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Seven Spirits Burning

So I have another book today by John Crowder.

This one is called Seven Spirits Burning and is about the seven-fold nature of the Holy Spirit. Some of you may have heard all you wanted to hear. Others have just had their curiosities piqued. Either way, I would say that for the one who wants to learn something, this book is worth the read.

Crowder is detailed. That can be a very good thing, for someone who hadn't just read another book of his. Early on Crowder uses much of his own material from his book Mystical Union. He said he was laying a foundation. I get that as important as well. I wasn't quite sure this was all foundation that needed to be laid for the subject at hand. It felt at points that we'd left this book and entered another. Indeed, I kept checking the covers.

Once we got past the very in-depth review it was very informed. Although there were still parts where it felt like rabbit trails, albeit smaller ones, were taken. But in the end, the book is organized much like the Menorah. It all points to Christ and has mirror images on either side, something Crowder says is representative of the sevenfold nature of the Holy Spirit.

Crowder breaks down each chapter by explaining the different facets of the Holy Spirit. It is based on this scripture from Isaiah


The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—  Isaiah 11:2

As always he uses plenty of scripture to back up his ideas. While a lot of it seems harmless, there are a few times when I feel like the interpretation is more to back up his own idea than to support what is really said.

My guess is that fans of John Crowder will love this book. Skeptics will find reasons to be skeptical. I find myself comfortably inbetween. There is much to learn and another perspective is always good.

I received this book from my good friends at SpeakEasy. You can learn more about Crowder, and Mike Morrell (of SpeakEasy) and his thoughts on Crowder at the following links.

John’s online home: http://www.thenewmystics.com/

An example of John Crowder’s good-news bottom-line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOcWH-VkudE (How you respond to this is a good gauge to how you’ll like the books)
The first installment of Mike's blog series on Crowder three years ago – much has changed, much has stayed the same: http://zoecarnate.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/charismatic-chaos-or-holy-spirited-deconstruction/
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