Speakfaithfully

The Denial of the Spiritual Realm in Western Christianity

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

Years ago, I was doing outreach every Friday night in the Lower-East side of Vancouver, British Columbia. I regularly met with several people including Bev, a First Nations (Native American) woman. One Friday, I met her boyfriend. At the time, I did not think anything of it. However, the next week when I met Bev she had numerous bandages, gauze in her mouth and was clearly in a lot of pain. I slowly pieced together, from what I could make out, a story that made evil far less of an abstract concept and far more of a concrete reality for me.

Her boyfriend, apparently moments after I had left, had stabbed her repeatedly with a knife in an attempt to kill her. It took seven grown men to pull him off of her. As more details emerged, it was revealed that he was heavily involved with the demonic and witchcraft. It seemed plain to everyone there that some demonic spiritual force provided the motive for his attack and his inhuman strength. But what was there to do? Despite being raised in Christianity and going to church for many years, I had absolutely nothing to offer Bev that Friday night as I listened to her pain-garbled speech. I could not heal her wounds, either supernaturally or through modern medicine, I could not end her poverty, and I certainly could not have stopped her demonized boyfriend. Faced with such evil I was completely powerless. My inability to help her should not have come as a surprise to me. Despite a life spent in the Christian religion, I was still carrying my own physical, emotional and spiritual wounds. How could I ever hope to give away freedom, hope and healing I had not received myself?

Since then, I have been on a journey to be equipped to deal with evil and its aftermath. The results of all of my previous education and experience had been dissatisfying, even here at Fuller. Much of what I have studied has been completely disconnected from the world beyond our walls, a world on fire with pain and suffering. The middle school boy who told me his step-father threw him against a wall so hard that it cracked his skull open does not care if I understand a scholastic theologian’s position regarding half-merits and full-merits. Women who have escaped the sex-trafficking industry do not care about my ability to parse Greek or Hebrew. Combatants and victims from one of many of the world’s conflicts struggling with PTSD do not care if I know how to properly order a church service.

Now, one might suggest I am simply in the wrong degree program and I should have started a Psy.D. or an SIS degree if I wanted to help people. It saddens me to think that an MDiv degree, a degree for future ministers, is often not seen as a degree that equips one to help hurting people. More importantly, I fear even if someone earned every degree offered at Fuller, they would be unable to offer a response to evil outside the norm. Non-Christians can do development work, be competent counselors, and run successful service programs. If we claim to have the very Spirit of God within us, shouldn’t we be able to offer something distinct from altruistic atheists?

Last Spring, I started to confront why I still felt so powerless. My roommate was taking the class Power Encounter and we had many conversations about the supernatural realm. One night, I found myself saying, “You know, I say the spiritual realm exists, but I do not act like it.” For most of my life, I have not taken the spiritual realm and the demonic seriously, despite the spiritual realm being on every page of the Bible and despite tangible evidence in my life that the demonic was real. I did not take the spiritual realm seriously for the same reason I am sure many of my peers have (and still do) not: I am a product of Western culture. The focus of this culture has been on what can be proven by science or explained through reason. Spiritual and religious beliefs have become increasingly marginalized to the status of quaint superstitions, myths and private beliefs that do not impact our shared public reality.

Western Christians cannot help but be impacted by the culture around us. We have gone along with our culture’s dismissal of the supernatural realm out of the fear that we will offend other people, lose a seat at the table of public discourse or be written off as weird. We often read the Bible as if every passage dealing with demons, angels or supernatural healings has been blotted out. Blinded in this manner, we try to follow Jesus, help others and solve the world’s problems with only a partial picture of reality. Churches ignore, explain away or outright deny the spiritual realm beyond the Incarnation, the Resurrection and the mechanics of salvation. Miracles, angelic visitations and demons, if accepted at all, are reserved for the gullible, the “crazy” Charismatic or Pentecostal types, or missionaries serving in the deepest darkest parts of Some-Other-Country. Unable to heal the sick or deal with demons, we have often chosen to develop theology to explain away or justify our impotence instead of dealing with it.

As a result, many Western Churches that have chosen to deny the spiritual realm beyond salvation, and as a result have devolved into a powerless civil religion that can only give people hope after they die. Most of what is offered at many Western churches, across denominational lines and including the most progressive Emerging/Emergent churches, can be accomplished by human effort and willpower alone. We cannot offer the wider world, a world reeling from personal, systemic and global evils, anything that they cannot get elsewhere. Honestly, sometimes I feel we may as well just be the Boy Scouts or Rotary Club. Do we honestly believe that Jesus’ Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Glorification and our Baptism with the Holy Spirit all happened so that we could be one of many organizations that help people? To be one more source of morality and ethics?

I was raised in churches thoroughly compromised in this manner. They taught me to affirm some of what the Bible said about the spiritual realm but not all of it. Such a stance leads to an incoherent understanding of the spiritual realm. In that environment, I would have been branded as a heretic if I suggested we did not have to obey Jesus or that the Bible should not be read literally. But had I suggested we should obey Jesus’ commandment to “cleanse the leper, heal the sick, and cast out demons” (Matt 10:8), I would have been told that kind of stuff does not happen today. When I went to my pastors with a prophetic word, it was categorically rejected – even though prophecy is affirmed in countless scriptures (among them, Amos 2:28 and Acts 2:17).

The denial and ambivalence towards the spiritual realm, miracles and the demonic is the number one crisis in the Western Church. While there are many pressing issues facing Western Christianity, if we cut ourselves off from the spiritual realm, we cut ourselves off from the Spirit of God and the unique way we as believers are able to respond to other issues. In short, we lose our identity.

The availability of healthcare is a serious issue, but how different would our discussion be if Christians were known for their ability to heal the sick? Addiction is a serious issue, but how different would our discussion be if Christians were known for their ability to bring healing to emotional wounds, which are often the root cause of those addictions, through prayer? Many ideologies promise safety and salvation to people, but how different would the world be if Christians were confident God could act in this world? Furthermore, because we deny the fact that the demons exist, whatever demonic forces are at work go unchecked. While I do not believe there is a demon under every rock and tree, this is an issue that cannot be dealt with through secular means. Until we take the demonic seriously, many of us, our families, our clients, our congregants, our staff and faculty here at Fuller, our communities and our nation will continue to struggle with demonic oppression.

Despite the magnitude of the current crisis before us, I believe there is cause for hope. Culturally, the pendulum is swinging back and people are increasingly hungry for spiritual power and spiritual answers. Just take a look at the number of popular movies, TV shows, and books in the last several years that have had the supernatural as a central facet of their stories. True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Harry Potter, Paranormal Activity, Lost, Supernatural, Medium, Fringe, and Twilight are just a few examples. People are increasingly open to conversations about spirituality and the spiritual realm. If the Western Church does sort out what it believes about the spiritual realm, who would be better equipped to guide people into truth on these matters? In addition to this, globalization has exposed Western Christians to many other cultures that do take the spiritual realm seriously. As Western Christians go out to help other cultures, our dismissal of the spiritual realm is exposed and our curiosity is ignited.

Perhaps more importantly, at least for our campus, supernatural signs and wonders are becoming more commonplace here. Just a few weeks ago, I was part of a ministry team that prayed for supernatural healing for fellow students. A number of them were healed or experienced something supernatural. When similar supernatural healings and demonic manifestations were first being experienced in Fuller classrooms, it was when John Wimber was teaching here. Those supernatural experiences sparked the third wave Pentecostal movement and forced many cessationists to give up their theology. Sadly, the impact such experiences could have had on Fuller was diminished by faculty and students who were uncomfortable with what was happening on theological grounds. Two classes, Inner Healing Prayer and Power Encounter, are the only institutional traces of this amazing time in our school’s history. The question then posed to us is what are we going to do about the experiences that are happening on our campus and elsewhere? Will we embrace them or explain them away?

I would encourage anyone who is curious about these matters to critically investigate them. Check out groups like Live Bones or places like Pihop. Take Inner Healing Prayer or Power Encounter. Read and listen to the books, sermons, podcasts and videos available to you that can provide a different perspective on these issues than the one you are used to or comfortable with. While you still may need to curb your criticism to some extent and be willing to admit that you and your tradition may not have all the answers, these are very relaxed ways where you can experience and explore the supernatural in safe ways. Moreover, I would encourage you to get with friends, mentors, or pastors that you trust and are well experienced in these types of things and go do it with them. Stepping out in faith is important and these things are best caught rather than taught.

As an encouragement to everyone who is curious and may be timidly starting on this journey, I want to say it is actually very easy and worth it. Since last Spring I have become increasingly open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and begun to take risks outside of my comfort zone. In the last six months I have had a number of supernatural experiences. While they initially struck me as exotic, as I re-read the Bible I saw them all throughout the story of God. There are so many stories in the Bible about Jesus and His disciples healing people. Is it really that odd that I have seen supernatural healings take place? While I am still wrapping my head around all of this, I feel more equipped than ever to deal with evil in this world as only someone who has the Spirit of God inside of them can. And this required very little of me. Yes, I had to be willing to change the way I thought about many things. Yes, I had to be willing to admit that I had been wrong. Yes, I had to be willing to explore things I had scoffed at not a year ago. Yes, I had to be open to hearing and evaluating teachings I previously would never have given the time of day. But was this really doing more than maintaining a humble posture, accepting that I do not have all the answers and trusting God to lead me into the truth?

Conversely, for those of you who think everything I have said about the demonic and supernatural are misguided, theologically uninformed or untrue, I invite you to read your Bible with two highlighters of different colors in hand. With one, highlight everything supernatural that happens in God’s story including demonic manifestations, supernatural healing, prophetic words, God speaking to people directly, angelic visitations, visions, etc. With the other, highlight every verse that suggest such supernatural things will stop, will stop after a certain time period, will stop after a certain criteria has been met or that the demonic will vanish and no longer be an issue for Christians. Then come talk to me about what you find.

Posted in a Christian response to evil, Faith, Personal Commentary | Tagged a Christian response to evil, Bible, Christainity in crisis, Christian miracles, Christianity, civil religion, denial of the supernatural realm, do healings happen today?, do miracles happen today?, evil, Jesus, Jesus Christ, secular Christianity, signs and wonders, spiritual crisis, what does the Bible say about miracles | 8 Comments

Pihop, Bethel, Jake Hamilton and the Tensions of Charismatic Faith

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

One of the interesting dynamics at the School of Supernatural Ministry at Pihop that I am involved in is that it is the combination of two separate movements of the Holy Spirit. On one hand there is Bethel and on the other hand there is the House of Prayer movement. Both have great insights to offer and areas of weakness. Before the school started the leadership candidly admitted that they were not going to agree on every issue. Sometimes there are teachings that are actually contradictory or an alternative understanding to what was previously taught.

In reference to the differences between both movements Lou Engle once brought up Matthew 11:17 which says, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’” Bethel, he explained is the flute. Marked by happiness, joy, healing, ecstasy, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit Bethel, and the movement of the Holy Spirit it is part of, is definitely marked by a lot of joy, happiness and celebration. The House of Prayer movement, Engle explained, is the dirge. Marked by fasting, time spent in the alone in the prayer closet, intercession, mourning and hastening the day of the Lord, it certainly contains a lot more somber elements of faith and life. Engle closed by saying it best: “We need both.”

I could not agree more.

Far too often I fear Christianity falls into a trap of forgetting one aspect of faith or overly focusing on another. This usually creates an unbalanced faith. The push and pull of the two streams at the School of Supernatural Ministry at Pihop keep all sides of our faith in tension. And the older I get, the more I realize how much of our faith and life is lived in a tension.

What I mean is this. I have seen a lot of these tensions as I have lived life. For example, while I have seen people healed of things in front of my very eyes I still wake up in pain for arthritis. God is the best father in the whole world, yet He clearly does not intervene in certain circumstances to protect those He loves from horrendous evil or calamity that has (or at least appears to have) absolutely no redemptive value. This tension is also in scripture. God closed the mouth of the lions to protect Daniel but apparently was okay letting lions eat Christians that were thrown into the Coleseum for sport. John the Baptist (and many others) were in love with God and served Him with everything, yet they were beheaded, burned to death, or went through years of misfortune, even as people who hated God prospered. The New Testament is rife with people becoming free, getting healed and falling in love with God but also with people being crushed, persecuted, abused, mistreated, imprisoned and martyred.

A faith that I want to cultivate, a faith that I think is healthy, is one that can successfully integrate all of these experiences. It has the wisdom to know what is evil and what is discipline. It has the wisdom to know what is of the Devil and what is of God. It sees all aspects and extremes of human life as in their own way legitimate. It is a faith where we can mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.

One of our most recent speakers, Jake Hamilton, gave a powerful teaching recently. While I do not agree with everything he said, I was deeply moved by his words and I believe he truly captured this tension in his words. I wanted to share it with you all so I’ve provided it here on my blog. I encourage everyone to listen to it, especially those from Pentecostal/Charismatic backgrounds. I also wanted to comment on just three things that I thought were most important form his message.

Jake Hamilton – Part 1 Love

Jake Hamilton – Part 2 Dying to be Resurrected

First, when Jake said, “Everyone wants to be resurrected, but no one wants to die” I could not agree more as this reflects the attitudes of many Christians (including myself), especially Charismatic and Pentecostal ones.

One of the main reasons I stayed away from Charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity and one of my critiques of it as I continue to engage with it more is that often it can devolve into a preoccupation with celebration, victory and power. The focus in that culture is on having a good story of victory, a narrative of ascents where things just keep getting better and better for you, and stories of praise. While these are good things and the joy of the Lord is a good thing and celebrating what God supernaturally does is a good thing, the problem is that life is not always like this and this is not always how the spiritual realm works.

Type approach to life can encourage people to wear superficial masks of happiness lest they be seen as not spiritual enough or not trusting the Lord enough. People caught up in this often offer those going through mourning or hardship simple solutions or easy answers so that they can get back to rejoicing faster. They rejoice with those who rejoice and try to make those who mourn rejoice as well. While their hearts might be good, their head is in the wrong place. Lamenting suffering and injustice and mourning loss has a place in life and faith.

The way of following Jesus is the way of the cross, not the way to super-stardom and victory. Many times we are promised hardship and trials that will purify us and prepare us. People who want the power, glory and victory of God must be willing to go through the many deaths that bring about the ability and wisdom to use such gifts, power and authority wisely, lest one hurt oneself or other people. If you want stories of power and victory you must also accept to road to such things which is fraught with brokenness, defeat and an increased awareness of your own weaknesses.

Second, I really appreciated what Jake had to say regarding having a relationship with Jesus and I think his comparison of a relationship with God to a marriage was spot on.

Jake suggested that some people commit to following Jesus without ever having met him. They get into their relationship through what other people said about Jesus and through what is said about Him in the Bible. This would make no sense in a human marriage, so why does it make sense to us when we think about our relationship with God? I think this is a huge reason why many people who once profess Christ simply fall away.

Jake suggested that our relationship with God, again, like a marriage, involves far more than a one time commitment (of the wedding ceremony or baptism/confession of Jesus as savior/Lord) but both involve daily intentional choices and dying to self. I would push this even further by asking a question. How many of our friendships, marriages or other relationship would be sustained on the amount of time we intentionally spend with God? The amount of time I intentionally spend seeking to know God more and know God deeper is increasing, but in the past it has been incredibly abysmal, even when I was doing ministry full-time. I was working for a God I never knew.

Third, I appreciated Jake’s teaching on how God can use hardship and trials to prepare us and mature us.

In some of my psychology classes I have learned that over-protective parents often stunt the development of their children. While children should be protected from obvious harm, parents who swoop in and constantly solve their children’s problems enable their children to persevere in immaturity. Learning how to deal with challenges, obstacles, frustration and set-backs is a natural part of life that develops people’s characters. Where a child has all their problems solved, they do not grow up.

Healthy fathers and mothers get this and if God is the best Dad in the whole world, clearly He gets this as well. Think about it. If God supernaturally solved every difficulty or issue you faced, life would be on easy mode and we would probably have an incredibly spoiled and entitled mentality. This is not exactly in line with a Christ like character. This is not the kind of attitude that will submit to God’s will, even when that means hardship. This type of mentality will not handle leadership, authority, incredible power and responsibility well. We would be, as Hamilton put it, six year olds with guns. A lot of us would probably be, like James and John, asking if we can light entire towns of fire with judgment from heaven.

That is why I do believe God does discipline us through hardships, adverse situations, difficulties and frustrations. I believe God redeems some such situations but also intentionally causes others, where He does not come in and rescue us from our troubles. If God did not, why then does our Bible talk about God disciplining us and why does the Bible tell us to rejoice in our suffering because of what it will produce in us? Now there are many evils I do not think God caused to “teach us a lesson” but I would agree with Hamilton that we need to stop rebuking, avoiding, casting out, or refusing every hardship or difficulty that comes our way and assume it is from the enemy. We might be pushing away the very thing that we need to go through to refine our character, grow as followers of Jesus, and develop attitudes and beliefs so that when blessings and power come, they do not destroy us and we do not use them to destroy other people.

Thoughts?

Posted in Faith | Tagged Bible, Charismatic, Christianity, Jake Hamilton, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pentecostalism, tensions of faith | Leave a comment

How do we to handle and understand failure in ministry?

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

This is me standing in front of the 511 ministry house. Was all the effort I put into my ministry there a failure or not?

The question, “How do we handle and understand failure in ministry?” has been on my mind for some time. In my Pihop/SSM internship we are currently reading God’s Generals by Roberts Liardon. It tells the story of numerous revivalists who did amazing things. However, all of them are marked by serious scandal and failure. If we want to learn from those who have gone before us in the past we have to admit that we make mistakes, define what they are and root them out in our own lives. We cannot white-wash failure and call it success if we are going to grow.

This question came up again because I went home to Modesto for the holidays. This has naturally brought many old friends, good memories but also a number of issues and questions.

One of these issues is the fact that some time I have felt that my short-lived ministry in Modesto was a failure.

From the close of 2008 to the close of 2009 I started my own ministry and was technically a local missionary with City Ministry Network. I poured myself into the Celebrate Recovery ministry of my local church, the young adult congregation of my church, a Youth for Christ ministry, and a house in West Modesto that I was attempting to shape into a discipleship home for future urban Christian leaders. Something similar to the Pink House in Fresno. Money barely came in and truth be told I was dependent on my family and my own savings to make it through. I did not have enough money to both eat out with people and buy groceries so I choose to eat out of the food pantry of my church so that I could get food with people that I was discipling, mentoring, or meeting with. I ended up spending $14,000 dollars I had saved up when I worked at Costco to pay for my rent and medical insurance. I was essentially paying to volunteer. I eventually felt called by God to go to Fuller and to pursue my relationship with my Ex so I wrapped things up in Modesto and left rather abruptly at the end of 2009.

Given what I can see about the fruits of my labor and the impact of what I did I am fairly certain I was wasting my time, my money and my life.

The young adult community I poured into has not fared well. During my ministry time I did receive a prophetic word that the community would scatter (right back to the churches they had scattered from to be part of our community) over major or even minor issues in our community. This happened. In addition, just about everyone who was in leadership with me in the young adult community is either no longer in leadership, no longer part of that church, or no longer a Christian.

I have also learned things about the Celebrate Recovery community I loved so much and was homesick for when I left for Pasadena that have tainted my memory of it. At the end of the day it was still very much part of the Christian religious system and all that that means. Some of my friends have been shunned by this grace-based community because of their divergent political views. Apparently God loves you even if you are a broken recovering addict, but God does not love you if you are not Republican.

What has happened with the ministry house is probably the most painful thing for me. I lived in this house and have many great memories there. Because the house was so old and poorly insulated most of the time I was there I spent nights in bitter cold and summers in sweltering heat. I painted walls and did whatever renovations I could with my own hand with donated supplies. I led my small group there. I had kids from the area come over on a routine basis. I worked out with teens I was mentoring downstairs. I tutored teens there. I had leadership meetings with my mentor and other young ministers in the early hours of the morning. This was the house where I received the first prophetic word. In many ways this house became representative of my efforts during this time in my life.

But since that time, no program ever developed. No new Christian leaders came to live in West Modesto, and the house itself is being sold off.

In my time in Modesto I never prayed for anyone to receive Jesus Christ or come to faith. I at times worked 60 hour weeks and occasionally 20 hour days, but other times I feel I wasted a lot of my time. Many of the youth I worked with are in the exact same situations they were in when I met them. Some of my addict friends are still struggling and a number of them actually got worse or gave up on recovery and Jesus. The things I left my ministry for did not pan out either. A normal person would look at all this and just see failure on all four cylinders. (I never do anything small, so why not fail big too?)

I would like to say and believe that…

…in the Kingdom of God sometimes failure looks like success. You can’t judge your ministry and your fruit by worldly standards of numbers, finances, and what is externally obvious.

…I should not take the apparent failures of the things I was involved in personally. As Gamliel said, if God was in it, nothing could have stopped it. So either God was not in those things, or it was God’s will that things played out as they did.

…it was a season in your life. I learned and grew a lot in a low stakes environment that could fall away and not do that much damage. It was better to make these mistakes in this environment than when I was leading something bigger.

…I will never know the full impact my ministry had on other people because I have limited vision.

…I was obeying God as best I understood Him in the moment. What more could anyone ask of me? Did I make mistakes and have issues in my life that needed to be sorted out? Yes of course. Who does not? But at the end of the day I was saying “Yes” to what God revealed as His will for my life. I might have been in “immaturity” but I was not in “rebellion.”

I have considered these and other options, and have heard friends say similar things to me when I have aired my questions. I believe they can be true and may even be true in this situation, especially the last one. But, I am well aware that all of these could just be a way to white-wash my failures. One can use these same rationalizations and others to make any fruitless endeavor appear to be fruitful. How many failures have been mistakenly labeled as success by these rationalizations? I do not think ministry is all about numbers (regarding money, signs and wonders, fruit, conversions, etc.) but shouldn’t we expect a good tree to bear fruit of some kind?

I have brought it up before but I fear that too often Christians explain away failure instead of accepting it and growing from it. I think we do need to admit our failures in ministry and grow from them. I personally do not want to wait until I am dead and someone writes a book about me to see my failures and learn from them.

To the situation in question, I do not look like playing “What If?” games with my past, but I often wonder how differently that time would have been if I…

…had a relationship with God before I did ministry.

…had raised adequate financial support or continued at Costco during that season instead of just “trusting God” with my finances.

…had spent more time in prayer and interceding for others.

…had wasted less of my time during that season.

…had not launched prematurely.

…had not left prematurely.

…etc. etc. etc.

So my question to my readers is this…

How do you handle and understand failure in ministry? When do you admit it and why? How do you handle the tension that sometimes success in the Kingdom of God looks like failure to the world and at the same time sometimes success in the Kingdom of God does look like success?

Posted in Personal Commentary | Tagged Bible, Christianity, Church, failure in ministry, God's Generals, Jesus, ministry failure, missionary work, Para-Church, white-washing failure | 1 Comment

The Christian Social Economics of Exclusion and Vilification: The Family of God, an alternative approach.

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

[In previous posts on this point I have explained how the Pharisees became preoccupied with excluding others, with maintaining and observing outwardly observable traditions and laws, and using the Bounded Set paradigm for understanding their own community. This led to their two-fold error of failing to be a blessing to outsiders and losing sight of the heart of God. I have explained how this is a reality for many Christian communities. In this post I want to present an alternative that I think followers of Jesus should take when they think about their community and pursue God together.]

(Sidenote: To be clear, in this post I use family a lot. I use “family” in a very Eastern/Asian/Biblical sense. I see “family” as a web of interconnected, mutually supportive relationships that extends to a rather broad range or relationships. For many Westerners, it may be best to think of “tribe” when I say “family.” I am by no means invoking, supporting, or endorsing the concepts of “family values” or the idolization of a very particular sort of nuclear family that is idol in the hearts of certain political/religious groups, some of whom explicitly claim Christianity or the Bible as their foundation.)

My alternative vision for the community of followers of Jesus is simply this: I believe followers of Jesus should understand and organize themselves as a family and adopt a Centered Set way of thinking about their community.

In regards to being family…

I believe God’s heart is for His followers to be an invitational family, not an exclusive religious system.

Humans were always meant to be in community and it appears to me to be common sense that we always do better when in community. I’m fairly certain advanced psychological and sociological studies have thoroughly confirmed conventional wisdom and the common human experience on this point. We were not meant to live independent from one another.

Followers of Jesus are no exception and there should be no “lone-ranger” followers of Jesus. Jesus, me and my Bible is not what we are called to. But how then are we to be gathered together and understand ourselves? As a business? As a club? As a collection of service oriented programs? As a non-profit? As a private, invite only, gathering?

I think we should relate to one another as a (healthy) family. There are two subpoints to this:

Understanding our community as a family prevents an exclusive mindset; in the Family of God, just like in biological families, you do not get to decide who you are related to. If someone believes that Jesus Christ is their Lord, they are in your Family. This means that there will be people who do not act, think, dress, behave or approach God like you do. This can be a wonderful thing as people grow and learn from the perspectives of others, but this also means that your Family will include some very odd characters at times. But what biological family does not have the odd character here and there? While you might be tempted to pressure people to conform to your way of faith, resist this temptation! You do not have the right and you are most likely pressuring them into a cultural, social, or political value that you yourself have not even examined. This is also adding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ because what you are saying is, “To be a follower of Jesus Christ you need to follow Jesus Christ…and these other things…” This is a very bad idea but it is tempting. DO NOT DO THIS! The Jews were no doubt dismayed that after centuries of enduring oppression at the hands of foreigners and seeking to worship the LORD, the LORD decided it would be a good idea to include uncircumcised foreigners who worshiped Him into His Family. Some Jews suggested new believers had to become more Jewish in order to be the people of God despite what the LORD had already done. They began to require circumcision and in this they added to the Gospel. They were severely rebuked for this attitude.
Families are not a free-for all but have a structure. However, the roles in this structure is determined by relationship, not tasks. There are to be fathers and mothers who act as leaders in the community; older people who provide guidance, teaching, leadership, empowerment, encouragement, comfort, discipline etc. for those under their care just as a healthy parent would provide these for their own children. There are brothers and sisters who get to do life together as they encourage, admonish and celebrate one another. There are also younger brothers and sisters or children in the family who are being invested in by their spiritual mothers and fathers and older brothers and sisters. Just as in biological families, these roles are not exclusive. Even the oldest most wisest spiritual mother or father still has brothers and sisters who are their peers and even a young brother or sister can be an example and invest in people younger in the faith than them. While biological families have blood-ties, the Family of God should have ties based on a covenant to be family together, through thick and thin, through disagreements and major problems, through the good times and the bad. Followers of Jesus should not just cease relationship when someone fails them, when someone disagrees with them, or they are frustrated in some way. The Family of God should very intentionally talk about and work through these issues like a healthy biological family would. I should also point out that the various ages (both physical and in Christian maturity) should not be segregated. A recent speaker reported a friend as saying, that we need the wisdom of the old, the resources of the mature, and the zeal of the young. I believe this is very true.

This family should also be an invitational family.

Despite its very real problems, even my biological family gets this one right. A while back I was thinking about the positive aspects of my family life and inclusion ranked rather high up there. For example, I have an Uncle Ray. I grew up thinking he was my father’s brother, but I was 13 when I found out he was not my actual uncle. In reality, my family bought furniture from him once in the 80’s, my parents liked him, recognized he did not have a lot of family in the area, and he was promptly invited to every Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthday celebration since then. We did not invite my Uncle Ray in when he met certain criteria that we had pre-formed. We did not invite Uncle Ray in because he had certain things to offer us. We did not invite Uncle Ray into a conditional relationship with us, where if he ever offended us we would abandon him or cast him out. We invited Uncle Ray to be part of our family and apparently he liked us enough to stay.

I think the Family of God should operate like this. We should invite people into our healthy, supportive, covenant-ed family. We should not attempt to argue people into believing a certain set of doctrines and when they do invite them in, how we treat and love each other should draw people to us. And who would not want to be part of this? In this day and age I am convinced that so many problems are due to a lack of biological families that are whole and healthy. If the Family of God can provide what many people’s biological families could not (which it should) I sincerely doubt we’d ever have to worry about strategies concerning church growth. In fact, instead of scratching our head wondering why our churches are rapidly declining, if we got family right, I think we’d be scratching our head wondering how we could raise up enough spiritual mothers and fathers to meet the large numbers of people that have flocked to us.

In regards to being a Centered Set…

I really think we should be a Centered Set focused on God. This is the best way to understand our community because what is important is not where people are in terms of observable behavior or outward signs of adopting cultural or political ideals, or even the actual values of God, but which direction are they going. I do believe this not because I am a young hipster Christian who is caught up in some emergent fad. I believe this because this is presented in scripture.

The story of the Prodigal Son is really about the story of two lost sons, not one. I have written about this elsewhere but basically most Christians focus on the younger son and turn this into a narrative of victory/ascents, or a good testimony about how someone from a really dark past overcame their sin and came to experience God’s love and forgiveness. While there is truth in this, and often this story does serve to highlight the mercy of the Father, it leaves out the older son. The older son who stayed close to the Father, did what he was supposed to be doing, but had a heart far from the heart of the Father. The Father wanted to forgive, but the older brother wanted exact justness and fairness more than he wanted a restored brother.

In context, Jesus was making a point about the Pharisees and their like in contrast to the sinners and tax collectors he was spending time with and loving on. While the Pharisees might have actually sinned less than say, a prostitute, their hearts were so far from God.

In a similar vein the story of the woman who anointed Jesus feet with expensive oil and wiped it with her hair highlights this point as well. The disciples were close to Jesus. They followed Jesus even when the crowds abandoned Him when He taught confusingly that they had to eat his flesh and drink His blood. Certainly they loved Him and were doing right. Yet a “sinful woman” who probably committed more sin than the disciples loved Jesus more than they did.

The implications for adopting a Centered Set are many but I want to just highlight a few.

First, we must drop making people jump through man-made hoops before they are accepted. Instead we should value the direction of people’s lives. Are they become more or less like Jesus? Are they in more or less love with Jesus?

Second, we should always be seeking to encourage one another to follow and love Jesus more through our words and lives. We should not encourage people to be more American, or more white, or more into social justice, or more into whatever, but more in love with Jesus. This encourage people in the right direction, wherever they are at, because Jesus is at the center. While you might think that every Christian should be concerned about the poor (and you’d be right), maybe someone is at a place in their journey where God actually has something different in them that they need to work on before that concern eventually comes. If a concern for the poor is in the heart of God (which it is), and people pursue Jesus, they will get it eventually.

Third, we should respect basic Christian orthodoxy and the character of Jesus but respect that everyone’s journey will probably be different. The Centered Set is not an Unitarian position and there is a need to maintain basic orthodoxy. For example, if someone says they love God but believe Jesus was just a man who was a good moral and ethical teacher they are in error and be corrected. On the other hand we should realize that the transformation and change that comes by following Jesus will look different for other people at different times. We should seek to avoid confusing our presuppositions, our experience of Jesus, and our preferences as basic orthodoxy.

On a personal note, does anyone know of a community of followers of Jesus in the L.A. area that is like this? I do not mean a Church that says they do this, but an actual place where this is a reality?

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary | Tagged Bible, biological family, Bounded Set, Centered Set, Christianity, Church as family, covenant family, followers of Jesus, healthy family, Jesus | 1 Comment

The Catharsis of Depression

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

I have been wrestling with publishing this post or not. Technically I am not even supposed to be writing it as I’m supposed to be working on my book. But this is really I can think about.

The Monday before Thanksgiving I was crushed by depression seemingly out of nowhere. Since then I have been very emotionally unstable, coming in and out of a very dark place. I have been in a haze for the most part and had to dig deep to find motivation to finish the quarter. I felt disembodied as I wrote about how the Resurrection of Christ gives us eternal hope even as I struggled to just make it through the day.

There was no big disappointing event. One day I was fine and the next day my depression just was. I had not felt like this in months, certainly not since my inner healing prayer last Spring, but as I looked to the future I could see absolutely no hope and felt destined for failure in all areas of my life. The joy I had been walking in seemed a faint memory and I have been working to understand what the Hell has been going on in me under the surface of my heart.

I was hesitant to write about my depression for a number of reasons but then I watched this video…

Now I have never jumped off the Manhattan bridge and survived like Schramm, but two times in my life my depression has taken me to the brink of suicide.

The first time was in high school. Two factors drove that depression. On the surface I was depressed because my plans for my life that I had been working towards for three years just fell apart. Underneath that was a ton of pain from my family, incredible self-hatred and a fear that God too hated me. I ended up at the front of an intersection in my hometown. As cross-traffic drove by I had my foot on the gas, not on the brake. I was preparing to drive myself headlong into traffic in an attempt to make my suicide look like an accident.

The second time was last Spring. The depression that preceded it had lasted months. It was driven by a severe sense of being betrayed and lied to by both God and my Ex, my inability to forgive my Ex and move on in life, and my attempts to deal with the dysfunctional and abuse home I was raised in. I ended up in a place where I was sitting down to draft two suicide notes, one for my family and one for my Ex, as I seriously considered driving home to get my rifle, so I could shoot myself in the head.

While I am not suicidal, I decided to publish this post for anyone who has ever been there or is there right now. It think Schramm is right. For the sake of those who struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts, we need to get over the taboo of talking about these issues. This can be especially difficult in Christian circles where this is an unspoken pressure to be happy and admonitions to be “content in all circumstances” or “grateful for what Jesus did” can act as barriers to be honest with what is really going on.

While my own current depression has not fully lifted, I hope my writing about it is in its own way encouraging. At the very least I hope people understand that they are not alone.

What’s driving the current depression…

The current depression is not being driven by events that have happened but by raging pessimism about three areas of my future: my arthritis, my hopes for marriage and family, and the need to make a living in the adult world. Major uncertainty in all of these areas allows for a lot of negativity from my past to invade my present.

Proverbs 13:12 says that, “A hope deferred makes the heart sick…” and it feels like the hopes I have for my life in all these areas has constantly been just out of reach. This dynamic has crushed my heart and at this point and time I feel like giving up hope because that is safer, easier, and the most likely result anyway considering my past. In all three of these areas I feel like I am destined to failure and should just prepare and plan for the worst.

To summarize my fears and my thoughts, my mind usually ends a message similar to this: “God is not going to heal you and your physical body will continue to be worse. You are experiencing physical pain for absolutely no reason. You will never get married, or will get married and have a family only to experience failure such as a divorce or the tragic death of your children. You will never find a way to make a living doing something meaningful and will struggle to pay off loans working part-time jobs with no significance.”

Irrational but not unfounded…

As I wrestled to understand what the Hell was going on with me I realized that a big tension in all of this. When I stepped back I could realize my extreme pessimism was completely irrational and yet at the same time it was not completely unfounded.

Many people in my life think highly of me and recognize a lot of my great qualities and assets. Because of this many friends have assured me that marriage and family will happen for me, and that I have such a bright future. If I met a person who had my exact qualities, I would assume the same thing. There are many good things in my life and character that indicate someone bound for success, influence, and a healthy family life. I realize that many people in the world would literally kill to have my life, problems and all.

On the other hand my pessimism is not completely unfounded. In all three areas that I have been concerned with I have experienced major failure and disappointment many times. I have prayed for healing before and it has not come. Is the next prayer session going to be different? The most recent failed relationship was but the third that followed a very familiar pattern. Will the fourth break the cycle? After earning a B.A. in Biblical Studies I got a job at Costco. What’s to say after earning a Masters in Theology, things will be any different? (Especially considering the fact that I want nothing to do with the Christian religious system…you know where all the money and stable salaries are to be found.) While I know that just because something happened in the past does not mean it is not destined to repeat in the future, the glaring failures of my past do not exactly instill confidence that God is going to come through now when He did not back then.

Some confusion and some clarity…

This whole situation confused the crap out of me. Where did this depression come from? What sparked it? Why now? Will this ever be over, or is it going to be like this the rest of my life? Should I get on medications? Is there a spiritual element to it?

As I thought about the whole situation, a couple things came to light.

First, I choose this. Several months back I decided to stop pursuing a PsyD degree knowing that school feels safe to me and the real adult world is scary. I knew getting into the real world beyond school would push a lot of my trust issues with God…and it has. Part of my depression has been feeling the incredible financial pressure of the “$50,000 mistake” that is my seminary education. The fear is that I will not be able to pay back my loans and simply end up in permanent financial distress. Obviously this is a very negative outlook on life, and shows very little trust that God will provide for me or wants to see me succeed. This trust issue was and is very real and it needs to be dealt with. If I had pursued PsyD, I would be in the same situation I am now, just several years down the road and with even more debt. Choosing to do the MAT alone just hasted this day. I was always going to have to work through this. Overall, I am glad this is being dealt with sooner, rather than later.

Second, I saw some spiritual and family dynamics and choices I have regarding them. Growing up, I did not feel safe to go to my parents when I was in emotional distress to receive comfort. I was basically scared of my parents and felt responsible for my mother’s emotions, so there really was no room for me to be sad anyway. Therefore I learned to self-sooth when in distress and all my issues with addiction and seeking to numb out stem from this. During a time at my internship God invited me to seek His comfort when I was in distress, even though I was scared to do so with my parents. Will I trust that God can and does want to comfort me, even when that concept is very foreign to me? I am trying my best to do this and trust God to minister to me and comfort me in ways no addiction or distraction can.

In a related vein I actually called home and let my parents know what was going on with me. This was the first time I have ever talked to my parents when I was in such a bad place and intentionally let them in. My mom obviously told the rest of the family and I got a call from my father and an email from my sister about it. It was…weird. I really have never though of my family as a place of emotional support and understanding. While I recognize part of the reason I struggle with depression is because of choices my parents made twenty years ago, I know have a choice if I am going to let them be part of the solution. They were not there for me then, but they can be there for me now, and seem to want to be. Will I let them?

Third, in my class on Inner Healing Prayer we were taught that healing often comes in layers. Just because an issues comes up more than once, does not mean we “lost” our healing, but that the healing is going to a deeper level. I think this is very true. Sometimes bondage is broken and cut instantly. Other times it is dissolved or dealt with in increments. I think God deals with things when we are ready and there is sometimes a component of timing to healing. This, I think, is especially true of my struggle to forgive my Ex. I dissociated from a lot of the pain in that relationship and used resentment and anger to mitigate the pain of what happened. This was a good thing. If I had felt it all at once I would probably have gone through with my planned suicide. But as I began to forgive my Ex, the pain and feelings my anger had held at way came to the surface. I would then have to work through the process from pain to forgiveness again. This situation made me feel like I was never making headway, but there was just a lot to work through a little at a time.

The catharsis in depression…

Overall I realize that this depression will ultimately be cathartic. I do not mean that by writing or talking about it or even understanding it will eliminate it from my mind or my heart. I have walked in depression long enough to know that alone is not the solution. What I mean is this:

Dr. Chuck Kraft said something to the effect that “pain is a sign that points to the need for healing and/or the need to be ministered to.” I think this is true. In this, my depression is like the light that comes on when your car is low on gas. It points to the existence of a problem, namely the underlying issues of my depression. When it turns on, one can choose to deal with the problem, one can attempt to ignore it and hope for the best or one can manage it in some alternative way.

Hoping for the best and continuing as usual, or attempting to numb out from the pain has not proven to be a beneficial solution. I am choosing to deal with the issues that are being brought to light by the depression, especially the lack of trust I have in God in regards to my future and the pain I have experienced that have led to that lack of trust. I am choosing to continue in inner healing prayer, I am considering getting back into counseling with a different counselor, I am talking to people about what is going on (which is really a new thing for me) and bringing these issues before God and obeying what He says.

In this, my depression will ultimately lead to the release of healing in my life in places that need healing. While by no means enjoyable, my depression is a gigantic flashing neon sign that highlights problems in my heart. This is what I mean by the catharsis of depression; it is the resolution of problems in our minds and our hearts that is possible only because the pain of depression points to an issue that we would normally ignore or remain ignorant of.

[Note: If you’re struggling with depression and/or suicidal thoughts please get help and talk to someone. Even as I still struggle with my most recent depression, I can from experience echo the words of Schramm: while it is difficult to make the choice to come back to life, it does get better.]

Posted in Personal Commentary | Tagged abuse, Addiction, depression, distraction, dysfunctional family, emotional trauma, God, healing, inner healing prayer, Jesus, raging pessimism, silver lining, suicide, underlying issues | 4 Comments

The Christian Social Economics of Exclusion and Vilification: The Pharisees v2.0

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

The Christian religious system has rather thoroughly replicated the conditions, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and social organization of the Pharisees. This has not surprisingly rather thoroughly replicated the error of the Pharisees and the social economy of the Christian religious system revolves around excluding other people and then vilifying them.

To support this claim I want to look at three inter-related and mutually reinforcing realities that I see in Western Christianity: the prevalence of persecution narratives, a concern for external boundary markers and the use of the Bounded Set paradigm for organizing their communities, and xenophobia.

The Prevalence of Persecution Narratives

To the first point many Christian communities have replicated the conditions that created the Pharisees by adopting persecution narratives as part of their community identity. These narratives paint their community as “real” Christians suffering persecution from “fake” Christians or non-Christians. These narratives circle around a variety of issues such as the history of the church, race, social-economic status, political ideologies, “family values,” doctrinal differences, etc. With few exceptions, these stories are often a pale shadow to the very real persecution that Jews suffered under foreign occupation, but they encourage the same mindset. This puts the community on the defensive and the community feels it must be on guard, work to defend itself, maintain clear boundaries for who is one of them and who is not, and even fight back.

This mindset encourages and is reinforced by the two other issues at play: a concern with deciding who is and who is not a member of the community and seeing outsiders as a threat.

(Sidenote: A very common example of what I talking about is the “culture war” narrative in the United States. According to the “culture war” narrative, the U.S.A. was founded as Christian nation, but is under attack by secularizing forces. Christian family values and religious beliefs are under attack by the gay agenda, the liberal media, the Democrats, any other convenient enemy, etc. All non-Christians are inherently against Christianity and Christians. Only by voting for a Republican candidate, or agreeing with and obeying your pastor, can you do your Christian duty and help win back the U.S.A. for Jesus! This is a concept that many politicians and pastors have used to stir up votes, stay in power, and rake in tons of money. While this may sound ridiculous to some when I lay it out like that, this is what many Christians in the U.S.A. believe.

This link provides a lot of examples of what I am talking about.

Another common one is that the current church is made up of members who were disenfranchised, misunderstood and persecuted at a previous church by bad pastors and bad Christians. The current church, made of up refugees from the previous church and other churches, will now do things right where the previous church got it wrong.)

External Boundary Markers and the Bounded Set

Christian communities have become increasingly concerned with defining who is and who is not a member of their community. This has meant that the Bounded Set is often used to organize their communities and numerous man-made laws and traditions with clear external evidence are used to provide clear boundary markers for the community. While the Pharisees obsessed over circumcision and man-made laws Christians have devised other external things to obsess over and made their own laws and traditions.

While Christian traditions vary in their external boundary markers and not all of their Bounded Set’s look the same, I want to offer a brief and general sketch of what I am talking about. Before that though I should note two things.

First, it should be stated that the Christians have “one-upped” (or “one-downed?”) the Pharisees on the dysfunctional scale. In addition to explicitly stated values and rules, Christian communities, just like dysfunctional families, have numerous unspoken rules. These rules are not stated or written down, but they are very real. At least the Pharisees had the courtesy to make all their expectations known..

Second, many of the man-made rules within Christianity are used along the same rationale Pharisees employed. Many of these stringent man-made rules are more restrictive than anything God said with the idea that if the man-made rule is obeyed, then God’s rule will not be broken, and the Christians can rest assured of their piety. For example, some Christian traditions prohibit dancing because it might lead to sexually arousal which might lead to sexual sin. These man-made rules inevitably are used to prematurely and unfairly judge people and let the Christian community know who to marginalize and who to celebrate as it seeks to encourage these values. So if you dance, go to dancer, or are reported to be involved in dancing someway, your piety and possibly your sexual purity are automatically in question.

Moving onto the Bounded Set, the largest circle of the Bounded Set, the extreme edges of the community represent the basic criteria for membership and often the basic criteria for being seen as a “saved” or a Christian. These tend to be the most clearly stated rules within the Christian community and are the external boundary markers of the community. Some common examples would be signing off on a statement of faith, being baptized in water (often in a specific method), being baptized in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, praying the “sinner’s prayer,” taking a membership/catechism/confirmation class(es), “inviting Jesus into your heart,” etc. Meeting these criteria might be tied with assurances of salvation and your membership into the community but meeting these criteria by no means guarantees that you will be accepted or treated well within the community.

The middle circles of the Bounded Set, the inner boundaries are where it usually gets messy and varied. These rules and values tend to be a mix of explicit and implicit rules that are cultural, political and religious in nature. The more of these values you meet, the closer you are to the center and the better you are treated in order to encourage these values in you and in the community as a whole. The less of these values you meet, the farther you are from the center and the worse you are treated in order to discourage these values in you and in the community as a whole. To add to the confusion this middle area is often where the stated highest ideals and values of the Church actually reside.

In my experience the center of Christian communities, the actual highest ideals of the community, are not the stated values that are on paper but cultural and religious values that often have little to do with God, the Kingdom or the Gospel. Speaking personally for the churches I have been involved in, the highest ideals everything to do with “whiteness” and the American Dream. Through a myriad of ways the message is communicated that to be a “real” Christian is to be a generally speaking moral and ethical, white, married and middle-class adult. While I am sure the exact highest ideals are different in other Christian communities and traditions, I am convinced there is a lot of self-deception in this area and most have very little to do with Jesus, the Gospel or the Kingdom. Exactly like the Pharisees the ultimately focus and goal of Christian communities is on man-made rules, beliefs, traditions and values.

Xenophobia

Persecution narratives encourage Christians to see outsiders as enemies and threats and use of the Bounded Set paradigm gives Christian communities a way of knowing exactly who is an outsider. This leads to a situation where outsiders are prejudged and treated with a mixture of fear, disdain or outright hostility. I have personal experienced this (as Christians from other traditions have treated me poorly before getting to know me) and more importantly have treated people outside of my Christian community incredibly harshly because of this mindset.

A recent realization for me is that this mindset is both actively and passively taught. While a cliché phrase in Christianity is to “hate the sin, not the sinner” many times people are actively taught to “hate the sinner.” Often labels that describe people or groups of people directly connected with words or phrases like “enemy,” “enemy of the Gospel,” “anti-Christ,” etc. in teachings, sermons and casual conversation. Other times this mindset was taught in a passive way. The subtext behind many teachings is loaded with condemnation for people who do believe or act similar to what is being taught. For example, I have experienced numerous teachings on sexual ethics where people who are homosexual, who are not virgins before marriage, or who are sexually active are portrayed as sexually depraved beyond belief, completely out of control in their sexuality, headed for inevitable pain and disaster due to their sexual activity, or actively having sex to disrespect God and/or Christians. All of this of course is in the background of the actual teaching.

This vilification is often a very cheap way for Christians to attain a false sense of moral superiority. Many Christians I know struggle with sin and are hypocritical. It is always easier to be self-righteous and to focus on someone who is worse than you than to deal with your own issues. Again, I am a prime example of this and did this for most of my life.

The end result…

This entire situation leads to a modern-day replication of the two-fold error of the Pharisees.

First, the Christian religious system is often incapable of being a blessing to outsiders. Pre-occupied with proving themselves to be the “real” Christians (the ones with the right doctrine, behavior, dress, approach to worship, etc.) over and above non-Christians and other Christians they have lost any sort of ability to connect with and bless outsiders. While it can bless those who are what they want, or are moving towards it, they struggle being a blessing to people not like them, let alone their true enemies. Whatever “Good News” we have to share is reserved for people who fit our mold or are working towards fitting our mold.

Second, the when man-made traditions, rules, values and beliefs are placed above the heart of God at the true center of the community, this naturally leads to hypocrisy and situations that run against the very teachings of Jesus. When people are preoccupied with human traditions and the observance of human traditions above other humans, the natural consequence is a number of people being incredibly hurt by the church. When the certain values are celebrated above the values of God, this is idolatry.

This is what I mean by the social economy of the Christian religious system being constituted by exclusion and vilification.

[Readers: Am I unfairly transporting my experiences of Christianity to all Christian communities? What has been your experience in Christian communities? What are the stated ideals of the Church and what are the “real” ideals of the Church (often as evidenced in where the money flows to, who is on staff, what values are preached about, etc.)? Are there unspoken rules in the churches you have been a part of?

In my next post I want to suggest the way that I believe communities of followers of Jesus can and should function.]

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary | Tagged Bounded Set, Centered Set, Christian exclusion, Christian hypocrisy, Christian Pharisees, Christianity, community, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pharisees, prejudice, religious community, the Bible, the error of the Pharisees, vilification | Leave a comment

The Christian Social Economics of Exclusion and Vilification: Bounded Set Communities

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

Before the rest of this post you need to watch this Youtube video by Dave Schmelzer. He presents a great explanation of Bounded Set and Centered Set thinking and it relates to religious communities. While Schmelzer talks about both, the concern in this post is primarily about communities that organize themselves around the Bounded Set paradigm.

Before moving forward I first want to add to Schmelzer’s basic understanding of the Bounded Set, especially in regards to communities.

The basic premise in the Bounded Set paradigm is that the extreme boundaries of the community are the criteria by which we determine if a person is a member of the community. If a person does not meet the right criteria, they are outside the boundaries of the community, they are outside the circle and they are not a member of the community. If a person does meet the right criteria, they are inside the boundaries of the community, they are inside the circle and they are a member of the community.

However, the point I want to add is that even if one meets the right criteria and is technically a member of a community, their standing within that community is still yet to be determined. Are they a “good” member that should be celebrated or a “bad” member that needs to change, grow or improve in some way? To determine this, one is measured additional internal boundaries that exist within the community and its circle. So within the larger circle there are many inner circles that represent different values, beliefs, qualities and attributes that are celebrated to varying degrees within the community. At the very center of the circle lie the ideal qualities or core beliefs of the community.

People who are technically members of the community but do not have, exemplify or agree with the various values of the community are on the on the edges of the circle. While technically “in,” they are seen as in need of change which may warrant further teaching, encouragement, help, and/or discipline along this path. The more values people have, exemplify and agree with, the better standing they have within the community. The people who truly embody the highest values of the community are in the center and are quintessential members of this community.

To flesh this out I’ll use an example from sports. The Chicago Bulls, an NBA basketball team, have a certain criteria of deciding who is and who is not a member of their team. Beyond this basic criteria, the Chicago Bulls also have values and beliefs within their community, such as being a team-player, showing up to every practice on time, being willing to work hard, being excellent at the game of basketball, etc. There have been many Chicago Bulls, people who met the requirements to be considered a past or current member of the team, and there have even been many good Chicago Bulls players. However, Michael Jordan is easily the most celebrated and memorable Chicago Bull. He did not just meet the criteria to be considered a member of that community but also embodied its highest values. He has become the standard by which other Chicago Bulls players, and even other NBA players in general, are often compared to or aspire to be like.

In and of itself this model is not necessarily inherently bad or evil. Knowing who is and who is not a member of your community is not always an injustice and is at times necessary as we pursue various communal activities as humans. It is also a basic reasonable practice to celebrate the behaviors and qualities that you want to encourage others to aspire to and to marginalize or even punish those behaviors and qualities that you want to stop.

However, in religious communities the Bounded Set paradigm often becomes highly problematic, especially if the core values of the community are not in line with the God or the authoritative texts of the religion. For example, the Pharisees understood themselves in a Bounded Set paradigm. This combined with mixed up values and it was a disaster for their own community and everyone else.

For the Pharisees, it is probably safe to say at the extreme edges of the community were circumcision and worship of the LORD. If you were not circumcised and did not worship the LORD you were a Gentile. As a Gentile, you were and outsider and most likely a threat to the worship of the LORD or the physical safety of the Jewish people.

In the middle was a mix of values and laws that came from a variety of sources. Some were from the Mosaic Laws, some were various cultural values (such as beliefs those stemming from the widespread patriarchal values of many ANE societies), some came from Israel’s unique history and still others from other sources. The point is there was a mix of values, some of which had nothing directly to do with the revealed values of the LORD.

Finally, I would suggest that the various laws of the Pharisees were at the center of their Bounded Set community; this fact that their laws and traditions were valued and esteemed above the values of God was the primary reason for their error. While their concern for their laws and traditions and the external boundary markers of Israel may have started with the best of intentions, these things eventually replaced God and God’s values and Laws as the core values of their community. The Pharisees had essentially an idolatrous attachment to their own rules as their concern for their traditions and laws superseded their commitment to God and God’s values. Jesus Himself rebukes them for maintaining their own traditions above God’s Laws. (Matt 15:3-9 and Mark 7:5-13)

I am convinced this disordered/idolatrous attachment to their own man-made laws and traditions led to their error and most of their conflicts with Jesus. If they valued God healing of His people more than their Sabbath laws would they have attempted to rebuke Jesus? If they valued God’s heart for mercy would they have excluded and avoided contact with sinners? If they valued and celebrated authenticity and integrity instead of maintaining their external boundary markers, would they have lived so hypocritically?

Bringing it back to my previous post regarding the error of the Pharisees, having their values at the heart of their Bounded Set community reinforced their error and was also at the same time a product of it. To reiterate, in my previous post I have suggested the error of the Pharisees was two-fold: they lost sight of their calling to be a blessing to all nations and they became so focused on external behaviors that they lost sight of the heart of God. So how, exactly, does the Bounded Set interact with this?

In regards to their losing sight of their vocation to be a blessing to all nations, the Bounded Set paradigm helped establish who was an “outsider” and provided justification for, and even encouraged, the poor treatment of people who were outside of their Bounded Set. One strength of Bounded Set is it makes it abundantly clear who is and who is not a member of your community. The Pharisees used this paradigm to make broad categorizations about people. If you were not circumcised or did not worship the LORD, you were a Gentile. The problem comes in where the Gentiles were seen as a threat to the Jewish people, and understandably so. The Pharisees then treated Gentiles as such, which would be the exact opposite of striving to be a blessing to them.

In regards to their losing sight of the heart of God, their disordered values led to violations of God’s values. Bounded Sets flow naturally with the celebration of those who achieve or aspire to the right ideals and marginalize and even punish those who do not. When the values at the heart of the community are not 100% in line with God’s heart, this causes problems. For the Pharisees, this meant that even if you were circumcised and worshiped the LORD, there were many other criteria that would justify and encourage your marginalization. “Sinners” were avoided instead of being shown mercy and restored to the community because they did not obey the laws of God and/or the laws of the Pharisees. On the flip side if you observed the laws of the Pharisees, the Bounded Set would justify and encourage the showing of favoritism to you, even if you were distant from the actual heart of God. Hypocrites who practiced boatloads of vain religious ceremonies were celebrated as “true” sons of God.

Some of you see where I am going with all of this.

I have suggested that the Pharisees are the spiritual predecessors of Christians and that this is not a “low-blow” to Christians but a justified claim. I believe this is a justified claim because the Christian religious system is primarily organized as a Bounded Set. This Bounded Set organization is a product of and reinforcement to idolatrous attachments within the Christian religious system to values that have nothing to do with the heart of the Father. This situation leads to xenophobia and a concern for external markers of righteousness which prevents Christians from being a blessing to others and leads to hypocrisy.

In short, the error of the Pharisees is alive and well in the Christian religious system. In my next post I will explain this claim in more detail.

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary, Why do we believe... | Tagged Bounded Set vs. Centered Set thinking, Christian hypocrisy, Christianity, community organization, cultural values, exclusion, favoritism, hypocrisy, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pharisees, religious communities, religious values, The Bounded Set, the error of the Pharisees, values, vilification | Leave a comment

The Christian Social Economics of Exclusion and Vilification: The Error of the Pharisees

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

[So far I have talked about how the most common approach to the Bible in Christianity is highly problematic, how Christianity is secular in most of its practices and how the most common Christian spirituality sets Christians up for failure. In the next several posts I want to discuss how Christian communities are often so preoccupied with excluding and vilifying other people, both non-Christians and other Christians, that they cannot bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ or be the family God always intended His People to be. To this end I will discuss the practices of the Pharisees, the concept of a Bounded Set, widespread practices within Christianity and finally the concept of a Centered Set and the way I think followers of Jesus should understand the people of God.]

The Christian religious system has a long-standing tradition of excluding and vilifying other people. Much of the teaching I received while a Christian really boiled down to who I was supposed to hate and why, and how I could not be one of those people. Before examining this in more detail I really need to talk about the spiritual predecessors of Christianity: the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were a Jewish sect whose members were criticized time and time again by Jesus. Because of this, the Pharisees have historically been a convenient way for Christians to dismiss their opponents without actually dealing with their opponents position. If you label your enemies as “Pharisees” you invoke the condemnation of Jesus Christ Himself, which is a powerful weapon indeed. This tactic has a rich tradition within Christianity and it works irregardless of it is actually fair to connect your enemies with the Pharisees. This tactic has most often gone hand in hand with an understanding that the Pharisees believed one could earn your personal salvation through works of the Law, as opposed to the true Gospel Jesus brought that salvation comes through faith in Him. This is a mostly a Protestant myth. While the Pharisees were indeed concerned with laws, both the Mosaic Laws and their own laws and traditions, their concern for laws was not what it is often made out to be.

So what exactly was their error and why did Jesus rebuke them? To answer this question I am going to examine their beliefs and history in more detail.

The Pharisees were one of many Jewish sects that arose in the intertestamental period, that is the time between the Prophets and the Gospels. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes are probably the most well-known Jewish sects from this time. Much like contemporary Christian denominations, each of these sects had different interpretations of the scripture. One of the main points of contentions between them was who would inherit the promises made to Abraham, the promised coming Messiah, the promised restoration of Israel and under what criteria this was to be determined. Each thought they had the truth and were to be the Remnant of Israel that the promised Messiah would come and save. These groups were not fighting over how one achieves personal salvation and goes to Heaven instead of Hell, their concern was the restoration of Israel, what that would look like, and who was to receive it.

More to the Pharisees in particular, the name Pharisee literally means “the set apart ones.” As their name would imply their primary concern was maintaining the traditional boundary markers of Israel to set themselves apart from the pagans around them and from Hellenized Jews (Jews who were increasingly Roman and Greek in their thinking and behavior). The practices of circumcision, temple worship and sacrifices and observance of the Law all served as boundary markers that helped mark who was, and who was not, a Jew. The Pharisees rigorously observed and obsessed over these external markers in order to maintain the Jewish identity and be the promised Remnant of Israel.

It was from this concern for keeping the Mosaic Law that the Pharisees developed laws and traditions above and beyond the Laws given by God. The rationale was that if you did not break the laws and traditions of the Pharisees you could rest assured that you had not broken the Laws of God. Other times they simply wanted a clear-cut understanding of what keeping and breaking the Law of God would look like when this was left ambiguous by the Mosaic Law. For example, God commanded that His followers not work on the Sabbath. But what exactly counted as working on the Sabbath? The Pharisees clarified this ambiguity by making many rules defining what counted as work and what did not.

The concern for maintaining these cultural boundary markers is understandable given some of the history that many Protestants are unaware of because they cut out 1^st and 2^nd Maccabees out of their Bible. In the 2^nd century BC Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Seleucid Emperor, had sided with Hellenized Jews in a civil war with more traditional Jews. Epiphanes wanted to Hellenize every Jew, to force them to assimilate into the culture of his empire, in order to make his own nation easier to rule and to guard against any future insurrections. To this end he brutally enforced a ban on the distinct customs and laws of the people of Israel in an effort to erase their identity. He would have babies who were found to be circumcised hung from the necks of their mothers for all to see and ransacked Jerusalem and looted the Temple. The Maccabean revolt was a backlash against this and the concept of Judaism was birthed during this time. Judaism began as a desire to maintain the Jewish identity and history, especially through maintaining the distinct customs and laws of the Israelite people, in reaction to this attempt at forced assimilation. The Pharisees were heirs of this time period and one can better understand their concern with maintaining the Jewish identity and their hope of a freed and restored Israel that would return to political and military might in light of this history of persecution and attempts to forcibly remove the marks of their culture.

(Sidenote: Very similar tactics at forced cultural annihilation/assimilation have been used throughout history for very similar reason. For example, Europeans and their descendants have attempted to forcibly assimilate and dismantle Native American culture with almost the exact same tactics. Where genocide failed, Native Americans were often sent to residential schools where they were forbidden to speak in their own language, practice their culture, or their own spirituality. If you erase enough of the culture’s distinct customs and practices you erase the culture and make it easier to dominate, oppress and exploit them.)

In short: the Pharisees’ concern for the Law and circumcision was driven by an understandable desire to maintain the cultural identity and history of the people of God in the face of overwhelming and brutal efforts to erase that identity, culture and history. Obedience and observance of the laws marked who was “in” Israel and who was not. If you were not circumcised you were clearly not a Jew and were seen as a Gentile threat either to the pure worship of the LORD or to the actual physical safety of Jewish people who had seen their share of violent invasions. In addition to this their traditions and laws were designed to keep people from breaking God’s laws in a desire to be the inheritors of the promises of Israel. The error of the Pharisees then had nothing to do with earning personal salvation (as Christians envision it) through works of the Law. Their practices and beliefs appear to be at least well-intentioned and reasonable given their circumstances. So beyond being hypocritical and not obeying their own man-made laws that they enforced on other people, where did the Pharisees go so wrong?

The error of the Pharisees is probably best summarized from a quotation from N.T. Wright’s book, The Challenge of Jesus:

Passage after passage in Jewish writers of the period, and indeed in modern Jewish scholarship, emphasizes that the Jewish laws were not designed as a legalist’s ladder up which one might climb to heaven but were the boundary-markers for a beleaguered people. Jesus’ clash with the Pharisees came about not because he…believed in justification by faith while they believed in justification by works but because his kingdom-agenda for Israel demanded that Israel leave off her frantic and paranoid self-defense, reinforced as it now was by the ancestral codes, and embrace instead the vocation to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth…the clash between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries, especially the Pharisees, must be seen in terms of alternative political agendas generated by alternative eschatological beliefs and expectations. (Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, 58)

The error of the Pharisees was then essentially two-fold:

First, as Wright highlights here, they had become so obsessed with protecting Israel and the hope of a political Messiah that they forgot that the Abrahamic covenant was not for political dominance but to be a blessing to all nations. (Gen 12, Gen 22) They had become too fearful and hateful of Gentiles, they had become to xenophobic, to be the blessing to Gentiles that they were supposed to be blessing to. This was in part due to the fact that their hope for the future was not in line with what God had planned. God did not restore the Twelve Tribes of Israel into political and military superpower that obliterated the Roman occupation of the Holy Land. God sent Jesus Christ, reconciled all people to Himself and placed His Spirit inside His followers. God even reconciled Gentiles that did not fit either the historical boundary markers of Israel or the man-made rules of Pharisees. God even reconciled to Himself people who lived within the Roman Empire power structure, an Empire that had oppressed the Jews and would later destroy the Temple. (Acts 10) Some Jews were able to accept this and some did not. Even some Pharisees came to accept this, but one can still see their penchant for rule keeping and their concern for the historic boundary markers of Israel.

(Sidenote: Jesus rebuke of the Jews at the temple, citing that his Temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations, starts to carry different connotations when this is understood properly. Wright suggests that Jesus’ rebuke is not about economic exploitation at the Temple but was concerning the fact the Temple had become a hotbed of insurgent activity and a national symbol for the zealot movement. Part of his support for this claim comes from the fact that the term “den of robbers,” which he translates as “cave of brigands,” had been used to refer to zealot groups hiding in the area in Roman sources. (Matt 21))

Second, the Pharisees became so focused on determining who was “in” Israel through observance of external practices and laws that they lost sight of the heart of God. While the laws and customs were originally set up with good intentions their focus increasingly became about maintaining external appearances and the letter of their laws. The hypocrisy that Jesus rebuked them for (Matt 23) naturally flowed out of this situation. This sad reality is probably best exemplified by the fact that they condemned Jesus for healing a sick woman on the Sabbath; so flipped in their values, they did not recognize who Jesus was and rebuked Him when he brought healing to a woman for not obeying their man-made laws. (Mark 3, Luke 13)

Now looking forward to my next post I have suggested the Pharisees are the spiritual predecessors of Christians. Is this an unfair assessment of Christianity? Am I making an unfounded connection between the Pharisees and Christianity to invoke the condemnation of Jesus Christ as I’ve already mentioned is often done in Christian circles? I think not.

Before explaining why I believe this connection is justified in a later post I shall first introduce the concept of a Bounded Set in my next post, and how it applies to this topic.

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary, Why do we believe... | Tagged Christianity, exclusion, homophobia, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jewish Sects, legalism, Pharisees, religion, the Bible, the error of the Pharisees, the Mosaic Law, vilification, works righteousness, xenophobia | Leave a comment

Understanding the Heart of the Father

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

In my last post I talked about how the spirituality of followers of Jesus should be and suggested that issues of identity are incredibly important. I felt more should be said on this issue since I think a lot of people struggle with this and I wanted to make some of my conceptual statements more concrete by sharing some of things I have done and some of the tangible signs of change I have seen and received.

I grew up with a really distorted understanding of myself and God that made a healthy spirituality of following Jesus. However, since last Spring, when God brought incredible supernatural healing into my life through prayer, things have been fundamentally different. I have been experiencing revelation and breakthrough about what has been wrong about my understanding of myself, my understanding of God, and my understanding of how God sees me.

One practical thing I have learned to do is to test my fears against the character of God, who is the best Dad in the whole world. For example, one time I was faced with making a major decision between two good things. I realized I was very anxious about it and desired a clear sign or command from God to point to which decision was His will. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that this was a retreat back into a slave/Master identity and fear. I feared that if I did not make the right decision God would later punish me for choosing the wrong path. As I was walking one day I asked myself simply, “If one of these paths was God’s will for my life, and the other was not, do I believe God, who is the best Dad in the whole world, would not tell me His will in this situation, let me make the wrong decision, and then come back years later and harshly punish me for it?” While exceptions do exist, I was aware that even most human sinful fathers would not do this. Clearly God, who loves us more than anyone else and the best Dad in the whole world, would not do such a thing. I did not even have to stop walking for that one and I eventually made that decision with no fear or anxiety.

Another practical thing I was taught to do is to ask God every day to tell me what He thinks of me. Ephesians 5:29 says that “No one has hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it as He does the Church.” This has been probably the most beneficial thing I have learned at Pihop and the School of Supernatural Ministry. I was invited to do this and told that sometimes God will flip worship songs back on us and sometimes the revelation of God’s love for us will come later in the day and not instantaneously when we pray. These are some of the things I have heard from God:

You are my trophy. You are 1^st place. You are the sign of my victory. You are the palladium; where you go victory for others will follow. You are the herald of victory and freedom. [This was accompanied by an image of actual trophy’s I earned as a young child during father/son team competitions with my dad.]
You are hope to the hopeless. When you find people in pain your impact will be so great some will count their life before and after meeting you. [Recently my heart for working with Native Americans was reignited and I talked with a Native missionary last week about the work he was doing. When I asked him what the number one challenge he has faced in his work. His answer was without hesitation: “Hopelessness.”]
You are a person of incredible influence. Who brings people together in unity and community. You have always been a leader and cast vision even when you did not feel like you were one.
You will equip the saints. The vast armory you have inherited is more than you will ever need. You have in your possession armor that only fits other people. Freely give what you have received. You will never run out! [I’ll write more about this armory in a later Signs that Make you Wonder Post.]
[You are] my beloved, my delight, the apple of my eye. I delight in you, not in your performance.
You bring in the outcast. You “in-gather” them.

(Sidenote: I realize that these statements may seem like an attempt at self-aggrandizement or evidence a prideful and arrogant heart. I don’t think that is this case. I think such an assessment comes from a place inside many of us that is very uncomfortable receiving love from others and from God. Just as I was uncomfortable receiving the love of my recovery community when I first entered recovery for my addictions so I was initially uncomfortable receiving or even writing these words down when I received them from God. Some of them I did not even believe were true about me and there appeared to be evidence towards the contrary.

That’s the point.

God is the ultimate authority on who we are, not other people and not ourselves. Often we define ourselves, or let others define us, by the worst thing(s) we have done or our character defects. This leads to an image that is very different from the heart of the Father, one that makes it difficult to believe anything good about ourselves and we feel undeserving of love. Listening to what the Father says about us, even when it is hard to receive, reshapes our identity.God is the perfect father who does not see us as the worst mistake(s) we have ever made and God wants to lavish and nourish His sons and daughters with His love. I am confident when you practice this exercise God will have incredibly loving and encouraging things to say to you as well.)

Over the last several months my relationship with God has been shifting incredibly. As I began reading the book, Experiencing the Father’s Embrace by Jack Frost, he shares a story that I am all too familiar with. As I read his first chapter I strongly identified with his journey from addiction to sinful things to addiction to ministry and how a broken relationship with a distant father that kept him from connecting with the love of the best Dad in the whole world in a healthy way. As I continued reading I was struck by the fact that nothing he was saying was really new to me. I identified with his whole story, not just his tortured past relationship with God but his understanding of the heart of the Father. I realized that, while God is infinite and therefore there will always be something more for me to learn about His love for me and for others, my understanding of God had really changed and my relationship with God had categorically changed in the last several months.

This was confirmed in a powerful way by God last Saturday when I served at the Well. Over one hundred and eighty people signed up to receive prophetic prayer at Pihop last Saturday. When I arrived to start praying before-hand the line was to the end of the block. With eight teams of three to four people going at once a normal night usually takes us to 11:00pm or 11:30pm to pray for everyone. However, that night we had a team of forty-five people visiting from Bethel. They are all second year students in the Bethel School of Ministry so they ministered with us and we ended up having twelve teams of four to five people. Even with this additional help we still finished around 11:15pm due to the sheer demand for prayer. In the main hall the worship room was packed with people praying, worshiping and waiting for their time of prayer.

Not only was the time praying for people very fun and it is always great to see God’s love touch people I myself was touched. One of the Bethel students started praying over us on the team and as she looked at me she said that I radiated the love of the Father. I thanked her and received this encouragement but did not really think about it. However, at the end of the night she pulled me aside and was adamant that I pray for her. She was so convinced that I, above and beyond other people she had met, really understood the Father’s love and wanted to be blessed by it herself. I prayed for her and blessed her with whatever I had and she started to break down. This moment was as if God was confirming my own realization that I have come to a very different understanding of His love and am going to be used to share that with others.

Six months ago I still secretly feared that God hated me. Truly God has touched my life and done a work in me that is undeniable.

God is so good. 🙂

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary | Tagged Christian identity, Christianity, father wound, God as Father, identity, Jesus, Jesus Christ, practical steps towards identity in Christ | 1 Comment

Signs that Make you Wonder: A glory cloud and fresh oil coming from a woman’s hand.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Speakfaithfully

On October 19^th, at our Wednesday night class at the School of Supernatural ministry we watched a video of a sign God did at Bethel church in Redding the Friday before. Apparently while the community was gathered late at night a cloud of gold dust appeared out of no where in the middle of the congregation and floated around the congregation for a time, leaving many covered in specks of gold dust.

Two videos of it are here.

(CAUTION: This first one is loud as the people are cheering uncontrollably.)

Now before moving on I feel I really should comment on this.

My initial reaction was to dismiss this or wonder if it was fabricated in someway. I still battle my Western Worldview a lot which denies the spiritual realm completely. My default reaction to things like this are almost always, “Where is this in the Bible?” and to wonder if this was faked somehow. When this initial reaction receded I was able to think more clearly about both of these points.

First, it would be impossible to fake this. It is hard to see in the video but it was reported to me that the glory cloud moved and swirled, going up and down over the congregation. While someone, with bad or good motives, might have thrown gold dust in the air or had some more elaborate scheme to release gold dust into the ventilation system, it would be impossible to make the glory cloud move in such an unorthodox way and disappear and reappear. Either someone at Bethel has access to nanite cloud technology or this was really from God.

Second, such signs and wonders happen all the time in the Bible. One example that came to mind is the pillar of fire and smoke that led the Israelites through the desert. If God can do this, certainly He can make a little gold dust cloud in a church in Redding.

[Update: This happened again last Sunday right before Bill Johnson was about to preach. For two hours they just rejoiced in God’s presence and kids tried to eat the gold dust like snowflakes.]

Many people commented that such a sign was further confirmation that we are in the end times. I would disagree. While it might be just that, I think that such supernatural signs and wonders are to be relatively normal for followers of Jesus. It is because the Western Culture is so deeply steeped in rationalism and naturalism that we do not see these things. What happened at Bethel I would suggest then would be more of a return to normal than something incredibly unique.

Then later that night I was able to witness, first hand, another sign from God.

After class I was talking with a fellow student while many others were staying late to pray in our classroom. Suddenly one visitor and another student ran into where I was from the classroom. She was crying, scared, excited and happy. They started just exclaiming “Fresh oil! Fresh oil!”

Apparently, while praying this woman’s hands suddenly became wet with a thin sheen of oil.

Us being us, she began annointing people with it. As we took pictures, watched, and prayed over the whole situation. We found we could wipe her hands dry, only to have the oil come back just out of her hands. It also was scentless when it was left on her hands but as soon as she annointed people they could smell it.

These are just two pictures from that night.

Posted in Faith, Personal Commentary | Tagged Bethel glory cloud, cessationist, Christianity, glory cloud, Jesus, miracles, miraculous, School of Supernatural Ministry, signs and wonders, supernatural | 8 Comments

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