Why Progressive Theology Matters: The God of Possibility (Bruce Epperly)

There is the assumption on the part of many that liberal or progressive Christianity talks more about what it doesn't believe in than what it does believe in.  Bruce Epperly is one of those progressive theologians who is concerned about probing what is possible to believe in today's world.  Today's essay speaks of the "God of Possibility," a piece triggered by the meditation written for this blog by seminarian Dwight Welch.  I invite you to read and engage in the conversation -- Who is the God of Possibility?

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Why Progressive Theology Matters:

The God of Possibility

Bruce Epperly

Yesterday I received the latest edition of the United Church of Christ Desk Calendar. The cover announced the following: “Imagine What’s Possible. God is still speaking,” – a reminder of the UCC affirmation from Gracie Allen, “never place a period where God has placed a comma.” Imagine what’s possible! Look beyond the data and bottom line, and awaken to God’s holy adventure!

In the past few months, I have reflected on naturalistic visions of healing and miracles. On the whole progressive Christians have taken the position that God works within the naturalistic matrix of cause and effect to transform bodies, minds, spirits, and communities. Divine power is always relational and contextual, rather than unilateral and coercive. In a recent “Ponderings on a Faith Journey” essay, Dwight Welch insightfully noted that continuity of divine action and human experience does not rule out extraordinary awe-producing events. There is enough wonder in the world without needing to invoke supernaturalistic explanations.

As a spirit-centered progressive, I affirm that God is present in every moment of life. With the causal interdependence of life, there is no ultimate distinction between sacred and secular. While most moments appear ordinary, deep down every moment reflects God’s movements within the each moment of experience and the causal interdependence of life. All moments can potentially be “thin places,” epiphanies and energetic vortices, revealing God’s vision for ourselves and the world. In the continuity of life, there is an ongoing call and response, which invites us to look deeper for God’s touch in our lives and experience the divine aim at beauty and complexity of experience.

For good reason, progressives have shied away from focusing on discrete and supernatural “acts of God.” However, our reticence to identify certain moments as uniquely God-inspired should not prevent us from opening to greater expressions of divine power in our lives and in the world. A key question for progressives is “what can we expect from God and what can we expect from ourselves in the dynamic divine-human call and response?” Although we cannot ever fully discern the divine intention, progressive theology can affirm that God, like ourselves, is a visionary and volitional being in such a way that some moments more fully reflect God’s vision and energetic activity than others. This is a matter of divine choice and personal and communal openness. These moments do not violate the causal relatedness of life, but express a deeper energy and vision within the creative interdependence of life. These are moments of incarnation and possibility that lure us forward toward new and life-transforming adventures.

Progressive theology is forward thinking and forward looking. This present moment and the future are not fully determined by either God or prior causes. In the spirit of Alfred North Whitehead, the limitations of the actual world are the source of possibilities that invite us to go beyond the familiar to embrace a world of adventure. These possibilities are never abstract, but always concrete and continuous with the environmental given. From the womb of possibility come bursts of energy and creativity that can transform our lives and the world. Our openness to God through spiritual practices – prayer, meditation, mindfulness, energy work, social concern, hospitality – opens persons and communities to more transformative possibilities and greater energy to embody these possibilities. God is moving within each moment of experience providing lures for adventures and making a way where there is no way.

These days, two of my best friends have life-threatening cancer. Two years ago, our son was diagnosed with a rare cancer. In all three cases, I committed myself to praying for them in words, visualizations, and hands-on and distant energy work. My prayers are part of a larger matrix that includes chemotherapy and other medical interventions along with their own spiritual practices, healing relationships, and God’s movements through each and all of these.

There are no guarantees of cure, but I believe that a naturalistic approach to divine activity suggests that prayer and optimism open the door for new energies and more lively expressions of divine activity.

As progressives, who are often daunted by the budget bottom line and the medical diagnosis, we need to be hopeful realists, fully aware of the current situation, but equally aware that each moment can be a revelation of divine vision, possibility, and energy. Imagine what is possible when we awaken to God’s movements in the concrete moments of life!

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry.   For more on his vision of divine activity, healing, and wholeness, see God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus and  Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice.

Modern Exorcism: Trading Autonomy for Demonology

Jesus was known to be a healer and one who dealt with demonic possession.  That is, he was a exorcist.  Exorcism has been part of Christian experience from the very beginning -- and the Catholic Church and Pentecostalism both continue in different ways to practice it today.  But, it appears that the "demons" being purged from persons differ from those of an earlier age.  Instead of the kinds of demons that Jesus removed the Gerasene Demoniac, this time it often is things that are the kinds of things we struggle with in normal human life such as addictions, but also homosexuality.  Joseph Laycock offers a look at this trend and considers what it may mean for us.  It's an intriguing piece that should serve as a useful discussion starter.  As I consider this conversation, I need to start by acknowledging that I have a Pentecostal background and I believe that God does heal, though maybe not in the way many Pentecostal evangelists suggest.  So, what do you make of this phenomenon?

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Sightings 7/8/10

Modern Exorcism:

Trading Autonomy for Demonology

-- Joseph Laycock

Last month, a feature in the online magazine Details told the story of Kevin Robinson, a gay teenager from Connecticut. Brought up in a Pentecostal household, Kevin first came out to his family when he was sixteen. His mother, refusing to accept homosexuality as a natural sexual orientation, convinced Kevin to undergo a series of exorcisms to expunge the demons that church members believed were causing his homosexual desire. After the tenth exorcism – which was particularly brutal and degrading – Kevin and his mother finally came to accept his sexual orientation. Now twenty, Kevin still expresses difficulty reconciling his faith with his gay identity.

Numerous modern “deliverance ministries” perform rituals to cast demons out of homosexuals. Last June, a shocking YouTube video of such an exorcism by Manifested Glory Ministries attracted national news. In the video, charismatic prophetess Patricia McKinney discerns that a teenager has “a homosexual demon.” What ensues is a frantic twenty-minute ordeal during which the teen writhes on the floor in a near seizure. Church members eventually induce vomiting by squeezing the boy’s abdomen. Vomiting, interpreted as evil leaving the body, has become the sine qua non in the cultural “script” of modern exorcism – a practice that is, needless to say, highly controversial. Even Christian ministries who preach that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and a sin have censured these exorcisms, arguing that they are dangerous. And the majority of gays who undergo these rites are minors, leading some to suggest that this is a form of child abuse.

But exorcism is actually on the rise and may be more common in America than ever before. In 2008 the Pew Research Center found that seventy percent of respondents believe that demons are active in the world. Similar findings have been reported by Gallup and the Baylor Religion Survey. However, this resurgence of demonology raises serious questions about where demonic influence ends and individual autonomy begins.

As evidenced in the Gospels, the casting out of demons was an important feature of the early church. In fact, pagans sometimes sought out Christians from whom they could receive exorcisms. By the early modern period, Catholic Europe had a rich culture of local exorcists. The Ritual Romanum, written in 1614 under Pope Paul V, consolidated popular forms of exorcism into a formal rite. This brought exorcism under the direct control of the church hierarchy and in the modern era the rite increasingly became a relic. However, in the 1970s, there was a resurgence of exorcism and quasi-exorcism among evangelical Protestants and charismatic Catholics. These modern practices, often called “deliverance ministries” rather than exorcism, usually occur outside of ecclesiastic authority.

Modern deliverance ministries espouse a form of demonology entirely different from that found in ancient times. Until the twentieth century, the quintessential case of possession was the Gerasenes demoniac, with an alternate personality, a total lack of socialization, and supernatural abilities. But the demons cast out by deliverance ministries are rarely alternate personalities like The Exorcist’s Pazuzu. Instead, they are usually aspects of the person’s normal personality that are deemed demonic. McKinney explained, “You have the alcohol spirit. You have the crack cocaine spirit. You have the adulterous spirit. Everything carries a spirit.” David Frankfurter describes demonology as “the mapping of misfortune onto the environment.” Any trait or behavior including homosexuality, eating disorders, and infidelity can now be attributed to demons rather than natural proclivities or rational choice. Indeed, this seems to be the most appealing aspect of deliverance ministries: When all behavior is ascribed to the influence of demons, there is no one who cannot be exonerated.

Pigs in the Parlor (1973), a seminal text for the movement, offers an elaborate taxonomy of possessing demons. Here, demons of homosexuality appear as part of a larger family of demons responsible for sexual impurity. Other families include the demons of rebellion (where resides “the demon of self-will”) and the demons of false religion (including the demons of Islam, Buddhism, and other world religions). While researching his book American Exorcism, Michael Cuneo encountered women whose husbands had diagnosed them as having “a demon of willfulness.” He was even diagnosed as harboring demons himself. Within this system, humans seem to lose all autonomy; instead, individuality is entirely the product of the various demons possessing us.

Ministries that exorcise gay teens are quick to argue that the teens come to them. Modern demonology effectively allows individuals to alienate any part of themselves that they are uncomfortable with. This is no doubt appealing to a variety of people who are conflicted over their desires – whether they are gay teens, guilt-ridden adulterers, or people who cheat on their diets. But “outsourcing” our inner struggles to exorcists comes with a cost. By forfeiting responsibility for our behavior, we also forfeit our right to define ourselves as individuals, and we become vulnerable to the abuse doled out by Kevin’s last exorcist. Perhaps this exchange, in which both responsibility and autonomy are forfeited, is the true “deal with devil.”

References:


Matt McAllester, “Deliverance: The True Story of a Gay Exorcism,” Details.com, June 2010. Available online at: < http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201006/gay-exorcism>


Michael Cuneo, American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty, (Broadway Books, 2001).

David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, (Princeton University Press, 2006).

Pew Research Center, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: June 2008, (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008).

Joseph Laycock is is a PhD student in religion and society at Boston University, and the author of Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampires (Praeger Publishers, 2009).


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In this month's Religion and Culture Web Forum ("The Primacy of Rhetoric"), Marty Center Senior Fellow (2009-10) W. David Hall addresses the centrality of rhetoric in the Western humanist tradition by engaging the work of Ernesto Grassi, whose commentary on the Renaissance, especially, diverged from standard Platonic models of interpretation to include arts such as rhetoric, literature, and poetry. Of especial interest for Hall is Grassi's "retrieval of the humanist tradition" during this era and the possibilities that thorough understanding of such a retrieval opens more broadly in the fields of philosophy and religious studies. With invited responses by Jeffrey Jay (University of Chicago), Santiago Pinon (University of Chicago), Donald Phillip Verene (Emory University), and Glenn Whitehouse (Florida Gulf Coast University).

http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/index.shtml


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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

A Healing Presence -- A Sermon

Luke 8:26-39

What do Aimee Semple McPherson, Katherine Kuhlman, Benny Hinn and Jesus have in common? The answer: They all connected healing with faith. I realize that putting Jesus in the company of these other faith healers may seem inappropriate to many, but I think it will help us think about how Jesus’ healing ministry should be understood. There have always been those who claim to heal in the name of God. Some have been shysters and frauds, but others have brought gifts of grace and healing to the lives of many. Some have used the tools of modern medicine, while others have turned to alternative forms of healing, including prayer and anointing with oil. Jesus is among those who have brought God’s healing presence into our lives in ways that are beyond a scientifically-based medicine. The healing stories involving Jesus are often dramatic, but they also raise questions. If Jesus can heal this demoniac or Blind Bartimaeus, why not me?

People of faith often wrestle with the relationship of faith and healing. While pray for the healing of our loved ones, perhaps hoping that God will do something “miraculous,” most of us also go to the doctor and take our medicine. That is, even while we pray we look to human wisdom for healing. And yet, we also sense that prayer could and should play a role in this process.

In recent years, the scientific community has sensed that spirituality or prayer might play a role in healing, and they’ve done studies to figure out the relationship. Some of these studies seem rather silly, and none of these studies have truly explained how all of this works, which isn’t surprising since people of faith understand that God usually works at deeper levels than can be perceived by science. Still, even if these studies are inconclusive, they suggest that we’re more than the sum of our body parts and that people of faith tend to recover better and faster.

This cautious embrace of spirituality by the medical community is controversial, and a degree of skepticism is always healthy, for we don’t want to fall prey to the quacks and frauds and other purveyors of false hopes. At the same time it’s appropriate to recognize that we are -- to use a medical term -- a psychosomatic whole. Because we seem to be more than simply a mass of carbon-based atoms magnetically linked together, there may be room for God to act in the healing process. Bruce Epperly, who has been writing a series of blog posts for me on the topic of healing makes this point quite directly:

Progressive Christians are challenged to consider the possibility that Jesus was able to achieve what many contemporary holistic and spiritual healers as well as faithful Christians at liturgical healing services regularly experience - the transformation of the whole person through healing touch, anointing with oil, reiki, prayer, or laying on of hands.1

1. Jesus and the Gerasene Demoniac

If we look closely at the gospels we’ll discover that healing forms a major part of Jesus’ ministry. In fact, healing stories, whether physical or spiritual, make up nearly 20% of the Gospel texts. There’s the man with an unclean spirit and Peter's mother-in-law, a leper and a man with a withered hand, there’s Jairus' daughter and the woman with the hemorrhages. Morton Kelsey says that "wherever Jesus went he was simply besieged by the people who wanted to be healed." Even his enemies didn't "contest the fact that Jesus healed; they only tried to cast doubts upon the agency through which he did it."2

This morning we hear the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Gerasene demoniac after crossing the Sea of Galilee into Gentile territory. As soon as he lands, he’s accosted by a naked man who runs out of the cemetery shouting incoherently at him. Obviously this guy’s out of his mind! Tormented and seemingly beyond help, his neighbors have tried to keep him under control by chaining him up, but each time they do this, he breaks loose and hides out in the cemetery – homeless, naked, and forgotten. The man Jesus encounters is of two minds – part of him wants help, but the other resists. He shouts at Jesus: "What do you want of me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" While Jesus could have turned away from the man, he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out to the man in compassion and confronts the demons that bind him, releasing him from the hold of “Legion,” which interestingly enough leads to the death of a herd of pigs.

You might be wondering how this text speaks to the question of healing. Well, Luke like many of his contemporaries, made no distinction between healing and exorcisms. To heal was to engage evil in spiritual battle, and therefore Luke understands Jesus’ healings to be signs that the kingdom of God is spreading its influence. These healings are also expressions of Jesus’ own calling to “seek out and save the lost” (Lk 19:10). Healing and saving are really the same thing. They bring wholeness where there is brokenness. Whatever our modern diagnosis might be, this tormented man was experiencing brokenness, and Jesus brought wholeness to his life. The man’s neighbors came and found him to be “clothed and in his right mind.” Interestingly, their response was one of fear, a fear that led them to encourage Jesus’ departure.

  

2. God’s Healing Presence

It’s clear from the Scriptures that God is the source of healing, but if this is true, then why doesn't God heal everybody? We all know people, people who are close to us, for whom we pray, perhaps daily, hoping for a cure, and yet we don’t see them healed. There are those who say that maybe God healed back in the bible days God doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore. I’m afraid that explanation doesn’t work for me, because it suggests that rather than being present in our lives today, God is absent. Others say that God will heal you, if you have enough faith, but that sounds kind of cruel. Besides this guy doesn’t seem to have all that much faith, and yet Jesus heals him. And, I’ve known people with plenty of faith who never experience physical healing.

Consider the story of my high school youth minister. Steve died a number of years ago from stomach cancer. He was probably in his early 40s then. He had a wife and children, and pastored a church. He believed in healing and his church practiced it and prayed for it. In fact, they prayed intensely and continually that Steve would be healed. They claimed his healing, and as I’ve heard the story told, the church kept everyone away who had doubts about whether God was going to heal him. If all it took was faith, then surely Steve would be alive today.

So what do we do with these biblical texts that suggest that Jesus was involved in healing the bodies and the minds of people? I’m tempted to leave them be, and just rest in the mystery that is God. But to do so, means turning my back on stories that can have a transformative effect on our lives. I may be more of a rationalist than a mystic, but even I believe that God is at work in our lives, bringing wholeness and even healing to them. It doesn’t always happen immediately or in the way we might expect or desire. Sometimes it’s a rather slow and gradual process. Bruce Epperly writes:

I believe that God moves toward wholeness within all things, but most of the time, the divine quest for abundant life is revealed in gradual, almost imperceptible ways. Our health and illness, and the healing process occur in the context of factors such as DNA, physical condition, economics, health care accessibility and treatment, faith, and community support, along with our prayers and the prayers of others and movements of God in our lives. When a cure occurs, God is always the ultimate source, even though God works relationally and persuasively through the many factors of life, from meditation to medication, and contemplation to chemotherapy.

There are times when people are cured, but healing isn’t always about curing. Healing can take place in a number of ways, but as Bruce notes, God is always involved, even if the context of this healing is found in modern medicine, psychotherapy, or other therapies. While not everyone is cured, if healing is understood to mean wholeness, then this wholeness can be experienced in ways that do not always involve physical wholeness. Sometimes it involves finding peace in the midst of an illness or a disability.

In my reading of Scripture, it seems appropriate that we come before God and ask God’s blessing for people who are hurting. It’s appropriate to anoint the sick, the injured, and the dying with oil, as a sign of God’s grace. We do this while praying that the one we love will experience wholeness of body, mind, and spirit, always acknowledging that healing comes in different forms. It could be physical, but it might also be spiritual.

In the early church, when a person was sick, they called for the elders to come and anoint with oil and pray for the one in need. Oil was used in part because it was believed to have medicinal value, but it was also believed that when accompanied by prayer, God would be present in the healing process. Faith and medicine need not be seen as two ships passing in the night. We can embrace both in the pursuit of wholeness of body and spirit. And when we find that we’re whole again – whether or not we’re cured -- it’s appropriate to give thanks and share the good news. After Jesus brought healing to the Gerasene man, he told him to share the good news with his neighbors, who, to tell the truth were a bit disturbed to see this man, whom they had thought was under the control of demons, once again in his right mind. And the same is true for us – when God has touched our lives, we’re called to make that known to the world.

 

1. 
   
    Bruce Epperly, “Did Jesus Cure Anybody?” Ponderings on a Faith Journey, http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com/2010/06/did-jesus-cure-anybody-bruce-epperly.html
2. 
   
   Morton Kelsey, Healing and Christianity, (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1995), 45.
3. 
   
   Bruce Epperly, “The Gift of Gradual Healing,” Ponderings on a Faith Journey,
   http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com/2010/06/gift-of-gradual-healing-bruce-epperly.html

Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Troy, Michigan
June 20, 2010
4th Sunday after Pentecost

The Gift of Gradual Healing (Bruce Epperly)

For the past several weeks we have been treated to a discussion of God's divine agency in the world.  We've explored the question of whether divine power is unilateral or persuasive, whether we can envision the resurrection as being more than metaphor, and whether God is engaged in healing.  In this week's column Bruce Epperly returns to the question of healing, exploring a passage that reminds us that sometimes healing is a gradual process.  I invite you to consider Bruce's contribution and join in conversation.

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The Gift of Gradual Healing

Bruce G. Epperly

In some ways, all theology is healing theology. By that, I mean that the aim theology is not just armchair speculation, but the transformation of our lives and communities. Healing goes by many names – salvation, conversion, curing, reconciliation, wholeness, unity, forgiveness. All of them point to a change in our hearts, often reflected in a change in our social relationships, vocation, emotional well-being, spiritual priorities, and physical condition. Over the past several weeks, I have been pondering the healings of Jesus and the healing vocation of moderate and progressive Christians. Healing is about meaning (and I hope to address the interplay of meaning, imagination, and truth later this summer), but it also about whole person transformation that may literally change the cells of our bodies as well as our spiritual lives. The postmodern world is about connectedness, relationship, and holism, in which the transformation of the body changes the mind, and the transformation of the spirit or social location has an impact on physical existence.

Now, the strange story of the man who was healed gradually (Mark 8:22-26) is perhaps one of the most helpful healing stories for contemporary persons; perhaps, it was transformative in the first century as well. I have a strong sense of the literary and imaginative power of scripture: there are no throw-away lines or unnecessary stories in the remembered history (Borg) of Jesus’ life. But, why would this story be included? There is no dramatic healing; in fact, it begins in failure and disappointment. Jesus touches the man and he can see a little bit, but not yet well enough to see clearly. Jesus touches him and his sight is restored.

In a time in which healing and curing are dominated by quick fix technologies and quick fix televangelists, this story reveals the everyday realities of God’s healing movements in our lives. Most of us are not healed immediately, but need to go through a process of transformation until the wounds of body, mind, and spirit are healed. I have often noted that the flamboyant healing ministries of Benny Hinn, Richard Roberts, Gordon Robertson, (Pat Robertson’s son) and others may do more harm than good to the average congregation seeking to initiate a healing ministry. The televangelists only show us the successes – the people who get up from their wheelchairs, the cancer cures, and the glasses tossed away. While I do not wish to challenge the integrity of these televangelists, these programs present an inaccurate picture of divine healing that often prevents people from trusting God’s gentle, naturalistic healing over the long haul. The majority of people who attend televised healing services do not experience dramatic healings; and, for some, the cures are short-lived. Often, participants in congregational healing liturgies in moderate and progressive churches wonder why their healing services don’t produce such dramatic results; indeed, people can feel guilt and failure when a dramatic cure does not occur after an anointing or laying on of hands. (For more on progressive and moderate healing services, see Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice and God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus).

I believe dramatic changes can occur in the mind, body, spirit, relational, interdependence of life. I believe that God moves toward wholeness within all things, but most of the time, the divine quest for abundant life is revealed in gradual, almost imperceptible ways. Our health and illness, and the healing process occur in the context of factors such as DNA, physical condition, economics, health care accessibility and treatment, faith, and community support, along with our prayers and the prayers of others and movements of God in our lives. When a cure occurs, God is always the ultimate source, even though God works relationally and persuasively through the many factors of life, from meditation to medication, and contemplation to chemotherapy.

In the story of this man’s gradual healing, a cure emerges, but not immediately. When the man is not immediately cured, Jesus does not blame him. Rather, he continues the healing process. This is an important healing moment for the man and his culture: Jesus defies the acts-consequences approach to health and illness and success and poverty. People are not always sick because of immorality, negative thinking, or inadequate faith. Though these factors enter into our health and well-being, they are part of a larger psychosocial-physical-spiritual-economic matrix.

Jesus continues the healing process, ministering to the man’s spirit as well as to his eyesight. Freed from guilt and blame, the curative processes continue to operate, bringing healing and wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.

The story ends with Jesus sending the man home, with the admonition, “don’t even go into the village.” Perhaps, like the story of Jairus’ daughter that we explored last week, this man needed to return to an environment where he would be known as healthy and whole, rather than in terms of his blindness. Perhaps, he needed to gently grow into the cure that he had received. Moving too quickly physically, relationally, and spirituality can actually impede the healing process.

This story of gradual healing is important for people today. First, it portrays God’s aim at healing as naturalistic, occurring within the causal interdependence of life. Second, it portrays Jesus using a first-century healing media, saliva, which reminds us that we can take our medication prayerfully and that God is working not only through Western technological medicine, but also through prayer, global healing techniques, laying on of hands, energy work, and social transformation to restore persons to well-being. Third, it reminds us that gradual healing and curing is just as revelatory of God’s grace as dramatic healing. A God who works for wholeness in all things primarily works gently in the world, using the media of our daily lives; but, God also works persistently to transform our lives, body, mind, and spirit, lovingly and without blame.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary, pastor, theologian, and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy.

Persons interested in progressive approaches to healing and wholeness may consult his God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice; and Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus, written with Katherine Gould Epperly. He can be contacted at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu.

Healing as Divine-Human Synergy (Bruce Epperly)

We have been blessed to have Dr. Bruce Epperly serve as a regular contributor to Ponderings on a Faith Journey.  Indeed, it's probably time to take off the adjective "guest" from his status.  He returns today with the second of two essays dealing with healing, suggesting here that healing results from a divine-human synergy.  In this piece he invites moderate and progressive Christians to open themselves to the possibility that healing could be possible, and that it's not just the domain of TV evangelists.

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HEALING AS

DIVINE-HUMAN SYNERGY

Bruce Epperly

My favorite healing stories are found in Mark 5:21-43 (also in Matthew 9:18-26 and Luke 8:40-56) in which the gospel writer describes the healing and curing of Jairus’ daughter and a woman with a flow of blood, most likely gynecological in nature. While there may not be an exact one-to-one correspondence between the gospel narrative and what actually happened, I believe that these transformative events resulted from a synergistic interplay of divine call and human response, involving human faith and the release divine healing energy.

If we listen imaginatively to these stories, they may transform our images of healing, wholeness, and human possibility. Freed from the modern world view and its horizontal and predictable understanding of causal relationships, progressive and moderate Christians can imagine lively, naturalistic moments in which God’s aim at abundant life and our inner resources for healing and wholeness can be activated in surprising ways within the causal interdependence of life. Such stories invite progressive and moderate Christians to expect more of God and more of ourselves in terms of possibility and energy.

Described in just over a paragraph (Mark 5:25-34), the story of the healing of the unnamed woman with a flow of blood is polyvalent in nature. On the one hand, as Crossan and others have rightly noted, her healing involves the transformation of her place in the social order and religious community. She moves from outsider to insider, scorned to welcomed, and sinner to righteous, in terms of first century mores. Her healing involves the whole person – relationships, social role, personal aspirations, and not just her body.

Still, this woman’s physical healing presents an interesting case study on the relationship of human openness and divine activity far different than the bombastic spectacles of many of today’s “faith healers.” Weighed down by twelve years of physically debilitating and socially devastating illness, this woman comes to the healer Jesus with a prayer on her lips. “If I just touch him, I will be made well.” We can suspect that she repeated these words over and over to give her courage to face angry stares as well as her own sense of hopelessness. When she comes to Jesus, her words become flesh. Against all social convention, she touches the healer and is transformed. The narrative notes that a power flowed from Jesus energizing and curing her, body, mind, and spirit. The healing story concludes with a face-to-face encounter in which Jesus blesses her and calls her to new life. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” In that moment, the physical cure is joined with a healing that transforms her spiritual life and her relationship the community.

In this brief but intricate story, we observe a divine-human synergy. The woman would not have been healed apart from her faith in Jesus’ ability to cure her. But, her faith alone could not have restored her spiritually, physically, and socially. Her faith opened a pathway for the release of divine energy (chi, ki, prana, dunamis, preuma), the energy of healing and wholeness that transforms bodies, minds, and spirits. This is no supernatural event, but the release of the deeper, more energetic powers of life, present within the natural causal interdependence of life.

I suspect that Jesus, who was initially unaware of the woman, was a focal point for the presence and channeling of divine healing power, present in latent and varying degrees throughout the universe.

The healing of Jairus’ daughter also joins spirituality and physical transformation. In this narrative, Jesus is the primary actor, presenting the parents and his disciples with an alternative interpretation of the young girl’s condition – she is in a comatose state rather than dead – and then creating a healing circle, a community of faith that supports his own aim at healing and wholeness. Could this small healing circle have played a role in awakening the healing forces resident in the young girl, Jesus, and the gathered community? (I describe these stories in greater detail in God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus, Westminister/John Knox, 2002.)

Both of these stories speak to us today. They open moderate and progressive Christians to new ways of interpreting scripture and God’s work in our lives. The invite us to expect more of ourselves in the healing process, while also expecting greater divine possibilities in our lives.

First, they describe what physicians today call the “faith factor,” the recognition that our beliefs, spiritual practices, and realistic optimism can activate healing powers resident in our lives and in the universe. Second, these stories point to God’s universal energy as a factor that we can awaken to in life-transforming ways. Finally, these stories describe the role of a community of faithful companions, open to divine power, in contributing to our health and well-being.

(As I regularly counsel pastors and laypeople, always gather a “healing team” of supporters, rather than naysayers, whenever you go to the hospital or are facing a difficult decision.)

Often, moderate and progressive Christians believe “too little” in terms of the synergy of divine and human power. Put off by televangelists who believe “too much” in terms of their affirmation of supernaturalism, demonism, and divine punishment, moderate and progressive Christians fail to recognize the possibilities for whole person healing in a god-filled universe. If God is present everywhere, seeking abundant life for everything, then openness to God – in the divine-human call and response – can bring forth new possibilities. Cures are not guaranteed in the multi-factorial world of DNA, family of origin, environment, faith, and other factors contributing to physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. But, within this matrix of causal relationships, naturalistic healings and cures may occur, not in arbitrary fashion, but in ways that reflect God’s intention for healing and our openness in faith. Our task is faithfully to open ourselves to the wonders in every moment and the possibilities for transformation in every encounter.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary, pastor, theologian, and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy.

Persons interested in progressive approaches to healing and wholeness may consult his God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice; orReiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus, written with Katherine Gould Epperly. He can be contacted at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu.

Did Jesus Cure Anybody? (Bruce Epperly)

In today's installment of Bruce Epperly's reflections on a Spirit-centered Progressive theology, he takes up what are to be at least two essays on healing.  Bruce believes that Progressives are missing the boat by ignoring this important aspect of spiritual life.  I myself struggle with what to make of this idea, so I welcome Bruce's reflections.

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Did Jesus Cure Anyone?

Bruce G. Epperly

For a number of years, I have challenged my fellow progressive Christians to recognize the importance of mysticism, spirituality, paranormal normal experiences, and healing for a holistic faith for the future. A recent Pew Center Report notes that 50% of persons who identify themselves as mainline Christians report having experiences of self-transcendence. The fact that every other mainstream or progressive Christian reports an encounter with the Holy suggests that a holistic and spirit-centered progressive theology must take mysticism, spirituality, and healing seriously. Too often, we progressives have separated spirituality from social action and personal faith from social concern. Happily, Marcus Borg and Barbara Brown Taylor have joined Diana Butler Bass, Dorothy Bass, and me in affirming the importance of spiritual practices for energizing and transforming progressive Christianity.

The area of healing and the significance of Jesus’ healing ministry for first century and twenty- first century persons still remains a barely-charted frontier for progressive Christians. For example, the Center for Progressive Christianity’s “eight points” makes no mention of healing or spirituality. The Phoenix Affirmations recognizes in an understated way “the benefits of prayer, worship, recreation, and healthiness in addition to work.” With few exceptions, progressive Christians interested in healing and wholeness must read the works of holistic physicians such as Larry Dossey, Deepak Chopra, Candace Pert, and Herbert Benson to discover the connection between faith, spirituality, and healing.1 Progressive Christians have written little or nothing about complementary medicine, despite the fact that many progressive pastors and laypersons practice, receive, or sponsor in their buildings, holistic modalities such as reiki healing touch, massage therapy, Qi Gong, healing touch, therapeutic touch, Tai Chi, and yoga.2 For many progressives, spirituality is connected with other worldliness and healing is connected with supernaturalism and the bombastic theatrics of televangelists. While there is much truth in these connections, a healthy faith does not live by what it denies about God, wholeness, and mysticism, but by what it can affirm about divine activity, personal transformation, and the relationship of spirituality and healing.

I believe that progressive Christians need to reclaim the healings of Jesus as part of their embrace of today’s growing movements in global and complementary medicine. Healing can be understood as natural, rather than supernatural, and can involve the transformation of energy in the dynamic interdependence of mind-body-spirit rather than the violation of predictable causal relationships.

I suspect many progressive Christians are daunted in their quest to reclaim the healings of Jesus by comments by leading progressives such as John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong. In Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Crossan denies that Jesus’ ministry involved curing physical ailments. After correctly noting the distinction between healing and curing, and illness and disease, articulated by contemporary medical anthropologists, Crossan notes: “This is the central problem of what Jesus was doing in his healing miracles. Was he curing the disease [leprosy] from an intervention in the physical world, or was he healing the illness through an intervention in the social world?” In response to his question, Crossan boldly asserts: “I assume that Jesus, who did not and could not cure that disease or any other one [emphasis mine], healed the poor man’s illness by refusing to accept the disease’s ritual uncleanness and social ostracization.”(82) Although there is much to commend in Crossan’s understanding of Jesus’ healing ministry as a political and sociological phenomenon, why not take a more holistic – and, dare I say, more progressive – approach to the question and answer “yes” to both healing and curing, social and physical transformation. Jesus’ healing ministry transformed people’s social location, bringing them from marginalization to full humanity, as Crossan rightly asserts, but Jesus’ acts of compassionate care also transformed the whole person in the dynamic interplay of body, mind, and spirit.

Progressive Christianity needs to go beyond “modern” mind-body dualism to a more holistic, relational, and constructive post-modern approach to healing and wholeness. Progressive Christians are challenged to consider the possibility that Jesus was able to achieve what many contemporary holistic and spiritual healers as well as faithful Christians at liturgical healing services regularly experience - the transformation of the whole person through healing touch, anointing with oil, reiki, prayer, or laying on of hands. Isn’t it possible that Jesus tapped into the deeper energies of the world, working within the causal relatedness of life?

In contrast to the modern world view’s separation of mind and body, sacred and secular, person and environment, and spirituality and social transformation, a truly holistic progressive theology affirms the insights of complementary and mind-body medicine and contemporary physics, both of which describe the relationship of mind, body, and spirit as part of one whole, interdependent reality in which spirituality shapes embodiment and embodiment shapes spirituality. In light of this, when Jesus touched persons with leprosy, he may have done several things simultaneously: affirmed their humanity, welcomed them into the reign of God, deepened their spiritual awareness, transferred healing energy (dunamis), and awakened the healing energies resident in their bodies. As fully aligned with God’s vision, Jesus may have experienced a special connection with the divine power that continuously creates the universe and gives life to every cell, variously known as chi, prana, and pneuma.

Crossan rightly challenges magical and supernatural understandings of curing and appropriately recognizes that healing, involving the sense of personal meaning and social connectedness is essential to our well-being. But, perhaps, we need to ponder more appreciatively the unity of healing and curing in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus touched persons with leprosy and reached out to persons with chronic and socially stigmatized diseases; but in the processes of welcoming them to God’s realm, Jesus may also have encountered them in ways that energized God’s healing presence within their lives, transforming cells as well as souls. This is not magic or supernaturalism but a process of awakening people to the omnipresent movements toward abundant life in the quest for justice, in mystical experiences, and in moments of physical transformation. As truly progressive Christians, we don’t need to choose between healing and curing – our hospitality to the marginalized and stigmatized, advocacy for universal and accessible health care, and action for healthy environments can be joined with liturgical healing services, anointing at the bedside, and global and complementary healing practices.

1. Some progressive-oriented writings on Jesus’ healings include Robert Webber and Tilda Norberg, Stretch Out Your Hand and Bruce Epperly, God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice.
2. Some progressive-oriented writings on complementary medicine include Bruce and Katherine Epperly, Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus and Flora Litt, Healing from the Heart.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary, pastor, theologian, and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. HisTending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy.   Persons interested in progressive approaches to healing and wholeness may consult his God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus;  Healing Worship:  Purpose and Practice; or Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus, written with Katherine Gould Epperly. He can be contacted at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu.