Darren Wilson is the kind of film producer that best expresses the noblest visions in evangelical Christian culture. His latest Wanderlust Productions Film, Father of Lights is a cutting-edge adventure of Christian spirituality exploring the ministries of some of the most effective evangelists on the planet, using the language of the most exalted theology to have been produced by Evangelical’s most radical branch, Pentecostalism – the doctrine of the Revelation of the Father. (1Cor. 15:24-28)
The documentary is an absolutely risque focus on ‘spirit-contemporary’ evangelism, (the term Leon Fontaine coined for ‘power evangelism’, – evangelism based on the manifestation of spiritual gifts in a contemporary space where the schismatic doctrines of dis-unified and corrupt church expressions render the gospel of Christ largely irrelevant in the postmodern West). The manifestation of spiritual gifts – typically the ‘word of knowledge’ (clairvoyance) and healing by the laying on of hands, with their refreshing applications for practical and personal help, open up a conversation for the claims of a Christian worldview, where otherwise, talks of considered anachronistic concepts, like sin and blood sacrifice, will slam those doors shut.
The film, though it incorporates passing clips of some of the more popular faces and voices in contemporary power evangelism – Andrew Womack, Randy Clark, Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson, Reinhard Bonke, etc. is really about the new generation of emerging ministry (as opposed to ministries) that represent a new praxis in Christian evangelism obliterating the clergy / laity divide; and attempts to document outbreaks of Christian revival in specific cities and locations at their fountainhead.
There are poignant moments, like the intention of healing Chicago’s gang warfare through winning the gang leaders to Christ, reminiscent of David Wilkerson’s Cross and the Switchblade, but with the modern reality tv approach rather than filmed reenactment.
Certainly though, the high point of the film was where, with cameras and all, Tod White, one of the featured young evangelists, managed to pray and heal his way into the Dome of the Rock (the Qubbat al-Sakhrah), penetrating in fact to the very bowels of this sacred Muslim shrine, – the Foundation Stone, (the site where Abraham reputedly offered to sacrifice his son in obedience to G-d; and where the ark of the covenant once rested in the Most Holy Place of the Jews, shekinah exuding, giving these people their cultural identity and spiritual power) strictly off limits to ‘infidels’ (a rather harsh Islamic fundamentalist term to describe fellow ‘people of the book’).
There, at this site most hallowed by Jew, Muslim and Christian alike, and on camera, two Christians are recorded releasing the Parousia – the Presence of Christ – for most probably the first time in well over a thousand years, right after having exercised or having practiced that presence (to use a phrase made popular by Brother Lawrence) by healing in Christ’s name a trail of Muslims on their way.
Right after watching this engaging film, I listened to some Farrakhan *videos sent by a Christian friend which explored the neo-con objective of aligning American foreign policy with Israel’s Likud Party vision, which include this very arguably ‘Zionist’ objective.
(* click here and here for video references)
That this plot is perceived rather dimly by the weakened UN, having explored unsuccessfully, along with the best efforts of several US presidents, the two-state solution, the considered fairest resolution to the ‘Middle East conflict’; was reflected in a wry summary of one UN official heard recently on CSPAN, pointing to Likud’s ability to manipulate even the greatest power on earth for its own interests – (a Netanyahu quote was given -“I know what America is” ……..implication: Jews own America.) This ‘fact’ is what gave Netanyahu the right to strut uninvited (properly) into the US Congress and embarrass (or attempt to) a sitting US president.
The Jewish mind typified by the ultra-Orthodox in the Likud party, the powerful US Neo-Conservative movement, and the global syndicate of financiers with controlling influence over the central banks of the majority of nations on earth does not represent the totality of Judaism. Farrakhan, the most prophetic Islamic voice of the day, at the end of his robust exposé of this ‘synagogue of Satan’, calls for Black Christians, Black Muslims and Black Hebrews to rise to the challenge of interpreting the God of all Peace in times itching for another holy war.
The political dimensions of religion are often ignored. However, this renders both at best anemic, at worst evil.
YeKengalé 
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