Borg on the Newtonian Worldview

Marcus Borg gives a brief but exquisite treatment of the modern worldview in The Meaning of Jesus. He writes that worldviews can best be understood as what he calls "macro-lenses" that affect the way we see, understand, and interpret things. "A worldview is one's most basic image of 'what is'--of what is real and what is possible." (9) Worldviews fall into two main categories: religious and secular:

According to the secular worldview, "[there] is only 'this'--and by 'this' I mean the visible world of our ordinary experience." The religious worldview affirms both "'this' and 'more than this.'" Borg clarifies, "A religious worldview sees reality as grounded in the sacred. For a secular worldview, there is no sacred ground." 

And now on to his critique of the Modern Worldview.

"Modernity is dominated by a secular worldview. This image of reality began to emerge in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the birth of modern science. Sometimes called the Newtonian worldview or simply the modern worldview, it sees what is real as the world of matter and energy, space and time, and it sees the universe as a closed system of cause and effect, operating in accord with natural laws. This vision of reality took the Western world by storm, to a large extent because of the impressive accomplishments of the science and technology that it generated. By [the twentieth century], it had become the worldview of mass culture in the West, and most of us were socialized into it." (9-10)

"[The Modern Worldview] is especially corrosive to religion. It reduces reality to the space-time world of matter and energy, thereby making the notion of God problematic and doubtful. It reduces truth to factuality, either scientifically verifiable or historically reliable facts. It raises serious doubts about anything that cannot be accommodated within its framework, including common religious phenomena such as prayer, visions, mystical experiences, extraordinary events, and unusual healings." 

Borg writes about how he used to hold to the Modern Worldview but found himself shaken out of it. "In my thirties, I became aware of how uncritically, unconsciously, and completely I had accepted the modern worldview. I saw that most cultures throughout human history have seen things differently. I realized that there are well-authenticated experiences that radically transcend what the modern worldview can accommodate. I became aware that the modern worldview is itself a relative cultural construction, the product of a particular era in human history. Though it is still dominant in Western culture, I am confident that the time is soon coming when it will seem as archaic and quaint as the Ptolemaic worldview." (10-11)

a cosmic post

[books i've been reading]

Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

by John Dominic Crossan

In the Prologue, Crossan lays out the three intersecting points which guide his reconstruction of the historical Jesus. The first is cross-cultural anthropology. By examining cultures like that of first-century Israel, Crossan hopes to shed light on what we can know about Jesus, who lived in that sort of culture. “This information is crucial since it has no direct connection to Jesus and is therefore not likely to be skewed for or against him.” (xii) The second is Greco-Roman and especially Jewish history. “What is primary here is the situation of the Jewish homeland as a colony of the Roman Empire, as the land bridge between Syria to the north and Egypt to the south, and as a political unit either ruled directly by Roman governors or indirectly by Herodian rulers.” His primary source for this point is Josephus. The third intersecting point is the literary or textual one. Crossan holds to the idea that the synoptic gospels underwent serious revisions and redactions until they reached the form which we currently have in the New Testament canon. He writes that there are three successive levels in the evolution of the synoptic gospels: “retention of original Jesus materials, development of those retained materials, and creation of totally new materials…” (xiii) His proposition is that the synoptic gospels don’t tell us much about Jesus but tell us a lot about the early church and how the church perceived Jesus decades after his life and death. Consequently, the gospels can’t tell us a whole lot about the historical Jesus, unless we are able to “devolve” the gospels by stripping away that which was created and developed by the early church. This isn’t an original take on the gospels and has been Common Currency for a while, at least among a good percentage of gospel scholars; nevertheless (and Crossan doesn’t mention this), the idea that the gospels are windows into the early church rather than windows looking into Jesus has come under a lot of fire lately, and many gospel scholars are revisiting the very paradigms which have guided historical reconstructions of the Third Quest.

In Chapter One, Crossan looks at the similarities between the birth narratives of Caesar Augustus and Jesus of Nazareth. His argument is that just as the birth narratives of Caesar Augustus were “invented” to suit a theological story revolving around the Roman ruler, so it is with Jesus: the birth narratives are creations which carry theological undertones. “[Jesus’ infancy narratives] are not so much the first chapters of Jesus’ life, from which other chapters about the rest of his infancy and youth have been, as it were, hidden or lost, as they are overtures, condensed intertwinings of the dominant themes in the respective gospels to which they serve as introduction and summary.” (5) As far as infancy narratives, only two gospels (Matthew and Luke) contain anything on the matter; both Mark and John begin with John the Baptist at the burgeoning of Jesus’ prophetic career. Crossan argues that Luke’s infancy narrative “sends two powerful messages to hearer or reader: John [the Baptist] is the condensation and consummation of his people’s past, but Jesus is far, far greater than John.” (10) He argues that Matthew’s infancy narrative identifies Jesus as the new Moses: “Just as Pharaoh heard of the predestined child’s arrival and sought to kill him by killing all the infant males, so did Herod the Great with Jesus. And just as Moses’ father refused to accept the general decision of divorce and received a heavenly message through Miriam announcing his child’s destiny, so Joseph considered but rejected divorce from Mary upon receiving an angelic message announcing his child’s destiny. Moses would ‘save my people’ from Egypt, but Jesus would ‘save his people from their sins.’… Jesus flees for refuge to Egypt, the very hand from which Moses finally escaped… Jesus is the new and greater Moses.” (15)

Crossan then turns his attention on the most famous aspect of the birth narratives: the virgin conception. As Matthew puts it, the virgin birth was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah. “That cited prophet is Isaiah 7:14, and the original situation for the prophecy in 734-735 B.C.E. was a failed attempt to persuade Ahaz, king of the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah, which was under attack from the combined forces of Syria and the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, to trust in God rather than appeal to the Assyrian emperor for assistance. Since Ahaz refused assurance of divine assistance, he received instead a prophecy of doom, in Isaiah 7:14-25. Before any ‘young woman shall conceive and bear a son’ and that child ‘knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good’—that is, grows to maturity—both the two attacking kingdoms and Ahaz’s own kingdom would lie devastated. God will indeed be ‘Immanuel,’ that is, ‘God with him’—but in judgment, not salvation.” (16-17) Crossan continues, “The prophecy in Isaiah says nothing whatsoever about a virginal conception. It speaks in Hebrew of an almah, a virgin just married but not yet pregnant with her first child. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the term almah was translated parthenos, which in that context meant exactly the same thing—namely, a newly married virgin.” (17) It seems that Matthew read the Isaiatic prophecy as one of hope rather than doom and “took its term virgin to apply not only to the prior state of the mother but to her continuing state even during and after conception.” Crossan continues, “[Somebody] went seeking in the Old Testament for a text that could be interpreted as prophesying a virginal conception, even if such was never its original meaning. Somebody had already decided on the transcendental importance of the adult Jesus and sought to retroject that significance onto the conception and birth itself. It is not necessary, by the way, to presume that all early Christian traditions viewed Isaiah 7:14 as prophesying a virginal conception for Jesus. Indeed, it cannot be found anywhere outside that tradition independently known to Matthew and Luke and used only in their infancy narratives.” (18) Crossan humorously looks at the interpretation of the virgin birth from the point-of-view of the pagan philosopher Celsus who insisted that “a cover-up for bastardy must have been the real reason for such claims [as the virgin birth]. The illegitimate father was, he claims, a Roman soldier named Panthera, in whose name we catch a mocking and reversed allusion to parthenos, the Greek word for the young woman from Isaiah 7:14.” 

Crossan looks at another aspect of the birth narratives: Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 gives the hope of Israel’s future ruler coming out of Bethlehem. Because Jesus is assumed to be this future ruler, and because it was well-known he was from Nazareth, the authors of Matthew and Luke had to find a way to get him into Bethlehem at birth to make the prophecy stick. Crossan argues that they invented the census that required everyone to return to their place of birth to register; he insists that (a) there’s no historical evidence for such a census while Jesus was being born, and (b) a census done in this manner would be odd. Censuses for taxation purposes didn’t require you to go to your hometown; you registered where you lived, because that’s where you’d be taxed. 

With both the virgin birth and the census, Crossan advocates that (a) we have no historical evidence for such events, and (b) the events themselves were invented by the gospel writers to accomplish the purposes of linking Jesus to Old Testament prophecies. I’ll admit that when it comes to the infancy narratives, I’m not sure what to think; if they are theological constructions, that doesn’t bother me in the least. If, for instance, Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin, and if the return to Bethlehem isn’t historical fact, it doesn’t impact my faith and convictions regarding Jesus in the same way that, say, the implausibility and historical indefensibility of the resurrection would do. The fact of the matter is that the resurrection has far more historical support than the virgin birth; at the same time, the bulk of Crossan’s argument against the historicity of the birth narratives has to do with his particular convictions regarding the evolution of the gospel narratives (a conviction that has been losing support) and that the historical records themselves don’t attest to the virgin birth. This is where we run into the problem of bias: if you approach the gospels as historical texts, applying to them the same historical methods and scrutinizes that you apply to the works of, say, Josephus or Cicero, then you are forced to conclude that they carry the same historical significance of either. The problem is that the gospels are theological in nature, and history as such doesn’t deal with the meaning of events (whether theological or mythological) but with the events themselves; because the gospels carry theological meanings that cannot be missed, they are placed by default in a category of their own. Because they are theological, they cannot be historical. This bias against the gospels as history is due not to historical analyses but to assumptions regarding history. My point is that if you consistently apply the historical method to the gospels in the same way that you apply them to other biographies of the same period, then you’re faced with a dilemma: both Matthew and Luke attest to the virgin birth, and in doing so they give the virgin birth more historical credence than a good number of historical events that are taken for granted precisely because they are attested to and do not carry theological meaning.

In Chapter Two, Crossan portrays John the Baptist as an apocalyptic prophet who was gearing up for a divine face-off with Rome by creating a network of peoples who were ready to share in God's new world when God made His move. A major question involves why Herod Antipas had the Baptist killed. After all, "[messianic] claimants must be distinguished from apocalyptic prophets. The latter do not presume any military rebellion but announce instead that transcendental power will soon effect what human resistance cannot imagine--a total victory of good over evil, of us over them, and a world of justice and goodness where earth and heaven coalesce forever." (40) The Baptist falls into the second category; prophets like him "led large crowds into the wilderness so that they could recross the Jordan into the Promised Land, which God would then restore to them as of old under Moses and Joshua." (42) Reenacting Israel's story, the Baptist went "out into the Trans-Jordanian Desert and submitted himself to the Jewish God and Jewish history in a ritual reenactment of the Moses and Joshua conquest of the Promised Land. He became part, thereafter, of a network within the Jewish homeland awaiting... the imminent advent of God as the Coming One. Presumably, God would do what human strength could not do--destroy Roman power--once an adequate critical mass of purified people were ready for such a cataclysmic event." (45-46) Crossan locates the Baptist "among those Jewish and peasant apocalyptic prophets appearing, according to Josephus, from the thirties through the sixties of that terrible first common-era history." (43) Though the gospels portray the Baptist's arrest and subsequent execution due to his criticism of Herod's family and the misplaced promises of the tetrarch, Crossan speculates that Herod Antipas executed John the Baptist because his movement was growing too large and threatening the social fabric of Galilee. Crossan presents Jesus as a disciple of John the Baptist who continued John's work after his death, albeit reworking the message so that he went from being an apocalyptic prophet to an eschatological figure. The term eschatology, as Crossan employs it, indicates "a radical criticism of culture and civilization and thus a fundamental rejection of the world's values and expectations. It describes those who have turned profoundly away from normal life in disappointment or anger, in sorrow or pain, in contempt or abandonment. They imagine another and more perfect world whose alluring visions trivializes the one all around them." (52)

In Chapter Three, Crossan presents Jesus' mission and message about the kingdom of God as a sapiential vision of radical egalitarianism. He begins by defining the kingdom of God: it's about "power and rule, [but] a process much more than a place, a way of life much more than a location on earth. The basic question is this: How does human power exercise its rule? The Kingdom of God is people under divine rule--and that, as ideal, transcends and judges all human rule. The focus of discussion is not on kings but on rulers, not on kingdom but on power, not on place but on process. The Kingdom of God is what the world would be if God were directly and immediately in charge." (55) He identifies two types of kingdoms:

(1) The Apocalyptic Kingdom. This type of kingdom "is dependent on the overpowering action of God moving to restore justice and peace to an earth ravished by injustice and oppression. Believers can, at the very most, prepare or persuade, implore or assist its arrival, but its accomplishment is consigned to divine power alone... [Its] consummation would be objectively visible and tangible to all, believers and unbelievers alike, but with appropriately different fates for each group." (55-56) While it would seem evident, by a number of Jesus' teachings, sayings, and stories, that the kingdom of God was much like this, Crossan denies it. He does what most liberal gospel scholars do: he eliminates as ahistorical those things that conflict when his assumptions regarding Jesus. He casts aside anything smacking of apocalyptic, declaring it to be a creation of the early church, and focuses on Jesus' moral or ethical teachings, which fall into the second category:

(2) The Sapiential Kingdom-Vision. "The term sapiential underlines the necessity of wisdom--sapientia in Greek--for discerning how, here and now in this world, one can so live that God's power, rule, and dominion are evidently present to all observers. One enters that kingdom by wisdom or goodness, by virtue, justice, or freedom. It is a style of life for now rather than a hope of life for the future. This is therefore an ethical kingdom..." (56)

This was Jesus' take on the kingdom, Crossan argues, and it's seen most evidently in Jesus' practice of open commensality, "an eating together without using tables as a miniature map of society's vertical discriminations and lateral separations." (69) By dining with the refuse of society, Jesus was both extending the kingdom to "the least of these" and challenging the power of the elite. "Since... Jesus lived out his own parable, the almost predictable counteraccusation to such open commensality would be immediate: Jesus is a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He makes, in other words, no apprioriate distinctions and discriminations." (69) In lieu of the honor and shame inherent in such free dining, Crossan argues that "we might see Jesus' message and program as quaintly eccentric or charmingly iconoclastic (at least at a safe distance), but for those who take their very identity from the eyes of their peers, the idea of eating together and living together without any distinctions, differences, discriminations, or hierarchies is close to the irrational and absurd. And the one who advocates or does it is close to the deviant and the perverted. He has no honor. He has no shame." (70) Because of the groupist mindset of first-century Jews (over against modern individualism), Jesus' actions take on more meaning and carry more weight. My criticism of Crossan's take on the kingdom comes on several fronts: he employs a stretched reading of some passages, and he picks what is historical based on a hunch, totally disregarding apocalyptic texts simply because they don't jive with his assumptions.

In Chapter Four, Crossan examines Jesus' healings and exorcisms. Because Crossan doesn't believe that Jesus performed legitimate miracles or exorcisms (his worldview doesn't allow it), he has to find ways around what the vast majority of gospel scholars, liberal or conservative, seem as standard historical truth: Jesus did heal the sick and he did exorcise demons. To argue that these were invented after his time, or that the peasants of Galilee were too dumb to know the difference, is a gross oversimplification that doesn't carry weight in the scholarly world. In addition, his embracing of modern approaches to illness and disease, and attributing them back onto first-century Judaism, is a logical fallacy: people wouldn't think or understand in those terms. Furthermore, by looking at exorcism from a minority-held sociological perspective, Crossan executes the same fallacy that Richard Dawkins does when he approaches sociology from a biological perspective: he's way out of his league and in over his head. Now let's look at Crossan's take on the two subjects:

Jesus' Healings. Crossan embraces a modern distinction between disease and illness. He builds on the works of both Leon Eisenberg and Arthur Kleinman. Eisenberg argues that "[illnesses] are experiences of disvalued changes in states of being and in social function; disease, in the scientific paradigm of modern medicine, are abnormalities in the structure and function of body organs and systems..." (80) Kleinman, in the same vein, wrote, "Disease refers to a malfunctioning of biological and/or psychological processes, while the term illness refers to the psychosocial experience and meaning of perceived disease. Illness includes secondary personal and social responses to the primary malfunctioning (disease) in the individual's physiological or psychological status (or both)..." (81) Crossan writes, "Disease sees the problem, unrealistically, on the minimal level; illness, realistically, on the wider level... A cure for a disease is absolutely desirable, but in its absence, we can still heal the illness by refusing to ostracize those who have it, by empathizing with their anguish, and by enveloping their sufferings with both respect and love." (81) I don't know if those actually suffering AIDS would see things as black-and-white as Crossan, but let's move past that analysis and ask, "Does this make sense of what we see in the gospels?" Crossan believes the distinction, though modern and unknown to the people of the New Testament, is invaluable in interpreting the gospel stories of Jesus' healings. He asks, "Was [Jesus] curing the disease through an intervention in the physical world, or was he healing the illness through an intervention in the social world? I presume that Jesus, who did not and could not cure [diseases], healed [illness] by refusing to accept the disease's ritual uncleanness and social ostracization." He continues, "By healing the illness without curing the disease, Jesus acted as an alternative boundary keeper in a way subversive to the established procedures of his society." Crossan can't believe in the miraculous healings because of his worldview, and so he must find a way around them, even if the vast majority of scholars accept that Jesus was a miraculous healer. Although clever, Crossan's argument fails because it doesn't take into account the fact that there is no historical reason to doubt that Jesus was a real healer who healed real things. Indeed, even most liberal sketches of "the historical Jesus" factor this into their equation.

Jesus' Exorcisms. When it comes to casting out demons, Crossan is in agreement with most westerners: demons don't exist, and therefore Jesus didn't cast out demons. But how do we make sense of the countless stories of exorcism? As with healings, so with exorcisms: there must be another explanation. Crossan approaches the subject from a sociological perspective, building upon the obscure works of a handful of sociologists who observed that exorcisms seem to flourish in cultures under domination. Crossan argues that belief in (and even manifestation of) demonic possession is directly linked to one's social psyche. "If [people] submit gladly to colonialism, they conspire in their own destruction; if they hate and despise it, they admit that something more powerful than themselves, and therefore to some extent desirable, is hateful and despicable. And what does that do to them?" (91) He continues, "[Colonial] exorcisms are at once less and more than revolution; they are, in fact, individuated symbolic revolution." (91) The split-personality of the Jewish people under rule is the culprit behind the belief in and manifestation of demonic possession. One word: hogwash.

In Chapter Five, Crossan looks at the similarities and differences between Cynic teaching and way of life to Jesus' teachings and Way of Life. "Cynicism was a Greek philosophical movement... The term itself means, literally, 'dogism,' coming from kyon, the Greek word for 'dog,' and it was used, as if quoting a well-known nickname, of Diogenes by Aristotle. It was originally a derogatory term for the provocative shamelessness with which Diogenes deliberately flouted basic human codes of propriety and decency, custom and convention. We use cynicism today to mean belief in nothing or doubt about everything, but what it means philosophically is theoretical disbelief and practical negation of ordinary cultural values and civilized presuppositions." (114-115) The chapter builds to a head, Crossan writing that both the Cynic teachers and Jesus "are populists, appealing to the ordinary people; both are life-style preachers, advocating their position not only by word but by deed, not only in theory but in practice; both use dress and equipment to symbolize dramatically their message. But [Jesus] is rural, they are urban; he is organizing a communal movement, they are following an individual philosophy; and their symbolism demands knapsack and staff, his knapsack and no staff. Maybe Jesus is what peasant Jewish Cynicism looked like." (122)

Chapter Six looks at Jesus' crucifixion at the hands of the Romans. "Passover celebrated the deliverance of the Jews from bondage in Egypt and their departure to conquer the Promised Land. It was obviously a rather dangerous festival in a colonized country with imperial overlords, with Romans replacing Egyptians, as it were--especially as it brought together very large crowds in a very concentrated space... With Jewish police within the Temple courts and Roman auxiliary troops overlooking them from the Antonia fortress to the north, force was poised to stop any trouble before it could begin. But what did Jesus do to get himself crucified?" (127-128) The event that led to Jesus' arrest and crucifixion is encapsulated in Mark 11.15-19, the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers in the Temple's outer courts. Crossan correctly observes, "[There] was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the buying, selling, or money-changing operations conducted in the outer courts of the Temple. Nobody was stealing or defrauding or contaminating the sacred precincts. Those activities were the absolutely necessary concomitants of the fiscal basis and sacrificial purpose of the Temple." (131) What, then, was the purpose? The writer of Mark knew "that Jesus was not just purifying but symbolically destroying the Temple, because he carefully framed his action within the fruitless fig tree's cursing in 11.12-14 and its withering in 11.20." How was Jesus doing this? Crossan writes that Jesus' action "[wasn't] a physical destruction of the Temple, but it is a deliberate symbolic attack. It destroys the Temple by stopping its fiscal, sacrificial, and liturgical operations." (131) Why did Jesus focus on the Temple? Crossan speculates that "the spiritual and economic egalitarianism he preached in Galilee exploded in indignation at the Temple as the seat and symbol of all that was nonegalitarian, patronal, and even oppressive on both the religious and the political level. Jesus' symbolic destruction simply actualized what he had already said in his teachings, effected in his healings, and realized in his mission of open commensality. But the confined and tinderbox atmosphere of the Temple at Passover, especially under Pilate, was not the same as the atmosphere in the rural reaches of Galilee, even under Antipas, and the soldiers moved in immediately to arrest him." (133) Throughout the rest of the chapter, Crossan looks at the passion narrative and the burial stories, attributing both fabrication by the early church. His interpretations are stretched, to say the least, and they don't explain why such fabrications would come up in the first place. Failed messiahs were nothing knew; what was it that set this crucified messiah, probably fed to the dogs rather than buried, apart from all the rest? Crossan has nothing to say on this point despite the question that is begged.

In Chapter Seven, Crossan seeks to explain how the story of Jesus' resurrection came about. He begins this chapter distinguishing between resurrection and apparition, and he writes, "Christian faith experiences the continuation of divine empowerment through Jesus, but that continuation began only after his death and burial... It is precisely that continued experience of the Kingdom of God as strengthened rather than weakened by Jesus' death that is Christian or Easter faith. And that was not the work of one afternoon. Or one year." (161) He believes that after Jesus' death, his followers still felt his presence and empowerment, and they went out as missionaries "in imitation of Jesus' own life-style, practicing free healing and open commensality." (163) He writes that these "early Christians" weren't concerned with Jesus' death and resurrection but "with departure and return, passion and parousia." The idea of bodily resurrection, Crossan theorizes, comes from the odd-bird Paul the Apostle. If it weren't for Paul, Christianity as the continued experience of the crucified Christ wouldn't have been burdened by anything as outlandish as the resurrection. Crossan has no choice but to deal with 1 Corinthians 15.12-20, an early Christian creed predating the gospels and attesting to Jesus' appearing to countless people. He seeks to wiggle out of this "thorn in his side" not by attributing Jesus' appearances to trances, hallucinations, or visions as some scholars have done with laughable success; rather, he interprets the text not as telling us about events so much as telling us about the evolution of leadership in the Jerusalem church. Again Crossan tries to use sociology to dispel any problem areas, and it's about as successful as his attempts at doing the same with demonic possession. Crossan goes on to attribute the nature miracles in the gospels as fictional stories created to portray existential realities after Jesus. These nature miracles, he says, "were not concerned with control over nature before Jesus' death or with entranced apparitions after it; rather, they were quite dramatic and symbolic narratives about power and authority in the early Christian communities." He continues by saying that these stories "tell us nothing whatsoever about the origins of Christian faith but quite a lot about the origins of Christian authority. They tell us about power and leadership in the earliest Christian communities. They tell us about the establishment of leadership groups over general communities and they tell us very clearly about competing specific leaders within and among those groups." (190) Again he seeks to deal with texts by using the broad strokes of sociology.

Crossan has to answer the riddle about the growth of the church and Jesus becoming divine, and he seeks to do this in the Epilogue. He writes that "[those] who had originally experienced divine power through [Jesus'] vision and his example continued to do so after his death. In fact, even more so, because now this power was no longer confined by time or place... Some of Jesus' own followers, who had initially fled from the danger and horror of the crucifixion, talked eventually not just of continued affection or spreading superstition but of resurrection." (197) Christianity flourished, resurrection became a part of the narrative, and by the days of Constantine, other competing views with resurrection were extinguished with the Nicene Creed. One could even say, Crossan postulates, that orthodox Christianity is nothing more than Constantine's Christianity. He has no evidence to back up these claims (and he speaks with such authority that one wouldn't know how much of this he's just making up), and so his explanations are shaky, at best.

Thus throughout this book, Crossan portrays a type of Jesus that is wholly divorced from the Jesus we know today through hymns and doctrine. Jesus was a sort of Jewish Cynic. "Pagan Cynicism involved practice and not just theory, life-style and not just mind-set, in opposition to the cultural heart of Mediterranean civilization--a way of looking and dressing, of eating, living, and relating that announced its contempt for honor and shame, for patronage and clientage. Jesus and his followers... were hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies." (198) He writes, "The historical Jesus was a peasant Jewish Cynic. His peasant village was close enough to a Greco-Roman city like Sepphoris that sight and knowledge of Cynicism are neither inexplicable nor unlikely... His strategy, implicitly for himself and explicitly for his followers, was the combination of free healing and common eating, a religious and economic egalitarianism that negated alike and at once the hierarchical and patronal normalcies of Jewish religion and Roman broker... He was neither broker nor mediator but, somewhat paradoxically, the announcer that neither should exist between humanity and divinity or between humanity and itself. Miracle and parable, healing and eating were calculated to force individuals into unmediated physical and spiritual contact with God and unmediated physical and spiritual contact with one another. He announced, in other words, the unmediated or brokerless Kingdom of God."

*cartoons*

the 62nd week

Martin Luther King Day. Amos and I met up at The Anchor for coffee and conversation. He came over to the Hobbit Hole for a while and then headed up to Mason to see Blake. Tyler took his place in my cozy attic, and we played video games and shot the shit. Tyler headed out, and I drove north up the interstate to see Ams. Amos came over to her apartment, and Ams ordered Chinese food, enough to go around: General Tso's chicken paired with white rice and a glorious amount of crab rangoon. I called Ashley on the way home and did some reading before bed, finishing Marcus Borg's excellent book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

Our Three Month. Today marks my and Ashley's three-month. I kept calling it our two month all day long (maybe it's a tumor?). After coffee at The Anchor, I worked in Blue Ash and then swung by Tyler's place to see him for a bit. We've been trying to hang out more regularly, and I like that; it's just nice to escape the stress and catch up and play jokes and make fun of each other and play video games. He's under a lot of stress with having a baby this year and trying to get things in line, so it's good for him, too. Ashley, Ams and I hung out at Ashley's late into the night, drinking vodka and watching The West Wing. I may have broken up with her a little over a month ago, but I'm glad we kept the ball rolling. 

Wednesday. I skipped coffee at The Anchor and fixed my own at home, reading Karl Payne's Spiritual Warfare in my pajamas with oil lanterns going. I headed up to West Chester and spent the afternoon hanging out with Ashley and Zoey. Chloe's back in school, to Ashley's relief; and Zoey's been in such a better mood since she was moved into Nathan's old room. When Ashley put Zoey down, we relaxed in her room watching episodes of The West Wing and discussing possibly doing Lent together (though Protestant, she has a Catholic heritage). I worked 3-7:00 with the guys and spent the evening reading in the Hobbit Hole; I finished Karl Payne's Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization, and Deliverance. An interesting and provocative read.

Thursday. I went to The Anchor for coffee and started reading John Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. I paid in nickles and dimes and headed up to work in Blue Ash. Ben was sick, so Jason and I went to Gorman Heritage Farms alone and spent an hour cruising around the farm in the golf cart (I call it a go-kart). I stayed in Blue Ash until 4:00 and then surprised Ashley since she had a rough day and was pissed off. Get this: her dentist office has a policy that if you cancel four appointments or are late to your appointment, you're dropped as a client. Three times she went, was forced to wait at least two hours because of "emergency clients," and had to cancel the appointments because she had to get home to get Chloe off the bus. They counted those cancellations against her. Today she was ten minutes late because of ridiculous traffic, and they told her since she was late, she was dropped as a patient. They had charged her $28 for an operation never done, and she demanded her money until they gave it to her, told them how shitty their policies are, and walked out the door, "I hate Middletown," she growled. 

Friday. After coffee and reading at The Anchor, I spent the day with Ashley and the girls. Ams joined us when she got off work. I really like how she and Ashley are such good friends; she hangs out with Ashley as much as I do. I'm glad they have that connection, and that Amanda really likes her not just as my girlfriend but as her friend, too. Ashley had to work for two hours, so Ams and I watched Chloe after Zoey went to sleep. Chloe has become obsessed with Grand Theft Auto V. I should clarify: she's under strict rules NOT to use any of the guns (except in a boxcar, oddly enough). All she does is drive around town and get haircuts and tattoos. Jessie and I talked a little bit today; she asked how things are going with Ashley. I told her really good, and they are: Ashley is one of my best friends, and I love spending time with her. I can be myself around her, don't feel pressure to "put on airs" or be a certain (likable) person. Ashley and I, we're both just as content with a night out to dinner and doing something as we are with a night in, watching through TV series on Netflix or playing video games. No matter what it is I'm doing, it's always better doing it with her, even if it's something mundane.

Saturday. Dad and I met up for breakfast at Waffle House. He was on his way to a hilly race in Devou Park and handed off the Civic's title. We talked about ministry, the job hunt, things with Ashley. "Things with her have been a lot easier since I came to realize that uncertainty isn't the same as intuition. I think because I had so much clarity in my desire to be with Mandy forever so it makes the natural uncertainty in the early stages of a relationship look abnormal. But it's okay not to know those things quite yet. It's normal now to know those things at this point. What I do know is that I like Ashley, she means a lot to me, I love spending time with her, and I don't feel motivated by fear, and nor do I have this compulsion to always put the best foot forward because I know I can't trust her with myself. I can trust her with myself, the Good and the Bad, and there's peace and safety in that." He headed to the race and I went to Ashley's. The girls were with their dad, so we took the opportunity to break our diets and chow down on Indian food at Swad Indian Buffet (it's operated by the old owners of Dusmesh, the ones who ran the place during the Claypole days). I was slated to do an overnight at Ridgecrest, but around 6 PM on shift I started feeling queasy and then promptly puked. I was deemed contagious and not allowed to work. I was relieved at 11 PM even though I was already feeling better. Maybe it was my medicine?

Sunday. I woke feeling better, but not quite at the top of my game. I went to Tyler's to see him and John & Brandy and spent the evening being taken care of by Ashley. She was attentive to my every need, even though I told her I was feeling fine. Ams joined us for a little bit and then headed to Blake's. Ashley and I spent the day hanging out with the girls and watching The West Wing (we're almost done with Season One). I bid her farewell and spent the evening in the Hobbit Hole finishing Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. Three books in one week? It's looking good for my New Year's Resolution. I went to bed pondering how lucky I am to be with a woman like Ashley. She's always expressing appreciation, showing compassion for my weaknesses and encouraging me to grow, submitting to my leadership even though it's pretty shitty a lot of the times. She sees the best in me when I see the worst. She encourages me in my dreams and aspirations, finds my quirks and interests cute. She's always interested in learning the details of what I'm reading and writing. She makes every effort to learn how I work so that she can show her respect and affection better. She's always looking for ways to take care of me, going out of her way to help me and be a support in whatever way she can. I've never known a woman as selfless, sacrificial, and devoted as her. She's passionate about praying together, reading scripture together, and loving God together. We are both human and frail and broken and redeemed. 

on the Jesus Seminar

I've been having a blast reading through the works of some of the most prominent liberal voices in gospel scholarship. Having finished Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, I've started Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. Many of these scholars were part of the Jesus Seminar and hold the Seminar in highest esteem, as the be-all and end-all of gospel studies. I've always found the Jesus Seminar to be more laughable than anything else, and here are a few reasons why.

The Jesus Seminar was a group of over one hundred gospel and bible scholars who came together to collectively vote on the gospel texts; each member cast a bead (ranging from red to black) to signify whether they believed the gospel text in question was historical (i.e. attributable to the historical Jesus). Since its conception and activity in the mid-1980s, the Jesus Seminar has been seen by some as the vanguard of gospel studies; and it's been seen by others as a laughable attempt to reframe Jesus in a pre-set mode. I take the latter approach. 

The scholars who participated in the Jesus Seminar were hand-picked, resulting in a narrow breed of scholars that excluded some of the most prominent names in gospel studies. The verdict was established before the trial even began: the Seminar started with the assumption that Jesus was a traveling sage and wonder-worker, and the authenticity of his sayings and stories were judged against this preconceived notion. Indeed, Jesus had to be a sort of sage for the Seminar to conduct its operation; sages tended to go around giving pithy phrases, aphorisms, and proverbs; the Seminar approached the gospel literature precisely as phrases, aphorisms, and proverbs. 

The Seminar can be seen, at its root, as a reaction against Christian fundamentalism; as such, the Seminar eliminated major themes and motifs in the gospels that the biggest gospel scholars (and even many of the members of the Seminar!) saw as integral and authentic to the historical Jesus. But because those themes and motifs were so fundamental to fundamentalism, they were done away with. My disgruntledness with the Jesus Seminar comes on a few other fronts: 

(1) the counting of the votes erred on the side of inauthenticity, so that if scholars were torn between whether a saying was authentic or inauthentic, the Seminar decided it was probably inauthentic; 

(2) the Seminar assumes that the Jesus tradition consisted of non-Jewish, detached sayings that the early church in the second generation affixed to Jesus in a Jewish setting. This is backwards; it makes far more sense that the early church would operate in the other direction, stripping Jesus of his Jewishness and turning him into some sort of Greek sage or philosopher. The Christian church, after all, became prominently Gentile by the second generation, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the squashing of the Jewish Revolt in A.D. 70 provoked Christians to keep their distance from a Jewish identity out of fear of suffering Roman reprisals. In order for the Jesus' Seminar's method to work, they have to ignore this logic and 

(3) create, almost out of thin air, a picture of the early church that fits with their model of the development of the gospels (disregarding the fact that a growing consensus of biblical scholars are questioning such definitive hypotheses as the Q Document, which supposedly serves as the backbone of the synoptic gospels).

[books i've been reading]

Spiritual Warfare

by Karl Payne

In Chapter One, Payne sets the stage for his book. His purpose is to equip Christians to do battle against their spiritual enemies. Spiritual warfare deals with the Christian’s battle against those anti-God, anti-creation, and anti-man forces that seek to disorient and destroy God’s people. Christians do battle against three particular enemies: the world, the flesh, and demonic powers (the “powers and principalities” of Romans 8 and Ephesians 6). The main thrust of the book is the latter, since Payne’s experience as a deliverance minister has led him to write the book. Observing the difficulty of addressing this topic, Payne writes, “Spiritual warfare is a topic in Christian circles that can easily appear like a swinging pendulum. On one side of the pendulum swing are the groups who refuse to give any credibility to serious discussions regarding satanic/demonic warfare other than hypothetical lip service concerning the most extreme of possible circumstances. There is a natural, rational, psychological, or psychosomatic explanation for nearly all problems, they say… A more probable cause for each supernatural hysteria, they believe, would lie in the areas of faulty reasoning, emotional excesses, sincere but naïve manipulation, poor Bible study methods or, in some instances, fraudulent and deliberate deception. On the other side of the pendulum are groups that appear to credit or blame everything on the presence of satanic/demonization activity at the expense of common sense and the need to take responsibility for one’s own personal actions… [Demons] have somehow evolved from the position of defeated, evil, finite, created creatures into seemingly omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent beings that possess and control everything from coffee cups to Spirit-filled Christians.” Payne, who is a non-charismatic, conservative Baptist minister, works against these polarizations throughout the book, especially in Chapter Three.

In Chapter Two, Payne asks, “How did a non-charismatic, ordained conservative Baptist minister ever begin working with demonized individuals?” (that question is the chapter’s title.) Payne writes about his first two experiences with demonized people: the first was with a neighbor when he was a young man, and the second came many years later when he was a fresh, new preacher. His experience with the second is recounted in detail and is that which opened his eyes to the spiritual “powers and principalities” alive and at work among us today. 

In Chapter Three, Payne distances himself from those who claim that these “powers and principalities” are behind every bad thing that happens. Because of the reputation deliverance ministers have due to Hollywood, Payne emphasizes that his methodology is quiet, un-cinematic, and otherwise normal (if he’s in his office doing deliverance work, his staff can’t tell the difference between that and a prayer meeting). Payne insists that if deliverance ministries are marked by chaos and confusion, then (a) the minister doesn’t know what he’s doing or (b) he’s intentionally doing it that way for the hype. Some deliverance ministers like to blame everything on demonic forces, and these are the ones whose ministries are more like over-the-top circuses. Payne’s not of that persuasion, nor does he believe that everything can be boiled down to having natural (rather than supernatural) causes. Standing in the Middle Ground between the polar approaches to spiritual warfare, Payne blends the two and proposes that some things can be both natural and supernatural in nature. Affirming that not everything negative in life comes down to demonic activity, Payne writes, “[The] challenges and battles we face aren’t always medical or natural in nature… [The] Bible is just as clear that all of the struggles we confront in life are certainly not demonic or supernatural in nature, either. [In Matt 4.23-24] Jesus clearly recognized the difference between physical disease and maladies, deformation, epilepsy, and spiritual demonic bondage… He successfully healed all of the above without apparently deferring to one over the other.” (24) Conversely, “We should be just as aware that the New Testament reveals there are some physical, mental, and emotional problems that actually can have a supernatural cause. These may be specifically supernatural in origin or also have a natural explanation [e.g. Luke 8.26-29, 13.10-11].” Thus those who are “quick to explain recurring problems in strictly medical, mental, or physiological terms, or to find a demon behind every bush, should remember that some of our battles may be a blending or a combination of both the physical and the spiritual.” (25)

Payne then looks at the scope of demonic activity in the Western world today. He writes not from theory but from experience. He establishes that according to the New Testament, demons are real and active in the world. “Jesus certainly acknowledged the reality of spiritual warfare [Matthew 4.1-12, 17.14-20; Luke 13.11-17]. So did Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles [2 Corinthians 10.3-5, 11.1-4, 13-15; Ephesians 6.10-18]; James, Jesus’ half-brother [James 4.7-10]; Peter, the Apostle to the Jews [1 Peter 5.6-9]; Luke, Paul’s personal physician and traveling partner [Luke 10.17-20; Acts 19.13-20]; Jude, another half-brother of Jesus [Jude 6-8]; and John, the Beloved Apostle [Revelation 12:10].” (33)

If the New Testament is so clear, Payne asks, “[why] are so many Evangelical church leaders so hesitant to talk about this topic publicly? Why so hesitant to train people to distinguish between the various tactics and warfare strategies of the world, the flesh, and the devil? The short answer is fear. We fear the unknown, and we fear potential theological associations with groups or individuals who abuse this subject. Failure to prepare for spiritual war can, however, be just as irresponsible as excessive preoccupation with the subject.” Payne agrees with Dr. Mark Bubeck in that “fear is the number one reason demons often successfully defeat Christians.” (32) Comparing the attitude towards demonic activity in the New Testament and the Western world today, Payne writes, “Demons are organized in their work and respond to the highest delegated authority commanding them. They are also predictably consistent. Their arrogant responses [to deliverance ministers] are often an indictment against the church of God rather than a praise. Unfortunately, they seem to feel quite safe around most Christians. And at times, they seem so confident they openly attempt to intimidate those who oppose them with challenges and threats. This is certainly a far different response than what we read about in the New Testament when demons were in the presence of Jesus, Paul, and other early leaders. They were terrified and trembled before these men. Today, at least in North America and Western Europe, they feel free to mock and ridicule.” (34) Payne traces this difference to presuppositions and fear within western culture. “[We] are often either unaware of our delegated authority through Christ over demons, or we are afraid to exercise this authority, even if we intellectually understand the privileges. When we fail to use the delegated privileges we possess in Christ, demons certainly aren’t going to volunteer to cooperate in their own hurt. Although they are often predictable, they certainly aren’t stupid.”

“Most of the time,” Payne writes, “demons would rather systematically deceive people in relative silence than draw attention to themselves. If their presence and opposition become too overt, someone might get suspicious and actually try to get help.” (36) Payne holds to the Kaiser Soze approach to demonic activity; Kevin Spacey’s character in The Usual Suspects, a gimp who masterminded a brutal killing spree, kept himself hidden precisely by appearing innocent. He says, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The Kaiser Soze approach to demonic warfare (which I find credible) is that demonic activity isn’t limited to the Hollywood versions; these spiritual entities are defeated but clever, and they aim to distort and destroy God’s good creation, not least of all His prized image-bearing creatures. Subtlety, in our western culture saturated with the ethos of philosophical naturalism, is the Name of the Game. The aims of demonic powers, Payne writes, are to “destroy those Christ loved enough to die for. They usually focus first on trying to keep people from knowing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. If they fail in this assignment, their next job is to do everything possible to keep that born-again Christian self-absorbed and ineffective in ministering to others.” If Christians, influenced more by the media than by Scripture, perceive demonic activity to be marked by demonic possessions of the sort you hear about from the Philippines, a lack of such activity may be interpreted as evidence that demonic activities are nonexistent; we, after all, know better than that. Demons, Payne argues, don’t need lots of Smoke & Mirrors to accomplish their objectives. The possible “marks” or “symptoms” of demonization vary dramatically, but most often they’re not in the same vein as the spinning head in The Exorcist. Recounting his experiences with deliverance, Payne writes that those afflicted by demonic activity “may battle daily with irrational fears, habitual feelings of inferiority, isolation and rejection, debilitating mental accusation and self-condemnation, and eating disorders. They may experience a seemingly insurmountable battle trying to read their Bible, to pray, or to grow spiritually. They may also have frequent thoughts of harming themselves or suicide, struggle with uncontrolled anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, or lust. They may feel hopelessly and helplessly controlled by sex, gambling, or drug and alcohol addictions. They may also have deep feelings of abandonment and social isolation, typically triggered by the notions that they are too unworthy to have any friends. Very few of these individuals have played with Ouija boards and Tarot cards, howl at the moon, or pray to the devil. A person caught in an unrelenting, downward cycle of mental paralysis, overwhelming feelings of depression, guilt, and spiritual failure is more typical of the Christians I’ve worked with than the media’s sensationalized stereotypes.” (35)

Thus much of the western church’s silence regarding demonization has to do not with biblical truth but with presuppositions and ignorance. If we are ignorant of the fact that demons are real and active in the world around us, and if we are ignorant of the fact that we have authority over them, we are virtually giving them free reign. “[Although] Christ has delegated authority to every Christian over all the powers of the enemy [Luke 10.18-20], only those Christians who exercise this authority will realize the awesome victory.” (37) “Demons are subject to believers through the authority of Jesus Christ. Although they have no fear of believers personally, they are terrified of the One who walks with us.” (39) Because we are in Christ, we have been given victory over the demonic powers in the world. “This is why James and Peter tell us to resist the devil rather than to run from him [James 4.7-10; 1 Peter 5.6-9]. Our confidence and victory are not in our own resources or strength. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords delegates our authority and victory. The Christians’ battle with demonic spirits is not ultimately ‘them against us.’ The real battle is between our master, Jesus Christ, and their master, Satan. The good news is that our Master already won this war at Calvary [Colossians 2.13-15]. Christians who fear a fight with demons don’t understand their delegated authority in Christ. They also misunderstand who is ultimately doing the actual fighting.” (41)

Although most of this book focuses on the third category of spiritual warfare (demonic activity), Payne insists that any book on spiritual warfare must look at the other two enemies: the world and the flesh. To attribute everything to demonic activity is to be ignorant that there are two other enemies who fight against us; conversely, to attribute everything to the world, or to the flesh, at the exclusion of the others is to be no less irresponsible. In Chapter Four, Payne looks at our first enemy: THE WORLD. The world as an enemy is mentioned in James 4.4 and 1 John 2.15-17, among other places. Payne identifies the world as “the current condition of human affairs, in alienation from and opposition to God, e.g., John 7.7, 8.23, 14.30; 1 Corinthians 2.12; Galatians 4.3, 6.14; Colossians 2.8; James 1.27; 1 John 4.5” (45). The world is defined in 1 John 2.16, where the Apostle John writes, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. These three things—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life—are aspects of our enemy “the world.” He defines the Lust of the Flesh as “an external proposition designed to trigger a physiological response in our mind and body.” The lust of the flesh certainly does pertain to pornography and sexual immorality, but Payne includes alcohol abuse, chain-smoking cigarettes, eating disorders, and drug addictions in this category. The Lust of the Eyes “focuses squarely on our desire to have beautiful things, which we believe we must have for contentment. By definition, both the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes in the world’s context deal with external solicitation to sin.” (50) Enviousness, covetousness, and jealousy are all integral parts to the lust of the eyes. The Pride of Life focuses on selfish ambition; while there’s nothing wrong with ambition in and of itself (after all, Proverbs praises the ambitious man over against the lazy fool), this worldly ambition is marked by self-interest over against anyone and everything else. Payne sums up these three aspects of the world on page 56: “[External] propositions designed to trigger physiological urges make up the lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes focuses on our desire to obtain beautiful things others have that we want. And the boastful pride of life deals with selfish ambition.” Payne argues that the best way to fight the world in all its guises is to evaluate its claims over against scripture. Such evaluation is necessary, because without it, we will be easily duped. “[If] someone tells you that the world can’t look appealing, that is a lie. If the world didn’t appear valuable, it wouldn’t be the major problem it represents, even for sincere Christians. The issue isn’t whether the world has tinsel and trappings to offer for our allegiance; the real question is whether or not the price tag that goes along with selling out for temporal treasure is worth the cost.” (65)

In Chapter Five, Payne looks at the second enemy Christians face: THE FLESH. “Galatians 5.16-17 clearly [identifies] the flesh as an internal struggle waging war within us and against us. Recognizing the source of the proposition as either internal or external is the key to discerning whether the immediate source of battle with the flesh is from the world or from our inherited sinful nature.” (70) If the proposition to sin comes from something outside of us—a pornographic website, a billboard advertising a fancy car, or through TV commercials—then it is an attack from the world; if the proposition to sin comes from inside us—from our own desires run amuck—then it is an attack from the flesh. Payne writes, “Although new life in Christ does mean that we are no longer legally slaves of sin, dominated and controlled by fleshly desires, it does not guarantee freedom from daily struggles… We can now choose to let either the flesh or the Spirit control us. Before our conversion, we had no choice in the matter.” (71) Payne is adamant that no matter our maturity in Christ, we will be buffeted by our own sinful desires and impulses. Though we are cleansed in Christ, though we are new creations, we are not yet glorified, and we still toil under the weight of sinful inclinations—though we can toil with victory. “Is there something wrong with me that I have selfish, self-serving thoughts and desires? No, because facing conflicting choices is not the problem. That is a privilege. The issue is the choice I make. I can now choose to serve Christ or myself. I am legally free from the curse and dominion of sin to choose whom I will serve.” (72) He adds, “Christians may claim victory over the flesh moment by moment, day by day. But the pragmatic truth remains that the flesh is a constant enemy and an active challenge for the believer until the Lord changes our corrupted body into an incorruptible one.” Payne gives three different “battle plans” against the flesh, all drawn from scripture: (1) Run (2 Timothy 2.22), (2) Renew the Mind (Eph 4.22-24), and (3) Walk Controlled/Filled by the Spirit. The latter “battle plan” is decisive among Christians because of different interpretations regarding what it means, theologically and pragmatically, to be filled by the Spirit. Payne throws in his two cents (which I agree with): “Galatians 5.16 commands Christians to walk controlled by the Holy Spirit… Ephesians 5.18 commands believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit… The principles and results are the same. The word fill means to control. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be controlled by the Spirit, and to be controlled by the Holy Spirit is to be filled by Him.” (82) He writes, “When believers choose to confess any known sins between themselves and God, and yield total control of their entire lives to God, they are free to ask God the Holy Spirit to supernaturally fill, control, and empower them to serve Christ, and subsequently they have the ability to consistently walk in victory over the flesh.”

Chapter Six focuses on the third enemy Christians face: the devil. The world is our sociological enemy, the flesh is our physiological enemy, and the devil (and his counterparts) is our supernatural enemy. Ephesians 6.16, 1 Peter 5.6-9, and James 4.7-10 acknowledge this enemy as real and encourage Christians to withstand him. Payne writes, "Although demons can attack Christians physically, they more typically focus their accusatory arrows against our minds. Why? As Proverbs 23:7 indicates, if you can control a person's thinking, you can ultimately control his actions... This type of attack is subtle and often more effective than creating an overt spectacle that could wake up even the sleepiest Christian from an apathetic stupor and motivate him to pick his Bible and look for answers." Thus, as Payne makes clear, the Christian's mind is the main battlefield of demonic attack. Revelation 12:10 identifies demonic attacks precisely as that of accusation, and Payne gives three ways to determine if an accusation is from a demonic spirit or is conviction by the Holy Spirit: (1) When the voice, the word, the idea, or the impression whispered in your ear violates scripture, it isn't conviction from the Holy Spirit and it should be ignored; (2) When the voice, the word, the idea, or the impression is vague rather than specific, it is not from the Holy Spirit and should be ignored; (3) When the voice, the word, the idea, or the impression whispered in your ear is consistently demeaning and in second person pronoun, it is not the Holy Spirit, and it should be ignored. On this third point, Payne writes, "A demon is not going to speak to a Christian in a first person singular pronoun because it is not that person. [Rather, a demon will begin using] a second person singular pronoun. 'You' this. 'You' that. 'You' always. 'You' never, and so on. The truth is that we get so used to hearing the accusation and condemnation that we flip the pronouns from the second person to the first person. Slow down the tape and listen carefully; what you hear may surprise you. And if you happen to hear the accusatory voice communicating in a first person plural pronoun--'we'--it may be a clue that you are dealing with more than one demon." (89) When accusations come, we are to pray offensively against the accusations. Psalm 27 is an example of a defensive prayer asking God for protection; Psalm 35.1-8 is an example of an offensive prayer asking God to destroy all that is out to destroy us. On the one hand, Payne takes seriously the Bible's declaration that demonic powers are at work among us and accuse us on a regular basis; on the other hand, this isn't to say that demons lie behind every accusatory thought. "If habitual feelings of unworthiness and condemnation are still mentally debilitating a person after consistently praying offensive prayers, the problem may be physiological or mental rather than demonic." (90) He adds, "It may also indicate the presence of a demon or demons holding ground 'topos' against that person... But if those feelings of unworthiness and condemnation leave as quickly as they arrived, then welcome to the world of demonic warfare." 

"[To] resist demonic attacks," Payne writes, "we must first be able to recognize them for what they really are--lies from the pit of hell. We need to reject and ignore lies, not allow them to control our thinking and actions." (90) The problem many Christians face is ignorance. "[Many] Christians under the fiery attack of demonic archers [Ephesians 6.16] have never learned how to recognize supernatural opposition. There always seems to be a more reasonable explanation than demons, and, when doubtful, they just blame the flesh or a weak will." (86-87) In addition, many Christians shy away from anything resembling spiritual warfare with supernatural forces out of a fear that to get involved will bring them harm. Such fear-based motivation runs contrary to Scripture; after all, Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4.4, 18) and God hasn't given us a spirit of timidity but of power, and love, and discipline (2 Timothy 1.7). Payne points out that while some people believe getting involved in spiritual warfare will make demons scarier and more intimidating, the opposite is true. "[The] more discerning and competent I have become in working with [demonic warfare], the less obvious and more subtle my battles have become... Standing on truth and the delegated authority of Jesus Christ is not an open invitation for demonic bondage. Quite the opposite. When demons realize that a Christian is no longer paralyzed through fear and that he can also shoot back, they hide behind trees rather than march in the open dressed in red coats. Demons are not stupid, and they do not enjoy divine retribution." (91) 

Payne argues against the classic break-down of demonic activity into "oppression" and "possession." He adds a third category: demonization. Oppression is what Christians or non-Christians experience when demons attack them externally, usually through the promulgation of lies, false doctrines, and such of that nature. Possession is what happens when a non-Christian is wholly controlled and imprisoned by a demonic spirit; these are rare, Payne writes, and even then they don't measure up with what Hollywood tells us about them. Demonization is a third category: this is what happens when a demon (or demons) invades a person, Christian or non-Christian, "renting space," so-to-speak, without owning that person. This is different than opposition in that it is an internal rather than external attack; it is different from possession in that the demonized individual isn't totally under demonic control. Ephesians 4.27, Payne argues, makes room for Christians being prone to demonization. The Greek word for opportunity (topos) had a variety of meanings in Greek literature, and it could just as easily mean "place" or "space" as it does "opportunity". His own persuasion that Paul means topos not as "opportunity" but as "space" is swayed not so much by the Greek but by "the personal experiences of solidly Evangelical Christians, church leaders, and missionaries..." (99) In his deliverance work, Payne makes it clear that Christians can be demonized and demons can inhabit space within a Christian without owning that Christian in the same way God owns him. A lot of Christians argue against this interpretation because they can't fathom God, in His love, allowing such a demonic presence in the life of one of His children; but if we agree that God allows our enemy the flesh to be active within us, why must we assume He would have different rules with demons? If it is possible to give demonic powers a foothold in our lives, how might they go about it? What routes might they take? Payne suggests two: (1) unconfessed sin and (2) unresolved anger. He adds, "Passivity, fear, bitterness, and indifference to sin each represent an invitation for demonization." (111) 

Chapter Seven looks more in-depth at how demonic attacks tend to be more subtle than blatant. In the previous chapter, he wrote, "The most common method of attack I have discovered in working with believers struggling under demonic affliction is habitual debilitating and paralyzing mental accusation." (101) This ties in with what Revelation 12.10 tells us, that the devil accuses God's people. On page 105, he writes, "There are hundreds and thousands of Christians on the receiving end of the fiery arrows of demonic accusation who secretly feel very much like [a hamster going nowhere on its wheel]. No matter how hard they try or how dedicated they are in their Christian lives, they never seem to be able to progress beyond the bottom of the wheel and the feeling of being trapped inside the cage of their mind and thoughts." This unrelenting barrage of mental accusation gives birth to feelings of failure and frustration which blossom into feelings of bitterness directed towards God and other Christians; feelings of discouragement and inadequacy are replaced with anger and resentment. Depression, hopelessness, and apathy are the common End Results. This, Payne writes, is what demonic accusation is like. It is subtle and focused on growing Christians. At the beginning of Chapter Seven, Payne writes, "Demonic warfare is usually a battle of mental subtleties and deception that more often than not focuses upon growing Christians... [There] seems a direct correlation between a believer's devotion and commitment level and the subtle attention and attacks demonic spirits direct toward that person. The bottom line seems that the more dedicated and consistent a Christian is, the more that person must face the enemy's fiery arrows." (113) 

Why do demons tend to be more subtle and overt in western cultures? Payne writes, "[Many] Christians... seem comfortable dismissing or ridiculing the existence and the reality of spiritual warfare. In so doing, such Christians relegate a believer's conflict with demons to childish ghost stories or to discomforting phenomena missionaries overseas might occasionally confront but that 'ordinary' Christians can simply ignore." (115) "[Subtle] covert attacks in our [western] society are usually more effective than aggressive overt attacks that could possibly wake up even the most religious skeptics to question the reality, reverence, and correctness of spiritual faith, doctrinal presuppositions, and theistic worldviews." Demonic powers are brilliant and they have a mission; their ultimate goal isn't garnishing their fame but waylaying the kingdom of God. They will do what needs to be done in order to further their goal, and in our western culture saturated with the ideals of materialism and philosophical materialism, covert operations work far better than what we might find in tribal, animistic cultures. "Attempting to convince a person who has spent the majority of his life trying to appease evil spirits that supernatural entities do not exist is probably not an effective plan of attack. But terrorizing that same person through open attacks and bizarre manifestations, and communicating a message that his gods are not strong enough to protect him from the wrath of an offended demon might effectively allow the demon to continue manipulating and controlling him." (115-116) Conversely, "[Ridiculing] both Christianity and demonism as emotional hocus pocus and the sign of a weak, gullible mind could be a very effective way to keep a proud, self-made, rationalist and empiricist, impressed with his own education, opinions, and accomplishments, from even exploring the possibilities of spirituality in general, demonic warfare specifically, or the gospel message of new life in Jesus Christ." (116) To overtly attack someone steeped in philosophical naturalism would be foolishness to the highest degree; it would very likely backfire. "Why wake up people who are spiritually asleep, haplessly bobbing on the waves of naturalism and happily adrift in a sea of moral, ethical, and religious relativism? If someone or something made the mistake of arousing them from their slumber, they might actually become motivated to take some aggressive action. A more effective plan is to let them stay drugged in their hubris and religious skepticism, sound asleep and devoid of any understanding of spiritual realities."

"Demonic spirits would much rather lull Christians to sleep than risk waking them up," Payne writes on page 120. "Dopey, mopey believers don't present much of an obstacle to an organized army intent on destroying its enemies. Demons understand that sleepy Christians living an ineffective spiritual life will eventually succumb to apathy... Visible manifestations and direct confrontations with demonic spirits just might serve as a wake-up call for believers stuck in the rut and routine and convenience, compromise, and comfort of playing church. Demons don't want to have to contend with Christians motivated to stand up and fight." As Payne puts it, "Why would a smart demonic spirit risk forcing a confrontation when so many Christians are looking for a reason to avoid the issue of demonization? Emotionalism, stress, an overactive imagination, and extremism are easier explanations for demonic activity than being forced to respond to a direct confrontation with demons that visibly manifest themselves." (121) 

In Chapter Eight, Payne shows how he usually goes about his "exorcisms" (though he doesn't use that term). I've read a good number of books on exorcisms and demonic warfare (it's an interest of mine), and this chapter is refreshing: it isn't filled with lots crazy stories that look like something straight out of William Peter Blatty's mind. Payne admits that when he first started, he had a good amount of chaos: "I had people yell, scream, swear, cross their eyes, gasp for air, run from my office, fall on the floor in twisted contortions, mock me and those praying, and other things..." (129) When a visiting missionary asked him why he allowed such things to go on, he was taken aback, because he didn't know he could stop them. The missionary talked about laying down ground rules for the exorcism, which the "exorcist" is allowed to do because of his delegated authority in Christ. Thus Payne writes, "If warfare counseling is consistently a circus it's because the individual conducting the session either doesn't know what he is doing or he is allowing the chaos on purpose, possibly in an attempt to make himself look more important to the situation than he really is." Payne's process is as follows:

(1) Identify unconfessed sin that could be a foothold. Using texts such as Mark 7.21-23, Galatians 5.19-21, and Colossians 3.5-8, he has those who are concerned they may be dealing with demons confess sin in their lives that demons may be using as an "entrance point."

(2) Establish Ground Rules. Ground rules "draw a tight box around the demons. Demons are tricky and desire power, even when we are in the process of commanding them to leave. The ground rules make it clear that they are on the side that has lost, and the counselee is on the side of Christ who has already won." (130) He lists 12 Ground Rules on pages 130-132.

(3) Declarations of truth. Payne declares the truths of victory, authority, protection, and position from various scripture texts.

(4) A series of questions followed by expulsion. Payne asks the demons their names, commissioning source, specific jobs, habitual lies, and the ground it holds. After the demon has answered the questions, Payne commands the demon to leave under the authority of Christ.

(5) Follow-Up. Payne encourages the counselee, after being cleansed from demonic presence, to keep short accounts with sin, utilize offensive prayer, and commit to studying the Bible. Regarding this last point, Payne writes, "I am convinced that demons have more respect and fear of the Word of God than most Christians." (142)

Payne also writes about how he goes about his exorcisms, making two key points: (1) he doesn't perform exorcisms on the first meeting. He doesn't believe every problem Christians face comes from supernatural activity. Remember: Christians also face-off with the world and with the flesh, and the battle tactics are different with those. Furthermore, some Christians may believe they are under demonic influence when they are simply in need of a good doctor, psychiatrist, and medication. (2) He doesn't perform exorcisms for those who don't want them. If a person is invaded by a demon, but doesn't wish to be free (i.e. doesn't desire it to the point of confessing sin, repenting of sin, and surrendering one's entirety to Christ), then the exorcism simply won't work. If a person has made room for a demon and continues to consent to that demon's living there, the demon won't be forced to leave. Payne can only speculate as to why this is the case, but it's something he's experienced.

In Chapter Nine, Payne answers “Common Questions” that he’s run across again and again over the years. Payne argues that all Christians undergo warfare against demons: most Christians are simply oppressed, meaning demonic forces seek to influence us externally. This oppression can come and go. Demonization, however, is what happens when demonic forces seek to influence us internally. Payne admits he doesn’t know all the details about how all this works, only that he’s come up with the term demonization because it gets away from the Oppression/Possession schema and makes sense of why Christians can be “possessed” by demons. The best part of this chapter, I think, is Payne’s answering the question, “Why are so many Christians afraid or hesitant to address the subjects of spiritual warfare and demonic activity?” (1) Most Christian circles outside of charismatic-oriented churches and groups typically ignore the areas of spiritual warfare and demonization. Christians in non-charismatic churches are often worried about their reputation in those churches if they become involved in spiritual warfare or become associated with people who work in the field. (2) Many Christian groups have abused the subject of spiritual warfare and demonic activity. Because of certain groups of Christians who have turned spiritual warfare into a sort of circus, sincere Christians like to keep their distance from them, often to the point of rejecting anything and everything that is similar in thought or practice to such groups. (3) Too many Christians care about being politically correct rather than biblically correct. “The popular media have consistently promoted the ridicule of God, Satan, and demons in a fashion that makes Christians look dumber than the common ancestor of the apes we supposedly evolved from.” (179) Payne remarks, “Christians who fear a backlash from the media or their neighbors and colleagues seem to work harder at blending into society than opposing its accelerating slide into godlessness. They too often spend more time accommodating the lies of naturalism, relativism, Darwinism, and Marxism than they do promoting the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the inerrancy of Scripture. God calls Christians to walk in the light and expose evil, not excuse it.” (4) Some Christians give Satan and his demons too much credit. Some Christians are hesitant to discuss or even think about spiritual warfare and demonic activity because they fear getting involved in it themselves and becoming subject to Satan’s attacks. Never mind that a Christian is, by nature, already involved in spiritual warfare; ignorance about our authority in Christ and a spirit of fear prevents many Christians from looking seriously into this subject.

In Chapter Ten, Payne gives examples of things that might happen during an exorcism, relating stories of his own experiences. This chapter serves also as a warning to Christians who are flippant about sin. "A person who receives Jesus as Savior but habitually ignores him as Lord is potentially setting himself up for a walk with Christ that more closely resembles a job to endure than new life in Christ to enjoy. Picking and choosing which sins to confess or ignore may work if pleasing man is the goal. But we should understand that Christians who refuse to confront habitual sin in their lives are handing out an open invitation for demonic bondage, whether they realize it or not." (182) He continues, "[When] a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ chooses to hide, ignore, or run from sin that has opened ground to demonic spirits, he may suffer ongoing mental, emotional, and sometimes even physical torment. This is true regardless of the person's position in Christ, even though that believer is still heaven bound according to 1 Corinthians 3.15." (183) "[Playing] with sin or excusing it isn't resisting demonic attack; it's inviting it. James and Peter are both clear that victory over the devil will occur when we resist the devil in humble obedience to God... But playing with sin is to a demon what blood in the water is to a shark." He hammers out a rebuke: "The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that they were not ignorant of the purposes (methodologies) of the devil (2 Corinthians 2:11). He could not and would not make the same claim for most Christians living in North America in the twenty-first century. Christians, by and large, ignore or shy away from spiritual warfare. Pantheists and New Agers embrace demonic spirits as ascended masters or spirit guides, and spiritists often celebrate contact with demonic spirits as some sort of spiritual enlightenment." (188)

In the Epilogue, Payne sums up the thrust of his short book: "Our enemies--the world, the flesh, and the devil (sociological, physiological, and supernatural opposition)--represent every possible combination of spiritual warfare we will encounter in this life. We must learn how to recognize all three enemies and not focus on one at the expense of the others. In Christ, we have the authority and the power to consistently walk above their temptations and propositions if we will learn how to discern the source of our battles and apply the proper defense system God has designed for each enemy." (213-214)