Copyright © 1996 Gene Brooks
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AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION
I was sitting in the office at Global Harvest Ministries/AD2000 United Prayer Track in the fall of 1994 eating lunch with the staff there and talking about John Dawson's new book, Healing America's Wounds, the Church's first textbook on identificational repentance. We were talking about how wonderful his book is. Off the cuff I made a remark that I'll probably regret for a long time.
I said, "John Dawson left out one of the most important cracks in the American foundation--the division between North and South." (Make no mistake: I love and revere John Dawson. He flies with the eagles and two weeks after I made that comment I found almost those very words in his book!)
I was the only Southerner at the table. Everyone else hailed from California, Michigan, Minnesota, and upstate New York. My lunchtime companions were startled and looked at me incredulously: "What are you talking about? What do you mean--division between North and South? Isn't all that over?"
I answered, "No, it is not over. If you grew up with the battlefields, the monuments and cemeteries, the passed-down stories of hiding everything from the Yankees, you would understand." It was a room full of blank stares, so I tried to make it real for them. "If a foreign army came onto your soil and you were away fighting for your country's independence, if soldiers in that army raped your wife and turned your children out and set fire to your home, killed all your livestock, burned all the fields, stabled horses in your church before burning it, and left nothing of value, how would you feel toward that nation and its army?"
"That happened?" they asked as shock set in.
"Yes, that happened, and I am only referring to one campaign of the war--Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas in 1864-65, not to mention the much more severe plight of slaves, especially African-American women, in the path of General Sherman's army."
Not only did those remarks ruin an enjoyable lunch, they got me into more trouble than I bargained for. Three weeks later I was called into Peter Wagner's office and asked to coordinate North and South USA Reconciliation Issues for the United Prayer Track. The result was a merging of passions--history and the expansion of the Kingdom of God. The job culminated in the project: OPERATION RESTORATION: A Prayer Expedition Along Sherman's Path Through Georgia and the Carolinas. This full-scale prayer expedition was the first in US history to deal with national issues and was part of the mosaic of prayer the Lord has been raising up nationally and internationally.
PRAYERWALKING: ON GOD'S HEART WORLDWIDE
The Body of Christ is moving into new expressions of prayer based on prayerwalking. Jean Steffenson, president of the International Reconciliation Coalition--Indigenous Peoples, is organizing prayer at every Indian massacre site in the United States. Prayer expeditions are springing up globally. The Bataan Death March, slave trade routes, the Trail of Tears are targets for repentance in this way of praying and walking through a whole region. The Reconciliation Walk along the Crusade routes is having enormous success.
A PRAYER EXPEDITION IN CHINA
One can look to China for evidence that prayer expeditions are on the heart of God right now. In May 1995, a seminary friend from Singapore received word that a group of Chinese Christians behind the Bamboo Curtain had completed a prayer expedition along the route that Mao Ze-Dong's army took in the 1940's , repenting in the name of Jesus for the atrocities and terrible injustices that occurred as the Communists moved through the country of China to take over that nation. These Chinese Christians followed this route on foot and were imprisoned twice in territories where the cadre did not appreciate their activities. Each time they were imprisoned, an angel appeared, let them out, and they completed the route in April or May 1995.
I had no verification on this story; no one else had heard about it. But a few weeks later the Associated Press ran a story on the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Communist takeover of China. The celebration's centerpiece would be a march along the route Mao Ze-Dung's army took in unifying China under communism. As I read the article, I was unimpressed by the Chinese government's creativity--It sounded too much like a cheap imitation of a prayer expedition by a group of Chinese intercessors.
These prayerwalkers heard the Lord's instructions and began to follow Mao's route in prayer, walking in repentance. They had never read Steve Hawthorne and Graham Kendrick's book Prayerwalking, had never heard of prayer expeditions or anything going on like that in the rest of the world because they were locked out from outside communication. The Holy Spirit, however, is a little bit loose in China, and He had been giving His instructions to His own. Obviously, prayer expeditions are what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches right now. Hearing what the Spirit is saying is key. In the United States we believe the Holy Spirit is speaking about similar repentance/forgiveness issues in regard to North and South, but is anyone hearing?
OLD, OLD WOUNDS
It is not too hard to get hearers in the South on the subject of a need for North/South Reconciliation, but if I were to go to Detroit, there would not be much of a crowd except maybe some intercessors on whose hearts the Holy Spirit has already laid this issue. Nonetheless, from the very beginnings in this country, there has been a division between North and South. We can see it in the differences in the British cultures with their own attendant spiritual baggage which settled in the two regions. While we will save that subject for later, we can see the cessation of an important generational blessing about the time of the Uncivil War.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE AWAKENINGS GONE?
Why should we be concerned about North and South reconciliation issues? Because there has not been an American Great Awakening since the War Between the States. Up until the end of the War , America experienced a generational spiritual awakening about every sixty years. Around 1740, the First Great Awakening shook Britain and the Eastern Seaboard of America bringing thousands to Christ and reforming society. Then after 1800, the Second Great Awakening centered in Kentucky swept the United States and moved westward with settlers. Thousands more came to Christ then as Baptists and Methodists grew exponentially. Charles Finney headlined later in those days.
Then about sixty years later, in October 1857, the Third Great Awakening known as the Great Prayer Meeting Revival closed New York City and most every large Northern city every day at for hour-long noon prayer meetings. Over a million came to Christ in the North before the war, and after the war began, over a half-million Confederate troops came to Christ in the army camps during the war-time winters. Since the War Between the States and the resentment and bitterness of Southerners because of Northern war atrocities and Reconstruction politics, there have been no more Great Awakenings. What happened? Could it be that the unforgiveness of Southerners is holding back the blessing of God? Are North/South issues holding back from this nation a deep work of renewal resulting in many conversions, changes in society, and a return of the nation corporately to the Lord? Let us work with the Father as His Body to remove this obstacle to the next Great Awakening in our nation.
THE BRITISH CONNECTION: ORIGINS AND ROOTS OF NORTH/SOUTH
What are the issues between North and South? Other than the fact that there is much blood on the land as the result of a long war, there are important things in the origins of this nation that must be remembered. I am speaking specifically to those who are historically descended from the British Islands right now. We ethnic British have made quite a mess of things worldwide, and in the case of the United States we have involved people from all over the globe in our own historical, iniquitous, strictly British squabbles.
GENERATIONAL INIQUITIES FROM THE MOTHER COUNTRY
What am I saying? A linguistic, historical, and cultural standpoint shows that the people who settled the North who dominated the culture of the North who dominated the culture of the North came primarily from the Puritan stock of southern England. In contrast, the people who settled the South who dominated the culture of the South were from northern England, Scotland, and northern Ireland. Those two groups of peoples have been fighting each other since before the Roman Empire. When these groups immigrated to the North American continent, they brought cultural and spiritual baggage with them, and the cycle of iniquities continued into hot debates at the Continental Congress, fights to a draw at the Constitutional Convention, political alignments in the new Congress, and blue and gray lines on the battlefields. Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain, the traditional boundary between England and Scotland, was built to separate the peoples and protect the Roman colonies from Scottish raids. That dividing wall of hostility has a shadow in the States called the Mason-Dixon Line.
ROOTING OUT THE PROBLEMS: REPENT, FORGIVE, & CAST OUT
How do we break the deadly cycles of millenia? Those who minister successfully to individuals through prayer counseling involving inner healing and deliverance know that the key to achieving lasting healing in a person's life is finding and dealing with root problems. A gardener knows that weeds cannot be removed from a garden by only cutting them off at the ground. The whole weed must be rooted up and removed. Individuals sometimes need similar kinds of spiritual weeding done in the gardens of their hearts, and the main tools for this kind of cleansing are called forgiveness and repentance.
INTERCESSORS & HISTORIANS: DEADLY WEAPONS IN THE LORD'S HAND
The principles for corporate cleansing are the same as for individual cleansing because they come from the same Rule Book! Corporate repentance and corporate forgiveness can cleanse corporate sin and iniquity. Intercessors and historians can help the Body of Christ move forward as together we home in on spiritual roots in the American system and proceed corporately to expose and remove these hindrances to the advance of the Kingdom of the Jesus Christ. What kind of intercessors and historians do we need to uproot these spiritual weeds?
SILENT BUT VIOLENT INTERCESSORS
If you are an intercessor, your job is to help us discover and remove these spiritual weeds from the garden of the Lord. There is a growing awareness in the Body of Christ that intercessors are the ones that shore up the miracles that we see in places where the church has never been. Intercessors are the ones who keep churches together. Intercessors are responsible for many of the miracles we have seen in world history. I want to thank you on behalf of the Church, the Body of Christ around the world for praying for those things that the Lord lays on your heart and being obedient to the vision that He's given you. You are highly esteemed. You are of those of whom no one has heard. They do not know your name, but you will be given places of honor one day. Everyone in the kingdom will know you, and they will honor you for what you did for all of us on your knees in a quiet, dark place that nobody knew about. Until then, we have a violent assignment here--to uproot and tear down, to build and to plant. Our goal is revival and spiritual awakening. We want to see this nation turn back to God, and the sway of things has been toward the enemy for too long. It is time that once again the intercessors stood up in the Council Room of God and changed history. We can beseech the Lord, and He can take care of these things.
STRATEGIC HISTORIANS
If you are an historian or if the Lord has called you to do research into historical areas for the purpose of targeted intercession, the Lord has called you to a strategic ministry. Historians have become vitally important in world evangelization and in national revival and spiritual awakening. If you have any inclination whatsoever to research areas where you have been given a heart, then you need to research and publish your findings. Intercessors need to know about spiritually important historical events, because if they do not know, they cannot pray with maximum effectiveness.
Unfortunately many intercessors are praying without accurate information. In an intercession room recently I heard a very well-known prophetic intercessor declare that the South paid a blood price for slavery with the death of her sons in the War Between the States. That kind of declaration sounds prophetic until one discovers that slightly more Northern sons died in that same war than did Southern. It may be true that the South paid with blood for enslaving other humans, but the North apparently also paid a heavy price. More complicated still does the plot become when historians remind us that the Emancipation Proclamation brought a guarantee of the continuance of slavery to those states which would remain in or return to the Union. Inaccurate information led in this case to an accusation against one region of the country as the bearer for the iniquities of slavery when accurate information could have led to a more positive action such as corporate repentance for the national (not regional) sin of slavery.
SPIRITUAL ISSUES HISTORIANS
As historians we are responsible to intercessors to get accurate information to them, and historians that understand spiritual issues are a commodity. Studying at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission has given me a new perspective on the old history I studied in college. When I began to read history from the perspective of a missionary, I began to see new things. Though we Americans have not traditionally thought of America in missionary terms, when I recently passed through the New Orleans airport, I decided to apply missiological thought to the spiritual dynamics of that city. As I walked through the airport to my connecting flight, there were numerous pictures of a bold, bare-breasted Woman with a feathered headdress and exotic fruits and animals in her hands. At the bottom of one of the posters were the words, "Lady Luck." As "wise Americans" we understand that those pictures only refer to the traditional Mardi Gras in the city along with gambling, drinking, jazz, and fun. However, a missionary arriving at an airport somewhere like northern India and found this Woman's image plastered everywhere might rightly conclude that the Woman must be the god that is worshiped in that city! Integrating cosmology with history is difficult for Western minds, but we need to recover a wise balance of understanding in that area, always submitting our ideas to the jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit and other Christians. As historians in the Body of Christ, we must think in spiritual terms about history in order to further facilitate the arrival of the Kingdom of God on earth through effective prayer.
HISTORIANS: THE CHURCH'S CIA
North/South Reconciliation Issues has evolved into giving a new perspective on our popular ideas of American history. As the adage goes, "the nation that wins the war writes the history books." The Mexican War is an example. In the United States, the history of the Mexican War is written as a military operation of independence to save Texas, California, and the Southwest from the tyranny and despotism of a Mexican Empire. The Mexican histories tell the story of a war of aggression against peaceful people by an army of brigands which stole vast territories in order to add to their own nation. We need historians who can perceive history from a new perspective, from a spiritual perspective, and can apply spiritual principles to historical events to which demonic principalities and powers have attached themselves. Our focus does not have to be the demonic entities, but instead the roots that give them legal rights to usurp spiritual authority and place the people there in blindness to the gospel. Once we remove the roots, serving an eviction notice on the enemy becomes only a necessary formality.
NORTH/SOUTH ISSUES AFFECT MANY THINGS IN OUR NATION
Issues involving North and South affect the Indian Wars of the late nineteenth century, slavery and the fear-based racism that came out of Reconstruction, the use of nuclear weaponry in World War II, and the war against civilians in Vietnam. While these issues must be dealt with responsibly, could it be that there is a root issue deeper, and could it involve these North/South issues?
NORTH/SOUTH AFFECTS THE WESTERN INDIAN WARS
Jean Steffenson is compiling a list Indian massacre sites at which intercession is and will be occurring. By mid 1995 her list included over 125 such sites primarily in western states which were the result of the Indian Wars of the late nineteenth century. William T. Sherman notes in his memoirs the criticism he received as general-in-chief of the United States Army from making war on Indian women and children in the West. His defense included the justification that no one complained at all when US troops made war on white women and children in the South during the Civil War. Why then, should anyone be critical for his making war on Indian dogs?
NORTH/SOUTH AFFECTS AFRICAN-AMERICANS
Slavery and racism are linking with the North/South dilemma. Unwilling immigrant Africans got caught between two groups of whites whose roots are in antagonistic parts of the British Isles. Slave states and free states were terms that delineated southern British from northern British on the American continent. Both groups believed that because they were superior to any other race, but the political contention of slavery became a convenient ball to bat at one another. Southerners did not go to war to protect slavery; they went to war to separate from their British cousins once and for all--something the Scots have wanted to do for millenia.
A NEW RACISM BASED ON FEAR
The brand of racism we see today in America is not as connected to slavery as it is to post-bellum politics. Our new fear-based racism comes out of Reconstruction, that period in American history following the Civil War when white Northerners used black Southerners politically against white Southerners in order to keep both in submission to Northern aims. As the North played black against white through Fear, stronghold-producing ingredients matured: resentment, bitterness, hatred. Therefore today in the South black and white individuals can love one another but fear and distrust each others' groups.
NORTH/SOUTH AFFECTS WORLD WAR II, VIETNAM, AND IRAQ
The United States' use of military machinery against its own white and black civilians in the War Between the States put into the American psyche the permission to drop nuclear bombs, agent orange, and napalm on non-white (read "less valuable") peoples in Japan and Vietnam. Shelling Southern cities during the American Civil War gave permission to the American moral code to shell civilians in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1991. Our justification is easier now than it was in 1861-65 when the actions were unprecedented in modern warfare. Here's the common line we have accepted from Sherman's March, for example: "We are shortening the war in the long run by making the people turn against the government prosecuting the war." North and South issues could possibly be a tap root in the American system. More prayer and research is needed to detect, verify, and uproot this hindrance to God's work in this nation.
