Arthur M. Casci Testimony

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Anyway, God was there, in the Jesus Movement of the 1960s. No doubt.

Really. How do you know that?

I remember the instability back then. I experienced it firsthand.

I had a friend that was in the Children of God. He came back from the west coast to visit family and friends. He told me all about the CoG and wanted me to come with him and join.

My instability, as you call it, was driving me. To me at the time I was faced with two choices. One to join the CoG, or two to join the Rosicrucian's.

I drove from Detroit to San Jose Ca, where the Rosicrucian University was. Long story short, I bumped into the church in Santa Cruz. The rest is history.

Was that God moving in the 60s? Was the CoG God moving in the sixties? The movement that arranged the brothers to sleep with a different sister each night? The movement that invented "Flirty Fishing?"

If not, what of the Jesus movement of the sixties was God moving? I got into the local church. Brought by a grifter from China selling cheap suits at flea markets. And that turned out to be a farce. Was that God moving in the sixties?

Down thru history there's been lots of such Jesus movements ... the fruit obviously of human instability, as you say, that came to naught.

The Welsh Revival, of early 20th c. is a popular example. The minister of that movement was Evan Roberts. He claimed direct visions from the Holy Spirit (bring anything to mind - ring a bell?).

But the one that it said to have inspired Watchman Nee's The Spiritual Man, Jessie Penn-Lewis, with her, War on the Saints shot that revival movement down, claiming it was not the movement of God, but a product of demon possession.

How can we know for sure what is a movement of God, and what is not?

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

How can we know for sure what is a movement of God, and what is not?

That is a good question. But how can we know anything? In reality, we cannot. We are impermanent creatures; how can we know of permanence? Of the things that abide, and remain?

Ultimately it becomes, for me, a matter of faith. I do believe that there is a world, that it is round, that it has history. In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Etc. And there's a narrative, in our hands, of the man Jesus. By faith I receive it. I believe it. And likewise it seems that the Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead has similarly operated among men, since those days. However, the problem is, how much is God, and how much is man? That, I cannot answer. As Orson Welles said of Paul Masson wine, "We judge no wine before its time". Jesus was judged, and raised; He's the Victor. You and I, and the rest, our time is not yet, so judgment still waits.

Nonetheless, I do believe God has moved among humanity, at least in part, and it seems to have occurred in the "Jesus Movement" of the 1960s. Those young people who swelled the ranks of the LCs also swelled the ranks of the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, and other burgeoning groups, were responding to God's call. And yes there was some really weird stuff as well. Both you and Casci have testified of being almost caught by the CoG... "my feet nearly slipped' (Psa 73:2). And the Calvary Chapel's leading light of the young generation, named Lonnie Frisbee, was so charismatic that he couldn't keep his hands off the parishioners, both male and female, and died of AIDS in 1993.

Yet who can judge? We all fail. That's one thing that seems solidly established in this swirling world of impermanence. But it still pleased God to send His Son. That I do know. If anything is real, that's real.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

I remember the instability back then. I experienced it firsthand.

I had a friend that was in the Children of God. He came back from the west coast to visit family and friends. He told me all about the CoG and wanted me to come with him and join.

My instability, as you call it, was driving me. To me at the time I was faced with two choices. One to join the CoG, or two to join the Rosicrucian's.

I drove from Detroit to San Jose Ca, where the Rosicrucian University was. Long story short, I bumped into the church in Santa Cruz. The rest is history.

This testimony is confirmation of the previous post. (#84) These kids were easy pickings for Witness Lee and his ilk. They sang, "I'm so happy in this lovely place...Christ is new and fresh, available and near".