Chris Blackeby, an itinerant Australian former youth pastor who peddles himself as one who “demystifies the mystic,” travels with the more fringe charismatics, and has been known to frequent a Charisma podcast a time or two, posted this wonderful gem on his Facebook page, recycling some of the “we are little gods” theology from hucksters of yesteryear.
Blackeby, who heads up the one-man show that is As He Is Ministries seems to specialize in proselytizing two abiding principles. One is an extreme form of “I don’t want religion, I want a relationship,” where he describes religion not as the scripture does in James 1:27, but rather as “cruel” and “poisonous” rule-keeping that has “Satan as its’ father.”
The second is some sort of interpretation of a hyper-theosis, believing that we are “the expression of Christ,” that we are sons of God, and that the “s” in “sons” should probably be capitalized in some way.
By way of background, he once was a youth pastor at a large church that might rhyme with “Billsong” who became extremely became ill in his early thirties. This prognosis rocked his whole world, explaining “I found out that either Christianity’s not true, or the bible’s not true, or God’s not true, or I fundamentally misunderstood something.” [Editor’s note: Bet on the last option to win. There is nothing wrong with God or His created religion seen in the Scriptures.]
Allegedly given 6 months to live, he decided to travel during this time, going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it, receiving revelation from Jesus and emerging healed of his sickness and armed with the message that “the gospel is not what we were told.”
Fast forward to a few years later, and Blackeby has recently appeared on Liz Wright’s Live your Best Life Podcast, which is part of the Charisma Podcast Network. He joins Michael Brown, Stephen Strange, Shawn Bolz, and a host of other theological misfits who have the words “prophetic” and “kingdom” in their names.
While Liz listens in rapt attention, he shares the following teaching, much to her joy and amazement:
You can try to be a good Christian, which is something that we’ve made up, but Jesus wasn’t a Christian. Jesus wasn’t a Christian. We’re like him. He was a son of God. He was the Son of God. The unique Son of God, and he’s made us the unique Son of God, the (unintelligible).
We are Him. You are the beloved Son. I’m the beloved Son. We are the beloved Son of God. We are him, and we have his standing immediately….People say what’s your prayer life like? I literally wake up and walk out the front door, and I walk around and I pretend I’m God. (Liz comments, “right – because you’re one with him…”).
If a giraffe has a baby giraffe, it’s all giraffe. If God has a son, it’s all God. Like I am of Him. I’m not Yahweh that made me, I’m of his substance, and I have His nature. So the sermon on the mount is not a list of things to attain to, it describes me.”
You can see then why posting his “In Christ, I’m Christ” message should be taken as more than mere misguided theosis, but rather as the abject blasphemy it is.
We reached out to Charisma for comment but they did not respond at the time of this article.
