Originally Posted by
Berserk
And it might help you to be reminded that I specified in the OP that I wanted to substantially finish my personal testimony BEFORE developing the present thread. Why? Obviously because I wanted members to get to know me personally before I expressed views (sometimes controversial) that readers might find spiritually helpful. I thought, wrongly, that conversation and theological discussion might be more warm and personal if readers knew my spiritual priorities and life experiences. My Harvard doctoral thesis focused on the gift of prophecy, how it was understood in ancient Judaism, and the early church of the first 3 centuries, and who could exorcise this gift. My professors agreed that my 455 thesis broke new ground, and recommended it for publication. I thought you might be interested in the relevance of this to modern Pentecostal exercise of the gift of prophecy in corporate worship. But the thesis is so technical and detailed that I thought that if I liked the people on this site I would seek ways to simplify it for thread discussion.
You claim, "we pray for and support one another." Well, I'm a member of a weekly Monday prayer group of 5 that has seen marvelous healings and other answers to prayer over the years and I intended to share our experiences and insights as well as our problems. I also weekly visit a mentally ill but deeply spiritual bipolar schizophrenic on dialysis, who is desperate to rekindle his faith, which has been destroyed by his perception that God just doesn't care about his suffering. A lot of harm has been done by wannabe Pentecostal exorcists who confuse mental illness with demonic possession and do more harm than good by trying an failing to exorcise the mentally ill. I wanted to discuss my friends' and family's experiences with exorcism and lessons learned on how to minister to the mentally ill. But I can't pray with people I dislike. So my stay here will not be long.