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As the memory unfolded, we got to the point where I saw Jesus instead of my grandmother, and I was grabbing onto my airplane as Jesus was hugging me. I was experiencing all the emotions that I previously experienced with this event. Then I looked up and saw my grandmother there. She looked the same as I always envisaged her in this memory, but the look on her face was no longer angry. She looked humbled and saddened. But she also possessed a tranquility about her I had never seen before. And then, in a soft and gentle voice, she spoke to me, “Greg, can you forgive me for what I did? I now see what a terrible mistake I made, and I’m sorry for the harm it caused you. I was an old, overburdened, impatient woman who was angry at the world because of my daughter’s death. It wasn’t your fault. You are a good boy. I was just too blind to see it. What I said and what I did were really wrong. Can you forgive me?”
Jesus released his hug and stood back from me. As I stood next to the paper sack that had held my toy airplane, I looked up at Jesus for a moment in silence. He was still smiling at me, but he then raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner as if to say, “Are you ready to let her go?”
He then nodded his head slightly as if to encourage me to do what I knew was the right thing. Several times I looked up at my grandmother and then back down to my red airplane I held in my hands. Finally, raising my eyes back to my grandmother, I nodded yes and said in a toddler voice, “Its OK now, Grandma. Jesus fixed the hurt.”
She slowly nodded her head and smiled as she replied, “He fixed it for me too.” I ran to her, and she picked me up and gave me a big hug – something she never did in real life. And with this Jesus came over and hugged the two of us together. We enjoyed a loving embrace for a long time.
When it seemed right, my grandmother set me down. No one said anything, but we all knew it was time to go. She and Jesus joined hands and I watched them walk off into the distance. They together looked back at me with serene smiles one last time, waived a childlike bye-bye with their fingers, and slowly vanished. The scene ended as I looked down at the shiny red airplane in my hands.

Taken from page 125 of, ”Seeing is Believing, Experiencing Jesus” by Dr. Greg Boyd.

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In his book "Seeing is believing," Dr. Boyd has redefined the words "truth"
and "real" to mean different things, they are no longer synonyms.

On page 11 he states, "Wondering whether Christianity is real is not the same as wondering whether Christianity is true."

On page 13 he states, "Remember, it's not what we believe intellectually that impacts us; it's what we experience as real."

Dr. Boyd is telling us that the objective factual evidence that we tangibly discern and process with our intellect is less real than subjective experiences we don't confirm with our senses. Dr. Boyd goes on to define "spiritual truth" as internal subjective experiences. He states on page 15,
"We have forgotten the truth that while the imagination certainly can be merely 'imaginative,' it can also be the means by which we experience spiritual truths as real."

This may sound innocent, if spiritual truths experienced actually conform to objective truth - Scripture and the historical record observed by men. This is exactly what is denied, however, and the process that Dr. Boyd provides us with constructs an "alternate reality" in his imagination that is disassociated with the objective historical record. He constructs a lie and he claims it "real." He implicates his imagined "spiritual Jesus" into his lie and claims it to be true and Scriptural, because it works.

I am not exaggerating. Dr. Boyd gives us the factual historical objective truth of an incident in his life. He had a cruel grandmother that didn't give him a present and called him bad which he recounts on page 117,
"No, Greggie is a bad boy, and bad boys don't get presents."

This incident brings pain to his life. Dr. Boyd discovers the techniques of imaginative prayer and applies them on pages 118 through 122, progressing through a series of emotions from grieving to forgiveness. Dr. Boyd claims that Jesus personally leads him through this process. As the process unfolds, we see that what is happening is that Jesus Himself is changing the objective historical record witnessed by Dr. Boyd's sisters to a different story that never happened. This story evolves into the following account on page 121,
"But this time, instead of seeing the angry wrinkled face of my grandmother, I saw the radiant, joyful face of Jesus. He leaned over the bag and peeked in with a wildly excited smile on his face. Instead of hearing my grandmother say, 'No, Greggie is a bad boy,' I heard Jesus exclaim, 'Oh, of course Greggie gets a present! He is such a good boy!' He rubbed my head vigorously as he said, 'It's a very special gift. That's why I saved it for last.' I began hopping and flapping my arms even more excited than before as I looked again into the paper sack. And there I saw a huge red toy airplane."

Dr. Boyd has imagined, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, a new historical record without witnesses that he now believes to be "real" and a spiritual experience of the truth. This is how the imaginative Jesus enabled Dr. Boyd to forgive his grandmother and find healing. It is the process of building a story that opposes objective reality, believing that it is inspired and therefore "real" and experiencing relief from the historical record that is now "unreal" so that forgiveness is possible. He states on page 123,
"It is crucial to note, however, that forgiveness usually comes at the end of the healing process (i.e. imagined story believed as true), not at the beginning.

Scriptures tell us of a different path to forgiveness which doesn't consist of my creating inspired "subjective reality." When I realize that I am utterly sinful and undeserving, with a monumental debt towards God I am incapable of paying, destined to damnation - and God comes and dies for me and forgives my mountainous debt and gives me eternal life instead, the antithesis of anything I deserved or merited - the gratitude that whelms up in my heart and mind at this realization enables me to forgive the puny debts that grandmothers owe to me. This is the gospel. This doesn't require spirits to create freestyle historical records so I can forgive. It simply believes in the work that God, as a tangible man, did for me on the cross. This is where we find the true and real power to forgive, in objective history that was seen by witnesses and written down for us to read and understand.

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Originally posted by Mayflower

Spen:

Beyond a certain point, "book review" no longer seems like an accurate description of what you're trying to accomplish.

What's your goal in all this?


<><

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Originally posted by Mayflower

Spen:

Beyond a certain point, "book review" no longer seems like an accurate description of what you're trying to accomplish.

What's your goal in all this?


<><

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Originally posted by SwanLake

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Originally posted by Mayflower

Spen:

Beyond a certain point, "book review" no longer seems like an accurate description of what you're trying to accomplish.

What's your goal in all this?


<><

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Keith J. goes to DeWaay's little church. They trash everyone in their "Critical Issues Commentary", Bruce Wilkinson, Rick Warren, Billy Graham, "seeker sensitive" churchs, pretty much anyone who is reaching the lost for Jesus gets trashed by DeWaay's little hate machine.

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Originally posted by spenlake

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Originally posted by SwanLake

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Originally posted by Mayflower

Spen:

Beyond a certain point, "book review" no longer seems like an accurate description of what you're trying to accomplish.

What's your goal in all this?


<><

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Keith J. goes to DeWaay's little church. They trash everyone in their "Critical Issues Commentary", Bruce Wilkinson, Rick Warren, Billy Graham, "seeker sensitive" churchs, pretty much anyone who is reaching the lost for Jesus gets trashed by DeWaay's little hate machine.

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Swanlake,

It seems that when a legitimate and cogent application is made, instead of responses to the issues, people are subjected to personal attacks.

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Originally posted by larris
Playing with imaginations that exault themselves against the knowledge of Christ, will in fact open you up to demonic possession and influence from lying spirits, and demons who can and will come as angels of light, be it as falsly portreying Jesus or a beloved or even hated reletive.

larris

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Originally posted by Tigress

Swanlake and Larris,
I've tried imaginative meditation before and it's really helped my relationship with Jesus. Whereas before, I couldn't feel close to Him and therefore doubted my salvation, now I have more trust in Him and am assured of the power of His saving resurrection for me - all because the Holy Spirit helped me use my imagination the way He intended humans to use it - for meditating on Him. Whenever one uses imaginative prayer/meditation it's always with the Bible there next to us and the verses we've remembered so that false spirits can't tell us lies.

If you're reading a passage about Jesus walking on water, or feeding the thousands, or knocking over the money-changers tables in the temple, you get a picture in your mind of it. Your mind actually visualizes those events even though your weren't actually there at the time. Humans can't help doing that. God created us to think in not only concepts but also images. If I tell you not to think of a pink elephant with purple polka-dots, you will think of it, exactly because you're supposed to. That's how the brain was created to function. Greg was simply saying that intead of trying to constantly fight against something we weren't meant to fight, we should instead gain control over it and use it for godly purposes with the Holy Spirit's guidance and the Word's groundwork. Because of sin, we all too easily give in to the bad images that fill our heads and meditate on them, but the Spirit can help us to meditate on the good things, just as Paul said to the Philipians (Phil. 4:8). There are going to be images in our minds all the time. That's a given. The question is, what images are we going to allow to stay there?

As for the whole necromancy concern, my understanding is that you're not actually conversing with a dead person. You're only remembering something from your past and viewing it from God's perspective. Jesus is there to show you that He empathized with you during that particular trial, and if you need to forgive someone, He helps you to envision doing that so that you're free of the hold that unforgiveness has on you when you don't forgive. You're not actually changing history or conversing with actual people. You're only utilizing your God-given gift of imagination to help you to heal and do the right thing.

When you sing worship songs to the Lord, you can't help but to imagine the things that the lyrics describe right? I would imagine that (excuse the pun) you would even picture Christ on His throne and you on your kneels before Him as you sing, right? Why wouldn't you? And what would be wrong if you did? Imagninative prayer/meditation is no different. See what I mean?

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Tigress,

I understand the essence of what you are saying, "imagining something doesn't mean that it is real." I agree with you in as far as we imagine things and know them to be our imagination, images and things that WE are creating. We can imagine what dead Uncle Harry would have been like or what he would have done and this wouldn't be necromancy. We would be creating images of our Harry ourselves and they would simply be products of our own imagination, not "spiritual experiences."

What I see as foundationaly different in the claims of Dr. Boyd in his narrative is that he has used the entire first part of the book to build a claim that he is experiencing the real Jesus internally and that this is not just the product of his imagination but his imagination is working with and being inspired by the Holy Spirit to bring him the events that he imagines and spiritually experiences. He has used over 100 pages to attempt to convinced us that these experiences are not the product of his imagination but that their source is spiritual and outside of himself. This is a serious departure from your explanation.

All I am saying is that if this "Jesus" that is experienced is from a spiritual source outside of Dr. Boyd working with his imagination, then the spiritual experiences that he has with the dead and the dead with Jesus must be considered in the same light to be consistent. Thus, there must also be an external source for his experiences with the dead. He cannot claim that the experience with Jesus is inspired but that his experiences with his dead grandmother are only products of his own imagination. Either they are both only the product of his imagination (and therefore the extra-biblical Jesus experiences are no more than his own ideas) or they are both spirit inspired (and therefore the spirit inspiring his "Jesus" is inspiring experiences with the dead).

I do not see how one can claim it can be both at the same time. The narrative doesn't support this nor does the teachings of the book.

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Originally posted by Laika



Be careful, Tigress.

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Originally posted by sparknheart

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Originally posted by Laika



Be careful, Tigress.

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That was a "scary" movie!

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Originally posted by sparknheart




Who flushed the toilet!!!!

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