Loren Cunningham’s teaching on "the seven spheres" is being distorted by a movement some warn could become a great religious threat to American democracy. As Loren is often quoted as a source of the controversial "Seven Mountain Mandate", let me offer my observations.
It began in the summer of 1975 at a Youth With A Mission conference in Chichester, England when Loren first shared about what he called "classrooms", through which nations could be discipled.
I met Loren eight years earlier on his first visit to New Zealand when I was 17 and he a mere 32 years old—before there were any YWAM DTS training locations or ministry bases anywhere. Eight years later he related his new understanding about six "classrooms" or "mind moulders" through which he believed a nation could be taught the ways of God: church, family, arts and entertainment, media, education, and government.
Chichester was my first involvement with YWAM in Europe, and I was a little unsure of the movement I was joining. But now I pricked up my ears. What Loren was saying seemed to resonate reassuringly with what Francis Schaeffer had taught for years from his L’Abri centre in the Swiss alps. Schaeffer’s books had greatly helped me through my student years when struggling to relate my faith and my studies. They each tapped into a long Calvinist tradition based on the sovereignty of God over all of life.
I was also relieved that Loren’s "classrooms" sounded like the "spheres’" of Dutchman Abraham Kuyper from nearly a century earlier, also based on Calvin’s teaching. "Maybe there would be room for me in YWAM", I thought.
Yet as Loren explained his new awareness that missions involved more than just evangelism (a discussion held a year earlier at the first Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne), he made no reference to the classic Reformed thinking that had transformed Geneva, and shaped countries including Scotland, England and the Netherlands. With his Pentecostal background, Loren was likely unaware of it, I thought. He then described sharing his revelation with Bill Bright of Campus Crusade (now, Cru), who around the same time had had a similar type of epiphany. Bright’s own list of nine ‘zones’ was spelt out a decade later in his book, Kingdoms at War: Tactics for Victory in Nine Spiritual War Zones.
Seven spheres
Over time, Loren’s original list of six became seven, now widely known in YWAM circles as "the Seven Spheres", once economics was added later. I still have my original notes on the six "classrooms" from Loren’s first presentation on my reporter’s notebook. I remember a discussion following Loren’s talk that maybe a business sphere ought to be included.
As the story was retold, Bill’s list of nine spiritual war zones became "exactly the same" as Loren’s. Schaeffer too was added to those "receiving the same revelation" that summer, when in actuality his whole theological training had been steeped in Calvinism.
Much later, others took the story further, repackaging it as "Seven Mountains" to be conquered in Jesus’ name. Loren also began referring to the "seven mountains", adding "or classrooms", talking of Caleb who said: "Give me this mountain" (Joshua 14:12).
In my understanding, Loren (who passed away October 6, 2023) was not encouraging others to "storm these mountains" or take them by force. Rather, he was urging faithful engagement in the various spheres of life, as salt and light, as yeast, as planted mustard seeds. Our Christian presence would bring new life into each sphere, much as the presence and expansion of the early church eventually turned the Roman Empire upside down. A bottom-up approach.
Others, however, took Bright’s reference to Nine Spiritual War Zones, and book titles like John Dawson's Taking Our Cities for God as license to take control of each of these spheres, even forcibly if necessary. A book entitled Invading Babylon by Lance Wallnau with Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, written around the time of the Iraqi invasion, reflected this thinking—in contrast to Jeremiah’s instructions to the exiles in Babylon to "seek the peace and prosperity of the city" (Jeremiah 29:7). This new teaching was a top-down approach, involving force if necessary. One well-known prophetic figure I personally met years ago has been openly urging American Christians to stock arms in preparation for a civil war.
Straight line
Unfortunately—and incredibly—a straight line can be traced from this distorted interpretation of Loren’s and Bill’s teaching to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Matthew Taylor’s recent book, The Violent Take it by Force, explores the trail of a movement of Evangelical and Charismatic Christians inspired by the so-called Seven Mountains Mandate to wage spiritual battles on a massive scale.
Known as the New Apostolic Reformation, this network of leaders and believers, ‘apostles and prophets’—several of whom I have encountered myself over the decades—has emerged to yield huge influence on millions. Their unconventional theology has led to mountain-climbing spiritual warfare expeditions against "The Queen of Heaven" in the Himalayas, and to the 2021 attempt to take control of the Capitol, with rioters blowing shofars, blaring out contemporary worship music, and kneeling in prayer, attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.
Taylor warns that Christianity in America has not been this divided since the eve of the Civil War. He urges Christians to speak to these differences and build bridges. The "Seven Mountain Mandate" is now being used to promote Christian nationalism and Christian supremacy, writes Taylor, accelerating extreme polarization and sometimes sparking real-world violence.
Yet Loren taught on "responding in the opposite spirit". Jesus taught us to love our neighbors. And our enemies. And so, the question begs to be asked... who will you follow?
Originally published by Weekly Word. Republished with permission.
Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies. They moved to Amsterdam in December 2017 after living in the Dutch countryside for over 40 years engaged with the YWAM Heidebeek training centre. Romkje was founder of YWAM The Netherlands and chaired the national board until 2013. Jeff was YWAM Europe director for 20 years, until 2009. Jeff chaired the annual Hope for Europe Round Table until 2015, while Romkje chaired the Women in Leadership network until recently. Jeff is author of Living as People of Hope, Deeply Rooted and other titles, and also writes weekly word, a weekly column on issues relating to Europe.
Weekly Word is an initiative of The Schuman Centre for European Studies. Jeff Fountain is a New Zealander holding a Dutch passport, is currently the director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu), and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jeff graduated with a history degree from the University of Auckland (1972) and worked as a journalist on the New Zealand Herald (1972-3), and as travelling secretary for Tertiary Student Christian Fellowship (TSCF) (1973). He has lived in the Netherlands since 1975, and has travelled and spoken in almost every European country. For twenty years following the fall of communism, he was the European director for the international and interdenominational mission organisation, Youth With A Mission. He was chairman of the international, trans-denominational movement, Hope for Europe, for which he organised two pan-European congresses in Budapest in 2002 and 2011. In 2010, he established the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu) to promote biblical perspectives on Europe’s past, present and future, to encourage effective engagement in issues facing Europe today.
