Super-Magic Jesus Words

If you have to say ‘If it be Thy will’ or ‘Thy will be done,’ if you have to say that, then you’re calling God a fool.  - Rev. Fred Price, preaching about praying

Thy will be done. – Jesus of Nazareth, praying

Today, I have random thoughts on how magical thinking works its way into otherwise healthy Christianity.

I’ve never been a fan of Word of Faith preacher Fred Price, quoted up there right before words from my real Hero.  And my dislike of his philosophies isn’t simply because he makes unkind comments about the blind and the deaf ("How can you glorify God in your body, when it doesn't function right?....What makes you think the Holy Ghost wants to live inside of a body where He can't see out through the windows, and He can't hear out the ears?" – Fred Price).

No, my real dislike of Freddy-boy’s teachings is how they help to sneak magical thinking into the Body of Christ.  Price and his ilk make a regular practice of insisting (1) God can’t do things in your life if you don’t invoke Him right, (2) wealth and health are the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life, and (3) God adapts His will for you based on your will for yourself.

In other words … if you get the mantra right and “declare” and “claim” and “envision” yourself living the good life, Zeus has no option but to hand over the good things.

Sorry, not Zeus.  I meant God.


* * *


Here’s a hard one to write, because it’s about people I love: The other day, I sat in a prayer meeting and watched a brother in Christ be corrected by a prayer meeting leader (gently, though) who noted that the brother had prayed for someone who’d been “sent home to die” by the doctors.  The correction went something like this: Don’t say that the doctors sent your friend home to die, because when you say it that way, our words have the power to turn it into a reality.  Instead, say something positive, because that will bring about the positive result.  Say the doctors sent him home to enjoy an abundant life and to be healed.

What are we seeing here?  The fruit of ministries like Fred Price’s, magical thinking.  This kind of attitude envisions God as a prankster, one who is waiting for someone to use the wrong words, just to show them that he can hand over a bad thing, even when the heart of the praying believer is longing for a good thing.  “Aha!” says this type of god.  “I caught you asking wrongly!  Watch what happens, now that you’ve used the wrong words!”

This is not Christianity.  So what is it?

• It is the cartoonish thinking of Linus from the Charlie Brown cartoons, the character thrown into despair when he accidentally slips and says, “If the Great Pumpkin comes …” instead of  “When the Great Pumpkin comes …”  Linus believed he had stopped the coming miracle by a slip of the tongue.
• It is the diabolical thinking of any number of Deal With The Devil tales, in which a demon (or a genie, in Arabic literature) turns a good wish into a bad one by finding a loophole or flaw in the way the question was asked.
• It is the New Age foolishness of The Secret and other power-of-positive-thinking schemes, wherein simply thinking positive thoughts makes those positive thoughts come true … and when they don’t come true, it’s good evidence you were letting negative thoughts sneak in, you failure.

* * *

Does God punish negativity?  If God so thoroughly dislikes our speaking the negatives aloud, why on Earth did He permit so many depressing Psalms?  And a whole book of Lamentations!  Those are pretty odd selections from a Being who demands positive words and attitudes and punishes a downcast heart.

* * *

“Be careful what you pray for.  You might get it!”

This is another line I’ve heard casually tossed about by my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Sometimes it’s used as a half-joke; other times it’s delivered with deadly seriousness.  No matter which way it’s used, the concept underlying it is a slap at Scripture, at the assurances of Jesus in Matthew 7:

   Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

               Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

Word of Faith practitioners, with their demands that all magic words be phrased positively and as claims of affirmation, would hasten to point out that the son in this verse knows to ask for bread.  The son named it and claimed it!  But my worry is how they characterize the Lord’s role in this verse … seeing Him as a father who won’t give a thing to the son if the request isn’t made with perfect wording.  A god who responds with gleeful, puckish pranks when the petition is done incorrectly.  A god who reacts to magic words, rather than to real needs among his children.

A god who says, “Gotcha!”

* * *

Not everyone who uses Word of Faith vocabulary is a full-blown Word of Faith practitioner.  The problem, however, is that name-it-and-claim-it thinking sneaks into the ideas and words of true believers in Christ.  Think of yeast.  Think of dough.  Get the picture?  The danger is like that.  I’m being careful not to say what will happen, because I don’t want to say it out loud and force God to make it come true.

Just kidding.

Here are a three warning signs that magical Word of Faith thinking might be creeping into your congregation:

Clue 1--The power of names: When you ask for prayer for someone who isn’t present, those praying ask what the person’s name is.  This may seem innocent enough, but notice that when you don’t give the name, those praying will inevitably remind God, “You know all things, so you know this person’s name ...” Here’s what’s up with that: It is ancient, magical thinking to believe knowing a thing’s “true name” gives you power over that thing.  In shamanism, voodoo, occult practices, demonism, ecstatic-trance faiths, and fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin, having the name means having the power.  Word of Faith practitioners (or those influenced by them) who don’t have the name always feel slightly uncomfortable, and seem driven to remind God that, yeah, okay, He knows the name, I guess.  He has the power, so He can do the magic, I suppose.  Remember, Lord, You know things.

Clue 2--Quoting Scripture to God:  Admit it.  You’ve heard it.  “Yes, Lord!  Praise you, Lord!  As You said in Your Scripture, as You taught us in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5, by Your stripes we are healed … “ You’ve been in front of preachers who act as if they are talking to God, but in the course of it, tell Him specifically what He’s said in His Scriptures, and then give the citation of where He said it (should He wish to look it up later, I suppose).  As far as I can tell, preachers who do this frequently – note I said that last bit, for I don’t want you thinking I mean anyone who now and then cites a Scripture in the course of a prayer – but those who make a regular habit of quoting the Lord His own Scriptures, chapter and verse, are up to one of two things:

     1) They are not talking to the Lord at all, but talking to the audience,

         performing the prayer, and trying to whip up a powerful faith-knowledge
         combo in the minds of the believers … a spell, in essence, that will, by
         words of power, make the requested magic happen; or

     2) Even worse, they are talking to the Lord, and are trying to use some
         magic influence they believe to be in the words of Scripture to force
         the hand of God to act, and to bend His will to their own. If you think
         I may be overstating this, please reread the Fred Price quotation I opened
         with.

Clue 3--Your magic finances: To keep their health and wealth Gospel churning along, Word of Faith practitioners will give you Scripture’s magic formulas for becoming rich yourself.  Inevitably, this involves giving money to them.  Mind you, I am not talking about a church’s normal requests for donations.  Rather, I’m talking about those hucksters who craft biblical equations to spell out exactly what your monetary Return On Investment will be when you mail in your Love Offering.  Their message: giving is getting, and getting is holy.  Your health, your wealth, those are the evidence that the Holy Spirit lives in you.  The Holy Spirit, these preachers say, doesn’t want to live in a cheap shack … so give to us, that God might be freed from His shackles and give to you.

* * *

Dear Rev. Fred Price,

I learned from your sermons and from your son’s sermons that God will bless me one hundredfold if I give generously to your ministry in easy-to-make monthly payments.  You’ve shown me clearly in Genesis chapter 26 verse 12 that if I send you one hundred dollars, the Lord will be righteous and reward me with a hundred hundred-dollar bills!

Because I love your ministry so much, I want a blessing like that to fall upon you, not upon me.  It dawned on me: This principle of faith must work for you, too!  Therefore, I would like to encourage you to send me $1,000.00 U.S., which will result in God giving you $100,000.00 on my behalf.  Since I can’t afford to send you a hundred grand myself, this is the best way I can guarantee you get it.

I’ve enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelop for your convenience.  Getting that thousand to me before next Tuesday would be awesome, since my rent is due.

Sincerely,

Yolanda R.

* * *

You guys didn’t really think my name was “Cosmic Parx,”  did you?

Mara Natha,

Cosmic

What The Bible Isn’t

Today, random thoughts on the nature of the Christian Scriptures.

* * *

Please read this:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Now please read this:

“All Scripture is handwritten by God in 17^th century English, and it is the Word of God just as Jesus is the Word of God, inerrant and unsurpassed for anything from mathematics, to recipes, to hidden messages revealed through code breaking: That the man of God may have handy quotations with which to browbeat his enemies.” (absolutely not 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

* * *

I have known people who quote the first set of lines above, all the while believing they are quoting the second set when they say the words of the first.  Some of these people (not all, not all) frighten me with their fury when discussing “Biblical inerrancy” – much the way some Muslims (not all, not all) frighten me with their willingness to break into riots, burn buildings, and trample one another upon learning that half a world away, some hick preacher has disrespected a paper copy of the Qur’an.

* * *

If, while reading this, you are already feeling defensive and argumentative and ready to pounce … you might be one of those people.

* * *

This line from a Baptist preacher made me sit up and soul-search a couple weeks ago: “Why are Fundamentalists always pointing to the Bible rather than to Jesus when they talk about their faith?”  The insight in that question stunned me into realizing how many people I know who raise the Bible above Jesus when asked to discuss their faith.  They even argue about some kind of equivalency between Jesus as the Word of God, and the Bible as the word of God.  It borders on book worship, in some cases.

* * *

Many Christians are fond of saying, with much force: “The church is not the building!  It’s the people!”

How many would look at me with stunned disbelief if I declared, with as much force: “The Word is not the book!  It’s the Savior!”

At least some would be sure I was on the verge of speaking heresy.

* * *

A friend, a brother in Christ, asked me last week if I took the Bible literally.  Actually, the question was, “Don’t you take the Bible literally?!?!?!” Naturally, I don’t know how many question marks and exclamation points were in the question, but from the force of the inquiry, I’m guessing three each.

I answered, “I believe the Lord aroused the writers of Scripture, and what’s in there is really useful.  I mean, I find the Bible really beneficial for shaping what I believe, and if I mess up, there’s bound to be insights in Scripture that show me what I did wrong.  It’s the book God uses to help me do what’s right.”

What followed was a lot of sputtering and stammering from my friend.  “Useful?  The Bible’s just useful?  It helps you do good works, good works?  It’s really beneficial, that’s all?!?!?!”

Yes, the tone was all punctuation-marky again.  Perhaps what I said is causing a lot of punctuation in your brain right now, too.  But everything I said above is exactly what Paul said to Timothy about Scripture.  All Scripture is profitable.  All Scripture is useful.  All Scripture is a tool.

I cherish Scripture.  But I am in a relationship with the true Word of God, my Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am not in a relationship with Bibles.  I am not summoned to the wedding feast of the KJV.  He will not kiss me with the kiss of his New International Version.

* * *

Here’s what Paul says about the Scriptures in 2 Timothy 3:

(1) They can make you wise about salvation through faith in Jesus.

(2) They’re given by inspiration of God.
(3) They’re useful for doctrine.
(4) They’re useful for reproof and correction.
(5) They’re useful for instruction in righteousness.
(6) They help a man of God become complete (which is what “perfect”  means).
(7) They furnish (supply, equip, tool) us for doing good works.

* * *

Random aside: A relatively new Christian once said to me that he knew the Bible was one hundred percent inerrant in all aspects of reality.  Those were his words – in all aspects of reality.

“Even the book of Nahum?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” he said.

“What’s the book of Nahum about?” I asked.

It took him a while to answer.  “I haven’t read that yet.”

In the interest of peace, I let it rest.  What I did not type back to him was this: “If your faith in the Bible isn’t based on the Bible – and it can’t be, since you obviously haven’t finished reading it yet – then where did that faith come from?  Who told you that was how to think about the Scriptures?”

* * *

All Scripture is inspired by God.  Theopneustoskai, a beautiful word that combines the elements of pneuma, wind and breath and spirit, all in a single morpheme; and Theos, God.  The breath of the Infinite.  Whispers from the Almighty.  A conversation with the One I love, He who loved me first.

I’ve watched apologists pour hours of time into “proving” the Bible is “true” through tricks of rhetoric, amateurish plodding through bad science, and retrofitted “prophecies” forced to match today’s headlines.  I am sad for such men.  I picture them going home to their wives, being told they are loved, and responding, “Yes, for I have proof that you love me, dear, evidenced by a 98.7% house-dusting accuracy rate, evidential strata of bathroom towel stackage, irreducibly complex flavors in your cooking, and other items I can detail for you from an explanation of Proverbs 31.  Sit and listen as I expound.”

Such men know the Scriptures.  I pray they know the Author.

Let me go out on a limb here: No one was ever brought into faith in Christ via cool data and meticulous apologetics.  No one.  Not even those who claim they were.  They were brought into faith through the calling of the Beloved, bought through His blood, and set on a path of righteousness through a very intimate infilling of the Holy Spirit.  Spirit.  Pneuma.  Breath.  Breathed into.

Everyone who “believes in” the Bible came to that conclusion only after they were called by the whisper of the Beloved.

* * *

Let me end with a really, really controversial statement.  Only my friends read this blog (I think), so I’m sure one or two will want to sit down with me to discuss this next observation.  Some may even yell at me.  Others will show me Scriptures about what the “word of God” is.

Here goes: Who told us that it is proper to refer to the written Bible as “The word of God”?

I propose this: that the term “word of God,” when it appears in the Bible, almost never refers to the written, completed Bible.  So when Proverbs 30:5 says, “Every word of God is pure,” it is not referring to the bound and printed book we now use as part of our faith.  In the Scriptures, “the word of God” is a term used of Jesus.  It’s used of the message of Jesus’ salvation.  It’s used of Jesus’  teaching on hillsides, and the breathing in of the Spirit when God moved among the prophets long before Jesus’ time.

When a Christian reads the term “word of God” in Scripture, it is incorrect – dare I say heretical? idolatrous? – to mentally insert the term “Bible” in its place.

My Beloved is the Word of God.  He is a two-edged sword, the very sword of the Spirit, and His Word is the Gospel itself, the good news that God has crafted a radical way, an extravagant way, to win back a world.

And that is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic