Christian Living/Church Related | HumanityRenewed

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 5

(This is the fifth and final post in my series comparing and contrasting Christian prayer with a magical worldview. If you missed the previous posts, you can find links to them all in here in part 4.)

I would summarize the differences between the magical and the New Testament views of prayer like this: Magic focuses on the manipulation of spiritual power in order to gain a measure of control over life’s circumstances.

One of the most notable features of ancient magical texts/prayers/spells/incantations is the frequency of words of command. I offer two short examples from the book Ancient Christian Magic:

First, a spell for healing –

Osphe, Osphe, Osphe, Yosphe, Yosphe, Yosphe,

Bibiou, Bibiou, Bibiou

Yasabaoth Adonai, the one who rules over the four corners of the world,

In whatever I want – I, [supply name], child of [ supply name], —

Now, now, at once, at once!

Second, an incantation for the power of blessing and cursing –

Yea, yea, for I admonish you by your manner of going in and your manner of going out and your manner of going up and your manner of coming down, that you shall listen to the words of my mouth and you shall act in accordance with the actions of my hands in every work of mine – every one, whether love or hate, whether favor or condemnation, whether binding or loosening, whether killing or vivifying, whether assembling or scattering, whether establishing or overthrowing…

Notice the various elements discussed in previous posts: the magician uses secret words, names and phrases, repetition, and words of command for the exact result desired. Notice, too, the language of “binding” and “loosing” for the power of blessing and cursing others; language that many Christians use today for their supposed “control” over demonic forces.

These traits all fit with my earlier description of magic as Utilitarian, focused on Immediacy achieved by mastering proper Technique.

In these different ways, the magician became a Master in control of his/her medium. Some people practice to become master musicians, others master woodcarvers, magicians became masters at imploring the spiritual powers to accomplish what they desired.

Petitionary prayer was a method of spiritual control.

I hope it is obvious that the magical goals of power and control are antithetical to Jesus’ own priorities in prayer.

Christian prayer is always directed by the understanding that our heavenly Father is in control, not us. Remember how Jesus taught the disciples to pray in (what we call) The Lord’s Prayer,

Jesus Alone in the Garden, painting by Mikhail Shankov

“Father in heaven, cause your kingdom to come, cause your will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

At his most desperate moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.”

Whatever else may be involved, true Christian prayer begins by surrendering control to God.

We must stop trying to use prayer as a tool for getting what we want, when we want it, as we want it. Because, frankly, we are all too stupid, narrow-minded, selfish and short-sighted to have the foggiest notion of what’s best for us, or what God’s plan may be for us at any given moment.

Recall that even the apostle Paul admitted that his prayer life was entirely dependent on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit because he didn’t understand how he ought to pray or what he ought to request. Paul is wonderfully candid when he writes in Romans 8:26,

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through groans that words cannot express.

We do not know what we ought to pray for.

This is not an excuse to stop praying. It an invitation to surrender our conspiracies at twisting prayer for pious manipulation. I will often stop in the middle of my prayers when I am feeling particularly lost or confused and simply ask the Lord to hear the Spirit’s prayers for me and do whatever the Holy Spirit is requesting — through His “groans that words cannot express” — on my behalf.

No, that’s not a cop-out. It is learning to pray like Paul. It is praying like Jesus.

It is not an excuse to stop bringing our requests before God’s throne. It is a reminder that our final request must always be a heartfelt “not my will, but your will be done.”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 4

(This is the 4^th installment of a series examining the differences between Christian prayer and a pagan, magical worldview. You can find the previous posts here, here and here.)

The fourth distinction I want to make between magic and Christian prayer is the magical emphasis on secret knowledge.

For the magical mindset, incantations, spells, etc. (let’s call them magical prayers) are effective because the properly trained and educated magician knows the secret ingredients, words, phrases and names that make the incantations powerful and effective.

These can include the bizarre ingredients we popularly identify with cartoon witches: frog eyes, bat wings, snake bladders and more. Specialists now debate whether or not such weird recipes were to be taken literally or if, perhaps, they were code words signifying more common items available in the average home. I suspect that we will may never know the answer. But regardless, the average person seeking help from the local magician certainly believed that actual bat wings and newt testicles were essential items in the magician’s bag of potions.

Magicians also knew the secret names and titles that allowed the magician to command the many gods, spirits, and angels required to bring a positive response to a prayer. Every spiritual force had multiple designations. Some

A Victorian pendant inscribed with the ancient, magical word Abracadabra (a near palindrome, which was always popular in magic)

names and titles were public knowledge. But only those who were initiated into “the mysteries” of a spiritual power knew the secret names and titles of that power. When those secret names and titles were used properly, perhaps combined with a potion containing the necessary secret ingredients, then the person offering those magical prayers could expect the designated deity or demon to do exactly what was requested.

We can see a good example of such magical thinking in Acts 19:13-16 when the apostle Paul encounters the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest

Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

This text provides an ancient example of Jewish magical exorcism practiced by Jewish magicians (who were probably entirely orthodox in their religious

beliefs). The sons of Sceva had seen Paul’s successful exorcisms when he declared the resurrected Jesus’ victory over the power of Satan in this world.

As was common in ancient religion, the concept of “personal faith” was not always relevant to religious practice. The Jewish magicians simply latched onto Paul’s use of a new secret name – Jesus.

Here is another example of magical prayer and its emphasis on technique (see the previous post). The Jewish magicians thought they had discovered a new, obviously effective, technique – call upon the secret name of Jesus and watch the demons flee.

Little did they know that Christian prayer is not magic. The results of authentic prayer in the name of Jesus have nothing to do with using the correct technique, or saying the proper phrasing with the right names in the right way.

So, what lessons can we learn?

First, the results of Christian prayer are tied up with personal faith in a real personal relationship with one’s personal Lord and Savior, allowing his Lordship to determine the answers we eventually receive. True prayer is about spiritual intimacy not technique.

Second, there is no hierarchy in the Body of Christ determined by secret or special knowledge. There is no “in group” who is privileged to know the more powerful, more effective ways to pray. Ways that are not available to others who have not yet learned the correct “prayer language,” who haven’t attended the proper conferences or seminars, who haven’t had certain mystical experiences, who have yet to learn the most effective ways to express themselves to God. Such ways of thinking are characteristic of Gnosticism not Christianity.

Third, every Christian should be suspicious of anyone unduly fixated on acquiring and possessing spiritual power. Certain strains of the Christian church seem obsessed with gaining power, exercising power, seeing displays of power, being empowered and living a power-filled life.

Typically, this fixation with power fills the concept with more worldly, pagan notions of power that it does New Testament ideas of power. In fact, I find very little New Testament precedent for this common preoccupation with becoming a more powerful Christian.

For example, let’s look at THE New Testament power- prayer where Paul most explicitly prays for believers to experience more of God’s power, Ephesians 3:14-19:

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

As far as the apostle Paul was concerned, the most vital experience of spiritual power available to any Christian, and the focus of his prayers that fellow believers become endowed with power, concerns the Christian’s daily experience of union with Christ leading us to a deeper and deeper awareness of the eternal, immeasurable, divine fullness of Christ’s love for each of us.

Get that?!

The immeasurable height, depth, length and breadth of Jesus’ love for his people is so infinitely beyond any human ability to comprehend that the most profound operation of God’s eternal power is best realized when a sinful follower of Jesus slowly apprehends a bit more and a bit more and a bit more again of what the full measure of Christ’s love means in his/her life. That blows my mind…

THAT’S a display of divine power in this life, my friends. And it’s the most incredible display of power anyone can ever experience this side of eternity.

A Christian’s Personal Meditation on the Appeal of Suicide

I learned at church this morning that a member family had lost their teenage son to suicide. As a parent myself, I think that I can sympathize — though not truly empathize — with their grief; a pain from which they will never fully recover.

As someone who has grappled with clinical depression for all of his adult life, I can also sympathize — and perhaps even empathize — with the turmoil of the young man who took his own life.

I have been wrestling and praying for a long time now about whether or not I would ever tell you, dear reader, about the day when I tried to do the same thing.

I have decided that I will, soon, but not today.

Instead, I simply want to share a reflective piece that I wrote some months ago when I was in the midst of another depressive episode. I have attempted to describe the way I felt at the time.

My description may not be helpful to anyone else. Everyone has his/her own emotional diction. Mine may not be yours. Perhaps it’s too schmaltzy for your taste, like the really, really bad teenage poetry that was thankfully lost (or torn up) long ago.

But, for those who are left behind after a suicide; those who can’t understand why the person they loved so dearly would ever do such a thing; here is one man’s description of how he feels when he is teetering on the edge and wanting to jump.

Please understand. I am not offering excuses or justifications for suicide. Heaven forbid! Far from it.

But I know that suicide leaves the living with desperate, unanswered, often self-accusatory, questions: “Why?”

Only the deceased can answer that question adequately; but, then again, maybe they couldn’t either. Maybe that’s part of the reason they are gone…I don’t know.

Sometimes depression doesn’t leave cogent answers behind.

Here are my reflections on how I feel when I wish I could be dead:

It’s the loss of cohesion that tips me off.

I can feel the entire polar ice-shelf shift within me. Acres of my psyche split off and fall away, silently sliding into the bottomless, black sea leaving barely a ripple. I don’t know where it goes or why. All I experience is a deep, darkness within.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along…

The actual break goes unnoticed. I can’t say when it began. But I feel like a man consciously unconscious, suddenly aware that he is sinking, drowning. I try to reach out and gasp for air, clamoring for a shard of daylight, the tip of an iceberg. But I remain submerged, my body growing numb, buried beneath a placid surface reflecting nothing.

My feelings are disconnected from reason. The two have no relationship. At least, that is how it feels. My core is frozen, drifting where it will, no longer secured to anything solid or rational.

I am completely alone, even as I am surrounded by people who love me. Their love just doesn’t matter. Not to the way I feel, anyway. Not to the way I see myself.

Life is meaningless, and no amount of self-talk can change that now. It’s too late for another counseling session. All of life has been a colossal waste of time and effort adding up to nothing.

I learned long ago never to “share” these thoughts or feelings with just anyone. Too many accuse me of self-pity. Buck up and soldier on, they say, not realizing that’s all I’ve done for much of my life.

Stop focusing on yourself; look outward, they insist. But wherever I look all I can see is a panoply of reasons for despair. A human parade of pain, suffering and hopelessness.

Tell the coroner that I killed myself with an overdose of self-pity.

The undertow has me now. I recall the many times I swam hard against the current and briefly managed to remain afloat. But I can’t remember that stroke now that I need it again. How did I do it?, I wonder. Perhaps that was my dream self. I have no psychic muscle-memory to bring me towards shore.

There is no shore. Only blackness.

Nothing matters. My strength is spent. It’s not only the unremitting tragedy of life, the futility and aching sadness of this world that pulls me under, but the unbearable weight of nonstop resolve required to keep me above the surface of despair.

My mind can repeat its therapeutic S.O.S. till kingdom come: “You know none of these things are true! There is no good reason for you to feel this way! Count your blessings; count them one by one; count your many blessings, see what God has done!”

I do review my blessings, repeatedly. I know I have many. I haven’t completely lost my mind, after all. I do not forget what God has done. But recollection occurs far, far away, in the distance, beyond the horizon. Memory has no relation to my current drowning. Recollection is the resurrection of dead, dusty data. What difference does any of it make right now?

I am adrift in a dark ocean, going nowhere, meaning nothing, too tired to tread water any longer.

This is the peculiar burden of living. Dying takes only a moment of surrender before the void, then peace. Whereas living is a voracious, unsated beast always demanding more. More energy. More effort. More human contact. More expenditure when all reserves are empty. More than I have left to give.

What the hell does life expect? It has sucked me dry till my insides are a wasteland, an arctic desert with nothing more to give and no more interest in receiving. How much more can God require?

I am already gone. I began to leave a long time ago. My further absence will be grieved temporarily, but not for long. Soon, I will be forgotten, as I have forgotten myself.

Believing in heaven is the blessed curse. It doesn’t keep me rooted. It makes me want to go, sooner rather than later.

There is no good reason to stay.

If you are now or have been considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

Or talk to a friend, a loved one, even a complete stranger. But whatever you do, please do not harm yourself. Reach out, get help, even as you feel that no one can help you.

There is a God who loves you desperately. His son, Jesus Christ, can and will heal you and make you whole. He has done it for me.

How Bad Theology Can Lead to Spiritual Masturbation

I stumbled upon a good collection of articles discussing the gruel-thin, emotional foolishness that characterizes so much of the music and singing that passes for “worship” in many evangelical churches today.

The articles are listed below, all making good points:

“3 Reasons Contemporary Worship IS Declining, and What We Can Do to Help the Church Move On“

“8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Killing Worship“

“Masturbatory Worship and the Contemporary Church“

“’M’ Worship, Exhibit A: Bethel Church Worships Themselves” (complete with an accompanying video to illustrate the problem)

Allow me to add a few observations of my own.

Much of the problem, I believe, is due to deliberate theological ignorance among church leaders, especially so-called “worship leaders” (typically, a person who couldn’t give you the Biblical definition of worship or praise if his/her life depended on it; sadly, their employment status never seems to depend on it). When Biblical and theological foundations are abandoned, foolishness always ensures with predictably damaging consequences. You can count on it.
I have made my own humble attempts to address these problems by offering occasional studies in the Biblical theology of praise, worship (here, here, here, here and here) God’s holiness (here, here, here, here, and here), and few book reviews discussing the “juvenilization” of the American church (here and here).
A widespread, disastrous confusion about both the goals and the distinctly different, intended audiences of (a) seeker-targeted services vs. (b) seeker-sensitive worship (an absolutely horrible idea, regardless of its apparent “effectiveness”) has been a main driver of these problems. See my post addressing the issue here.

Tell Your Elected Officials You Want Peace in Venezuela

The Alliance for Global Justice is leading a world-wide campaign for Peace in Venezuela today, Feb. 7, 2019, in coordination with an international conference occurring in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Their letter begins:

“Today in Montevideo, Uruguay, nations from throughout the world, hosted by Uruguay and Mexico, are meeting “to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country.” Shamefully absent is the Trump administration and its ordained “interim president” Juan Guaido. Instead, the Trump administration is threatening to invade Venezuela and Guaido is calling on the military to betray their oath to the Constitution. The number of voices in Congress raised against Trump’s illegal regime change policies is insignificant.” (emphasis mine)

This link will take you to the webpage that allows you to contact your elected officials to let them know that you oppose the US backed regime change in Venezuela.

Please write your Senators and Representatives today.

The same link also reproduces an excellent article by Michael Weisbrot at The Intercept entitled, “Trump Sanctions, Regime Change Strategy in Venezuela Can Only Cause More Violence and Suffering.”

Below is an excerpt highlighting the degree to which American imperialism serves the purposes of class warfare around the world.

Case in point: the forces now working to unseat Maduro are primarily white and well off. Whereas, Maduro’s supporters are overwhelmingly brown, Indian, poor and marginalized:

“Venezuela is polarized along political lines and has been ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998 and launched his Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition’s attempt to overthrow Chávez in a military coup in 2002, aided and abetted by officials in the George W. Bush administration, as well as the opposition leadership’s vacillating willingness to accept the results of democratic elections in subsequent years laid the groundwork for many years of distrust.

“Venezuela’s political polarization, however, also intersects with a great chasm that permeates most of Latin American society: a division by class and race. As in most of the Americas, the two are correlated. In the opposition protests that have occurred over the past decade, one could see these differences in the clothes worn by pro- versus anti-government protesters and in their skin tones. The opposition crowds and their leaders have been considerably whiter and from higher income groups than Venezuelans who supported the government. In the most recent protests, there has been an increase in anti-government actions in working-class and poor areas in Caracas, but the class and racial divide between Chavistas and opposition has not gone away.

“Another line of Venezuelan polarization is the belief in sovereignty and self-determination. The Chavistas have made independence from the U.S. a centerpiece of their agenda, and their government, when it had money, pursued policies in the hemisphere that sought more independence for the region as well. The opposition and enemies of the Chavista governments, by contrast, have worked closely with the U.S. government for the past two decades — as can be seen in the coordination of this latest attempted coup. Washington’s intervention aggravates the polarization along the lines of sovereignty, and opens the opposition to charges of alignment with a foreign power — and a power that has historically played a terrible role in the region. To appreciate the animosity that this would create, think of how much ill will has been generated in the U.S. by Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, and multiply that by a few orders of magnitude.”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 3

(This is the third installment in a series of posts examining the differences between magical thinking and Christian prayer.)

Human beings tend to be result-oriented creatures.

I doubt that any society is more result-oriented than the United States. As Americans, we tend to think, whether consciously or not, that the best way, the right way to do things is the way most likely to produce the desired results.

What behavior or principle is most useful for achieving my chosen goal? That’s the question.

When I organize my life around answers to that question, I have become a utilitarian. (I know. I’m not being precise. I am omitting the importance of maximizing benefits for as many as possible, but this isn’t a philosophy paper.)

Utilitarianism is at the heart of magical thinking and its practices. The goal of magic is always to achieve a desired result – to make someone fall in love with you; to have a successful business trip; to win the bet; to be cured of an illness; to receive god’s blessing by being promoted at work.

So, why not stay at home and pray for these things by yourself at the household shrine? Didn’t the ancient spirits hear personal prayers? Why go to the trouble of paying for a magician’s help?

Well, you pay the magician because he/she is the expert in knowing how to use the proper techniques for getting what you want.

Ancient magicians and their patrons saw the universe as if it were a cosmic harp. The magician was the well-practiced harp player. He understood that if you can pluck the right cosmic strings in the proper order with the correct

The alchemist’s workshop. Alchemy, the ancient precursor to modern chemistry, was an early form of magic

timing, then the world will sing the specific tune that the magician wants to hear. Those connections are entirely predictable IF you know the necessary way to “pray,” how to cast the right spells, repeat the proper incantations, and position your body accordingly.

The New Testament book of Acts tells a brief story about a magician named Simon who offers an example of magical thinking. It appears in Acts 8:18-20:

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!

Simon was thinking like a typical magician. He assumed that when the apostle’s laid their hands on others and they received the Holy Spirit, he was witnessing an impressive new magical technique; something he hadn’t seen before. So, he responds predictably. Magicians regularly bought and sold their techniques to each other. Archaeologist have uncovered libraries of books and manuscripts where descriptions of these techniques are stockpiled with instructions for how to use them effectively.

Peter’s indignant response captures a classical confrontation between two very different world-views. He knows that the Holy Spirit’s appearance is not due to a human skill in practicing the most effective way to pray while using the correct placement of one’s fingers.

No, the apostle understands that the Holy Spirit is God’s gift given to His children because they need Him. Christian prayer is not magic. There is no “technique” for us to master. The apostle was not a magician.

The most common magical techniques included:

Repetition – key words, names, titles, phrases and letters of the alphabet were said over and over again until repeated for the proper number of times.

Repetition led to persistence – asking for something repeatedly until “getting it right” was essential to striking the right chord, so to speak, so that the cosmic spirits heard the tune they were waiting for.

I suspect that Jesus had these techniques in mind when he told the disciples:

When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)

Sometimes the effectiveness of a magical prayer was a matter of proximity. In other words, some prayers/spells/incantations had to be spoken in the

A magical amulet with Greek inscriptions

vicinity of its subject. Love spells, in particular, were only effective when uttered near the object of one’s affections. Love potions, poured into the appropriate vial, had to be buried near the person’s home, preferably close to the entry way, if they were to work.

It is easy for us moderns to read about these ancient methods of playing the cosmic harp with large doses of incredulity. But you might be surprised at how many modern, evangelical Christians have kept these magical techniques well oiled in the American Utilitarian church.

Years ago, I bumped into an old friend who had left the church we once attended together. I asked how she was doing and if she was attending a new congregation somewhere. She burst with excitement as she described her newfound church home which had finally taught her how to pray properly.

After years of offering what she described as “powerless prayers” for the conversion of her neighbors, she had now learned that “powerful prayers” had to be spoken immediately in front of a neighbor’s doorway. Only when the prayers were proclaimed directly at the home’s front door could they penetrate the hearts of family members.

Folks, that is magical thinking par excellence.

Here is another example.

As a college professor, I was always happy to stay in touch with former students after they graduated. I once received a letter with an accompanying brochure from a recent graduate asking me to pray for his involvement in a large evangelistic campaign to be launched that summer in a major U.S. city.

The brochure was emblazoned with a colorful picture of a hot-air balloon floating over the countryside. Inside was a detailed description of the various preparations underway for the summer’s events. Of course, the central activity was prayer, but not just any kind of prayer.

They were relying on balloon-powered prayer – I kid you not.

The brochure cited Ephesians 2:2, which explains that before following Jesus, the Ephesian Christians “followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

So, because the devil and his minions apparently lived up in the atmosphere according to Ephesians, and because effective, confrontational prayer must happen in close proximity to its subject, the obvious thing to do – or so they thought – was to bind the interfering demons from the wicker basket of a hot air balloon.

I don’t need to tell you how upset I became upon reading how far my former-student had been misled into unbiblical, thoroughly pagan, magical thinking about our Lord Jesus.

Christian prayer is not utilitarian; therefore, it does not depend on technique.

Christian prayer is possible because of the disciple’s personal relationship with our heavenly Father. And because the Father cannot be manipulated, nor does he have any interest in manipulating us, there are no special techniques that make some people’s prayers more powerful than others.

Christian prayer is a personal conversation between Father and child.

What type of father tells his daughter, “I will only respond to your requests or questions if you walk into my presence backwards, repeat the words ‘daddy please, daddy please, daddy please’ in six consecutive stanzas, and then kiss me three times on each cheek.”?

I’ll tell you: A psychotic, control-freak of a father. But that does not describe our God.

Learning to grow in genuine prayer involves matters of spiritual development and maturity, which we don’t have space to take up here. (Again, I recommend reading my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer). Such maturation occurs as a result of spending more and more time with Jesus, becoming more intimidate with our Father in heaven so that we increasingly share in the mind of Christ, living obedient, sacrificial lives.

Growing as a person of prayer has nothing to do with becoming a better technician.

Huge Pro-Maduro Rallies Today in Venezuela

Today the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities were filled with huge crowds of pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies. A site that you will

Massive pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies were held today throughout Venezuela

never see on corporate, mainstream news outlets in this country.

While American talking heads insist that Maduro is an unpopular dictator, the Venezuelan people say otherwise.

I don’t know how to copy video from Twitter, so I have supplied a few of the many links I have found today. Take a look at the vast crowds of pro-government supporters here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Yes, president Maduro also has many opponents. So does Donald Trump. And….?

U.S. officials and their media puppets want the American public to believe that U.S. (military) intervention will rid Venezuela of an unpopular dictator, hated by a majority of his people.

If we all swallow that lie, then we are placated and will remain docile when we subjugate, undoubtedly with bloodshed, another nation for our own selfish, national interests.

In addition, would a real dictator allow anti-government rallies to be led by the upstart, US/CIA backed contender for his presidency? I don’t think so. A dictator would have arrested Guaido and his fellow opposition leaders long ago.

In any case, the one thing followers of Jesus Christ may never be is placated and docile in the face of evil, especially when that evil is being committed in our name by our country.

Citizens of God’s kingdom will stand up and say, “No! This action is wicked and ungodly. It is completely unacceptable. We will not condone such evil with our silence. We will speak and work to stop our government’s unwarranted, illegal use of force.”

Call your elected representatives and tell them, Hands Off Venezuela!

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, 2

Magic is nothing if not practical. It focuses on immediate, temporal concerns first and foremost.

Several archaeological discoveries have unearthed large collections of magical artifacts at the bottoms of ancient wells. For whatever reason, the chthonic deities (the spirits that dwelt below ground) were among the favorite patrons of magical practitioners, so it was common to throw magical artifacts into deep, dark places, like wells, that brought them into closer proximity with the appropriate spiritual powers.

This treasure trove of amulets, pottery shards, lead sheets, and other types of inscriptions afford some insight into the different sorts of problems motivating ancient people to consult their nearest magician.

Almost without exception, the incantations – or prayers, which is what they really were – concern requests for physical healing, business ventures, love interests, family needs, future plans, personal safety, travel, winning bets,

An ancient Jewish magical text, rolled tightly for insertion into an amulet

even cursing enemies.

In other words, the desired benefits of magic focused overwhelmingly on the material aspects of the hear and the now.

The widowed mother of a deathly ill son in John Chrysostom’s congregation (see post #1) was a stereotypical instance of the person most likely to bring prayer requests to the neighborhood witch, sorcerer, priestess or magician.

Which makes the public commendation by her famous pastor all the more significant. She provided a brilliant example of openly, counter-cultural discipleship.

This characteristic trait of ancient magic also provides the first contrast I want to outline between magical thinking and New Testament descriptions of prayer, for the focus of Christian prayer is radically different from magic.

When you read the numerous prayers recorded in the New Testament such immediate, temporal concerns as physical healing, financial worries, business success, love interests, etc. are most noticeable by their absence. The New Testament focus is overwhelmingly placed on the kingdom of God and the disciple’s transformation into a new creation.

Not that personal problems are explicitly excluded. Of course not. Paul tells the Philippians:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (4:6)

So, by all means, Christians are welcome to bring every issue, every personal problem to their Father in heaven, whatever it may be.

John Chrysostom’s elderly congregant was asking Jesus to heal her sick son. And she is praised for turning only to Jesus with her fellow believers, rather than resorting to a magician for a little extra help.

The apostle Paul also seems to have prayed for deliverance from a physical limitation in his life when he mentions his many prayers that Jesus remove a “thorn in his flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). But this passage also highlights the characteristic difference in Christian prayer even when it is for physical healing.

Paul’s request was not simply that “the thorn” be removed for the sake of improving his personal comfort or prolonging his life, but that its removal would somehow, he believed, allow him to become more effective in working for God’s kingdom.

Read through the many petitionary prayers recorded in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s letters. There are quite a few. I even went to the trouble of writing a book to help you with this assignment! (Ha! Aren’t I nice?)

You may be amazed at the consistent redirection of attention. New Testament prayer requests focus like a laser beam on items like growth in personal holiness, obedience to the Holy Spirit, remaining blameless until Judgement Day, and becoming mature disciples who look more and more like Jesus.

The following two examples are typical:

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11)

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)

I suspect that many disciples could benefit from some personal reflection on this score.

A good many of the prayer groups I’ve been a part of over the years sounded a lot more like a collection of magicians than a community of serious disciples. And I include myself in that critique.

What is the primary focus of our prayer lives, both individually and collectively in the church?

Would an ancient eavesdropper to our prayers mark us out as practicing magicians or as devout followers of Jesus Christ?

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts discussing the problems of confusing Christian prayer with magical incantation.)

God’s people have always been tempted to confuse prayer with magic. Bible readers will recall the Old Testament warning that the people of Israel steer well clear of witches, sorcerers and magicians (Deuteronomy 18:10).

Such warnings admit that the the temptation is real. Impotent temptations are easily ignored, so warnings are unnecessary. Only powerful allurements receive their own warning signals well in advance.

Magic is one of those.

Unfortunately, human nature has not changed. Today’s church shares the same tendencies as ancient Israel in its predisposition to blend piety with (sometimes sizeable) doses of magic, to turn intercession into incantation.

The warning against magic is not only for us to stay away from the corner-store medium, crystal ball gazer or the neighborhood séance (though it certainly includes those temptations, too), but to respect the boundary separating Christian prayer from magical practices.

Human beings have always been characterized by impatience, impetuousness and an addiction to material goods such as wealth, power and success. This triumvirate of the tawdry conspire to stir up the human desire for control over God (or whatever spiritual forces we happen to believe in).

The Christian church is no different.

In any gathering of human beings, we will always find an amalgam of the good with the bad. In any Christian congregation, we can see maturity and immaturity, faith and unbelief, genuine prayer and unadulterated magic masquerading as devotion – often as a more attuned, more insightful, deeper brand of devotion.

In my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (Baker, 2006), I tell the story of a fourth century church father, John Chrysostom, who publicly commends an elderly woman in one of his sermons for refusing to resort to a magician’s help as she watched her only son die of an illness.

Placing all of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom she believed was the one and only spiritual power listening intently to every one of her prayer requests, she waited to see what Jesus would do, regardless of the outcome.

Obviously, not everyone in Chrysostom’s congregation was as single-minded in their devotion as was this grieving mother. That’s why he held her up as exemplary, the model of prayerful devotion that every other congregant should emulate.

Here’s the question: Will we hold faithfully to Jesus, even when he says “No” to our most feverish requests?

Every Christian in the ancient world knew exactly where they might turn for a little extra help, especially in times of crisis, if their prayers remained unanswered, if their pleadings and petitions needed a power boost, some additional “uuumph” to speed them on their way to God’s throne.

Find a magician, perhaps a “Christian” magician.

There were lots of them available and plenty (or so it seems) of Christians went to them for help, especially when God’s apparent deafness put the entire process of Christian prayer in doubt. Check out the book Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Harper, 1994) and read an ancient collection of magical “prayers” for yourself.

The 4^th century pastor, John Chrysostom, was addressing a serious problem for his congregation. It remains a serious problem for the church today.

The shape of modern Christian magic in the developed world may have changed, but the substance of Christian magic remains the same in both the developed and undeveloped nations. Magical thinking permeates the church in a variety of ways, but it becomes especially evident in (a) the techniques that we teach people to use when they pray and (b) the role of faith that we urge them to embrace.

This is the first in a series of posts that I hope will help my readers to distinguish between Christian prayer as taught in the New Testament and magical prayers bastardized by the human penchant for quick solutions, visible results and the nurturing of a feeble faith that never wishes to be tested.

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