Chapter 1: Signs and Wonders Are for Evangelicals, Too

Chapter 1 of Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural, is Dr. Kraft's story of his personal journey in experiencing the supernatural.  As I read, I was amazed at how similar my story has been to his.  Dr. Kraft was raised in a dispensationalist context.  He became a missionary in Nigeria, where his no power theology was confronted head-on with the reality of witch doctors and animistic beliefs.  Kraft's failure in confronting the witch doctors and prevalent spiritism led him to reevaluate his deeply rooted belief system, which led to an openness to things he had been closed to previously as well as a shifting paradigm through which he  read the Bible.  This openness led Kraft to what he calls a credible witness in John Wimber.  Wimber was teaching a Signs and Wonders course at Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, California, and had come from a similar spiritual background to Kraft.  The thing about Wimber that Kraft liked was his "rational and unemotional, yet clearly powerful and scripturally based approach" (page 8) to the supernatural.  This meant that Kraft was able to follow Wimber's lead and begin to experience Christianity with power for the first time.

I, too, was raised in a dispensationalist context, which led to frustration and a reevaluation of my beliefs when my no power theology failed on the mission field.  My credible witness came through my friendship with brother Albert and brother Ravi, who are my ministry partners in India.  Their balanced and authentic approach to all things supernatural helped me to embrace an openness to such things, which led to the journey that I am still on, as evidenced by this blog series.

I think Kraft's experience has elements to which many of us can relate.  The major hurdle, however, is that many of us have not served as missionaries and many of us have not yet found our credible witness.    Perhaps this blog series can serve as such for some of us...

Favorite quotes from Chapter 1:

I had to a large extent overcome my early dispensational training against the possibility of God working through faith healers today.  But I continued to interpret the Scriptures as I always had, assuming that Jesus' healing ministry was something he could do as God but that I could not do as a mere man.  I still assumed that the "power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases" that Jesus gave the disciples (Lk 9:1) was just for them and a few others in the early centuries of the Christian era.  So though I now believed that a few today might also have been given the gift of healing, I had never seen such a gift in operation.  Therefore I acted as if it didn't exist.  (page 2)

Though we talked a great deal about spiritual things, the Nigerians understood most aspects of spirituality much better than we did.  I'm afraid we were doing what Paul accuses the Galatians of doing: starting in the Spirit but then turning to human power (Gal 3:3).  In the name of Christ, as if this was the best he could offer, we had simply reproduced Western secularized approaches to illness, accident, education, fertility, agriculture, and every other problem of life.  We acted as though Western scientific methods were more effective than prayer.  (pages 4-5)

I want all that God has for us in this area, but in a balanced, reasonable way.  The extremes in power ministry still bother me greatly.  I have no desire to move toward those extremes. ... Ministering in spiritual power was integral to Jesus' ministry.  And he didn't seem to be very emotional about it.  Jesus simply took the authority and exercised the power his Father gave him. Then he deliberately gave the same power and authority to his disciples (Lk 9:1) and later in his ministry instructed them to "teach [your own disciples] to obey everything I have commanded you" (Mt 28:20).  I want to obey whatever Jesus meant by "everything."  (page 8)

Comments

[Kimberly]

hmm... would that "everything" include his crazy economic and social science principals, as well? This Jesus guy could shake up the whole society we've worked so hard to build and maintain!

[Eric]

Kimberly,

I am quite sure that it includes those very things; like, maybe loving our enemies...

[RC]

It was interesting to me that the day you posted this, you also sent out an India update filled with examples of God's power. I don't fully understand what Kraft means by credible witness, but it seems that Albert & Ravi certainly have it.

[Eric]

RC,

Yes, as I typed up that report from the notes I had been sent I had the same thought...

For me, and I think for Kraft as well, a credible witness is needed because of our background. We had been told for so long that God no longer worked in these ways. That continual thought process had to be left behind, and it took a credible witness to do this. We couldn't look to the charismatic or pentecostal world for help because we had been told for so long that those people were off-base and even heretical. Therefore, it took someone who had come out of our tradition or who was very balanced for us to consider an openness to these things. Make sense?

[grace]

Eric,
I really appreciate this perspective. Coming from a charismatic background, it is very interesting for me to see this topic through the balanced approach of a skeptic who is dealing with the supernatural aspect of life.