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.

Miracles and Progressive Christianity -- (Dwight Welch)

I have invited Dwight Welch, a Disciples of Christ seminary student and occasional blogger to offer his sense of the Christian faith from a liberal/progressive position.  In service to my own denominational tradition I have been making these pages available to people who, like me, are seeking opportunities to explore and share their faith with the broader public.  This should be the first of at least two pieces.  I invite you to engage Dwight in conversation.

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A Progressive Christian

Take on Miracles

Over the last month or so there have been a number of articles on the question of miracles, the resurrection, and healing. This has spurred my own thought on these questions and I appreciate the opportunity Bob Cornwall has given me to try to put down some of these thoughts in the form of a post. My hope is to raise some questions, both for myself, and others in a way which can advance the discussion.

As a liberal protestant what does one do with supernatural interventions? Bruce Epperly and others have suggested that it is possible that we’re not dealing with the supernatural at all. That, instead, there may be features of our natural world, which can account for and open us up to these miraculous stories of the past as well as their present happenings. The indeterminacy of quantum mechanics, for instance, is lifted up to break down the old mechanistic accounts favored by the natural sciences. The energestic accounts make a universe far more personally responsive than the old atomistic ones.

But I still think some caution is needed in this front. Whatever happens at the quantum level is not so varied as to make the macro level operate under a new set of rules. And in the macro world, we still do not see things like physical resurrection occurring. There is nothing we know about biology nor do we have experiences that we can point to that indicates such occurrences today. That does not mean that the door is closed on such things. Epistemic humility requires as much.

But it does suggest that we may be facing the limits of what theology can talk about. In other words, given that God is far more than we can describe, we can presume our theologies will not exhaust God’s doings in the world. But there may be limits, given our knowledge of the world, which theology is in a position to say. In that the only response may be a holy silence when it surpasses that knowledge.

But if God is the God of this world then knowledge of the world should give us clues about God. When some Christians dismiss evolution, or other areas of consensus in the sciences, a distorted picture of the world and of God emerges. So getting it right or at least getting as close as one can get given the circumstances has theological implications. In that, I get nervous about some miracle stories or descriptions of resurrection which seem to be at odds with the consensus of the sciences or the kind of world they describe.

Even if we remove the category of the supernatural, the sense of the scriptures, is that miracles are extraordinary occasions. In the Second Testament, such stories are usually followed by the people being in “awe” after the miracle. But if we agree with Whitehead that God should exemplify the categories of our world, not be an exception to them, then maybe looking for God in the extraordinary should be suspect; or at least not necessary. In principle, one should likely find that how God operates in the ordinary or the extraordinary follows much the same lines.

Again that doesn’t close off the extraordinary. But it does suggest a kind of continuity in experience and in the character of God and God’s doings that can make any occasion a possible source of divine disclosure, even if some moments are more dramatic or profound in their impact on us then others. In that sense, we’re back to the old definition of miracles from Friedrich Schleiermacher. Any occasion which points to God and God’s doings, God’s purposes, God’s character in the world can be properly understood as a miracle. A smile or a calm sea both suggests much of the same thing. And it should if we’re on to something in our analysis.

In that case, the way that we might appropriate miracle stories today would be to discern the character of God as it its being told in the story of healings, for instance, to see if it has continuity with the kind of God we understand ourselves to serve. That may go outside of the question of did it happen or would it happen. But one can imagine how the character of God in such and such a story might be translated to our time. What brings healing today? What opens our eyes today? What acts in our lives so we can be included in the community as opposed to being cast out to the edges of town? When can new life happen even when some sought to kill it?

The hope is to engage those resources of scripture which can illuminate our experiences, of God, of one another, and so on. Some of the language of scripture does just that. But some do not. I had a high school student in my church liken faith in God to faith in Santa Claus. While only one has reindeer, both were equally fantastic in his mind, based on something that was wish fulfillment and not evidence based. I think as much inside the church as outside of it, we face a credibility crisis in the claims our faith tradition has made. To the degree that we can relate to the resources of our faith tradition and the world as we know it, we may be able to confront that problem. I think that has been the charge and the motivation for religious progressives in general and this discussion in particular.

Dwight Welch is finishing his final year at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis as a MDiv student with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and serves as a student pastor at First Christian in Sheridan Indiana. Previously Dwight did graduate work in philosophy while serving as a campus minister at University Christian Ministries at Southern Illinois University.  Although not blogging as often as before, Dwight's blog is entitled the Religious Liberal.   

The New Physicality of Resurrection

Last week Bruce Epperly offered an alternate progressive understanding of Resurrection, one that allowed for it to be more than a parable or metaphor, but allows for a sense of physicality.  This post got considerable discussion going, for we struggle with what all of this means.  Part of our issue is that we must, whether we like it or not, recognize that science plays a role in the conversation.  Progressive/liberal Christians tend to have a problem with discussions of reality that rely on supernaturalism.  The assumption is that God does not contravene the laws of nature.  There are a lot of reasons for that position, which I'll not go into here.  But, it does raise questions about the physicality of Jesus' resurrection and that of any post-death experience.

Last night, if you watched it, the conclusion to the Lost series reflected upon life after death and while envisioning a rather inclusive/interfaith understanding, offered a sense of physicality -- even resurrection.  On that end, I'll leave it to expert Lost watchers like James McGrath to break down the meaning of the finale.  But, what it does suggest is that many people hope for an embodied future post death. 

With that introduction, I wanted to add in a paragraph from N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope, that deals with Paul's understanding of post-death physicality.  As a prelude to this quote, Wright makes it clear that he has in mind a sense of this new physicality of resurrection being part of "life after life after death."  That is, what is spoken of in John 14 as the "many mansions" or Jesus in Luke speaking of paradise, infers an intermediate state prior to the new physicality that Jesus will embody in his own resurrection, and which we will share in at the time of the General Resurrection.

What Paul is asking us to imagine  is that there will be a new mode of physicality, which stands in relation to our present body does to a ghost.  It will be as much more real, more firmed up, more bodily, than our present body as our present body is more substantial, more touchable, than a disembodied spirit.  We sometimes speak of someone who's been very ill as being a shadow of their former self.  If Paul is right, a Christian in the present life is a mere shadow of his or her future self, the self that person will be when the body that God has waiting in his heavenly storeroom is brought out, already made to measure, and put on over the present one -- or over the self that will still exist after bodily death.  (p. 154). 

In this statement, which is a reflection upon Paul's discussion of the new creation in 2 Corinthians 5, he speaks of our current bodies being mere shadows of the future body, the spiritual body.  The spiritual body is not ghostlike, but even more tangible than the current one.  I would invite your response to this statement as we wrestle with what it means to embrace the idea of resurrection in the contemporary world.  What is it, after all, that the hope of the resurrection, which Paul makes so central, have to say to our lives in the hear and now? 

More than a Parable? (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly returns today with reflections on the Resurrection.  This essay follows up on a statement made earlier that unlike many Progressives he affirms a physical resurrection.  As one who also affirms the same, I asked Bruce to flesh this out.  In invite your thoughts and questions.  I appreciate as well Bruce's willingness to share his insights with this audience.

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MORE THAN A PARABLE?

Bruce G. Epperly

Last week, I spoke about miracles without supernaturalism, asserting that there is a deeper naturalism that opens the door to transformative acts of divine power, grounded in the divine- human “call and response,” that can change bodies, minds, spirits, relationships, and the planet. I asserted that if “we live, move, and have our being” in God’s dynamic presence, there is no reason to see divine activity as supernaturally breaking into our world. God is already here, acting in each cell and thought. Bathed in God’s presence, the world is more wonderful than we can imagine. Indeed, I believe the naturalistic theism that I suggest is more hopeful and transformative than the popular Christian picture of God acting supernaturally from the outside, sometimes healing and sometimes not. In the dynamic synergy of divine action and creaturely response, acts of power may occur, revealing deeper possibilities within the realm of cause and effect than we had previously imagined.

When I suggested that even Jesus’ resurrection could be seen as a deeper reflection of the interplay of God’s action and human openness, understood perhaps in terms of an energetic body, lively enough to be liberated from typical physical constraints, I took a rare stand among progressives, asserting that the resurrection may actually have occurred in space and time, and might even, in the words of Borg and Crossan, have been videotaped or captured on a cell phone photograph!

Now, I am appreciative of the insightful work of Borg and Crossan and find their text,The Last Week, a spiritual and theological gem. Yet, I wonder if there indifference to factuality of the resurrection narratives testifies to an Enlightenment and Modern, rather than Quantum and Post-modern understanding of reality. While I do not the mechanics of Jesus’ resurrection, I believe that in an energetic, multi-dimensional universe, it is entirely possible that Jesus, to quote Borg and Crossan, “really did appear to his followers after his death in a form that could be seen, heard, and touched.” (The Last Week, 191) Although Borg and Crossan agree with Paul’s recognition that without the affirmation that Christ has been raised, our faith as followers of the Way is in vain, they “do not think that it intrinsically points to the historical factuality of an empty tomb” or the resurrection appearance stories. (191) Borg and Crossan believe that the Easter stories are parables, meaningful truths, that assert that Jesus lives and that his mission has been vindicated personally and politically.

I agree with Borg and Crossan that meaning is at the heart of the Easter stories, and while we cannot prove the factuality of the resurrection from proof texts or eyewitness accounts, I affirm the likelihood that Easter is more than a visionary experience, though it surely falls into the realm of the mystic, paranormal, and miraculous (as understood naturalistically). If visionary experiences occurred in the days following Jesus’ crucifixion, I contend they may have reflected God’s movements in the life of Jesus and in the lives of those who had visionary experiences! (Visionary experiences can reflect divine guidance and initiative.)

Something happened that radically transformed the lives of Jesus’ first followers – something that was more than a parable, but was embodied meaning. While I see scripture as inspired rather than infallible, I believe that the resurrection and post-resurrection testimonies of the gospels, odd and diverse as they are, point to an encounter with the Holy that gave new life to Jesus’ frightened and hopeless followers. Could Jesus really have breathed on his followers? Could they have felt a gentle wind or a healing touch? Could his life energy have materialized in a way that enabled Mary of Magdala, the disciples at the seashore, and Paul on the way to Damascus to “see and touch” the Risen One?

Now, I recognize that I have said too little for fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals and too much for Enlightenment-influenced progressives. But, I hope I have something that will nurture faith that Christ is alive and can still move through our lives today. Our visionary experiences today are not merely personal in nature, but may emerge from God’s touch in our senses and psyche.

The tradition of mystical theology asserts that every discussion of divine action must take into account the interweaving of the kataphatic and apophatic understandings of reality. The kataphatic, “with appearances,” proclaims that the world is sacramental and that, in the spirit of Borg and Crossan, “Emmaus always happens.” (201) Kataphatic theology truly sees Jesus on the road and at table. Apophatic, “without appearances,” proclaims that the Risen One is always more than we can imagine and can never be pinned down in space and time. Apophatic theology finds its inspiration in Jesus’ words to Mary of Magdala in the Garden, “don’t hold onto me.” Jesus is not localized, not tied down by embodiment, but is everywhere.

Borg’s and Crossan’s recognition that the resurrection appearance stories are “the product of the experience and reflection of Jesus’ followers in the days, months, years, and decades after his death” (198) points to the “fact” that something happened, more than just a “parable,” in the lives of the disciples. The testimony from John’s gospel that “Jesus did many signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30) points to the recognition that Jesus is always more than we can imagine and that we may, in fact, live in a world in which lively, energetic, transformative, and meaningful resurrections are possible, and that in ways that we can’t fully encompass Jesus “met” his first followers and meets us today.

Could it be that many progressives are simply too “conservative,” too caught up in the limitations of the modern world view? Perhaps, we need to open the doors of our imaginations so that we might experience nature, in Blake’s language, as “infinite,” holding within the causal relatedness of life unexpected possibilities, resurrection events, and healing power.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary; pastor at Disciples United Community Church, Lancaster, PA; 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. (http://www.bruceepperly.com/)

Miracles without Supernaturalism (Bruce Epperly)

We continue our Tuesday series of essays by Dr. Bruce Epperly.  Bruce has been gracious to provide for this blog insightful and challenging essays that help define what it means to be progressive and spiritually centered.  Last week's post focused on the difference prayer makes.  This week Bruce extends that conversation by thinking through the tricky question of the miraculous.  That is, in what way is God truly active in the world?  I think you'll find this an intriguing message. 

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Miracles without Supernaturalism

Bruce Epperly

Walt Whitman once noted that all is miracle. As a spirit-centered Christian of a progressive bent, I agree with Whitman – life is miraculous, God-filled, and adventurous. Last week, I reflected on the difference that prayer makes in our lives from a progressive Christian perspective. I suggested that in an interdependent universe, our prayers support the well-being of others and create a field of force that enables God to be more active in achieving God’s vision of Shalom for the lives of others, ourselves, and the world. In this essay, I will consider the question of prayer in terms of the contrasting perspectives of naturalistic and supernaturalistic theism. I want to reflect on the questions, “Can we have miracles without supernaturalism, that is, without unilateral divine interventions temporarily nullifying the laws of nature?” and “Can we appropriately speak of naturalistic miracles, that is, dynamic expressions of God’s presence that transform our lives and the world, congruent with the laws of nature?”

I take prayer seriously: I pray for persons in need, participate in liturgical healing services, prayerfully lay hands on anyone who wishes prayer, and practice a form of energy healing, known as reiki healing touch. I believe in life-transforming answers to prayer and have experienced them. I have written three books on healing, focusing on how we can embody Jesus’ healing ministry in our lives today.1 Though I affirm the insights of biblical scholarship and appreciate the work of Crossan and Spong, I believe that the New Testament healing stories reflect the life-transforming love present in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus healed persons, body, mind, spirit, and relationship, and we can participate in that same healing energy today.

But, still the question of supernaturalism remains open both biblically and theologically. The term supernatural is of relatively recent origin in theological discourse and seems to have gained popularity in the wake of Newtonian physics. If the universe is basically material and God works from the outside, it is reasonable to speak of divine action in our lives as supernatural in nature. Since nature, including our bodies, is essentially unfeeling and self-contained, God must act from outside the normal cause and effect relationships to achieve God’s goals.

My own understanding of divine activity is based on a very different understanding of the God-world relationship, in which God is present within each moment of experience, working within the world and our lives, mind, body, and spirit. Further, God is not an outsider – all things “live, move, and have their being in God” and thus are touched by God. In a world described by Isaiah – “the whole earth is filled with God’s glory” – God works within causal relationships and creaturely freedom and creativity to bring about God’s vision. Acts of power, transformations of body, mind, spirit, and relationships, accordingly, are not contrary to the laws of nature, but these evolving God-inspired laws are constantly influenced by Divine Creative Wisdom, such that God’s prevenient grace and healing presence is at work in every situation. While there are limits to what God can do in an interdependent and creative universe, God can choose to be more present in some moments than others, such as the incarnation, the healings of Jesus, the resurrection, and our own mystical and life-changing experiences. These are not contrary to nature, but reveal the deepest intentionality energies of a God-influenced universe in which every event, to greater or lesser degree, reflects Divine Wisdom.

As one of the few progressive Christian theologians open to claiming the resurrection story as a historical occurrence, I suggest that the resurrection reveals what can happen in the interplay of divine vision and creaturely (Jesus) openness in terms of the emergence of unexpected bursts of healing energy. While no one can fully describe the mechanics of resurrection – in the same way that the origins of the big bang will always be somewhat mysterious - Morton Kelsey, one of the leading figures in the revival of healing in mainstream Christianity, saw Jesus’ resurrection body in terms of a leap of quantum energy, evidenced in a lighter, livelier physical body, able to go through walls and appear and disappear at will. From this perspective, the resurrection reflects God’s initiative working through deeper laws of cause and effect.

Supernaturalism, as unilateral divine activity, does appear in scripture, even though the biblical worldview sees all events reflecting divine activity in some degree. However, naturalistic as well as supernaturalistic divine actions are affirmed in scripture. For example, the majority of Jesus’ healings, as I suggest in God’s Touch, were relational in nature and, thus, could be described as naturalistic – God’s prevenient or prior grace elicits the response of faith, which opens the door to Jesus’ healing activity. Mark’s gospel suggests that Jesus could do no great work because of peoples’ unbelief, but was enabled to do great things when people (the woman with the flow of blood, Jairus and the disciples) were open to new possibilities for personal transformation. In a God-filled universe, in which grace shapes each moment, even when we turn away from God, there is a God-orientation which enables human freedom and divine initiative to join in personal transformation.

In scripture, descriptions of divine unilateral (supernatural) activity are often morally ambiguous – a flood that destroys the human and non-human population, the killing of the Egyptian first born children, the projected divine destruction of the earth (popularized by the Left Behind series). Ironically, such bursts of divine unilateral power reflect divine failure, rather than divine power, in which God – like an exasperated parent at the supermarket – punishes creation severely because of God’s lack of patience or persuasive power. In much of the Hebraic scriptures and New Testament, in contrast, God’s relationship with the Hebraic people seems to be dialogical, rather than unilateral. When miracles, or acts of divine power, occur, there usually is a human openness to divine initiative.

In summary, in a living universe, in which God is moving within all things, providing possibilities and the energy to achieve them, acts of life-changing power are congruent with the relative stability of nature and our physical bodies, and the causal relationships which make life somewhat dependable. God is not an outsider trying to get in as supernaturalism suggests, but an insider working from within. Creaturely creativity and freedom are real, and can thwart God’s vision in the present moment, as scripture suggests. But, creaturely creativity and freedom can never overcome God’s patient and ongoing aim at wholeness. God constantly works within our lives, seeking reconciliation, repentance, a change of heart, and openness to healing, even when we don’t notice it. God touches each of us personally, moment by moment, bidding us to wake up to the reality that healing, salvation, and beauty are within and all around us. God has a vision and can choose to be more active in achieving that vision in certain contexts, just as some moments reflect who we are and our character more than others. When God’s energetic and empowering vision is met with openness then great things happen – not contrary to the laws of nature – that reflect God’s vision of divine-human partnership. Lives are changed, bodies transformed, hearts opened.

We can expect great things of God and ourselves. We can “expect miracles,” lively naturalistic events that transform the world. Perhaps, when we – as one bumper sticker says – “accept miracles,” we will discover that “all is miracle,” that life is wonderful, that loaves can be multiplied when we let go our possessiveness and open to generosity, and that we can be God’s partners in healing the world. In conclusion, I believe that divine-creaturely synergy presents a more worshipful, hopeful, and more dynamic of God than images of supernatural and unilateral divine intervention.

1. God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus (Westminster/John Knox); Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice (Pilgrim); and Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus (Northstone, with Kate Epperly).

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary; pastor at Disciples United Community Church, Lancaster, PA; 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. (http://www.bruceepperly.com/)

What Difference Does Prayer Make? A Progressive Vision (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly continues his discussion of a Spirit-centered Progressive theology by taking up the question of prayer.  How does a Progressive/liberal Christian understand prayer if supernaturalism is removed?   Bruce, who is rooted in Process Theology, takes up first the issue of intercessory prayer (this week) and then in a follow up piece will take a look at the impact of prayers of thanksgiving on our well-being (next Tuesday).  If you've not read it yet, take a look at Bruce's take on evangelism from a progressive perspective, which was published here last week.  I invite you to read Bruce's essay, reflect upon it, comment and then share the news with others.

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What Difference Does Prayer Make?

A Progressive Vision

Bruce G. Epperly

When I was a child, my mother posted a magnet on the refrigerator that proclaimed that “prayer changes things.” Regularly on Sundays, we listened to the bombastic intercessions of Oral Roberts and the gentle whisperings of Kathryn Kuhlman, both of whom believed that our ardent prayers could produce supernatural interventions to lengthen legs, restore eyesight, and cure cancer. To this day, I take prayer seriously; and although I no longer believe in divine supernatural intervention, suspending the laws of nature to prevent an earthquake or cure end stage cancer, I believe that prayer makes a difference in our spiritual, emotional, relational, physical, and planetary well-being.

As a progressive Christian, I believe that God is present in every moment of experience, not as a coercive external force, determining everything that happens without our input, but as gentle moment within the events of our lives, luring us toward healing, wholeness, and beauty. I believe that each moment of experience is the result of multiple causes, including the influence of DNA, family of origin, recent past decisions, unconscious factors, physical and emotional condition, spiritual life, relationships, economic factors, and environmental factors. Within this multitude of constantly changing factors, God is moving, shaping, guiding, energizing, and providing the best possibilities for health and wholeness, given the current situation.

While there are many understandings or practice of prayer, I see prayer as our creative and affirmative desire to be in alignment with and embody God’s vision for our lives and the world around us. If God is constantly inspiring us with, to use the words Romans 8, “sighs too deep for words,” then prayer awakens us to God’s deep presence and enables us to live out God’s vision, to a greater or lesser degree, in our lives. Prayer is a matter of call and response – God calls and we respond; and we call and God responds.

Now many liberal Christians see prayer as extending no further than our noses. It is purely a personal experience, bringing calm and acceptance, and spiritually joining us with those for whom we pray. Still, this liberal understanding actually suggests something more than a purely spiritual or existential experience. If mind, body, and spirit are interconnected, feelings of peace and calm arising from the practice of prayer will, to some degree, shape our physical condition in positive ways even if they don’t invoke God’s presence. Still, I want to suggest something more. This week, I will focus on intercessory prayer; next week, I will consider the impact of prayers of thanksgiving on our overall well-being. I believe prayer changes things, not absolutely, but relatively in the lively call and response of God and humankind, appropriate to our particular context and condition.

In a dynamic and interdependent universe, our thoughts and feelings radiate beyond ourselves into the ambient universe. Each moment of experience arises from the universe and contributes to the ongoing universe. I believe that our prayers create a positive field of force or healing around those for whom we pray. Accordingly, our prayers become one factor in shaping the experience of those for whom we pray. Our prayers are not all-determining, but provide a creative influence on others, along with the physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual factors shaping their lives.

But, there is more to prayer than merely our impact on others. I believe that prayer makes a difference to God. In creating a positive force of healing around others, we open the door for God to be more present in their lives and more able to provide more energetic and life-transforming possibilities. While we can – and should – never quantify the power of prayer, in an interdependent universe, prayer is a factor in healing and wholeness of persons, communities, institutions, and the planet. Prayer matters to God.

In contrast to the televangelists of my childhood and contemporary faith healers such as Benny Hinn and Richard Roberts, I see prayer operating in accordance with the principles of causation, characteristic of the universe. Neither our prayers nor divine activity suspend the causal relationships of the world; rather, they work within them, activating healing energies and, occasional quantum leaps of physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation. In the dynamic divine-human call and response, healings can occur and lives can be changed.

I believe liberal Christians have often failed to take prayer seriously precisely because their only understanding of divine causation was supernatural in nature. Today, quantum physics, mind-body medicine, complementary and global health, and medical research allow us to understand the power of prayer in new and creative ways, including the appropriation of Jesus’ healings in the ministry of the church. Progressives can reclaim the power of prayer and divine healing; we can be liberated from conservative and supernatural understandings of prayer and divine activity. Progressives need to be imaginative in our prayers: expecting more of ourselves and more of God, and opening to God in new ways of partnership with God through prayer, healing touch, meditation, affirmations, and social concern.

Our prayers are neither omnipotent nor impotent; but still they can transform our lives and the world. Prayer truly can make a difference for us, for those for whom we pray, and for God.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator, 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. (http://www.bruceepperly.com/)