You can't make this stuff up: Local (NW) folly...

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According to Deen Gill, a member of Turning Point Christian Center in Vancouver, Wash., the topic of the region's spiritual vitality was raised by Christian author and international speaker Cindy Jacobs during a visit to Portland in early 2003. Gill said Jacobs spoke about the land in the Northwest being sickly. She also mentioned "ley lines" - a network of energy lines originating at spiritual power centers - that had been placed in a grid over the Seattle area by New Age proponents.

Gill did his own research and found that in 2000 a group called The Geo Group did indeed several years ago create the Seattle Ley Line Project as an art project. On its Web site (www.geo.org), The Geo Group describes itself as "a group of artists, architects, landscape architects and 'dowsers' dedicated to creating environmental art for the purposes of world peace."

Dowsing, or water witching, is an ancient spiritual art in which a person, with the aid of a device such as a divining rod or pendulum, gains unseen information at a distance about a person, creature, object, substance, place or "thing" beyond the limitations of one's five senses and normal thought processes. But many Christians believe that dowsing is an occultic form of divination that is condemned in the Bible and should be avoided.

According to Seattle Ley Line Project administrators, dowsing techniques were used to identify and map the major ley lines and spiritual power centers in and around Seattle, Supposedly, both ley lines and water lines create a field of energy that has an effect on consciousness and how people feel Proponents of this assert that they can feel the effects of the energies just like a person feels the effect of a strong cup of coffee.

It took The Geo Group more than three months to dowse Seattle, and according to members' own testimony, "every dowsing session was preceded by meditation and a specific set of spiritual practices."

Gill notes that the Bible clearly states (Lev. 19, Deut. 18, Isa. 15, II Chr. 33 and Gal. 5) that divination is witchcraft, is unholy and will not be tolerated by a holy God.

"My intent is not to frighten us, but to send an alarm to every Blood-bought believer in the Northwest," says Gill. "We do not have to fear because of localized, occult activity in our area. But we must take authority."

(Emphasis mine.)

What do they mean by "take authority?"

Anyway the rest of the article is interesting in that the view of capitalism as spirituality is the unstated assumption rife in the article. "Spiritual growth" seems to be the conceptual analog of "revenue growth." Another gem along the same lines:

"Ninety percent of churches have no vision or purpose statement," Townsend continued. He said it is vital to church growth for these elements to be identified. He believes a congregation with established goals and an active body will see true spiritual growth. He has seen this happen in other countries such as Colombia where church growth has exploded despite the executions of many Christians. He said miracles are happening daily in other parts of the world because the churches share a common vision.

Miracles are happening.....because.....you can't make this stuff up.


If, as some neocons claim, "Americanism is the new Puritanism," clearly capitalism is the new Christian theology.