Evangelism, Charismatics, and big Mistakes

As I mentioned before I’ve been reading a community on LJ called Challenging God and there is a recent post that caught my attention. (You really need to read the persons story in there to get what I’m going to talk about.) I got to thinking along two different lines about this topic, so I’m going to break my post up into two sections. This is part of my attempt to make it easier to read and respond to, because I have general problems with organization in my writing.

Evangelism

OK, so maybe this person isn’t a very old Christian, and maybe they aren’t trying to evangelize this group of people and they are just curious what people think, but come on. This story is obviously doing no one any good. Who listens to a story like that and says “Yeah, I want to be a Christian where I can maybe cough up blood and fall on the floor.” That doesn’t even appeal to me, and I’ve seen people do all sorts of stuff before under demonic and holy spirit influences. This part of the charismatic branch of Christianity isn’t appealing to someone right off the bat. I don’t invite people to more serious church stuff unless I think they can be open minded, or already believe at least somewhat in these kinds of things. Church services at the Vineyard are safe for people who aren’t sure, or don’t really buy the charismatic at our church, but that is about it. If this “Challenging God” community is really full of spiritual seekers like it appears there are in there, it doesn’t make sense to challenge their intellect with experiences that don’t hold concretely against intellectual challenges. People falling down, casting out demons, shaking, etc, this is subjective. Turning water into beer (like I’m going to try to do at my wedding…..zing….how would that be for a shift in policy about alcohol), growing back peoples limbs and teeth, praying for someone and their headache or other pains go away. Those are concrete, undeniable to intellect because you can back it up with physical evidence and direct testimony from people.

Also, I was thinking about posting one of those “why don’t you believe in God, why do you hate Christianity” kind of topics in this place, but I was looking for a good way to promote intelligent responses, not just harsh criticism of an experience. This is what happened to this persons post, only people criticizing his/her experience have happened. But the problem is that their criticism isn’t going to change that person, the author has ascribed significance to the event (or God has given it significance depending on how you look at it) and no ones “intellectual” criticism is going to change that. Likewise, no subjective experiences are going to help them see God in the world. More appropriate kinds of posts would have been along the lines of “Would a miracle change your stance on God” or “What do you think about ‘Charismatic’ Christian experiences” or something like that. Not a big long story.

Part Deus, Discerning Things

OK, so in this story there was a guy coughing up blood. This is a problem for me. I’ve seen some wacky stuff, and I’ve cast out demons before, but spitting up blood seems nuts to me. I’ve never had a problem saying “In the name of Jesus, Chill” (you really have to believe you have the right to say that for it to work though) and people pretty much always go limp at that point if something crazy is happening. I’ve never had someone spitting up blood for two hours and making animal noises, and if they did I’m pretty confident I could tell them to “chill” and it would stop. I don’t get how people don’t learn that. Maybe my experiences are limited and I’ve never run into a big enough problem with very deep seeded issues to the point that things got that bad, but I still figure I could get the thing to shut up and hold still. I’m kinda interested if anyone else has prayed for someone like that, and not been able to get the person to hold still.

Now, I don’t think most people really believe that there are demons still around, in fact I think that is what they want. In America today everyone is cynical of everything that can’t be explained, and rightfully so, we’ve been way too inindated with so much crap. This attitude causes some problems though. It seems we either accept it as something that happens and only do spiritual stuff to try to stop it, or we rail on and on about how the person should go to the hospital. Along these lines, how often do we actively try to see if something weird happening is from God, or if it is demonic. I’ve noticed that I have a hard time telling sometimes…especially when you think that people who are shaking are filled with the Holy Spirit and don’t often question that.

There has to be a balance. When people need medical attention (I would have done something medical when they started coughing up blood) you should give them medical attention. But when they need spiritual attention, you should give them that. But how do you tell? Which one do you assume first?

I ran into this problem a while back. The short of the story is that I wasn’t home, I had a test, and I came home about during ministry time of small group. Apparently someone had started to manifest signs of something demonic, and had bolted into the bathroom and locked the door…and then passed out or something, we don’t really know what was up because the door was locked and they weren’t answering. Rob came down immediately deemed the situation a medical problem, and ran around complaining about how we should call the ambulance, and rightfully so, because we didn’t know what happened behind that door. My co-leaders were convinced that this was a spiritual problem, and they eventually got into the bathroom, prayed for the person for a good long while, they got better, a lot better. My small group co-leaders were right in this situation, but they made some mistakes, and Rob was sure to point them out to us. But ultimately the leaders had the context of the situation, they knew what was going on, they were right, and things like this haven’t happened again (to my knowledge) to this person, so it isn’t likely there was ever a medical problem. But Rob was very right in that we weren’t sure they didn’t bang their head when they passed out, or what because the door was closed.

I’m still at a little bit of a loss for this kind of stuff, I have a much more firm idea about what I’m going to do. (Like treat for shock first, then start praying) I definitely am a little pissed that the guys think it is funny to bring this up (since it is sensative issue for the person, and for us as leaders), when it they were ultimately wrong about it being a medical problem, but were only right about the fact that we didn’t know what happened behind the door. I don’t get why other Christians are so adamantly against this kind of stuff, to the point they can’t even admit they don’t know what is going. Also, I don’t know why some other Christians can’t see a medical problem that needs medical attention for what it is.

I did learn something very valuable, and I think that I might push for this to happen, and that is that small group leaders should do Red Cross first aid and CPR training (I do thank Rob a whole bunch for pointing this out in this situation). It should be definitely available through the church and should be strongly encouraged if not mandatory. The “Learning to Minister Like Jesus” class is mandatory, why shouldn’t first aid be as well. Leaders in similar group situations are required to do that, or it is strongly encouraged (like in Boy Scouts where the troop leaders have almost all been trained in first aid and CPR), so why is it that we don’t do that. Jeff, I hope you just read this whole thing, even though it is long, because I think maybe this is something we should do, and I’ll probably bring it up again. Also, I am reminded with or without the church finding a way to bring this training to the people, I want to go get certified for this stuff, because it is extremely useful in many situations.

OK, so I’m interested what other people think about discerning problems…like is it from God, or is it demonic…is it spiritual, or is it a physical problem. How do you tell, what do you commonly do? And how do you approach skeptical intellectuals with your experiences in the Church? Do you tell them all the wacky stuff, or do you just tell them a few small stories about more tangible stuff. Or do you just focus on the way your life is better now than before?