zeb bradford long - gateways to empowered ministry

7/30/2019 Zeb Bradford Long - Gateways to Empowered Ministry

1/356

the

project

Gateways toEmpowered Ministry

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

by

Rev. Dr. Zeb Bradford Long

Edited by The Rev. Douglas McMurry

Presbyterian & Reformed Ministries International

Revised 2006


2/356

the

project

Gateways toEmpowered Ministry

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

by

Rev. Dr. Zeb Bradford Long

Edited by The Rev. Douglas McMurry

Presbyterian & Reformed Ministries International

Revised 2006


3/356

PRMI DUNAMIS PROJECT

GATEWAYS TO EMPOWERED MINISTRY


4/356



THE DUNAMIS PROJECT

The purpose of the Dunamis Project is to equip an extended fellowship of Christians, both

clergy and lay people, to share in the ministry of the Holy Spirit for and with Jesus Christ. Abiblical model of spiritual leadership is envisioned that embraces prayer, trust, mutual

accountability and a full expression of the spiritual gifts for the advancement of the kingdom

of God and the upbuilding of the Body of Christ.

The Working Manual

This manual is intended to complement the Gateways to Empowered Ministry equipping

event. It is a document that is in process and will continue to be revised and updated to better

meet the needs of the Church and to be faithful to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

This manual is available to those who participate in the equipping retreats of Presbyterian and

Reformed Renewal Ministries International (PRMI)s Dunamis Project. It is for the

participants use as a resource for continued spiritual growth and study. It is also intended to

facilitate his/ her ministry to others and to the Church.

Provided that credit is given to PRMIs Dunamis Project, the charts may be copied and

distributed, but not sold, for the purpose of teaching and ministry.

Project Development

The Dunamis Project is directed by the Reverend Dr. Brad Long, Executive Director of

Presbyterian and Reformed Renewal Ministries International. The original team members

who conceived and developed the overall design of the Dunamis Project are: Clay Bostic,

Andy Buchanan, Amel Whitaker, Charles Bello, Carter Blaisdell, Doug McMurry, and Brad

Long. This planning took place in 1990. The first Dunamis Project Equipping Track started

in February 1991 at Lake George New York. From that time the Dunamis Project has grown

to have multiple tracks in locations strategic to the worldwide move of the Holy Spirit.

To insure faithfulness to the original vision of the Dunamis Project for equipping spiritual

leaders and to maintain orthodox biblical teaching all directors of Dunamis Tracks andteachers are required to be faculty members of the PRMI Dunamis Fellowship.

The Dunamis Project is a ministry of Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries International.

This manual for the Gateways to Empowered Ministry equipping event was written by the

Rev. Dr. Zeb Bradford Long. (Brad Long). Extensive editing, especially in part 1 on


5/356

worldview, was provided by Doug McMurry. Many of the basic concepts embodied in the

teaching are those taught by the Rev. Archer Torrey. Further revisions for the 2006 version

were done by PRMI ministry staff members, Cindy Strickler, Jeanne Kraak and Mary Ellen

Conners.

Books for Further Study and Spiritual Growth

The basic content of the Gateways to Empowered Ministry manual

have been put in narrative book form for further study and

inspiration.

Zeb Bradford Long and Douglas McMurry, Collapse of the Brass

Heaven: Expanding our Worldview to Embrace the Power of God

(Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1994).

This book expands and deepens the teaching on worldview withapplications to the church today.

Zeb Bradford Long and Douglas McMurry, Receiving the Power:

Preparing the Way for the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Chosen

Books, 1996).

This book further elaborates the teaching of the Dunamis manual onthe inward and outward work of the Holy Spirit that is foundational

to a biblical understanding of cooperating with the Holy Spirit in the

work of Jesus Church.

Bringing the Teaching on the Holy Spirit into the Congregation.

The Dunamis Project is designed to equip spiritual leaders. The basic contents of the

Dunamis Project however are essential for igniting and nurturing spiritual renewal in

congregations for growth and mission outreach that is grounded in Scripture and centered in

Jesus Christ.




6/356

The Dunamis Course: For Congregational

Renewal: Course # 1 Experiencing the Person and Work ofthe Holy Spirit

This course consist of ten lessons with video tapes/DVDs tobring the Dunamis teaching to the local congregation. The

course includes, student work books, video taped lessons,

facilitators manual, and a CD ROM disk with the manual and

power points for teaching. The course depends on a PRMI

equipped facilitator.

A weekend event based on the PRMI Dunamis teaching

giving an introduction to the Holy Spirit and providing the

context for nurturing renewal.

This application of the Dunamis teaching has been

developed with the Group for Renewal and Evangelism in

the URC in the United Kingdom.

.

All books, materials and programs are available through the PRMI Office.

Copyright 2006 Zeb Bradford Long

Published by

Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries International

P.O. Box 429

Black Mountain, NC 28711-0429 USA

Office 828-669-7373, FAX 828-669-4880

Web Site: www.prmi.org E-mail: [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


7/356




8/356



Contents:

Gateways to Empowered Ministry

Part 1 - Worldview 7

Part 2 - Streams of Renewal 73

Part 3 - The Holy Spirit and the Trinity 101

Part 4 - The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament 131

Part 5 - Jesus and the Holy Spirit 171

Part 6 - The Four Basic Works of the Holy Spirit 205

Part 7 - The Infilling With the Holy Spirit 227

Part 8 - The Nature and Experience of the Holy Spirits Power 271

Part 9 - Receiving and Growing in the Power of the Holy Spirit 311

Bibliography 343


9/356




10/356

PART ONE

WORLDVIEW


11/356

PART ONE: WORLDVIEW 2

THE PRMI DUMANIS PROJECT



12/356


TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 7

A.INTRODUCTIONTOTHEQUESTION,"ISTHEDUNAMISPROJECTPOSSIBLE?" 7

B.THEWESTERNMAINLINEPROTESTANTCHURCHHASSAIDNO 7

1.IN OUR THEOLOGY 7

a) The Liberal wing of the church 8b) The Evangelical wing of the church 8c) Dispensationalism 8

(1) John Calvin 8

(2) B.B. Warfield 9

(3) Faith Based Solely Upon the Word of God - Profound Mistrust of Experience 9

2.IN OUR PRACTICE 9

C.THEUNDERLYINGPROBLEMISAPHILOSOPHICALPROBLEM,NOTTHEOLOGY 10

1.WE MUST MOVE TO A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF DISCOURSE 10

D.THEMISSIONOLOGIST"DISCOVERS"THEIMPORTANCEOFWORLDVIEW 10

1.THE EXPERIENCE OF DR.CHARLES KRAFT 11

2.THE SEMINAL PAPER "THE FLAW OF THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE BY DR.PAUL G.HIEBERT" 11

II. THE NATURE OF WORLDVIEW 12

A.DEFINITIONOFWORLDVIEW 12

B.WORLDVIEWISCONSTRUCTEDFROMMANYDIFFERENTPARADIGMS 14

C.WORLDVIEWISLARGELYUNCONSCIOUS 14

III. WORLDVIEW BOTH HELPS US SEE AND BLINDS US 14

A.WORLDVIEWHELPSUSSEE 14

B.WORLDVIEWBLINDSUS 15

1.EXAMPLES FROM THE WORLD OF ART 15

a) The Mona Lisa 15b) Chinese painting 15

2.PROJECTIONS OF WHAT WE SEE IN THE MOON 16

3.THE ARTIST, THE NATURALIST, THE LOGGER, EACH SEES THE TREES OF A FOREST DIFFERENTLY

ACCORDING TO THEIR DIFFERENT PARADIGMS164.ACTS: 14:8-18. AFTER THE CRIPPLED MAN WAS HEALED THROUGH PAUL THERE ARE

DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES OF THE SAME OBJECTIVE REALITY 17

5.DELORES WINDER'S "IMPOSSIBLE"EXPERIENCE OF HEALING 17

C.THREECENTERSOFPOWER 18

1.THE SPIRITUAL SPHERE 18

2.THE SOCIAL SPHERE 18




13/356


3.THE MATERIAL SPHERE 18

D.AREASIMPACTEDBYOURPERCEPTIONOFREALITY 20

1.INVESTMENT 20

2.CAUSALITY 20

3.POWER BROKERS 20

E.THREEMAPSOFDIFFERENTWORLDVIEWS 22

1.BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW 222.WESTERN,MATERIALISTIC WORLDVIEW 23

3.ANEW AGE WORLDVIEW 24

F.THEGOSPELAGAINSTALLCULTURES 25

1.WESTERN CULTURE 25

2.EASTERN CULTURE 25

3.ANIMISTIC AND PAGAN CULTURES 26

G.TRUEANDFALSEPARADIGMSABOUTGOD'SPOWER 26

1.GOD'S POWER IS AN ILLUSION, A MYTH 26

2.GOD'S POWER IS THE POWER OF NATURE 26

3.GOD'S POWER IS THE HOLY SPIRIT 27

H.GOD'SPOWERISAVAILABLEONLYTHROUGHPERSONALSURRENDER 27

IV. THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW 28

A.THECOMPONENTSOFTHEMODERNWESTERNWORLDVIEW 28

1.RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650) 28

2.SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) 28

3.APOET'S DESCRIPTION AND CRITIQUE OF THE VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE BEQUEATHED TO US

BY THE ENLIGHTENMENT 28

B.DEVELOPMENTOFTHEWESTERNWORLDVIEW 29

1.AUGUSTINE 29

a) New Age (Manichaean) philosophy 29

b) Science (Academic philosophy) 30c) Augustine sensed that Christ had given certain knowledge that could be relied on more thanthat of the rational mind 30

2.RENE DESCARTES 31

3.CHARLES DARWIN 32

4.SIGMUND FREUD 32

5.KARL MARX 32

6.RUDOLPH BULTMANN 33

C.SHIFTINGPARADIGMSINTHEWESTERNWORLD:HOPEANDDANGERFOR

THECHURCH 33

D.THEFRUITSOFTHISWESTERNWORLDVIEW 34

1.FOR WESTERN CULTURE 34

a) Cultural decline and powerlessness 34b) Political calamity in the rise of neo paganism 35

2.FOR THE WESTERN CHURCH 36

a) Theological questions directly affected by our worldview 36(1) The nature of God 37

(2) What is the source of morals? 37

(3) Our view of the Bible 37




14/356


(4) The Virgin Birth and Incarnation 37

(5) Is the Christian life a matter of faith or works? 38

(6) What is the nature of the Church? 38

(7) The Second Coming of Christ 38

(8) Does God really speak? 39

(9) The gifts of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians12) 39

(10) The reality of the Devil and evil spirits today 39(11) Reflections on the questions 39

V. HOW IS WORLDVIEW EXPANDED? 42

A.EXPANDINGWESTERNRATIONALITYTOINCLUDETHESPIRITUAL 42

B.FACTORSINLEARNINGTOSEEANDEXPERIENCETHESPIRITUAL 42

1.THE WILL TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE 42

2.THE ROLE OF EXPERIENCE 43

3.PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKEUP AND TYPE 43

4.SPIRITUAL AWAKENING 44

5.THE CONTEXT OF LOVE AND TRUST 446.THE PASTORAL PROBLEM: HURT HINDERS OPENNESS 44

7.THE CREDIBLE WITNESS 44

VI. CONCLUSION 45

VII. APPENDIX 1: SIGNS AND WONDERS DID NOT CEASE 46

A.THETHEORYTHATSIGNSANDWONDERSCEASED 46

B.REASONSFORBELIEVINGPOWERMINISTRYISFORTODAY 461.THEY HAVE IN FACT NEVER CEASED 46

2.THE EXPERIENCE OF CROSS-CULTURAL MISSIONARIES OF SIGNS AND WONDERS 46

3.DOES NOT CONFORM TO EXPERIENCE OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE 47

4.NO BIBLICAL BASIS FOR SAYING THEY STOPPED 47

5.THE MARK OF A TRUE APOSTLE WAS HAVING BEEN VISITED BY THE RESURRECTED JESUS 48

6.IN THE NEW TESTAMENT NOT EVERYONE WHO MOVED IN THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT WERE

APOSTLES 49

7.IT IS THE CLEAR TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE THAT NOT JUST THE ORIGINAL APOSTLES, BUT ALL

CHRISTIANS, MAY EXPECT THE EMPOWERING AND GIFT-GIVING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 49

a) Mark 16:17 49

b) John 14:12 50

c) Acts 2:17 50d) Acts 2:39 50

e) I Cor 2:14 50

f) I Corinthians 12:7 50

g) I Corinthians 14:5 50

h) I Corinthians 14:39 51

i) Ephesians 5:18 51




15/356


j) James 5:14-15 51

VIII. TEACHING CHARTS: PART I WORLD VIEW 53

A.THENATUREOFWORLDVIEW 55

B.THREECENTERSOFPOWER 56C.WORLDVIEWMAP1 57

D.WORLDVIEWMAP2 58

E.WORLDVIEWMAP3 59

F.COMPONENTSOFTHEWESTERNWORLDVIEW 60

G.QUESTIONSDIRECTLYAFFECTEDBYOURWORLDVIEW 61

H.EXPANDINGWORLDVIEW 62

I.REASONSFORREJECTINGTHECESSATIONTHEORY 63

J.GROWTHOFMAINLINEVERSUSCHARISMATIC/PENTECOSTALCHURCHES 65




16/356


I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

A. INTRODUCTION TO THE QUESTION, "IS THE DUNAMISPROJECT POSSIBLE?"

The purpose of the Dunamis Project is to equip Christians for ministry empowered by theHoly Spirit for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the glory of Jesus Christ. Ourpreparation for spiritual leadership, evangelism and missions is the same as the first disciples:In addition to three years of receiving Jesus' teaching, following him in ministry, and beingborn again, they were required remain in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power fromon high."

1

We require the same preparation as the first disciples if we are to follow Jesus ministry. Ourintention then, in the Dunamis Project, is to receive and to learn to move in the power of theHoly Spirit. Before embarking upon this project, however, we must deal first with threefundamental philosophical/theological questions, namely:

Is it possible to be empowered by the Holy Spirit as Jesusand the early disciples were?

Is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God, in signs andwonders as recorded in the New Testament, possible today?

In short, is the Dunamis Project a legitimate project for usto undertake?

The Bible and many in the Developing World church would say YES. But in two

fundamental ways the Western Protestant church has answered with a clear NO!

B. THE WESTERN MAINLINE PROTESTANT CHURCHHAS SAID NO

1. In Our Theology

The first rejection has come from the theological assumptions of the mainline WesternProtestant denominations.

1 Luke 24:49




17/356


a) The Liberal wing of the church

Randolph Bultmann profoundly influenced an approach to Biblical study called liberaltheology. Bultmann attempted to demythologize the New Testament, and through radical

form criticism attempted to return to the essence of Jesus' teaching. Any elements of themiraculous or supernatural were presupposed to be additions made by the early Church andwere thus removed.

According to Bultmann, Jesus really did not move in such "supernatural power", nor did Heheal the sick or cast out demons. The supreme miracle, the resurrection, was an event thattook place in the hearts of the disciples not in history. The supernatural events recorded inScripture were viewed as myths added by the early Church.

From the perspective of Bultmann, belief in Christ is defined in existential philosophicalterms, and has been expressed by Christian involvement in current humanitarian/social justicecauses. From the perspective of liberal theology, therefore, there is no basis for us being inpower ministry. The Dunamis Project is impossible.

b) The Evangelical wing of the church

Evangelical churches have often allowed the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, inpreaching, enlightening the Scripture, and conversion. However, "signs and wonders" and theI Corinthians 122 gifts of the Holy Spirit are largely discounted. This has happened through aset of presuppositions brought to biblical interpretation known as "dispensationalism."

c) Dispensationalism

Unlike the proponents of Bultmanns philosophy, many Evangelicals affirm that Jesus and theearly disciples did indeed perform miracles. But through a dispensational theological systemimposed upon Scripture, it is believed that signs and wonders ceased with the close of theapostolic age. Sources of this thought are clear:

(1) John Calvin

But that gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lordwilled to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order tomake the new preaching of the gospel marvelous forever. Therefore,even if we grant to the full that anointing was a sacrament of those

powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, itnow has nothing to do with us, to whom the administering of suchpowers has not been committed.

3

2 Verses 1-113 John Calvin, (Trans by F.L. Battles), Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975) p.

1467. This is about the most negative text found in Calvin against the continuation of the gifts of the Holy




18/356


(2) B.B. Warfield

B.B. Warfield equated the gifts of the Holy Spirit with canonical revelation; with the closingof the canon the gifts ceased.

(3) Faith Based Solely Upon the Word of God - Profound Mistrust ofExperience

In the Evangelical stream there is the insistence that faith must be based upon the Word ofGod alone and not upon experience or emotions which are untrustworthy. This is of coursetrue but often there has come a subtle denial that there may be experience of the objects offaith. Essential to this is the understanding of faith as rational assent to true doctrine aboutGod rather then experientially knowing God.

In other words, it is acceptable to believe in the reality of demons, angels, the living Christ,the empowering of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, and so forth. These are all realities that

are attested to in Scripture. But if one starts to actually encounter demons, angels, JesusChrist, or to receive and use the gifts of the Holy Spirit then one is suspect.

Once again the Dunamis Project is suspect and is either the invitation to heresy or extremism.

2. In Our Practice

The second rejection has come in our practice. For mainline churches (with the exception ofthose touched by the charismatic renewal or the Third Wave) there is little or no expectationthat the Holy Spirit will actually do anything other than informing, inspiring, and buildingfellowship through the word and sacraments.

In most church services everything is a tight and tidy, model of human control with littleroom for God's intervention. The exercise of Spiritual gifts, while not actually forbidden, iseither unexpected, undiscerned, or unwelcome.

The result is that many mainline denominations have had no acceptable context in which wemay experience the empowering, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. These experienceshave often been relegated to the fringes of our culture and our experience.

In summary, both liberal and evangelical churches, whether in their theology or in theirpractice, insofar as they deny the possibility of God's supernatural power today or the presentoperation of the spiritual gifts, have rejected the concept of the Dunamis Project. 4

Spirit. I believe he is speaking in reaction against the Anabaptists and the Catholics. There are many other

references from Calvin that shall appear in these materials that support the continuation of the empowering work

of the Holy Spirit.

4 NB: We shall later show that their rationale is based, not upon the witness of Scripture, but upon philosophical

presuppositions rooted in the Western rationalistic worldview.




19/356


C. THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM IS A PHILOSOPHICALPROBLEM, NOT THEOLOGY

1. We Must Move to a Different Level of Discourse

As long as we deal with this question of the power of God strictly on a theological level orchurch polity level, we are caught in a tight system of belief that will reinterpret any actualexperience of the supernatural in its own terms. For instance, the gift of tongues will beviewed as just a psychological phenomenon. A personal encounter with the awesome wonderof Jesus Christ is interpreted as emotionalism.

The way out of the box is to move to a different level of discourse. We must address themore basic question: what is our view of the nature of reality? In dealing with signs andwonders and power ministry it is essential first to clarify our philosophical presuppositions.Otherwise, our theological understanding will be clouded and our experience limited.

According to C. S. Lewis:

Many people think one can decide whether a miracle occurred in thepast by examining the evidence according to the ordinary rules ofhistorical inquiry. But the ordinary rules cannot be worked until wehave decided whether miracles are possible, and if so, how probablethey are. For if they are impossible, then no amount of historicalevidence will convince us... If, on the other hand, miracles are notintrinsically improbable, and then the existing evidence will besufficient to convince us that quite a number of miracles haveoccurred. The result of our historical inquiries thus depends onthe philosophical views that we have been holding before we evenbegan to look at the evidence. The philosophical question must

therefore come first.5

Before we can overcome objections to, or lack of experience with, the work of the HolySpirit, we must first deal with our philosophical presuppositions and the question ofworldview.

D. THE MISSIONOLOGIST "DISCOVERS" THEIMPORTANCE OF WORLDVIEW

The importance of our worldview, in both determining our religious experience and definingour theology, was introduced to us by cross-cultural missionaries. They found that the people

of other cultures had very different assumptions about the nature of reality. Theseassumptions led to the experience of reality in certain clearly defined ways. These cross-cultural encounters forced them to examine their own worldview. They discovered somedeficiencies that prevented both the understanding and experiencing of certain aspects ofreality.

5 C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: Macmillan, 1947) p. 8.




20/356


1. The Experience of Dr. Charles Kraft

Dr. Charles Kraft, while a missionary in Nigeria, found that he was well prepared throughintensive study and preparation to deal with everything except what the Nigerians consideredto be most important: engaging in the spirit world. He realized that his Western rationalviewpoint was not inclusive enough to contain the supernatural realities that were obviouslyreal to the Christians in Nigeria.

2. The Seminal Paper "The Flaw of the Excluded Middle by Dr.Paul G. Hiebert"

Dr. Paul Hiebert, while in India, had an experience similar to Dr. Kraft's. He was unable to

deal with the supernatural realities that marked everyday life in an Indian village. Most

disturbing was the fact that the Indians expected him, as a missionary and representative of

Jesus Christ, to be able to work in the same spiritual capacity that Jesus had. Hiebert

observed that non-Western people had a worldview that was three-tiered:

The top tier is high religion based on cosmic personalities or forces.It is very distant. The bottom tier is everyday life: marriages, raisingchildren, planting crops, rain and drought, sickness and health, andwhat have you. The middle zone includes the normal way theseeveryday phenomena are influenced by superhuman and supernaturalforces. There is no question in their minds that every day they areinfluenced by spirits, demons, ancestors, goblins, ghosts, magicfetishes, witches, mediums sorcerers, and any number of otherpowers.6

This middle zone, which is also assumed in the Biblical worldview, is largely missing fromthe Western worldview and from the Western Christian experience.

In the 1980s Fuller Theological Seminary, through Paul Hiebert, Peter Wagner, CharlesKraft, and the MC 510 class taught for a limited time by John Wimber, led the way inproviding the theological and philosophical framework for Western Christians to accept thereality of signs and wonders today.

6 C. Peter Wagner, "Christian Life", December 1984, p. 45 (summarizing Paul Hiebert's thesis).




21/356


Chart Illustrating Hieberts Excluded Middle Theory

Transcendental WorldHells, Heavens, Eternity, (Highgod) African Vishnu, Jehovah

RELIGION

UNSEENSUPERNATURAL Supernatural Forces on Earth

Spirits, Ghosts, Ancestors,Demons, Manna, Witchcraft,Holy Spirit, Gifts, Angels,Healing

EXCLUDEDMIDDLE INWESTERNWORLDVIEW

SEEN EMPIRICALEmpirical WorldFolk Sciences, Causeand EffectObservation, Natural Laws

SCIENCE

II. THE NATURE OF WORLDVIEW

The way we experience the power and presence of God is largely based upon our culturallydetermined worldview. Every culture maintains a worldview, a way of interpreting humanexperience in this world. Like a womb, in which we all experience life before birth, it shapesour thinking without our being aware of its influence.

A. DEFINITION OF WORLDVIEW

Our worldview consists of the culturally determined filters through which we perceive andexperience reality. According to Charles H. Kraft

Cultures pattern perceptions of reality into conceptualizations of whatreality can or should be, what is to be regarded as actual, probable,possible or impossible. These conceptualizations form what is termedthe "worldview" of culture. The worldview is the centralsystemization of conceptions of reality to which the members of itsculture assent (largely unconsciously), and from which stems theirvalue system. The worldview lies at the very heart of the culture,touching, interacting with, and strongly influencing every aspect ofthe culture.7

7 Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural

Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979) p.53.




22/356


The following chart and observations come from the teaching of Dr. Charles Kraft.8

SOME BASIC IDEAS ABOUT THE WAY WORLDVIEW HELPS US SEE ANDEXPERIENCE REALITY

1. Through the process of being trained into our culture, we are taught to see as the other

members of our society see.

2. We are strongly indoctrinated long before we seek to make any of our own choices in

perceiving what is real.

3. Seeing is interpreting and not simply observing. (We never just see what is there, rather

we shape our perception of reality by our ideas about reality.)

4. Seeing is selective.

a. We almost always accept what confirms what we have been taught.

b. We usually reject (often by reinterpreting) what doesnt fit what we have been taught.

5. What our culture teaches us becomes a set of filters or lenses through which we see

and experience reality.

The Culturally Determined Filters Through Which We Perceive Reality

All What What we What we Our view of

that we experience analyze reality

happens believe

8 Most of the insights that follow concerning worldview came from Dr. Charles Krafts lectures given to a group

of Taiwanese pastors in 1986. His ideas are used with permission. For more complete teaching on the question

of worldview, see his book Christianity With Power.




23/356


B. WORLDVIEW IS CONSTRUCTED FROM MANYDIFFERENT PARADIGMS

Our worldview is extremely complex and includes many different ingredients, or paradigms.

Paradigms are models of how the world works and how the different parts of our world fittogether. Some examples of paradigms are:

The world functions like a machine; the mind is like a computer.

The world is full of mystery and wonder incomprehensible to our small human minds.

God is a good God who relates to us personally.

God is an abstract force or ideal who relates to us impersonally through natural law.

People are basically good (or evil).

A culture's worldview may have many such paradigms. Some of these may be contradictory.Subgroups within a population of a general worldview may hold different paradigms. Forinstance, the liberal church lacks a paradigm of a "personal Devil" and views evil asignorance or the result of social structure. Fundamentalist or Pentecostal churches often havea lively paradigm of a "personal Devil"--to them evil is embodied in personal beings likeSatan and demons. An individual's worldview may also have contradictory paradigms thatare illogical but that nonetheless exercise a powerful influence upon experience and behavior.

C. WORLDVIEW IS LARGELY UNCONSCIOUS

Much of our worldview is buried in the subconscious mind. It is pervasive, like the water afish swims in, and thus does not often intrude on our awareness. Our worldview hasdeveloped by osmosis through our family, language, and social environment. Rarely is itconsciously or intentionally developed. The unconscious nature of worldview makes it a verydifficult element to change. As a result, it causes great psychological distress whenchallenged or changed.

III. WORLDVIEW BOTH HELPS US SEE ANDBLINDS US

A. WORLDVIEW HELPS US SEE

Our worldview helps us to see things that individually we would not see. This is becausewe see with the collective eyes of our whole culture. We see through the experience ofmany others. In this way we may see some parts of reality more clearly then others.




24/356


B. WORLDVIEW BLINDS US

On the other hand, our worldview makes us blind to other aspects of reality. The

philosophical framework which supports our cultural worldview also determines what wemay fail to see.

1. Examples from the world of art

a) The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a classic example of the Western worldview. Notice that there is ahuman figure in the foreground, while the waterfalls are hazy in the background.(This painting emerges from, and demonstrates, philosophical presuppositions fromChristianity and the Enlightenment: Human beings are created in the image of Godand given dominion over the world. Humankind is the center of the universe).

b) Chinese painting

In Chinese painting, the roles of the images are almost exactly reversed, withwaterfalls and mountains in the foreground, and human figures small and blended intonature. (Chinese painting emerges from, and demonstrates, philosophicalpresuppositions from the concept of the Tao: Human beings chief end is to be inbalance with the rest of the world; the harmony of all things).

It should not surprise us, then, to discover that paintings of Christian saints versusthose of Buddhist saints reveal profoundly different views of reality and the meaningof life. G.K. Chesterton points out the profoundly different visions of reality that are

reflected in Christian and Buddhist art. Each of these art forms reflects very differentworldviews that result in profoundly different experiences of, and perceptions of,reality:

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, thoughunscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, therewas one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean thestartling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in itstechnical style of representation, but in the things that it wasmanifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more oppositethan a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in aChinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps theshortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes

shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. TheBuddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes areheavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted toits crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be anyreal community of spirit between forces that produced symbols sodifferent as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, areperversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence that could




25/356


produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking withpeculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with franticintentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall findsome interesting things.9

2. Projections of what we see in the moon

Our worldview helps us see and experience things differently. This may seem like a silly

question, but what do you see when you look at the moon? In the Western culture, we often

see the man in the moon. People of different cultures see different things in the moon.

Different ways of seeing the moonLocation What is in the moon Worldview reflected

USA, England, Canada,

Europe

The man in the moon Western culture that

makes humans the center

Taiwan, China The rabbit in the moon Chinese mythology and

Taoism

Southern and Central

Brazil

St. George killing the

dragon

Catholic cultural

background

Northern Brazil A heavily burdened

donkey

Reflects the experience of

poverty and oppression

3. The artist, the naturalist, the logger, each sees the trees of aforest differently according to their different paradigms

The artist - sees textures, shades of color, graceful forms.

The naturalist - sees distinct trees with scientific names and life cycles.

The lumberman - sees trees of commercial value, others, "trash trees."

9 G.K. Chesterton, A G.K. Chesterton Anthology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985) p. 303.




26/356


4. Acts: 14:8-18. After the crippled man was healed through Paulthere are different experiences of the same objective reality

The people with a polytheistic worldview thought the gods have come down to us in thelikeness of men! They even called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes!

Paul, with a Biblical worldview, denied that was possible and saw himself only as a humanbeing like them empowered by the Spirit of Jesus. They should worship God not him.

5. Delores Winder's "Impossible" Experience of Healing

PRMI's International Representative Delores Winder experienced an extraordinary healingthat, according to her own worldview, was impossible. Her story is as follows:

At the request of her son she went to a Katherine Kuhlman healing service with herbody encased in plastic from her arms down to the top of her legs. Her neck was heldin a brace. For nineteen and one half years her spine and hips had been irreversiblydegenerating, the medical doctors gave no hope for a cure. The pain was soexcruciating and uncontrollable that, in a procedure performed only on terminally illpatients, they burned out the nerve centers of her brain. The procedure is called a"Teature coredonamy" and can only be undertaken at the assent of three physicians.As a result, Delores had no feeling on the right side of her body from the neck down.On the left side there was no feeling from the breast down. She could walk only whilebeing assisted. "That day they took me to the Kuhlman meeting, the ride over therejust about killed me. So they had to carry me into the meeting."

During the meeting, she started to experience a burning sensation in her leg, which

was medically impossible! It was the beginning of a miracle. By the meeting's endshe was completely restored, to the extent that she had to take off the body cast, andwalked out. Her spine was restored as well as full feeling in her body. Now, whenone sees this spirited, energetic woman nimbly moving from person to person inprayer, one cannot but be filled with wonder and thanksgiving at the grace and powerof God. That, however, was not the reaction of her Christian friends when the miracletook place. For years she and her family had been the recipients of the love and careof their church, but when God actually intervened and healed her, actually answeredthe prayers that had been spoken, it did not fit the peoples' worldview. Delores foundthat she was met with hostility and rejection for having been healed! The reaction ofthe Church was strange. The reality of the miracle was totally ignored by the Church.There was no announcement, no public thanksgiving, nothing, just dead silence.These wonderful, good Christians, who had suffered with her, could not see what God

had done and could not give thanks. Rather, they were profoundly threatened becausethis event did not fit their worldview.

Lest we should be judgmental of the church, Delores, said, "I can say these thingsabout the church because they are facts. I can also say them because the person mostthreatened was me! My worldview had no place for this kind of miraculousintervention by God into our world. If the church people had a hard time dealing with




27/356


the miracle, I had an even harder time. I only believed Jesus as Savior, I had no placein my world for Him being the healer! The miracle just blew everything away,everything that I had believed about Jesus and the way He works in the world. I wasvery angry with God! I wanted to move away to a place where no one knew me andstart over again. That first year was extremely difficult. I had to adjust to a new viewof Christianity and to discover from the Bible that Jesus is more than just the Savior of

our souls. For months I wrestled with scripture and started to rebuild my theology.Part of this was rebuilding my worldview to include the possibility for Jesus workingthe miraculous way that He did in my life."

10

C. THREE CENTERS OF POWER

At the center of a worldview are its power paradigms. Cultures develop worldviews as asearch for the means of survival and as a way of overcoming problems. All cultures aretrying to address the issue of our helplessness in the face of evil and tragedy. They also areseeking power to shape reality and to exercise dominion over the earth. The worldview ofevery culture presents what that culture believes to be the best answer to the need for power.

According to Dr. Charles Kraft, there are three spheres of power from which every culturechooses its weapons against helplessness and adversity:

The following charts show the difference between the Western, the Biblical, and the ThirdWorld worldviews in regards to three different realms of reality. These are the spiritualsphere, the human (or social) sphere, and the material sphere.

11

1. The spiritual sphere

Judeo-Christian, animistic and pagan sub-cultures draw upon spiritual sources of power.

2. The social sphere

Eastern and Islamic cultures tend to place their confidence in the structuring ofrelationships and the lawful ordering of society.

3. The material sphereAll Western cultures have placed their confidence in science and technology to master thematerial world.

10 From a telephone interview with Delores Winder in March 1992. Used by permission. The complete story of

healing may be found in her book, Jesus Set Me Free.11 Charles Kraft, "Worldview and Spiritual Power," Chinese Leadership Conference on Church Renewal, Spring

1987, (School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA) p.10.




28/356


Dr. Kraft's Chart showing the Three Centers of Power

BIBLICAL

CULTURES

WESTERN

CULTURES

2/3 WORLD

CULTURES

SpiritSphere(greatest

concern is God)

Spirit Sphere(God)

SpiritSphere

(often littleconcern for God)

HumanSphere

HumanSphere Human

Sphere

MaterialSphere

MaterialSphere Material

Sphere

As you study the chart above, you should take note of the following characteristics:

1. The proportion of emphasis given to each sphere by each of the cultures.

2. That the lines between the spheres are broken indicates interinfluencing between thespheres.

3. There are differences between the emphases of the three culture types in the SpiritSphere. These may be further indicated as follows. Notice that there is a God Spherebut not a clearly defined Spirit Sphere in American culture, though we may suggest an"undefined" space being felt by more and more people who seem to realize thatscience (the prevalent religion of America) isn't able to account for everything itencounters.

BIBLICAL WESTERN 2/3 WORLD

GodSphere

God Sphere God Sphere

SpiritSphere

Undefined SpiritSphere




29/356


D. AREAS IMPACTED BY OUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY

How we weigh these different spheres of reality has significant practical impact in the three

following areas. These are given from the perspective of Western culture.

1. Investment

First, what we designate as the main source of power will determinewhere we invest our time, money and energy. We Westerners investourselves in the advancement of science and technology and rewardthose who develop these areas. Electric toothbrushes, childrenscomputer games and sixty-inch televisions areall are evidence ofWestern mastery of the material world and are greeted as successes ofWestern expertise.

2. Causality

Second, what we designate as the main source of power will

determine our understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. We

Westerners tend to see our problems as caused by a lack of material

things or material knowledge.

Most sickness, we believe, is caused by natural laws that have been

broken, and we need more scientific knowledge to discover drugs to

solve the problem. We do not believe that the spiritual world

influences the material world, or that God rewards those who seek

Him (except perhaps in heaven after we die). We have lost theconviction that events are caused by the spiritual world impinging on

our here-and-now.

3. Power Brokers

Third, how these spheres of power are weighted will determine whom

we invest with control over our lives and our institutions. Those who

mediate power are given rights to control our social system.

Westerners now give these rights to those skilled in the use of

material power.12

12 The paragraphs on investment, causality and power brokers are summarized from The Collapse of the Brass

Heaven by Zeb Bradford Long and Douglas McMurry (Grand Rapids: Chosen, 1994), pp. 42-45.




30/356


All these forms of power offer themselves as ways of gaining control over the forces aroundus, so that we may take dominion over the earth and even prosper in the face of adversity. Buthuman sin leads also to the corruption of the very power we trust. Each culture is blind to theway its trusted source of power can lead to its own downfall because of sin. In the West,where we trust material power, the problems that threaten to overwhelm us are material ones:

1. We believe that money will solve most problems, and have worked our way into a massivenational debt, which threatens to destroy our monetary system.

2. We believe that drugs are the answer to most health problems, and battle the curse ofillicit drug trafficking and addictions.

3. Superior technology in weaponry enabled Westerners to subjugate other peoplesduring the colonial era. Today the power of the handgun and the assault weapon hasbecome the curse of our inner cities.

The power we trust often becomes the power that curses us.




31/356


E. THREE MAPS OF DIFFERENT WORLDVIEWS

1. Biblical Worldview

Below is a diagram that shows the worldview of the Bible. The Bible was written by human

beings that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. So the Bible reveals to us the way that God sees

reality. From Gods perspective we may discover what is really real.

a) Start with the circle

in the middle. That is

you and your own

experience and

understanding.

b) The lines are

broken to show that the

reality of God, the

Holy Spirit, Angels

and the Devil all

connect with our

reality and the natural

world.

The Bible believes that

both the Holy Spirit

and evil spirits are real

and that they may

effect us.

c) From the Bibles

perspective God is

more real then

anything else in the

whole universe.

d) The Bible also

believes that the

natural world is not

only real but created

good.

HUMAN

REALITY,

The natural

world

Human

relationships

our own

minds and

emotions

GOD

Father &JesusChrist

Is the Creator

and ruler of all

things - visible

and invisible

He is at work

in nature, our

lives, and in

human history

The Holy Spirit - (and

Angels) at work in humanlives - making real - the

Father and Son

The Devil - evilspirits - Satans

kingdom - occult

powers - (ghosts)

The Worldview of the Bible




32/356


2. Western, Materialistic Worldview

This is the world view that has developed since the enlightenment in the West. This

is the view of reality most apt to be assumed in secular colleges and universities. This

is where many people, in the United States, Canada and Western Europe live. EvenChristians and churches have adopted this view of reality, as a result they do not take

seriously a personal God at work in our daily lives.

GOD

Father &Jesus Christ Possiblity ascreator and giver of

natural and moral

law, perhaps as

saviour after death

Doubt as to

whether God

really exits at

all

TheNaturalWorld

HUMAN

REALITY

Humanrelationships

our own

minds and

emotions

The Holy Spirit - (and

Angels) Either do notexist or do not effect the

natural world or history

The Devil - evilspirits - Satans

kingdom - occult

powers - (ghosts)

DOES NOT

EXIST

The Western MaterialisticWorldview

a) Start with the circle

in the middle, this is

the natural world and

our own experience.

For the Western

worldview the natural

world is the part of

reality that is really realand important.

b) THE NATURAL

WORLD is in a closed

circle because even if

God and spiritual

reality does exist, it

does not connect in any

meaningful way with

the natural world or

with human beings.This view of reality

assumes that human

beings are on their own

to create their own

reality. We should not

expect miracles or the

Holy Spirit to speak to

us. Jesus is a great

moral teacher. Is there

life after death?

c) God is still in the picture but He is seen as not connected to this world in any

personal living way. If God is believed in at all, it is as the spiritual force that created

the natural world and built in certain moral laws.




33/356


d) Generally does not believe there is a devil or evil spirits.

3. A New Age Worldview

The world that you are growing up in is very different than your parents. In the West,

a major change is taking place in our worldview. Now there is a much greateropenness to the spiritual and supernatural than ever before. Much of this is coming in

the form of the New Age movement and the occult.

ery

al

e.

ffect

and

s

on.

) Many forms of

a) The New Age

world view takes v

seriously the spiritu

realm. God is seen as

spirit that is often

connected to and

expressed in natur

This way the godcircle includes the

nature circle.

GOD - SPIRIT

-Nature Angels

Spirit Guides

Reincarnation -

Karma

ESP - PsychicPowers

All religionsare true

SEEK YOUR

OWN

ENLIGHTENMENT

!

TheNaturalWorldHUMAN

REALITY

Humanrelationships

our own

minds and

emotions

The Devil - ???

worshipped/denied

New Age Worldview

b) Souls, angels,

spirit guides are all

seen as real and as

beings that may e

human life. Human

life is caught up in

the law of karma

future life isunderstood in term

of rein-carnati

c

revelation are accepted. All religions are seen as true. One must seek their own pathto enlightenment.

d) The new age view of reality seems not to take seriously the reality of a personal

devil and evil spirits. But there are some who worship the devil and seek evil occult

power.




34/356


e) Jesus Christ would be seen as one great teacher among many others.

F. THE GOSPEL AGAINST ALL CULTURES

God sent His Son, Jesus, to confront all cultures and the powers we have learned to trust.Jesus reshapes every cultures worldview to conform to Gods reality as revealed in Scripture.Jesus offers to be our help and our salvation in the midst of trouble. He is worth listening tobecause He has "all authority in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). He sits at the righthand of power (Mark 14:62). He is above every power; indeed, He created all principalitiesand powers for His good pleasure (Colossians 1:16). And He is destroying all dominion,authority and power that would oppose Him (I Corinthians 15:24).

At the end of the age, He will rule this world with an iron scepter, and put all His enemiesunder His feet (Revelation 19:15). Jesus thus confronts every culture, regardless of thepower, at the center of its worldview. How does Jesus confront the cultures of the world inthese sources of power?

1. Western culture

The Western culture tends to reward material attainments with material benefits, and pursuematerial pleasure as the highest goal of "the good life":

"Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comesfrom the mouth of God."(Matthew 4:4)

"Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these thingswill be given to you as well."(Matthew 6:34)

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Forwhat is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (IICorinthians 4:18)

2. Eastern culture

Eastern culture, including Confucian and Islamic faiths, which tend to rely on human beingsenforcing laws on the unregenerate through punishments, rewards and social pressure:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! Youare like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside buton the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. Inthe same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous buton the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew23:27-28)

"A man is not justified by observing the law."(Galatians 2:15)

"But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released




35/356


from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not inthe old way of the written code."(Romans 7:6)

3. Animistic and pagan cultures

Animistic and pagan cultures, which enter into relationship with occult, demonic powers,which are worshipped as "gods," "spirit guides," "supermen," or "archons."

"The most important commandment is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lordour God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God will all your heartand with all your soul and with all your mind and with all yourstrength."(Mark 12:29-30)

"So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elementalspirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sentforth his Son..."(Galatians 4:3)

"He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a publicexample of them, triumphing over them in him."(Colossians 2:15)

G. TRUE AND FALSE PARADIGMS ABOUT GOD'SPOWER

Here are three paradigms about Gods power:

1. God's power is an illusion, a myth

Lady Luck is queen. Natural law is king. Stories about God's mighty acts in the Bible aremyths created by primitive people who didn't know the score.

Example: "Modern man acknowledges as reality only such phenomena or events as arecomprehensible within the framework of the rational order of the universe. He does notacknowledge miracles because they do not fit into this lawful order. When a strange ormarvelous accident occurs, he does not rest until he has found a rational cause."13

2. God's power is the power of nature

God works only through natural laws. You could say that God is natural law. PaulDavies says this about the mind of God: "My feelings about God and the universe havecome about entirely through my science. I hesitate to use the word "God," but in mystudies of the universe I have come to the conclusion that there is some purpose to it." 14

13Rudolf Karl Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958) p. 38.14Paul Davies, "The Mind of God", U.S. News and World Report 23 December 1991: p. 58.




36/356


3. God's power is the Holy Spirit

Gods power is the Holy Spirit, given to those who believe in Jesus. According toAugustine,

Many miracles were wrought to confirm that one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ's ascension to heaven with the flesh in whichHe rose. For these most trustworthy books of ours contain in onenarrative both the miracles that were wrought and the creed whichthey were wrought to confirm. The miracles were published that theymight produce faith. Even now miracles are wrought in the name ofChrist . . .

15

H. GOD'S POWER IS AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH

PERSONAL SURRENDERThe power of God is experienced through an act of personal surrender: The power of God isdifferent from other powers, whether material, social, or spiritual. The power of God cannotbe controlled by human beings. Paul speaks of it as the power of the cross(1 Corinthians 1:17). Only by going through a process of dying to self and surrendering one'slife to God can we have any hope of experiencing the power of God.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up hiscross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it."(Matthew 8:34-35)

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, beingin very nature God, did not consider equality with God something tobe grasped, but made himself nothing..."(Philippians 2:5-6)

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death inorder that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the gloryof the Father, we too may live a new life."(Romans 6:4)

The power of God is available only to those who surrender their life and will to Him, andallow themselves to go where He leads them, and do what He wants them to do. We becomefaucets for His living water, earthen vessels for Him to use. We do not "control" or "use" thepower of God. The power of God is thus different from all other powers at the center of every

worldview. God controls us. We do not control Him.(In my [Doug's] second year of ministry, I was profoundly disillusioned with my faith inrational power. I was ready to surrender my life to God; in my self-surrender, I asked Jesus tobaptize me with his Spirit. The resulting experience of God's love, joy, peace, and powerflowed from that prayer of relinquishment. In recent years, however, many "charismatic"

15 Augustine, The City of God, XVIII.34.




37/356


people have asked for the Holy Spirit for personal benefit, to get a sense of spiritualsuperiority, to gain health, wealth and prosperity, or to prove something to other people.They do not understand the principle of self-surrender and often end up discrediting the HolySpirit.)

IV. THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW

A. THE COMPONENTS OF THE MODERN WESTERNWORLDVIEW

The Western modern worldview may be characterized as Cartesian,Newtonian andRationalistic. This is basically a universe that is rational and governed by natural law andemptied of the spiritual.

1. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)

"I think therefore I am." He introduced the approach to knowledge that began withskepticism. Everything must be doubted. He brought a division between subject and object.Knowledge was obtained by distancing oneself from things rather than by experiencing themor being associated with them. This epistemological method brought a radical break with themedieval worldview. His legacy that we all share is the vision of the universe asmechanical.

16

The result of Descartes is that we moved from a world in which we participated and were partof the whole to an atomistic universe in which things were no more then the sum of theirparts.

2. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Newton built on Galileo's experimental method and through precise mathematicaldescriptions validated the Cartesian view of the world as a vast machine of matter and motionobeying mathematical laws.

3. A Poet's Description and Critique of the View of the UniverseBequeathed to Us by the Enlightenment

So these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us exceptmore and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and

empty of what is divine. The idea of the mystical condition quitedisappeared; one can neither have the firmness of keeping laws northe fun of breaking them. The largeness of this universe had nothingof that freshness and airy outbreak which we have praised in theuniverse of the poet. This modern universe is literally an empire; that

16 Morris Berman, The Re-enchantment of the World (New York: Bantam Books) pp. 20-21.




38/356


is, it is vast, but it is not free. One went into larger and largerwindowless rooms, rooms big with Babylonian perspective; but onenever found the smallest window or a whisper of outer air.

17

B. DEVELOPMENT OF THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW

Westerners once learned to rely on the power of God. God's power paradigms were at thecenter of Western civilization for about 1200 years, from the downfall of paganism, to thebeginning of the Enlightenment. But during the last two hundred years, Westerners haveprogressively abandoned the power of God in favor of material power controlled by rationalprocesses. How has this happened?

1. Augustine

Augustine laid the foundations for the older Western worldview. He explored three ways

of building a worldview, and discovered a philosophy based on Christ to be the best one.Before he arrived at the Christian view, he tried two others:

a) New Age (Manichaean) philosophy

As a youth and an intellectual, Augustine was fascinated with occult; Gnosticteachings that claimed to have been revealed by spirit guides from the spirit world.The knowledge revealed to Mani and Zoroaster, among others, seemed to havegreat power and wisdom, especially when compared to the Bible, which seemed tohim simple-minded. But in the end Augustine tired of it:

Among the Manichees our credulity was mocked by a promise ofcertain knowledge, and then so many most fabulous and absurdthings were imposed to be believed, because they could not bedemonstrated.

18

Augustine began to question whether the claims of Mani were really true. This led him toask, "How can we know anything to be true or false?"--the question of epistemology.

17 G.K. Chesterton, "The Ethics of Elfland," A G.K. Chesterton Anthology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985)

pp. 266-267.18 Augustine, Confessions, translated by John Ryan (New York: Doubleday, 1960) VI.7. Ryan's translation has

been used throughout.




39/356


b) Science (Academic philosophy)

Augustine began to question everything that anyone believed about anythingwhatsoever. He became a skeptic, a habitual doubter:

There half arose in me a thought that those philosophers whom theycall 'Academics' were wiser than the rest, for they held, men ought todoubt everything.

19I wished to be made just as certain of things that

I could not see, as I was certain that seven and three make ten.20

The search for certain knowledge led him to the same method for discovering truththat Rene Descartes later proposed: rational deduction and observation. Augustineeventually rejected this epistemology as too narrow. Life could not be lived undersuch a method, which rejects credible witnesses and all human and divineauthority. The rational mind becomes the only credible witness.

c) Augustine sensed that Christ had given certain knowledge that could berelied on more than that of the rational mind

The Scriptures have value in that they show what Jesus did to open up the powerof God to the Church, they show the proper relationship of the visible to theinvisible, and they fill in areas of truth that the rational mind can never discern.

Since then we were too weak by abstract reasoning to find out truth,and for this very cause needed the authority of Holy Writ, I had nowbegun to believe that You would never have given such excellency ofauthority to that Writ in all lands, had You not willed thereby to bebelieved in, thereby sought.

21

The acid test of this Christian epistemology came in the area of Augustine's struggle againstlust. At his conversion, he was delivered from lust by the power of God's word. "As if beforea peaceful light streaming into my heart, all the dark shadows of doubt fled away." 22Augustine concluded that his faith in Manichaeism had been a "shadowy counterfeit." Andwhile his learning and academic philosophy had not saved him from lust, Christ and thepower of God's word had. "The unlearned start up and take heaven by force, and we with ourlearning, and without heart, lo, we wallow in flesh and blood."

19 Augustine, VI 8.20 Augustine, VI 6.21 Augustine, VI 8.22 Augustine, VIII 20.




40/356


Augustine made room for the power of God in his philosophy, and for the word of Godin his epistemology. He built his worldview on these philosophical assumptions abouttruth and power. Because he was so influential in building the worldview that replacedpaganism through the West, his worldview became, in large measure, the Westernworldview. During the Reformation, for example, Luther (an Augustinian monk) and Calvinquoted Augustine more frequently than anyone else but Jesus himself. They all accepted his

basic understanding of the world in which we live.

2. Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes, in the eighteenth century, offered to build a worldview on a different wayof knowing, and a different power for living. His aim was to develop rules for gainingknowledge, "such that if a man observe them accurately he shall never assume what isfalse as true, and will never spend his mental efforts to no purpose, but will alwaysgradually increase his knowledge and so arrive at a true understanding of all that does notsurpass his powers."23

Descartes believed that he was exploring a totally new epistemology, whereas he was reallyexploring one already rejected by Augustine (Academic philosophy). Descartes, a CatholicChristian, wanted to "prove" the existence of God and of the eternal human soul for thebenefit of "infidels." But his experiment in epistemology had some unexpected long-termresults:

a. Because his method worked best in the material world, those who followedDescartes focused on material sources of power, and denied the spiritual.

b. The rational mind became the trusted means of manipulating the materialworld. The power of God became irrelevant.

c. Descartes wanted people to know God. But his method of knowing God

was rational, not relational. God was removed behind a Plexiglas wall whereHe could be viewed from a distance. Descartes did not show people how tolove God or to communicate with Him.

d. As Cartesian scientists became convinced that the world operates like amachine, wonder and mystery evaporated from the world. Natural laws couldbe understood by applying Descartes' method--and modern science was born.

e. Because credible witnesses were out-of-bounds as a reliable source of truth,the witnesses who testified of Jesus Christ and the works of God in the Biblewere put on the "doubtful" list. Descartes' method eventually led to "higher-critical" biblical scholarship.

23 Rene Descartes, "Rules for the Direction of the Mind," Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 31 (Chicago:

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952).




41/356


3. Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin then supplied a paradigm that fired the imagination of Westernintellectuals from 1859 to the present. More and more scientists became convinced that

evolution explained the powerful processes operating in the world, and that the rationalmind could control these processes because we now were learning to understand them.God was an unnecessary paradigm in our worldview, because we had even arrived at analternative way of explaining human origins. Thus Rene Descartes and Charles Darwin,both Christians, supplied the foundational epistemology and the power paradigms thatenabled the West to abandon the worldview Augustine had supplied.

4. Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud took these paradigms and applied them to the study of the human mind:

We believe that it is possible for scientific work to discoversomething about the reality of the world through which we canincrease our power and according to which we can regulate ourlife. Science has many open, and still more secret, enemies amongthose who cannot forgive it for having weakened religious belief andfor threatening to overthrow it. The more the fruits of knowledgebecome accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline ofreligious belief, at first only of the obsolete and objectionableexpressions of the same, then of its fundamental assumptions also.

24

The field of psychology, like most other fields of education in this century, grew out ofparadigms supplied by Descartes and Darwin. All alike have been shaped byenlightenment and evolutionary paradigms. Freud's influence on all the helping

professions cannot be understated. The power of God was outlawed in all fields of study,because it required us to put confidence in credible witnesses, not the rational mind.

5. Karl Marx

Karl Marx, better than anyone else, applied this enlightenment philosophy in the arena ofpolitics:

When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religionswere overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed inthe 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought itsdeathbattle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas ofreligious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to

the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.... Butcommunism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion,and allmorality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore actsin contradiction to all past historical experience.

25

24 Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (New York: Liveright Publishers, 1928) pp. 95-96.25 Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto .




42/356


Marx fulfilled the prophecy of Descartes himself, who wrote: "Few people would preferthe right to the useful, were they restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectationof another life."

6. Rudolph Bultmann

Rudolph Bultmann and higher-critical scholarship completed the changeover toEnlightenment paradigms by placing the Bible under the glaring surgical lights of scientificanalysis. Higher criticism of the Bible is the attempt to apply Descartes' method to biblicalstudies. The assumption is that science is based on a more powerful and a firmer sort ofknowledge than the mere word of God itself. Therefore, the Bible must be sifted until therational mind comes up with "the real truth of history."

Those who trust the rational mind rather than the power of God tend to explain away therevelations and mighty works of God, including the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, andthe prophetic inspiration that produced the scriptures. Because the power of God cannot berationally discerned, but is experienced by faith in Jesus and the credible witness of the

apostles, higher criticism of the Bible outlaws the power of God in the Bible before it beginsto think. The way we interpret the Bible depends, more than anything else, on thephilosophical presuppositions with which we begin our Bible study. If you do not wish tobelieve in the power of God, you will not see the power of God in the Bible, in creation, or inyour own life. The Western world rejects the power of God, regarding "miracles" as ananomaly that intelligent people do not or should not believe in.

Because European leaders trusted in the rational mind to free us from divine authority andprimitive superstitions alike, twentieth-century Europe was wide open for disaster.

C. SHIFTING PARADIGMS IN THE WESTERN WORLD:HOPE AND DANGER FOR THE CHURCH

There seems to be a major shift of worldview within Western culture. The rationalistic modelof the universe is being expanded to include the irrational, mystical and supernatural. Thereis transition from an atomistic vision of reality to a "systems" or holistic vision.

The harbingers of this world view shift are:

1. The new physics.

2. Ecology which takes seriously the interrelatedness of things.

3. The rise of New Age mysticism and satanic cults.

4. Popular culture taking seriously the supernatural, portrayed in movies likeGhostbusters, ET, The Exorcist, and Halloween.

5. The MTV generation needs to see and to experience before they canbelieve.

6. Serious theological reflection, that accepts the reality of the spiritual and




43/356


the miraculous.

7. The rapid growth and worldwide expansion of the Pentecostal andCharismatic movement. (And most recently the rise of the "Third Wave"which is a syntheses of Charismatic and Evangelical.)

As the worldview shifts, if the Church is to preach the Gospel with power, then the churchmust adjust its wineskins, that is, expand its rational enlightenment worldview to embracewhat in fact is the original Biblical worldview. If this does not happen, there will be a tragicrepeat of the sixteenth century, when the church was so wedded to an Aristotelian scheme ofnature that it was unable to speak the gospel to the new world brought by Newton andGalileo. We are now in danger of hiding in a safe Newtonian world while the rest of societyhas accepted the exploding possibilities of an Einsteinian universe.

D. THE FRUITS OF THIS WESTERN WORLDVIEW

1. For Western Culture

a) Cultural decline and powerlessness

Eight Cultural Indicators

Average DailyTV Viewing

1960 5:06 hours1965 5:29 hours

1970 5:56 hours

1975 6:07 hours

1980 6:36 hours

1985 7:07 hours1990 6:55 hours1992 7:04 hours

(Source- NielsonMedia Research)

AverageSAT Scores

1960 9751965 9691970 9481975 9101980 890

1985 9061990 9001992 899

(Source: TheCollege Board)

Percentage ofIllegitimate Births

1960 5.3%

1970 10.7%

1980 18.4%

1990 26.2%

(Source; National Centerfor Health Statistics)

Children withSingle Mothers

1960 8%

1970 11%

1980 18%

1990 22%

(Source: Bureau ofthe Census; Donald

Hernandez. TheAmerican Child.Resources from

Family, Governmentand the Economy)

Children onWelfare

1960 3.5%1965 4.5%1970 8.5%1975 11.8%1980 11.5%

1985 11.2%1990 11.9%

(Source: Bureau of theCensus; U.S. House of

Representatives)

Teen Suicide Rate

1960 3.6%1965 4.0%1970 5.9%1975 7.6%1980 8.5%1985 10.0%

1990 11.3%

(Source; National Centerfor Health Statistics)

ViolentCrime Rate(per 100,000)

1960 16.11965 20.01970 36.41975 48.8

1980 59.71985 53.31990 73.21991 75.8

(Source: FBI)

Median PrisonSentence*

1954 22.5 days1964 12.1 days1974 5.5 days1984 7.7 days1988 8.5 days

1990 8.0 days

* Serious Crime: murder, rape,robbery, aggravated assault,

burglary, larceny/theft and motorvehicle theft.

(Source; National Centerfor Policy Analysis)




44/356


William Bennett's cultural indicators strongly suggest that Western culture is indecline.26 The decline is widespread. Bennett's indicators show an entire culture thathas abandoned the power of God, and looks to a power that cannot save it--the rationalmind.

It is this conviction, that God is preparing the Church to be an earthen vessel for His

surpassing power, which motivates us to offer the Dunamis Project to train Church leaders tolearn reliance on the power of God, rather than on the faded brilliance of humanachievements.

b) Political calamity in the rise of neo paganism

Calamity! In the spiritual vacuum produced by the modern, scientific worldview, occult,Gnostic neo-Paganism made a startling comeback in Europe during the twentieth century.This, the first worldview option that Augustine had explored and rejected, sneaked intoEurope through the back door. Because cultural and church leaders did not believe in thedemonic, demonic powers were free to roam where they wanted.

At the turn of the century, a high priest of neo-Pagan faith, H. S.Chamberlain, became a confidante to Kaiser Wilhelm II, head of theGerman state. He convinced Wilhelm that vastly powerful spiritualforces had appointed the Kaiser to move Germany to conquer theworld. William Shirer describes Chamberlain: "Since he felt himselfgoaded on by demons, his books (on Wagner, Goethe, Kant,Christianity and race) were written in the grip of a terrible fever, averitable trance, a state of self-induced intoxication..." (The Rise andFall of the Third Reich). The result of this relationship betweenChamberlain and the Kaiser was World War I. At the end of the war,Wilhelm retired to an estate in Doorn, Holland and purchased acollection of occult books, trying to figure out why his faith in occult

powers had so betrayed him.27

Few Germans recognized this demonic spiritual influence because their worldview blindedthem. Besides, demons prefer to remain hidden. And the word "occult" means "hidden." Is itany surprise that people could not see these powers for what they were, given theseconditions?

During his early years in Vienna, Adolf Hitler studied occult religionsas a way of gaining power. He came under the influence of severaloccultists, notably Dieter Eckart, high priest of the Thule Society.Eckart wrote: "Follow Hitler! He will dance, but it is I who havecalled the tune. We have given him the means of communicationwith them. Do not mourn for me: I shall have influenced history

more than any other German. Hitler, like Chamberlain, clearlybecame demonized, as we see in this description of him by his closefriend, Hermann Rauschning: "Hitler stood swaying in his room,

26 Zeb Bradford Long, Douglas McMurry, The Collapse of the Brass Heaven (Grand Rapids: Chosen Books) p.

5127 Gerald Suster, Hitler: The Occult Messiah (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981) pp. 67-76.




45/356


looking wildly about him 'He! He! He's been here!' he gasped. Hislips were blue. Sweat streamed down his face. Suddenly he began toreel off figures, and odd words and broken phrases, entirely devoid ofsense. It sounded horrible".28

Hitler, like Kaiser Wilhelm, was following the first of Augustine's alternatives: occult,

Gnostic religion, in which the power for living comes from knowledge conveyed by"supermen" or "spirit guides. The result of this experiment was World War II. Hitler knewhe was departing from an Enlightenment worldview:

We are now at the end of the Age of Reason. The intellect has grownautocratic, and has become a disease of life. What is called the crisisof science is nothing more than that the gentlemen are beginning tosee of their own accord how they have gone off line with theirobjectivity and independence.

29

The powers that drove Hitler, however, were not, and will not be victorious. As Nazismbegan to crumble, Hermann Goering said it best: "Do you realize what has happened? It is awhole school of thought, an entire conception of the universe that has been defeated.

Spiritual forces will be crushed, the hour of judgment is at hand."30

The rise of Nazism is only one such resurgence of paganism in the spiritual vacuum createdby the western worldview. It is being followed by a number of other such contemporaryrecurrences such as Satanism.

Thus, we see the three worldviews explored by Augustine coming into prominence at varioustimes in Western history. We of PRMI take the position that Augustine ended up with, thatthe power of God is essential to the further survival of Western civilization. Neither therational mind nor New Age hope is capable of lifting us out of a gradual slide into savageryand depravity.

Most Western churches have abandoned Augustine's basic faith in the power of God. As theyhave done so, they have lost the power to minister to a culture sliding into depravity. Themessage that the Reformers borrowed from Augustine still applies to today: Only God cansave us; faith in the power of God is what the Church offers the world. When we abandonthat faith, bedazzled with the husks of scientism and New Ageism, we will end up bereaved ofeverything.

2. For the Western Church

a) Theological questions directly affected by our worldview

28 Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York: Putnam, 1940) p. 256.29 Rauschning pp. 222-223.30 Suster p. 194.




46/356


(1) The nature of God

Is God a personal divine being with whom we may be personally related, or is God a force?

Is our God a static reality that may have taken part in the creation of the universe and to

which we relate through various laws and principles? Or is He a living active God who isacting in human history and relating personally to men and women?

The former view, of course, is classical Deism, once roundly condemned by all trueChristians. Deism said that God left us only two sets of laws, moral and natural. Then Heretired! Many of today's Christians are really deists, but they don't know it.

(2) What is the source of morals?

What is the source of morals? Are they given by God or are they merely the result of culturalconditioning? Related to the question of morals is the nature of conscience. Is conscience

from God or is it merely the internalized values of one's parents? (i.e., Sigmund Freud'ssuperego).

(3) Our view of the Bible

How do you view the Bible? Is the Bible the product of divine revelation given through menand women or is it purely the result of cultural processes that God may have used? Are theprophecies recorded in Scripture actually prophetic predictions of future events or are they thework of editors who shaped and reinterpreted the words of the prophets after the events tookplace? Examples of this are Jeremiah's prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem; Isaiah'sprophecies concerning the coming of Jesus Christ; the prophetic visions in Daniel Chapter 7;and Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing Christ.

(4) The Virgin Birth and Incarnation

The early Church fathers believed that the incarnation of Jesus Christ was of paramountimportance to the faith. The virgin birth was the method used by God to produce the realmiracle -- the Son of God became fully man.

To defend this miracle, and with it the Virgin - Birth - Incarnation cluster of beliefs, the earlychurch fathers were willing to die, to be tortured and harassed by the Roman government forcenturies.

Contrast that view, for which the Apostolic Fathers suffered and died, with William Barclay'scommentary on these same beliefs, taken from his commentary on Matthew.

This passage tells us how Jesus was born by the action of the HolySpirit. It tells us of what we call the virgin birth. The virgin birth is adoctrine that presents us with many difficulties; and it is a doctrinethat our Church does not compel us to accept in the literal and thephysical sense. This is one of the doctrines on which the Church says




47/356


that we have full liberty to come to our own belief and our ownconclusion.

31

What are the "difficulties to which Barclay refers? His worldview could not accept thepossibility of God's miraculous intervention in human history.

(5) Is the Christian life a matter of faith or works?

How do we understand the nature of the Christian life? Is it "supernatural" living inrelationship with a transcendent God? Or is it primarily doing what the rest of societyconcedes is the right and moral thing to do? Does God really guide, provide, teach, inspire,care, fight, judge, bless and answer prayer? Or are these ideas figments of our imagination?Are we in fact on our own, to live out the Christian life purely under our own steam?(Christian Humanism)

(6) What is the nature of the Church?

What is the true nature of the Church? Without denying that the Church is a humancommunity having things in common with other human communities, is the Church also a"divinely created living organism" that partakes of the life of Jesus Christ?

Another way to put this question is to ask whether the Church is to be understood primarily interms of programs, management principles and group process; or in spiritual terms such asfaith, sacraments, prayer, the Word of God, worship of the living God, and Divine guidance.St. John saw the Holy Spirit, the blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus all as realpowers flowing into the body of Christ. (I John 5) Is this true?

(7) The Second Coming of Christ

Is Christ really coming again? Is that an actual possibility? Is His return imminent?

The cross is the symbol of love triumphant in its own integrity, butnot triumphant in the world and society. Society, in fact, conspiredthe cross. Both the state and the church

zeb bradford long - gateways to empowered ministry

Documents