Coming Out of the Hangar: Confessions of an Evangelical Deist
Recovering the Whole Gospel
In the last two decades there has been a gradual recovery in evangelical theology of the wholeness of the gospel. God is Lord of all of creation. Discipleship means being a faithful steward of creation and responsive to the cry of the poor and oppressed as much as being a faithful evangelist. Christ’s lordship extends over my vocation and recreation as well as over my worship, Bible study, and personal morality.
This recovery of “gospel wholeness” has yet to reshape our evangelism. Our gospel message is still subjective and individual in its appeal. We are still trying to save souls while ignoring the claim of God upon a person’s entire life and the rule of God over the entire creation. It appeals to a person who feels guilty or spiritually empty or religiously incomplete. When I trust Christ as my Savior, I experience forgiveness, spiritual fulfillment, something to live for besides myself and my temporal values. Do you see how spiritualized this salvation-package is? There is nothing concrete about it. It speaks only to my soul and my religious feelings.
How far this is from the ministry of Jesus and the apostles can be seen by looking at almost any ministry story in the Gospels or Acts. Peter to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate: “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3:6) Or this incident from Acts: “When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city.” (Acts 8:6-8)
When Jesus sent out the Twelve and afterwards the Seventy, it was not to “save souls,” but to “preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick” (Luke 9:2; cf. Matt. 10:7-8; Mark 6:12-13; Luke 10:9)—to demonstrate the power of God to reclaim and heal his kingdom. When the risen Christ gave his disciples their final ministry instructions prior to his ascension, he taught them “things concerning the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3, NASB) The apostle Paul described his ministry as “going about preaching the kingdom” (Acts 20:25) and the book of Acts closes with a picture of the church faithful to the evangelistic commission of Jesus (Acts 1:8), moving in the power of the Holy Spirit, despite religious and political opposition and persecution, “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ boldly and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31).
Where is the kingdom of God and this bold reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit in our evangelism today? An alertness and sensitivity to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and a readiness to move in supernatural ministry is so foreign to the evangelical church, we are fearful and suspicious of anyone expressing such an idea or wishing to demonstrate such a ministry. The power dimension of the gospel, which is consistently present in New Testament ministry, is lacking in evangelical churches (I think) for at least two reasons—one practical, one theological. In practice, the power is missing in evangelical ministry. We do not expect it; we believe it as biblical truth but not as existential truth. God worked wonders through the apostles; God works supernaturally on the mission field and in extraordinary local situations; but God will not do it in my church or my ministry. And so, a powerful spirit of unbelief has captured our churches.
And then, to rationalize the otherwise embarrassing absence of supernatural ministry, some parts of the evangelical church have constructed an elaborate and ingenious (though hardly biblical) theology explaining why the miraculous works and gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased in our day. This is an instance of the church letting its experience, not Scripture, dictate its theology.
Many in the Church say, “We don’t experience the supernatural in our ministry. And yet, we are mature Christians. We have the Spirit of God. We conclude therefore that our ministry is normative and that God’s normal mode of operation is a non-miraculous, subjective mode that works mainly through the preaching and teaching of Scripture.”
In numerous unspoken ways, the church promotes a deistic, rationalistic model of ministry. The exercise of gifts clearly commended in Scripture, such as healing, words of knowledge, prophecy, working of miracles, speaking in and interpreting tongues, are discouraged, forbidden, and even demonized by these cessationist churches.
The problem with such a theology is that a straightforward reading of Scripture leads overwhelmingly to the opposite conclusion. In addition, cessationism leaks in too many places to be a useful or coherent theology. It admits to many exceptions, most notably the power of intercessory prayer. If we believe God will intervene to supernaturally heal, rescue, give direction, or provide sustenance, we are essentially saying that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, exercised through prayer, really have not ceased. And then we become quite arbitrary if we declare some supernatural gifts (notably tongues and prophecy) have ceased but not others. What’s more, there are just too many credible testimonies of Spirit-empowered supernatural ministry to discount or deny it any longer (see references cited in Dr. David Lewis’s chapter, “A Social Anthropologist’s Analysis of Contemporary Healing”).
Coming Out of the Hangar: What Changed My Mind
I love the Christian life. I know there is more to it. It’s a great banquet, and perhaps I have hung out too long at the salad bar. I love salads, and the Christian life even as an appetizer has been great. I have experienced it as intellectually exhilarating and have found much joy and triumph in trying to live a life faithful to Jesus Christ and his Word. Still, there are some very interesting things that people are eating at this table, and they look more like entrees. I believe the Lord is offering me something heartier and more substantial. In the last few years God has been expanding my spiritual horizons in a way I never anticipated. I feel as though in the early stages of my faith, the Lord had set me free to play in an enormous airplane hangar. An airplane hangar is high and wide—with more room to run and whoop and jump than a kid would need and lots of stuff—airplanes, machinery, tools, ladders, catwalks—to delight and intrigue me. Learning about the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit—learning from Scripture and from first-hand accounts—was like one day finding the door of the airplane hangar rolled open. Up to then, I thought that wonderful hangar was the whole spiritual universe. And then I step to the doorway and look out and look up. And there stretching as far up and wide as I can see is the real playground the Spirit God had intended for me.
Category: Living the Faith, Spring 2008
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