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The Dawning Restoration of Masculine Spiritual Authority

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	Part 1–2	Part 3–4
Part 5A	Part 5B	Part 5C	Part 5D
Part 6	Part 7	Part 8–9	Part 10-11

 

V. Four Levels of Spiritual Gender

D. Generational Spiritual Gender

 All of the three preceding levels of spiritual gender combine over the course of Church history to form a fourth level we can call “generational spiritual gender.” This is the tracing of the dominance of one gender or the other over the course of generations in Church history.


We earlier noted that "since the fathers fell asleep," there have been two general streams of the Church: the visible feminine church under feminine authority having suffered under jezebellic control and the weight of pollution from its undiscerning interaction with the world; and the hidden masculine church marked by rejection, sterility, and extremism.


But if we look at Church history, we will find different oscillating waves of emphasis over the course of generations in each stream. Each wave of emphasis has been marked by either a dominance of masculine truth or feminine truth, and can be traced as broad gradual swings over the course of time.


To see this, let’s begin with a chart that focuses on these gender swings of emphasis in the visible feminine stream beginning with the Reformation-Puritan Era. We can use the chart below to correlate this development of generational gender with the Church’s passage through the three dimensions of experience we have been discussing.


 



Rejected for pressing into the 2nd dimension a generation too early	Rejected for pressing into the 3rd dimension a generation too early
Rejected across the board for apply the cross to whichever areas were not being addressed by the feminine stream

 

 1. The Reformation/Puritan Era

 The age of the Reformation and the Puritans (1517 - @1720) was the age of the restoring of the outer court and the first dimension. During this time, the visible feminine stream was predominantly marked by masculine spiritual reality.


The truth of this period was marked by doctrinal study rather than personal experience. It emphasized the sovereignty of God in establishing relationship between God and man (whence we derive the term "calvinism"). There was major emphasis on truth as a legal standard to be obeyed, drawing heavily upon Old Testament type.


The grace of God was preached, but only in terms of justification from the age of Mosaic Law. There was great emphasis on the fear of the Lord and warning against sinfulness. Repentance was a strong byword in the life of the Church. The overall era was born amidst world persecution which is conducive to the predominance of masculine truth.


But why would a generation of the feminine stream Church be marked by masculine truth? It's because this was the age of the outer court, the age in which God's primary dealing with the church was through the mind which is the masculine element of the soul. The light of the mind, as masculine as it may be, is the light of spiritual immaturity.


The Reformation/Puritan Era was unillumined to God's keener dealings with the soul. It was unable to obtain the masculine cleansing and separation in the inward parts. Therefore it was unable to bring forth the manifestation of the sons of God. Rather, as a basically soulish earthbound church, it remained essentially feminine, separated from the true primary masculine stream.


Through its childishness, the Reformation rejected those of the truly primary masculine stream who directly exposed the inadequacy of its mind-based approach to spirituality and holiness. It rejected those who sought to bring it into the place of inner soul cleansing. (One key masculine prophet of this era was Roger Williams. After exposing the Puritan hypocrisy, he eventually abandoned all concept of a true visible church and became a "Seeker.")



2. The Pietist/Holiness - Pentecostal/Charismatic Era

 The age of the Pietist/Holiness - Pentecostal/Charismatic Era (@1720 - 1988) was the era in which the Holy Place of the second dimension was restored to the feminine stream Church. Spiritual truth underwent a major shift from masculine to feminine in which truth moved out of the mind and into the heart, the truly feminine part of the soul.


This first appeared in the pietistic movements of central and eastern Europe which began making breakthroughs into the experiential aspects of the life of Christ. These were the first significant forays into the Holy Place. This experiential based thrust came to a focus in the teachings of John Wesley with his formulation of the doctrine of entire (soul) sanctification. From there it was refined and added to by the later pentecostal and charismatic movements.


The marks of feminine truth throughout this era are unmistakable. Holiness teaching was marked by experience first, then doctrine. Christ was not someone we knew just in our heads anymore. We experienced Him in our hearts through sanctification, and then by His giftings and anointings brought out by pentecost.

 Grace became taught as an experience of deliverance from sin in the present, not just legal justification. Emphasis moved from the judgment of God to the Love of God. It shifted from negative warning against sin to positive preaching of the blessings to be enjoyed here and now in Christ, spiritually and materially.


The truth of this era came to center on the responsibility of man for entering and maintaining relationship with God. In this light, the Church entered upon its greatest era of evangelism and encounter/involvement with the world featuring such ministers as Charles Finney and Billy Graham. This period was sustained by the relatively enduring peace and prosperity of the American civilization. It is in such times that the feminine stream flourishes most.


Through its move into the Holy Place, the feminine stream Church graduated from doctrinal childhood and became feminine in every way. Thus was born the era of motherhood and adolescence.


At this point, it is significant to point out a subtle inner tow within the Mothering era that reveals its own subtle progression from masculine emphasis to feminine emphasis. The earlier pietist/holiness period of the era carried its own masculine trait that became a feminine trait with the pentecostal movement. The holiness period was decidedly more masculine in its emphasis by its focusing on the cleansing of the inward parts of the soul. It was experience, but it was experience that focused on inward separation unto God.


But this changed about 1880 and decisively so in 1900 with the formal birth of the pentecostal movement. At this time, the emphasis of experience shifted from internal work of the Spirit to the external "pouring upon" work of the Spirit through his anointings and gifts and His effects on outward circumstance.


The exclusionary requirement of coming to God through a crisis experience was replaced by 1914 with a non-exclusionary apprehending of the Spirit's anointing baptism by anyone who desired it—no cleansing required. This shift to femininity reached its absolute extreme through the Word of Faith movement of the last 25 years.


The feminine truth of God was carried to its furthest possible reaches in which virtually all masculine truth was eradicated from the Church. Emphasis on grace was carried unto license. All truth was developed around the experience of spiritual anointing. All focus on God was on His blessing to the denial of judgment, repentance, and suffering. Nothing evil, painful, or undesirable could ever be attributable to God.


Along with this extreme spiritual feminism came the pitfalls of licentious living in which the Church identified with the world not only in its need but in its sin. The jezebellic spirit of witchcraft prevailed in such a way that pastors were touted as kings, and wives and women were elevated wholesale to illegitimate positions of authority and government in the Church and in personal ministries.


Needless to say, never were the visible Church and the desert Church more at enmity than during the recent time of the Word of Faith movement. Indeed, throughout the entire era of holiness-pentecostalism, there has been continual rejection and persecution of the primary masculine stream. As a totally feminine-oriented body, the visible church has been unable to respond favorably to masculine truth challenging its mindset.


Though the feminine Church has made so many important strides toward maturity, key vices remain in Her relationship with the world which the masculine stream has been unsuccessful in challenging. The Church has not been ready, and neither have the Sons.
 
[NOTE: For deeper discussion on the historical development within these first two church restoration dimensions, please study Chapters 6 through 8 of The Transformation and the Anointing: Reconciling God’s Two Great Works of Salvation in the Earth Today.]

 


3. The Era of Apostolic Union


The entrance of an entire generational Church from both gender streams into the third dimension marked by their union will be the culmination of the broad gender swings we have observed in this section. Each swing between one gender dominance or the other has brought the Church of both streams to a greater place of maturity and readiness for receiving the other at the third dimension.


When the third dimension is fully underway, it will be marked by a return to prominence of the same masculine elements seen during the Reformation/Puritan Era. Yet these elements will no longer be displayed through the dull light of the carnal mind, but through a perfected soul in complete blending with the elements of femininity as restored in the latest era. This will be the era of the Married Church. It will be the Church of mature sonship.


The apex manifestation of this era will be the harvesting of saints unto resurrection bodies without tasting death. For the entire soul will have been fully redeemed, and brought under perfect subjection to the Spirit of God. There will be no more partial focusing on just the heart elements or the mind elements, no more division between hidden elements and visible elements, no more dichotomy between the here-and-now and things to come.


Though the thought of physical translation yet seems incredible to us, to millennial generations to come, moving into the translation of physical rebirth will become as common as moving into the conversion of new spiritual birth and the Spiritual baptism of new soul birth are for us now.




[Continue to Part 6 .....]


 

Chris Anderson
written from Merrimack, New Hampshire

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

02/92



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