YeKengalé

A friend sent me two blog posts from Frank Viola, one of the top Christian bloggers on the internet. The first: To my miracle-obsessed Friends, the second: To my miracle-doubting friends. Should I summarize and de-theologize his main argument? ‘Character is more important than spiritual power’.

However, Frank is talking to church people, who by definition believe in miracles, even if they relegate the phenomena to the distant past. Cessationists feel safer with all miracle workers in the grave, or way beyond the blue. Calling fire down from heaven, walking on water, parting seas, and making the sun stand still etc. are much too chaotic prospects for these modern times.

For those whose worldview dismisses all that jazz to tall tales, perhaps the emphasis should indeed be on getting doubters to concede, who are in no danger whatsoever of becoming fanatical about what to them does not and cannot exist.

In fact, much of my blogging over the past 25 years has been absorbed with that very objective – interrogating current scientific theory (modern lingua franca) that offers if not explanation, at least exploration of the ‘miraculous’. Of course, the very word ‘miracle’ seems unscientific, hence the quotes; and so, establishing appropriate lexicon perhaps is paramount. The closest word scientists use is ‘anomalous’, but that is somewhat inadequate to define what religionists call ‘miraculous’, since ‘miracle’ theologically implies not only ‘anomaly’ but intention; i.e. consciously overriding what is considered natural law, hence the term ‘supernatural’.

I totally get the discomfort my atheist friends have with the whole concept, sharing with Christian Cessationists, as they do, a high intolerance for anything so likely to overturn our highly organized world. Science like Scripture has its carefully crafted sacred canons to protect – whole universes of knowledge and institutions along with the structures and systems they support which give form to the present age as we know it. The thought that all that could be capsized is horrendous and makes it much easier to be a dismissive sceptic than an open minded investigator; and so, those branches of science that study the ‘anomalous’ or ‘paranormal’ have traditionally been consigned to the fringes of academia… as similarly, Cessationists would, if they could, (they’ve tried) theologically banish Charismatics to the fringes as well.

But the reverse has occurred according to the estimates, even with all the ruckus and pandemonium, predictably, as Cessationists would maintain, from a scene populated perhaps with a few authentically gifted characters, but also with outright charlatans, and quite a few delusional wannabe Moseses. However, it is the Cessationists we see on the fringe of modern Christianity (not that being considered a fanatic on the fringe ever bothers the religious, whose idea of glory is being a part of a ‘righteous’ remnant.)

Not so with Science, where currency and credibility is everything. So it is in the Academy that the fight matters most, because once the centrists there lose ground, things fall apart. New heavens and earths emerge and the old order passes away. There are no scientifically credentialed flat-earthers. Would to God that could also be true with archaic religion. To this very day the worshippers of the ‘Law and Order’ Old Testament War Deity that Jews bequeathed to Islam (and to some legalistic so-called ‘Christian’ communities), are still stuck with God 1.0, not yet having downloaded available updates from enlightened Rabbinical or Christological traditions. Richard Dawkins may be a fanatical religion basher, but I totally get why. ‘God’, by definition, is a dangerous concept …. especially when wielded by a priestly aristocracy.

Again to stick with science, ‘God’ is not even a functional term, unless redefined as Pure Consciousness (Hagelin), or some comparable term, such as Cosmic Intelligence (Bucke, James) or Collective Consciousness (Durkheim, Jung) as some psycho-theorists have posited, (though perhaps Hagelin’s treatment is best capable of exploring the plethora of experiences covered under the banner ‘miraculous’ here). Once hard core philosophical materialism, a relic of an outdated Newtonian mechanistic cosmology which one would have thought should have been extinct by now, is finally overturned, mainstream science may finally gain new insights into the ‘supernatural’ / superconscious world being described and experienced by mystics and miracle-workers, prophets and paranormalists throughout the centuries.

Mainstream religion becomes alarmist at the very thought. If the God idea can be so destructively wielded by men, what should become of a world where the God force is no longer the patent of a religious organization, no longer under the control of creed, clergy or religious councils? Once man gets to walking on water, you can bet he’ll think of something a bit more mischievous next. Haven’t you noticed the sci-fis lately looking more and more like a Harry Potter thriller than Star Trek? Is Magic to be the new tech?

So far, we’ve barely managed to escape annihilation by our own technology and the threat increases with each new horizon of innovation. We’ve avoided nuclear holocaust and biochemical cataclysm but AI is coming for us for sure. However, what if that untapped unlimited potential of what the Greeks called psyche (spirit) finally becomes decoded for the masses to explore, can you imagine? (This perhaps explains the myth of cherubim with flaming swords guarding the garden/throne of God from fallen man.)

But I am getting ahead of myself. The doubters are still ignorant of the very possibility, in fact in mockery of it. ‘Supernatural’ for them is superstition. Can you imagine?

Imagination takes little effort for those for whom this is their daily reality. I’ve spent at least two decades chronicling all types of ‘superconscious’ phenomena, beginning with the most basic and utilitarian employ of miracles -i.e. healing the sick and ‘prophecy’ (i.e. ‘mind-reading’ and ‘timeline reading’ for the non-religiously inclined), but including the spectacular (more about spectacle than solution….what the Bible calls ‘signs and wonders’) from levitation to telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, tele-information (‘forensic prophecy’ for Charismatics, ‘accessing the Akashic records’ for ‘New agers’ … both represent the divine approach to taking the A out of AI), intentional materialization, or transubstantiation (not in the Catholic theological sense – but what used to be called Alchemy …. if you strip all the religious language people use to describe their experiences, what we are examining is a culture that has become adept, apparently, at defying, or at least altering at will or negotiating with the laws of nature – successfully bargaining with Biology, Physics and Chemistry using consciousness alone. (Look Ma! No hands!)

The fact is, evidence of these experiences is increasingly common, especially in spaces not dominated by philosophical materialism. The incidences I continue to highlight are normative to those communities. By ‘normative’, I do mean routine. As fantastic as it sounds to the epistemologically Western ear, every conceivable chronic and ‘incurable’ condition, not just congenital blindness, deafness and spinal paralysis (for whatever reason these became Biblical favorites to be enviously copied by every Christian devotee aspiring to be like his master ) intentionally, routinely, successfully produced cures, and more spectacular ‘wonders’ are not uncommon (regeneration of missing or atrophied limbs, conscious manipulation of matter and quite often death reversals – resurrections, even after obvious decomposition has begun.)

Of course, such claims were once as preposterous as tales of goblins, fairies and monsters but now, none of the above is taking place in a corner; it is witnessed by thousands upon thousands, attested to by professionals of highest educational and social status, documented and videoed, reported and attested and all over the internet. From Heads of state to medical doctors, billionaires and business tycoons to sports celebrities and entertainment icons, engineers and professors, law enforcement officials and army generals … and not a few in any of those categories, and names are public, checkable, the evidence presented, the URLS abound. The creme da la creme of wealth, status and intelligentsia in the very heyday of Postmodernism are all lining up to testify that ‘God’ is indeed a miracle-worker. (It’s positively embarrassing!) One can no longer scoff this off as the ignorant superstition of the poor and uneducated, or the hyperactive imaginations of the religiously devout.

Utter Nonsense! I know the mindset of people who think they have already figured out the world, or feel they are connected to those who have….and until one understands the psychological filtration that allows humans to access vastly different experiences even within a common space (the science way of saying ‘the god of this age has blinded their minds’), one can hardly understand how or why such vast differentiation exists – the vast polarization of hardened opinion on cosmological matters, and the equally smug experts whether in religion, science, law or education who claim to know it all, with as much pontifical assurance behind them as the council that tried Galileo. If mass delusion is involved with the phenomena, it is the delusion of a science that has begun to hide from the evidence that ought to be informing its inquiry. Let me ask Western Science this, when and why did it become desirable to disengage the science project from the common lived experience of humanity? Is that no longer a fitting arena for scientific exploration, only for politicians, philosophers and comedians?

This is no marginal culture spoken of here, nor even a controversial phenomenon for many, and were science and the academy more responsive to human experience and less blinded and straight jacketed by its own dogmas, appearing now in attitude more aligned with the 14th century Inquisition than the 15th century Adventurers, much more weight would be ascribed pioneers like Sheldrake, Hagelin and other New Theorists, some of whom I have highlighted in past blogs, highly credentialed, but made out to be semi-lunatic by centrists in the academy, precisely because they have the ability to let their natural curiosity override the fear of being sucked into a belief system claiming hegemony over the phenomena mastered and for which there might not yet exist an architecture for controlling – the real reason mainstream science is reluctant to delve into the common supernatural experiences of the masses. Fear of losing control.

But which matters most? How people describe, define and explain experience or the content of the experience itself? Science and history may have many good reasons to debunk religious doctrine. However human experience is just that, whether or not its producers and receivers explain it in religious terms. A culture of miracles should not just be the preoccupation of a consortium of religious devotees, but of anthropologists as well.

So what explains this reluctance of western academicians, journalists and other social gatekeepers to pay attention to miracles, regardless how widespread they become? (Going now beyond the influence of the ‘god of the age’, what renders men susceptible to being influenced?) Why do people try to control what others know or don’t know? Why do people fear the unknown? Why do people contemn what they cant control?

And the answer takes us where we began. Character is more valuable than power. (You get the first right, the second may come. That’s not at all true in reverse.)

So, I agree with brother Frank that Christianity is all about Jesus – the fullness of both: Love (perfect character) / I can be all things; and Power (perfect ability) I can do all things.

Perhaps I should end on a theological note, THE greatest miracle in the Bible has not yet occurred. (Sorry Cessationists, that doesn’t fit your closed canon theory at all). And it may just transcend the apparently highfalutin Old Testament claim of making cosmic circulation cease a couple hours to win a war. It’s the John 17 prayer of Jesus for the Unity and Maturity of His church. (No true believer can accept that God will not or has not actually answered this prayer of His only Begotten…that the one who taught his disciples to expect answers for all prayer in His name would himself leave a legacy on earth of unanswered prayer).

When that occurs, it’ll surpass all the fancy prophetic and healing tricks both ancient and modern. And curiously, that, according to scripture…. not resurrections, prophecies, wonders or miracles (and since I am now addressing church people’s concerns I should not fail to mention whosoever’s version of ‘sound doctrine’) …. but that alone – Unity, with the Moral Maturity to achieve, sustain and preserve it, according to John 17:20-23 will be the ultimate sign that makes believers of an unbelieving world.

Character over power. Every time.

Related Posts:

• Spirit Baptism: Precept Power and Purpose
• The Promise / Possibility of Christian Unity
• Unity in Diversity