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The Authority Question – Pentecostals & Methodists

Last month, at the Phyllis Tickle event, the ‘authority question’ came up, as it will/should whenever someone starts talking about ‘the Spirit’. pentecost01

I was sitting out in the audience for the Fuller Seminary part of the evening. A little debate/concern arose about the issue of authority – especially as it relates to the rapidly growing Pentecostalism of the Southern Hemisphere.

I leaned over to the pastor sitting beside me and jokingly said “I pastored a charismatic church for a decade, and now I am at a Methodist church … this seems like the easiest thing in the world to navigate.”  The pastor requested that I blog about it.

Let’s get all the parts on the table and see how they come together:

Element 1: in the past we talked about seats or locations. Where does authority reside? Answers have included leaders, scripture, the collective, bylaws, reason, etc. Traditionally we have talked about authority in a static sense.

Element 2: in the Methodist tradition we have the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason. (for an interesting side-read, John Cobb questions the sequence of those four elements)

Elements 3: I read a fascinating article a while ago about developments in neuroscience. Researches have long looked for which part of the brain memories reside in. It turns out that memories are not located in any one place but in the connection made between different parts of the brain.

 

Proposal: Authority, like memory, is not located in any one place. It is uniquely comprised of the connection between component parts. Depending on the collected aspects, the authority that emerges will be unique to that organization, congregation and movement.

Authority, therefor, doesn’t exist (per se) in that same sense that we used to conceptualize it … OR perhaps I should say it doesn’t reside somewhere – but in the connection and configuration of collected elements.

 

The reason that ‘the authority question’ is so elusive is because it is different in every place and is changing all the time. 

Authority will look different if you are Catholic charismatic in S. America than if you are a non-denominational megachurch in N. America. This is due to its emergent nature as an evolving concept.

Thoughts?

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That damned Second Sentence

I have always been suspicious of that second sentence. Usually it is the obvious second sentence that is preceded by the unstated first sentence.

“We hold these truth to be self-evident”  is a great second sentence.  The problem is that it is often put forward as a first sentence. People just start with “We hold these truths to be self-evident… that all men are created equal.”   It is a wonderful sentence. The problem is that there is something unstated that goes before it. The first sentence there is “After we killed the original inhabitants, stole their land and imported free labor from Africa …. We hold these truths to be self evident…”

 So often what appears to be a first sentence is really a second sentence and the first sentence goes unstated. 

Last week Peter Rollins showed up in LA and talked about why ‘Its not the size of the wand that matters … its the magic that is in it.’  In that talk he pointed out the danger of of a different kind: not understanding the (assumed) second sentence. This is particularly relevant to fundamentalist thinking.

The sentence is ‘We trust God’. The implied second sentence is ‘but we still lock up the church building when we leave and arm the security system.’

Or ‘I trust God’. The second implied sentence is ‘still lock your car doors’.

‘I pray for the headache to go away’ is followed by the implied ‘I take the aspirin to help’

Rollins says (around minute 26) that what is tragic is when somebody believes the first sentence too much and doesn’t pick up on the implied second sentence. Like when a child is sick and the community prays for them to be healed, the dad takes the kid home and doesn’t take them to the hospital or give them medicine and the kid dies.

People are always shocked and horrified that the parent took it too far. Yes, we pray for healing. Yes, we have faith. The implied second sentence is that we also partner with modern medicine – and I would add – even thanking God for the advances is technology and unlocking the potential (often of plants) for medicines.

 The tragedy is when someone doesn’t pick up on the implied second sentence and takes the first sentence way too seriously. It’s that damned second sentence that will get you in trouble.

Part of what I love about Rollins’ project is that he helps expose the invisible or unstated second sentence so that we, as communities of faith, are not assuming something that should not be assumed and then stating it appropriately so that everyone is on the same page and it is not invisible or hidden.

Admittedly, the danger is that it might take some of the magic out of it. I acknowledge that. The tradeoff, however,  is that we can be honest about what is really going on and move forward A) together and B) with integrity. I think that the tradeoff is worth the risk even if we do lose some  of the magic.

– Bo Sanders 

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Personal Prophecy: moving on (part 2)

I wrote earlier that we need to be careful with developing a dependance on personal prophecy.

Q: Why didn’t God tell you the accountant was embezzling?

A: Because that is not how God designed things to work.

Having said that, I want to be clear – I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the prophetic. I have seen some wild stuff in the past 20 years and while I no longer run in charismatic circles, I am not interested in poo-pooing on my friends’ parade nor explaining away my experience.

Process theology has given me an interesting framework with which to view the phenomenon.
I can do it in 3 simple steps!  

  1. Step out of the 3 Tiered Universe. The Bible was written in an antiquated vocabulary that was embedded in a system that had Heaven above & Hell below. We still use that vocabulary but recognize now that it is only imagery – not physical reality.
  2. Step away from the super-Natural. Get rid of the imagery that God is ‘up’ in heaven and periodically pokes through the thin veil to whisper in your ear – if you have enough faith, or if you are a chosen vessel, or if you are not tainted by sin, or … the truth is that God is with you. Holy Spirit is a work all around you.

God doesn’t need to ‘come down, or ‘break in’ or ‘break through’. God is down, in, and through. 

  1. Be aware of and open to the reality of God’s presence in the world. From verbal cues to body language – there are hundreds of ways that we perceive and interpret other people and our interactions. The is nothing magical about your receptivity, openness or awareness of what is possibly going on with someone else. As Christians, we believe that God’s Spirit is alive and at work in the world. Part of that ministry is to heighten and intensify our already existent (by grace) ability to listen, perceive and interpret social and relational interactions.

I have done this enough to know the objections that are bound to arise. So let me just say 2 things with the space I have left:

  • There are several innovative definitions of transcendence (as it relates to God) that get us out of the 3 Tiered Universe but still hold that God is not just a big bearded guy in the sky that we made up to feel like ‘somebody is watching over us’ and will take care of things in the end.  Both Process theology and the work of Panneneberg give us visions of God’s otherness that squash most objections to moving in the direction that I am headed: we don’t lose the transcendence/otherness of God.

I love the idea that God is the power of the future. God comes to us in each moment and provides the possibility of a preferable reality complete with contingencies of the past. That gets me out of bed in the morning!

  • Prophecy is a sign that is meant to create in us a greater level of faith, trust and awareness. It is not a ‘party trick’ nor is it a primary mode of decision making. If you are relying on God’s Voice to plan travel itineraries, invest in the stock market, look for your missing child, counsel people getting divorced, or predict the weather … I got bad news for ya. That is not how God designed this all to work. 

Admittedly, you have to downgrade your expectations a little bit. Gone are the days of thinking that some stranger on the street is going to call out your name and tell you all the secrets of your heart – and which fork in the road is ‘God’s will’.  The magic show is over. Prophecy happens in relationship. 

BUT (and this is a big but) because God is relational and inside a relationship God’s Spirit can lead your friend to speak loving, kind, challenging words to you – by being open and available … that is  pretty great stuff!  It’s just not magic.

It’s like your sex life. One you get rid of the unrealistic expectations of porn, you can have a healthy real relationship that is both satisfying and sustainable. First, though, you have to acknowledge that the earlier thing was fantasy … or you will be perpetually disappointed.

 We are going to touch on this in an upcoming TNT so I would love to hear your feedback, fears, questions, comments, concerns and pushbacks. 

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Personal Prophecy: a minority report (part 1)

I’m passing this work on to you, my son Timothy. The prophetic word that was directed to you prepared us for this. All those prayers are coming together now so you will do this well, fearless in your struggle, keeping a firm grip on your faith and on yourself.  – 1 Timothy 1:18 (Message)

 Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good
– 1 Thessalonians 5: 19-21 

 I was writing a letter to a friend the other morning about a devastating development in her family. I didn’t get to finish the letter so I put it on hold. A couple of days later I was watching the film The Minority Report (2002 with Tom Cruise) and had an epiphany.

In the film, Cruise’s character kidnaps a women who has cognitive abilities (pre-cog) to anticipate and ‘see’ the future. At one point he is smuggling her through a mall and she says to him “The women in the brown sweater will recognize you” just seconds before it happens. Then she stops another women (a stranger) and warns her, “He knows – don’t go home.”

It was jarring to me because that is how many people wish that God worked. I come from a charismatic background and in the past I have participated ‘prophetic words’ where secrets were revealed and the hidden was brought out into the light. I always enjoyed those unique occasions where something like this occurred. An openness to God was my general posture … but I was never quite comfortable with forming lines at the alter after every service with people lining up every week to ‘hear from God’. That seemed too forced, or too rote or too presumptuous. 

I have talked before about my progressive take on pentecostal stuff (after the Leif Hetland interview) and getting my mind around miracles. But personal prophecy seems to be an even bigger issue. For those who run in charismatic circles, words of personal prophecy (or ‘reading someone’s mail’) are something that they come to lean on. That is what makes me so nervous.

Let me be clear: I take the passages in the Bible where Jesus talks about hearing the ‘voice’ of the Father very seriously. I have taught hundreds of folks how to ‘listen to God’ in the past. I am neither apologizing for that nor am I explaining it away.
What I am wanting to address is when people

  1. expect it
  2. come to rely on it
  3. abandon other ways of ‘knowing’ because of a dependance on it.

I’m not talking about folks who pray about trivial stuff like prime parking spots or who try to discern which color to paint their fingernails (both are common). I am talking about real people who have said  sentences like the following over the past decade of ministry:

  • Why didn’t God tell me it was cancer?
  • Why didn’t God warn us not to let her take the car?
  • Why didn’t God alert us our that child was being abused?
  • Why didn’t God direct us and help us find the body?
  • Why didn’t God tell me that my spouse was cheating?
  • Why didn’t God expose the treasurer’s embezzling?
  • Why didn’t God say the Doctor’s diagnosis was wrong?

I am not making these up. These are real sentences I have been asked. (and I have many more examples)

I want to say two things:

That is not how God works. It’s just not. Look, I get the power of personal prophecy! I have called out things that I wouldn’t know in my own capability. I am not a doubter. I am just saying that if we come to rely on this way of knowing we could really endanger ourselves and those around us. We need accountability with our church’s finances because we can’t trust that the Holy Spirit would tell us if something was up.

Process has given me a framework to explain how this kind of prophecy works. I don’t want to quench the Spirit, or hold prophecy with contempt, or lose what is good and explain away some of the miraculous stuff I have seen over the years. I know that some will dispute that personal prophecy is what is meant when the New Testament speaks of prophecy – and it is illustrative to my about the contemporary church that many have NO frame of reference for this activity (it seems like voodoo to them) and yet for others it is their MAIN connection to God and they know of no other type of definition for prophecy.

Tomorrow I will post ‘The Process of Prophecy’ – but for now I just wanted to say that The Minority Report is fiction. That is not how God works. Yes, I think it is cool that we can know stuff we normally don’t have access to. BUT we have to be really careful that we don’t turn off other systems of navigation because we like playing with this one. People are getting hurt (by others) and are discouraged with God because we are playing with a toy that was never meant to be a real steering wheel or compass.

Personal prophecy is not a guide to life. It can be a sign (like in the Gospel of John) that points to a greater level of trust and awareness and creates a desire. However, it can not be our main go-to mechanism for making our way in the world. Prophetic words need to be integrated into a web-of-meaning that incorporates scripture, community, and reason. 

Why didn’t God tell you? Because that is not how God designed it to work.

_______

if you have never encountered this type of thing before: check out this instructive blog about maximizing the impact your prophetic word.

Then you may want to check out my post “what has changed since I was your pastor”.

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