A Final Word on Todd Bentley: Miracles, Healings and Thin Places
I guess it would be an understatement to say that much has been written of late about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland revival. I could link to some really good posts about the subject, but I'm pushing 40 and I'm not sure I have that many years left in me. So here's my two cents about the whole issue of miracles, healing, etc., notwithstanding (or in light of) the whole Bentley fiasco.
Miracles and healing happen all around us, even if God isn't, and never was, performing any through Todd Bentley. Most of us don't notice, unless its one of those really "glitzy" ones. But even when we do notice, it would be all too easy to view these types of stories, as many people of faith do, within a deistic framework of a distant God who occasionally intervenes to do strange things within an otherwise normal space-time universe.
Beside the obvious danger of completely mischaracterizing the God of the Judeo-Christian worldview, the God of creation and covenant, the God who is at all times intimately involved with His creation, there is an added danger involved with this view, one that I have witnessed all too frequently. And it is a danger aimed specifically at the recipient of the miracle, or the one through whom God makes it happen. It is the danger of false pride, of spiritual arrogance, of feeling that God has a special affinity for those to whom and through whom He performs these acts, that He somehow loves them more than the rest of His creation. It is that tendency, too often realized, that I think causes such stories to be viewed by others with a level of tempered suspicion, a tolerable but annoying condescension.
No one who takes the Bible seriously can realistically question that miracles and healings have played a huge role in the life of the children of God through the centuries. But there is nevertheless an unspoken, patronizing atmosphere emitted about them nowadays, even by the most devout. And again, I think this all stems from viewing these types of stories within the wrong theological context.
Celtic Christians speak about “thin places,” places so awe-inspiringly beautiful that it is said that the curtain there between heaven and earth is especially thin. I love that term, not so much for the places it describes but because of the cosmology, the proper worldview, it presupposes. It incorporates the accurate biblical understanding of the relationship between heaven and earth. The Bible speaks of heaven, God’s realm of being, not as “place up there,” but a reality so intertwined with physical “reality” that the image of a thin curtain separating the two is one of the most appropriate metaphors we can use.
And yes, there are places, objects, moments, situations, states of consciousness, where that curtain is perceived to be especially thin, sometimes even practically non-existent, like in the temple in Jerusalem in the Old Testament. Like in the outrageous party thrown by the prodigal’s father upon his son’s return, mirroring the “joy in the presence of the angels” that was occurring at precisely that same moment.
Like in the moment when a young girl is locked outside of her home in the middle of the night.
We can all, if we allow ourselves, experience these thin places within various and different aspects and contexts of our lives. Some will have visions, some will see angels, some will view majestic mountaintops, some will have a conversation with a criminal who had been executed three days ago, some will feed a hungry homeless person, some will be healed of disease, some will reconcile with estranged friends and family, some will study Scripture together, some will refuse a well-paying job because of the discipline’s slant away from the kingdom, some will accept a job in that same discipline with the intent of planting there a mustard seed, some will campaign for the forgiveness of third world debt, some will hug their child, some will adopt an unwanted child.
And we should, as one body, as one differentiated unity, celebrate these moments, all of them, recognizing them for what they are: present glimpses through especially thin curtains of that wonderful future day when, as Isaiah envisioned, the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The day when, as Paul envisioned, the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. The day, the glorious day, when the curtains will come down to reveal a reality that is, in one sense, so utterly new and shocking that we don’t have the present categories to describe it, but in another sense, so appropriate, so right, that it would bring us to exclaim, “Ah-Ha! Of course!! This is how it should have been all along! This is what we were all striving for!! It all makes sense now! I had been seeing in a mirror, dimly, but now I see face to face!!”
Actually, I'll take back what I said at the start. I bet God was performing miracles and healings to and through Todd Bentley before he became the great revivalist. They just weren't glitzy enough for anyone (including, presumably, Todd) to notice.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
I was reading some of Robert Webber's "Ancient-Future Worship" the other day, and in his chapter on the Eucahrist he had some great things to say. He brought up the theologically liberal slant of the stories being myths, but then exposed the "conservative" sides take on miracles as not really that much better because that view was that things went along as "normal" and God at certain times intervened or just randomly stepped in. He said that Zwingli wrenched the Eucharist from the supernatural, making it merely a remembrance, and making it something that we do. All good stuff (I can't remember if you've read Webber at all, but this book is good).
It just made me think of Wright's take on all of this and those moments when the veil is thin. It seems to be to be so much more scriptural and I love it. I love the notion of "thin places" and appreciate all that you put under its heading because the focus with all of those things is the Kingdom of God, not a random magic trick.
Mofast,
Haven't read any Webber yet, but you're not the first to say that I should. Heading over to Amazon in a sec.
Ya, I think you got it. The "myth" v. "magic trick" polarization is the big culprit here. The Kingdom's a lot more fluid than that.
Now stop playing on the computer and go kiss that new baby of yours!
Grace and Peace.