Edgework

We have already noted that modern Bible readers must deal honestly with the differences between the cosmology of biblical times and the modern world. Beyond the pre-modern understandings of the physical universe, modern readers also face a challenge with respect to the presence of spirits, both good and evil, taken for granted in the biblical text. It was thought that they filled the air, constantly doing battle with one another and exerting influence on human beings. The Gospels record Jesus going about healing the sick and casting out demons, demonstrating thereby that he had power over the spirit world. And the apostles of the early church followed in Jesus’ footsteps.

In our modern, western context we are coming to understand the scientific causes that lie behind many illnesses. We have come to know that viruses and germs wreak havoc in our bodies but that modern medicine can often prevent and cure such diseases. So we have built up an entire medical system to deal with human maladies based on modern, scientific understandings that don’t even try to manipulate spirits of any kind. Most often we even presume that what was called demon possession in the Bible is, in fact, some form of mental disorder that can be treated with drugs.

Of course there are some Christians who do their best to hang on to a pre-modern worldview, insisting that all human sicknesses can be cured through spiritual warfare. For the most part, however, we pray for the sick and then take them to a medical doctor to get appropriate treatment. We also pray that medical staff will have wisdom in diagnosing and curing the illness in question. Occasionally we hear of someone being mysteriously cured of a disease by means of prayer. But, for the most part, westerners accept the fact that the healings and exorcisms recorded in the Bible simply validates the fact that God came to meet people within their pre-modern context – without being interested in offering any modern medical lessons. So we can be assured that God also comes to meet us within our western worldview without asking us to deny modern medical understandings.

Just as I was formulating these thoughts, the April 1 issue of the Canadian Mennonite arrived at our house. The lead article documents the story of Bogale Kebede of Ethiopia who was converted to Christ in prison in 1986 and almost immediately thereafter discovered that God was doing miracles through him. Once out of prison, his witness resulted in a people’s movement that depended on “power encounters” between the Holy Spirit and Satan. In short order the influence of witch doctors was decimated. Today the church he founded has about 19000 members and is growing by about 3000 persons a year.

So, just when I thought I had figured out why more miracles happened in biblical times than in my modern world, I was faced with this contemporary anomaly. One response would be to get Kebede to come to Canada to teach us something about spiritual warfare. That way we could catch up to what the Spirit was doing in biblical times and is doing now in Ethiopia. But then it struck me that perhaps this story simply illustrates once again that God comes to meet people where they are. The worldview of these mostly uneducated Ethiopians is very close to that depicted in biblical times. So, again, the fact that God comes to meet them where they are encourages us to believe that God will surely also come to meet us in our western world. Presumably it will be in different ways, so the question remains whether we will take note of God’s presence or not.

Such differences in perspective and experience have often come into sharp focus when missionaries from the West have gone to non-western countries to proclaim the gospel. In his classic essay, “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” first published in 1982 in Missiology: An International Review, Paul G. Hiebert wrestles with this issue. He tells of his own frustration as a missionary in India not having an answer to new Christians who sought help for various life situations. They wanted specific tools to help prevent and cure sickness, ensure safe travel, safeguard crops, thwart robbery, etc. According to their world view, there are “… beings and forces that cannot be directly perceived but are thought to exist on this earth. These include spirits, ghosts, ancestors, demons, and earthly gods and goddesses who live in trees, rivers, hills and villages…also supernatural forces such as mana, planetary influences, evil eyes, and the powers of magic, sorcery and witchcraft.” Much of life within the context of such a worldview is taken up with relating to these differing “beings” in various ways to ensure best possible outcomes.

Hiebert notes that missionaries who accepted and worked within this pre-modern worldview had better success than those who tried to impose their own modern worldview. The latter, he says, actually aided the drift toward secularism on the mission field. Hiebert suggests that people of faith should accept God’s presence in the whole world even though that may be manifested in different ways in different times and places. He notes that the scientific advances in the 17th and 18th centuries served to create an “excluded middle”. Instead of being seen to be present in all of creation, God was pushed back to the heavenly realms while people were left alone to figure out how to live without immediate signs of God’s presence.

So Bible readers in the modern, western world should be careful not to create a middle ground from which God is excluded. Perhaps we will see God’s presence in different ways than those who lived, and now live, in a pre-modern world, but that doesn’t mean that God is not present. We will do well to take note of the fingerprint of God in whatever worldview we find ourselves in.