Gordon Klingenschmitt, the author of How to See the Holy Spirit, Angels, and Demons (Wipf and Stock), discusses the gift of discerning spirits and how indispensable it is to the study of church ethics. He explains that Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), wrote two sets of Rules for Discerning of Spirits in his Spiritual Exercises in the early 1500s. He taught how the church can receive from God the gift to see invisible angels, demons, and the Holy Spirit.
This book helps readers learn the keys to operating in the gift of discerning spirits, growing in their personal discernment, avoiding the temptations of evil spirits, and lastly, finding the Holy Spirits voice to strengthen ones ministry and calling. To discern the spirits, a four-step Ignatian pneumato-ethical technique of consolation/desolation, consent, manifestation, and pneumato-ethics was developed. This method revolutionizes how one studies ecclesiology, soteriology, missiology/world religions, liturgy, worship, Eucharist, hermeneutics, homiletics, pastoral counseling, church history, and politics.
This book is appropriate for theology students, classroom assignment and discussion, academic libraries, and serious readers of pneumatology or Ignatius of Loyolas spiritual exercises.
The spirits are not invisible at all. They can be clearly discerned through the lens of ecclesial ethics.
How to See the Holy Spirit, Angels, and Demons: Ignatius of Loyola on the Gift of Discerning of Spirits in Church Ethics
Author | Gordon James Klingenschmitt
Genre | Christian Theology, Pneumatology, Academic Press
Publisher | Wipf and Stock
Published date | December 1, 2013
