Mysticism, Witchcraft, and Discernment

"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity." -G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, VII

There is much anxiety among Christian conservatives today regarding the New Age movement, the Emerging Church, and the alleged connections between the two. This essay is written in response to a presentation given by Johanna Michaelsen several months ago at the Community Center in Oakhurst along those lines in which she lamented the lack of discernment in the Church and disparaged large numbers of believers, many by name.

It may be helpful at the outset to define our terms. "Mysticism" I take to mean experience within the context of faith that transcends the natural. "Witchcraft" I take to mean the manipulation of supernatural forces for evil or trivial ends. "Discernment" I take to mean conducting an accurate spiritual evaluation of a given person or phenomenon, or knowing when there is insufficient information to conduct such an evaluation.

All three of these can be slippery concepts. Mysticism is difficult to pin down because it is not usually a significant part of our experience, and it is, well, mystical. To complicate matters, Michaelsen believes that witchcraft often masquerades as mysticism. While this is likely to be true to a certain extent, it seems fair at this juncture to point out that if witchcraft often masquerades as mysticism, fear often masquerades as discernment. Discernment is not drawing a line a couple miles away from the cliff edge so you can be safe. Discernment is knowing where the edge is so you can walk out in the open and feel the wind. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

Some readers may be questioning whether mysticism ought to have any place in Christian thought and experience at all. While we can concede that this is a debated point, it would appear that the overwhelming majority of Christian writing, practice, and tradition presupposes the possibility of intersections - indeed transformations - that raise our natural experience into the supernatural realm. From Jesus to Paul to Francis of Assisi to Brother Lawrence, the Christian faith has a long and established legacy of mystical practice. Perhaps this makes us uncomfortable, but it certainly cannot be ignored.

"[God] will entrust you with revelation to the degree you will trust Him with mystery." -Bill Johnson

Michaelsen castigated the Emerging Church for promoting practices such as a "place of silence" and an "altered level of consciousness" (ALC). This seems odd, as silence itself is almost universally regarded as an unequivocal good; it is the purpose of silence that we ought to be concerned with. And I'm not sure what Paul meant when he said he was caught up into the third heaven and heard things that cannot be told, but that sure sounds like ALC to me. If you want to take the Transfiguration literally, there's even precedent for communing with the dead.

It is important here that we orient our thinking. We need to find North. If Christians are glibly mimicking occultist practices, it would be justifiable to feel alarmed. But if the enemy is crafting counterfeits of practices that originated within the heart of God, is that honestly all that surprising? Not really.

I alluded earlier to Michaelsen's criticism of a wide array Christian voices. The blacklist included Todd Bentley, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle, Thomas Merton, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Benny Hinn, Richard Foster, and John Wimber, all stirred up in the same soup. These men cover a tremendous spectrum in terms of spiritual viewpoints, ministry goals, and personal integrity. This is discernment gone to seed: fear.

There were also several instances of sloppy psychology that undermined discernment in the name of discernment. I will point out two.

1. To accuse someone of believing what they believe because it "feels right" is meaningless, because nobody believes anything that "feels wrong" to them. People may have deeper or shallower reasons for their beliefs, but everybody who is not wilfully violating their conscience will "feel right" about what they believe.

2. Nor is it useful to argue that someone's theology has been influenced and distorted by their experience, as this is once again true of everybody. There is no such thing as a pure theology that is free from the subjectivity and ambiguity of experience. This ought to be self-evident.

Leading into her conclusion, Michaelsen stated that "The fruit of doctrine is more important than the fruit of life." This I feel is the crux of the matter. In the New Testament, the way you live is your doctrine. They are one. If what she means by this is that beliefs are more important than actions...

Faith is Faith

"Even things that are true can be proved." -Oscar Wilde

There is a tendency among modern Christians to think of the Faith as something that can and should be proved and to undertake projects to do so. We use words like "evidence" and "verdict" and "incontrovertible" in an attempt to create some kind of coercive logical sequence to compel people to believe.

It is thought that once you understand the facts well enough, you will become a Christian.

I submit that this is not in fact the true case, and when it is represented as the true case, the effects are disastrous.

God always leaves a gap in the evidence - a place for faith to fill. Faith is defined in scripture as "the evidence of things not seen," i.e., the piece that makes up the gap. Without this gap there is no volition, no decision, and no personal responsibility. If the evidence is simply overwhelming, there is no need for faith.

The problem is that we have accepted the argument on the world's terms. And so we seek to justify faith at the bar of rationality. This is futile, for faith by it's very nature is designed to transcend rationality and access the ultimate. If rationality is granted to be the ultimate, the fight has already been lost.

It is vital that we are not embarrassed by this. Modern thinking only allows three categories of rationality: rational, irrational, and nonrational. Faith is superrational. Enlightenment thinking may have done more damage to the Church than Postmodernism will ever do.

Hopefully this realization will begin to inform our witness to those outside. Our witness is just that: witness. Demonstration. Incarnation. Persuasion. Faith is faith. Don't try to make it something less.

There is much the Church can do to make it possible to believe. It is when the Church attempts to make it impossible to disbelieve that she oversteps the wisdom of God and her offering becomes a strange fire. In an effort to make faith plausible, we may in the end make faith unnecessary.

Veritology

Understanding grows in obscurity,

in dark tunnels - catacombs;

truth of truth,

never speaking, never silent,

bartered, sold, and stolen,

(too near to be possessed,)

pursued to the limits of the earth

by villains and vagabonds,

their souls

a question mark on fire.

Truth is a Verb

When Pilate asked his famous question about truth he had already missed the point. He assumed that truth was a noun.

Truth is something that is done, not just something that is known. Theology can easily become nothing more than a distracting hobby for the Church. Our discussions and speculations about truth are both essential and irrelevant. Description becomes a distraction if it doesn't take us to the point of incarnation and then castrate itself. (Selah)

We need fewer declarative sentences and more declarative actions. The gospel is not merely to know the truth, the gospel is to be set free to love God and incarnate God's love to the world. We must translate truth into a verb. We must be truth-doers - truthers.

This is because truth - in order to be Truth - must be incarnated and actualized. Truth is absolute* but not static. The possibility of the Kingdom of God is not "out there" to be studied and theorized about: it is within you. And I have a good source for that.

What you say or think or intend is not as important as what you do.

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you."

What makes a theory true or false? Is it what it contains or how (or whether!) it is carried out? You don't have to look far to see that "true" theories can be used for hate and destruction and "false" theories can be used for love and encouragement and reconciliation. Doing right is a lot harder than being right. Knowing all truth and explaining mysteries without love just makes you more annoying percussion, and the world doesn't need more annoying percussion. Truth is a package deal, which means we need deeper and more patient definitions of right and wrong. Woe to those who call good evil and evil good. Amen.

Having right beliefs is good, but that's not the point. Remember James and the demons. The fruits of the spirit are not theological merit badges; they are all qualities that are evidenced in actions. Knowledge of God is experiential rather than intellectual. You do not know God with your mind. Love knows God; non-love doesn't know God. And I have a good source for that too.

*What we can learn from the postmodern Church is that truth is absolute but we are not. Because we see through a glass darkly, our intellectual apprehension of truth is relative, shady, and imperfect. We cannot know all of the truth. But because of the Holy Spirit we can operate in a mode that is consistent with all of the truth. That is better.

Gigantically Insignificant

In a conversation I recently overheard at the local Starbucks, two high-schoolers were deploring the seeming inability of the Christian worldview - fundamentalism in particular - to accept the staggering insignificance of our position in the universe. They have a point. Here we stand on the head of a pin, waxing eloquent about eternity and epistemology and spiritual warfare with ourselves on the front lines. It sounds a bit cheeky.

Postmodernism is keen to point out this fact of our insignificance. This is valuable as a corrective to the sickeningly top-heavy attitude of Christian fundamentalism and American exceptionalism, but still not quite the whole truth. (Yes, postmoderns are interested in truth; I will explain this in another post.)

When I say this is valuable as a corrective, I mean that perhaps we could use to come down off our high horse of spiritual elitism. Perhaps we could admit that we have become a little over-zealous in using soap on everyone else's mouths and then upending the empty box to preach on. Perhaps we could use a reminder that while we serve a big God, we do not hold Him on a leash.

"Ours is an age of doctors, lawyers, and CEOs who must not appear weak. Americans think themselves capable of nearly anything, certainly of shaping the future. We are not particularly good at recognizing our nothingness in the face of the universe, though we know our world is a speck in a galaxy, our galaxy a speck in the cosmos."

- Rémy Rougeau, Introduction to Diary of a County Priest, Kindle Location 77

For Enlightenment man, man was everything; for Postmodern man, man is nothing. For the Christian, it is both-and, man is everything and nothing, we are gigantically insignificant. With Spinoza, we affirm that we can think meaningfully. With Derrida, we affirm that we can think wrongly. Man stands erect upon the two legs of faith and doubt. This humility (besides keeping us faithful to the example of Jesus) is the only way we will be able to talk to our contemporary culture about anything.

We are, after all, participants within this dilemma. The sky is not the sole property of postmodernism, and we find echoes of this bewilderment within our own tradition. The psalmist, observing the Milky Way in the pre-Edison darkness of the Judean countryside, wonders aloud: "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" It makes no sense, but it is this very reversal of man's insignificance that gives teeth to the scriptural narrative and makes it surprising. To the skeptic, it is in-credible; to the believer, it is incredible. It is breathtaking to discover that you are breathing.

Now for the correction to the corrective. The argument from size, in its purely materialistic form, turns out to be palpably thin.

"[Herbert Spencer] popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image of God, then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless image; what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos, for man was always small compared to the nearest tree."

- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Kindle Location 820

Though presumably Herman Melville would have been quite content to accept the spiritual supremacy of the whale, this rebuttal remains quite compelling. The strength of the materialist argument is not integral but conditional, like Samson's hair. It relies entirely on keeping us staring goggle-eyed at incomprehensible statistics about the solar system. Once the spell is broken and we realize it cannot prove a consistent value differential between large and small as such, it dissolves - not negating the awesome scale of creation, but making room for a spiritual interpretation.

Rather than being proud to be nothing, we are humbled to be something. God did not come looking for us because we are something, we are something because God has come looking for us. One more statement from the psalmist, a marvel in compactness and pronoun dexterity: "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves." God makes us - not only as a rainy day makes puddles, but also as a cup of tea makes a rainy day.