Christian Silliness

Christian Silliness. 

After thirty-eight years of service to the Christian community I’m still amazed at how gullible church people are to religious snake oil and those who peddle it.  Just recently I had a friend speak me as if he had a direct channel to God’s voice.  God apparently would give him advice about mundane matters of reasonable choice, so that his choice of what soap and paint colors to choose were actually God’s choices.  That being the case I needed to be quite and keep my opinions to myself until I could appreciate the deeper spiritual things of this life.

Really now, if this is really what was going on wouldn’t these people be picking all the correct lottery numbers.  This type of Christian experience is obnoxious.  I’ve been silent and endeavoring to be a good little Christian while this type of misrepresentation of the Christian life is verbalized by the flamboyant, orchidaceous personalities proclaiming Christian virtues.  I’m chagrined at the foolishness of this misrepresentation of God’s relational nature to His creation. Often it is nothing more than poor taste and mediocrity. 

The next “big thing” that God is going to do has been around for all of my Christian life and apparently it is still the carrot that leads the spiritual horse that pulls the ark of super Christendom. How many times have we heard Christians predicting the future and being consistently wrong, but acting like they weren’t wrong?  Hey, when you’re wrong in my neighborhood you’re wrong.   Being wrong is not the problem, denying it is and that principle is the foundation of all spiritual life.  What a relief it is to know you are not all knowing and can freely admit to being wrong.  That carnal twist in our nature that says,  “I’m not wrong”, is still present.

At one of my garden shows one of my high-strung Christian friends commented to me about what a wonderful job God had done with my garden.  He knew I was a pastor and within my garden I have scripture quotations placed among the venues of meditation.  My response to my visitors comment was at the base of what this writing is all about, my comment to him way,  “You should have seen this place when God had it”.  When I had bought the property seven years ago it was all overgrown.  It was a patch of mangled weeds and berry vines.  It took a lot of work and creativity to produce a garden of beauty and tranquility.  Most of my regular friends understand that, but the occasional Christian stills thinks God sent His angels to till the ground.  Sounds a lot like the Genesis story doesn’t it. 

I’m disappointed that Christians still do weird stuff that isn’t in the bible and say God lead them to do it or it was the “leading of the spirit”.   I’ve heard of church services that are louder than riots at mental institutions.  I’ve heard radio and television evangelist proclaiming spirituality equaling a clown’s college graduation (that only works if you are a clown). The Christian life is often explained as spiritual warfare between angels, Christians, demons, and various conspiracies. The drama of blaming everything from illness to bad credit to all your bad choices on the devil is getting old. Sad to hear of people seeking deliverance from demons when their problem is their own rebellion, stupidity, meanness, and determination to get their own way. God must get frustrated being the bagman for everything ever done by some guy who didn’t want to answer questions about right or wrong.  Here is some of the language we’ve used over the years to describe our Christian life, “Victorious Life”, “Purpose Driven Life”, “Spirit Filled Life”.  Just to named a few of the current headliners.

If all these terms don’t seen to fit your life patterns, you might be what we call NORMAL. You are an ordinary Christian living an ordinary life. You don't hear voices, see visions, or believe you are under constant attack by demonic forces. You may have some experiences that you call supernatural or miraculous, but they are the exception, not the rule. When you pray for people, things usually don't change; you change. You have no authoritative insight into what is going to happen in the future. You suspect that if you were filled with the Spirit, you would love God and people more, and do the right thing more often. You'd be more like Jesus. You wouldn't be running around in circles pointing out angels on the roof. The fruit of the Spirit would make you a person others would want to be around, not someone who would frighten animals and small children.

My point is not to trash anyone who believes in any of these things. Not at all.  My point is that "normal" Christian experience is increasingly seen as "bad" or "abnormal," while weirdness is increasingly seen as "normal" and proof that a person is really "spiritual." This shift has enormous implications for Christianity in its essence, its witness, and its experience in the lives of believers.

The principle that I would like to put forward is this: The supernatural character of Christian truth and experience does not remove the basic, normal, human experience of Christians. If "normal" humanity is eclipsed, Christianity ceases to be Biblical, truthful or helpful. 

In my experience, Christians who go very far down this road of a "hyper-spiritual" experience rapidly become less useful in the service of Christ. Some become quite useless, even a hindrance and a detriment. In some ways, I think we are being presented with a spiritual dichotomy similar to the Roman Catholic division between those in "holy orders" and your regular Christian in the pew. Protestantism refuted this view, and strongly reasserted the Biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. But now Pentecostal/Charismatic spirituality has brought evangelicalism to a similar situation--a division between the spiritual elite with their "supernaturalism" and the ordinary Christian who doesn't hear voices and see visions.

"Normal" Christians are living without these "signs." They are living by faith in what the Bible says, and not looking to their experience to be a daily demonstration of God still being around and in the miracle business. In comparison to those who live with daily miracles and prophecies, these normal Christians may have experiences that seem dull or even absent. It is no wonder that many "normal" Christians struggle with feelings of resentment, envy, or anger toward those Christians who claim constant miracles and manifestations of God's power.  I refuse to play this game, and am disturbed by what I see as the misrepresentation of the Gospel, and an insensitivity to the effects of weirdness on those in and out of the church.

What are we to do with this dilemma of false spiritually?  I'll start by saying that the Bible's emphasis on walking by faith rather than by a constant diet of supernatural experiences needs to be understood clearly. I am constantly reminded that the weirdness has registered with many people as Biblical Christianity. We have to say that the Bible is a supernatural book, and God works in our world as He chooses, but faith is nurtured on the Word of God, and on what God has already done in Jesus. The weirdness looks at the events in the Bible as the first inning, and we are now playing out the game. In actuality, the Bible records the entire game and Christ wins! We are living out that victory now. The point is not the next big thing, but what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  Always, being centered on the Gospel and on Christ himself is what we must strive to offer in response to the chaos spinning in some church circles.

Further, I think we have to reclaim the fact that God wants us to use our minds to think and make reasonable choices. The Christian life is not a throwing out of the mind, but this is a primary tenet of hyper-spiritualism. I don't just mean anti-intellectualism. I mean a rejection of a reasonable, human use of the mind. This glorifies God. Our prayer for guidance and truth from God should be fervent, but we should fervently say that God's Word of Truth usually comes to our minds through the normal methods. Nothing distresses me more about this entire business than the message to young people that their minds should be ignored and some esoteric, Gnostic method of "hearing from God" should lead us in making life's important decisions.

How should we respond to my hyper-spiritualistic brothers?  I think we should be generous in forgiving and tolerating much of this behavior. Many of my hyper-spiritual friends are sincerely hungry for God. They are following what they believe is a path that will remove there doubts and bring the power of the Spirit into their lives. All of us ought to desire genuine Holy Spirit power, and a true experience of God. I don't criticize my friends for wanting to have a life full of God!

I have to stop, however, when we reach the point of asking what is the source of true experience, what is the nature of that experience, and what are the results of a genuine experience? Discernment is what we most owe to our brothers and sisters. Not condemnation or rejection, but discernment and simple truth. We need to know our Bibles, and be able to point out the truth of the Gospel. Our lives need to be shaped by Christ, and display evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification and renewing our minds and characters. Even those who have given themselves over fully to every kind of weird spiritual manifestations are usually well aware of their own need of what is real. Many solid Reformed Christians spent a sojourn in this camp, and starved to death while everyone pretended there was a feast.

Bishop Ryle put it plainly: "Feelings in religion are worse than worthless, unless they are accompanied by practice." Many of our sincerely deluded brothers and sisters know this, and are afraid of what this must mean. It will do them good to see in us genuine experience and a true, substantial working out of what Christ has done for and in us.

Someone who has seen the effects of spirituality silliness’.

Pastor Bob Peragallo