosophy of language prescribes a rejection of God, truth, or meaning. As John Caputo, one of Derrida’s most careful and creative readers, states it, his postmodern perspectives display an “armed neutrality” toward personal faith and religious sensitivity.³ Derrida remains neutral with reference to the content of belief, neither affirming nor denying specific doctrines, while maintaining an armed diligence toward every human pretension to final and certain knowledge, toward the pretentiousness of becoming doctrinaire. That is to say, Derrida reminds us that we are finite creatures constantly seeking to comprehend existence from within the limited structures of that existence and, therefore, should constantly remain open to different interpretations and alternative experiences. Caputo goes so far as to label Derrida’s position as “religion without religion,” that is, as a genuinely religious position but not one reduced to a particular organized religion.⁴ It might well surprise his detractors when they discover that Derrida himself writes about a personal religion of which no one truly knows.⁵ He calls himself a person of prayer,⁶ argues for the necessity of faith,⁷ writes beautiful essays on forgiveness,⁸ speaks of the possibility of divine grace,⁹ and establishes much of his critical philosophy on close and respectful readings of both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.¹⁰

Proclaiming and Naming an Unnamable God

In many of his major works, Derrida carefully examines various biblical passages ranging from Genesis 22 (the sacrifice of Isaac) to Revelation 22 (the significance of Jesus’ second coming) and contends that one encounters a constant struggle in the Bible with the limitations of words and the impossibility of ever exhaustively explaining who God is and how God works in reality.¹¹ The variety of biblical texts indicate for Derrida that theology, that is, words (logos) about God (theos) that seek to define God in appropriate ways, can never confine God within the restrictions of human concepts or rational principles. His position closely tracks that of Paul Ricoeur who notes that Scripture names God in multiple ways.¹² For example, consider God’s own revelation of the divine name to Moses in Ex. 3:14. God responds to Moses’ request for the divine name by calling himself “Yahweh,” which means “I am that I am.” But this “name” is not a noun but a verb; it is a name that is no name, a “name” that leaves God nameless, as beyond the signifying power of any one sign. If this is the covenant name for God, the personal or proper name for God, then God’s name, Yahweh, means “the one who cannot be named.” One must confess, therefore, that every profession of God inherently speaks about God as the Unspeakable One and seeks to name God as the Un­namable One.¹³

The Power of the Cross: The Biblical Place of Healing and Gift-Based Ministry in Proclaiming the Gospel

Following Christ’s Example: A Biblical View of Discipleship

by  Don Williams

Jesus’ pattern for making disciples can show us how to live and minister today.

Is the Church both to bear Jesus’ kingdom message and exercise his kingdom ministry by casting out demons and healing the sick? The answer of some is an emphatic “no”! For them, the time of Christ and the apostles was unique. The claim has been made that “as the age of revelation came to a close, the signs ceased also”¹ and that “Christians who pursue miraculous signs are setting themselves up for satanic deception.”²

Our answer to whether the Church should bear Jesus’ kingdom message and exercise his kingdom ministry is an emphatic “yes”! We will fail to see this responsibility if we fail to place the discipling work of Jesus in its historical context and read the Gospels accordingly. How then did people teach and learn in the ancient world? What did discipleship mean?

Teaching and Learning in Antiquity

In Israel and her surrounding milieu, learning was based on an intimate relationship between a teacher and his or her pupil. Lindblom notes, “In the Orient teachers have always gathered around themselves disciples … to receive their instruction and pass on their ideas.”³ Even the “writing prophets” of the Old Testament were no loners. Jeremiah had his secretary Baruch and his friends in court (Jer. 26:24; 36:4; 45:1). Isaiah instructs, “Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples” (Isa. 8:16, RSV). There are two reasons for this intimate personal relationship between the teacher and his student. First, teaching was largely transmitted orally. Second, this teaching was to be lived out by being with the teacher and imitating his life.

Since learning takes place in personal relationship, Ben Sirach exhorts the prospective student to find a wise man: “Take your stand in the throng of elders: which of them is wise? Attach yourself to him” (6:34). He should hound him: “If you see a man of understanding, go to him early,/ And let your feet wear out his doorstep” (6:36). The Pharisees and their rabbinic leaders agreed. They were “Torah-centric” (Torah meaning “revelation” written and oral). Rabbi Hillel says, “More Torah, more life” (Aboth II.8). Rabbi Shammai advises, “Make thy Torah a fixed duty” (Aboth I.15) But how is this to be done? Johoshua ben Perahjah answers, “Make to thyself a teacher” (Aboth I.6).⁵

Since ancient culture was basically oral, the first vehicle of learning was the spoken word.⁶ Plato valued it over the written word because once speech was transcribed it had no life; it could not answer back (Phaedrus 275d). The French Old Testament scholar, Roland de Vaux, notes, “Most teaching … was done by word of mouth. The teacher told his story, gave explanations and asked questions; the pupil repeated the story and asked or answered questions. This method of teaching continued under the Rabbis. …”⁷ Ben Sirach exhorts his student: “Be willing to listen to every godly discourse,/ And do not let any wise proverb escape you” (6:35). Likewise the Pharisees stressed the importance of hearing Torah. Joezer of Zeredah says: “Let thy house be a place of meeting of the wise, and dust thyself with the dust of their feet and drink their words with thirst” (Aboth 1.4).

Since their tradition was oral before it was written, the Pharisees also valued memory. Johannan ben Zaccai (second half of the first century A.D.) sums up one of his disciples as “a plastered cistern that loseth not a drop” (Aboth 2.11). His input equaled his output. The nature of oral tradition demands this kind of receiver. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day mostly studied Torah by rote and quoted it from memory, preserving it with precision and accuracy.⁸

Crystal L. Downing, How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith: Questioning Truth in Language, Philosophy and Art (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 240 pages.

Crystal Downing has navigated through the mire of misinformation and mangled terminology to present to her reader a clear understanding of what postmodernity is and is not. More importantly, she has prevailed in providing the Christian Church with an effective tool for the communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the postmodern cultural milieu. Regardless of your philosophical aptitude, Downing’s thesis will provide ample food for thought.

What is postmodernity? Postmodernity is not a worldview or an ideology, hypothesized Downing, it is an exposé. It does not point to potential weaknesses in Christianity, Downing opined, but to flaws in modernity. Postmodernity is a reply to, or argument against modernity. Downing’s thesis argued that postmodern theory reopens a door of opportunity for the voice of Christian faith to reenter the academic conversation. In this regard, postmodernity can serve all communities of faith. It is a contradistinction to modernity; postmodernity champions the voices of the marginalized, whereas modernity elevated science and rationality as the only voice of authority. Downing pressed the definition of postmodernity as being against the modern argument—that truth is objectively perceived by reason alone. She posited that postmodernity continues to confront the premise of modernity, which expected science and art to replace Christ as the savior of humanity.

Downing wrote in an easy style, that can be followed with little effort by the non-philosophical reader. She took the time to build her theory around some homey illustrations and on some delightful puns. These will assist the uninitiated to conceptualize some of the abstractions of theory she presented. Along the way she has drawn the attention of the reader to the root meaning of key words and, as an English major, she delights in pointing out not only the origins of these words, but she also calls for the exactitude of their definitions.

The pattern that Downing gives to the reader is linear in format. First, she has laid out the premise for her book. Second, she has labored to build a foundation for her work—gleefully poking fun at herself for using a technique of modernity to illustrate a postmodern text. Next, she has taken the reader systematically through the ideas of significant philosophers, noting their contribution to the development of modern and postmodern worldviews. Along the way, Downing includes enough footnotes to provide the curious with some direction for further inquiry and she gives the reader an ample number of brief quotations—from her roll call of popular authors and prominent philosophers to punctuate her points of progress.

Daniel R. Jennings, The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley (Oklahoma City: SEAN Multimedia, 2005), 155 pages.

This is a book I wanted to write but never did. In seminary in the 80s, I realized with increasing clarity and conviction contemporary Pentecostalism’s unspeakable debt to the incredible career of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley. I determined then to someday identify and extract from his amazingly exhaustive Journals occurrences of Pentecostal-like phenomena in his meetings and ministry. Alas, but other things crowded out this well-conceived intention and I failed to follow through. Rev. Daniel R. Jennings, a graduate of John Wesley College and theological student at Liberty University, a church planter and campus pastor as well as an international speaker, has succeeded in succinctly summarizing “supernatural occurrences” that Wesley reports over the course of his protracted and prolific ministry at the center of one of the greatest revival movements in Christian history. How enriching and uplifting to discover that the Oxford don intellectual and able organizer of Methodism was also intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the spiritual realm and the trans-natural world. Supernatural Occurrences will be a boon to all students of revival, Wesley, and Wesleyanism as well as those who simply desire a practical and proven pattern for powerful ministry.

Jennings’s approach is simple and straightforward. After the briefest introduction to the life and career of Wesley, he immediately proceeds to list extraordinary phenomena from Wesley’s Journals. A chapter each is dedicated to spiritual warfare, miraculous healing, slaying in the Spirit, holy laughter, speaking in tongues, and other “unusual manifestations” of the Spirit, as well as prophecy, visions and dreams, divine retribution against enemies, experiences with angels, and supernatural answers to prayer. Generally, Jennings lets Wesley speak for himself, himself only extracting and organizing for readers the relevant material. Wesley, himself an adept editor and extractor of others’ writings, would probably be pleased. Occasionally, Jennings adds concise and non-cumbersome footnotes for explanatory purposes where modern readers benefit from attention to historical context. Sometimes Jennings includes his own non-intrusive interpretative analysis. The clear consequence of reading Supernatural Occurrences is an unmistakable impression that Wesley’s revivalist ministry was commonly characterized by what are today almost universally recognized as charismatic type encounters, events, and experiences.

The cover from the 2012 reissue of The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley.

Jennings continues with chapters surveying Wesley’s interpretation of baptism with the Holy Spirit and his opinion on miracles. Setting Wesley’s views on Spirit baptism in an Anglican hermeneutical context, Jennings argues that he thought of it in terms of conversion-initiation with an emphasis on sanctification. Recent dialogue in Pneuma: the Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies,between acknowledged Wesley experts Donald Dayton and Larry Wood, each taking opposite sides in this discussion, should warn readers against oversimplifying or underestimating Wesley’s belief and experience on Spirit baptism. Personally, I probably favor the view that Wesley’s dynamic and developmental pneumatology encompassed conversion-initiation with a focus on sanctification along with space for subsequence and empowerment themes. Of course, Jennings is correct that Wesley supported the possibility of speaking in tongues but never taught the doctrine of initial evidence.

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Suggestions for Further Reading

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Readers have suggested the following as places to find good articles online for further reading on this important subject.

• Crystal Downing, “Yolking With Postmodernism: Where is postmodern culture headed? Two recent films, Chicken Run and The X-Men, suggest a neo-Romantic turn” Books & Culture (October 9, 2000). http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2000/october/oct09.html
• Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” Christianity Today (February 2007). “Key elements of the most controversial and misunderstood movement in the church today.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html
• “Pluralism & Postmodernism” Numerous links and lectures critical of postmodernism: http://www.rctr.org/coplur.htm [link unavailable as of October 22, 2014]
• Henry H. Knight III, “Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Postmodernism” Catalyst Online. http://www.catalystresources.org/issues/252knight.html [link unavailable as of October 22, 2014]
• Rebecca Jaichandran, “Pentecostal Spiritual in a Postmodern World” AJPS 6:1 (2003), pages 39-61. http://www.apts.edu/aeimages/file/ajps_pdf/03-1-rjaichandran.pdf [updated October 22, 2014]
  Abstract from the original paper: “This paper seeks to understand Post Modern thought and expressions. An attempt will be made to determine whether Post Modernism has influenced Pentecostal Spirituality like it has done to fashion, literature, art, architecture, television and culture. It then seeks to examine the extent of this influence in order to see how we as Pentecostal theologians would look at this influence—as a threat or an opportunity.”
  Reader Comment: “Although I strongly disagree with many of the assumptions and propositions made by this paper, I think it represents what many Pentecostal pastors think about postmodernism and why they are afraid of it. — TS”

Pastor-scholar Tony Richie takes on a cessationist critic of glossolalia.

Ronald E. Baxter, Charismatic Gift of Tongues (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1981), 149 pages.

I can think of only two reasons why anyone would want to read this book: as an unavoidable assignment for a book review or to shore up shallow prejudice against Pentecostals and Charismatics. As a blatant example of pseudo-scholarship Baxter’s Charismatic Gift of Tongues indulges in eisegesis rather than engaging in exegesis. Although a show of studying original biblical languages and surveying historical and theological material is made, no serious grappling with the subject of speaking in tongues or its proponents is honestly attempted. The author admits his “longing” that “we shall be saved from the chaos, confusion and myths spread abroad in the [Pentecostal/Charismatic] movement.” He begins with this bias and repeatedly presses it home hard. My problem with Baxter is not just that I disagree with his worn-out repetitions of all the old cessationist tirades that have been debunked and refuted time and time again not only by P/Cs but even by other honest-hearted scholars (e.g., Chad Owen Brand, Perspectives on Spirit Baptism, Broadman and Holman, 2004), but with his totally one-sided and uneven treatment of the entire topic.

Baxter displays appreciation for alliteration with chapters titled “The Recurrence of Tongues in the Bible,” “The Relation of Tongues to Spirit Baptism,” “The Regulation of Tongues at Corinth,” “The Reason for Tongues was a Sign,” “The Removal of Tongues by Maturity,” “The Return of Tongues: Its Source,” “The Relation of Tongues to Interpretation,” “The Record of Tongues is Perilous History,” and “The Result of Tongues is Counterfeit Unity.” The titles are pretty well indicative of content too. For example, Baxter argues that Pentecost was a non-repeatable event never intended to reoccur. That, of course, raises the problem of biblical repetitions of Pentecostal experience after Acts 2. But for Baxter, in a decidedly circular argument, since Pentecost is by definition non-repeatable, then these are considered exceptions that prove the rule, so to speak, rather than patterns for reproducible behavior. Contemporary tongues are therefore, again by advance definition, counterfeit.

David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 288 pages, ISBN 9780830825837.

In The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody, David Bebbington provides an outstanding introduction to modern evangelicalism by tracing its origins. In most treatments of the subject the distinguishing characteristic is usually along theological lines. That is, evangelicals are normally (at least until recently) defined in terms of what they believe. For example Alister McGrath in his Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity gives a list of “six fundamental convictions”¹ that define evangelicalism, and Stan Grenz gives a similar list in his Revisioning Evangelical Theology.² This kind definition-by-list could be cited over and over;³ the lists may vary, but it is almost always the discipline of theology that brings the planets of evangelicalism into their proper orbit. Bebbington, however, approaches the subject with a slight variation. He contends that evangelicals are first and foremost a people of the book—a Bible people (pages 23-26). Secondarily, they are a people with a message—the message of the cross (26-31). A third element in Bebbington’s explanation is the utter need and centrality of conversion—men and women must be “born again” (31-36). The final component which constitutes evangelicalism, is what Bebbington calls “activism” (36-40). Here he has in mind nothing more than the idea that someone who is truly born-again will live differently. What Wesley and other eighteenth century theologians called experimental religion—the actual lived-out experience of knowing God in everyday living.⁴

The author begins his examination of evangelicalism’s impact by focusing on two particularly influential representatives: Charles H. Spurgeon and Dwight L. Moody. It should be understood, however, that this volume is not a biography on Spurgeon or Moody. In total, only eleven pages are devoted to biographical elements, as such. Rather, the focus of the work is directed to examining the ways in which evangelicalism has influenced the world over the past century and a half. There are questions that Bebbington raises that challenge the way in which denominational lines are currently drawn. For example, within the evangelical world today, we usually make dividing lines along national boarders. However, the historical reasons behind this are remarkably complex. “Normally…the church history of Scottish Presbyterians has been written as though Scotland were the only natural unit for study. Equally, however, the Reformed tradition in different lands during the Victorian era, as a recent volume has shown, forms a suitable topic for investigation. The book includes Scottish congregations but highlights their similarities to Presbyterians in American and Congregationalists in England.”⁵

One of the most significant historical changes Bebbington tracks was the transition from enlightenment thinking to what became known as Romanticism. “[Romanticism] was a diverse and evolving phenomenon, but its essential temper can be identified by contrast with the Enlightenment. Instead of exalting reason, those touched by the new spirit of the times placed their emphasis on will, spirit and emotion” (148). This “Romantic spirit” (149) affected Christianity as well, and Bebbington demonstrates this throughout the second half of the volume. Evangelicalism responded to the challenges of Romanticism in at least three ways. The first way evangelicals responded was associated with the faith principle embodied in the practice of George Müller (259). “The idea of undertaking some venture in entire dependence on divine provision gathered support as the century wore on. It was applied to finance, to healing and above all to missions” (259). A second way in which evangelicalism responded to the threat of Romanticism was through the rapid growth of premillennial teaching. Premillennialism had not always been at the core of evangelicalism (137-141), but with the new challenges that were raised through the advent of Romanticism, Premillennialism became a central feature (259). The third and final way in which evangelicalism answered the challenge of Romanticism came in the various forms of the holiness teachings. Within the reformed churches it usually came in the form of the Keswick movement. Within the Wesleyan or Methodist traditions it came out in what became known as “entire sanctification.”⁶ Additionally, Bebbington argues that this third response of evangelicalism also was the impetus behind Spurgeon’s strident resistance in what became known as the “Downgrade Controversy” (260). Simply put, advancements in the natural sciences in the late nineteenth century called into question many long-held assumptions about virtually every aspect of life. Eventually this led many within Spurgeon’s own denomination (he was a Baptist) to also call into question the truthfulness and accuracy of Scripture. Spurgeon simply would not sit idly by and say nothing. “From our inmost souls, we loathe all mystic and rationalistic obscurations of the plain and full-orbed doctrines of grace” (260).⁷ Although the pressure of the conflict nearly ended his life, Spurgeon ultimately emerged victoriously from this conflict.

Graham Cooke, Approaching The Heart Of Prophecy: A Journey Into Encouragement, Blessing And Prophetic Gifting (Winston-Salem, NC: Punch Press, 2006), 282 pages, ISBN 9780977080786.

Graham Cooke’s new book Approaching The Heart Of Prophecy: A Journey Into Encouragement, Blessing And Prophetic Gifting is volume one of what will be a six book set known as The Prophetic Equipping Series. This series is based on a major rewrite of his earlier book,Developing Your Prophetic Gifting, and will include new material as well. Future volumes in the series will be Prophetic Protocol, Prophetic Wisdom, The Prophetic Impact, Prophetic Partnerships and Prophecy And The Ways Of God. Volume two of the series, Prophetic Protocol, is scheduled to be released in either February or March of 2007.

Approaching The Heart Of Prophecy, like Cooke’s earlier work, Developing Your Prophetic Gifting, deals with practical aspects of the use of the prophetic gifts. While the book certainly contains theology, it is not mainly a theological work.

The book is divided into four modules. Module one is titled “The Exercise of Prophecy.” In this section, Cooke stresses the grace aspect of the prophetic gifts. He writes about the importance of having a proper view of the nature of God and having God’s heart when operating in prophetic gifts. He says that it is important that we see people as God sees them. Also in this module Cooke talks about his belief that prophecy comes to the prophetic person in three stages: a word of knowledge, a word of prophecy and a word of wisdom. In Cooke’s words, “A word of knowledge opens up the issue, a prophetic word speaks God’s heart into it, and a word of wisdom tells us how to respond to God.” Thus, his counsel to prophetic people is to speak the second thing revealed, not the first. Also in this module Cooke addressed some of the things in a prophetic person’s life that can taint their gift.

Module number two is titled “The Process of Prophecy.” In this section Cooke lists a number of things that are important for a prophetic person to pursue in order to be effective for God. He mentions the need for humility, rejoicing, meditation, waiting on God, the importance of speaking in tongues and the practice of unceasing prayer. In this section he also speaks a little more about the three phases of revelation that he introduced in the first module. This module also contains a list of the various ways in which God communicates prophetically. God can communicate through dreams, visions, words, Scripture or impressions.

Module number three is titled “The Purpose of Prophecy.” In this section Cooke discusses nine purposes of the prophetic gifts. The purposes are: to restore people’s dignity and self-respect, to edify, encourage and comfort the church, to bring correction and warning, to provide direction and enhance vision, to open up the teaching of the Word and confirm preaching, to release the church into new doctrine or practice (note: don’t get worried about this one), to provide insight into counseling situations, to provide evangelistic breakthroughs and to provide an agenda for prayer. In this module he also deals with four arguments that are used against prophetic gifting.