Are Christians and Occultists the Same?

I’m gonna delve into something radical here. Let me post a few quotes first and then I’ll explain…

Example one: 

Catholic mystic St. Teresa (1515-1582) basically describes the spiritual gift of words of knowledge that she often received in prayer as “…very distinctly formed, but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than if they were heard by the ear.”

Crossreference Jane Roberts, a classic New Age trance channeler, who described a similar experience in 1963: “…a fantastic avalanche of radical, new ideas burst into my head with tremendous force…I felt as if knowledge was being implanted in the very cells of my body so that I couldn’t forget it – a gut knowing, a biological spirituality. It was feeling and knowing, rather than intellectual knowledge.”

Example two: 

Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714) described a life of union with God where believers became a participant in the nature of God.  Along with ecstatic experiences including spiritual gifts, “He who has reached this high grade of love …will be overcome and almost drunken, indeed, swallowed up” in the presence of God. 

Spiritualist James Martin Peebles wrote revivalist Dwight Moody in a letter concerning the similarities between Spiritualism and Moody’s proto-Pentecostal beliefs in experience: “Yes, my brother, with you I want to see a revival of religion, a return to Pentecostal times, a return to that Christianity which gladdened and glorified the first three centuries after Christ.” Peebles glibly suggested a joint revival circuit with Pentecostals and Spiritualist mediums displaying the power of God together: “…what a power, what a mighty power, under the good providence of God, we should be evangelizing the world.”  To Peebles, the Pentecostal experience merely confirmed his own views.

Example three: 

A Methodist parishioner, after participating in a Mesmeric trance, was described by an observer: “…she appeared to be in a state of ecstatic joy, when she grasped [the Mesmerists] hand and said: ‘O, Brother Sunderland, this is the happiest state I was ever in. It is heaven…Yes, Brother Sunderland, and this is the same heaven – the same as when my soul was converted and filled with the love of God.’” The Mesmerist was also a Methodist minister.

Theologian Harvey Cox recounts attending a Pentecostal service in Boston.  After an inspiring time of worship, singing and dancing, the minister praised the presence of the Holy Spirit with these words: “Yes, this is the way it ought to be. Yes.  This is the way it’s going to be in heaven.  Yes, and we don’t have to wait for heaven because here at Holy Tabernacle tonight this is the way it is now.” 

 Okay, I’m sure you can see the similarities here. I pulled just a few quotes from hundreds to give an idea of just how similar experiences felt in Christian and alternative religious groups are. Now don’t freak out, just listen. Christians have always had a tendency to reject all such occult experiences as counterfeit and demonic. Modern occultists although valuing the role of experience, usually assign it to the fringes of the unconscious mind. But what if our spiritual history, full of countless examples of people chasing experience, were saying the same thing?

Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism are the largest Christian groups in the world. Why do you think that is? Pentecostalism is 500 million strong – bigger than all other denominations combined. I think it’s because of their willingness to value experience and the supernatural. Similarly, why do you think Wicca and the New Age movement are so big? Same reason – they value personal experience and the supernatural.

I am a Pentecostal (don’t laugh – you’re the minority, not me) and proud that my Christian heritage includes the quotes of the Christians above. You may have Martin Luther, but we have Tertullian, Symeon the New Theologian, Bernard of Clairvaux (and a host of other mystics), Jacob Boehme, Valentin Weigel, the Pietists, and Horace Bushnell. But I also deeply sympathize with the quotes of occultists above who were disillusioned by the Christianity of their youth and went elsewhere to find spiritual experience. As a Christian, though I feel occultists are misdirected, I also believe their innate desire to seek out spiritual experience is dead on. That’s why they supplemented their formal religion with, say, Spiritualism. They are looking for the level of spiritual vitality that has made Pentecostalism the largest Protestant grouping in the entire world.

There’s a trend in Christian ecumenical circles nowadays: embrace Pentecostalism but relegate spiritual gifts to soteriological functions. Unfortunately, the trend is catching on since people like contemporary music but think spiritual gifts are freaky. Listen up ecumenists – you are destroying the single most important bridge to evangelize other religious groups. Pentecostalism has spread because of its power, not its ritual. You should be bending over backwards to accommodate individual experience in the church, not dismissing it as self-indulgent or immature. Individual experience is what anchors people to the faith. If you remove it from Christianity, you create an environment for people to go searching elsewhere for what you have minimized for the sake of achieving doctrinal consensus.

So what are occultists and others looking for? The same thing Christians are looking for. I think they are looking for the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way, Christians and occultists are the same. All of us are internally “wired” to seek after an experience (praxis) that accompanies our faith (dogma). To deny that experiential element is to reject part of what makes religion effective – a point of spiritual connection that bridges a pathway towards relationship with God.

What Does a Christian Family Look Like?

Okay, on to the famous marriage passage in Ephesians 5:18-33 (NLT):

“Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts…And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.

 ”As the Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

 There’s a lot in here to digest but let’s just pull some of the most overlooked parts out for a minute. Most pastors start with verse 22 – the part about wives submitting to husbands, passing over the preceding verses that qualify it. The whole passage starts where Paul talks about being filled with the Spirit.  What does he mean? He gives us an example – drunkenness, actually. When someone is inebriated, they have assigned their will over to a chemical that makes their decisions for them.  We call this impaired judgment – others call it being smashed.  In the same way, being filled with the Spirit is to allow the Spirit to affect your decisions and life strategies.  Make sense? We are to be “filled with the Spirit” to the point where it affects our judgment. It’s not coincidence that the grammar in the original here has a fluid, loose feel to it almost as if Paul was writing in a drunken way to convey his point.

Next, before Paul says anything about wives submitting, he states in verse 21 that we are to submit to “one another in the fear of the Lord” (NKJV). Here we have mutual voluntary submission - a state of equality and interdependence under the Lord (similar to the concept of the social Trinity I might add…). Paul doesn’t say anything about the husband being higher up on the ladder of spiritual maturity than the wife. They receive equal investment under God.  After addressing this mutual submission under God, only then does Paul delve into the specifics of marriage.

Over the next few verses the smallest words become the most important. Paul admonishes women to submit to their husbands “as to” the Lord. The husband is the “head…as also Christ is head” of the church. “As” the church follows Christ, “so” wives follow their husbands. Husbands should love their wives “just as” Christ does the church. All of these small words qualify the relationship – husbands are to represent the love of Christ for the church. To the extent that they do this, women are encouraged to follow. When Paul says that the husband is “head” of the wife, the actual word means to lead by example. This what headship actually means. When the example of husbandry reflects to the love of Christ for believers, wives are certainly willing to follow one who leads by example.

It’s important to note that Paul was not describing the marriages he saw at Ephesus. He was describing what Christian marriage should look like as men and women grow into spiritual maturity. Of course, the vision that Paul puts forward takes time to develop. I know that it did for us (and still is). Particularly, it took one spouse’s willingness to overhaul their own approach to marriage before the other caught up. That idea scares spouses – what if I make myself vulnerable and they take advantage of it? At first, you can be sure that they will.  But if “the goodness of God leads to repentance” in a person’s life, that same model will transform a marriage. God’s risk can also be yours.

In the end, Christian marriage should look like this: two people madly in love with God to the point that it affects how they treat each other. Made in the image of God, these two believers honor each other in the ebb and flow of life. Rather than squaring off against one another and digging in for a fight, they lay their own opinions aside. Then they do one of two things: 1) they defer to the other or 2) they pray for God’s guidance as their answer. Either way they are not individuals but a team working towards a common goal. The two have become one flesh…

The key to all of this is “as to…so.” In a Christian’s life, the depth of relationship they have with the Father spills over into their relationship with their spouse. Rather than the Western notion of priorities in order, see God as the center of a wheel with marriage as one of many “spokes” originating from it. Or as water spilling over a bathtub. Depth with God creates depth everywhere else.

Submission vs. Coercion

My wife and I have been married for about eight years. The first two years were hell on earth. Here’s why: we are both “type A” personalities. When we got married, as strong Christians, we assumed that God would automatically adjust our personalities to mesh in a glorious fashion.  That’s didn’t happen – I was offering her a divorce by the end of the first year!

Slowly over time, we developed an understanding of what godly marriage might look like. Surprisingly it looked nothing like what we saw in the church. The majority of spousal teaching we had acquired over the years taught the exact opposite of what we found to be true for us.  I want to share some of that here and in the next post as well.

The biggest problem surrounding Christian marriage teaching is the understanding of the word “submission.” I know…it conjures up images of wives waiting on husbands hand and foot, just happy to be alive serving their spouse and children in the name of the Lord.  I actually saw a blog on here last week written by a female that attempted to talk women into exactly that…like if you say it over and over to yourself it sounds better or something.  If wives would just submit to their husbands even when they don’t want to, they would find enjoyment and fulfillment in the act. For the record, that concept makes most women want to puke – and for good reason.  Submission, as it is generally understood in church circles, has ruined the true definition of biblical submission. Mostly because it was made up by men and taught by men to get what men have wanted: their wives to do their bidding.

Rather, what the church has taught is “coercion” or “compliance” the act of making another person do your will even when don’t want to. I have actually been personally told, “you can’t submit until you disagree.” The problem with Christian men who teach such phrases is that they have no intention of listening to what you have to say in the first place. Most people assume that God requires submission in the same way – a subtle form of coercion. Like a boss at work, he makes decisions that you are expected to comply with even when they rob your emotional and physical vitality for some unknown purpose.  Usually such admonishments to submit by Christians are shrouded in mysterious phrases like, “it’s for your own good,” “you’ll see the benefits in the future” or “all things work together for good…” Who’s good are we talking about here?

Truthfully, God calls us to submit to him and to one another, to the extent that we trust God and others are acting our best interests. Submission merely means to voluntarily become vulnerable to the actions of another. However, God never says to follow someone who has not earned that submission. My wife is happy to follow my lead as long as she knows my intentions are for her betterment and not at her or our children’s expense. I  expect her to submit (voluntarily open herself up) to me only to the extent that I am submitted to God. Furthermore, she doesn’t have to do what I say unless she believes I am fully informed of her and our children’s wishes AND actively involved in their lives. Husbands who do not fall into those categories should never ask for their families’ submission.

I want to concentrate on that famous submission passage in Ephesians 5, but a summary verse for a husbands role in marriage in found in Galatians 5:13. “…do not use liberty as an opporunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Listen up fellas – women have an internal barometer that tells them where your affections lie. Their intuition tells them whether your heart values their input or not. If they feel that you are using the headship of your home as an “opportunity for the flesh” – to meet your own short range, inconsiderate goals – they will buck you every time. Men who “through love serve” their families never have to ask for submission from them. His family immediately supports his decision because they trust his intentions are true. A husband who has his families’ trust rarely asks anything from that trust unless its absolutely necessary. On those rare occasions, they submit – voluntarily opening themselves up to your decisions – trusting that you will prize their volition. The husband that follows God will honor that trust, never capitalizing on it. Taking their cues from Dad, the other members of the family serve each other in love as well…and the cycle for healthy family submission starts over again.

 Next post, Ephesians 5:18-33…

Did God kill my friend?

Okay…you don’t know me and I don’t know you. I’m generally not one to engage in small talk so let’s ponder the mysteries of life together, shall we?

I had a friend pass away this week unexpectedly. The initial shock was overwhelming – I didn’t cry for a couple of days until I overcame the numbness. This guy was older than me and has been influential in my understanding of the Christian faith as well as what is appropriate within a ministerial setting and what may not be.  For that reason, I looked up to him alot. Sometimes when people pass away unexpectedly and they were particularly “good” people, you feel like the planet was robbed in some way – like we’re all gonna be worse for his absence and, in many ways, the town I live in will be.

However, in the course of all the eulogies and funeral stuff, there are bound to be people asking questions about why such a saintly man would pass away, someone who seemd to be significantly impacting his community for God. Most people assume that God in his omnicausal deterministic theocentric bliss - if he didn’t cause the tragedy - certainly allowed it for reasons unknown to the rest of us. As a pastor I used to have a sick feeling in my stomach as I attempted to explain why God didn’t save someone’s life. Honestly, theology has not produced any satisfactory answers and any answer I supplied a family member would have logical “holes” that they would discover if they thought long enough about it.

Some theolgians believe that God is his sovereignty has ordained every single detail of life (including the bad parts) for his mysterious purposes. I know, I know…even writing it down makes it look ridiculous. That viewpoint is quite laughable and never makes any practical sense to anyone.  All it does is make people hate God silently when honestly they probably would fare better by hating him out loud. Peripatetic influence upon Christianity certainly played a large role in defining the attributes of God, but honestly, what strikes me about such a position is that it runs cross-grain to the supposed goodness of God. If God is good, why does he cause or indirectly sanction evil? Others endorse the free-will model yet still believe that God “knows” everything that will occur in the future.  Atheists (for good reason) say, “If God knows about bad stuff but still lets it happen, where’s the love in that?” Good point – I certainly don’t blame them for asking. Process theologians emphasize the dependence of God upon humanity to the point where God is basically helpless in the face of potential tragedy. Obviously that belittles the sovereignty of God, which is not acceptable either.  Open theism attempts to rid Christianity of its Hellenistic presuppositions but still allow God to “be God.” It’s probably the healthiest theodicy available, but it takes too long to explain to people when they are crying in your office.

So, what do you do? I think the best thing to do is to tell them you don’t know the answer. Because no one really has the answer. Wrangling over compatibilism or levels of omniscience does jack squat for everyday people.  As much as I would like for them to care, they just don’t. I’m finding myself, after seriously studying methods of theodicy, adopting the same position.  There’s something refreshing about saying, “I don’t know.” In the particular case of my friend, there were circumstances of free-will that led to his demise. Why were they not cancelled out by some other natural complexity within temporality? Beats the heck out of me! If God didn’t ordain the event, why didn’t he respond to prayers of loved ones for protection “quick enough” to save his life?  I have no clue. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to say, “It wasn’t the devil, and it wasn’t God, it was (in this case) a traffic accident and that’s all.” In previous years I would have shied away from that comment because I would not have defended God in saying it. But God really doesn’t need me to defend him, does he? Idiots who say stuff like, “Hey, if God will prove his existence to me by levitating this table” are experts in missing the point. 

All theology (including atheism) is speculative and informed by the personal experiences of the theologian. Once you determine that theology doesn’t have to be objective in order to be valid, you’re well on your way to finding answers to some difficult questions. Chances are that in the process, you’ll agressively pursue God to understand your relationship with him as well. And the answers lie in a relationship, not in a system.