The Idea of Evil

So, after having established some of my own background in terms of religion and spirituality, let’s discuss in more detailed terms what the prophetic movement looks like across the board.

I know what it looks like today, but what did it look like a few years ago?  Well, the prophetic movement and the spiritual warfare movement seem to go hand-in-hand.  You really won’t have one without the other.

Derek Prince had a massive influence on the concept of spiritual warfare within evangelical circles just as John Wimber heavily influenced the Vineyard movement and the concept of healing.  People have had real experiences over the years, but few people in the mainstream know who Prince or Wimber are today.  Neil Anderson, on the other hand, is a better known figure.  He pioneered the Freedom in Christ approach to spiritual warfare as well as made the concept of Christian legalism a hot topic.  There are Christians who love and follow these teachings and those who eschew them altogether.  Depending upon one’s denomination, one may not even know who any of these people are.  People within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement may be familiar with Francis MacNutt.  People within the Jewish Renewal movement may be familiar with Rabbi Zalman “Reb Zalman” Schachter-Shalomi and Zalman’s meditative use of davening.

Why is spiritual warfare related to the prophetic movement? Well, spiritual warfare teaches that entities other than God are influencing and speaking to humankind even to the point of harassment in the form of infirmity, deception, destruction, and generational ownership.  The most common term used in these circles to describe these entities is “demons”.  If this is what a defeated enemy can do to humankind, it is asserted, then what can God do? Surely then, he must be intervening, speaking, and acting on behalf of us to save and heal. This is the prophetic part–the declaration of God’s will and intention to a person or group in its particularity as it pertains to a situation.  In fact, from a spiritual warfare tradition, a “prophetic word” is often experienced as the means to end spiritual oppression or, at least, one of the means.

I am speaking in general and simplified terms for the sake of painting in broad strokes.  Now, many people, I have observed, are comfortable with the concept of Evil.  “Look at the Holocaust,” they say.  Evil, as a concept, is real.  Evil as an embodied entity in the form of demons, powers, and principalities? That sounds unenlightened and medieval or something.  And, in a way, it does.  Who wants to think about life in those terms? Not I.  There must be a better way that feels more empowering (there is.  Just give me time to get there).

The problem with this view isn’t the view itself.  The problem with this view is that it’s very incomplete, and I’ll explain why with a story.

I know a woman who is very devout.  She is very energetic in all aspects of her life and equally so in the pursuit of her faith.  Charismatic even.  Whenever she is faced with just a bit of adversity, her first utterance is, “I must be under attack.”  Under attack? Who is attacking her? Then she might say, “I need to rebuke whatever that is!”  Rebuke? What the…Who has ever used such a word save King James himself! Then comes this: “I need to spend some time in worship.  Really soaking.”  Soaking? Followed up by this if the soaking rebuke didn’t work and she still believes that she’s under attack, “I must not have worshipped enough.  In the name of Jesus! Be gone, Satan!” she’ll shout randomly.  If she still feels attacked, then she’ll say, “There must be sin in my life.  I must go seek it out! I can’t give Satan a foothold! I will give an offering at church for more power. A sacrifice…”  Then she rubs the cross around her neck.  She may even anoint herself with a special anointing oil.  You can even buy anointing oils and find recipes online for “spiritual warfare” anointing oil.

I am in no way mocking any of this.  This is a very real part of spirituality for many, many people, and, within that spiritual paradigm, there exists some kind of prescription for navigating life and its trials and tribulations.  I have spent time with many people who view life through this lens.

What is the problem with this paradigm? It is ultimately fear-based and victimizing.  What’s more, God is not that powerful in this worldview either.  People might say that he is, but their beliefs do not allow him to be because their fear of evil overrides the potential goodness and majesty of God.  If God were more powerful than evil entities, in this approach to warfare and faith, then all encounters with evil wouldn’t last long at all.

The stories, however, that I’ve heard people recite from doing ministry according to this paradigm are somewhat frightening and ultimately victimizing to both the minister and the person receiving the ministry.  Setting aside for a moment whether you believe in any of this, the idea of confronting an evil entity and attempting to drive it out of a human being–for hours–sounds horrifying and exhausting.  There are no accounts of anything like this in the Tanakh or the New Testament.  In the Talmud, a large collection of writings containing the collection of oral law and doctrine pertaining to the Torah, there is mention of rabbis dealing with evil spirits.  The Dead Sea Scrolls discuss the subject.  The Tanakh discusses it in I Samuel.  Jesus deals with evil and unclean spirits, but these encounters begin and end quickly.  We do not see engagements that last for days.

Why?

What has changed? A lot has changed:

1.  The idea of Satan has changed.  Believe it or not, there hasn’t always been a belief in an evil leader of Evil known as Satan or the devil.  This belief evolved over a few thousand years.
2. The role of humans in their own suffering and the suffering of each other
3. The role of humans in relation to God
4. The nature of humanity

It will take a few posts to elaborate on these points, but I would end this post on this point.  What is known within this particular approach to faith and spiritual matters? Who is omnipotent? Who is omnipresent? Who is omniscient? God? Satan? Evil beings?

I’m fairly certain that people of faith would answer, “God.”  Then, how can Satan be attacking Jane in Portland and John in New York at the same time? Or influencing politicians and causing genocide in Africa at the same time? Is he omnipresent? No? And, if we’re talking about Satan himself, then why would he actually care about Jane Doe in Seattle when there are regimes to topple and people groups to annihilate?

Isn’t there something not exactly right with attributing every trial and tribulation to Satan? Isn’t this myopic? What is wrong with this paradigm? What sort of prophetic would flow from this sort of “warfare”?

Interesting questions, don’t you think?

 

 

Origin Story

In the late 90s, I saw the emergence of a fairly vibrant charismatic movement that labeled itself “prophetic”.  I didn’t really know what it meant.  There were websites like The Elijah List and destinations like The International House of Prayer (IHOP).  Individuals were coming forward who claimed to be prophets and apostles.  I had no idea what any of this represented.  Curious by nature, I read the material.  I was fascinated and perplexed at the same time.  I knew a group of people who wanted to visit IHOP.  I was invited to tag along.  So, I did.

I remember the drive.  Michael W. Smith was playing on the radio.  People were singing and praying, and I thought to myself, “Can’t we listen to Prince or something?” Best not to say that out loud.  I was really into God.  Just not the culture that surrounded associating with God.

When we arrived at IHOP, I recall not knowing what to expect.  Everyone was very excited except me.  My friend had signed me up for “prophetic ministry”, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it.  IHOP was a place where people sang songs and prayed to God 24/7 in keeping with a recreation of the tabernacle of David.  Surely I was going to feel something.

I felt nothing.  It felt dead to me.  Well, not entirely dead.  I felt the anxiety of all the people there.  Everyone was hoping to encounter God in the midst of all this ministering to Jesus.  Instead, it felt cloying and desperate.  And there was fear.  But, what were they so afraid of? I didn’t know.  I had questions.  Why did Jesus require ministry? Why did the tabernacle of David need to be recreated? I wasn’t cynical.  I was inquisitive.

Let me back up and explain something about myself.

I grew up surrounded by religious tradition.  I was born into it as so many are.  There is absolutely nothing foreign about church and religious tradition to me.  My mother’s parents were Scandinavian and, therefore, Lutheran.  I was confirmed Lutheran when I was 14 after two years of very orthodox Lutheran confirmation classes led by a very orthodox German Lutheran pastor.  My father was drawn to fundamentalism of every kind, and he settled on the Assembly of God denomination of the Southern flavor.  My mother’s second husband was a charismatic Catholic.  I, therefore, spent time in the Catholic church.  My mother went through a church-hopping phase during my younger years; hence, I am also very familiar with the Southern Baptist tradition.  I’ve been to Anglican churches, Methodist churches, Episcopalian churches, and Mennonite services.  I attended high mass in France for a year–as a protestant.

The fact is, however, I’m Jewish, and the only person in my family who knew that, aside from me, was my paternal grandmother.  She was the keeper of the secret.  We come from a long line a Conversos dating all the way back to 14th century:

“A converso (Spanish: [komˈberso]; Portuguese: [kõˈvɛɾsu]; Catalan: convers [kumˈbɛrs], [komˈvɛɾs]; “a convert”, from Latin conversvs, “converted, turned around”) and its feminine form conversa was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendents. The majority of Spain’s Jews converted to Christianity as a result of the pogroms in 1391. The remaining Jews who had chosen to remain practicing Jews were finally expelled during the Alhambra decree in 1492. A significant portion chose to join the already large Convert community rather than face exile. Over the following two centuries Conversos were subject to discriminatory laws and harassment by the Inquisition.

New Christians of Jewish origin were referred to as marranos. The term marrano may also refer to Crypto-Jews, i.e., those who secretly continued to practice Judaism. New Christians of Muslim origin were known as moriscos. Unlike Marranos, Moriscos were subject to an edict of expulsion even after conversion, which was implemented severely in the eastern region of Valencia and less so in other parts of Spain. Nevertheless, overall Moriscos were subject to considerably less suspicion and hostility from the wider Christian community than the Jews and Jewish-descended Marranos.” (online source)

My family did continue to practice Judaism secretly which is ultimately why they ended up in America.  They were fleeing the long arm of the Inquisition.  New Christian converts from Judaism were constantly questioned and harassed even unto death–by Christians.  It is shocking, but it’s historical fact.  This is one reason there is still tension and suspicion between Jews and Christians.  There is a very long history of violence between us.

This has made my own religious experience very interesting.  I grew up within Christianity relating to its central figure, Jesus, very differently from everyone else.  To me, he was a fellow Jew.  Even as a child, all the Bible stories were about my people, and I didn’t understand why the Sunday school teachers referred to the Israelites as “stiff-necked Jews” who were disobedient and deserved their forty years in the desert.  I also didn’t understand what all this talk was about the angry Hebrew God vs. the loving New Testament God.  Weren’t they the same God? And what about all this long-winded, demeaning discussion about The Law? The Ten Commandments were good but…bad?

So, what did I do? I did what my predecessors did.  I was a Jew in secret and a Christian in public until I couldn’t do it anymore.  Ancestral fear is a powerful thing.  When 3/4 of European Jewry were annihilated in the Holocaust on the heels of centuries of continual violent persecution, one subsequently feels a strong urge to stay hidden.

How does this relate to my trip to IHOP? Well, I grew up with one foot in both worlds–a Jew going to church, and there is one thing that has always struck me as fascinating about the church experience.  Christianity, among other things, is definitively other-worldly whereas Judaism is this-worldly; it is about the NOW.

The prophetic movement, from what I have observed, has tried to take the more esoteric and spiritual aspects of Christianity–that “not yet”, other-worldly aspect–and tether it to this present reality so that people might experience God’s presence and power in their lives today.  Judaism’s practice and message is very grounded in the present and the NOW of life.  The concept that you can face oppression and suffering today with some kind of joy because you’ll find a reward in heaven is not a Jewish idea.  That is a Christian idea.

What I seek to bridge is the gap between the two because, after observing the two traditions, I believe that there is a prophetic experience available to people that not only makes sense but also brings healing and empowerment in tangible ways.

 

 

 

Integrating Faith

 

I have been observing the prophetic movement within the Christian church since the 1970s.  Granted I was very young in the 70s, but kids have something to offer in terms of awareness.  They tend to ask pertinent questions.  Why? Because it’s easy when you’re a kid.  Everything adds up when you’re a child.  And, you know, in some ways, it should.

What do I mean?

Simply put, I mean that things are not adding up in Christianity anymore.  They might be in certain communities, but, as a whole, 2+2 does not equal 4 anymore.  2+2=G.  Or, 2+2 might add up to whatever someone tells you.  Numbers are letters.  Letters are numbers.  Science is the devil, books should be burned, and Thomas Edison was a witch.

I don’t say this in a judgmental way.  I’m not writing this to be unkind.  I say this because, in my experience with the many streams of the faith both Catholic and Protestant over the past forty years, there has been a cultural creep within the faith systems that has been confused for actual faith.  A way of speaking, singing, dressing, talking, educating, and worshiping.  I call it “Christianese”, and I’m quite certain I am not the originator of this term.

What does a lack of integration look like, and what does this have to do with “the prophetic movement”?

Integration is the act of bringing parts into a working whole.  An integrated faith would then be a belief system whose parts come together and function as a whole system rather than a divided or siloed system.  Going further, an integrated faith system would also be a faith that becomes part of a person’s life rather than existing outside of it like an island.

I observed this phenomenon when I was a child in the person of Miss Gentry.  Miss Gentry was a salty, gossipy old hen of a woman who attended my father’s Assembly of God church.  She was a member of the old guard.  I think that she was as old as the foundation of the building, and she acted as if that gave her the right to treat people however she liked.  She was mean, spiteful, and cunning.  I used to sit under the table in the church kitchen when Miss Gentry was pouring coffee into the urns for fellowship time, and that was when Miss Gentry would gossip with Miss Landry.  Miss Gentry was the Queen Bee of the church.  It seemed to me that all the meek, respectable ladies were somewhat scared of Miss Gentry.  They would smile and nod as she talked smack about the newest members.  So-and-so looked fat.  Such-and-such looked terrible.  Had they heard about someone’s money troubles, and someone else’s tawdry sex life, and on and on?  She wasn’t happy unless she was stirring up trouble.  Yet this woman was a beacon of faithful attendance and Christian charity in her community, and no one seemed too bothered by her very hurtful antics.  This was simply how it was.

This is what I mean about a lack of integration in Christianity.  This behavior was cultural.  It was a part of Southern Christian culture as I knew it, but it isn’t actually Christian or definitively faithful.  It’s Christianese.  People defended it because some explain that they are “concerned” with the piety of congregants, but is this really why people engage in such venomous invective?

What does the disintegration of faith from day-to-day living and the prophetic movement have to do with each other? Everything.

The most recent prophetic movement picked up a lot of speed within certain Christian circles after the 1970 Asbury College “revival” which came on the heels of the controversial Latter Rain movement.  You don’t have to believe that prophecy is true.  You can believe that prophecy is true.  One’s concept of revival isn’t the point.  Relationship with God is the point, and that is always available to people regardless of your denomination or stance on revival.  What’s more, if you have a relationship with God, then you can hear God’s voice.  If you can hear God’s voice, then you can participate, to a degree, in the movements of his thoughts towards you and other people.  And this is the heart of what has been named “prophecy”.

The role of the prophet in the Bible is essentially to move people into an integrated life.  The more integrated your mind, body, heart, spirit and relationships are in relation to God and your community, the more fulfilled you will be.  Integration is the point.  The more esoteric, insular, and out of reach the prophetic messages become, the more Christianese they become meaning they become more disintegrated with the rest of life.  They become essentially useless.  This is largely why people find the revivalist, or prophetic, movement hard to understand.  That and the offensive judgmentalism that radiates from many “prophetic” messages today.

Life is terribly hard.  Almost everyone I know is shattered to a degree.  The central message of both the Tanakh and the New Testament was not “try harder”.  It was always one of hope.  The primary message is “God intervenes” and his intervention is in no way dependent upon the actions of humans.  It is entirely dependent upon God’s own desire to intervene.

We desire to draw close to God because he desired us first.  We think of God because he thought of us first.  We ponder him because he meditated upon us first.  We are just returning to him.  We are merely attempting, however awkwardly, to imitate our creator.  We attempt to think great thoughts because we are made in God’s image, and he thinks magnificent thoughts that will always be unknowable, but we try anyway because we were created to try.

This effort, this trying, is what humans have labeled “the prophetic”.  Now, when we begin to let that Divine Spark emanate outward and inward at the same time and thaw us, taking hold of our minds so that we begin to think God’s thought about ourselves and others, love, chesed in Hebrew, begins to flow.  The Spirit of God intervenes, and we begin to experience that phenomenon so aptly described in 1 Corinthians 13: “For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].”

This is the beginning of integration.  This is the end of insincerity and the doorway into the life we were made for.

 

 

It’s Only a Door 

by Adrienne Rich

                                        Either you will

                                        go through this door

                                        or you will not go through.

                                        If you go through

                                        there is always the risk

                                        of remembering your name.

                                        Things look at you doubly

                                        and you must look back

                                        and let them happen.

                                        If you do not go through

                                        it is possible

                                        to live worthily

                                        to maintain your attitudes

                                        to hold your position

                                        to die bravely

                                        but much will blind you,

                                        much will evade you,

                                        at what cost who knows?

                                        The door itself

                                        makes no promises.

                                        It is only a door.