Hi @kathleen thank you for your response. I appreciate that you come to this from the perspective of a counsellor which is very useful and it made me realise I need to try and be more specific. I like the rephrased question you’ve put forward and would be equally interested to consider that further.
I think I feel more comfortable with a theology for examining generational patterns. For example, a mother who dislikes a part of her body and regularly comments on it might later have a daughter who dislikes that same aspect of her body because she’s been taught to look poorly on herself. There might be a generational inheritance of poor body image for example. Likewise, alcoholism may affect multiple generations and is now understood as being a genetic disposition.
My experience of some healing ministries is that it’s not just considering a generational pattern, but rephrases it as a generational curse. This idea often comes from the Exodus passage I quoted above in the context of Blessings and Curses. From this reasoning, if a person committed a sin, then a curse would enter their life. They might ‘inherit a spirit of lying’, or ‘a spirit of victimisation’, for example. This curse may be passed down the 3rd and 4th generations. In this context, a curse is something to be broken by prayer, specifically confessing and repenting. The idea is that once this prayer is done, the person will be freed from that curse. Now, I know it is within God’s power to break any chain He pleases, through any means. I raise the question because I have seen this method of prayer ministry held up as the way to obtain freedom. When I look at scriptures, Jesus healed in so many ways, there really was no ‘one size fits all’ when it came to healing. I haven’t read in scripture where a person had to list all the known sins of their fathers, say sorry for them, and then ask for healing. Yet, some healing ministries will go through a set format each time to break the generational curses and this is what I’m questioning.
I guess I’m also questioning the application of that Exodus passage in this context - whether this is done correctly or not, considering the words of Jesus in John 9 but also the words in Ezekiel 18:20
The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
Is this what it means for history to repeat itself or are we looking at two slightly separate issues: patterns versus curses? Just to confuse things a bit, I do have a testimony that would support the idea of breaking an inherited curse from an earlier generation, but am curious as to your thoughts so far.