Just how spiritually healthy is the Pacific Northwest?

By SHELDON TRAVER CNNW intern
and JOHN FORTMEYER CNNW publisher

Is the Pacific Northwest - or very specifically, the land -the very ground - in the Northwest -reflecting a spiritual sickness?

And if so, could that explain why this region is traditionally harder to reach with the gospel?

To some Christians, such a line of questioning may seem a bit unorthodox if not, well, just plain strange.

But to others, such investigation is not only valid, but Biblically justified and needed if Northwest believers are going to take proper spiritual authority over their region. They say the Christian community needs to repent for complacency that has allowed pagan worship practices to be strung like a web over the Northwest.

The theory has both its supporters and detractors.

According to Deen Gill, a member of Turning Point Christian Center in Vancouver, Wash., the topic of the region's spiritual vitality was raised by Christian author and international speaker Cindy Jacobs during a visit to Portland in early 2003. Gill said Jacobs spoke about the land in the Northwest being sickly. She also mentioned "ley lines" - a network of energy lines originating at spiritual power centers - that had been placed in a grid over the Seattle area by New Age proponents.

Gill did his own research and found that in 2000 a group called The Geo Group did indeed several years ago create the Seattle Ley Line Project as an art project. On its Web site (www.geo.org), The Geo Group describes itself as "a group of artists, architects, landscape architects and 'dowsers' dedicated to creating environmental art for the purposes of world peace."

Dowsing, or water witching, is an ancient spiritual art in which a person, with the aid of a device such as a divining rod or pendulum, gains unseen information at a distance about a person, creature, object, substance, place or "thing" beyond the limitations of one's five senses and normal thought processes. But many Christians believe that dowsing is an occultic form of divination that is condemned in the Bible and should be avoided.

According to Seattle Ley Line Project administrators, dowsing techniques were used to identify and map the major ley lines and spiritual power centers in and around Seattle, Supposedly, both ley lines and water lines create a field of energy that has an effect on consciousness and how people feel Proponents of this assert that they can feel the effects of the energies just like a person feels the effect of a strong cup of coffee.

It took The Geo Group more than three months to dowse Seattle, and according to members' own testimony, "every dowsing session was preceded by meditation and a specific set of spiritual practices."

Gill notes that the Bible clearly states (Lev. 19, Deut. 18, Isa. 15, II Chr. 33 and Gal. 5) that divination is witchcraft, is unholy and will not be tolerated by a holy God.

"My intent is not to frighten us, but to send an alarm to every Blood-bought believer in the Northwest," says Gill. "We do not have to fear because of localized, occult activity in our area. But we must take authority." Jacobs, speaking at the Northwest Intercessors Conference at City Bible Church in Portland, went on to speak about a number of places in the Bible where the land was sick because of the activity that was allowed to take place on it. They include Ezek. 22:30, II Sam. 21:1 and Hosea 4:1-6. But she also noted that in II Chron. 7:14, God promises to heal sick land.

Author and spiritual mapper Carl Townsend of Lake Oswego works with Mission Portland and disagrees with some of Gill's conclusions. While he does agree that occultism and mysticism are evil forces working in the Northwest, he said ley lines also can be applied as a Biblical principle.

"Lands were divided up and given to God's people," Townsend said. He noted that God told Joshua to divide the lands among the tribes and this was done along lines God had established through Moses. He said that throughout the Bible, God had established boundaries/ley lines that often separated good from evil.

Townsend said lines were clearly established in early Portland and the entire Northwest from the Willamette Stone benchmark in Portland's West Hills. He noted that even today, these lines clearly mark lands, which are spiritually darker than others. He said Portland's Hawthorne district is one of these areas.

"Hawthorne has always had evil forces within it starting with the Hawthorne Insane Asylum and currently with the witchcraft and other dark forces that are currently practiced openly within the neighborhood," Townsend said.

Townsend said water-witching and dousing techniques are evil, akin to witchcraft. However, through prayer and research, a church can find out what the boundaries of the local church are. In his book, Discovering Your City, Townsend talks about how to spiritually map the church's community.

When Townsend and his wife Sandy arrived in Portland in 1987, they wanted to know what the harvest field, the social and economic data of residents and neighborhoods, looked like. He heard that the Northwest was "spiritually black," and wanted data to back up this assertion. Townsend along with Multnomah Bible College President Joe Aldrich and Terry Dirks of International Renewal Ministries pulled census data, and worked to build a church directory made up of attendance numbers and the racial and economic make-up of the body of each church.

The goal of this group was to discover the boundaries of communities and local churches and to present this data to pastors and pull them together.

According to Townsend, it was during this time that he was attacked by evil forces. In 1991, a rare virus paralyzed Townsend from the neck down. His doctors told him he would never walk again.

"I was healed through prayer and the power of God," Townsend said. But six months after his miraculous recovery in 1992, his wife died of leukemia. It was a very difficult time for him, but he continued to press forward with the directory until the 1992 Billy Graham crusade in Portland.

"By 1992, we had made an important discovery. Contrary to what pastors were saying, churches in the Northwest were growing at a greater rate than anywhere else in the United States," Townsend said. He said that during the crusade, tens of thousands came to know Christ, but because of poor follow-up by local churches, more than half eventually turned away.

He believes the Northwest has not grown spiritually at as great a rate as in the past, but he also does not believe it is completely stagnant.

"We're in a stationary position right now," Townsend said. In order to grow, he said local church leaders must share a common goal. "It has been hard to pull the churches together and it won't happen until the churches have a similar vision, to take ownership of their lands," Townsend said.

"Ninety percent of churches have no vision or purpose statement," Townsend continued. He said it is vital to church growth for these elements to be identified. He believes a congregation with established goals and an active body will see true spiritual growth. He has seen this happen in other countries such as Colombia where church growth has exploded despite the executions of many Christians. He said miracles are happening daily in other parts of the world because the churches share a common vision.

"The church grows where the blind see, the sick are healed, and the dead are raised," Townsend said.

In a report on Mission Portland's website, missionportland.org, it is noted that churches with clear member expectations and goals are seeing greater numbers of new believers come through their doors. They recommend each church also have small groups or cells.

Every cell is an evangelistic outreach, according to Mission Portland leaders. They said barbecues, picnics, and servant evangelism are all needed to reach out to their neighborhoods.

Pastor Charles Christian was formerly an associate pastor at Oregon City Nazarene Church and is currently senior pastor at Seattle North Nazarene Church in Seattle. He agrees with Townsend's assessment that churches need to do more to reach out to communities. He believes that a spiritual battle is indeed being fought. However it is overly vocal evangelical Christians who are keeping the Pacific Northwest from true spiritual growth, he said.

"We are at times our own worst enemy," Christian said. He said many vocal evangelicals lean toward the extreme and that leaves Christians with no adequate connection with the unchurched population.

He noted that the early Church did what Rome did, only better. Christian said it is only through this approach that the reputation of Christianity as grace-filled and helpful will spread across the land.

"People see actions, not words," Christian said. "We need to start putting our money where our mouth is." For example, "Why not build an AIDS hospice?" he said, referring to money he feels is instead unwisely spent fighting with non-believers.

Gill believes the Northwest is a spiritually sick land in need of healing.

"The Pacific Northwest is one of the most under-churched areas of the nation," he said. "Pagan ritual practices - often exercised under the guise of art and artful expression - are not isolated to Seattle. We wonder why church attendance and attendance to Christian events are often met with lackluster enthusiasm. We wonder why legislation that is decent and honoring to God is often stonewalled, while clearly unbiblical laws often breeze through the legislative process with little resistance."

All three of those interviewed have different opinions on why the area is seeing little spiritual growth; however, they do agree that a spiritual battle is taking place. They all said Christians must stand up to these forces or face a bleak future.

"It's like going to war," Townsend said. "You can't go into battle untrained and uninformed."