Toking the Ghost Controversy?

Questions and Answers

I would like to take a little time to clear up a few common (sometimes silly) questions that we receive regarding drug culture references in our ministry. People who take time to go through our books, online articles and online teaching videos can get a more thorough understanding of what we see God doing in this new move of the Spirit. Please understand that this is not a movement of “drug language” but a movement of people being consumed by the ecstasy of God. The real controversy is about the joy of Jesus – it is not about semantics.

 

Likewise, this is not a “defensive” answer to some of the controversy that is going on right now, as much as it is simply an explanation to inform sincere believers who may not be familiar with our ministry. Most folks who know us and who have been to our meetings clearly understand that our goal is glorify Jesus. We do not engage in online religious debate, criticism and arguments. The truth is not debatable. Likewise, we are so busy that we simply don’t have time to counteract every crazy rumor that floats around about us (and there are some wild ones! I just laugh at them, knowing God sets the record straight). In the busy-ness of ministry, my wife and I choose to keep our focus on seeing the Kingdom released, enjoying Jesus and playing with our kids – not in clearing up rumors.

 

The reason, therefore, for these answers to common questions is for your benefit. There are some very wise Christians out there with valid questions, simply because they don’t know us and this is new to them. There are also questions that sound a little absurd on the surface, but we get emails like these a lot. I have much more in-depth teachings on the ecstasy of God, and I have a whole book coming out titled “The Ecstasy of Loving God.” I could explain this topic for years on end, but this Q&A is simply to inform you, bless you and bring some wisdom and understanding if your “head has been spinning” over this stuff. Maybe it’s all new to you. There’s a lot of unnecessary head spinning going on right now, when we could all have peace. The Book of Jude says that many people criticize what they don’t understand. We hope these answers bring some understanding.

 

In his annual Shepherd’s Rod, prophetic teacher Bob Jones prophesied that this next year, the Lord would be releasing “the peace pipe of the prophets.” With all the civil war going on in the body of Christ right now, it is best not to get embroiled with infighting, but to seek unity among brethren. Not unity around a religious spirit, but unity around the Holy Spirit. I pray this brings peace to a few hearts and relationships.

 

Without further adieu, here are some fun questions we regularly get through email, blogs, charismatic magazines, etc.

 

God is exceedingly, incomparably, unquestionably, incomprehensibly better than any drug. Drugs are bad. God is good. Do drugs produce a euphoric sense of pleasure? Yes, they can in a temporal way. But God produces a better, higher euphoric sense of pleasure. I just read a front page article on the Elijah List the other day that referred to God as the “antidote of Heaven.” An antidote is a drug. Is God literally a drug? No, this was simply an analogy to make a point. He’s the answer to all our problems.

 

Some people simply say “Don’t do drugs.” This is not good enough for an addict. Their cravings must find satisfaction. We give them the righteous substitute they were craving all along – the love of Jesus. We say, “Don’t do drugs. Instead, find your high on God.” In no way do we suggest God is “merely a feeling.” But we boldly suggest that people who really believe in God can and will feel and experience His manifest Presence. The issue is not the “language” – the issue is this: are you tangibly experiencing the Presence of God?

 

This question is rooted in a Greco-Platonic assumption that feelings/emotions are bad or untrustworthy, and that the reason/intellect alone is good. But this is far from a Hebraic, Biblical understanding of faith and feelings. Jesus spoke continually about emotions and feelings. God wants you to feel good. To this goodness there is no limit. This is Biblical. He suffered so that you could receive joy. Depression is not a fruit of the Spirit, but joy is. Can we go overboard with good feelings? Not if you are deriving your joy from God versus sin. Can someone worship love itself, or worship joy, or worship kindness? Is it possible to worship the fruits of the Spirit, apart from the Spirit Himself? This may seem like a silly question, but many people think this way. This is like saying, “I love my wife, but I don’t want to enjoy her too much!” That is religious, antichrist theology.

 

Remember this: God does not simply give us joy – He is our Joy! He does not just give us love – He is Love! He doesn’t just give us pleasure, but as believers, God becomes our Pleasure! Jesus is that very river of pleasure that flows at the right hand of the Father. You can’t drink too much.

 

Furthermore, God does not just “give us” drunkenness in the Holy Spirit. He is the DRINK! If inebriation in the Spirit were simply a “gift” then perhaps it could become an idol. But we are inebriated on God Himself, the Gift Giver. He does not just give us wine, He is the Wine. The New Wine is the Holy Spirit Himself. So there is no such thing as going too far, or feeling too good on Him. On your best day on earth, you are still clinically depressed compared to the happiness that Jesus and the saints feel in Heaven. Nor are you anywhere close to the level of “feel good” that you will have one day when you are there. So bring that Heaven to Earth. Don’t let religion tell you it is holy or noble to feel bad, sad or depressed. Don’t limit your emotions. Jesus paid for this wine. He paid for your happiness. Don’t let it go to waste. Don’t feel guilty about enjoying His Joy! The great revivalist Jonathan Edwards once said that, when feasting on the Lord, there is no such virtue as temperance. We are feasting on Him, and there is no limit to how much of God you can have. Don’t be moderate in your affections toward God. The worst enemy of love is not hatred. The worst enemy of love is “moderate love.”

 

If you refuse to find extravagant, tangible pleasure in God, you will look for it in perverted forms.

 

No, we have never endorsed drug use. This is a classic Pharisaical assumption. Even atheistic people on the street understand that, when we get “high on Jesus,” we are not endorsing drugs. In fact, the opposite is true! The exact reason we use “addiction” terminology in relation to God is to get people free from drugs through the power of the cross. I was delivered from drugs years ago, supernaturally, by finally finding pleasure in God. We have received dozens of testimonies of those who got free from drug addiction, with no recidivism rate (no returning back to drugs). We have witnessed countless crack addicts, marijuana addicts, alcoholics, harder party drug users and even prostitutes get saved and delivered by understanding that God wants to enthrall them with His pleasure. They found a “better high.” They found the Most High.

 

If the fact that we anger the Sanhedrin counts for “mixture” then I suppose you could call it that. We are definitely fruit cakes in a lot of people’s minds! But seriously, Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruit. Here is some of the fruit we have seen: thousands saved, hundreds supernaturally healed, unusual signs and wonders like metal melting from bodies and fat disappearing from the obese, the gospel preached to the poor, orphans provided for, people getting hungry and excited about Jesus, faith being released for the extraordinary, we regularly see incredible financial miracles, I personally have a tremendously wonderful marriage, and we are seeing ourselves reproduced. A kid the other day just told me he got whacked up on the Most High at one of our meetings, then went to Wal-Mart and pulled a paralyzed lady out of a wheelchair then led 34 people to the Lord off the back of it. Not sure if the mixed fruit there would be the healing of paralysis or the 34 saved souls! But we’re not boasting in any of this stuff. We boast in the finished works of Jesus, and that’s why we see this stuff happen. We are resting from our labors, losing ourselves in the bliss of God and fruit happens.

 

Check out this recent testimony from a former crack addict:

 

 

The Bible is all about an enjoyable relationship between God and man from Genesis to Revelation. Eden literally means “pleasure.” You were made for pleasure in God. This is the whole point of the Bible. Sin wrecked it. The law could not provide it. So Jesus opened the Heavens on the cross to plug you back into bliss even better than Eden could offer. It is love that is better than wine, the Song of Solomon says. Are “drug” references specifically in the Bible? I don’t care. Hamburgers are not in the Bible, but we eat them. The point is not about drugs. We do not endorse drugs. The point has to do with the ecstatic bliss of God’s love. The rest is just semantics. Peter went into an ecstasy in Acts 10. Paul was in an ecstasy in Acts 22 and 2 Cor. 12. God is symbolized by wine in countless passages. Proverbs 9 even calls it “mixed wine” which is an opiated or “drugged” wine (see the Adam Clarke commentary and many other respected commentaries to prove this). I don’t have my lexicon handy. If you are genuinely interested, buy my book “The Ecstasy of Loving God” in which I point to hundreds of Biblical references, drawing from a personal library of more than 150 translations and commentary sets, as well as church history references galore. The Bible can’t just be quoted. A parrot can do that. The Bible must be ingested.

 

First remember that the Bible is full of so-called “profane” language. There are portions of Ezekiel, for instance, that are virtually X-rated. Everyone in society talks about drugs; even children are instructed against their use in grade school. Unfortunately, they are a fact of life of our society. We are not sliming people with subjects they are not aware of. Rather than just telling people that drugs are bad and that they need to get over it – we actually tell them that God is better! We tell them that God’s precious Presence is better than any substance the world has to offer.

 

Some people say “Drugs are bad.”  That’s good, but good won’t get you into heaven. We tell people, “God is better than drugs.” God will get you into heaven.

 

This goes far beyond just drug use. People are addicted to television, sports, pornography, junk food – you name it. We simply use extreme language to show people that they are created for an extreme addiction: our addiction must be to God!

 

There is no language to adequately express the goodness of God. We are not comparing God to the negative aspects of drug use (broken homes, suicide, poverty, etc.). When Jesus was represented by a sheep in scripture, I don’t think he meant that He had fleas and matted fur. We are only appealing to the perceived “benefits” that a junkie is really looking for, deep down in their hearts. We simply tell people that they can have true ecstasy in God, without the negative side effects.

 

Also remember that the Bible is smack full of prophetic typologies – analogies that compare all sorts of things to God. God is symbolized by animals: sheep, lion, ox, eagle. That does not mean we should worship eagles or smoke one. The Psalmist even records a Messianic prophecy comparing the Lord to a worm when he writes, “I am a worm and not a man.” This referred to the dislocating (not breaking) of Christ’s bones on the cross. He is typified by many, many things in the natural world. Very prominently God’s Spirit is compared to Wine (an intoxicating, inebriating substance). This wine is not just intoxicating “in theory” but in reality. This can be quite offensive.

 

Most offensive to the Jews in His day, Jesus typified Himself as a “meal.” Telling the Jews they must eat his flesh and drink His blood. In their society, there were strict dietary laws, and this sounded most profane to their non-enlightened ears, because it sounded to them as if Jesus was endorsing cannibalism. But instead, He was making a spiritual analogy.

 

The spiritual analogy that we make is no different than calling the Lord our “wine,” except that drugs are far more potent. We are talking about the intoxicating value of the Lord. We do not literally consider that he is paper rolled up with an illegal plant inside of it. But we are pursuing a much more “potent” download of God’s Spirit for this lost and dying world than we have ever seen before, and this is sometimes a suitable analogy.

 

It is going to be difficult to say there are certain “off limit” words when describing God, because in the end, everything will somehow Him Glory. And everything under Heaven is a prophetic shadow of His Goodness. Even the darkness is as light to Him. And He will see that the redeemable value in any culture is turned to glorify His name – even the counterculture, which comprises millions of people in America and around the world: most of them untapped by the church.

 

If I call Jesus “The Lamb of God,” couldn’t someone snap back and say, “So, you’re calling God an animal?!?!” The person obviously missed the point. The simple “normal” people understand what we mean by getting “high on God.” But religious people get offended. We are not really calling God a drug. We are saying that He is the source of our bliss.

 

It is not necessary. We are not making a new denomination or methodology around such a silly topic. The whole idea is that God is fun! He gives us “joy unspeakable and full of Glory” the apostle writes. “Toking the Ghost” is not some kind of formula. The language is not the point. The point has everything to do with encountering the ecstasy of God. Living in joy and bliss. I do not pretend to smoke and invisible Jesus doobie everyday. That would be religious to make a formula out of an external practice. But I do get filled with His Spirit everyday – which is the point. The drug terminology is just easy language for believers and unbelievers alike to associate God with principles of euphoric pleasure and craving addiction. The fact that it stirs controversy among religious folks shows that their hearts are still prone to harbor offense. Our goal is not to offend, but to LOVE! To love something or someone means to crave that person. “Addiction” and “love” are quite synonymous words. A junkie “loves” his drugs, and can’t go a day without them. In a similar, yet holy way, we are “Jesus junkies” in that we crave Him and cannot go a day without His presence.

 

Using this language is not formulaic, nor do we believe or insist that everyone has to use it. We don’t make a big deal out of it, only our critics do (hence this Q & A). There are many, many more offensive things in our ministry (all of them likewise Biblical and fruitful), that folks could raise objections to, just as they did with Jesus. Using certain language is not what our ministry is all about, we don’t even think about it. The point is leading people to fall in love with Jesus.

 

One valuable point of this language, however, is this: in the world’s eyes, drugs are more fun than religion (could there be some truth in that?) It is imperative that we retake the minds of our youth with the truth that God is more creative, dynamic, exotic and experiential than drug culture. It is Ok to do weird, mystical, fun things, as long as Holy Spirit is leading us and it confirms Scripture. Religious demons are no better than drug demons. They are all demons. Both end in death. I want neither. This controversy is no different than critics of rock ‘n roll music coming into the church. William Booth, founder of Salvation Army once asked, “Why should the devil have all the best tunes?” Ecstatic experience is ours. It does not belong to drug culture.

 

It really should not be. Anything perceived as new, anointed and bearing rapid fruit is always controversial in the church. This is partly because of jealousy and misunderstanding. Remember that controversy is a manifestation of the Kingdom. You will not face persecution unless you are doing some things right. Jesus was the most controversial figure in history. He will forever be the stumbling block both to Jew and Greek alike.

 

The controversy here has nothing to do with drug language. It has to do with the offense of the cross. We are not religiously thinking that God hates us, that He’s angry or that He’s too distant from us to be experientially enjoyed. But a lot of other people do. They believe they have to pray and fast continually to have favor with God, or do lots of other legalistic, striving works. We believe that on the cross, Jesus tore the veil of sin that separates man from God. We believe that he cracked open the greatest wine the earth has ever seen – the Wine of Himself. Now our job is just to enjoy what He has done. We believe that Jesus has got the job done already, and that our only work is to “believe on the One He (the Father) has sent.” It is this ability to enjoy God, through the finished work of the cross, which really offends self-reliant religious critics. The language stuff is just peripheral.

 

How can it be blasphemy to say we crave Jesus even more than a junkie craves a drug? We are not deriding Him or putting Him down in some way. We are saying that He is the BEST! We are saying that He is the supreme elation of our souls. We are not saying He is “like” drugs, but that He is “better” than drugs!!!

 

What is that? I would have to look that up in the dictionary. I really, really doubt it though. As a matter of fact, I’ll just give a firm “No” on that one. Never heard of it.

 

I lost my depression switch years ago. I’m having the wildest ride of my life. Wooo!! Hooooo!!! Our joy is not based on circumstance but on the finished works of the Cross! This "belief" that I am continually right standing before God because of what He accomplished (not by my own religious efforts) is the thing that sustains me, encourages me and propels me into joy and uprightness.

 

First of all, I used to say “Jehovah-wanna” as in “I wanna be filled with Jehovah”! I never spelled it as “Jehovajuana.” But this is beside the point and irrelevant. The answer is simply: No. Jesus is the Name above all Names. If we say jovial things to make a point, we are not officially trying to “change God’s Name.” But know this: there are well over 300 other names for God in the Bible (Jehovah Rapha, Yahweh, Jehovah M’Kaddesh, El Shaddai, etc.). Nowhere in the Hebrew text will you ever find “God.” That is our English word for Him. Nor will you ever find the English word “Lord.” In the Hebrew it is “Adonai.” So we can’t get so religious on this point. He still hears your English prayers. He will always be Jesus – or, um … doesn’t the Hebrew say “Yeshua?” Don’t we also say “The Big Guy” or “The Man Upstairs” or “Papa”? Those last three are not official name changes, but less offensive than Jehovah-wanna.

 

The bottom line is this: we have never been on some kind of ridiculous quest to re-name God or call him something different. This is simply a fun, lighthearted way of enjoying God. The only thing we are taking seriously here is our joy. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

 

As strange as it may sound, I really don’t care about the language disputes and semantics. The enemy loves to get religious people into arguments over language, so that they miss the main point. We have to keep the main thing the main thing. The only thing I like about drug terminology is that it cuts through a lot of linguistic tongue twisting and lets people know something very essential: Jesus Christ will give you the ride of your life! Not just in theory, but in experiential reality.

 

None that I am aware of yet! Does Johnny need a spanking? No, there are just a few rumor mongers trying to work up some momentum against us, but they are just working up a weight of Glory for us! Thanks guys! The body must learn to love one another and not squabble over petty doctrinal disputes. We have chosen to love and not engage in the fight. 

 

No one can shut down what God is doing right now anyway. This revival and ecstatic movement goes way beyond us. There is a massive movement of people right now who are moving on towards “full possession” by the Holy Spirit, and this is not going to get shut down by one “governing body.” Likewise, this revival will not be shut down just because one or two “spiritual leaders” have fallen in the body of Christ in recent years. This revival is not going to be owned by one man or ministry. God Himself is holding the reins on this one, and the government is resting on His shoulders. I do not believe there will be one, single apostolic council overseeing this end-time, worldwide revival anyway, nor would one person or group be able to shut it down somehow. We respect leaders in the body, but no person will ever be able to shut up a door of effectual work God has opened. This is a wildfire of God’s Spirit that is going to burn wherever it wants to burn. There are going to be a people emerging who move by the cloud of His Glory, and not the opinions of man.

 

We would just like to ensure all our readers, supporters, partners and critics that this is just the tip of the iceberg! Things are going to get much more controversial than this. This is quite silly in the long scheme of where we see the Lord taking us in the future. If people are getting offended just because someone is happy in church, how are they going to handle the wild and crazy Mosaic signs and wonders that are coming in these end days? How are they going to get over the offense of the cross?

 

People want you to get serious, as if holiness equals dry solemnity. But holiness is beautiful, creative and happy. Nevertheless, we sincerely LOVE even those who criticize or misunderstand us, and are not harboring that misunderstanding personally.

 

One thing I can promise you is that we will continue to get more controversial in the coming days. Not because we want controversy for controversy sake, but because controversy and persecution are manifestations of the Kingdom of God. Rick Joyner says it this way:

 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of people who will never get on board with the ecstatic movement God is releasing right now, because it threatens their ministries, their image and even their theological grids. Anything new seems uncomfortable at first. But God is sifting the fearful from this movement and overturning thrones of authority in this hour. You are about to see lots of new emerging leaders in the body who will not put up with the old status quo. They are addicted to God, and not to their ministries. They want the Glory of God more than anything else. They will bring harvest from the streets; they will be uncontainable; they will wreck our religious grids. Mike Bickle once said that “God is going to change the face of Christianity in one generation.” A lot of prophets saw this coming, but they didn’t realize how crazy it would be. The question for them now is whether they will be able to receive the revival that is at hand.

 

Love and Blessings to You!!

John Crowder