The Major Originating ‘Schools” of Christian Inner Healing in the US

1. The Major Originating ‘Schools” of Christian Inner Healing in the US • Agnes Sandford • Wife of Episcopal priest • “Gray Lady” in WWII hospitals • Schools of Pastoral Care 1950s-1960s Payne, MacNutt and John Sandford (no relation) all worked with Agnes Sandford early 1960s • Francis & Judith MacNutt • Christian Healing Ministries • Jacksonville, FL • Roman Catholic • Leanne Payne • Pastoral Care Ministries • Wheaton Il, near Chicago • Anglican (was Episcopal) • John and Paula Sandford • Elijah House • Spokane WA • Evangelical http://www.leannepayne.org http://www.christianhealingmin.org/ http://www.elijahhouse.org • The “nuts and bolts” of inner healing ministry. The Sandfords elucidate four “Scriptural Laws” that function with the same impersonal certainty as the laws of physics. • The authors also specifically identify the most common sinful practices: (1) Bitter Root Judgment and Expectancy, (2) Inner Vows, (3) Parental Inversion, (4) Performance Orientation. • Books: • Restoring the Christian Family, 1979, Victory House. • Transformation of the Inner Man, 1982, Victory House. (The Soul) • Healing the Wounded Spirit, 1985, Victory House.This book has some amazing passages regarding the spiritual aspects of Christian marriage. I would some day like to pull these gems out of the book and write about them. • Why Some Christians Commit Adultery, 1989, Victory House Publishers • The Renewal of the Mind, 1991, Victory House Publishers • A Comprehensive Guide to Deliverance and Inner Healing, 1992,Baker  Book House • And many others… A Prophet calling the Church back to the whole Gospel. Payne promulgates a deeply Christian worldview. Payne’s autobiography is likely to be her last book. Books: Real Presence: The Christian Worldview of C. S. Lewis As Incarnational Reality, 1979, Baker Books. Payne’s Masters Thesis at Wheaton College under Clyde Kilby, founder of The Wade Center for the Study of Anglo-Christian Writers. Please refer to my summary of this book on the Downloads page of my website. The Broken Image: Restoring Personal Wholeness Through Healing Prayer, 1981, Baker Books The Healing of the Homosexual, 1984 Crossway Books Crisis in Masculinity, 1985, Baker Books The Healing Presence, 1989, Crossway Books. Restoring The Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer, 1991, Crossway Books. Listening Prayer, 1994, Hamewith Books. Heaven’s Calling: One Soul’s Steep Ascent,2008, Baker Books

2. Inner Healing Outline of Chapter 3, “What Inner Healing Is,” from A Comprehensive Guide to Deliverance and Inner Healing,by John and Mark Sandford, 1992,Baker Book House. • Why Don’t We Do As Jesus Says? A number of reasons which suggest the biblical definitions of inner healing • Discovering Bitter Roots (Hebrews 12:15) • A. We have not yet dug deep to find those aspects of our “old man” that can defile and undermine Jesus’ character in us. Nor have we brought these defilements to death on the cross and rebuilt on the rock of His nature. • Evangelizing Unbelieving Hearts (Hebrews 3:12) • A. Deep in our hearts remains some measure of unbelief. • The Process of Crucifixion (1 Cor 15:31, Gal 2:20, 5:24) • A. We have not fully died to ourselves. • A Major Tool for Sanctification (Romans 12:2) • A. Our minds have not yet been renewed and we have not yet been transformed. • The Aim of inner Healing (Ez 18:24, Romans 6:11, John 12:24, Mat 10:39, Eph 4:15) • 1. Inner Healing is a misnomer. Healing suggests fixing something that is broken, whereas God has no intention of “fixing” our soul…God wants to slay our old habits and replace them with resurrection ways…Counsel and prayer for the sanctification and transformation of all Christians. • How Inner Healing is Done • Inner healing is effected by our listening to one another until God allows us to see whatever quirks in our old nature have not yet found their death upon the cross. • A. There may be areas in which our outer person thinks we have forgiven others – especially those most formative to us in childhood – but counsel and prayer reveal that such forgiveness is far from complete. • It may be that coping mechanisms from childhood are causing us still to act and react in childish ways. • Or bitter roots may have sprung back to life, causing us to defile others and reap harmful consequences that we cannot, without counsel, even explain. • Seeing and Repenting • Going to the Cross • Ripeness (Luke 8:5-15) • Loving People to Life (Gal 4:19) • The Four Scriptural Laws • Honoring Parents (Deut 5:16) • Judging (Mat 7:1-2) • A. Appraisals made from a heart of understanding and compassion do not activate the laws of retribution…But when we judge others with impure hearts – with blame, condemnation, anger, jealously or rancor – then God’s immutable laws are set in motion to bring recompense. • Sowing and Reaping (Gal 6:8) • A. Consequently, adults reap awesome results from sins sown against their parents when they were but infants and children. • Becoming What We Judge in Others (Romans 2:1) • The Principle of Repentance • Repentance is not feelings or buckets of tears. To repent is to be sorry for the hurt we have caused the Lord and others by what has lodged in our hearts and by what we have done; it is being willing to die to what we have been, and allowing God to change us into what He wants us to be. • It is not enough to see sin and be sorry, as important as this is. Nor is it enough to forgive and be forgiven, as important as these are. No, the habits we have formed in reaction to those who have hurt us must actually come to death on the cross. • The Most Common Sinful Practices • Bitter Root Judgment and Expectancy • Inner Vows • Parental Inversion • Performance Orientation

3. Secular Psychology vs Christian Inner Healing Secular Psychology Christian Inner Healing • Psychologists want to restore people’s capacity to function. • This is not necessarily a Christian’s aim. Christian counselors know that God will put a person “between a rock and a hard place,” in order to write something on his or her heart. A wise proverb warns us not to cast water on a fire God is building. Nor should we comfort another too soon lest we miss God’s larger purpose in his or her life. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comprehension, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2Cor 4:17-18). • Psychologists want to restore a person’s self image, believing that a person who sees himself or herself in a good light will have the confidence to perform well. To be sure we all work to make ourselves acceptable to others. We want others to see that we are doing well and to affirm us. But once we have built a good image we must strive to live up to it. That is hard work and perhaps one reason Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, And I will give you rest” (Mat 11:28). In addition, a strong self image creates confidence in the flesh, whereas the Bible teaches that the arm of flesh will fail, and that we are to place no confidence in the flesh (Phil 3:4-11). • When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, one of the most important deaths we die is to the nurturing of our self image. We have, instead, a Christian identity – altogether different from a self image. Our identity is a gift we did not build, nor must we strive to maintain. We are children of God, sinners redeemed by the blood of Jesus. In Him we can ”crush a troop and leap over a wall” (Ps 18:29 rsv). “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). Confidence rightly placed is confidence in what the Holy Spirit will do through us. True strength lies not in what we are, but in who and what Christ is in us. Self image gives us the glory. Whatever we do in our identity as Christians gives God the glory. Christian counselors work, therefore, to slay self image on the cross, and to fill men and women with the realization of their new identities in Christ. Any Christian who labors to build self image works against the power of the crucifixion. • Psychologists are trained, for the most part, to believe in conditioning – that we are whatever life writes on our consciousness. That way of thinking began with the 17th century mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes, who stated that we begin life as a tabula rasa, (literally, an erased tablet or slate) onto which experience writes what we are to become. This theory was buttressed by cultural determinists like Emile Durkheim and psychologists like Pavlov, who conditioned animals to salivate at a given signal and theorized that humans were similarly controllable. That is why some psychologists become softheaded about criminals: “You couldn’t help it. Your parents and society conditioned you to become what you have. We are to blame, so we should turn you loose.” • Christians, by contrast, believe that human beings can choose how we will react to what forms us. We are not innocent victims who must be reconditioned; we are guilty and need forgiveness. To most secular psychologists, guilt is an enemy barring people from freedom and happiness. To a Christian, guilt is a friend. If we do not recognize our guilt, we cannot get to the cross. So Christians work to make people feel properly guilty, since that is the route to repentance and being set free in Christ. • …our ancestors in the faith were incisive about character defects and how these were to be brought to death on the cross. Treatise after treatise from the early Church Fathers speaks of the necessity to conform human nature to the character of Jesus, seeing transformation as an essential part of being made fit for heaven. Quite a contrast to the “gimme-gimme” gospel of today, proclaiming only what Christ will do for us!. Inner Healing is a tool in the Lord’s hand calling us back to self-sacrificial ministry for one another that alone can reshape our character for fellowship with the Father. [CSR comment: ” This section takes an eternal perspective on what is true and what is truly important.”] Source: A Comprehensive Guide to Deliverance and Inner Healing,John and Paula Sandford, 1992, Baker Book House

4. Inner Healing • Changing Our Mental Model • How do we correct our mental model of the Christian faith – particularly one we are quite committed to? For a start, read one of the gospels and note the difference between how you act and react versus how Jesus acts and reacts. Would you be happy being a friend of publicans and sinners? Would you let a prostitute touch your feet? Would you say “You cannot serve God and Mammon” with conviction? • At those points where your model and the gospel model disagree, you must decide to change and become like Jesus. Other clues are inner discontent with where you are (maybe it’s your model of Christianity that’s wrong), or a desire for something more. Take your questions to Scripture and “brick by brick” build up a more mature idea of what it means to be a Christ-like person. • The central questions are, “Can I be more like Jesus than I am now ?” and, “What is my actual working notion of the Christian life? Is it what Jesus meant by the Christian life?” To doubt our mental model of the faith is not the same as doubting God. I do not doubt the authority of the Scriptures but I do periodically question how I have interpreted them and the mental pictures I have generated. Changing mental models means being honest to God and the Scriptures and tough on one’s personal comfort zone, church culture and traditions. It is honest biblical reflection on where we are spiritually. • You may need to move beyond your culture and upbringing, accepting that which is good, rejecting that which is evil, and moving towards maturity in Christ. The Jewish Christians in the book of Acts had a very difficult time doing this because they were so sure of the superiority of Jewish culture and of the need to be circumcised. Their model of Jesus was that He was “a good Jewish boy who kept the Law” – and He did! However He also accepted Gentiles! Chapters ten to fifteen of the book of Acts detail the terrible tension Peter and the Jewish Christians faced when Gentiles accepted the gospel. A church-wide conference had to be called to resolve the issue. Changing models of faith was not easy then and is not easy now. • The power of the Holy Spirit is required if radical change is to occur, and if we are to have the courage to be more emotionally Christ-like than our community believes is desirable. For instance, people who bring prostitutes and drug addicts to church may not be welcomed with enthusiasm. Departing from our comfortable model of Christianity to a genuine Spirit-filled and Christ-like existence can have a huge cost and be understood only by other seekers on the same journey. [Remember that this is your quest and that you may not be able to take your church with you. You may see the need to change while they are content with where they are. Your responsibility is to do what you must to be like Jesus. They have their own time and path to Christ-likeness.] • Mental Models Summary • We need to gain control of our emotions by identifying them and then making a conscious decision about which emotions to express and which to suppress. • Our mental model of the Christian faith will greatly affect how we express or suppress emotions. Our mental model serves as a sort of Christian master plan that guides our destiny, thoughts, emotions and behavior. It is shaped by culture, conditioning and the traditions our community of faith, as well as by our own conclusions about God and Jesus. It needs to be revised when we begin to see it fall short of Jesus and his example. • We need to move to ever-more Christ-like mental models and these in turn will pattern our thoughts, behavior and Emotional Intelligence. As we become more Christ-like, we will express and suppress the right emotions, in the right way, and at the right times, for the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom.