Declarations

I wonder how big a trend this is. I mentioned before that my church does this, but I wanted to point out that a church in an old, rundown part of our town has recently started declaring the following statements because they are under the impression that chanting these magic words will effect some supernatural, Piercing the Darkness styled changes. The ridiculous part is that this church, like mine, does not even have any ministries to "our neighborhood"! This underscores my general critique of charismatic Christianity: so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. Get a load of these, paying particular attention to the buzzwords "prosperity" and "health", as well as the stupornatural focus on "spirits" of this or that, with characteristic ambiguity as to what the heck that means (what's the scriptural basis for this?).

1. We declare that God is blessing our neighborhood.

2. We declare peace and safety for our neighborhood.

3. We declare prosperity for our neighborhood.

4. We declare good health and healing for our neighborhood.

5. We declare that righteousness is exalted in our neighborhood.

6. We declare hearts of parents are turned to their children and the hearts of children are turned to their parents.

7. We declare that kindness reigns with neighbor helping neighbor.

8. We declare a spirit of generosity over our neighborhood.

9. We declare a spirit of forgiveness over our neighborhood.

10. We declare freedom from addictions in our neighborhood.

11. We declare freedom from abuse, verbal and physical, in our neighborhood.

12. We declare a sense of God's presence in our neighborhood.