Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Kirsteen Kim, Amos Yong: Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World - PDFCOFFEE.COM (2024)

Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World

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Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World Loosing the Spirits

Edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong

interdisciplinary and religio-cultural discourses on a spirit-filled world Copyright © 2013, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-26898-3 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 978-1-349-44371-0 ISBN 978-1-137-26899-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137268990 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Interdisciplinary and religio-cultural discourses on a spirit-filled world : loosing the spirits / edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong. pages cm 1. Spirits. I. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, editor of compilation. BL477.I58 2013 202 .1—dc23 2013015326 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Integra Software Services First edition: September 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Figures

vii

Preface

ix

Notes on Contributors

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On Binding, and Loosing, the Spirits: Navigating and Engaging a Spirit-Filled World Amos Yong

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Part I Spirits in Theology and Religion 1 A Stubborn Missionary, a Slave Girl, and a Scholar: The Ambiguity of Inspiration in the Book of Acts John R. (Jack) Levison

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2 Spirit(s) in Contemporary Christian Theology: An Interim Report of the Unbinding of Pneumatology Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

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3 Spirit and Spirits in African Religious Traditions J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu 4 Spirit and Spirits in Pantheistic Shintoism: A Critical Dialogue with Christian Panentheism Naoki Inoue

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Part II The Spirits of History and Culture 5 Chaos or Completion: The Work of Spirits in History Patrick Oden

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6 Art and the Spiritual Robert K. Johnston

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7 Pneumakinesis and Stephen King: “Rebooting” the Discussion on Paranormal Fear D. Walter Staggs, Jr. 8 Angels and Pentecostals: An Empirical Investigation into Grassroots Opinions on Angels among Assemblies of God, UK Members Anne E. Dyer

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Part III The Spirits of the Polis 9 Spirits of the Political: Theological Engagement in the Public Sphere Sebastian C. H. Kim

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10 Spirits and Economics Nimi Wariboko

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11 Talking Back, Acting Up: Wrestling with Spirits in Social Bodies Bradford Hinze

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12 Demonization, Discernment, and Deliverance in Interreligious Encounters Tony Richie

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Part IV The Spirits of Nature and the Cosmos 13 The Spirit in Evolution and in Nature Philip Clayton 14 Christian Animism, Green Spirit Theology, and the Global Crisis today Mark I. Wallace 15 Spirits and the Stars: A Spirit-Filled Cosmology David Bradnick

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16 Vector Fields as the Empirical Correlate of the Spirit(s): A Meta-Pannenbergian Approach to Pneumatological Pluralism Erwin T. Morales

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Conclusion: The Holy Spirit in a Spirit-filled World: Broadening the Dialogue Partners of Christian Theology Kirsteen Kim

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Index

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Figures

16.1 Gravitational field near the surface of the earth acting on a simple pendulum 16.2 Vector field of a simple pendulum 16.3 Vector field of a damped pendulum

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Preface

New books are born in at least two different ways. Often, they are the result of long and careful planning and visioning. At other times, a spontaneous idea may give rise to a project and soon it will take wings and soar. The current volume belongs to the latter category. A few years ago, we three editors, having just finished a symposium on religious plurality in the East Coast of the United States, were enjoying a quiet and relaxing moment of dinner and fellowship. We got to talking about the different shape of pneumatology in different cultures and VeliMatti turned to Kirsteen and Amos suggesting a new book idea on pneumatology. It was a vague and suggestive idea, something “new” and “exciting” to be explored. We chatted a bit but none of us really had much energy left at the time. Hardly had Kirsteen returned home to the United Kingdom and Veli-Matti to the West Coast when there was an email communication from Amos. Not only was it an affirmation of the feasibility of and need for a new exploratory edited volume on pneumatology but it was much more: it was a fairly detailed plan—several pages long! What a start! Several intuitions and dreams guided the joint project. We wanted to explore pneumatology in an intercultural and interdisciplinary matrix of ideas in a way that would intentionally push the boundaries, suggest new bold ideas, and make room for creative thinking. In order to accomplish an innovative investigation into the Spirit/spirits, we wanted to gather as diverse a group of scholars as possible, all the way from seasoned, established scholars to “fledglings,” including a number of doctoral students. The authors who have responded to our call represent diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, various Christian traditions (including Protestant, Pentecostal, and Catholic), and many theological orientations. We are grateful that they have been able to appreciate the exploratory vision of this volume and are also thankful that they have worked intentionally with us, some at great length, to engage directly with the cutting edge of the book’s central thrusts. The repeated rejections from various publishers, while acknowledging the creativity and novelty of the manuscript—ironically—affirmed to us the need for this kind of exploration and confirmed initial intuitions! We are happy and proud that Palgrave dared to go with our project—three cheers to Burke Gerstenschlager, our Palgrave editor, for being willing to take the risk of publishing this volume. Thanks also to Kaylan Connelly and others at Palgrave for their expert and efficient handling of the manuscript from start to finish.

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Amos thanks his dean and colleague Michael Palmer for supporting his research and scholarship in so many tangible ways, one of which includes a stipend for a graduate assistant. Vince Le, a Regent University doctoral student who serves in that graduate assistantship position, helped with the manuscript by conforming all of the chapters to Palgrave style, and completing a multitude of other project-related tasks in a timely manner. PhD student Joshua Muthalali, also a research assistant to Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, helped to generate the index.

Contributors

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Ph.D., University of Birmingham) is Baëta-Grau Professor of Contemporary African Christianity and Pentecostal/charismatic Theology, and Dean of Graduate Studies, Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, in Accra, Ghana. David Bradnick is a Ph.D. candidate at Regent University School of Divinity in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Philip Clayton (Ph.D., Yale University) is Ingraham Professor of Theology, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont. Anne E. Dyer (Ph.D., Bangor University, Wales) is Librarian and Lecturer in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, Mattersey Hall Christian College, United Kingdom, and Secretary for the European Pentecostal Theological Association. Bradford Hinze (Ph.D., The University of Chicago) is Professor of Theology at Fordham University, Bronx, New York. Naoki Inoue is a Ph.D. candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Robert K. Johnston (Ph.D., Duke University) is Professor of Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Dr.Theol.habil. University of Helsinki) is Professor of Systematic Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and Docent of Ecumenics, University of Helsinki, Finland. Kirsteen Kim (Ph.D., University of Birmingham) is Professor of Theology and World Christianity at Leeds Trinity University, United Kingdom. Sebastian C. H. Kim (Ph.D., Cambridge University) holds the Chair in Theology and Public Life at York St. John University, United Kingdom.

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Notes on Contributors

John R. (Jack) Levison (Ph.D., Duke University) is Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. Erwin T. Morales is a Ph.D. candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. Patrick Oden is a Ph.D. candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and teaches as an adjunct professor of theology at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California. Tony Richie (Ph.D., London School of Theology) is Adjunct Professor of Theology at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, Cleveland, Tennessee. D. Walter Staggs, Jr., is a Ph.D. student at Regent University School of Divinity and the director of the Writing Center and an instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Mark I. Wallace (Ph.D., The University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Religion in Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Nimi Wariboko (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is Katherine B. Stuart Professor of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School, Andover, Massachusetts. Amos Yong (Ph.D., Boston University) is J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology and dean at the School of Divinity, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

On Binding, and Loosing, the Spirits: Navigating and Engaging a Spirit-Filled World Amos Yong

Introduction Any talk about spirits historically and even today has evoked fascination, fear, or incredulity, sometimes simultaneously, among other reactions. Part of the question has always been, what is being meant by “spirits?” What kind of realities is being referred to? The historical and contemporary semantic range of the word spirit itself begs for elucidation and clarification whenever it is mentioned. This introductory chapter should be considered as no more than an attempt to set the stage for the discussion to follow. It does so by attempting to accomplish two objectives, corresponding to its two parts: provide a very generic paradigmatic framework on our topic and locate the ideas to come within a broad contemporary landscape. The former, much longer section proceeds by unfolding human thinking about a cosmos of many spirits from a pneumatological point of view1 as involving three basic paradigms: a personalistic understanding in which the many spirits of the world are causal agents who either exist apart of or are created by, emanate from, or participate in greater or lesser respects in a Creator God or ultimate reality; naturalistic perspectives that are reductionistic in terms of explaining any spiritual phenomenon in terms of its underlying material parts; and a pluralistic paradigm that grants that there are many different conceptual schemes that provide various cultural-linguistic “grammars” for engaging a cosmos of many spirits even while there may also be various openings within the sciences for reconfiguring a multidimensional cosmology. The shorter second part of this chapter overviews the remaining chapters of this volume and anticipates how they map onto or suggest expansion of this threefold paradigm.

Thinking about Spirits: Paradigmatic Sketches The English word “spirit” derives from the Latin spiritus, which refers to soul or breath, and that, in turn, was used in the Vulgate to translate the Greek pneuma

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and the Hebrew ruah. Across these four languages, the concept has referred to the animating dimension of self-consciousness with human interpersonal relations as the primary locus of such considerations.2 Historically, then, spirit has connoted the life force behind agencies believed to be personal. We shall see that, when traced across at least the Western tradition, this has given rise to various understandings, both affirmative and reactionary. The result is that we have three basic paradigms currently in play: the personalistic, the naturalistic, and the pluralistic. From one perspective, what I am calling personalistic, naturalistic, and pluralistic pneumatologies map, albeit very roughly, onto what some might consider as premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews. I hesitate to deploy such a historical framework because from a pneumatological point of view, the personalistic and naturalistic perspectives have not been displaced but rather exist alongside contemporary pluralistic notions. The following discussion further clarifies the features of each paradigm while illuminating how they differ from each other and yet coexist in our time. Personalistic Cosmologies The most fundamental aspect of the personalistic paradigm is what I call a cosmology of personal agency. By this I am referring simply to the fact that most ancient cultures, while recognizing what we might call natural causes, also believed that nothing happened to human beings merely fortuitously or randomly. Therefore what might appear to be accidental actually results from other personal beings. But what if such persons are physically unidentifiable? Perhaps they are nowhere in the vicinity of the effects or are unconnected to the effects in any discernible way. Well, the earliest humans could imagine how their own souls or spirits were not bound to their bodies (after all, they dreamt just as we do today, and this in itself suggested that their personal selves were not dependent on their bodies), and they had representative leaders—who we now call variously shamans or indigenous healers—who also told about out-of-body journeys and experiences. In short, events of human significance inevitably invited personalcausal explication, and if humans being were not directly involved, perhaps other spirits might have been responsible.3 But what kinds of other spirits were also causal agents in our world? Most obvious were the spirits of deceased human beings. These would be our ancestors, one or more generations removed. If human spirits were not tied to their bodies, then it makes sense that after our deaths, our spirits would be released and thus free to interact with the world in a spiritual rather than embodied manner. If that is the case, then the spirits of the dead can still interface with us, and this clarifies why things are happening that we would otherwise not have any explanations for.4 But beyond the spirits of the dead and of our ancestors might be much more powerful spirits, perhaps divine spirits. These spirits of the gods are also immaterial beings but with the capacity to make a difference in our world. Maybe

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these deities are more or less local, or they could be extraordinarily powerful, with dominion over wider regional spaces or even over the entirety of the world as we know it. Regardless, the activities of the gods would also explain events of personal human significance that might be inexplicable at the level of ancestral spirits. Divine spiritual power would certainly be more pertinent in accounting for the forces of nature as they enhance life or bring death and destruction, and these would also connect more understandably to the movements of the stars and their implications for life on earth. Maybe there are things we need to learn, or attitudes we need to foster, or changes in our lives that we need to make—in which case the gods may be trying to get through to us, for our good. Yet not everything that seems to have been the domain of the gods can be comprehended as being good for human life. It seems that oftentimes tragic things happen that do not fit with what benevolent deities would bring about. Sometimes these are so painful and horrific that sense can be made of them only if malevolent spirit beings were also operative in the world. There must therefore be another group of spirits—neither human (deceased or ancestral) nor divine but an intermediary type. Historically, these have been known as angels, who are created by and carry out the good wishes of divine beings. However, these good angels can become bad; and in that case they are fallen angels, also known as demons, who seek the destruction of human life. Yet as intelligent and conscious agents, they are also no less personal than other spirits. Within such a personalistic worldview, however, angels and demons mapped onto a moral dualism: the cosmos itself is thus divided into “good” and “bad” (or evil) personal and spiritual agents.5 From these rudimentary building blocks, our ancestors envisaged a complex personalistic cosmology. As should already be evident, even within the threetiered cosmos of the ancients—that of human beings, of deities, and of angels (and demons)—there are further levels and layers of differentiations. Human spirits could be divided between those of the living, of the recently dead, and of ancestors further and further removed. At some point, ancestors could be elevated into the divine realm, at which time, their status as merely human spirits is ambiguous. Similarly, then, the domain of the gods included elevated and honors ancestors, and angelic beings as well. But there could be all kinds of angelic creatures, perhaps multiple levels of such depending on their power, their responsibilities, and their roles in the divine scheme of things, and fallen angels (or demons) could also derive from any, many, or even all of these various levels. No wonder that by the time we get to the medieval period, an imagination like Dante’s could envision many levels of heaven and earth, of paradise, purgatory, and hell—each with a great variety of spirits.6 This personalistic cosmology is not, however, limited to the Western tradition. In the Eastern hemisphere, the combination of indigenous religions and philosophical worldviews like Daoism and missionary traditions like Buddhism has also fomented an expansive cosmological worldview as replete if not even more populated by a variety of spirits. Buddhists over the centuries have taken up various indigenous cosmologies that involve dynamic and interacting realms of hells,

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realms of animal and other types of spirits, and heavens, and in the process woven them into an unimaginably expansive world that includes Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other demigods that abide in various “pure” and not-so-pure lands of varying bliss.7 Here the very large and the very small intersect, even as the human mind is a microcosmos of the world in all of its complexity. The causal nexus of any event involves, thereby, the activity of many “spirits”—which can be taken even in a personal sense as including the human mind and spirit. In short, what I am calling a personalistic pneumatology involves an agentcentered cosmology designed to account for the causal gaps in the world. Only a world of many spirits can explain human life in all of its complexity. The contemporary explosion of pentecostal and charismatic type Christianity is evidence of the persistence of this personalistic worldview,8 even as the prevalence of a similar cosmology across large swaths of the global South is indicative of its capacity to address concerns of life in the twenty-first century. Its power derives in part from the personalistic explication of the cosmic forces believed to impinge on human experience. Naturalistic Approaches If the personalistic paradigm is basically agent-oriented, hierarchical, and morally dualistic, the naturalistic paradigm is resolutely monistic. To be sure, within the naturalistic mentality, there remain two sides: a rationalistic and a mechanistic one; yet as I hope to show, the former inevitably collapses into the latter. Let me begin with the rationalism that launched the modern world. By this I refer not only to the group rationalist thinkers (i.e., Leibniz and Spinoza) that have been so identified by historians of philosophy, but to the archetypal modern philosopher himself, René Descartes.9 The latter’s famous cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am—has long been understood as laying the foundations of universal reason characteristic of modernity. For our purposes, of course, this Cartesian cogito resulted in a mind-body dualism: the mind was a nonphysical and thinking substance and the body was a physical reality. The connections between the two were certainly mysterious for the French philosopher, and so he posited the (unsatisfactory) theory that mind and body interacted through the body’s pineal gland. The Cartesian revolution occurred amidst (some say precipitated) the modern Enlightenment. The rationalist worldview that undergirded the Enlightenment mentality also adopted an empiricistic and positivistic methodology of inquiry that insisted all true knowledge passed the bar not only of abstract reason but also of scientific experimentation and technological application. The mechanistic operations of all realities in the world can be better understood when broken down into their various parts. So if personal and mental processes were to be comprehended, we need to better understand the brain and the human body in its environmental interactions. Modernist naturalism thus took shape in this crucible: knowledge had to do with a natural and material world that was subject to human handling, experimental testing, and technical efficiency.

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Developments in philosophy of mind and especially more recently in the cognitive sciences have effectively eliminated the dualism Descartes wrestled with. Simply put, the human spirit or mind is explicable in terms of human body and brain states. At its best, the human spirit is an epiphenomenal reality, ultimately dependent on the neural correlates of our brains. At its worst, the human spirit is reduced to the materiality of human embodiment and brain activity. Contemporary philosophers of mind who are resolute naturalists in this regard are monists about human nature: there is in the end only one kind of physical and material stuff that ultimately explains human experience.10 What has happened to the personalistic worldview along the way? Cosmologically, naturalistic commitments not only have eliminated human spirits but also threatened to eradicate divinity as well. In a naturalistic worldview, there is only one ultimately kind of reality that is fundamentally material in nature, and within this scheme of things, even the gods are, as disembodied beings, dispensable.11 And if there are no deities, then there are certainly no other spirit beings either. Angels, demons, or any other type of spiritual entities refer to nothing real in the world. If these kinds of spirits are tolerated, they are moralized (i.e., they serve as symbols of good or of evil) at best. But other than this, any talk of spirits reflects an overactive and perhaps needy human subjectivity, one that presumes the reality of other spiritual agents in a world that is otherwise empty of nonmaterial things. There the many spirits of the personalistic world have been excised, neglected (and gradually evaporated), or postulated as no more than projections of the human psyche. With regard to the latter, there are now also sophisticated neurobiological models that purport to explain the origins of spirits according to the latest developments in the cognitive sciences.12 In short, what I am calling a naturalistic cosmology involves a subjectivistic pneumatology at best and a vacuous pneumatology at worst. Cosmic causality is explicable not in terms of personal agents but in terms of impersonal natural laws, forces, and material relations. Human interpersonal experience is at best epiphenomenal and at worst reducible to material interactions. Similarly, the many spirits of the personalistic imagination are now best understood in terms of how the underlying parts come together to constitute whatever events or realities are in need of comprehension. Such a materialistic or naturalistic view obviously has great explanatory power in our scientific age. Its plausibility derives from its technological rationality, advances in medicine, and the growth, development, and expansion of the information or telecommunicative era. Part of the result is that the capriciousness and fears often present among those who previously inhabited a personalistic cosmology has been dispelled in many instances. Superstitions about the gods or other spirit beings being responsible for this or that aspect of human life have been checked in light of a growing awareness of how the world’s mechanisms work. But is the price of such naturalism worth it if in the end the many spirits are no more than epiphenomena, reducible to the machinations of the material world?

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Pluralistic Pneumatologies Whatever else characterizes our contemporary situation, for our purposes it represents a set of reactions to the materialism and reductionism of the naturalistic view of spirits. I propose that if naturalism produced a disenchanted universe, one gutted of spirits, then the present zeitgeist features a reenchanted world, one replete with many spirits. Yet such a reenchantment should not be seen as a relapse into the personalistic mindset, although it may well include some of the notions common in that paradigm. In order to clarify just where the comparisons and contrasts are, I will overview three trends in contemporary pluralistic thinking about pneumatology: the religious, the philosophical, and the scientific. Religious pluralism celebrates the variety and diversity of cultural understandings and spiritual quests. But rather than saying that we are merely seeing a revitalization of the personalistic worldview, I would distinguish between the hierarchicalism and moral dualism of personalistic cosmologies and the nonhierarchicalism and moral relativism that characterizes the resurgence of various indigenous and postmodern spiritualities, not only in developing nations but also across the Western hemisphere. The former basically preserves the triadic pneumatology (human, divine/angelic, and demonic spirits) of a hierarchical cosmos, while the latter may or may not include a stark moral dualism but often views the many spirits of nature in metaphorically powerfully and symbolically engaging ways.13 Contemporary pluralism thus accentuates how various culturallinguistic frameworks function to enable their adherents to imagine, engage, and interact with a spirit-filled world. Further, with the emergence of postmodern spirituality and religiosity, there is a fluidity to talk about the spiritual that is less agent-centered than the personalistic paradigm and much more historically situated and informed. Hence not only is the world or cosmos reenchanted, but so is the polis, the public square, the market—so much so that the modern secular space is now alive with the hustle, bustle, and strivings of many spirits.14 Last but not the least on the religious front is certainly the renewed attention given to thinking theologically about the Holy Spirit in particular and about spirits in general (pneumatology). If in the past reflection on this topic has been minimal in comparison and the Holy Spirit has been the shy, hidden, or neglected member of the Trinity, then the recent renaissance in pneumatology and in pneumatological theology is an indication that the subject of the Spirit and the spirits is now being engaged.15 Philosophical pluralism regarding the concept of the spiritual is especially alert to the reductionism regnant with the Enlightenment enterprise.16 Here as well, then, there has been a reenchantment of the philosophical task, one that sees a much richer world for reflection than the flattened ontology proffered by the naturalistic imagination.17 The work of philosopher of religion David Ray Griffin, for example, attempts such a philosophical reenchantment in dialogue with process cosmology.18 Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, Griffin suggests that the personalistic cosmology of traditional religions needs to

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be stripped of its supernaturalism and reconstituted on a kind of naturalistic, yet not merely materialistic, foundation; hence matter is no longer merely inert but is what Griffin calls “pan-experientialistic,” with both material and mental (or spiritual) aspects, both of which constitute anything to greater or lesser degrees, and its interaction with other things. Similarly, the theism of the personalistic mind should be understood not merely as transcendent to the world but also as immanent in the world’s processes and vice versa (hence in panentheistic rather than pantheistic terms).19 The upshot is that there may be many spirits or spiritual realities in the world, but rather than being transcendental, disembodied, and self-conscious entities they are naturally embedded in the dynamic processes of the world. Griffin’s (and Whitehead’s) process cosmology is indeed reenchanted, but not quite in the same way as the personalistic cosmology. Scientific pluralism with regard to a spirit-filled cosmos in many respects builds from within this process philosophical framework. Thus, for example, David Ray Griffin’s The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals is suggestive for engaging rather than dismissing (as naturalistic skeptics were wont to do) the parapsychological sciences.20 Similarly, others have also been motivated to reconsider how our understanding of the cosmos and the natural world can be reenchanted without jettisoning the scientific enterprise.21 Yet it has also been the case that the diversity and pluralism of the present milieu has opened up interand multidisciplinary thinking about such a reenchanted universe, to the point that in many respects, the scientific investigation of the spiritual dimension of reality, even the scientific quest for spirits, can almost be said to be fully under way.22 Within the current scientific context, proposals are being developed that suggest an ontology of spirits that is naturalistic (emergent from nature’s evolutionary processes) but yet also realistic (not merely materialistic or reductionistic) in taking account of human religiosity, spirituality, and morality.23 Here, angels, demons, ancestors, and other kinds of spirits may be rehabilitated, but not necessarily with all of the features that characterized the personalistic or traditional understanding. In short, what I am calling pneumatological pluralism involves a dizzying spectrum of pneumatologies. Cosmic causality may have spiritual dimensions, but these are not necessarily correlated with the personal spirit beings that permeated the classical worldview. Instead, there may now be many different types of spirits as well, each of which may need different modes of analysis and inquiry for appropriate understanding. Such a pluralistic ontology and cosmology of spirits is obviously conducive to the contemporary world with its emphasis on difference. Its power derives from its capacity to engage our world in all of its religio-cultural, socio-historical, and scientific complexity. Overview of the Book A few comments on the title of this book will help us shift from the preceding paradigmatic typology to a summary of the contents of this volume. In the biblical traditions, the combination of “binding” and “loosing” occur most

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prominently with regard to Jesus giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter (Matt. 16:19) and the forgiving (loosing) or retention (binding) of sins (John 20:23). Interestingly, in the latter text, the power to bind and loose sins is associated with the gift or reception of the Holy Spirit. Not surprisingly, then, the other pneumatological dimension to binding and loosing concerns specifically evil spirits, including the devil and Satan. Jesus is recorded by the Third Evangelist, for example, as saying regarding the bent-over woman in the synagogue, “ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free [loosed] from this bondage on the sabbath day?”24 Here and elsewhere especially in the gospels, binding and loosing “occur simultaneously: the demon is bound while its victim is loosed.”25 In the twenty-first-century context, however, these biblical texts beg the question: what exactly is the nature of these spirits that are being bound and loosed anyway? More specifically, our contemporary task of binding and loosing takes at least two distinct shapes. With regard to the latter, the spirits need to be freed from the positivistic, materialistic, and reductionistic mentality of a scientistic worldview. This naturalistic paradigm has eviscerated our pneumatological imagination to the point that many have lost the capacity to imagine a spirit-filled world, to think about the spiritual dimensions of human values, and to engage with the many layers of reality amidst or beyond the material one. In this iron cage of materialistic rationality, the spirits have been bound and need to be loosed, precisely so that the spiritual aspects of the human experience in and of the world can once again be appreciated. On the other hand, ours is not a monolithic world. Just as some circles exist in ways that are bereft of spiritual vitality and activity, other locales seem to be inundated with the proverbial “demon behind every tree.” Contemporary pluralism celebrates diversity: the more spirits the better. Yet in some of these contexts, the spirits that have been loosed now seem to wreck more havoc than they contribute to the task of human flourishing. There thus needs to be a binding of at least some of the powers and forces in such a spirit-infested world. The four parts and seventeen chapters of this book take up this dual task of binding and loosing the spirits within an interdisciplinary framework. The questions that each of the contributors seeks to respond to vary, but they revolve essentially around the following five tasks, iterated in no particular order. First, should the question of a pluralistic pneumatology be approached phenomenologically or normatively, or both? Second, what are the psychological or sociocultural, political, and economic correlates of such a pneumatologically infused worldview? Third, can contemporary science take up this question of a spirit-filled cosmos, and, if so, how might such inquiries proceed? Fourth, how can such a pluralistic cosmology be comprehended philosophically, and, relatedly, might a substance or relational ontology serve such considerations or do we need alternative metaphysical schemes? Last but not the least, what are the moral and ethical implications of living in a world of many spirits?26 The chapters in each part of the volume all explore these questions, although some are more focused in one and others in another direction.

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Part I on “Spirits in Theology and Religion,” for instance, moves from predominantly Christian theological considerations in the first two chapters to more comparative analyses in the next two. Thus more biblical (Levison) and historical-theological (Kärkkainen) discussions highlight both the plurality and ambiguity of pneumatological notions in the Christian tradition before these are then taken up comparatively in the African (Asamoah-Gyadu) and Japanese (Inoue) contexts. The latter set of considerations suggest that similarly important questions can be posed in other indigenous religious environments across the Asian, Australasian, and European continents, not to mention the Americas. Further, multiple trajectories of analysis are opened up—from the biblical traditions (Levison) to contemporary popular religious movements in Africa (AsamoahGyadu), or from the theological tradition (Kärkkainen) to the emerging field of comparative theology (Inoue)—even as other questions are raised: for instance, about why Pentecostalism does not seem to thrive in the Japanese context or how the pneumatological cosmologies of African indigenous traditions are similar to but yet also divergent from Shintoism. The chapters here exemplify the heuristic value of the pluralistic model even while registering the enduring explanatory power of the personalistic paradigm. “The Spirits of History and Culture” (Part II) explores the possibilities of thinking and talking about a pluralistic pneumatology of history (Oden), a pneumatological aesthetic (Johnston), and a pneumatological psychology of the paranormal (Staggs), even as it concludes with a chapter on the pneumatological conventions of popular Western/Christian culture (Dyer). The initial and final chapters explicitly (Oden) and implicitly (Dyer) take up considerations related to understanding causal agency in relationship to what happens in human life and history—precisely what is central to the personalistic approach to pneumatological pluralism—while the middle two discussions press the question about whether spiritual phenomena are no more than subjective aspects of human perceptions (as the naturalistic model might argue). Combined, these chapters foreground the spiritual dimension of human life and are suggestive of what is gained by deployment of pneumatological discourse, categories, and conventions in these arenas even while being attentive to how pluralistic conceptions of the latter also problematize human self-understanding in our contemporary period.

The preceding opens up nicely into discussions of “The Spirits of the Polis”—of the political (Sebastian Kim), of the economic (Wariboko), of the social (Hinze), and of the interfaith encounter (Richie)—in Part III, shifting from more personal and individualized notions to more structural, institutional, and corporate concerns. Here the semantic range and flexibility of pneumatology is highlighted even as the tensions related to such are felt more acutely. Is pneumatological discourse and rhetoric merely metaphoric or symbolic, as a more naturalistic set of inclinations and dispositions might presume? What are the pros and cons of such a pneumatological imagination, not to mention a pluralistically envisioned pneumatology, for public life? For Christian theologians more particularly, how normative are such pneumatological formulations? In more biblical parlance, do

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the ancient references to the “principalities and powers” open up to the kind of pluralistic pneumatologies found in these chapters of the book? If the movement so far is from biblical/theological/religious to historical/cultural to the political, broadly conceived, the fourth part of this volume queries whether a pneumatological cosmology, not to mention a pluralistic pneumatology, has any traction when engaging with the late modern world of science and technology. Here the Enlightenment and naturalistic paradigm of positivism, historicism, materialism, and rationalism is confronted head on through examination of the viability of pneumatological thinking across especially the natural sciences. The lead chapter on biology and spirits (Clayton) nicely sets the stage by discussing why such an intersection is both challenging and constrained on the one hand but also yet perhaps unavoidable on the other. By contrast, the next chapter (Wallace) is actually more ethically oriented, focused on teasing out the attitudinal and behavioral implications of pneumatological sensitivities as applied to thinking about the environment, ecological realities, and nature and the cosmos as a whole. The last two chapters explore these cosmological dimensions in distinctive ways: on the one hand through a history of religions and yet philosophically mediated (emergentist) approach that reconsiders the stars in pneumatological perspective (Bradnick) and on the other hand through an attempt to correlate abstract physical theory and modeling with biblical and pneumatological categories (Morales). Together, these four chapters in the last part of the book situate the discussion of pneumatology in and against its widest (cosmic) horizon even as they invite interdisciplinary thinking about pneumatological pluralism in the volatile interval where late modernity, science, and technology come together. We cannot overemphasize the exploratory nature of the discussion in the chapters to come. It is of course possible to approach the topics being broached in other ways, even less sympathetically or even in a manner that is uncharitable about this volume’s assumptions, motivations, and intentions. Certainly experts in any one area touched on in the following will believe they have good reason to object to what may be seen as an illegitimate attempt to “pneumatologize” their arena of inquiry. But those who are open to following the paths charted here will realize that the point of this volume is to pique curiosity and wonder, not to provide definitive answers to the many questions raised. There are going to be theoretical, rhetorical, ethical, and spiritual conundrums in any discussion about pneumatology, much less in a pluralistic register. Theoretically, for instance, it will be clear that the preceding discussions of a pluralistic pneumatology, taken together, reflect also a pluralism of methodological approaches, not all of which may be consistent or commensurable. The pneumatological proposal of Wolfhart Pannenberg, for example, is both a springboard for one set of discussions (Oden on theology of history) and a point of critical departure for another line of explorations (Morales on a pneumatology of physical theory). Spiritually as well, all this talk of many spirits invites more substantive engagement with the many and various angelologies (the main topic of Dyer’s chapter) and demonologies (the focus of Richie’s chapter, as well as getting some air time in Hinze’s discussion)

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in Christian and other traditions. Last but not the least, there is the important ethical, pragmatic, or “so what” question: what is the point of a pluralistic cosmology and pneumatology? More theologically oriented readers might respond that such a discussion enables discernment of and resistance to life-destroying spiritual realities, even as it has the potential to nurture, motivate, and empower human beings to take up the tasks that lead to the flourishing of all life. The concluding chapter to this book (Kirsteen Kim) will revisit many of these questions and further complicate them in light of the ensuing discussion, even while suggesting some possible avenues of response, theoretically, theologically, and in other ways. Meanwhile, we believe this to be an important topic that has by and large been neglected at the increasingly interdisciplinary junctures that mark scholarly inquiry in the twenty-first century. Hence we invite readers to approach the rest of this volume with an open mind. The point is not to bind and lose actual spirits as the biblical authors might have discussed them (whatever we may think these are and however we might anticipate they ought to be accomplished), but to encourage us not to be dismissive of such on the one hand and to think about them critically and in perhaps new ways on the other. Notes 1. In Christian theological traditions, pneumatology and its cognates has generally referred to the doctrine or study of the Holy Spirit. Our use of this term in this book is much broader, covering the study of spirits general. 2. The history is complicated and is just being untangled—for example, Paul S. MacDonald, History of the Concept of Mind: Speculations about Soul, Mind and Spirit from Homer to Hume (Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2003). 3. The connection between human self-understanding and the quest for causal explication is a thread woven throughout Joseph Torchia’s Exploring Personhood: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Human Nature (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008). 4. See Lewis M. Hopfe, Religions of the World, ed. Mark R. Woodward, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), 29 and passim. 5. See David Albert Jones, Angels: A History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 7. 6. See Guy P. Raffa, The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader’s Guide to the Divine Comedy (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). 7. See Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins, trans. Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: K¯osei Publishing Company, 1997). 8. For example, Harvey G. Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, MA.: Addison-Wesley, 1995). 9. See, for example, René Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm F. Von Leibniz, The Rationalists (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books/Doubleday & Company, Inc., n.d.). 10. This is not to say, of course, that there are no debates about physicalistic and materialistic monism—for example, Daniel D. Hutto, Beyond Physicalism (Amsterdam and

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11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

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Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publication Company, 2000). I return momentarily to discuss other alternatives to the naturalistic paradigm. See Yervant Hoyhannes Krikorian, ed., Naturalism and the Human Spirit, Columbia Studies in Philosophy 8 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944). For example, Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (London: Heinemann, 2001). For example, Carol K. Mack, A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1998), and Joanne Pearson, ed., Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age (Burlington, Vt., and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002). See, for example, James K. A. Smith, ed. After Modernity? Secularity, Globalization, and the Re-enchantment of the World (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2008); see also Yong, In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), ch. 4. For example, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), and Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, and London: SCM Press, 2007). Leading the way here is Steven G. Smith, The Concept of the Spiritual: An Essay in First Philosophy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). For example, David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). David Ray Griffin, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001). Another example here is Philip Clayton, Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008). Griffin, The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988). For example, Alister E. McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature: Science, Religion and the Human Sense of Wonder (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002). I document the many types of scientific and other undertakings in search of spirits in my article, “Discerning the Spirit(s) in the Natural World: Toward a Typology of ‘Spirit’ in the Theology and Science Conversation,” Theology & Science 3:3 (2005): 315–29. See Yong, The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the PentecostalCharismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), esp. ch. 6. Luke 13:16, from the New Revised Standard Version. Richard H. Hiers, “ ‘Binding’ and ‘Loosing’: The Matthean Authorizations,” Journal of Biblical Literature 104:2 (1985): 233–50, quotation from 238. Joel Kovel, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991).

PART I

Spirits in Theology and Religion

CHAPTER 1

A Stubborn Missionary, a Slave Girl, and a Scholar: The Ambiguity of Inspiration in the Book of Acts John R. (Jack) Levison

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aul’s mandate to discern the spirits (1 Thessalonians 5:20–21) provides a glimpse of a complex and ambiguous dimension of Israelite and early Christian literature. Toward the end of the story of Israel’s first king, for example, “the spirit of God came upon” Saul,1 and he prophesied, then spent the night naked and catatonic (1 Samuel 19:23–24). This story is the mirror image of Saul’s first experience of the spirit, which transformed him into another man (10:6–7).2 But there is a twist. By the second story, Saul has, on several occasions, succumbed to an evil spirit of God. It is not clear whether the spirit, which prompts him to prophesy this last time around, is a good or evil spirit. This ambiguity prompts one commentator, Ralph Klein, to suggest that “the spirit may have been the evil spirit from God previously referred to (cf. 16:14).”3 Ambiguity emerges again in the story of Micaiah ben Imlah. Micaiah (1 Kings 22), wrested from jail, stakes his minority opinion on a vision in which God puts a lying spirit in the mouth of the other prophets in order to deceive the king into a false sense of security and success. In addition to this unsettling revelation, the story of Micaiah communicates that it is possible to discern the difference between truthful and lying spirits only after prophetic predictions come true. In the meantime, prophets and their audiences are left to guess whether a truthful spirit or a lying spirit is speaking (see also Deuteronomy 18:15–22). Certainty supplants ambiguity only after the fact. We might wish to argue that clear patterns for experiencing the holy spirit in the New Testament supplanted the ambiguity of Israelite literature. This is not true. In this chapter—a short but apt prolegomenon to this provocative volume, I hope4 —I will explore three texts (or series of texts) from the book of

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Acts that set the holy spirit in the context of a variety of spirits in the New Testament: ●

The human spirit as a holy spirit. The first series of texts surrounds Paul’s conviction “in the spirit” to visit Jerusalem, notwithstanding the advice of the holy spirit through prophets and churches, who urged him not to go (Acts 19–21). A foreign spirit as the source of truth. The second text is about a slave girl in Philippi, who, in a steady stream of witness, claimed, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation,” although she was inspired not by the holy spirit but by a pythonic spirit (16:16–19). The spirit in a person of unfinished faith. The third text is about Apollos, who burned with the spirit and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, “though he knew only the baptism of John” (18:24–28).

These references express the ambiguity of the holy spirit by rooting pneumatology in the diverse nature of spirits in the world of the New Testament. Paul and a Questionable Conviction The Ambiguity of Paul’s Conviction (19:21) Throughout the first half of Acts, the holy spirit has an impressive impact upon ever-widening groups: Jews (Acts 2), Samaritans (Acts 8), and Gentiles (Acts 10–11). In the second half, the holy spirit appears principally to direct Paul, often in relatively private settings. The ambiguity of inspiration becomes increasingly apparent as we track Paul’s conviction that he has to visit Jerusalem. After recounting a particularly robust explosion of success in Ephesus, in which “the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed” (Acts 19:11–20), Luke writes, “Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, ‘After I have gone there, I must also see Rome’ ” (19:21). This inside view raises the question of whether Paul resolves “in his own spirit” or “in the Spirit.” Joseph Fitzmyer observes that Luke “uses the middle voice of tithenai to indicate that it is a question of Paul’s own pneuma.”5 Earlier, however, Fitzmyer had written: “What is important to note is the guidance of the Spirit (19:21).”6 Inadvertently or purposefully, Fitzmyer draws our attention to the ambiguity of inspiration in Acts 19:21. The Constraint of Paul’s Conviction (20:22–24) Slightly later, Paul addresses the Ephesian elders one last time. Paul contends, And now, having been bound by the spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the holy spirit testifies to me

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in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:22–24, emphasis added)

The words “having been bound by the spirit” express an ambiguity similar to that which characterized the words “Paul resolved in the spirit” (19:21). Is Paul bound by his own internal conviction? His spirit. Or is he bound by the holy spirit? God’s spirit. The simple words “except that” are an indication that Paul is aware of the disjuncture between his internal compass and the compass of prophets throughout the church. He is committed to arriving in Jerusalem except that prophets keep reminding him of impending perils. Luke adopts a word play to express the conundrum. Paul is bound by what he knows he must do; prophets—we must assume the presence of prophets such as Agabus (Acts 21:7–14)—in city after city testify that bonds await him. Paul is hell-bent on going to Jerusalem, yet everywhere he goes, the holy spirit tells him that his future is one of prison and problems. There is a tension here between internal and external guidance. Awareness of this tension, of course, does not finally answer the question of whether Paul is bound in his spirit or the spirit. It does make absolutely clear that Paul prefers direct guidance to guidance through prophets, even a string of prophets in a variety of cities. What basis does Paul proffer for his need to face Jerusalem other than being “bound in the spirit?” Very little, apart from one small basis for his conviction. Luke presents Paul’s vocation along the lines of the servant of Isaiah, and this may account for Paul’s headlong rush toward persecution, even death (see Acts 9:15–16; 26:12–18). These allusions, however, cannot stack up against what Paul recognizes—that “the holy spirit testifies to me in city after city, that bonds and troubles remain for me.” Nor can allusions to Isaiah 40–66 explain why the city Paul visits must be Jerusalem. We are left to wonder how personal conviction will not bend to the will of the prophets who pester him with predictions of persecution. In a sleight of hand, Paul resolves this tension with a bit of questionable wiggling. Confronted with two conflicting convictions, an internal and an external one, he says that he is willing to face whatever the prophets are foretelling him. In other words, he accepts both: he will go to Jerusalem (a journey to which he is bound in the spirit—whatever “spirit” means) and suffer the consequences (what the holy spirit testifies, perhaps through prophets, to him in every city). This is not, of course, the thrust of what the prophets are saying. They appear to predict his demise in order to persuade him not to go to Jerusalem altogether. Nonetheless, Paul mitigates the worth of their persistent messages by saying that he does not count his life of any value.

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The Challenge to Paul’s Conviction (21:4) If there were wiggle room for Paul in the prophets’ prediction of imprisonment and persecution, there is none in what the community urges Paul. Luke explains: “We looked up the disciples and stayed there [Tyre in Syria] for seven days. Through the spirit they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4). This description intensifies the warnings Paul had already received. (1) This is not a warning about suffering but a clear command: do not go to Jerusalem—not just “you will suffer if you go.” (2) This command does not come from individual prophets but the church as a whole in Tyre. (3) This is not a one-time command ; the Greek imperfect tense communicates: “They kept telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem.” (4) They kept insisting (imperfect tense again) through the spirit. Their doggedness was not just a product of affection or a desire to protect their dear friend from suffering. This is a church-wide direct word of the spirit to Paul, telling him repeatedly not to head to Jerusalem. Paul could ignore the predictions of prophets by saying that he was willing to face the suffering and imprisonment they predicted. He cannot avoid this direct word of the spirit, which tells him not to go to Jerusalem. Yet he does. He apparently rejects the recurring and decisive inspired words of prophets in several cities and the entire community of disciples in Tyre. He pits against them an internal conviction that Luke refers to only ambiguously: Paul resolved “in the spirit” (Acts 19:21); “having been bound in the spirit, I am going to Jerusalem” (20:22). Paul, it would seem, is willing to pit his own internal experience against repeated prophetic warnings and the unequivocal word of a community of believers. The Near Collapse of Paul’s Conviction (21:8–14) In Caesarea, Agabus from Judea, perhaps the same Agabus who predicted a widespread famine (Acts 11:28), enacts what other prophets predicted verbally would happen to Paul: “He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, ‘Thus says the holy spirit, “This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles” ’ ” (21:11). For the first time, those who are with Paul on his journeys join those in local churches in response to a prophecy. “When we heard this, we and the people there kept urging7 him not to go up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:12). Joining the chorus of prophets in every city and the church at Tyre, now believers in Caesarea and Paul’s travel companions urge him to avoid Jerusalem. Paul’s response to them, for the first time, hints that his resolve is in danger of cracking. “What are you doing, weeping out loud and breaking my heart in pieces?” he asks (21:13). This is the weeping at funerals; the verb occurs elsewhere in the book of Acts when the widows weep for Dorcas, who died (9:39). Paul is shattered by the intensity of this wailing; his heart is broken.

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His resolve, however, is not. He says, somewhat predictably, “For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). The believers in Caesarea grow silent when they realize Paul cannot be persuaded, except to echo the words of Jesus, “The Lord’s will be done.” Paul and his companions leave Caesarea quietly, without an entourage, such as he had in Tyre, and without kneeling in prayer, as he had in Ephesus (20:36) and Tyre (21:5). Paul, unpersuaded by prophets, unswayed by the inspired words of his churches, unconvinced even by the urging of his travel-companions, slips away silently, accompanied by a few of the disciples from Caesarea (21:15). The spirit, too, grows silent. Not a single word or activity in the book of Acts from here on is attributed to the holy spirit.8 Luke does not censure Paul, nor does he criticize Paul for his resistance to the inspired word to avoid Jerusalem. The presence of the holy spirit simply fades in the last quarter of the book. If the source of Paul’s conviction is ambiguous in the book of Acts, it is no more so than in the holy spirit’s slipping away. The Strange Case of a Pythonic Spirit An Unfamiliar Spirit Two dramatic stories of conversion in the book of Acts crown Paul’s achievements. Of a respectable Lydia, Luke writes, “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” She and her household were baptized, and Paul stayed in Lydia’s home (Acts 16:11–15). An honorable jailer posed the perfect question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved.” He and his entire family were baptized, and Paul ate in the jailer’s home (16:34). These two dramatic stories define a successful mission. Two reputable people. Two good listeners. Two household baptisms. Two instances of hospitality. Sandwiched between these narratives of certain success, however, is a story that captures the ambiguity of inspiration in the book of Acts: One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortunetelling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. (16:16–19)

The central character of this episode contrasts with Lydia and the Philippian jailer: a young slave girl, possessed of a spirit, a fortune-teller, a lucrative source of income for her owners. She barely catches Paul’s attention until he is so annoyed by her incessant screaming that he orders the spirit out of her. Her

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owners, enraged by their potential loss of income, initiate hearings that lead to the imprisonment of Paul and Silas. In a strange but significant twist, Luke identifies the slave girl’s source of inspiration as a “pythonic spirit” rather than the holy spirit or an evil spirit. The python was, according to legend, the snake that guarded Delphi, which Apollo killed. By the Roman era, however, the term python, in relation to prophecy, had attached itself to ventriloquists, belly-talkers, through whom gods were reputed to deliver oracles. The Hippocratic treatise On the Epidemics identifies belly-talkers, or ventriloquists, with “pythons” (5.63.7). In Plutarch’s On the Obsolescence of Oracles, Lamprias criticizes inspiration in which “the god himself after the manner of ventriloquists (who used to be called ‘Eurycleis,’ but now ‘Pythones’) enters into the bodies of his prophets and prompts their utterances, employing their mouths and voices as instruments” (414E). Not Exactly an Exorcism In Luke’s story of the slave girl, there is scant excoriation of pythonic spiritism. This is odd, as the story seems to entail an exorcism. In Luke 4:31–37, in which we might find a convenient parallel, the evil spirit alone knows the truth about Jesus, and Jesus rebukes the demon, telling it to be quiet and to come out of the man, whom it has thrown to the ground. With this exorcism, Jesus establishes his authority, as the people continually utter, “For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!” (see also Mark 1:21–26; Luke 4:41). The apparent exorcism in Acts 16, however, mirrors Jesus’ exorcisms rather inharmoniously. While Jesus’ exorcisms are a clear confrontation between good and evil, Paul tells the pythonic spirit to leave primarily because he is annoyed. Paul and his colleagues, in fact, do not seem displeased by her presence. Luke underscores this with his use of the imperfect tense: “While she followed Paul and us . . . she would cry out [ekrazen] . . . She kept doing this [epoiei] for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit.” Had Paul recognized in this slave girl an evil demon intent upon his demise, would he not have exorcised the demon immediately? We are left to assume by the delay of the confrontation and Paul’s motivation—annoyance—to assume that the pythonic spirit in the slave girl was not a threat to him or his mission. Nor does Luke censure the woman. There is no rebuke, as in typical exorcisms in Luke’s gospel (e.g., Luke 4:35 and 4:41). Paul simply, annoyed, turned and “spoke [eipen] to the spirit.” Compare this benign description with the exorcisms of Jesus, in which the evil nature of spirits comes to the forefront: a single story in Luke 4:31–37, for example, contains the designations “spirit of an unclean demon,” a “demon,” and “unclean spirits.” In his gospel, Luke leaves no doubt that these are “demons,” pure and simple; the character of the pythonic spirit in Acts 16, in contrast, is ambiguous. Even the messages differ in the gospel and Acts. In the gospel, the demon’s first words to Jesus are a clear challenge, “Let us alone! What have you to do with

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us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34). In the gospel, there is a battle between Jesus and the demons, waged from the start, in which demons are forced to concede defeat. By contrast, the slave girl’s words are supportive of Paul’s mission: “These people are servants of the most high God; they are preaching to you (the) way of salvation.” This is an accurate summary of key themes from Luke—Acts: servant; most high; preaching; the way; and salvation. Another contrast between the demons and the pythonic spirit pertains to the demeanor of the person possessed. In the gospels, demons tend to drop a possessed person to the ground, to cause writhing and rolling, to effect diseases or conditions such as blindness (Matthew 12:22) and the inability to speak (Luke 11:14). The slave girl, in contrast, is physically able to accompany Paul and the others, and she is obviously not mute, for she cries out loudly the whole time. Finally, the conclusions to the stories are different. Exorcisms in the gospels typically end with praise for the authority of Jesus (e.g., Luke 4:36–37).9 The alleged exorcism of the pythonic spirit ends anticlimactically: “And it went at that moment.” The story of the slave girl contains none of the drama of an exorcism. Her story does not so much rise to a climax as slip away. The story of the slave girl is not, therefore, a typical exorcism. In a scene that mirrors the exorcisms of Jesus, Luke describes a spirit, without censure, as a pythonic spirit. There are no physical or mental ill effects of this spirit to match the ill effects that plague the possessed in the gospels. On the contrary, the pythonic spirit inspires a slave girl who accompanies Paul and friends for a few days, while she delivers an apt précis of the message of salvation. For this reason, Paul resorts to commanding this spirit to leave the girl, not because he is engaged in a cosmic battle between good and evil, but because he is annoyed by her incessant screaming. Her inspiration is cut short only by Paul’s annoyance. The slave girl is not censured, the pythonic spirit not told to leave until her yelling grates on Paul’s nerves. Spiritual Ambiguity When I first proffered a more detailed version of this interpretation in Filled with the Spirit,10 some leading Pentecostal scholars took issue with me. James B. Shelton interpreted the slave girl’s words as an effort to derail Paul’s message; demons, Shelton noted, often knew the truth but used it against Jesus.11 Blaine Charette admitted that “this is certainly one way to read the narrative,” though he thought Luke is, in general, too resistant to Greco-Roman religion to accept the slave girl’s inspiration as authentic.12 Charette also argued that the anarthrous expression “way of the Lord” is an indication that the slave girl points to a way rather than, as elsewhere in Acts, the way of salvation (Acts 9:2; 18:25, 26; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).13 Neither scholar, however, explains why Paul lets the message persist for days, why there is no clear confrontation between Paul and the spirit, why Paul’s motivation for telling the pythonic spirit to leave is annoyance, why Luke never

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identifies this spirit as a demon or evil spirit,14 and why her message is corroborative rather than confrontational. The absence of a definite article before the word “way” hardly undermines her message. The last line of Zechariah’s song of praise, toward the beginning of Luke’s gospel, ends with an expression concerning the way that, despite the absence of a definite article, must mean the way of peace: “to guide our feet into (the) way of peace” (Luke 1:79). Further, if we applied Charette’s logic to the holy spirit in the book of Acts, Peter, in Acts 4:8, would be filled by a holy spirit rather than the holy spirit simply because Luke uses the anarthrous form (see also Acts 1:2, 2:4). If her message is even moderately accurate—and even Charette concedes this possibility—then the slave girl’s story emblematizes the ambiguity of inspiration in the book of Acts. Her story raises the inevitable question, Can inspired truth be told, not just by the holy spirit, but by another spirit? An Eloquent Scholar Inserted into the drama that swirls in Ephesus is Apollos, a Jewish Alexandrian scholar whom Luke describes as “an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord; burning with the spirit, he would speak and teach15 accurately the things of Jesus—although he knew only the baptism of John” (Acts 18:24–25). “He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, and when they heard him, Priscilla and Aquila took him home and laid out the way more accurately” (18:27). The Alexandrian tradition of biblical interpretation has bequeathed to us the Wisdom of Solomon, the Letter of Aristeas, and the copious commentaries of Philo Judaeus. This grand tradition elucidates how Apollos could interpret scripture deftly. But to say that a Jew—this is how Luke identifies him—who had experienced only the baptism of John, a baptism of repentance distinct from baptism in the name of Jesus, could burn with the spirit is baffling. Therefore, while the Greek reads literally, “burning with the spirit,” we can see why translators choose “with burning enthusiasm” (New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]) or “with great fervor” (New International Version [NIV]). This is one place where the very different translators of the NRSV and NIV together recognize a legitimate theological dilemma: a skilled Jewish interpreter of scripture who burns with the spirit without being properly baptized. Conrad Gempf has noticed that virtually all modern translations relegate the Spirit in verse 25 to the margins, seeing the phrase as referring to Apollos’s own spirit within him being fervent. This allows him to fit as a parallel to the Ephesian disciples who also knew only the baptism of John. It is clear that they did not have the Holy Spirit, so the rule of interpreting the ambiguous example by means of the clear one comes into play and translators play it safe.16

Should we play it safe and characterize Apollos as fervent but not filled with the holy spirit? Probably not, on a couple of counts. On the one hand, Ernst

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Käsemann cites Romans 12:11, where the same phrase should be translated in reference to the divine spirit within, “burning with the spirit.”17 On the other, M. M. B. Turner adduces the insight of Hee-Seong Kim, that the verb “speak boldly” (Acts 18:26) “virtually confirms Apollos as a man of the Spirit (for in Luke this is virtually an expression for preaching in the power of the Spirit) . . . Had Apollos not received the Spirit Priscilla and Aquila would have had more to give him than additional precision on an unspecified theological issue.”18 Such evidence, and the observation that this reference to the spirit “stands between two phrases which describe Apollos as a disciple of Jesus,” compels J. D. G. Dunn to conclude, “It is presumably therefore itself a description of Apollos as a Christian, and pneuma must be taken as (Holy) Spirit rather than (human) spirit.”19 Dunn’s statement raises precisely the question that is at stake. Does spirit filling make one a Christian? To put it the other way around, is it possible to be filled with the spirit without being a follower of Jesus? Luke sets two disparate realities against one another: Apollos both burns with the spirit and lacks baptism in the name of Jesus. Are both experiences necessary to follow Jesus? Is the first—burning with the spirit—enough? Is the second— baptism in Jesus’ name—required? To these questions there is no single satisfying answer. Yet the story of Apollos does raise a pivotal question of its own: Is it possible for Luke to attribute fullness of spirit to Apollos without characterizing him as a properly baptized follower of Jesus? Once again, the precision of borders becomes blurred in the actual stories that fill the book of Acts. Patterns evaporate. Ambiguity effaces certainty. Embracing Ambiguity Loosing the Spirits Clint Tibbs, in a recent study of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, argues, Those studies that distinguish the Holy Spirit as qualitatively different from all other spirits in the NT incorporate a theological premise reflective of later Christian thought which postdates the writings of the NT by several centuries . . . The theology of the Holy Spirit as a unique being is a product of fourth-century individuals whose readings of the NT text established a new trend for the understanding of “the holy spirit” in the NT: an artificial distinction between “the spirit” and “spirits.”20

Tibbs discerns too little distinction between the holy spirit and other spirits, in part because he has not paid serious enough attention to Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, in which the holy spirit is distinct from other spirits. Yet he does point ably to the amorphous spirit world that many first-century believers inhabited, sought to control, and lost control to.21 This, of course, is the world that yields the strange story of the slave girl, perhaps the most troubling passage for pneumatology in the book of Acts. It should come as no surprise that Pentecostal scholars such as Shelton and Charette are

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keen to undermine the authenticity of the slave girl’s message. If she is right, the pythonic spirit is not a demon. If she is right, inspiration can arise from realms other than those occupied explicitly by the holy spirit. If she is right, and the pythonic spirit leaves only when Paul is annoyed by the slave girl’s screeching, then we are compelled to reckon with the irresolvable presence of ambiguity at the heart of pneumatology. The Human Spirit as a Holy Spirit Is Paul’s conviction to head to Jerusalem merely human or divinely inspired? Is it misguided or divinely sanctioned? It probably cannot be both. Or can it? What if Paul’s spirit is the spirit, not understood exclusively as a gift given at the onset of faith or in the baptism of the spirit, but at birth? What if the human spirit is a holy spirit, if the gift of life is, at least in some serious measure, also the gift of salvation? Recall how in 1970, Dunn concluded, “It is presumably therefore itself a description of Apollos as a Christian, and pneuma must be taken as (Holy) Spirit rather than (human) spirit.”22 More than 40 years later, however, Dunn advises against driving a wedge between the human and holy spirits: “Any sharp distinction between the creator Spirit and the soteriological Spirit has . . . to be rethought.”23 Dunn notes that “there is a basic flaw in a distinction between different functions of the Spirit, as between the soteriological Spirit and the charismatic Spirit or Spirit of prophecy, which neglects that each function is an expression of the life-giving Spirit. For we are not dealing with two distinct Spirits.”24 Dunn’s later reflections corroborate the pneumatologies of leading twentiethcentury theologians, such as Jürgen Moltmann,25 Wolfhart Pannenberg,26 and Karl Rahner,27 who stress the relationship between the human spirit and the holy spirit by recognizing that both are divine. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to decide whether Paul’s conviction is due to his human spirit, conceived as merely animating breath, rather than the holy spirit within him, since they are, if not one and the same, at least intimately related as divine gift. To recognize this relationship, of course, is not to resolve the question of internal inspiration versus the inspiration of whole churches. Ultimately, Paul’s rejection of inspired external voices—churches, prophets, and travel companions—brings to the fore the ambiguity of inspiration. Who is right? Who is wrong? And how can we know? The story of Paul, too steeped in ambiguity, does little to help us answer these questions, though the story does showcase how difficult it is to discern divine guidance in the exercise of a deeply felt vocation. The Spirit Beyond Christianity Dunn’s realization that we must not drive a wedge between the spirit given at birth and the spirit given with salvation elucidates the experience of Apollos, who may not have received the holy spirit during the act of baptism in Jesus’ name but who, nevertheless, burned with the spirit. Simply put, Apollos burned with the spirit without first entering the church.

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This insight corroborates the work of Amos Yong on the spirit and other religions. Yong proposes that “there may be those in other ‘faiths’ . . . who do love God and their neighbor more than those of us who think we have access to God’s saving grace and that these others therefore may be closer to eternal life than we are.”28 Yong draws this notion from the Pentecostal outpouring of the spirit on all flesh, prompting him ‘to ask if there are others, those outside the pale of who we might think are among the elect, whom God may nevertheless count as his own?”29 The story of Apollos provides support for Yong’s assertion.30 Here is a person, a scholar, a Jew who has not experienced baptism in the name of Jesus. Nevertheless, he burns, not merely with unbridled enthusiasm, but with the spirit. That fire, as fires tend to do, ignores—even destroys—established boundaries, as it burns indiscriminately and brightly with impressive disregard for the constraints human beings so often accept and impose. The Allure of Ambiguity Writing scholarship about loosing the spirits is a tricky business, and these snippets from Acts make it trickier still because they blur the boundaries between what we might prefer to understand as neatly divided realities: ● ● ●

the holy spirit and other spirits; the human spirit and the holy spirit; the Christian and the Jew.

The blurring of these boundaries is significant, perhaps even game-changing, in an ongoing effort to discover the presence of God in unexpected arenas. Spiritual boundaries are not altogether clear in a world where God inspires slave girls with a pythonic spirit, where the human spirit is the divine locus of deeply held convictions, and where a person who lacks requisite elements of belief can burn, nonetheless, with the fire of the spirit. In the ambiguity of the book of Acts, therefore, we are given permission, and perhaps a mandate, to recognize the complexity and ambiguity of the spiritual domain. Notes 1. Throughout this chapter, the base translation is the New Revised Standard Version, though I modify it amply and often. 2. Why I do not capitalize the word “spirit” will become clearer in the course of this essay, particularly in my effort to identify the human spirit (as it tends to be called) as a holy spirit. Capitalization draws too severe a wedge between the allegedly human and holy spirits. For further details, see Jack. Levison, Fresh Air: the Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2012), 15–17. 3. Ralph Klein, 1 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary 10; Waco: Word, 1983), 198. 4. The foreground for this chapter lies in Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 14–86, 118–53, where I explore in detail a rich vein of Israelite

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

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and early Jewish literature, in which the spirit within people from birth is a divine gift to be cultivated through discipline and learning. Joseph Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (Anchor Bible 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 652. Fitzmyer notes the association elsewhere of tithenai with the heart. In Acts 5:4, Peter asks Ananias, “Why did you resolve in your heart to do this?” See also Luke 21:14. Fitzmyer, Acts, 646. Note the imperfect tense. In Acts 28:25–27, the spirit is said to inspire the words in Isaiah 6:9–10. See “Demons, Devil, Satan,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. Green, S. McKnight, and I. H. Marshall (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992), 170–71. Levison, Filled with the Spirit, 317–25. Shelton, “Delphi and Jerusalem: Two Spirits or Holy Spirit? A Review of John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 52. In my opinion, Shelton does not take seriously enough the fact that Luke does not call the pythonic spirit a demon. Blaine Charette, “ ‘And Now for Something Completely Different’: A ‘Pythonic’ Reading of Pentecost?” Pneuma 33 (2011): 60–61. Charette, “Something Completely Different,” 61. The suggestion of Roger Stronstad (“Review of John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit, Part III, Early Christian Literature. Chapter 3, ‘Filled with the Spirit and the Book of Acts’,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 20 [2011]: 203) that “the girl is trying to co-opt Paul as a like-minded servant of the Delphic oracle” is unsound and inaccurate. First, nothing in Acts suggests this; Stronstad imports her motivation. Second, the Delphic pythia was not thought, during the first century, to be inspired by a pythonic spirit. Against Stronstad, “Review,” 203. Like James Shelton, Stronstad assumes the pythonic spirit is a demon. Luke does refer to evil spirits in Acts 19:15—just not in Acts 16:16–19. Note the imperfect tenses. Conrad Gempf, “Apollos and the Ephesian Disciples: Befores and Afters (Acts 18:24–19:7),” in The Spirit and Christ in the New Testament and Christian Theology, ed. I. Howard Marshall, Volker Rabens, and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 131. Ernst Käsemann, “The Disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus,” in Essays on New Testament Themes, ed. Ernst Käsemann (London: SCM, 1964), 143. M. M. B. (Max) Turner, Power from on High: the Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (JPTS 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 388n124; HeeSeong Kim, Die Geisttaufe des Messias (Berlin: Peter Lang, 1993), 217–18. James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 88. Clint Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma: Communication with the Spirit World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 (WUNT 2.239; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 69–70. See Archie Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits: the Reception of Genesis 6.1–4 in Early Jewish Literature (WUNT 2.198; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 88. James D. G. Dunn, “ ‘The Lord, the Giver of Life’: The Gift of the Spirit as Both Life-giving and Empowering,” in Marshall, Rabens, and Bennema, eds., Spirit and Christ, 5. Dunn, “The Lord, the Giver of Life,” 6.

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25. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 6–10; God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 96, 99–101. 26. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2.76–77, 1.373; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Avery Dulles, and Carl E. Braaten, Spirit, Faith, and Church (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 17. 27. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, 23 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 19.142–43, 147; Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury, 1978), 139. 28. Amos Yong, Who Is the Spirit? A Walk with the Apostles (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2011), 94. 29. Yong, Who Is the Spirit, 121; see also 91–94, 119–21, 181–84. See further, Yong, “ ‘Not Knowing Where the Wind Blows . . . ’: On Envisioning a PentecostalCharismatic Theology of Religions,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 14 (1999): 81–112; “A P(new)matological Paradigm for Christian Mission in a Religiously Plural World,” Missiology: An International Review 33 (2005): 175–91. 30. See. Frank Macchia, “The Spirit of Life and the Spirit of Immortality: An Appreciative Review of Levison’s Filled with the Spirit,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 72. Macchia argues that the church must identify the presence of the spirit outside the realm of Christianity. “The possibility that we have overlooked in the Old Testament a rich understanding of spiritual fullness that is not well represented in the New Testament should give us pause to think . . . After all, we don’t need to denigrate the Spirit that inspires us from below in order to highlight the same Spirit that comes to us from above or beyond!”

CHAPTER 2

Spirit(s) in Contemporary Christian Theology: An Interim Report of the Unbinding of Pneumatology Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

First Words: The Promise and Malaise of Christian Pneumatology The contribution of the present chapter to this interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interreligious reflection on the loosing of the spirit(s) comes from the resources and perspective of systematic/constructive theology. The chapter seeks to discern and critically assess the state of Christian pneumatology in the beginning of the third millennium, in order to, first, diagnose its promise and omissions, and, second, help locate the current volume’s contributions in the wider matrix of theology. Two foundational insights guide my investigation. First, there are exciting and exhilarating developments under way that point to what can be regarded as nothing less than the transformation of Christian pneumatology. Second—here comes the bad news!—it seems to me that by and large “mainline” Christian pneumatologies are still imprisoned in what may be called a “unitive” pneumatology, that is, they only speak of one spirit, the Spirit of God, and leave out of consideration other spirits, powers, energies. What is needed could be called a “plural” pneumatology: it is mindful of the meaning, role, and effects of other spirits vis-à-vis, along with, and as opposed to the Spirit of God. The promise of the latest developments in Christian pneumatology lies in the robust and intentional desire to widen and make more inclusive the theological understanding of the ministry of Spirit that will not leave intact any sphere in life and the cosmos. While not leaving behind traditional topics such as the Trinity, Scripture, and salvation, the Spirit is also connected with topics such as creation, humanity, and eschatology, as well as political, social, environmental, and other “public” issues. That said, the glaring omission of most Christian pneumatologies has to do with the neglect of the importance of other

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spirits, powers, and energies; by and large these are not seen as worthy of even a passing mention, let alone a focused theological reflection. An ironic—and sad— personal experience of that kind of “bound” pneumatology happened with an anonymous reviewer of one of my recent manuscripts. Having affirmed the careful and detailed historical and systematic study of the development of Christian doctrine of the Spirit, the reviewer added two harshly negative comments: the global and contextual views do not merit inclusion in that prestigious theological collection, as they are not “academically adequate”; even worse, the reviewer demanded that discussion of non-Christian—“pagan”—interpretations of the spirit in African folk religions, Islam, and various Hindu and Buddhist movements must be deleted from a “Christian theological” resource! In my solicited response, I kindly asked the publisher to convey my thanks to the reviewer because of his great service to my forthcoming manuscript; these two comments alone justified the publication of the work, I argued, and the publisher gladly approved! The omission of “pagan” powers stands in marked contrast to the beginnings of the Christian tradition when, in keeping with the worldview of the ancients, the world was filled with spirits, spiritual powers, and “spiritual warfare,” with exorcisms and other “power encounters.” Just consider the cosmology of the New Testament, whether Jesus’ own ministry or the worldview of the Apocalypse, and you get the picture. Christian tradition until the times of the Enlightenment—and in some quarters beyond that—continued to take for granted plural cosmologies and pneumatologies. Rightly the historian of dogma Jaroslav Pelikan notes, Christian apocalypticism reflected a supernaturalistic view of the world, which Christian believers shared with other religious men of antiquity . . . “Traffic was heavy on the highway between heaven and earth. God and spirits thickly populated the upper air, where they stood in readiness to intervene at any moment in the affairs of mortals. And demonic powers, emerging from the lower world or resident in remote corners of the earth, were a constant menace to human welfare. All nature was alive—alive with supernatural forces.”1

Historically speaking, the turn to the “unitive” pneumatology is a fairly recent phenomenon in the history of religions in general and Christian tradition in particular, and it has everything to do with the hegemony of the Enlightenment reductionist epistemology. Whereas tradition by and large was more limited—bound!—in its understanding of the ministry of the Spirit of God (as it related the Spirit mostly to salvation, inspiration of Scripture, and aspects of ecclesiology), it was also much more open to considering the theological significance of powers and other spirits. Just think of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s The Celestial Hierarchy and Aquinas’s profound angelology, including demonology (Summa Theologiae, part 1, questions 50–64).

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Two Contrasting Paradigms: “Unitive” and “Plural” Pneumatologies and Cosmologies In the suggested distinction between unitive and plural pneumatologies, the former paradigm considers theologically only the nature, personhood, and ministry of the Spirit of God, the one Spirit. Everything else “spiritual” in the cosmos, creation, society, or personal life is either denied or ignored or at least deemed unworthy of serious (i.e., academic) theological reflection. In contrast, the latter paradigm considers the one Spirit of God in relation to, vis-à-vis, and along with other spirits, powers, energies, spiritual effects, and so forth.2 This paradigm addresses the question of how to conceive of cosmology. Are there powers in the cosmos other than the power of God? Are they worthy of theological investigation and reckoning with? The paradigm of plural pneumatologies responds with a yes to all of these questions. Where could we hope to find resources for loosing Christian pneumatology from the strictures of the unitive paradigm? It seems to me that several sources are available: ● ● ● ●

Postmodern sensibilities in the Global North Theologies from the Global South3 Emerging global Pentecostal/Charismatic theologies4 A diverse group of studies and approaches including postcolonialism, the study of “powers,” the importance of “Intimations of Transcendence,”5 and many others

Whereas modernity celebrated unity, oneness, and homogeneity, postmodernity embraces “the growing fascination with ‘the other.’ The tendency to celebrate the different and suspect the same, to prefer heteron over tauton, aliter over idem, the alien over the identical, may be one of the defining peculiarities” of our age.6 The always perceptive—and not infrequently maverick—observer of contemporary spiritualities at the global level, Harvey Cox of Harvard, predicts a return of religions in the beginning of the new millennium. Whereas in the past several centuries “scientific modernity and traditional religion” were formative forces, nowadays—even with the diminishing of organized religion in the Global North—“experientialism” is on the rise and a part of the global religious resurgence,7 not only in Christianity but also in some other religions.8 Hence, spirituality, spiritual experience, powers, spirits are here to stay—and call for a theological and multidisciplinary account. With this background in mind, the rest of the chapter seeks to assess critically and sympathetically the state of contemporary global theological reflection on the spirit(s). Doing so, it draws from both “mainline” sources and those on the margins, in other words, from both unitive and plural frameworks, by comparing and contrasting them at four interrelated levels: ● ●

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● ●

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Spirit(s) in Society Spirit(s) in Salvation The Spheres of the Spirit(s)

Spirit(s) in the Cosmos Beginning the investigation from the role of spirits in the cosmos might sound like a counterintuitive move in light of the dominant unitive pneumatologies’ dismissal of talk about spirits, powers, and energies other than the One Divine Spirit. Although Karl Barth provided one of the most profound contemporary discussions of angelology in his doctrine of creation, he also saw the topic of the demonic and powers so inconsequential to theology that it sufficed to take a “quick, sharp glance” at it.9 Paul Tillich speaks of the demonic in pneumatology as part of “Life and Its Ambiguities”10 but it stays at a very generic level. Pannenberg’s world-embracing theological system knows no evil or demonic spirits, although quite interestingly he includes a short discussion on angels as seen through the pneumatological metaphor of “force field.”11 Astonishingly, even Moltmann, who speaks so much about the importance of developing a “holistic pneumatology”12 —an account of the Spirit freed from pietistic, ecclesiastical, and cultural strictures—is completely silent about anything referring to evil spirits or demons, or even angels! Even his extended treatments of suffering, ecological disasters, and socio-political injustices do not inspire any thinking on spirits and powers.13 Nor do we get any more help from leading Feminist pneumatologists such as Elizabeth Johnson and her counterparts. Even the criteria for the discernment of the spirit(s) are by and large missing in contemporary pneumatologies.14 In sum, the leading contemporary theologies in the Global North follow almost exclusively the unitive paradigm. Theologians of the Global South are showing the way toward plural cosmologies.15 According to the grand old man of African theologies, John Mbiti, on that continent, the universe is composed of visible and invisible parts. It is commonly believed that, besides God and human beings, there are other beings who populate the universe. These are the spirits. There are many types of spirits. God is their Creator, just as he is the Creator of all things. The spirits have a status between God and men, and are not identical with either. But people often speak about them in human terms, or treat them as though they had human characteristics such as thinking, speaking, intelligence and the possession of power which they can use as they will. Because the spirits are created by God, they are subordinate to him and dependent on him, and some of them may be used by God to do certain things.16

That observation is not limited to Africa, but is also true in most Asian contexts.17 In many locations of the Global South—radically differently from the post-Enlightenment Global North—“myriads of spirits are reported . . . but they defy description almost as much as they defy the scientist’s test tubes in the

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laboratory.”18 While mysterious and never totally exposed to human knowledge, the spirits are also particular and specific, as in many Asian lands: “The cult of the spirits and cosmic forces as the Bons (Tibet), Devas (South Asia), Nats (Burma), Phis (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia), the ancestral spirits (in the Confucian cultures of China, Korea, Vietnam, the Kalash in Pakistan) and the Kami (Japan) are an essential element of the spirituality of primal religions.”19 Unlike in Europe and North America, in the African context religion permeates all of life (similarly to the Asian and Latin American contexts).20 Again, unlike the Global North, where faith may often be mainly a matter of cultural alignment, rational believing, or pietistic cultivation, among those Christians in the Global South who live surrounded by the powers, the power of the Holy Spirit is invoked as their resource and shield.21 Here is a reason for the rapid “Pentecostalization” of Africa and the rapid advancement of Pentecostal/Charismatic spiritualities in other global contexts. Local theologians are prone to remark that this development is hardly surprising in light of the “secularizing” tendencies of much of theology imported from the Global North.22 Part of the cosmic orientation of all traditional and most contemporary cultures in the Global South has to do with deep and wide interaction between religions, part of which is the discernment of spirits of religions. The Confucian concept of ch’i aptly illustrates the cosmic dimension of the Spirit of God, animating and vitalizing all life, including the material body.23 Koo D. Yun’s chapter considers the relationship between ch’i and the Holy Spirit.24 Yong’s comparative work between the Mahayana Buddhist notion of Sunyata and the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit belongs to the same genre.25 One of the contributors in the present volume considers Shintoistic pantheistic traditions in Japan in relation to Christian pneumatologies (Naoki Inoue). Spirit(s) in Creation Although pneumatological cosmologies and discussion of powers is missing in much of mainline theology of the Global North, significant advancements have been made in linking the Spirit of God to creation. Based on the biblical teaching, particularly prominent in the Old Testament, that the divine Spirit is the principle of life and sustenance (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:29, 30), theologians such as Moltmann26 and Pannenberg27 have constructed pneumatologically funded accounts of creation (see the chapters by Philip J. Clayton and Erwin Morales). Rightly, the Roman Catholic Feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson notes that “of all the activities that theology attributes to the Spirit, the most significant is this: the Spirit is the creative origin of all life.”28 Not that this is a new and novel theological insight in itself; just consider, for example, the rich metaphors employed in medieval mystical traditions such as Hildegard of Bingen’s “Greening” of the Spirit and St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s “living water.”29 What makes the current rediscovery of the Spirit’s creative agency significant is that it puts the whole ministry, role, and work of the Spirit in a robust cosmic, evolutionary, and scientific context.

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However, something is missing here—not surprisingly in light of observations above; the role of spirits and powers is not considered in these creation theologies of the Global North. Another editor of this volume, Amos Yong (speaking of the Spirit’s role in creation from a Pentecostal perspective), wonders if contemporary theologies, including religion-science conversations, are “[o]pen enough for proposing in the theology and science conversation a consideration of a spiritfilled cosmos.”30 Hence, we have the challenge of how well plural pneumatologies might engage scientific interpretations of creation.31 Spirit(s) in Society Along with the sphere of creation, contemporary theology is also seeking for ways to rediscover the role of the Spirit and spirits in history (Patrick Oden’s chapter), culture, politics, entertainment, family, business—in other words, in areas outside the church. Not for nothing did the American Roman Catholic pneumatologist Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, lament decades ago that in both “Protestantism and Catholicism, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or pneumatology, has to do mostly with private, not public experience” and that therefore pneumatology has lost connection with the rest of the world and life. Hence, in contemporary theology a definite turn is needed from “a theology of the Word to a theology of the World.”32 History, not only salvation history, is the sphere of the Spirit as well.33 On the contemporary theological scene, Moltmann is best known for his calls to help pneumatology break out from its ecclesiastical prison for Christians to see its relevance in all aspects of their lives.34 The way for these calls by Catholic and Reformed theologians for loosing the Spirit in the world had been prepared by earlier theologians. Just consider Tillich’s life- and culture-affirming theology in general and pneumatology in particular.35 His profound discussion of “Life in Spirit” (third vol. of Systematic Theology) expands and widens the Spirit’s horizon from an inorganic to organic to personal to ecclesiastical to all the dimensions of society—arts, culture, or politics.36 In all of this, Tillich considers the meaning of “The Spiritual Presence” in human spirit, religion, culture, and morality, not to ignore Christology and the church! Similarly, his Lutheran colleague, the Dutch Reformed Hendrikus Berkhof, attempted a powerful revision of his own tradition’s theology in light of the heritage of Classical Liberalism and the new challenges of the twentieth-century context, envisioning the Spirit as the “vitality” of God, “God’s inspiring breath by which he grants life in creation and re-creation.”37 Behind this attempt to loose the Spirit of God is the important line of the Reformed theological tradition going back to Abraham Kuyper38 and of course ultimately to Calvin and other early Reformers. Similar attempts to release the Spirit from the confines of inner piety and ecclesiastical-sacramental life—without in any way leaving behind these important domains of the Spirit’s ministry—abound in current times, including integrating the Spirit into care of the environment,39 gender equality,40 work,41 and politics, including socio-political liberation and equality.42 Some postcolonialists

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have joined the effort, claiming that “it will be necessary to understand immigration history, racism, hybridity, and hyphenated reality to get a glimpse of how a new pneumatology can emerge and address the issues of domination and imperialism in our context.”43 This is all good and significant, but the question arises: what about the powers and spirits? So far in this section, we have spoken only of the One Spirit. Again, mainline theologians, including Feminists, other Liberationists, and postcolonialists, do not have much to offer in terms of the plural paradigm. In that respect we have to turn to Walter Wink’s program of “powers.” It is so well-known that a brief explanation suffices. New Testament scholar Wink argues that the powers are “the spiritualities of institutions, the ‘within’ of corporate structures and the inner essence of outer organizations of power.” The outer aspect consists of “political systems, appointed officials, the ‘chair’ of an organization, laws.”44 Not thought of are categories such as “angels,” “principalities and powers,” as well as “Satan,” after the worldview of the ancients—which is also “accidentally” that of the biblical writers—or they are demythologized to the point of meaning nothing as in Bultmann’s theology. Rather, they are “real” powers, albeit not in the traditional sense. They are social, cultural, political, financial, global powers. What do we do with the powers according to Wink? They must be “redeemed” because they were good originally, and then became evil. The key to redeeming powers is in the Jesus-kind of lifestyle: nonviolent, peaceful, and free. That is set against the “Domination system of the Powers” of the world.45 Wink’s strategy of “redeeming powers” is thus radically different from the biblical custom of exorcism—still prevalent in quarters of the Roman Catholic Church and among many Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians and a number of Global Church Christian communities. Wink has of course done a great service in exposing the modernist reductionism in a theological denial of powers. While mere exegesis would hardly take one to the kind of creative reenvisioning of powers he presents, Wink’s desire to tackle the biblical text in light of Christian tradition and the post-Enlightenment world is to be acknowledged. But what bothers me is Wink’s totally nonmetaphysical interpretation of powers. Whatever one thinks of the status of metaphysics in contemporary theology and philosophy, denying all metaphysical implications of the Christian idea of powers is unacceptable to me. I also wonder why one should juxtapose the traditional (including its contemporary applications) “literal” understanding—despite its many problematic applications and experiences and its individualistic orientation—with the collective understanding. Couldn’t a plural cosmology have them both? Spirit(s) in Salvation What is traditionally called ordo salutis, the “order of salvation,” is the part of pneumatology that discusses in detail the interrelated aspects—or “steps,” as it were—of the reception by men and women of the salvific benefits wrought by the Triune God. In tradition, Christology represents the “objective,” whereas pneumatology the “subjective” work of salvation. Moltmann’s revisionist

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pneumatology argues forcefully—and rightly in my mind—that the beginning point of the ordo salutis is the holistic, ever-present, cosmic, and earthly Spirit of God. There is no place for dualism between earthly/spiritual, sacred/secular, individual/communal, and so forth.46 The Spirit of God supports life and resists life-destroying acts and attitudes,47 as well as supports an inclusive vision of salvation and liberation.48 It does not suffice to speak of “new birth” as a personal experience alone; it also has to do with the hope for the “rebirth” and renewal of the whole cosmos. Justification is not only about forgiveness of sins but also about walking justly in newness of life. Sanctification is not merely about abstaining from sin but also about sanctity and honoring of life. And so forth. Liberation, inclusivity, and human flourishing—in both happiness and sickness—are key values. Moltmann joins hands with a number of different types of liberation theologies as in them salvation can never be “spiritual” in a way that leaves behind the material, social, political—the “mundane.”49 It is not about leaving behind spirituality but rather living out a Spirituality of Liberation, to cite an important book title by Jon Sobrino, which, as the subtitle puts it, leads Toward Political Holiness.50 For such renewed, healed, and empowered life to flourish, the Spirit’s role as “The Charismatic Powers of Life” should be rediscovered.51 To charismatic effects belongs freedom from under the powers and healing, whether physical or mental. Here again, much help can be gained from the pneumatologies of the Global South. An important part of some African theologies is a distinctive “Spirit-Christology”52 that “shows Jesus’ power over the world of spirits and his connectedness to the Holy Spirit.”53 Salvation in this outlook includes physical and mental healing as well as deliverance from the evil powers and spirits.54 Attempting to include into the discussion of ordo salutis plurality of spirits, powers, and energies—obviously—would be a most challenging and complicated task as the topic of salvation in itself encompasses so many facets. That task awaits the pneumatologists of the third millennium. In Lieu of Conclusions: Tasks for the Future In order for the mainline Global North–driven pneumatological discourse to overcome its limitations and omissions, it is badly in need of consultation with the theologians of the Global South. The interaction between theologians from the North and South would also help compare notes regarding the many promising advances related to the loosing of the Divine Spirit, particularly concerning the created reality and various segments of society. The pneumatological reflection of the third millennium has to consider carefully the language of/for the Spirit. The way we speak of pneumatological topics shapes our understanding and spirituality. The rich metaphorical, symbolic, and poetic tradition of the Global South—like much of biblical narrative and early Christian theology—may help capture the elusive, nonbound, and creative presence and ministry of the Spirit more appropriately.

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It seems to me the challenge of the theology of religions and particularly comparative theology will become a key area of collaboration between pneumatologists from various contexts. Thus, Christian theologians should do more focused work in the area of religious studies, including the history of religions, religious phenomenology, and related topics. There is also the continuing deep and wide theological task, namely, having made the move from the unitive to plural pneumatologies and cosmologies, one has to negotiate carefully the relation between the Spirit of God and other powers. While there is a lot of enthusiasm concerning the shift to plural pneumatologies, there are also instances when the move itself is celebrated to the point that the contours of a distinctively Christian theological understanding of the Divine Spirit are blurred. The same task of course awaits pneumatologists from other traditions—Jewish, Islamic, “secular,” and others. Notes 1. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971), 132; the citation is from Shirley Jackson Case, The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1946), 1. 2. My editorial colleague Kirsteen Kim speaks of the same distinction using the terms “one-spirit” and “many-spirit” pneumatologies and cosmologies. Kim, “The Potential of Pneumatology for Mission in Contemporary Europe,” International Review of Mission 95:378–79 (2006): 338. 3. For an important resource, see Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007). 4. See Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, ed., The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). 5. See Phillip H. Wiebe, God and Other Spirits: Intimations of Transcendence in Christian Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 6. F. LeRon Shults, “Tending to the Other in Late Modern Missions and Ecumenism” Swedish Missiological Themes 95/4 (2007): 415–34 (415). 7. Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995), 299–301. 8. See, for example, Seyed Hossein Nasr, ed., Islamic Spirituality: Manifestations (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997). 9. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3, trans. G. W. Bromiley and R. J. Ehrlich (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1960), 369–531 (519). 10. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1964), 102–6. As is well known, in the first volume of his Systematic Theology, Tillich also speaks of the demonic in terms of archetypes of depth psychology and in reference to an awareness of the suprahuman power of the demonic in literature. 11. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991, 1994, 1998), 2:102–9. 12. As the original German subtitle of his pneumatological magnum opus has it, Eine Ganzheitliche Pneumatologie; unfortunately, the English translation does not capture

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13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

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this and gives a somewhat misleading idea: Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). One reviewer of the Spirit of Life who obviously had studied the work in much detail reports that for Moltmann it suffices to refer to evil spirits in passing in a couple of footnotes! Mark W. G. Stibbe, “A British Appraisal,” review of Jürgen Moltmann’s “The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 4 (1994): 13. As noted, concerning Moltmann’s Spirit of Life, by Simon K. H. Chan, “ ‘An Asian Review,’ review of Jürgen Moltmann’s The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 4 (1994): 39. See the chapter by Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu. For sample of representative texts with comments, see Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, ed., Holy Spirit and Salvation: The Sources of Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), chs. 15 (Africa), 16 (Asia), and 17 (Latin America). John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (London: Heinemann Educations, 1975), 70. Yeow Choo Lak, “Preface,” to John C. England and Alan J. Torrance, eds., Doing Theology with the Spirit’s Movement in Asia (Singapore: ATESEA, 1991), vi. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: A. Prager, 1969), 78. “The Spirit at Work in Asia Today: A Document of the Office of Theological Concerns of the Federation of the Asian Bishops’ Conferences,” FABC Papers no. 81 (1998), 23. Mbiti, African Religions, 2. Osadolor Imasogie, Guidelines for Christian Theology in Africa (Achimota, Ghana: Africa Christian Press, 1993), 81. Imasogie, Guidelines, 81. J. Y. Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 95–6. See also his The Holy Spirit and Ch’i (Qi): A Chiological Approach to Pneumatology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011). Amos Yong, Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow through the Middle Way? Studies in Systematic Theology 11 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012). Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 9–13 (9). Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, ch. 7. Elizabeth Johnson, Women, Earth and Creator Spirit (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 42. See Elizabeth A. Dreyer, “An Advent of the Spirit: Medieval Mystics and Saints,” in Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney, eds., Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology (Marquette, WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 123–62. Amos Yong, The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 179. See also his analysis of common hermeneutical approaches to “the powers”: In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 139–45. See Mark I. Wallace’s chapter in this volume. Consider also the important emerging discussion of a program that has many intentions in common with what is called

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32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

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plural cosmologies here: Catherine Keller and Laurel C. Schneider, eds., Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relation (New York: Routledge, 2011). Also noteworthy are attempts by some Native people to create plural cosmologies, for example, Emily Cousins, “Mountains Made Alive: Native American Relationship with Sacred Land,” Cross Currents 46:4 (Winter 1996/97): 497–510. Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., “The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” Theology Today 39:2 (1982): 142. Thus the title of his landmark work, The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier Books, 2003). See Joel Kovel, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), and the chapter by Patrick Oden in this volume. Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 2. McDonnell, “Determinative Doctrine,” 155. Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3:14–15; this first chapter, at the beginning of his pneumatology, is titled “Life and Its Ambiguities.” Hendrikus Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1964), 14. For a brief consideration of Kuyper’s pneumatology, see Kärkkäinen, Holy Spirit and Salvation, 252–58. Joseph Bracken, S.J., Society and Spirit: A Trinitarian Cosmology (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1991). Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1993); Rebecca Button Prichard, Sensing the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Feminist Perspective (St. Louis: Chalice, 1999). Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (1991; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001). Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, God’s Spirit: Transforming a World in Crisis, trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1995); José Comblin, The Holy Spirit and Liberation, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989). Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 2. Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984), 5. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); see p. 44 for the chart contrasting the two systems. Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 84. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 101. See Comblin, Holy Spirit and Liberation, 94–95, 99. Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political Holiness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 49. Chapter title in Moltmann, Spirit of Life, chap. 9. Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 176. For Spirit-Christologies and their implications, see V.-M. Kärkkäinen, Christ and Reconciliation: Constructive Christian Theology for the Church in the Pluralistic World, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), ch. 8.

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53. Donald J. Goergen, O.P., “The Quest for the Christ of Africa,” African Christian Studies 17:1 (March 2001), available online at http://www.sedos.org/english/ goergen.htm (accessed May 29, 2007), n.p. 54. See the important study by Caleb Oluremi Oladipo, The Development of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Yoruba (African) Indigenous Christian Movement (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996).

CHAPTER 3

Spirit and Spirits in African Religious Traditions J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

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his chapter discusses the spirit world in African thought systems and practices. The religious traditions and beliefs of the African peoples have enough differences to merit a study of each in its own right. Nevertheless, they also display enough family resemblances for us to be able to delineate their main features and to a very reasonable extent fall on them to represent the whole. The religious traditions and practices discussed below are informed by African beliefs in the reality of the spirit world and the ardent desire to engage with it for the purposes of human survival, health, fruitfulness, and longevity. Not only are spirits real but also evil is hyperactive and much religious activity and energy goes into restraining sources of supernatural evil and their influence on human life. The continuities between African beliefs in mystical causality and the attractions to pneumatic forms of Christian piety are therefore not too difficult to find. If Western mission Christianity dismissed African beliefs in the evils of witchcraft as nonsensical, African-initiated Christianity of the pneumatic type affirmed such beliefs and provided alternative rituals for dealing with them within a Christian context. The chapter first looks at the traditional understanding of the workings of spirits and their associated religious practices and, second, the ways in which these beliefs and practices inform expressions of Christianity especially the so-called African Independent Churches (AICs) and contemporary Pentecostalism. This can only be a broad and general survey of phenomena that relate particularly to African primal societies. We conclude that it is the combination of African and biblical worldviews of the reality of spirit powers especially, as experiential entities, that give African initiatives in Christianity their unique indigenous identities. Religion, as we shall see below, permeates all aspects of African life. The belief that human beings live in an “alive universe” of spirits of whose powers we stand in need is important to explain the nature of the spirit world in African religious traditions and indigenous Christianity. Thus the single most important

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characteristic of religion that connects African traditional religions on the one hand and the AICs and Pentecostal religion on the other is the strong belief in the reality of the spirit world and its influence on the physical order. Religion and Spirits in Africa To begin with, the idea of religion presupposes the existence of a supernatural or suprasensory realm of existence. If the lives of ordinary Africans are governed by taboos, it is because they are aware that the spirit world is never far away. It is the human belief in the existence of a spirit world, the revelations emanating from there, and the human responses to that world that gives rise to the idea of religion. Thus Keith Ward points out that there is no religion that presents itself—not even Buddhism, which does not believe in a creator God—as a simple imaginative construct or as one that has been invented through rational investigation without the need of some special insight that relates humans to what he calls “a suprasensory realm in a specifically privileged way.”1 This, presumably, is what Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar also had in mind when writing on Africa. They defined religion as “belief in the existence of an invisible world, distinct but not separate from the visible one, that is home to spiritual beings with effective powers over the material world.”2 In African philosophical thought the seen and unseen, visible and invisible, or sacred and secular worlds and realities are inseparably related. Since religion permeates all aspects of life, John S. Mbiti notes that there is some inseparability between sacred and secular realities.3 That point is made even more forcefully by Lamin Sanneh in his observation that in Africa, religion falls like a shaft of light across the entire spectrum of life and that African communities live, move, and have their being in religion.4 To that end the African cosmological universe is indeed one in which the Great Spirit or Supreme Being, smaller spirits or divinities, and humans remain in constant interaction through ritual. Religion in the developed West, with its enlightenment tradition, may consist of systems of ideas. In African traditional societies, however, religion revolves around the expressions, appropriations, and experiences of supernatural power within the natural order. Gods, spirits, and other unseen forces including evil spirits and witches are believed to be at work in the world that is seen and they are “postulated in explanation of the workings of the universe, of the incidence of benefits and misfortunes, and of the strains of life in society.”5 In the ordinary and extraordinary moments of life, as Daryll Forde explains, “means are employed according to the situation and the diagnosis to enlist or avert the anticipated action of such beings and powers.”6 Apart from the Great Spirit or Supreme Being, the spirit powers of the African cosmological world have survived in the popular Christian imagination as demons and agents of the devil. Pneumatic Christianity—and I include in this description both the AICs and Pentecostals—does well in such non-Western contexts as Africa because they offer interventions in the supreme power of the Holy Spirit who is considered to be able to overcome the demons of the traditional spiritual world, which is a world of power.

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Spirits and Power The African world is therefore a spirit-filled one and what makes the spirit world important is that it is considered the source of ultimate power and influence. The point is that the idea of religion in non-Western worlds generally and the African context in particular presupposes belief in two asymmetrical realms of existence—the unseen or invisible spiritual realm and a seen or visible physical realm—that are supposed to be in constant interaction with each other. Additionally, it is believed, we live in a sacramental universe in which the physical is a vehicle for the spiritual. When the spirit world is aggrieved the result is calamity and suffering in the human world. In the African context the withdrawal of supernatural covering and the workings of evil spirits result in the failure of food crops, lack of rainfall, barrenness in women and impotency in men, and inexplicable deaths and epidemics including all sorts of afflictions. The formal and informal arrangements put in place to interact with the spirit world—sacrifices, prayer, pilgrimages, rites, rituals, and related sacred observances—are therefore meant to connect or facilitate communication between the two realms in order that the power for living may be made available to vulnerable human beings. Ward ascribes two important features to what we described as the “suprasensory realm” of existence. First, he sees it as realm that is not accessible to “normal sense-observation or to processes of rational reflection which depend solely on sense-observation”; and, second, he believes that the suprasensory realm is one that is seen by humans as a source of “greater value or power” than the sensory realm. This is exactly so in various African primal contexts. The late African theologian Kwame Bediako, for example, described this suprasensory realm as the source power, blessings, and protection for vulnerable humans. Precisely because of their vulnerability, humans seek to enter into relationships with what Bediako refers to as “the benevolent spirit-world.”7 Prayer, ritual, and sacrifices are the bridges through which the spirit and human worlds connect to each other. Thus an important way to understand the relationship between the human world and the spirit world is to look at prayer in a typical African traditional context such as among the Akan of Ghana. Prayer may be informal, but in traditional Africa, formal prayer such as that which is required to reverse calamities, to celebrate festivals, to invoke the presence of the ancestors during community gatherings and the like are offered by specialists. Precisely because of the inaccessibility of the transcendent realm there arises the idea that certain people possess special powers of nonsensory apprehension that enables them to serve as vehicles of relationship with this realm and discern its character. Supreme Being and Spirits in African Philosophical Thought The belief in the existence of a Supreme Being is common to all African cultures. According to the Batammaliba who live in the savanna regions of Togo and Benin in West Africa, Kuiye, the Supreme Being, is an eternal being who has always been there and they think of him as “a master architect who designed and created the world.”8 When the Akan of Ghana refer to the Supreme as Oboadee,

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they are making the same point about God as Creator. The Supreme Being who is spirit comes under various designations usually linked with his functions as creator, judge, provider, sustainer, and source of all things. In African Mythology Geoffrey Parrinder, an important midtwentieth century British academic interpreter of African religious traditions, described the Supreme Being in African cultures as “the greatest power of all, the strong one, who possesses life and strength in himself, and from whom creaturely force is derived.”9 The Supreme Being as spirit is universal, eternal, and permanent and therefore cannot be domesticated. Thus unlike localized smaller deities that may be owned by communities, families and individuals, the Supreme Being exists by himself. The Great Spirit cannot be embodied in shrines and has no priestly mediators. Among the Akan of Ghana, the philosophy is that “if you have something to say to the Great Spirit you simply tell the wind.” African mythology portrays him as distant from human beings and he is represented by certain smaller deities. R.S. Rattray studying the Ashanti of the Gold Coast10 in the early decades of the twentieth century described the Supreme Being as dwelling “somewhat aloof in His firmament” and delegating some of His power to His “vice-regents upon Earth.”11 The smaller deities are spirits who inhabit things in the environment— water bodies, rocks, trees, stones, and, when they need to communicate, their human religious functionaries or shrine priests and diviners. The Earth, although part of the created order, is considered a goddess in some parts of Africa and as possessing a divine principle requiring due reverence in other parts. The Supreme Being may not be actively involved in daily human activities but, nevertheless, he is revered in African spirituality as the Great Spirit and acknowledged as the creator and mover of the universe and the source of all human life. He is the highest of all spirit powers and the local gods are his agents, servants, or messengers for, having created them all, they live with humanity as his representatives. In some traditional communities the smaller deities or gods are simply the children of the Supreme Being. The awareness that we are in the midst of spirit powers means religion in traditional Africa is an activity that required participation rather than mere belief. The participants in this vein are the spirit powers on the one hand and the human world on the other. Ancestors as the “Living-Dead” An important way to appreciate the inseparability between the physical and spiritual realms of existence is to consider the relationship between ancestors of the traditional world and their physically living communities. John Mbiti called the ancestors “the living-dead” because they are departed elders of their communities who are believed to participate in the affairs of the living as custodians of morality. Among the Akan of Ghana the ancestors are simply “nananom nsamanfo,” elders of the spirit world whose presence is constantly invoked through libation prayer so that they can participate in human affairs. The implications of this for being “human” are profound, for as Mbiti writes, “to be human is to belong to the whole community, and to do so involves participating in the beliefs, ceremonies,

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rituals and festivals of that community.” A person cannot detach himself from the religion of his group, for to do so is “to be severed from his roots, his foundation, his context of security, his kinships and the entire group of those who make him aware of his own existence.”12 Things have changed with the arrival of missionary religions and other forms of new religious expressions many of them are of a Christian orientation, but traditional religious worldviews have survived and even persisted in the religious consciousness of many Africans. In sub-Saharan African cultures in which the institution of chieftaincy is an important one, every chief rules on behalf of his or her ancestors. The chief is one who “sits on the stool of the ancestors.” The ancestors, like the gods, are usually localized because as spirits they are mostly associated with the particular families within which they originate. On festive and important religious occasions, however, the spirits of dead occupants of the stool representing the nation are invoked and fed as a sign of gratitude for protection and blessing. Among several Akan traditions, there exist stool rooms where symbolic representations of ancestors in the form of blackened stools are kept. These are sacred places reserved for the performance of important rituals by designated religious functionaries. Catholic Archbishop Emeritus Peter K. Sarpong is an authority on Asante customs. He observes that as soon as a chief is enstooled, his person becomes sacred and that it is by reason of the stool that one is a chief and enjoys personal sacredness. It is only in that capacity, he notes, that a chief takes on a sacred and priestly character and is deemed worthy to discharge the religious duties that are of prime importance. The chief ’s stool is also believed to be the resting place as well as the symbol of the chief ’s soul.13 The chief, by virtue of sitting on the stools of ancestors, is the chief religious functionary of the nation. He communicates with the spirits of the ancestors at important times of the year. One of the first and most significant studies of African cosmological ideas noted that the origin of a people and the natural resources from which they eke out a living contribute to the expression and sustenance of attitudes toward extrahuman forces that are believed to control or intervene among them.14 The chief communicates with the ancestors precisely because these human spirits are considered the source of economic survival and livelihood. The religious functions of the chief ’s office, especially the fact that he has to communicate with spirits or ancestors, has led to a rejection of chieftaincy as representative of idol worship among conservative evangelical African Christians in whose minds the ancestors, like the gods, are just demons. Worlds of Power The categories of spirits in African traditions thus include the Great Spirit, the gods, which are spirits inhabiting animate objects, ancestors, and other loose spirits of both benevolent and malevolent nature whose powers may be invoked and deployed to service various human purposes. The African universe has a

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sacramental nature, with the physical being a vehicle for the spiritual. Thus it is not uncommon to understand why inexplicable and persistent problems in life are looked at generally in terms of the work of “forces.” In the West African countries of Ghana and Nigeria the nomenclature “forces” occurs in popular discourse as the influence exerted on the natural order by unseen powers. To say there are “forces” behind a particular misfortune, for example, is to suggest that a negative effect has supernatural actors behind it. The African universe has therefore been referred to as consisting of “worlds of power” on account of the extensive belief in and the influence that supernatural powers are believed to have over the natural order.15 African religious traditions are often about relationship with supernatural powers. Communities therefore settle within spaces where they can remain in touch with the spirits of their ancestors or where spirits—later served as gods— are discerned to be abiding there in rivers, trees, rocks, mountains, or within certain other natural environments. To exist in a sacramental universe is to live in an enchanted world in which spirits may be invisible but real and deemed to be at work in the lives and activities of people. The gods of traditional religion in Africa are hierophanic beings because they are spirits that animate, very often temporarily. When the spirit embodying a particular object of nature departs, the object ceases to have sacral value. Thus unlike the Supreme Being who is universal, permanent, and omnipotent, traditional gods may be acquired or dispensed with according to how successfully they serve the needs of their worshippers or clients. In relation to the worship of the Great Spirit, the smaller divinities or gods tend to be so predominant in traditional religious life that, as Bolaji Idowu observed, “it is difficult for the casual observer to notice that under them there is one vital cultic basis.”16 Spirit Possession and Religious Mediation In traditional libation prayer the two types of audience from the asymmetrical realms are distinguished. The first is the primary but unseen audience of deities and spirits for whom the prayer is meant and they form the beneficent audience. There is also the secondary audience, those of the human realm who are the potential beneficiaries of prayer. As the political and religious head of his people, the traditional chief constitutes the link between the human and ancestral worlds. Thus in his capacity as mediator, and one with eyes to see into the supernatural realm, the religious functionary has to invoke the help of the spirit world through libation prayers on festival days and times of crisis. Thus in between the two realms of existence—the natural and supernatural, physical and spiritual, seen and unseen—are religious functionaries who are basically persons of sacred power with the ability to “see” into and “discern” developments within the realms of the supernatural. People repair to them for all kinds of medicines for protection against enemies and to be invulnerable within the physically and spiritually precarious world within which life has to be lived. Anthony Ephirim-Donkor writes that primal preoccupations with mystical causality mean that when death

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is believed to have occurred prematurely, for example, answers must be found regarding who might have been the cause of the early departure of the deceased. The Akan seek out mediums, Akomfo, because they are indispensable to pinning down the precise supernatural causality of deaths in order to reassure an otherwise anxious community to proceed with burial obsequies.17 The potential medium receives the ability to discern that which is hidden from ordinary people, and achieves heightened sensitivity to supernatural realities through the spiritual disciplines of fasting and strict moral behavior. Communication and encounters with the supernatural realm remain their most important functions. In African societies, “extraordinary evil,” which is usually mystically caused through curses, witchcraft, ritual sin or mbusu and sometimes sheer hatred drives many to the courts of indigenous shrines in search of remedies. In Akan traditional thought, the soul, okra, is a courier of Nkrabea, destiny. These are divinely ordained life’s courses that may be tempered with by supernatural enemies in order to change its course and ultimately bring life to a disastrous end. This, as Ephirim-Donkor explains, “makes ethical existence tantalizingly challenging during adulthood,” contextually, therefore, “the anxiety over existential and metaphysical issues and their repercussions compelled individuals to seek” what he refers to as “mediumistic interventions for psychosomatic security and well-being.”18 African Traditional Religious Functionaries and Christianity John D. K. Ekem has examined the nature of such mediumistic interventions in his work Priesthood in Context.19 Ekem gives two meanings to the word okomfo. In secular language, the word kom refers to hunger but in religious discourse it refers to the act of cultic or spirit-inspired dancing. When any music and dance forms are set aside as something sacred to the gods or divinities, they assume ritual value. They are cultivated not only as something that provides the atmosphere and emotional conditioning required for sustaining a ritual occasion, but also as an important medium for reaching the unseen. In other words they are invocatory. Many divinities, like their worshippers, can be deeply affected by music and dance. Indeed, the most common situation in which some of the gods manifest themselves is the situation in which music set aside for them is performed. Among Ga communities of Accra, it is the nature of the dance form that tells the informed observer which deity is at work in a medium. Deities descend to the people through their human mediums and participate in music and dance.20 Thus in public akom is “conjuration in a state of trance, which includes unique dances in response to unique musical dictates of deities.”21 In both senses of “hunger” and “cultic dancing” to ritual music, akom is applicable to traditional priesthood for it is the spiritual disciplines of fasting and deliberate abstinence from pleasure that give the religious functionary the spiritual alertness and heightened sensitivity to supernatural communication that enables religious mediation to occur in the context of power. Ritual music creates

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the appropriate atmosphere for the gods to descend among the people, possess the priest or priestess, and then deliver the required messages through them as mediums. Thus akom refers to the act of prophesying under the influence of a possessing spirit and although not always the case, it mostly occurs during a period of trance. When the religious functionary keeps spiritually alert to physical, spiritual, and ritual purity, it makes it easier for the spirit of the deity to descend or alight upon him or her and bring word to the confused and troubled world of humans. Additionally, the akomfo or religious functionaries in other African contexts possess a repertoire of secret herbal knowledge, which they draw upon to aid the treatment of all kinds of illnesses. Thus African religious functionaries are expected to be prophetic voices who promulgate future events to society through traditional rulers.22 Indeed, we learn that the process of graduation from shrines after training for the okomfo includes being made to swallow the eyes of a dog in order to increase the power of supernatural visibility, which that animal species is believed to possess. People visit the religious functionaries to help them protect happy destinies and reverse the negative ones. Benjamin C. Ray explains the connections between the desire to rectify unhappy destinies within traditional Yoruba contexts and how these approaches to life are reinvented in African revivalist or Aladura (praying people) Christianity: Yoruba go to their shrines to seek cures for their ills, answers to their questions, and guidance to their lives. This pragmatic, ritually centered view of religion, characterized by Robin Horton’s aptly chosen terms “explanation, prediction and control,” is not only fundamental to Aladura Christianity, it is fundamental to most other African independent churches as well. Given this pragmatic religious attitude, the pursuit of human well-being in the world requires considerable ritual effort. For the Yoruba, achieving full self-actualization means obtaining the traditional “good things” or “blessings” (ire) in life: children, prosperity, health and long life.23

In a study among the Edo of Benin City, Nigeria, Paula G. Ben-Amos was informed that when the god comes down on a person’s head “she can see everything” and “anything she says is directly from Olokun, the deity.”24 The relationship between the deity and okomfo is considered so intimate as a result of the initial religious experience of possession that among the Akan the priest is quintessentially the wife of the deity irrespective of gender. Indeed, the act of possession is conceived in terms of “sexual intimacy” and so the expression akom afa no, he or she has been possessed by a deity, signifies the invasion of the privacy of an individual by the spirit. The expression afa no is employed when a man has sexual intercourse with a woman against her consent. It is the intimacy with the deity and the years of austere professional training leading to the attainment of the highest socio-religious and spiritual state that enable the religious functionary to hear from the gods and bring communication and direction from them to religious seekers.

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Religious Mediators as Persons of Sacred Power The calling, role, and modus operandi of the okomfo, babalawo or nganga, as these religious functionaries may be designated within various African traditions, presents a particular poignant example of how the resonances between primal piety and indigenous revivalist Christianity actually work out in practice. When the okomfo comes under the possessing influence of the deity, he or she does not speak in ordinary human language. He does speak the language of the spirits because the gods do not communicate in human languages; rather, they do so in primal tongues as a sign of their existence and presence. It lies in the power of religious functionaries with access to the language of the supernatural realm to relate to suppliants what the gods may be saying. Traditional priesthood presented a particularly difficult challenge to Christian mission work. Christian missionaries in early-nineteenth-century Africa cast a very negative and condescending image for the traditional religions of Africa. In addition to its moral requirements, to become a Christian in Africa as Birgit Meyer has very forcefully argued is “to make a complete break with the past” of traditional religion and culture.25 While other groups in society, among them leaders of the Catholic and Protestant mission churches, try to come to terms with local traditions and to reconcile new and old ideas in order to develop a genuine African synthesis, pentecostalists oppose this revaluation of tradition and culture. They emphasize the “global” character of this variant of Christianity and the necessity to break away from local traditions.26

The mystified appearances of the traditional priest, in Christian eyes, became visible representation of the ugly appearance of Satan. Christian preaching and teaching presents traditional religions and the spirits associated with them— whether benevolent or malevolent—presented as agents of the devil who in the thought of First Peter 5:8 as the “adversary” of the Christian “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” The continuing Christian advance has led to the declining importance of traditional religions in urban Africa in particular but its underlying worldviews have survived in the African imagination. Thus the weakening strength in the formal and public practices of traditional religions in Africa has not necessarily meant that indigenous faiths have lost their importance altogether. Christianity has been received and appropriated in Africa through traditional religious categories. Thus African Christians generally regard the spirit world as real because as Ellis and Ter Haar point out “this is where the vital decisions are taken that affect people’s lives.”27 In their words, “many Africans today who continue to hold beliefs derived from their traditional cosmologies apply these to everyday life even when they live in cities and work in the civil service or business sector. Religious worldviews do not necessarily diminish with formal education.”28

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Christian G. Baëta of Ghana was one of the first indigenous scholars to give academic attention to the classical African independent churches through a University of London doctoral program in the late 1950s. In this work subsequently published as Prophetism in Ghana, Baëta came to the important conclusion that for members of these Holy Spirit churches Christianity indeed meant making a complete break with the past in order that help may be obtained from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit. He discerned that African pneumatic Christianity involved a prodigious struggle to prove the reality of spiritual things in general and the biblical promises in particular, taking these in a fully literal sense.29 The needs that drive people to seek the help of these Spiritual churches are the same ones that take most Africans to shrines. In much of Africa, the Spiritual church prophet thus became the Christian reinvention of the traditional priest or diviner. Essentially, as the Yoruba designation of the diviner implies, both the traditional religious functionary and the Christian charismatic prophet reveal the unhealthy destinies of their clients in order to invoke supernatural interventions of their behalf. Power of the Holy Spirit In African Christian innovation including contemporary Pentecostalism, evil generally and the devil in particular are overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit. There are several ways in which the deployment of the Holy Spirit in African pneumatic or Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity may be illustrated. Three of these—healing and deliverance; use of tongues; and anointing services—may suffice in making the point. First, the popularity of Pneumatic Christianity in Africa may be explained partly by the fact that it affirms traditional worldviews of mystical causality and provides the appropriate Christian ritual contexts within which the fears and insecurities of ordinary people may be dealt with. Healing and deliverance centers, camps, and prayer services are available throughout urban and rural Africa under the supervision of “anointed” men and women of God with some claiming the prophetic heritage for those who pray for people, exorcise their demons, cancel negative destinies, and even invoke the fire of God upon their enemies in order to free them from the spiritual encumbrances of life that make living a problem. In my book African Charismatics I define healing and deliverance as follows: The deployment of divine resources, that is power and authority in the Name and Blood of Jesus—perceived in pneumatological terms as the intervention of the Holy Spirit—to provide release for demon-possessed, demon-oppressed, broken, disturbed and troubled persons, in order that victims may be restored to “proper functioning order,” that is, to “health and wholeness”; and thus freed from demonic influence and curses, they may enjoy God’s fullness of life understood to available in Christ.30

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It is in the power of the Holy Spirit that the negative effects of evil powers including those demonized from traditional religions are dealt with. Second, and in relation to the deployment of the power of the Holy Spirit, those baptized in his fullness are considered to be insulated against the powers of traditional spirits. Indeed, one way to overcome demons and evil spirits is to deploy one’s grace of speaking in tongues. In the African Pentecostal imagination, tongues being a heavenly language are used to confuse the devil so that prayers may ascend to God unhindered. In dire circumstances when ordinary prayers seem to “fail” especially during exorcism or deliverance, those who pray in tongues are considered to have an edge of those who do not. It is thought in African Pentecostal Christianity that certain stubborn spirits are most effectively cast out through speaking in tongues. This Pentecostal thought also informs the phenomenon in which tongues is now used in popular gospel-life Pentecostal music. The preference for gospel music with tongues in Ghana is informed by the popular belief that the glossolalia in the music keeps the devil and demons at bay because it “activates” the power of the Holy Spirit setting him in motion against other powers. Third, we see the invocation of the power of the Spirit against lesser spirits in anointing services. Also called impartation services, anointing services are held to anoint people with oil in order that they may be protected against other spirits as sources of supernatural evil. As with libation prayer in the indigenous religious setup, anointing prayer does not just invoke the power of the Spirit to work on behalf of people but it is also activated to destroy one’s enemies. Conclusion The presence of spirits either as embodying natural phenomena and worshipped as gods, ancestors or as manifesting through human agents is an important belief informing religious practices across Africa. In most of Africa the importance of traditional priests, shamans, and prophetic figures is founded on the belief that they have access to the transcendent realms of existence, the source of much of which human beings stand in need: health and wholeness, protection from evil, knowledge about destiny in life, and success and prosperity in everyday endeavors. Similarly in contemporary African pneumatic Christianity, charismatic prophets and leaders frequently speak of and advertise their ability to activate the supernatural presence in order to secure its benefits for worshippers. We have argued that this explains why this form of Christianity has proven far more popular in Africa than the historic mission churches with their staid, silent, rational, and orderly forms of worship that often likes to keep the supernatural at bay. We can therefore conclude that the popularity of pneumatic Christian expressions across Africa may in part be explained in terms of the resonance between traditional religious worldviews and the emphasis on supernatural power in such movements as the classical independent churches of Africa and the different historical streams of Pentecostalism.

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Notes 1. Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 57. 2. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 14. 3. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 2. 4. Lamin Sanneh, “New and Old in Africa’s Religious Heritage: Islam, Christianity and the African Encounter,” in Andrew F. Walls and Wilbert R. Shenk eds., Exploring New Religious Movements: Essays in Honor of Harold Turner (Elkhart, Indiana: Mission Focus, 1990), 64. 5. Daryll Forde ed., African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), x. 6. Forde, African Worlds, x. 7. Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 94. 8. Benjamin C. Ray, African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community, second edition (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999), 1. 9. Geoffrey Parrinder, African Mythology, New Revised Edition (Feltham, Middlesex, UK: Newnesn Books, 1967, 1982), 13. 10. The Gold Coast was renamed Ghana after political independence from Britain on March 6, 1957. 11. R.S. Rattray, Ashanti (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1923), 86. 12. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, second edition (London: Heinemann, 1969, 1989), 2. 13. Peter K. Sarpong, The Sacred Stools of the Akan (Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1971), 26–27. 14. Daryll Forde, “Introduction” in Daryll Forde ed., African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1954), vii. 15. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 16. Bolaji Idowu, Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief (London: Longman, 1962), 141. 17. Anthony Ephirim-Donkor, “Akom: The Ultimate Mediumship Experience among the Akan”, Journal of American Academy of Religion, vol. 76, 1 (March 2008), 56. 18. Ephirim-Donkor, “Ultimate Mediumship Experience”, 57. 19. John D.K. Ekem, Priesthood in Context. Revised and Expanded Edition (Accra: Sonlife Press, 2009). 20. Nketia, “African Spirituality”, 18. 21. Ephirim-Donkor, “Ultimate Mediumship Experience”, 59. 22. Ephirim-Donkor, “Ultimate Mediumship Experience”, 58. 23. Benjamin C. Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion”, Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 23, 3 (1993), 268–69. 24. Cited in Ephirim-Donkor, “Ultimate Mediumship Experience”, 55. 25. Birgit Meyer, “ ‘Make a Complete Break with the Past’: Memory and Postcolonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse”, Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 28, 3 (1998), 316–49. 26. Meyer, “Make a Complete Break with the Past”, 317.

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27. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 51. 28. Ellis and ter Haar, Worlds of Power, 51. 29. Christian G. Baëta, Prophetism in Ghana: A Study of Some Spiritual Churches (London: SCM, 1962), 135. 30. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2005), 165.

CHAPTER 4

Spirit and Spirits in Pantheistic Shintoism: A Critical Dialogue with Christian Panentheism Naoki Inoue Introduction While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols . . . Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way . . . From one ancestor he [God] made all nations . . . so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ ”1 This passage tells that although Paul did not accept the Athens idols as God, he admired the people for their religiousness and considered they could encounter God when they sought him because God lived and worked even in the lives of the pagans. Religious understanding in the context of spiritual and religious pluralism is an important issue today. Views of the relationship between the Holy Spirit and other spirits have been more diverse than ever. With this background, we should approach spiritual and religious matters from multiple angles. Kärkkäinen states, No doubt the existence of and communication among world religions is the most significant challenge to and opportunity for the Christian church in the new millennium. With regard to theology, it is no longer possible to limit the consideration of theological topics to the Christian sphere; we must take into account the questions and answers posed by other religions.2

The purpose of this chapter is to discern the roles of the Spirit and spirits in Shintoism through a critical dialogue between Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Jürgen Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology. Shinto is a Japanese traditional religion in which people worship what they are awed by, which they identify often as kami, namely, Shinto’s gods. In other words, Shinto can also be explained as a spiritual activity that reflects the hearts of the people in Japan.

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Thus, the significance of this chapter lies in the attempt to discuss the roles of the Spirit of God, which has traditionally been discussed only within the framework of Judaeo-Christianity, in the context of Shintoism, which is regarded as the reflection of the speculative system of the Japanese. The realities of either God’s Spirit or Shinto’s kami cannot be proved objectively. Yet the followers of Christianity and Shintoism have believed that the Spirit and kami are spiritual beings throughout their religious history for as long as 2000 years. Based on Kant’s conception that objects conform to human cognition3 along with Moltmann’s view that “[t]here is . . . nothing . . . outside the experience of the perceiving subject,”4 I will take a position in this chapter that even though the reality of certain putative objects of experience cannot be confirmed, perceptions of reality are real for their perceivers. Hence, I will proceed with the discussion on the assumption that both the Spirit and kami are spiritual realities because of human recognition of them as such. The thesis proposed for this chapter is that while Shinto’s kami should not be identified with the Spirit of God, the Spirit who dwells in all things exerts influence upon the people in their quest for transcendence and the kami may reflect a peculiarly Japanese expression of that quest. Toward this goal, I will first outline Shintoism and examine Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality. Next, I will investigate Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology in his major works and analyze its characteristics. Then, I will discuss the relationship between the Spirit, spirits, and Shintoism in critical comparison between Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology and Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality. Finally, I will analyze and summarize the roles of the Spirit of God in Shintoism in relation to Shinto’s kami. Shinto’s Pantheistic Spirituality General Outline of Shintoism and the Kami Shinto is a Japanese indigenous and polytheistic religion that is said to have “no fewer than eight or eighteen myriads of gods.”5 Many of the gods are placed at Shinto shrines or household altars and it is believed that they dwell there as the objects of worship.6 Although the central theme of Shintoism is the reverence for gods, Shinto has “no official scriptures, no founder, and no organized teachings,”7 unlike many other religions. The primary attraction of Shinto for people is that they can gain blessings and avoid curses by worshipping the gods of Shinto.8 In addition, Shintoism is religiously tolerant in relation to other religions and allows believers to freely engage them.9 As a religion having arisen out of people’s experiences, Shinto is often identified with the Japanese folk tradition rather than with religious practices.10 In Shinto, any kind of natural materials, such as a mountain, sea, river, tree, rock, earth, animal, could become an object of worship.11 Tetsuo Yamaori states that the reverence for nature is the foundation of the religiosity of the Japanese and people have heard the voice and felt the presence of kami in nature.12 For

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example, mountains have been regarded as a special place where the dead would return to and live.13 People have also considered the sea to be a sacred place because they believe there is a different and eternal world beyond the sea where kami reside.14 In sum, anything in nature that people have found fearful could be associated with kami.15 Second, there are heroes and heroines or great figures whom people feel are divine and whom they consider to be the objects of worship. They are called “kami in living humans.”16 One of the important examples in this category is the Japanese emperor. Up until World War II, he had been entitled to divine reverence as a descendant of the Sun goddess. However, the emperor officially declared himself to be an ordinary human, not a kami, after World War II. Third, there are concepts in which people believe invisible and supersensual beings operate, such as creation, formation, reproduction, and physical power. These are “kami in concepts.”17 The kami of reproduction were regarded as mysterious and essential to the ancients and have been considered to live in many shrines such as Tokyo Daijingu.18 Physical power was also considered to be indispensable in premodern times when civilization was not as advanced. Ameno-Tajikara-Onokami, one of the most famous kami of physical power, has been believed to give strength to people who sought him; he is honored at many shrines in Japan.19 Characteristics of Shintoistic Pantheism In this section, I will analyze and summarize the pantheistic nature of Shinto spirituality in three points. Anything Could Become a Kami—In Shintoism, everything has the potential to become a kami as long as people consider it as such. Thus, Shintoistic spirituality depends on people’s experience, which has produced numerous kami in history, which is a reflection on their daily lives.20 Kami are also considered to be able to exist “everywhere, filling the landscape and inhabiting the home.”21 Anything could become kami and they could exist anywhere—this is one of the pantheistic features of Shinto’s spirituality. Many Kami within One Sacred Way—Shinto is a polytheistic religion that holds various kinds of kami within. However, those kami are not exclusive of one another but exist in harmonious relationship within the community.22 Furthermore, there are not only good kami but evil kami as well.23 Just like humans have good and bad character, people consider that there are good and bad kami and even the bad ones should not be eliminated. Kato asserts that these features can be understood as reflecting people’s acceptance of reality as it is and their attempt to live not only with positive but also with negative aspects of life.24 One interesting example is the statement written on the information board of Hiyoshi Taisha, a shrine honoring an ancient general Toyotomi Hideyoshi: “Just like human beings, each kami has their own strong fields. So, we would like to recommend you to look around other shrines and consult other kami.”25

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Shinto’s kami are not exclusive but inclusive with each other. They are believed to cooperatively provide humans with well-being in this world. H. Byron Earhart understands the pluralism of the Japanese religion, including Shintoism, as “many traditions within one sacred way.”26 In other words, Shinto’s pantheistic kami do not exist in isolation or competition but all the assemblies of kami shape one sacred way as a whole toward human felicity. Although there is no absolute god, there are many good as well as evil gods, as discussed above. Harmony in diversity is preserved in the community of kami—this is another characteristic of Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality. Harmony of Kami, Humans, and Nature—The harmonious character of Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality is not limited to the community of kami but is considered to reach out to humans and nature. In this harmonious relationship between kami, humans, and nature, Earhart states, “the purity and sacredness of kami are honored, the rhythm and bounty of nature are preserved, and the sincerity and fullness of human life are enhanced.”27 Furthermore, one Shinto’s kami does not surpass another but rather all the kami are considered to be in a relationship of mutual dependence.28 Accordingly, Shinto has been accepted as a religion that is attached firmly to people’s daily lives and functions to bind kami, humans, and nature in harmony and peace.29 This is another feature of Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality. In this section, I have outlined Shintoism and examined Shintoistic views of the spirits. Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality is characterized by the possibility of anything becoming kami; harmony and diversity in the community of kami; and harmonious relationship between kami, humans, and nature. In the following section, I will survey Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology in his major works and analyze his panentheistic visions. Jürgen Moltmann’s Panentheistic Pneumatology Moltmann’s Panentheistic Views in His Major Works Moltmann himself designates his cosmology “Christian panentheism.”30 This section will trace the progressive development of Moltmann’s panentheistic vision according to the order of his major publications. In Theology of Hope, Moltmann’s panentheistic vision was not yet expressed clearly. Yet in this book he argues that God is not only a transcendent God but the one who intervenes and transforms this imperfect world toward the perfection at the eschaton.31 This direct and close interaction of God with the world can be understood as the foundation of the panentheism manifested in his later works. It is in The Crucified God that Moltmann implies his panentheistic view for the first time. This book attempts to integrate God with the world in the history of the cross and resurrection. He states that “in the hidden mode of humiliation to the point of the cross, all being and all that annihilates has already been taken up in God and God begins to become ‘all in all.’ ”32 Moltmann understands that

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God and the human are united on the cross and therefore “it can truly be said that men live in God and from God ”33 to create history together. In The Trinity and the Kingdom, Moltmann develops his panentheistic account of the Trinity in relation to the world. He attributes the mutual relationship between God and the world to the inner-trinitarian relationship, namely, perichoresis.34 In other words, just as the three trinitarian members dwell within each other to preserve a perfect oneness of the three, Moltmann understands “God in the world and the world in God . . . That is the home of the Trinity.”35 In God in Creation, Moltmann extends the concept of perichoresis between God and the world to the “community of created beings with one another.”36 He claims, “All relationships which are analogous to God reflect the primal, reciprocal indwelling and mutual interpenetration of the trinitarian perichoresis.”37 Here, the panentheistic God subsists in all of his creation and vice versa and forms a community of all created things. It is in The Spirit of Life that Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology is most extensively articulated. He first states that every experience of life is a discovery of the Spirit,38 and “it is therefore possible to experience God in, with and beneath each everyday experience of the world.”39 For Moltmann, the Spirit of God is transcendent and immanent in all things,40 and makes us long for the eschatological completion of salvation.41 Moltmann also maintains that “there is continuity between the human spirit and the Spirit of God,”42 and, furthermore, claims that “the veneration of nature becomes part of the adoration of God”43 as “[w]e carry experience of the world into the experience of God.”44 In his later book, The Coming of God, Moltmann focuses on the eschatological vision of the mutual indwelling of God in the world and the world in God as well as the interpenetrating relationship between the creatures, which means to him the reversal of his creative self-limitation and universal salvation: “A mutual indwelling of the world in God and God in the world will come into being.”45 Moltmann also distinguishes his panentheism from pantheism and says, “God remains God, and the world remains creation. Through their mutual indwelling, they remain unmingled and undivided.”46 Kärkkäinen comments, “This is the fulfillment of Moltmann’s long-standing eschatological vision, the panentheistic vision of God’s being ‘all in all.’ ”47 Characteristics of Moltmann’s Panentheistic Pneumatology In this section, I will analyze the panentheistic nature of Moltmann’s pneumatology in relationship to its trinitarian, eschatological, and politically responsible features. According to the observations in the previous sections, it is evident that Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology is grounded on the doctrine of the Trinity. In The Crucified God, Moltmann explicitly describes the divine drama of salvation on the cross in a trinitarian way and sets it out as a place where the Spirit of God and humans encounter one another. In The Trinity and the Kingdom, he develops his discussion on the divine trinitarian relationship with the

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notion of perichoresis and applies the inner-trinitarian relationship to the relationship between the triune God and the world. In God in Creation, Moltmann further expands the perichoretic inner-trinitarian relationship to the mutual interpenetration between the Spirit and the world and even as far as to the community of all created beings. In The Spirit of Life, Moltmann clarifies his understanding of the Spirit in the trinitarian framework, saying “the Spirit is with the Father. Christ ‘prays’ for his coming. He is sent by the Father in Jesus’ name. He proceeds from the Father and is sent by Jesus.”48 The Coming of God describes how the panentheistic reality is on the way to the eschatological goal, “the cosmic Shekinah of God.”49 God, creature, and everything indwell in each other, while keeping their identities at the same time: this is Moltmann’s trinitarian and perichoretic understanding of panentheistic pneumatology.50 Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology has also been clearly eschatologically oriented since his early work Theology of Hope. In The Crucified God, Moltmann clearly sets out the eschatological starting point of his panentheistic pneumatology at the event of the cross. In The Trinity and the Kingdom, he stresses that God’s project in his panentheistic relationship between the Spirit and the world is still on the way, and will be perfected at the eschaton. The Spirit of Life also clarifies that the purpose of the immanent transcendence of God’s Spirit in everything is the eschatological consummation of the world. In The Coming of God, Moltmann describes his eschatological vision of the “mutual indwelling of the world in God and God in the world”51 and the perichoretic relationship between all the creatures.52 The third distinguishing feature of Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology is that it is politically responsible. In Theology of Hope, Moltmann first declares that Christian faith does not flee the world53 but seeks “to cross in hope and anticipation the bounds that have been penetrated by the raising of the crucified.”54 The Church in the Power of the Spirit also states, “A logical and consistent Christian discipleship always has logical political consequences . . . If all the congregation’s activities are part of the service of the messianic mission, the political sphere cannot be exclude.”55 The Trinity and the Kingdom further states this experience of the Spirit is “open for the coming liberty of the whole creation.”56 In The Spirit of Life, Moltmann criticizes Platonic dualism as the source of gnosticism, escapism, and political irresponsibility.57 Here, he emphasizes that in the Spirit humans can experience God not in isolation but in relation to the world: “God is not perceived and known in the innermost chamber of the heart, or at the solitary apex of the human soul . . . [but] in the true human community of women and men, parents and children.”58 Therefore, for Moltmann, humans experience the Spirit who transcendentally inheres in all the creatures only when they participate in the project of the Spirit that makes the imperfect world perfect. Accordingly, Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology is characterized by its trinitarian, eschatological, and political features. Moltmann scarcely mentions spirits other than God’s Spirit and human spirits. He does not comment on the existence or roles of spirits in religions either. Moltmann’s pneumatology is based on what Christians believe to be the revelation of the triune God. In the following

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sections, I will examine the roles of, and the relationship between, Shinto’s kami and the Spirit of God through a critical comparison between Shinto’s pantheism and Jürgen Moltmann’s panentheism. Shintoistic Pantheism and Jürgen Moltmann’s Panentheism in Dialogue The Spirit of God dwells in everything in the world. Then, what is the relation of the Spirit of God to Shinto’s kami? What are the roles of the Spirit in Shintoism? The following sections will explore these questions in dialogue with Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology. Kami and the Spirit In this section, I will examine the characteristics of Shinto’s kami and the Spirit of God and analyze their differences along three lines. God in All or God Not in All—In Shintoism, kami are capable of residing in everything. However, this does not mean that kami exist in all things: “Because the term [kami] is an honorific, it is not customary to apply it to ordinary individuals or beings.”59 In other words, kami are understood to exist and dwell only in what people consider worthy of being respected. On the other hand, Moltmann is of the view that God is in all and all are in God.60 He perceives the Spirit through what people believe to be “the absolute manifestation of God,”61 especially through the Bible, while Shinto’s kami are recognized by the human community apart from any scriptural warrant. Put simply, it is considered that the Spirit of God exists in all things, while Shinto’s kami could, yet do not, subsist in everything. The Japanese believe that there is no absolute and almighty being within the community of Shinto’s kami. Although all kami are considered to be in harmony and are not competitive, there is no strict unity in the society of kami. There is no purpose or vision as a whole, either. On the other hand, for Moltmann, the Spirit of God is a trinitarian member who exists for all eternity with an eschatological purpose. In addition, Moltmann’s view of the intimacy of the triune God in their perichoretic relationship goes beyond the harmony of kami that are founded on the variegated experience of the people. Then, each of the trinitarian persons goes together toward the eschatological goal in complete agreement to redeem the world. In sum, the Spirit of God is understood as more comprehensive than Shinto’s kami in terms of the relation to the world. Ontology—Furthermore, as Shinto’s kami derive from the long history of Japanese experience, their comprehensibility waxes and wanes. As mentioned, the Japanese emperor was regarded as a kami before World War II but not since. Thus humans sometimes become kami while kami on other occasions turn back into humans. This shifting perspective will persist so long as kami emerge from out of the experience of the people. On the other hand, Moltmann, along with Christians, denies the relativity of God’s ontological relativity based on their understanding of the biblical

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revelation. He understands the identity of the Spirit as one of the members of the triune God62 who are revealed to the world as “the absolute selfmanifestation.”63 Moltmann also utilizes the concept of perichoresis to explain the relationship between the Spirit and world and successfully avoids the danger of falling into the thought of the existential relativity of the Spirit in all the creation.64 Goal of Salvation—In Shintoism, salvation and human happiness are not something that will happen in the end but are available in the present. Spae explains about salvation in Shintoism in comparison to that in Christianity: The experience of Shinto salvation occurs in the present; it is not, as in the case of Christianity, an experience of anticipation. This absence of anticipation explains no doubt the almost complete absence of mysticism in Shinto as well as its uncongenial approach to the Christian eschata. Shinto salvation is not experienced as a subjective psychological state; it is the objective fact of well-being in the present. Hence, consciousness of salvation in the face of heavy odds is unknown to Shinto. The Shinto man does not reach out for some faraway Otherness that will be his savior and set him free from the self.65

In other words, the kami of Shinto, who could dwell in everything in the world, are believed to create consonant circumstances for people: this is the salvation of Shintoism. The Shintoistic idea of salvation is quite worldly as it arises from below, namely, from the people’s ordinary experiences. Indeed, they try to keep the memorial service for their ancestors, motivated to avoid curses and receive blessings by their ancestors for the present life.66 Shintoistic soteriology lacks the concept of eternity but rather it focuses on meeting the needs of people living in this world. For Moltmann, the ultimate goal of salvation is what will be completed in the eschaton, the “cosmic Shekinah.”67 All the events of the world are incomplete and on the process toward the eschatological fulfillment.68 Accordingly, “there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality . . . until the great day of the fulfillment of all the promises of God.”69 Moltmann’s view of salvation is on the eternal scale that goes beyond the realm of the Shintoistic salvation. Although Moltmann acknowledges the significance of our participation in the Spirit’s work in this present world, he does not value the world as it is. He rather contrasts the present state of the world with the cross (negatively—different from Shintoism) with what will be consummated at the eschaton (positively—another difference from Shintoism). His concept of the eschatological hope is sufficient to give comfort to those who are suffering.70 However, Moltmann’s view appreciates less the reality of this world as it is because of his stress on eschatological destiny.71 With Moltmann, our hope will be completely realized in the end72 but we are considered in this world as “not yet freed from contradiction and death.”73 In this sense, Shintoism can inspire in Moltmann’s theology a greater appreciation for the present reality of the world. I have examined the fundamental differences between Shinto’s kami and the Spirit of God based on the comparison between Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality

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and Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology. This study has discovered that while Shinto’s kami are not considered to be inherent in everything and their goal is salvation in the present reality, the Spirit is understood to transcendentally dwell in all creatures with an eschatological hope. In these senses, the Shinto’s kami and the Spirit of God are different from each other. Shinto and the Spirit Even though Shinto’s kami and the Spirit of God are different, the Spirit is deemed to transcendentally reside in everything, and exist and work in all the people. In this section, I will examine the roles of the Spirit in Shintoism based on the investigation of three commonalities between Shinto’s pantheism and Moltmann’s panentheism. Spirit(s) Could Be in All—Shinto is a pluralistic religion with more than eight myriads of gods as mentioned above. The Shintoistic view of gods is experiential and all kinds of things toward which people feel awe could be regarded as being divine. Shinto’s kami are believed to dwell in nature, living humans, concepts, and ancestors. Moltmann repeatedly mentions “God’s being is all in all (1 Cor. 15:28)”: “God in the world and the world in God.”74 He applies the perichoretic relationship within the triune God to the relationship between the Spirit of God and the world. This formula is also grounded on Rahner’s Rule that equates the Immanent Trinity with the Economic Trinity.75 Therefore, Moltmann’s theology can be rightly termed “trinitarian panentheism” that applies the interpenetrating relationship of the triune God to the relationship between the Spirit and the world.76 Both Shintoistic pantheism and Moltmann’s panentheism affirm that kami and the Spirit of God are not limited in existence to specific spaces. They agree that their divine beings could abide in all things. For Shintoism, the ground for this concept is the people’s experience of kami, whereas Moltmann’s panentheism is perceived from the history of the cross where the inner relationship of the triune God was revealed. However, Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology still agree that both kami and the Spirit could exist in anything. Diversity and Harmony of the Divinity—Although there are many kami in Shinto, they keep harmony without denying or excluding each other. The harmonious kami include not only good kami but even bad ones, as explained above. Although there is no system to organize the total kami, there is an agreement among people that one kami does not surpass another and they are in a relationship of mutual dependence. In addition, Shintoism is quite tolerant of other religions and one kami allows or even encourages believers to have faith in other kami. Therefore, Shinto’s pantheistic kami are connected with one another in that each of them contributes to the one sacred way. Moltmann begins his exploration of the Trinity from the threeness of the divinity and then goes to the union of the tri-unity.77 From the perichoretic

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perspective, he stresses the distinctiveness and the intimacy of the divine persons in total harmony and mutual dependence. God’s motive of action, love, and voluntary spirit also contributes to the concept of harmony. He finds the ground for this panentheistic vision at the cross and directs its goal toward the eschaton. Considering the polytheistic nature of Shintoism, it is interesting to rediscover that all the kami are in complete harmony. On the other hand, Moltmann emphasizes the distinctiveness of the trinitarian members,78 although traditionally their unity has been stressed.79 Although their natures are different, both the world of kami and the triune God could be considered as constituting a harmony in diversity. Intimacy of the Divine, Humans, and Nature—Intimacy of the divine, humans, and nature is a major theme of Shintoism. People recognize kami not only as the object of fear but also as the source of blessings. Accordingly, the Shinto’s kami are in close contact with people’s daily needs and function to bind the people in community. Their acceptance of the reality as it is forms part of the intimate atmosphere in the society. Moreover, Shintoism is often identified with people’s customs or traditions and it is blended into people’s daily lives. In sum, the kami of Shinto is not only transcendent over the people as the source of fear and blessing but also as living within humans and nature in good harmony. Moltmann states that the Spirit of God dwells in all things and calls the world the “home of the Trinity.”80 With the concept of perichoresis, he expands the view of the mutual interpenetration of the triune God to the relationship between God and the world, which brings about the close intimacy of the divine, humans, and nature. The key concept that accounts for the mutual indwelling of infinite God and the finite world is the “immanent transcendence”: “God dwells in the world and vice versa.”81 Shintoism and Moltmann both agree with each other in terms of the intimacy of the divine, humans, and nature. However, the unity of the Spirit within the Trinity should be considered to be more organized and interrelated than that of Shinto’s kami, because the reality of the former is recognized through what people believe to be God’s revelation while the latter is not so constrained. In this section, I have examined the roles of and the relationship between the Spirit and spirits in Shintoism through investigation of the commonalities between Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Jürgen Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology. Shinto’s kami could also indwell everything and preserve consonant relationship with other kami as well as with humans and nature. Similarly, for Moltmann, the Spirit of God not only resides in all creatures but also maintains harmonious relationship with the world just like the Spirit is in complete agreement with other trinitarian persons. Here, we can find points in common between kami and the Spirit in terms of the relationship with the divine, humans, and nature. Accordingly, although the Spirit cannot be considered as identical with kami, it is not contradictory to understand the kami as reflections in people’s spiritual yearning for transcendence.

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Summary and Conclusion This is an age of spiritual and religious pluralism. This chapter presents a dialogue between Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Jürgen Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology to examine the roles and significance of the Spirit of God and Shinto’s kami in Shintoism. We have first examined points of difference between Shinto’s pantheistic spirituality and Jürgen Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology. The Shinto’s kami, indeed, could live in everything, although they have not been considered to exist in all things. In addition, although the many kami maintain harmonious relationship with each other, they do not have any purpose or goal. On the other hand, according to Moltmann, the Spirit of God dwells in all things. In addition, the panentheistic vision of Moltmann is eschatological and its goal is the redemption of all creation. Then, he regards the reality of the world as an imperfect structure on the way to the eschaton. For Shintoism, on the contrary, salvation is not something that will happen after death but fulfills people’s needs in this present world. Moltmann’s focus is on the realization of the eschatological hope, while Shintoism emphasizes the acceptance of present reality. These may be the essential differences between kami and the Spirit. We have also seen that Shintoism and Christianity agree that for both religions the divine could dwell in everything in the universe. For Shintoism, because the kami is intertwined with human experience, all things have the possibility of becoming objects of worship. In addition, Shinto’s kami could reside in humans and nature without discrimination to unite people, nature, and kami together. Moltmann’s understanding of the Spirit is grounded in his perichoretic understanding of the Trinity, which is observed within the inner-trinitarian relationship on the cross. Moltmann applies the perichoretic interaction of the three trinitarian beings to the relationship of the Spirit and the world and even to the mutual relationship of things in the world. Therefore, Moltmann’s panentheistic pneumatology aims at the integration of the entire cosmos by the indwelling of God in all things in the universe. This suggests parallels with the Shintoistic harmony of kami, humans, and nature. Considering these commonalities between the Spirit and kami, it is assumed that these characteristics of Shintoistic spirituality are a specifically Japanese expression of the quest for transcendence. In conclusion, although the Spirit of God should be considered as essentially different from Shinto’s kami, it is possible to see Japanese spirituality as a particular manifestation of the spiritual quest for transcendence found among all peoples. Such an intercultural and interreligious perspective toward the Spirit/spirits can broaden and deepen our understanding of spirituality and religion.

Notes 1. Acts 17:16, 22, 27, 28, NRSV. 2. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, An Introduction to the Theology of Religions: Biblical, Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 17.

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3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J.M.D. Meiklejohn (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1900), 26. 4. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 29. 5. A. C. Underwood, Shintoism (London: The Epworth Press, 1934), 33. 6. Sokyo Ono, Shinto: The Kami Way (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1962), 20. 7. William K. Bunce, Religions in Japan: Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1960), 98. 8. Mitsuo Fukuda, Bunmyakuka Kyokai no Keisei [Developing a Contextualized Church as a Bridge to Christianity in Japan] (Shizuoka: Harvest Time Ministries, 1993), 82. 9. Ono, Shinto, 89. 10. Bunce, Religions in Japan, 99. 11. Ibid., 49. 12. Tetsuo Yamaori, Shukyo no Chikara [The Power of Religion] (Tokyo: PHP Kenkyusho, 1999), 32. 13. Chiken Kato, Mitsumenaosu Nipponjin no Shukyoshin [The Review of the Religious Mind of the Japanese] (Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 2006), 49–51. 14. Kato, Mitsumenaosu Nipponjin no Shukyoshin, 51–52. 15. Ibid., 49. 16. Ibid., 54–58. 17. Ibid., 59. 18. Ibid., 58. 19. Ibid., 60. 20. Ono, Shinto, 6. 21. H. Byron Earhart, Religions of Japan: Many Traditions within One Sacred way (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), 34. 22. Earhart, Religions of Japan, 8. 23. Kato, Mitsumenaosu Nipponjin no Shukyoshin, 64. 24. Ibid., 64–67. 25. In Japanese, “ ” 26. H. Byron Earhart, Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and Interpretation (Encino: Dickenson Publishing Company, 1974), 46–47. 27. Earhart, Religions of Japan, 35. 28. Genchi Kato, A Historical Study of the Religious Development of Shinto (Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1973), 43. 29. Masahiko Asoya, Nippon no Dento to Shukyo [The Japanese Tradition and Religion] (Tokyo: Perikan sha, 1992), 48. 30. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1981), 106. 31. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James W. Leitch (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1967), 16, 18, 19, 328, 388. 32. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1974), 277. 33. Ibid., italics Moltmann’s. 34. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 149–50. 35. Ibid., 105, italics Moltmann’s.

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36. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 5. 37. Ibid., 17. 38. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 35. 39. Ibid., 34, italics Moltmann’s. 40. Ibid., 35, italics Moltmann’s. 41. Ibid., 73. 42. Ibid., 5. 43. Ibid., 36. 44. Ibid. 45. Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 295. 46. Ibid., 307. 47. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, The Doctrine of God: A Global Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 158. 48. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 70. 49. Moltmann, The Coming of God, xiii, italics Moltmann’s. 50. Moltmann, God in Creation, 17; The Coming of God, 278, 301. Although Moltmann does not identify the Spirit with the world in terms of their essence, he applies the coinherence of the trinitarian persons to the mutual indwelling between God and the world and between creatures in terms of their relationship. 51. Moltmann, The Coming of God, 295. 52. Ibid., 301. 53. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 19. 54. Ibid., 20–21. 55. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 15. 56. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, 125. 57. Ibid., 89–90. 58. Ibid., 94. 59. Ono, Shinto, 7. 60. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 35. 61. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 157. 62. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 70. 63. Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 157. 64. Moltmann, God in Creation, 258. 65. Joseph J. Spae, Shinto Man (Tokyo: Oriens Institute for Religious Research, 1972), 59. 66. Kato, Mitsumenaosu Nipponjin no Shukyoshin, 62. 67. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 47–51. 68. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 388. 69. Ibid., 22. 70. Ibid., 32. 71. Ibid., 288. 72. Ibid., 289. 73. Ibid., 91. 74. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 105, italics Moltmann’s. 75. Ibid., 160.

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Moltmann, God in Creation, 103. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 19. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 105. Moltmann, God in Creation, 17.

PART II

The Spirits of History and Culture

CHAPTER 5

Chaos or Completion: The Work of Spirits in History Patrick Oden

Introduction In this brief chapter, I have two interrelated goals. The first is to establish what the concept of spirits means in light of historical studies. The second is to suggest ways in which such spirits can be seen to work in the course of history. As history is, if nothing else, an attempt to better understand the events and actions of the past, I suggest that it is only through the second goal that we might come to terms with the first. This chapter will begin by focusing on two significant contributors to an understanding of spirit in history, beginning with Georg W. F. Hegel and then Wolfhart Pannenberg. Following this, I will, in dialogue with contemporary historiography, suggest a model of understanding the being and work of spirits as they are involved in and through history. I will argue that in the revelation of history we learn that God is the determinative identity who, as spirit, creates everything, including other identities we call spirits. Such spirits are formed by God, given an ecstatic identity that remains dependent on God for life even as they have been given freedom for their own contributory interactions with this world in a way that reflects or resists God’s own spirit. Such reflection and resistance occurs in, and indeed shapes, the process of history. Hegel’s Heuristic Any attempt to understand the work of spirits in history must, it seem, pass through the contributions of Hegel. For Hegel, history is not “merely ascertained as so much fact but understood by apprehending the reasons why the facts happened as they did. This philosophical history will be a universal history of mankind (here Hegel follows Herder) and will exhibit a progress from primitive times to the civilization of to-day.”1 The whole business of history, Hegel writes, is to bring the idea of Spirit into consciousness, moving from an implicit, unconscious instinct to a more fully realized, fully aware embrace of freedom.

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“World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom—a progress whose necessity we have to investigate.”2 Two elements are part of this investigation; the first is the Idea. “We know of God that he is the most perfect; He can will only Himself and what is like Him. God and the nature of His will are one and the same; these we call, philosophically, the Idea.”3 The second is the “complex of human passions.” Hegel states, “The one is the warp, the other the woof of the vast tapestry of world history. Their contact and concrete union constitutes moral liberty in the state.”4 The Spirit is that which works to bring the Idea into actualization in human history, and this happens in the progression of freedom. For Hegel, “the will of the individual is free when it can posit abstractly, absolutely, and in and for itself that which it wills.”5 This ideal, this universal Idea, is not necessarily emphasizing every particular identity, however, and so should not be seen as being reflected in every spirit. Rather, the “universal Idea manifests itself in the State.”6 The State, not particular people, is the context of the Spirit’s actualization, “in it freedom achieves its objectivity and lives in the enjoyment of this objectivity.”7 Opposing this progression is the antitheses of the Idea, that of the Ego, which is the antitheses of infinite freedom and is an expression of self-limited finitude. Rather than expanding into the broadness of the infinite Idea, the Ego is a barrier, limiting the Idea into finite particularities.8 While such particular expressions of the Idea as realized in finite individuals may in fact produce a form of happiness, this happiness is not a measure of the Spirit but of the antitheses of Spirit, limited and intoxicating, but ultimately negating. This is not to suggest the Idea cannot manifest in particular people. Indeed, Hegel emphasizes that it is in a “worldhistorical individual” who may best exemplify the progression of the universal Spirit in any given age. “They are the very truth of their age and their world,” he writes, “the next genus, so to speak, which is already formed in the womb of time. It is theirs to know this new universal, the necessary stage of their world, to make it their own aim and put all their energy into it.”9 Hegel identifies Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon in his list of such figures. Such figures are so mighty they “must trample down many an innocent flower, crush to pieces many things” in their path.10 Through such individuals humanity is thrust forward into an increasingly comprehensive expression of the Idea in our historical interactions. The Spirit is the realization of a free consciousness, an idealization of human potentiality that calls us to be, in nonrelational terms, divinized. That which opposes this by particularizing and limiting this realization through an allure of supposedly opiated happiness is the antitheses of such an ennobling Spirit, and serves to keep humanity limited and undeveloped in its finitude. Thus, in Hegel, the Spirit can be seen as the thesis of Idealism pressed into historical realization, sometimes by particular world historical persons, being countered by opposing “spirits.” These lesser identities reflect a limiting tendency to oppose the realization of the Spirit, the Idea, in this world, and are expressed in the form of Ego. The Idea is the progression of humanity toward its fullest realization. Most people, most identities, do not reflect this progression but may in fact hinder it.

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Thus lesser spirits are the opposing force that the Spirit, and those world historical figures who reflect it, must engage and overcome. The work of spirits, then, can be seen as theses and antitheses in dialectical conflict in the course of human history. From this, then, developed the tendency to embrace a perspective on history that prioritized general themes as seen through broadly developed conceptions of human progress. Such generalized themes emphasized only those supposedly world historical figures as being the paragons of a progressing humanity while dismissing most of humanity as being nonhistorical, as they only were expressions of finitude and limitations. Great individuals, those who exemplified the Spirit in an age, becoming paragons of this Spirit, were opposed by other spirits, who represented human stagnation or regression and who sought to limit human potentiality. This is not, again, necessarily about particular instances of human identities, but more of a generalized trend of human involvement in history. For the most part, particular people are entirely unimportant. Following Hegel, history became a tool used in service of a specific ideology, one that sought to see itself as within the path of a progressive humanity, whether this was Hegel’s own fascination with Napoleon or the later Nazi assumptions of the Aryan as the realization of ideal humanity, always willing to trample down those “little flowers.”11 Because such generalized perspectives on human potential place the general concepts above particular people or events, the purported cause of freedom and liberation in a Hegelian understanding of history tends to always incorporate repression. Such “tramplings” are not exceptions but are rather expected expressions of human grasping toward the next level of realization. When the specific is extraneous to the perceived progressive realization of a general ideal, those who make up the great mass of the specific are dehumanized, both in study and in practice.12 Even then, Hegel’s proposals on the work of spirits in history are considered important by theologians and philosophers, which has led to continuing conversations about Hegel’s contributions. However, such conversations are almost always entirely devoid of input from practicing historians. Hegel’s concept of spirit is, in essence, an ahistorical appropriation of historical rhetoric in service of generalized assumptions of human progress, and one that has very little to do with, or is little interested in, that which historians are themselves studying. For such practicing historians, “the field was tainted by the specters of Hegel and other speculative or idealist philosophers whose company no self-respecting academic historian would wish to keep.”13 Thus, after Hegel, there is a split between, on one hand, those interested in Hegel’s contributions on Spirit but who seek no connection with practicing historians, and, on the other hand, practicing historians who find the proposals of Hegel, and his successors, untenable in light of historical study and thus almost entirely dismiss the topic of spirits as a question of history.14 As such, Hegelian proposals of the Spirit in history offer coherent models of discussion but have little to do with the historical experiences of either God or humanity, and thus provide very little help in understanding the identity or work of spirits as perceived in the field of history.15

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Revelation in History It is in the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg that we find what may be the most substantive contributions of a theology of history since the time of Hegel, as it is in Pannenberg that Hegel’s basic suggestions find development in light of concrete historiography.16 For Pannenberg, we do not begin with a perception of human progress nor do we ascertain the identity of human potentiality in the processes of human idealism. Rather, all things begin with and are oriented around God, who is, in his identity, the source of all identity. God has chosen to work and to use history as a revelation of his own self.17 This identity is not about self-empowerment nor is it oriented simply around human realization; rather, God has revealed himself as exocentric relationality. It is in the context of God’s identity as exocentric relationality that we come to Pannenberg’s conception of spirit. He writes that “spirit” is “not to be understood in terms of consciousness. It is to be understood, rather, as that which alone makes possible both consciousness and subjectivity . . . and that, at the same time, makes possible the unity of social and cultural life as well as the continuity of history amid the open-endedness and incompleteness of its processes.”18 This understanding of spirits entails “the operative presence of a sphere of meaning that precedes individuals and both constitutes and transcends their concrete existence.”19 The spirit of God is the constitutive spirit who in bringing life bears with it consciousness and identity to each individual. All that is alive is alive by virtue of the spirit. What then makes the human a unique participant? Pannenberg writes that while all life is ecstatic, “the ecstatic character found in all life reaches a new level of intensity, a new high point, in human beings.”20 This high point, this intense ecstatic character, is emphasized in the revelation from God that humans are created to be images of God.21 This revelation is most fully realized in the person of Christ, who being God is the revelation of the ultimate identity incarnated among us.22 The incarnation of Jesus is not a separate or isolated event, however, but is part of the continuing revelation of God as proclaimed in the history of Israel.23 Even with Christ, Pannenberg notes, we do not comprehend the fullness of God’s revelation, as it is only in the complete work of God in Christ, which extends into the future, that the entire revelation of God is manifest.24 This entire revelation is a universal revelation that encompasses all people, all histories, all spirits, all that has been created.25 According to Pannenberg, God does work actively in history, we can know this work, and, indeed, God reveals himself through this continuing revelation in history. This not an existential realization, nor a privately pietistic embrace of faith, nor even a robust Reformed exultation in the predominance of the Word alone as revelation. Rather, this revelation in history is public, there for all to discover and understand.26 Human orientation toward incomplete sources of identity, however, marks the human spirit as a separate contender that, though created by God for exocentric relationality with him and with all others, seeks to establish identity within itself. “In sinners,” Pannenberg notes, “the ecstasy proper to the life

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given them is perverted into the self-expansion of finite and isolatedly individual beings who set themselves against their divine source as well as other creatures.”27 Human spirits who seek their identity in God’s spirit, however, become bearers of the testimony of God’s revelation, resonating God’s identity in this world to other human spirits, and indeed to all of creation, participating with the constitutive spirit.28 Other expressions of identity are revealed as well, considered demonic, turning human endeavors away from relationality and into expressions of oppression, destruction, and dissolution, seeking to actively contradict God’s attempts at restoration of creation.29 In his essay “Redemptive Event and History,” Pannenberg writes, “It is characteristic of the activity of the transcendent God, whose essence is not adequately expressed in any cosmic order but remains freed from every such order, that it constantly gives rise to something new in reality, something never before present. For this reason, theology is interested in the individual, particular, and contingent.”30 Thus, human spirits are endowed with a value as particular and individual subjects, called back to identity with God and into exocentric relationality with all others. “If the person is thus the presence of the self in the instant of the ego, personality is to be understood as a special instance of the working of the spirit, a special instance of the anticipatory presence of the final truth of things.”31 As particular subjects—these “special instances”—humans encounter the particular subject of Christ, and in faith are called to align their identities with his identity so as to participate in the fullness of identity in each particular age.32 This establishment of identity through time and space is marked as history. Pannenberg writes, “histories describe the process whereby the identity of their object was established.”33 But history also goes well beyond the subject’s own participation. Rather, subjects “gain their subjectivity through the continuity of social life and in the framework of a shared cultural life-world in which the experience of meaning and the interpretation of meaning interpenetrate in processes of transmission and reception.”34 People are not just objects that comprise the topics of history, but are themselves subjects, who participate in a web of meaning and anticipation, in the pursuit of some expression of fulfillment.35 As many human spirits resonate according to certain hopes, fears, goals, or other identity-establishing processes they join in an emergent process that could be called “the spirit of the age.”36 Pannenberg asserts that human action does “play a part in these historical processes of formation,” but because history is “constitutive of active subjects” rather than having a single subject, the anticipation of history, and thus the fullness of identity, cannot be truly grounded in human action.37 Thus, “human beings will not produce the new human being in whom the human destiny will be fulfilled.”38 This destiny is only found in God, and comes about as humans participate in God’s revelation. This revelation is not a single instance, but takes place throughout the course of history as God calls humanity toward a reconciliation of their identity with his own. This continued calling takes place in the course of history and, according to Pannenberg, involves God’s indirect revelation of his self through his use of particular people and events in the course of

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time. “God strives for and reaches his end not apart from human beings but with the cooperation of his creatures and through the conflicts between human purposes and interests.”39 This revelation then is not simply a continuing relating of a developing narrative, but involves, in a real sense, human and divine destiny, both as individuals and universally.40 In this way we can say that even God is awaiting his final definition of identity at the end of history, as his revelation is, as yet, only partially expressed and his will for creation only partially accomplished. For Pannenberg, however, this is not equated with process theology, as the content of God’s eternal revelation is assured in eternity.41 The beginning of history does not steer toward its end for God, but rather in God and with God the end determines the beginning.42 We can say that it is God’s eternity that is the fully constitutive reality for all of history in the process of its development. As participants given participation by the spirit of God, human spirits are given a role in shaping the process but will be, in effect, judged by the already established conclusion. As Pannenberg puts it, “Eternity is judgment.”43 Judgment is “not an expression of divine arbitrariness”; rather, it is “simply that sinners are left to the consequences of their own deeds. When that takes place their lives necessarily perish of the inner contradictions of their existence.”44 In the trajectory of identity formation, humans participate in history as subjects in their own formation in light of their own goals, in the context of wider webs of meaning, and in the contribution toward a universal history of which God is the defining identity. Instead of being a Gnostic form of divine self-manifestation, God’s word participates with history in, as he puts it, a “manypronged involvement in concrete execution of the history of revelation.”45 From this God is revealed; and we can not only know what he wants and what he is doing, but can, only in this way, learn more about who God is as self. And it is only as we learn who God is as self that we can learn who we are as selves, as individual persons and as a collective people as it is only through God’s spirit that we have identity with our own spirit. Barring this participation with God’s spirit as the ground of our own identity, we enter into eternity as a complex mass of contradictions which, in the context of eternity, tear apart and extinguish our enduring participation. For Pannenberg, then, we can see the work of spirits in history as being an issue of identity. As only God is the ultimate source of identity and the only identity that can be carried into coherence throughout eternity, all other attempts at identity formation tend toward the chaotic, and following Hegel, the finite. This work of identity formation becomes the ground of interaction throughout history by God, who seeks to gather all of creation within his own identity, giving meaning to that which has been created.46 God’s identity is the source of all spirits, but not all spirits seek to ground their identity in his source. Thus, we find, in creation, a divergence of attempts at identity formation that marks history and the conflicts contained within it. As humans try to determine their identity through various alternative means they resonate chaos, corruption, and dissolution of exocentric relationality, becoming closed off in egocentricity, entering into enmity with God and creation.

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Through the revelation of God, human spirits are placed in renewed contact with God’s spirit. This expression of his identity is, in our world, the expression of his spirit working in the context of our experience of time to draw our identities, our spirits, into a restored identity in relationship with God.47 This relationality, however, is not determined by contemporary conceptions of political liberation, rather only by the ultimate relationality, and freedom, that can be found in the determinant identity of God alone.48 This liberation is expressed in the image of Christ being made manifest in all by the work of God’s Spirit. Because the work of God’s spirit is always oriented toward relationality and not idealistic achievement, it is in the particular and finite that the spirit of God expresses God’s work in moments of history. It is only within such an understanding of history that the incarnation makes sense. God did not send a general theme, but was born as a particular man. Christ entered history to reform human identity and beckon the spirits back into a proper identity with and in God. This particular man did not crush “little flowers” in his expression of his identity as the future of humanity, but instead invited all, and especially the “little flowers,” to become truly particular within his particularity, resonating unity and diversity in the developing course of a complex and universal history.49 Only as this takes place does real liberation take a holistic form.50 Landscape of History Such a proposal was radical in light of twentieth century historiography and theology, as the idea of contributing to any kind of universal history became increasingly out of fashion for historians and the very idea of discovering revelatory meaning in history was rejected by theologians. Yet, both fields are finding convergence again, suggesting Pannenberg was anticipating developing trends. While this may not be as surprising in theology, that there are points of convergence in history may be a surprise to many historians as it is only very recently that long-standing trends against the pursuit of a “universal history” are beginning to change.51 At this point, I would like to briefly emphasize the work of John Lewis Gaddis as an example of discussions going on in contemporary historiography. In his text The Landscape of History, Gaddis proposes an ecological rather than reductionistic perspective that sees the complexity of the system being, in distinct and vital ways, irreducible, with any overgeneralization leaving out crucial aspects that bear significantly, even if not dramatically, upon the system’s formation and direction as a whole.52 Gaddis argues that the present is best thought of as a “singularity” that transforms all objects that pass through it. The future travels through the present in order to become the past.53 He argues that “the present achieves this transformation by locking into place relationships between continuities and contingencies: on the future side of the singularity, these are fluid, decoupled, and therefore indeterminate; however, as they pass through it they fuse and cannot then be separated.”54 This includes unexplained reasons for actions, either due to individual choice or due to “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” in which there is “an imperceptible shift at the beginning of a process”

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that can “produce enormous changes at the end of it.”55 These are not repeated, familiar experiences, but are rather unpredictable and often unprecedented. This does not, however, mean such experiences are unknowable. This does require a new kind of scientific approach, “one that distinguishes between the predictable and the non-predictable, that doesn’t depend upon reducing complexity to simplicity, that acknowledges—indeed relishes—the interdependency of variables; a science, in short, that’s much like history.”56 The first aspect of this approach is “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” in which small changes in a system at the beginning of a process can lead to dramatically different outcomes farther along. The second is the concept of fractals, which involves “self-similarity” across scales. Gaddis writes, “Patterns tend to remain the same, in such systems, regardless of the scale at which one looks at them.”57 The third is that there is the concept of “self-organization” in which patterns of regularity form even within chaotic systems, in which “organized behavior can emerge spontaneously in simulations in which units are allowed to interact with one another according to only a few basic rules.”58 This suggests that complex adaptive systems can seemingly spontaneously fit together in a cohesive, organized pattern that does not have top-down causation. Together these elements are part of what Gaddis identifies as “criticality,” which “means that a system contains within it both sensitive dependence on initial conditions and self-similarity across scale.”59 It is in this criticality, I suggest, that we can locate a robust understanding of how created spirits work in particular ways in the course of history.60 Spirits in History The study of history in light of contemporary historiography entails the infinitely complex interactions of the highly particularized, which is told in accurate approximations of reality on varying scales. According to Pannenberg, it is in this infinite complexity that God reveals his own complexity, a complexity that is wholly coherent and complete within itself, and thus does not depend on events or progression to give, or take away, meaning. Yet, while it is the case that God does not derive his meaning from history, history is a process of continuing revelation of God, meaning that God’s revelation itself is incomplete until history fully reveals his identity in the eschaton. As such, it might be said that God’s eternal fullness of identity gives assurance to God’s yet unfulfilled identity in history. God, as the ultimate identity, is not dependent on this world or its flow in order to establish identity, but he is investing his own identity within the context of history, offering a meaning that transcends the apparent disorder and give wholeness to those who are fractured.61 This meaning is salvation, but this salvation goes well beyond the establishment of a positive “way out” of history.62 If we begin with the idea that God alone is the determining subject for all identity, then from God’s spirit all of creation is developed in light of God’s unifying identity. His creation, however, includes other identities, those who were created to be in relationship with God, endowed in their creation with their own ecstatic

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identity, to be developed as an expression of freedom, created with the intention of community with God and with others. These identities are particular instances of the ecstatic work of God’s spirit, who is the source of their being, but allows for individualization as contributory personalities. Such unique instances of contributory personalities we call spirits. For human spirits, this orientation toward or against God is expressed in physical, emotional, and spiritual ways, all of which contribute to a domain of resonance within a given setting.63 In addition, there are also other identities, likewise created by God for their own manner of participation, which have been traditionally called angels or demons, depending on their orientation to God’s identity.64 All such created identities are given life by virtue of their participation with the divine Spirit, and are capable of participation with God in his identity, but may also seek to define identity in other, ultimately futile, ways. With humanity, and thus with God’s interactions with humanity, this identity formation takes place in the specific instances of history. In light of Pannenberg’s contributions, this process suggests that as God seeks to restore all to wholeness, history becomes an indirect revelation of his identity for and with this world, in and with all the other identities that are spirits, given meaning only through God’s spirit. Within the complexity that is history, the identity and work of the created spirits are not understood as generalized concepts of human achievement. Rather, created spirits express their particular identities as distinct participants within a history that is both always universal and always specific, encompassing a self-similarity across scales. Choosing to align with God’s identity is not, then simply an extrahistorical stance that results in a postmortem reward, but rather is an expression of human spirits identifying with the fullness of identity, expressed through the ages of creation. This identification establishes us as participating in the truly real and whole, sharing in the purpose of creation with the Father, in the restoration of our identity as humans in Christ, and in the as yet unrealized potentialities of the God’s spirit, bringing developing meaning to humanity from the future, which is already realized in God. As human spirits participate with God, they are drawn into participation with others, no longer ordered in accordance with isolated egocentrism, but toward a proleptic exocentrism that is centered in God and oriented toward others. “One element in the authentic operation of the spirit is the formation of community,” Pannenberg writes, emphasizing the fact that the spirit of God does not simply bring us into a restored communion with God but in doing so recreates our priorities and tendency “to share in that to which it is directed.”65 In participating with God’s revelation in history, human spirits participate with creation, with other people, other created identities oriented toward God (i.e., angels), with God even in our present, and in doing this resonate this source of all identity. They resonate the defining spirit into the lives of others, a resonance that offers healing and wholeness. If we see history as God’s process of revelation, then it can be argued that in salvation, and only in salvation, do human spirits begin to participate in the fullness of history, as it is in the special instances of historical particularity that such identities are oriented toward the spirit of God.

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This work of the spirit of God overcomes isolation and helps us transcend our highly limited perspectives as we are included, as particular persons, in a community of true fellowship, characterized by harmony, which is not a idealistic or rhetorical goal but rather “must be concrete forms of that comprehensive unity and community which are consonant with faith in the one God and which have for their criterion the universality of reason and the limitlessness of love.”66 We become, in effect, good neighbors.67 Those who join in with God’s true identity then “learn to understand themselves in the light of the order of their world or . . . in the light of the divine center in which they have their ground, or even in the light of a new order that will transform the existent world and thus of the continuity of history and its supposed goal.”68 As such, history involves a continual interaction between these distinct identities: God the only substantive identity, the created humans who have been given freedom to participate in relationships with their own identity, other created spirits who are participating with the identity of God, and the evil that has rejected God’s identity. Such evil spirits thrust their identities forward in an attempt to secure a differentiated ground of being, thus provoking the wrath that is nonviable, incoherent identity.69 Their egos produce historical transformations but in a way that devastates communities, families, and individuals. Such clashing of egos resounds throughout the historical narrative, sometimes producing worldshattering transformational moments, other times contributing quietly, but no less maliciously, to the many minor dysfunctions that undermine human thriving. These minor dysfunctions may result in simply stifling the fulfillment of particular moments of fulfillment, or in light of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, may enact a subtle beginning to trends which result in societal chaos. No one, after all, arrives in history as a fully formed individual. Everyone is the product of influences experienced throughout their life, and throughout the lives of those who influenced them. This leads, eventually, to such choices of insufficient identity becoming influences in their place and era, radically affecting, in turn, the lives of countless others. This influence is not deterministic, however. Even the world-changing, radical evil of Hitler or other evil-oriented spirits can be resisted, as particular people heed the call to step back into the flow of God’s life-affirming order. This order is God’s revelation to each of us and it is his active restoration of us. As we embrace this revelation, seen most fully in the person of Christ, we participate in a new way with God’s own field of force, his Spirit, who gives human spirits renewed existence as particular participants in his eternal relationality.70 Notes 1. R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, revised ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 113–14. 2. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1953), 24. 3. Ibid., 21.

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4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

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Ibid., 29. Ibid. 34. Ibid., 51. Ibid., 53. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 43. See Joyce Oldham Appleby, Lynn Avery Hunt, and Margaret C. Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York: Norton, 1994), 66–72. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), II: 635–36. Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Two Studies in the Theology of Bonhoeffer (New York: Scribner, 1967), 36. Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 5. On this latter point, see James E. Bradley and Richard A. Muller, Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 20. See Laurence W. Wood, God and History: The Dialectical Tension of Faith and History in Modern Thought (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2005), 118–19. See especially Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Dogmatic Theses on the Doctrine of Revelation,” in Revelation as History, Wolfhart Pannenberg ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), ch. IV. Cf. Pannenberg, “Response to the Discussion,” in Theology as History, James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb eds. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). In addition, other texts in which Pannenberg offers a significant contribution to the topic of history include: Human Nature, Election, and History (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), ch. 5; What Is Man? Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970); Wolfhart Pannenberg, Carl E. Braaten, and Avery Dulles, Spirit, Faith, and Church (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970); Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology; Collected Essays, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970); The Idea of God and Human Freedom, trans. R.A. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973); Faith and Reality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977); Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), ch. 9; and Systematic Theology, II:230ff. “Thesis 1: The self-revelation of God in the biblical witnesses is not of a direct type in the sense of a theophany, but is indirect and brought about by means of the historical acts of God.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 125. Pannenberg, Anthropology, 520. Ibid. Ibid., 524. Ibid, 531. “Thesis 4: The universal revelation of the deity of God is not yet realized in the history of Israel, but first in the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, insofar as the end of all events is anticipated in his fate.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 139. “Thesis 5: The Christ event does not reveal the deity of the God of Israel as an isolated event, but rather insofar as it is a part of the history of God with Israel.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 145. “Thesis 2: Revelation is not comprehended completely in the beginning, but at the end of the revealing history.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 131.

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25. “Thesis 6: In the formulation of the non-Jewish conceptions of revelation in the gentile Christian church, the universality of the eschatological self-vindication of God in the fate of Jesus comes to actual expression.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 149. 26. “Thesis 3: In distinction from special manifestations of the deity, the historical revelation is open to anyone who has eyes to see. It has a universal character.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 135. 27. Pannenberg, Anthropology, 529. 28. “Thesis 7: The Word relates itself to revelation as foretelling, forthtelling, and report.” Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 152. 29. See Pannenberg, Anthropology, 530. 30. Pannenberg, Basic Questions, 48. 31. Pannenberg, Anthropology, 528. 32. Ibid., ch. 5 esp. 239–42. 33. Ibid., 508. 34. Ibid., 513. 35. Ibid., 512. 36. Pannenberg writes, “In each case this ‘spirit’ is an always unique manifestation of the spirit of God that is at work in all living things but that can also, as in human individuals, be cut off from its relation to God and become demonic. In fact, it is especially easy for the spirit—whether a corporate spirit or the spirit of the age—that prevails in social life to take on demonic traits so that human beings become blind to the demands of reason and deaf to the voice of love.” Ibid., 530. 37. Ibid., 513–15. 38. Ibid., 515. 39. Ibid., 515. 40. Ibid., 531. 41. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton (Minneapolis: Augsberg, 1988). 42. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, III: 605–06. 43. Ibid., III: 610. 44. Ibid., III: 611. 45. Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 152. 46. This activity of the Spirit led Pannenberg to increasingly describe the Holy Spirit as a field of force. See Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, II: 79–84. 47. Ibid., II: 116: “According to the NT only the Spirit of Christ can enable them to fulfill this destiny of theirs.” 48. See Ibid., III: 54–55. 49. Ibid., II: 274–75. 50. Ibid., III: 644–46. 51. For an excellent brief history of the rise and decline of the study of universal history see David Christian, “The Return of Universal History,” History and Theory 49:4 (2010): 8–15. The entire issue of History and Theory that Christian’s article begins is dedicated to the trajectory of historiography over the next 50 years, and as such is it is worth reading in its entirety. 52. John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 53. Cf. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, III: 604–07. 54. Gaddis, The Landscape of History, 30.

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55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

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Ibid., 31. Ibid., 76. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 85. Ibid., 86. Another interesting and helpful contribution is that of David Christian, whose work in Big History provides a substantive renewed approach to the goal of writing a universal history, one that includes human interactions on a complex scale but also includes the whole of the history of the universe as integrative parts of a single, holistic narrative. In addition to the article noted above, see also David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), which provides both an argument of this approach and a demonstration of it. See Stanley Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 49–50. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, II: 274–75. See Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 313–15. See Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, II: 102–09. Pannenberg, Anthropology, 529. Ibid., 530. See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, vol. 6, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 146. Pannenberg, Anthropology, 530. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, II: 399, writes that “in striving for self-fulfillment in this world, we close ourselves off to God and his future.” See Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, III: 626.

CHAPTER 6

Art and the Spiritual Robert K. Johnston

H

ow are we to understand the spiritual significance of art given our pneumatologically infused culture? Surely, the expression of the human spirit through art seems to be as old as humankind itself. The complex drawings in Europe’s caves suggest a fascination with creating beauty that goes back to our prehistory.1 But as the West enters ever more fully into what some have labeled a “neo-Romantic” period in its culture, art has taken on an enhanced meaning spiritually. A poll by George Barna at the turn of the millennium not only revealed that 20 percent of Americans turn to “media, arts and culture” as their primary means of spiritual experience and expression. It also suggests that if the trends continue, by 2025, the same number of Americans will look to the arts as they look to the church for their spiritual formation, a revolution surely in how faith has traditionally been encouraged.2 But how, or whether, such spiritual/spirited/inspired experiences of art are spiritual is another matter. Is such spirituality simply a human longing, a projection, or can it also be the occasion for an encounter with Transcendence, a numinous experience that comes from beyond us? Theologians have long struggled with understanding the complex relationship between art and the spiritual. And with good reason. Karl Barth was surely right that you don’t necessarily “whisper” God by “shouting” man/woman. But even if all such shouts are not necessarily numinous, have not some seemed to be? The stories of countless people who have engaged the arts—or better, have been engaged by the arts—would suggest that art can indeed usher some viewers/readers/listeners into the presence of the Holy. A sampling should suffice to make clear the claim. But before proceeding, one caveat is important to help readers situate this chapter within the larger project of this volume. The whole theology and art discussion is only now beginning to take a pneumatological turn—to focus on the experience of art rather than on the work of art or on the artist. Hence the focus of this chapter is to open up further that line of inquiry, and we shall seek to do so by probing the spiritual dimensions of art. As the following shows,

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however, to raise the pneumatological question itself begs the questions of art and “many spirits.” This chapter does not venture in detail specifically into that arena, but its considerations gesture toward the shape that such an exploration might take. In particular, I turn in my conclusion from the more phenomenological gaze of the opening sections toward a more normative theological and Christian pneumatological approach, precisely in order to tease out at least some of these issues at the interface of art and the spiritual. Beginning Phenomenologically Reeling from the horror of World War I in France, when on one occasion he found himself unable even to speak in his role of chaplain (and gravedigger) but could only recite the liturgy, Paul Tillich returned to Berlin and went to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum where he walked into the exhibition area. “There on the wall,” he wrote, was a picture that had comforted me in battle: “Madonna and Child with Singing Angels,” painted by Sandro Botticelli in the fifteenth century. Gazing up at it, I felt a state approaching ecstasy. In the beauty of the painting there was Beauty itself. It shone through the colors of the paint as the light of day shines through the stained-glass windows of a medieval church. As I stood there, bathed in the beauty its painter had envisioned so long ago, something of the divine source of all things came through to me. I turned away shaken.3

Looking back as an older man on the influence of that experience, Tillich recognized that the concept of a “breakthrough” that dominates his theory of revelation came from that moment.4 The experience was transformative, opening him to an element of Depth in human experience that provided him a “potent analogue” for talking about religious experience more broadly. In a lecture entitled “Human Nature and Art” (1952), Tillich labeled this early experience with Botticelli’s “Madonna” “revelatory ecstasy.” He says of the experience, “A level of reality opened to me which had been covered up to this moment, although I had some feeling before of its existence.” He had had, he says, “an encounter with the power of Being itself.”5 Later in life, Tillich would have similar experiences while gazing at Picasso’s “Guernica” and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” Though he chose not to use the language of the presence of the divine Spirit in the human spirit, is this not what is being described? A similar scenario marked C. S. Lewis’s life, and he too chose to use alternate language to describe his encounters with the Spirit of God. In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, Lewis recounts from his youth a number of isolated, aesthetic experiences where something Other and More broke through. These included having his mother read to him Beatrice Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin, playing with a toy garden made in a biscuit tin by his brother, reading Norse mythology, listening to Wagner’s music, and reading the Greek play Hippolytus, as well as George Macdonald’s Phantastes. These events seemed to him more real than ordinary

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reality, more fundamental than the rest of everyday life. Moreover, they brought with them an encounter with what he labeled “Joy.” This Joy was for Lewis a “bright shadow,” something too near to be seen, on this side of his focal length. Lewis relates how through these experiences, his imagination was baptized. “In a sense,” he wrote, “the central story of my life is about nothing else.”6 For a time, Lewis sought out a means through which to duplicate this Joy. He plunged into that fiction or music in which Joy’s beauty had been present, and which had produced in him deep stabs of longing (Sehnsucht). This longing had been at one and the same time painful and yet inviting. But Lewis came to realize that rather than desiring Joy, what he actually longed for was “that of which Joy was the desiring.” And that “quite clearly,” Lewis came to understand, “was no state of my own mind or body at all.”7 Not resident in him, this Beauty that he desired was also not in the books or music he had encountered, but only came through them. In his address, “The Weight of Glory,” Lewis concluded, “They (the works of art) are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” Such Beauty was fleeting, ephemeral. Yet, as the music ended or the landscape lost its light, there remained its illusion, which he called “Joy.” Wrote Lewis, “It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers.” It is the “promise of glory” that the arts mediate—glory in the sense of acceptance by God, of being noticed by God—something that only God can himself provide.8 Thus, Lewis describes his encounter with the Spirit’s presence through art, an encounter of such magnitude that it caused him to write fiction for much of his career in the hopes that it might have the same effect on his readers. And that is indeed what happened. The Chronicles of Narnia and his science fiction trilogy have similarly “baptized” the imagination of thousands. To give a third example, over a several-year period in my classes in theology and contemporary film at Fuller Seminary in Southern California, I have asked my students to write a personal reflection paper on the one movie that was the most spiritually significant for them personally.9 Interestingly, the group of papers, now in the hundreds, divides roughly into three subgroups. Some described a movie experience that was spiritually illumining; others, one that was also transformative; and still others, one that even proved to be an encounter with the Transcendent. The first group said they had never had a direct spiritual experience through a movie, but they could recall a movie that functioned somewhat like a parable for them, providing instruction about the God they already knew. A second group recalled a movie that had caused their spirits to be deeply moved and as a result their lives changed, though they were unsure whether or not this aesthetic experience had been a divine encounter. And the third group said that God had been present to them while watching a movie, and this had proven foundational to their lives. One particularly dramatic account of a movie’s potential for spiritual transformation, even if the viewer was unsure of any divine presence was the testimony of a thirty-something woman who a decade earlier was the victim of a home invasion

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robbery during the Christmas season. Raped, robbed, kidnapped, pistol-whipped and shot, she was left for dead in an empty lot. Over the next five years, she said, her life spiraled downward, out of control, until she happened over the same holiday to see on television Frank Capra’s movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Sitting in her alcoholic haze, she identified with George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) whose dreams had been dashed, though he had tried to help others all of his life. However, as she watched a gentle Angel named Clarence show George that all his simple acts of kindness had actually been important to the community where he lived, my student said her perspective on her own life also began to shift. “The gift this movie provided me with,” she said, “was small hope.” She wrote, “If the daily decisions that George Bailey made had such a profound influence on those around him; may (be) the decisions that I was making, even the smallest most insignificant, (might) have a profound influence on those around me.” Though unsure whether the movie experience had been the occasion of her meeting God, it clearly had transformed her spirit. She came away from the viewing a new person. The woman wrote that the effects of the trauma might continue to ripple through her life, but so too “those righteous decisions we make.” For a second student, there was no doubt for him as to his encounter with the Spirit of God through a movie. Now in his early sixties, the student recalled seeing Easy Rider three times (!) in one Saturday afternoon in 1969, soon after the movie came out. He spoke of the movie in detail and with confidence some 40 years after his viewing experience. This iconic film about two counterculture bikers who travel across country to Mardi Gras in search both of America and of meaning in their own lives is a classic road movie. There is not much plot, but meaning comes through the interaction the “buddies” have both with each other and with those they meet along the way. Capt. America (Peter Fonda) and Billy the Kid (Dennis Hopper) encounter hitchhikers, face bigotry given their countercultural lifestyle, are jailed—even experience the death of a friend. They also pick up a drunken lawyer played by Jack Nicholson (his breakout role). What was significant, however, for my student was not any of these experiences. Rather, it was their visit to a gentle, hippie, religious commune in New Mexico. There the bikers meet young people trying to carve out a better life— living close to the soil, serving others, and being thankful to God. As the bikers got on their choppers to leave the commune for the pleasures of Mardi Gras, my student wrote that he called out in the theater, “You’re blowing it.” And though my student had never lived in community, when he left the theater, he boarded a bus for downtown Washington D.C. in search of a similar spiritual community he could join. In the movie, those in the commune had clasped hands, praying for “simple food for our simple tastes.” The prayer by these hippies made such an impression on my student, that though he was nonreligious at the time, he stated that his journey toward Jesus began at that moment. Forty years later, he still lives communally, now as a Christian minister. Easy Rider had proven, he said, to be revelatory. Although like the other experiences already related, there is no direct mention of the “Spirit,” he clearly speaks of meeting “God.” Here again is the spiritual manifest.

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Reflecting on the Spiritual in Art How might we understand these multiple witnesses regarding a spiritual experience through art? Again, a cross section of voices will prove helpful as we seek direction. Like the witnesses recounted above, there is ambiguity at the heart of these descriptions—ambiguity rooted in the mystery of the experience itself. But there is also much that these critics express in common. George Steiner In his seminal book, Real Presences (1989), Steiner writes, “All good art and literature begin in immanence. But they do not stop there. Which is to say, very plainly, that it is the enterprise and privilege of the aesthetic to quicken into lit presence the continuum between temporality and eternity, between matter and spirit, between man and ‘the other’.”10 Though our creativity flows “out of human questioning, solitude, inventiveness, apprehension of time and of death,” Steiner argues that the act of reception of such creativity “is a metaphysical and . . . theological one . . . It is theology, explicit or suppressed, masked or avowed, substantive or imaged, which underwrites the presumption of creativity, of signification in our encounters with text, with music, with art. The meaning of meaning is a transcendent postulate.”11 Throughout his book, Steiner argues that any coherent understanding of human speech’s capacity to communicate meaning, including the aesthetic, assumes the presence of the spiritual, though such presence cannot be proven. Lacking any formal, logical, or evidential proof, art’s spiritual core is “verification transcendent.” Ironic, absurdist, and nihilistic negations might be readily at hand. “But make no mistake,” he argues, “such ‘verification transcendence’ marks every essential aspect of human existence.”12 Steiner, thus, argues for a wager on transcendence. This is particularly true, he thinks, of aesthetic experiences—of literature, the arts, music, where meaning “infers the necessary possibility of this ‘real presence.’ ”13 In fact, Steiner defines the aesthetic as “the making formal of epiphany.”14 Even if in modernity the theological was largely held in derision, “serious music, art, literature . . . are refusals of an analytic-empirical criteria of constraint.” Steiner believes, correctly I think, that significant art has been “touched by the fire and ice of God.”15 Here is the cause of my student’s transformation after seeing It’s a Wonderful Life. Here is the source of Lewis’ “Joy.” Here, too, is the Ground of Tillich’s revelatory ecstasy at a Berlin museum and the compelling power that sent another of my students in search of a spiritual community where he could better understand the God he had met. Steiner’s wager on art’s meaning is a wager ultimately on a spiritual presence in the world. Peter Rollins A somewhat similar argument has been put forward by Peter Rollins in How (Not) to Speak of God, though, again, he does not often use explicitly

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pneumatological language. His thesis is “That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.”16 With the Christian mystics, he approaches “God as a secret which one was compelled to share yet which retained its secrecy.” Rollins is helpful in reminding us that “concealment” is not the opposite of “revelation.” Rather, revelation “has mystery built into its very heart.”17 Like Lewis’s moments of Joy and Tillich’s encounter with Beauty, these experiences of God’s revelational Presence are precritical, on this side of knowledge, too close to be seen, too plain to be understood. Rollins uses a variety of word pictures to get his point across. Some of the similes are relational: “At its most luminous,” Rollins suggests, “(revelation) is analogous to the experience of an infant feeling the embrace and tender kiss of its mother.” The baby does not understand the mother but rather experiences being known by the mother. Other images are a-personal, illustrating his understanding of God’s revelation as also a “hyper-presence,” a term, he says, “that refers to a type of divine saturation that exists in the heart of God’s presence . . . Instead of being limited by the poverty of absence we are short-circuited by the excess of presence.” For Rollins, God’s hyper-presence is analogous to the idea of a ship sunken in the depths of the ocean: while the ship contains the water and the water contains the ship, the ship only contains a fraction of the water while the water contains the whole of the ship. Our saturation by God does not merely fill us but also testifies to an ocean we cannot contain.18 Or again, for Rollins, revelation is “the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown,” a light that is best described using “the most beautiful type of language available—the language of parables, prose and poetry.”19 Friedrich Schleiermacher Schleiermacher grew up in a Reformed home, but was taught in Moravian schools where he learned the importance of a Spirit-filled faith lived deeply and in community. Even his later training in Kantian idealism and rationalistic biblical criticism could not cause him to waver from his commitment to experiences of heart-felt feeling. Especially important in this regard was the role music played. Upon moving to Berlin in the 1790s, Schleiermacher also joined the circle of Romantics whom he encountered there, becoming not only an advocate of Romanticism in the field of religion, but an advocate of Pietism among the Romantics. In particular, Schleiermacher agreed with the Romantics’ deep appreciation for creativity and the arts; yet he also expressed dismay that his secular colleagues’ understanding of life had no connection to religion. Seeking to address this perceived lack, Schleiermacher published in 1799 a series of addresses “On Religion” to his friends who were “cultured despisers of religion.”20 Desiring to connect with his readers, Schleiermacher does not often use the name “God” in his essays. Rather, he is more apt to speak of “the Universe,” “the One and Whole,” the “World-Spirit,” the “Holy Spirit,” the “Spirit of the

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World,” the “eternal World,” the “Infinite,” the “Genius of humanity,” the “great Spirit,” the “Deity.” But while he uses the poetic language of creation, there is no doubt regarding his core belief in the Creator. Schleiermacher is arguing that in life, we encounter the divine Spirit who is beyond us and Other than us, yet also in us. Schleiermacher’s intention in his Speeches is to argue for the importance of experiencing God. This is made particularly clear in his description of religion as the unity of Anschauung [intuition] and Gefühl [feeling]. “Feeling” is for him that inner and immediate, precritical awareness of ourselves as affected by the Infinite in and through the finite. “Intuition” is its complement: our immediate perception of the Spirit as it reveals itself through our lived experiences and triggers our feelings. As “Schleiermacher states, The whole religious life consists of two elements, that man (sic) surrender himself to the Universe and allow himself to be influenced by the side of it that is turned towards him, is one part, and that he transplant this contact which is one definite feeling, within, and take it up into the inner unity of his life and being, is the other”.21 In other words, while “feeling” describes our inner awareness of an “Other,” “intuition” is rooted in an outer self-disclosure by the “Other.” And these two experiences are “one and unseparated,” two sides of the same coin.22

What then of Schleiermacher’s understanding of art? Schleiermacher argued that though his readers’ valuing of any and all aesthetic feeling was admirable, without religion, it lacked depth, intensity, and fullness. By being “cultured despisers of religion,” they were in fact undercutting their own ability to see life clearly and to portray it with integrity, values their own Romantic worldview emphasized. Though art had as its immediate object something “here and now” and not simply “the Universe,” nonetheless, “the sight of a great and sublime work of art” can “more than anything else” lift one “above the finite, in a moment, as by an immediate, inward illumination.” Through art, thought Schleiermacher, it is possible that “the sense for the highest comes forth and surprises (the viewer) by its splendour.” And so a “miracle” is accomplished.23 In fact, Schleiermacher seemed to believe that at their best, his audience of Romantic artists already possessed such religion, though they did not know it. How else could one account for the profundity of their expressions? Perhaps with tongue in cheek, Schleiermacher even rhapsodized that some of their own works might turn these skeptical artists to religion.24 Reclaiming Our Experiences of the Spirit through Art In his provocative book, All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (2003), the Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow summarizes his research on Americans’ changing but deep interest in “spirituality” over three decades. What has emerged often and powerfully in his research is that “music and poetry, paintings and sculpture, drama and dance play a powerful role in

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many Americans’ spiritual journeys. Music and art . . . draw people closer to God, often by expressing what cannot be put into words. They spark the religious imagination and enrich personal experiences of the sacred.”25 Though C. S. Song is no doubt right that the whole spectrum of everyday life can occasion the Presence of the Spirit, it is also the case that certain kinds of experiences seem more attuned to spiritual reality. And certainly art is one such example. Wuthnow’s findings are supported by other studies as well. The British team of David Hay and Gordon Heald conducted a major poll in England in 1987, repeating it in the year 2000. While in 1987, 48 percent of the adult population reported to have had a religious or spiritual experience, by the year 2000 and using the same testing instrument, that figure had risen to 76 percent!26 As was the case with the Barna polls that referenced the changing face of America’s spirituality, one notes here the importance of our social context for any constructive pneumatology, as well as the near univocal witness, even in irreligious England (less than 8 percent attend church), to having had “spiritual” experiences. What one also notes in Wuthnow’s and Hay’s sociological conclusions, however, is the ambiguity of what “spiritual” means. Are we speaking of an encounter with the Holy, with God? Or are we only speaking of a deep, projective, or extrapolated, longing of the human spirit? Asked another way, what triggers these spiritually charged experiences for Wuthnow and Hay, including our encounters with art? Hay admits it is difficult to generalize across the wide spectrum of life. But what he can conclude is despite the variety of descriptions from the orthodox to the bizarre, there was “an all-pervasive sense of ‘something there.’ ”27 Thus the title of Hay’s book, Something There. The spiritual experiences that were reported were understood to be more than simply projective. Yet the questions remain: how does one define these experiences judged “spiritual,” or how, at least, are they to be described as connected with the divine? Hay admits to being baffled. Thirty years of people telling him of intensely meaningful spiritual experiences, including those through art, defied definition (and it is 85 years, if the work of his predecessor Alister Hardy is included28 ). Nonetheless, Hay was able to identify three characteristics that were most commonly associated with such experiences: “awareness of the here-and-now, awareness of mystery, and awareness of value.”29 Despite these findings of a widespread spiritual awareness that happens in everyday life, including, or perhaps particularly, through experiences of art, because such spirituality remains “illegible” (precritical?), even if “indelible” (decisive), art’s significance as a medium for what Christians call the Holy Spirit has sometimes been downplayed. After all, in light of the clear Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, such heuristic experiences rooted in the Spirit of Life seem of little value. At worst, they might only be expressions of a human yearning, a reaching out from below toward God. But even at best, though they might be the occasion of the Spirit reaching out to us, they are but prelocutionary, functioning propadeutically. They are but the “appetizer.” Or are they?

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Moving Beyond the Impasse Theologically What might be suggested from the preceding experientially rooted discussion? It should be evident that the interrelationship between art and human spirituality is of high importance for today. In our neo-Romantic age, as in Schleiermacher’s day, the aesthetic has been given permission to again be understood in the context of the Spirit’s encounter with humanity. Along with our engagement with other religions, the arts are forcing a broader understanding of Spirit, not to mention the spirits, and spirituality. In the process, they are providing perhaps the most significant opportunities and challenges on the horizon today for those seeking to understand Christian pneumatology more comprehensively. Together art and interreligious dialogue are raising the question of the validity of theology’s traditional Trinitarian starting point—the Word, and not the Spirit. Can’t Christians move as creatively from Spirit to Word, as from Word to Spirit, as they articulate a fully Trinitarian theology? In particular, given the focus of this chapter, must we not ask, isn’t the experience of beauty that is mediating an encounter with the divine for many today not a valid entre into Christian theology? Must theology always move from truth, through goodness, to beauty? Or might not that ordering be reversed in certain contexts? Although the phenomenological language lacks direct Trinitarian reference, and though given the Mystery that lies at their Source, the descriptions of art’s spiritual core often remains ambiguous, must Christian theology not conclude that what is being referred to is a spiritual reality, even the reality of the Holy Spirit? As Jesus counseled his disciples who wanted to stop some who were casting out demons in his name, though they were not his followers, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:40) Here too, one might conclude, was Paul’s perspective as he complimented those in Athens who worshipped an unknown God (Acts 17: 22–23). But if the connection of art and the spiritual is increasingly being asserted today by readers/viewers/see-ers, as well as by religion and art critics, and if the spiritual core of art is at the very least “a wager of transcendence” that must be made, and I am arguing that it is, then we can and must ask several follow-up questions. What, for example, are we to make of the repeated witness that the Spirit’s presence is precritical and immediate? Whether C. S. Lewis noting the contentless nature of that Joy that surprised him, or Friedrich Schleiermacher finding that immediate awareness of the Great Spirit to be the essence of religion, whether Peter Rollins reflecting on God as a secret, even as revealed, or George Steiner speaking about a wager on transcendence, given the lack of evidential proof and yet our experience of meaning, most who speak of art and the spiritual speak about an encounter that is too near to be seen, on this side of one’s focal length, too plain to be understood. Though such immediate, inward illumination defies definition, David Hay’s conclusion based on the testimony of thousands seems a necessary starting point: there is simply “something there.” The spirit that is encountered in and through art is experienced first of all as given—a Given who is simply “there.”

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While centered in immediacy, the spiritual in art is secondly experienced as fundamental to all else. Lewis’ recognition of his experiences in and through art as on “this side of knowledge,” as too close to be seen, need not be a trivializing of the experience—just the opposite. Certainly such was the case for Paul Tillich in that Berlin museum and for my students watching a movie. The “Joy” Lewis encountered should be seen rightly as foundational to all else. Rollins’ word pictures are also helpful here. We experience the spirit in and through art like a baby receives her mother’s love—without understanding but with great significance. Or like a lover’s embrace, there is meaning in the kiss, even if there is nothing explicitly said or words communicated. Communion, might be precritical, but it is not contentless. Here, too, is Schleiermacher’s rightful point. Though Wuthnow believes such a spirit-oriented faith to be shallow, lacking concrete doctrine and direction, and though Lewis, himself, surprisingly ended his book by suggesting that in light of the fuller knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, he was no longer much interested personally in what art could convey to him of the Spirit (it was but a “signpost” pointing to the Word made flesh), the Presence of the Spirit in and through art functions not only precritically, but heuristically, illumining all else. In its Light, we see light. It is also important to recognize the limits of envisioning the Spirit’s activity as a “bright shadow,” as something that is “hyper-present, shining like the light of day through a stained-glass window of a medieval church.” All of these images speak to the Spirit’s “immanent transcendence” (the helpful term is Jürgen Moltmann’s).30 They speak to the superabundant presence of the Spirit in art. But other images of the Spirit in art are of “a lover’s embrace.” Thus, Rollins does not only speak of the Spirit’s “hyper-presence”; he also uses a variety of relational similes. And ultimately such experiences of aesthetic theology must be brought into conversation with what is deemed to be both a reasonable and a righteous faith. An adequate understanding of the spirituality of art must hold together imagination, conscience, and intellect; it must recognize beauty, but also truth and goodness. One cannot trivialize the imagination. But neither can one productively marginalize “intellect” or “morality.” Life is one. But one need not narrow his or her Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work in and through art by ignoring the intellect or conscience. Nor must one choose between the Spirit’s avenues of Truth, Goodness, or Beauty. Ultimately they cohere. It was Niels Bohr, the Nobel laureate in physics, who developed the principle of complementarity when working on how best to understand light. He showed that depending on which theoretical framework was used, light could be understood as having the properties either of a wave or of a stream of particles. Both models were “correct.” And yet these two theories of light were mutually exclusive when isolated from each other. What was needed, he argued, was to, nonetheless, make use of both experimental models in order for light to be more adequately understood. They must be viewed as complementary. Here is a helpful model for understanding that Light illumines art as well. Bohr provides a way forward in our understanding of Art and the Spirit. Can we not posit a Spirit who is both personally involved and a precritical force, both a life-giving Power and a personal Presence. And could not the Spirit be engaged

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with the human spirit not only in and through beauty, but also in truth and goodness? The interrelationship of “models” of the Spirit’s presence among our spirits is messier, and yet more united, than might rationally be thought possible? After all, isn’t there only one Spirit? Certainly the Bible makes use of multiple metaphors for the Spirit, the Spirit of God being described as both a power and a person. In the Old Testament, God’s breath (ruach), or Spirit, is used metaphorically, similarly to God’s arm or face, to speak anthropomorphically of God’s powerful presence in the world, his vital force that animates life (cf. Gen 2:7; 6:3; Ezek 37:1–14). Like the wind (ruach), the Spirit (ruach) of God is mysterious; it cannot be contained. But it is also foundational to and energizing of all life (Isa 59:21). In the New Testament, the Spirit is similarly portrayed as a powerful force, one “poured out” on humankind and “dwelling in” us (Acts 10: 44–45). It is the Spirit who fills Jesus (Lk 4:1) and empowers Christians (Acts 2: 1–4; Rom 8:14), bringing them eternal life (Jn 3: 5–8). But in the New Testament there is also the recognition that the Spirit should be spoken of as a “person” (Mt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:13), as when the Council of Jerusalem wrote to gentile believers saying, “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15: 28). In the gospel of John, the Spirit is called the “Paraclete,” an advocate who is to be with us forever (Jn 14: 16). Viewed biblically, there are two models given concerning the Holy Spirit: the descriptions hovering between a conception of the Spirit as God’s presence as a powerful life force, capable of making dry bones live; and a conception of the Spirit as a personal presence—whether speaking, sending, preventing, making intercession, or being grieved.31 What is needed as we explore the Spirit in art is a more complex pneumatology than classical Protestant theology has yet developed. We must learn to hold in creative tension two competing, but biblically rooted models of the Holy Spirit— the Ruach of Creation and the Paraclete of Christ, the Spirit in creation and the Spirit in redemption. Only then will Christian theology be able to meaningfully embrace the Spirit, phenomenologically described—whether Tillich’s “revelatory ecstasy,” Steiner’s “Real Presence,” Clarence’s simple words to George in It’s a Wonderful Life, the “hyper-Presence” in Rollins, Lewis’ “bright shadow,” or Schleiermacher’s “gentle breath of the Great spirit.” Notes 1. I am writing this chapter in southern Spain, where boys discovered an extensive cave in 1960 that contains wall paintings dating back to 21,000 B.C., some of the oldest in Europe. 2. George Barna, Revolution (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2005). 3. Paul Tillich, On Art and Architecture, ed. John Dillenberger and Jane Dillenberger (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 235. 4. Paul Tillich, On the Boundary: An Autobiographical Sketch (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 28. 5. Paul Tillich, “Human Nature and Art,” one of three lectures given at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts under the title “Art and Society,” November 5–7, 1952 (in the Tillich Archive, Harvard University, Til. MSS/D.1).

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6. C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1955), 180–81, 17. 7. Ibid., 220. 8. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 4–5, 11. 9. For a fuller discussion, see Robert K. Johnston, “The Film Viewer and Natural Theology: God’s ‘Presence’ at the Movies,” in Russell Manning, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 595–610. 10. George Steiner, Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 227. 11. Ibid., 215, 216. 12. Ibid., 214. 13. Ibid., 3–4. 14. Ibid, 226. 15. Ibid., 223. 16. Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), xii. 17. Ibid., xiii. 18. Ibid., 1, 23, 24, 49. 19. Ibid., 17, 42. 20. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, trans. John Oman (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958). 21. Ibid., 58. 22. Ibid. Interestingly, in the subsequent editions of On Religion, Schleiermacher removed many of his references to “feeling” and “intuition,” choosing only the omnibus term “feeling.” But though he gravitated toward the use of the simplified term “feeling” to describe the core religious experience, he makes it clear that the feeling he speaks of is more than a human projection. He writes: Remember in the first place that any feeling is not an emotion of piety because in it a single object as such affects us, but only in so far as in it and along with it, it affects us as revelation of God. It is, therefore, not an individual or finite thing, but God, in whom alone the particular thing is one and all, that enters our life. (Ibid., 93) 23. Ibid., 138–39. 24. Ibid., 139, 141. 25. Robert Wuthnow, All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), xiv. 26. David Hay, Something There (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2006), 23. 27. Ibid., 115. 28. Cf. Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man: A Study of Contemporary Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). 29. Hay, Something There, 130. 30. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 34. 31. Cf. Acts 8:29; 5:32; 13:4; 20:28; 16:7; 5:3; Rom 8:26; Eph 4:30.

CHAPTER 7

Pneumakinesis and Stephen King: “Rebooting” the Discussion on Paranormal Fear D. Walter Staggs, Jr.

Introduction Assessing belief in spirit is an arduous task and fraught with subjectivities on every front. To complicate the matter, the traditional scientific hermeneutic one usually employs (Enlightenment/empiricist thinking) proves somewhat dissatisfactory in spiritual discourse primarily because science seeks to offer naturalistic explanations for what people believe actually lies above and behind nature itself— a reality comprising spirit (defined later). This is what one might call a very “left-brained” approach to investigating what seems to be a more “right-brained” phenomenon. To address this, I propose an aesthetic method of inquiry that more readily reflects the intuitive nature of the subject matter, that is, spirituality, spiritual belief, and one that stems from American cultural consciousness itself—film. This does not necessarily eliminate the problem of encountering subjectivities. Instead, the point is to look at the phenomenon of fearing spirit from the other side of the coin, per se. Stated differently, what might the arts tell us about reasons why people fear spirit that Enlightenment and/or empiricist discourses cannot? For instance, a common theme recurs that seems misleading on the surface in paranormal discourse (science’s approach). It is the idea that people fear ghosts, which is a curious claim since people also seek out these same spiritual entities through spiritual experiences, whether by professional mediums or some other method they deem reliable. As such, the interchangeability of the terms creates a sort of dichotomy between language and experience.1 Given that a vast sector of American society believes in some sort of paranormal or parapsychological reality,2 interpretations of ghost/spirit become more clouded as one investigates specific cultural demographics throughout society. For even though a majority of people believe in the paranormal, not all believe in the exact same manner.

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In fact, belief in the paranormal runs deep, not just in American historical imagination, but throughout Western history itself. With the rise of the paranormal sciences in the twentieth century, investigations into the experiences reported by people have taken on a more systematic approach, though paranormal scientists or investigators do not by any means possess the same aura of credibility attributed to the hard sciences.3 Even so, paranormal research brings much to the discussion table and has afforded religious scholars an alternate means of conceiving and speaking of paranormal experience. But this is also the problem. Since paranormal sciences are tied so closely to traditional scientific methods of investigation, their discourse is largely empirical in nature,4 which runs counterintuitive to the manner in which people communicate about their experiences.5 Moreover, paranormal terminology also finds itself entrenched in language used to describe spiritual entities that sounds more reminiscent of folklore terminology. For instance, polls by paranormal researchers pose questions related to ghosts, goblins, devils, Sasquatch, and even the Loch Ness monster. This complicates the subject matter and still misses the point. For in whatever form fear comes, fear often comes personified. In other words, it is not the “haunted house” that people fear. They fear the entities creating the paranormal experience itself. But further, fear especially emerges when people sense that they cannot control the spiritual experience because of the intentions and abilities of the spiritual entities in question,6 and this issue of control lies at the heart of people’s anxieties. Thus, what is needed is a method of discussing more specifically the paranormal context itself, and I propose doing so by way of American film, specifically, the genre of American horror. Not only is horror a fitting subject for discussions of paranormal interaction, the genre also speaks to the larger cosmological picture innate within American cultural consciousness and imagination, a cosmos Americans do not necessarily glean from their Christian cultural heritage.7 This is important to consider due to the diversity of pneumatological expression found within American film, which provides for never-ending interpretations of the interface between physical and spiritual realities. Therefore, in order to provide a more spirit-centered discourse, I offer the concept of pneumakinesis, a concept intentionally built upon the parapsychological term psychokinesis (itself adapted from the older telekinesis),8 but with the focus of the term on understanding the point of contact between the physical and spiritual realities. For my thesis is that this point of contact is what people fear most, as it is here where they potentially lose control and thus become susceptible to what they perceive as outside spiritual influences. To explain this, I will begin by clarifying the language barrier in paranormal theory that introduces spirit in misleading terms and explain more specifically why horror provides a more meaningful discussion on paranormal beliefs than science alone can provide. Next, I will describe what I find to be a holistic understanding of spirit in American horror and cultural consciousness. I will do so by extrapolating from Plato’s theories on the immortal soul and Augustine’s theories on freedom of the will. Here, the idea is to provide a basic framework for the nature of spirit as presumed in American film, a nature that implies personhood. Moreover, and as

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noted earlier, the underpinning reality expressed in so many horror films does not necessarily reflect America’s Christian heritage. Oftentimes, the cosmological order appears more pagan, save obvious movies like The Exorcist. Thus, the turn to classical theory is necessary to provide the balance between spirit as a meaningful entity and spirit as part of a larger cosmology, something paranormal science does not necessarily address.9 Finally, I will use Stephen King’s classic work The Shining (as directed by Stanley Kubrick) to bring everything together. The Shining is particularly useful as it speaks to the pneumatological pluralism of this volume, but it provides a clear example of what I refer to as the pneumakinetic experience, the moment where participants of the physical world find themselves vulnerable to those of the spiritual world, and, consequently, lose the ability to control destinies of their own making. Paranormal Science and the Linguistic Paradigm Psychial theory10 (psi theory) falls short in discussions of spirit in two ways. First, the manner in which psi theory refers to and pluralizes spiritual entities shifts the nature of the discussion from one of legitimate inquiry to something that sounds like fairy tale and legend, or shoddy science fiction. For instance, as alluded to earlier, researchers trying to gauge belief in the afterlife lump entities like devils, Bigfoot, angels, ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, witches, and even things like “clairvoyance” all in the same category of beings.11 Thus, the dividing line between fantasy, folklore, spiritual beliefs, and possible hallucinations becomes all the more blurred. Such methods subvert the purpose behind meaningful dialogue12 because people who do not believe in Bigfoot might well believe in life after death, and vice versa. Moreover, coupling spiritual experiences with categories more commonly found in folklore literature might well misrepresent the meaning of spirit altogether since society commonly associates folklore with myth and fairy tale. Second, Psi theory focuses on mind-over-matter explanations for paranormal encounters and interactions. This shifts the focus of the paranormal/spiritual experience from a larger cosmological context to an introspective event and does not really acknowledge the pervasive reality believed to be driving the interfacing event itself. In other words, there exists no real explanation for where these beings come from, how they manage to communicate across realities, or even why they should exist in general. Such questions really lie beyond the scope of what paranormal science asks due to concerns about indulging in speculation, but this is precisely the point. Discussions of the paranormal involve the imagination, and questions as to origins and ontology of spirits interacting with the living have been important to cultures for centuries, and not simply in the West. Thus, paranormal science, while helpful in assisting society to think differently about spirit-flesh interactions,13 has its own set of limitations because of the very rules it relies on to provide a sense of legitimacy to itself in the face of the older, hard sciences. As a result, I suggest looking more closely into how horror as an

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expression of spirituality offers deliberations on pneumatological pluralism, especially in film. These films speak to the heart of what people believe, despite the fact that they live in a highly advanced scientifically and technologically driven society. Why Horror Works Film is about conveying meaning through experience, and film does so by connecting with viewers on a very personal level, an emotional level. As such, meaning is contingent upon the experience viewers undergo. Or, as Carl Plantinga states, “Experience creates its own meaning.”14 In other words, “emotion and affect are fundamental to what makes films artistically successful, rhetorically powerful, and culturally influential.”15 Moreover, because people often turn to emotions “for guidance when making judgments and decisions,” Plantinga comments that “the function of emotion and affect is to make film viewing powerful, rather than merely an intellectual exercise. In the long term, such experiences may burn themselves into the memories of audiences and may become templates for thinking and behavior.”16 So what then is the horror movie experience, and how does it relate to belief in the paranormal? First, one might consider that movies in general speak to a captive audience, meaning that the “audience is taken step by step through the text [story].”17 This means there is no sidestepping the chainsaw, no dodging the convulsions and foul excretions of the demoniac, and no escape from the terror of death. Horror is a molding experience, meant to be endured. Psychologically, “both the story and its context of telling dissolve into a uniformity of effect,”18 blurring the lines between what seems real (the feelings inside) and what is fictitious (the movie itself ). Moreover, “the horror story presents a repetition that is cumulative. Rather than canceling the significance of the original event by displacing it, the horror story increases that event’s significance, multiplying its effect with each repetition.”19 What Susan Stewart’s analysis indicates is that horror creates an experience within the viewing experience itself, which leaves a lasting impression on the viewer that might as well have been real,20 hence Plantinga’s statement about emotion’s influence on “thinking and behavior.” In other words, horror creates a kind of reality of its own within the psyche of the participant, within the mind and emotional memory of the viewer. Dennis White describes this reality rather well: “Like pawns people move from one insecure situation to another. Very soon we, too, feel isolated and defenseless.”21 In fact, White notes that films depicting life as such qualify as horrifying works “because of the continual revelation of random, but at the same time, inevitable forces asserting themselves within their events and characterizations.”22 Moreover, the concepts themselves being played out on screen affect audiences precisely because they correspond to what the audience perceives as plausible, plausible to reality on some level. Or, stated differently, people cannot fear what they consider unrealistic. Horror films depicting the supernatural fit well here (which includes paranormal experience), and White even points out what he

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considers a “preponderance of supernatural themes in horror films,” as well as “the fact that it is traditional to associate horror only with the supernatural,” though horror does not always equate to supernatural tales.23 In this sense, that which is most terrifying to viewers is typically a reality over which humankind has no control, that is, spiritual reality. What people fear then, to go a bit further, is what White calls “animalization,” or the act of people “turning into something more primitive than man, or . . . [in] animals becoming more than animals,”24 that is, a kind of monster. Either scenario represents a tangible fear due to loss of self.25 Another means of understanding the horror film experience is through Noel Carroll’s concept of “art-horror.”26 Carroll provides a caveat that I find useful for this discussion, which is that “we shall not respect the notion that horror and science fiction are distinct genres. Much of science fiction . . . is really a species of horror, substituting supernatural forces with futuristic technologies.”27 Nevertheless, like Plantinga, Carroll recognizes that horror is designed to “provoke a certain affective response,”28 but that these “emotions involve not only physical perturbations but beliefs, beliefs about the properties of objects and situations.”29 For instance, in a different article, Carroll describes the art-horror experience as “the notion of the conflict between attraction and repulsion.”30 Carroll finds this a critical component of the horror experience because “horror films cannot be construed as completely repelling or completely appealing. Either outlook denies something essential to the form.”31 Foundational here in this conflicting experience is what Plantinga describes as “a curiosity about the nature of a seemingly impossible and unknown being, the monster.”32 Thus, what we find here is that horror is a useful starting point for discussions of paranormal fear for at least two reasons. First, horror as experience relates closely to personal beliefs and expectations regarding the spiritual world. This is, in fact, what makes horror horrifying—because it reflects what people believe is possible in some way. Second, horror serves to invert the relationship between psi theory and the larger pneumatological cosmology implied within a plurality of spirits. It is important to point out that horror as a starting point does not negate the contributions of paranormal science to discussion of pneumatology. Horror simply includes paranormal theory under its broader cosmological reach, particularly with the advent of more recent movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, movies where those allegedly filming the paranormal events become subject to the spiritual world. What this reorientation does is acknowledge the historical ties between psi theory and pneumatological pluralism without relegating paranormal thought to a mere by-product of Enlightenment rationalism. In some ways, this reconceptualizes paranormal research as a form of modern folklore, but this need not be interpreted as a negative. Marilyn Motz argues, for instance, that “folklorists affirm and highlight the ability of folklore theory and methodology to explore the practice of belief, an approach that enables us to examine important aspects of culture that otherwise elude scholarly grasp.”33 She goes on to say, “This perspective suggests a working definition of the term belief as a process

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of knowing that is not subject to verification or measurement by experimental means . . . . Rather than viewing belief as the opposite of knowledge, we can examine the process of believing as a way of knowing.”34 Having said that, we can now proceed to a discussion conceptualizing the kind of spirits depicted in horror. Spirit in American Horror In its most basic sense, spirit in this chapter should be understood as sentient being, a being with both a mind and a will of its own, and a being with the means to fulfill the desires of its will. None of these terms—spirit, mind, will, and so on—are meant in a reductionistic sense. Rather, these should be viewed in an attempt to describe the more multifaceted concept of what it means to be a cognizant person (not necessarily human).35 Either way, the primary objective is to describe the essential components of what it means to exist, whether in spirit or in flesh, and exist in a way that allows for interaction with other similar beings. Plato and Augustine will more than assist us here, primarily because Plato’s concept of the soul and Augustine’s understanding of the will reflect the definition of spirit I have above in the sense of “sentient being.” For instance, what one gleans from Plato’s discussions of the soul is that the soul is the person, in a very holistic sense, though reason takes a primary seat. The same can be noted for Augustine’s focus on the primacy of the will in human ontology. Thus, my use of the term spirit combines Plato’s emphasis on a reasoning soul and Augustine’s emphasis on reason being subject to an affective will in determining what it means to be a sentient being. In other words, spirit as depicted in modern film appears to be a combination of what both Plato and Augustine (himself a Platonist) see beneath the surface of human thought and action. Naturally, this requires a little unpacking. That said, perhaps the most fundamental aspect to Plato’s concept of the soul is its immortal nature. Plato expresses this belief in more than a few places in various dialogues, the most prominent being the Phaedo. In the Phaedo, Socrates attempts to console his friends over his impending death. In his conversation with them, he provides various reasons for the immortality of soul,36 but the primary emphasis here is the belief that physical death is not the end of existence, simply a transition to a different kind of existence, an existence where life is not encumbered by the soul’s tie to a physical body.37 Further, Plato provides teleological support in The Republic by way of the “Myth of Er.” In this brief tale, Plato speaks cosmologically and connects the soul’s eternal nature to destiny. Or, as Allan Bloom puts it, “According to this myth there is a rational cosmic order to which each individual’s fate is attached. In the afterlife happiness and misery are distributed according to virtues and vices practiced in this life.”38 In American culture, similar beliefs exist in that life after death is not the end of existence, that those on the “other side” are in fact living souls, and that a sense of purpose or meaning still accompanies these individuals, hence modern film’s periodic depiction of the disembodied desiring to interface with the those of the physical world.39

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Further, souls in Plato’s cosmology are rational beings first, affective beings second. This need not imply a lack of affectivity, however, in Platonic thought. Plato’s Symposium is proof enough of that. In the Symposium, Eros plays a significant role in the concept of the happy life, but affectivity is subjugated to proper use of reason in Plato’s philosophy, hence Socrates’ insistence on moderation and the virtues of wisdom throughout the dialogues.40 For instance, in the Phaedrus, Socrates describes the soul as an intense relationship between reason and desire. He uses the now famous analogy of the charioteer driving a pair of steeds that often run counterintuitive to one another. When the darker of the two steeds (one black, one white) supersedes the influence of the other, the soul eventually suffers corruption and forces the charioteer off course.41 While the converse is also true, that the light steed leads the soul toward the virtuous life, the relation here is that the soul is susceptible to corruption from within, and that the soul is a relationship between the mind and the affections, which also mirrors American social belief.42 The point is that those of the spiritual reality are sentient beings who seem submerged in eternity governed at some level by destiny. And, as the Myth of Er suggests, these beings still seek some sort of personal fulfillment. Here enters Augustine. In terms of Augustine’s contribution to our concept of sentient being, affectivity assumes a more pointed expression as love (cupidity), and for Augustine, that which one loves determines the overall trajectory of one’s existence.43 Essentially, Augustine sees two possible paths in life: one that embraces the eternal things (which are good because nothing evil is eternal), and one that embraces the temporal, fleeting things (which can easily become vices).44 Individuals loving the temporal things end up fearing the eventual loss of these possessions, and this fear leads to an obsessive mentality.45 The will itself is affected accordingly. In fact, the will is responsible for its own corruption and requires an outside force (God) to free it from itself, from its state of being.46 Augustine is, of course, Platonic in his theology, and the idea here is similar to Plato’s assertion in the Symposium that the soul seeks to become one with that which it loves, whether good or bad.47 Nevertheless, in this discussion, Augustine’s usefulness is found in the idea that the will serves as the primary cause, the first principle of all that transpires within one’s being, including its own transformation.48 This, then, is that which concerns people most in spiritual belief—the idea that on the other side of their spiritual encounters is not just a mind (and therefore simply a kind of computer), but a will with desires of its own (i.e., a person of some kind). Should the desires of the spiritual entity run contrary to those of the physical beings in the encounter, this becomes cause for concern. However, cause for alarm enters the picture when this spirit possesses the means of imposing that will upon those in the physical world. As we have surmised, then, what we see in horror films are viewers affected by what their minds tend to interpret as plausible scenarios. These plausibilities are based on the most basic of human fears—the loss of personal autonomy due to the act of subjugation by another living entity, that is, slavery and/or death, particularly if this loss involves suffering. Americans especially hold dear

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the concepts of personal liberty given their political history, which might help explain why Americans have such a fascination with horror. For if personal liberty is what they value most, then what could be more terrifying than losing one’s life or quality of life through oppression from a spiritual being? To help us conceptualize this, we will move on to Stephen King, arguably the master of creating fear. The Shining and a Pneumatological Cosmos For all its hype, The Shining really is nothing more than a modern rendition of the classic ghost story.49 The movie takes place in an enchanted hotel filled with creepy entities (people) that make themselves known as the story progresses. Incidentally, this is what also makes The Shining interesting because “shining” in the film is actually telepathy, a gift shared by two characters in the movie—Danny Torrance, the young son of the main character Jack Torrance, and Dick Halloran, the Overlook Hotel’s executive chef. Moreover, shining also provides those with the talent a means of perceiving past and future events, which one might call precognition. King’s early works are filled with such paranormal expressions, but in this story, the focus of attention on the act of shining is what one author describes as “a false lead.”50 Nonetheless, this false lead is what makes the story important for this discussion, as telepathy and precognition play ancillary roles to the greater theme played out between physical and spiritual realities.51 The crux of the story revolves around the main character, Jack Torrance, an aspiring author who is both a recovering alcoholic and someone who unwittingly possesses the ability to perceive spiritual reality. However, as the tale unfolds and Jack becomes more aware of the entities inhabiting the hotel, the audience cannot tell whether Jack is hallucinating due to “cabin fever,”52 or some sort of severe withdrawal brought on by his battle with alcoholism. For in the story, he is able to drink even though the hotel has no alcohol on the premises. Further, because Jack is unaware of his psychic abilities, the audience find themselves disoriented, much like a diver who can no longer sense which way is up and which way is down. Like the diver, the audience begins looking for bubbles to find a sense of direction, or in this case, a feel for where reality lies. That moment comes when the spiritual world interfaces with the physical world not only in a manner that determines where ultimate reality lies, but in a way that confirms the audience’s fears of the spiritual world being capable of opening the Pandora’s box from the inside. In this scene, Jack is locked in a storage closet after being hit over the head with a bat by his wife. Jack had been convinced by Mr. Grady—the former caretaker (now in spirit), who slaughtered his own family years prior—that Jack too must eliminate his wife and son. However, Jack underestimates his wife and finds himself trapped, unable to fulfill the will of the spiritual world. Mr. Grady then intervenes by making Jack follow through on his promise to kill his family, and upon Jack’s word, Mr. Grady somehow unlocks the door. It is a clear turning

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point in the film where reality is clarified and danger is unleashed.53 In fact, as the movie propels toward the end, even the wife begins seeing entities in the hotel, which is of course terrifying for her and entirely unexpected. From her point of view, Jack was simply going insane. The ending of the film implies a kind of cosmological karma in play driving the entire experience. The final scene reveals a group photo from a 1921 July fourth ball, where the person at the front of the photo, complete with eerie grin, is none other than Mr. Torrance himself, thus indicating that this scenario has been playing out for a very long, long time. Essentially, The Shining contains all the elements for the kinds of pneumakinetic experiences that people report to have experienced for ages, and it does so by maintaining the cosmological order inherent within a pneumatological, pluralistic worldview. It does not discount psi theory’s contributions to discovering and making sense of the spiritual world. They are, in fact, key to unraveling paranormal events within the story. King simply places these intuitive gifts under a larger teleological umbrella.54 For meaning and destiny are still present as time and situation seem to repeat themselves through the lives of real people that lived and died in the hotel. While acting as monsters/ghosts, they are still no more than sentient beings with wills of their own, and apparently, the means to interface with the physical world in order to fulfill those desires, however malevolent they might be. This, in other words, is what people really fear. Conclusion The point of this chapter is not so much to question the contributions of paranormal researchers or to discount their methods. It is what science cannot tell us by the fact of its very nature that is of concern here. For instance, how does one measure spirit? How does one quantify the spiritual? How does one assess what cannot by definition be looked at directly? In other words, what paranormal research seeks to discover and understand is similar to what astrophysicists encounter with blackhole research. By the very nature of what a blackhole is, it is impossible to see it because that which would illuminate it is locked within its own event horizon. Science must therefore be creative in its efforts to locate blackholes and uncover what their existence has to offer the physical universe. So is it with paranormal research. So what can paranormal science tells us about a belief in many spirits? What does paranormal research suggest, in other words, about the nature of the spiritual world, particularly when the focus of study pertains so largely to explanations of mental perception? For example, mental acuity might help explain how people on the physical side might interface with those of the spiritual side, but the questions really stop there. What paranormal science cannot address, which horror films often love to address, is how “Pandora’s Box,” that is, the spiritual reality, opens from the inside without human intervention. In other words, what horror offers here are causal explanations based on which reality is most real, meaning which reality holds the ability to dominate the other. And, what social belief via

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film suggests is that the spiritual world precedes the physical, not the other way around. Ultimately, this is why discussions of paranormal fear require a “reboot.” Notes 1. In this context, ghost and spirit are used interchangeably, though the purpose of this chapter involves differentiating between the two concepts more specifically in order to answer the larger, looming question as to what is it about spirit and spirituality that people fear. 2. Barry Markovsky and Shane R. Thye, “Social Influence on Paranormal Beliefs,” Sociological Perspectives 44 (Spring 2001): 22. Also, in this chapter, paranormal refers to belief in spirits, whereas parapsychological refers to belief in mental perception abilities like ESP, telekinesis, precognition. 3. In his book, Deviant Science: The Case of Parapsychology, author James McClenon discusses how parapsychology is not considered “a fully legitimate science” because “the acts parapsychologists engage in include conducting research in anomalies with low ontological status.” James McClenon, Deviant Science: The Case of Parapsychology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 11. He goes on to say that the social sciences are prevented from attaining any sort of full legitimacy from the hard sciences for the same reasons (p. 15). He states that science suffers from what he calls “scientism,” citing Voegelin’s three components: “(1) the assumption that the mathematized science of natural phenomena is a model to which all other sciences ought to conform; (2) that all realms of being are accessible to the methods of the sciences of phenomena; and (3) that all reality which is not accessible to sciences of phenomena is either irrelevant or, in the more radical form of the dogma, illusionary.” (26–27). 4. Amos Yong describes this as a “naturalistic approach” in the introductory chapter to this volume. 5. Specifically, I am relating spiritual experience to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s understanding of “dialogical encounters” in the arts, in this case, film. Here, Gadamer resists modern science’s universal claim to method. Gadamer also explains the significance of art in that “it speaks to us, that it confronts man with himself in his morally determined existence” (51). For purposes here, however, art is grounded in communicative reality, not mere transcendentalism, as Gadamer is largely concerned with the change a person experiences when confronting truth communicated through art. Truth here is art’s implications for spiritual reality. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised ed. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1994), xxii. See also Jason Paul Bourgeois, The Aesthetics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans von Balthasar (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), 7. 6. This includes actions of presumably honorable intentions, where the entity asserts a kind of divine authority over the individual for his or her own good. 7. This is not to imply that Western Christians throughout history have not believed in paranormal activity of some sort. Such an assertion would be absurd. Rather, the idea is that a belief in many spirits predates Christianity and American culture altogether, and many of these beliefs stem from cultural syncretisms between Christian and non-Christian societies, particularly as Christianity spread to Europe and became integrated into indigenous tribes and peoples. For Judeo-Christianity, while certainly hospitable to a worldview of diverse spirits (demons, angels, humans, even animals), is divided more dualistically in its cosmology between specific concepts like heaven

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9.

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and hell. In horror films, oftentimes there is no distinction between heaven and hell realities, and equally so, there is no existence of a Christian God. The context therefore turns more pneumatologically pluralistic as spirits (physical and spiritual) appear to be left to their own devices for survival. In a way, horror cosmology is even somewhat Darwinian. Harvey J. Irwin and Caroline A. Watt, An Introduction to Parapsychology, 5th ed. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007), 94. The definition here of psychokinesis is a “movement by the mind or psyche . . . an effort of the will.” By using pneumakinesis, attention is diverted from cognitive explanations for what is believed to be spiritual phenomena at base. Before delving in, a caveat is in order. This chapter explores a cosmology in film that is pneumatologically pluralistic, and by that I mean a universe in which a diversity of spiritual life exists that still exhibits unifying, ontological traits, as discussed later in this chapter. I also mean that spirit underpins this cosmology, provides it with meaning and direction, as well as hierarchy. One might liken it to Platonism, but without the centrality of an overarching deity. Film is not always so assuming. Nevertheless, pneumatological pluralism in this chapter pertains to any medium through which spirit (defined later) is expressed in a manner that affects the material world. Regardless of the medium, the cause is still spirit. For discussion here, psi theory will be limited to Charles Tart’s distinctions of what he terms “the big five,” which are precognition, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, telepathy, and psychic healing. See Charles Tart, The End of Physicalism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, 2009), 89. Charles F. Emmons and Jeff Sobal, “Paranormal Beliefs: Functional Alternatives to Mainstream Religion?” Review of Religious Research 22 (June 1981): 304. While this might seem like an unfair generalization, this is not so uncommon in sections of works pertaining to hauntings or in polls assessing belief in spiritual entities. The problem stems from the fact that a term like spirit can be used pluralistically in and of itself because of its ontological implications. Thus, a witch is as much a spirit as is a demon or ghost. The purpose of this chapter is to gauge how film expresses this concept, despite its diversity, and to see if it offers something of value for pneumatological discussion that differs from a strictly scientific orientation. For example, a better term here might be “materializations” as offered by Schoch and Yonavjak. For instance, they state, “Materializations purportedly take many forms. They might appear out of ‘thin air’ and disappear (dematerialize) once again,” which includes objects, not simply entities. See Robert M. Schoch and Logan Yonavjak, The Parapsychology Revolution: A Concise Anthology of Paranormal and Psychial Research (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2008), 10. This, of course, brings up the question of dualism, which this chapter does not espouse. Instead, I envision John Buckham’s concept of “duality,” literally “lying between the extremes of monism on the one side and dualism on the other” (157). In his essay, Buckham argues that simply because two spheres of reality appear dualistic does not necessarily mean dualism should be inferred. He points to Plato’s universe, which he states is more of a duality since there is one overarching reality (the immaterial world) that defines the material reality and is connected to it. In this chapter, I envision horror film projecting a similar worldview. See John Wright Buckham, “Dualism or Duality?” The Harvard Theological Review 6 (April 1913): 156–71.

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14. Carl Plantinga, Moving Viewers: American Film and Spectator Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 3. 15. Ibid., 5. 16. Ibid., 6. 17. Susan Stewart, “The Epistemology of the Horror Story,” The Journal of American Folklore 95 (1982): 34. 18. Ibid., 35. 19. Ibid., 36 20. This is also described as the “audience as victim” effect (ibid., 39). 21. Dennis White, “The Poetics of Horror: More Than Meets the Eye,” Cinema Journal 10 (Spring 1971): 7. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 8. While the author does not elaborate on why horror and the supernatural were traditionally tied to the supernatural only, one reason would be the rise of science and psychology. These genres provided investigators and authors means of causation beyond spirit, magic, and/or the proverbial “God’s will” excuse allotted to acts of nature for horrifying experience. 24. Ibid., 9. 25. Ibid., 10. 26. Carroll defines “art horror” as the emotional effect of the genre birthed by Mary Shelly, which continues on through the twentieth century. Noel Carroll, “The Nature of Horror,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46 (1987): 51. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 52. 29. Ibid., 54. 30. Noel Carroll, “Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings,” Film Quarterly 34 (Spring 1981): 17. 31. Ibid., 18. 32. Plantinga, Moving Viewers, 180. 33. Marilyn Motz, “The Practice of Belief,” The Journal of American Folklore 111 (Summer 1998): 340. 34. Ibid. Motz defends this further by stating “we usually describe our beliefs as ‘knowledge.’ ” 35. By “not necessarily human,” I mean spirits other than what society deems “human,” which include spiritual entities like angels and demons (both higher forms of beings) and even animals (lower life form). I do not mean ghosts, since these are believed to be disincarnate humans, generally speaking. A hierarchy of life is implied, in other words, thus forming a kind of cosmological social order, which is common in all societies. For more on “pneumatological cosmology,” see Amos Yong’s The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 173–207. 36. Socrates’ argument rests on the soul’s innate qualities, particularly the idea that soul is not a “composite” entity and therefore cannot be divided from itself (78c), as well as its invisible qualities (79a,b). Moreover, Socrates argues that the soul is “akin” to the “realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging” (79d). Of course, Plato has much more to say about the immortality of the soul in other dialogues, but the draw here pertains to the holistic elements that parallel American culture. See Plato, “Phaedo,” in G. M. A. Gruber, trans., Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito,

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40.

41.

42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

48.

49. 50.

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Meno, Phaedo, 2nd ed., rev. by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 116–18. Socrates qualifies this, however, in that happiness in the afterlife is contingent upon virtuous living (115e; ibid., 150–51). Allan Bloom, ed. The Republic of Plato, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 435. Another common theme in horror and the supernatural is the desire of the dead to fulfill some sort of lost opportunity in their past lives, whether warning a loved one not to follow in their footsteps, revenge for an untimely death, or even simple discontent with their current state of affairs. For whatever reason, fulfillment for the “restless soul” is only found by way of the world of the living, thus driving the spirits to make contact and interaction in the physical world. Because of Plato’s emphasis on the centrality of the rational mind (a rational mind used properly), wisdom takes on an especially potent significance in Plato’s cosmology. Wisdom, for all intents and purposes, is “the most beautiful of all of all things,” as Socrates states in the Greater Hippias (296a), and it is a common theme in the dialogues that wisdom should be sought above all else. See Plato’s Phaedrus (246a–47b), in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI (New York: Pantheon, 1961), 493–94. For a closer examination of the relation between the appetites and reason in Plato’s concept of the soul, see also Laurence D. Cooper, “Beyond the Tripartite Soul: The Dynamic Psychology of the ‘Republic’,” The Review of Politics 63 (Spring 2001): 341–72. A case in point is the Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice, starring Michael Keaton, or even Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze. In each film, the deceased characters never cease being human and governed by some sort of search for meaning/fulfillment and finality, which is found by finding a balance between the physical and spiritual worlds. They interact with the physical world as they did before—beings with minds and emotions. They simply lack physical means of expression. This is a common theme in Western literature. In Book One, Augustine frames this in terms of “inordinate desire” and “blameworthy cupidity.” Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993), 7. In Book Two, Augustine discusses this concept at length and centers upon the manner in which “the will cleaves to the common and unchangeable good.” For Augustine, “what is evil is the turning of the will away from the unchangeable good and toward changeable goods” (ibid., 68). Ibid., 8. Ibid., 69. Diotima tells Socrates in the Symposium that “the object of love is the permanent possession of goodness for oneself ” (206a), implying that the lover seeks a type of transformation to something higher and more pure than itself. See Plato, Symposium, trans. Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 48. Augustine literally says, “But since that movement is voluntary, it has been placed under our control. If you fear it, do not will it; and if you do not will it, it will not exist. What greater security could there be than to have a life in which nothing can happen to you that you do not will?” (Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, 69). Frederic Jameson, “The Shining,” Social Text 4 (Autumn 1981): 119. Ibid.

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51. The greater realities playing out here stem from King’s own admission that he is “not very optimistic about the world,” that he builds his stories upon this very insecurity, an insecurity he believes people naturally share. See Paul Janeczko, “In Their Own Words: An Interview with Stephen King,” The English Journal 69 (February 1980): 10. 52. In the movie, the Overlook’s manager, Mr. Ullman, explains to Jack that one of the former caretakers of the hotel went insane as a result of spending so much time indoors, which he refers to as “cabin fever.” This caused the caretaker to eventually murder his family. 53. Flo Liebowitz and Lynn Jeffress, “Review of ‘The Shining’ by Stanley Kubrick,” Film Quarterly 34 (Spring 1981): 47. 54. John Lutz states it as such: “King invites the reader to consider the disjunction between the inner and outer worlds of his characters and privileges the inner one as the most significant indicator of identity.” See John Lutz, “From Domestic Nightmares to the Nightmare of History: Uncanny Eruptions of Violence in King’s and Kubric’s Versions of The Shining,” The Philosophy of Horror, ed. Thomas Fahy (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 2010), 163.

CHAPTER 8

Angels and Pentecostals: An Empirical Investigation into Grassroots Opinions on Angels among Assemblies of God, UK Members Anne E. Dyer

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he title of the book Loosing the Spirits makes us ask: “Which spirits”? What are “spirits”? “Spirit” is a concept that has had a long history in Judeo-Christian theology since Genesis begins with God’s “Spirit” hovering over chaos to bring order. Christian theology therefore starts from the premise that God is not “corporal” but “of spirit.” Spirit cannot be quantified in the same way as “bodied” entities. It implies something beyond the “natural” world, and therefore not “empirically” measurable; something “supernatural.” A Western rationalist and secular worldview is not naturally happy with the supernatural. In this chapter we are going to look at the subject of one set of spirits— angels—from a British Pentecostal position (to be defined later). Pentecostals, despite their start in the early twentieth century, seem to be more compatible with a “postmodern worldview” where “experience” is as valid as scientific empiricism.1 Defining the term “experience” often defies objectivity and arguments from experience have not been thought of as academically credible to modernist, enlightenment thought. However, the twentieth century began to see an empiricist Western worldview being eroded. The postmodern generation therefore seems “naturally happy” with all areas of “experience” and even with ideas of the supernatural in fantasy epics in the twenty-first century media. With angelic tarot cards available, novels and TV plays on angelic figures, people are searching for some sort of spiritual-experiential reality to help make sense of the visible apparent world. So Pentecostals, as a twentieth-century Christian movement, stress the experiential side of their faith. Subjectivity belongs as much to them as it does to postmodernists. Even so Pentecostals want a dogmatic rather than pluralist view of theology. Pentecostals emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit, God himself

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becoming involved with all people who believe in him because of what Christ achieved in his life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. They thrive on this relational and therefore experiential side of faith in God. While accepting a spirit world, they prefer “binding” evil spirits to “loosing” them as in the title of this book. “The word ‘exorcism’ is from the Greek exorkiz¯o, ‘ I bind by oath.’ ‘Binding’ the ‘spirits’ therefore reflects the forceful commands used to evict the spirit-invader and prevent harm of the one oppressed by the spirit.”2 The opposite term—“loosing”—is not generally a term that is used by British Pentecostals regarding spirits, nor even the Holy Spirit. However, in the context of empowering Christian believers for mission, the term could incorporate releasing those under God’s command—“good” spirits—that is, “angels.”3 Indeed if seen as ministering spirits (Heb 1:14), angels are part of a wider pneumatological world. I aim, in this chapter, to discuss how angels could be “loosed” by way of an empirical investigation of how ordinary British Pentecostals view angels. Along the way, we shall see that Pentecostal views about angels reflect wider perspectives prevalent in the broader culture, especially among conservative Protestant Christians, while yet also being distinct in some respects. Pentecostal Discussion on Good and Evil Spirits Pentecostalism in its widest connotation pertains to a substantial group in today’s global church.4 The large growth rate is hard to determine since taxonomies are varied5 and the term “Pentecostalism” is potentially so inclusive, but statisticians now estimate there are well over half a billion “Pentecostal,” “Charismatic,” or “neoCharismatic” Christians6 This is the fastest-growing part of contemporary world Christianity, particularly in Africa and Asia, although contemporary churches are not necessarily in the original mode of the classical Pentecostalism that started at the turn of the twentieth century. That movement grew out of the Holiness and the Higher Life movements of the previous century, which focused on defining individual sanctification and power for serving God. Neither of those two positions was satisfactory in pragmatic terms to those who had begun receiving experience of God’s Spirit with “signs following.”7 The origins of Pentecostalism can be seen as a series of almost contemporary revival events in the early–twentieth-century revival groups, found not only in America and Europe, but in India, China, and Korea. Other groups in South Africa or Brazil can be said to be related to the US-based revival centers of Azusa Street and Chicago.8 Culturally, therefore, the West did not “own” the movement but perhaps inevitably the American groups grew strongest in their missionary output due to having greater resources. Pentecostals have stressed the power of the Holy Spirit working in them, with a pneumatological Christology added to the soteriology and eschatology emphasized by evangelicals. Pentecostalism usually has a fivefold gospel—Christ as Savior, Baptizer, Healer, Coming King, and Sanctifier. Steven Land summarizes that underlying all this is the belief that participation in the divine life was possible through the Spirit.9 The experiential basis within a spirit realm accounts for

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the spread along cultural lines—the non-Western, not so rationalist world of the premodern or postmodern. Thus the rise of Pentecostalism is a challenge to the rationalist world and represents a new style of Christianity for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the West, religion has been losing its “plausibility structures” but Peter Berger has given signposts to awareness of the “existence of the transcendent”—“a rumour of angels”—over the prevailing secular worldview.10 The recognition that belief and nonbelief are socially located means that groups of people create their own plausibility structure. Pentecostalism has provided this—globally—for the Christian in a spirit-filled world. Since the first generation of Pentecostals there have been at least three “waves” of spiritual experience–orientated “renewals” among Christians resulting in “classical Pentecostalism” (1901 onwards), “charismatic Christianity” (1950s onwards), and the “Third Wave” (1980s onward). Amongst themselves, while differing in style, they all express belief in absolute truth and tend to have a literalist perception of the Bible as speaking directly to them. However, they vary due to structure and styles of worship. All three waves influenced congregations in each of the other groups. These waves show how Pentecostalism can adapt to cultural contextualization and yet maintain a distinctive nonpluralist stance in a pluralist society. As stated earlier, evil spirits are presumed to be oppressive by Pentecostals who relate them to New Testament accounts of Jesus exorcising demons. These evil spiritual entities are regarded as rebellious toward God; they “fell from heavenly places” before humanity was created (cf. Rev. 12:4–9). “Deliverance ministry” from these evil spirits asserting the victory of Christ’s cross and resurrection seems far more prominent in nations where belief in spirits is within cultural norms. Until the recent Third Wave’s emphasis on “territorial spirits,”11 the spirit world was always sharply distinguished from angels,12 and this remains the classical Pentecostal view. However, to most non-Western cultures, good spirits—as much as evil ones—are part of life as a rational feature. Now that representatives of these cultures are migrating to “the West,” there is potential for these concepts to merge in a “Pentecostal” even a “postmodern” experiential worldview. Angels in Pentecostalism As well as evil spirits, Pentecostals read in the Bible of good spirits: angels. Pentecostal positivists like to note that according to John the Seer’s Revelation, God still has two-thirds of this “angelic host” if only one-third of the “stars” (read “angels”) fell from heaven (Rev 12:4–9). The problem comes in defining who and what these angels are and then what they do. While this chapter does not intend to give a systematic account of angels, we should review the sources for belief in angels. The term malak (Hebrew) or angelos (Greek) occurs on 278 occasions in the biblical writings—from Genesis with Eden’s angels wielding swords of flame to Gabriel announcing the conception of the Son of the most High God, to the heavenly warriors of Revelation. The basic term “angel” means “messenger” and it implies God sends a “heavenly agent” to communicate with humans.

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Bietenhard states that “when they appear, the supernatural world breaks into this one.”13 If angels are real, separate beings, part of the created yet not visible world, they are not always obviously different from other “men” as demonstrated in Abraham’s experience of meeting them (Genesis 18). Many a culture across the world has the equivalent concept to “angels,” and not just from the three monotheistic faiths.14 In the older Roman Catholic or Orthodox traditions, angels are important as guardians of children all the way through to the moment of death and its aftermath. Despite a generally lower interest in other spiritual entities among Protestants, angels often appear in pictures on the stained glass windows of their churches and for Christmas and Easter stories, although concepts are varied. The Evangelist Billy Graham, a non-Pentecostal but as a Bible-believing, evangelical American, drew popular attention to angels and in his Angels: God’s Secret Agents related many recent angel stories similar to those I have gained in the survey (2004) from Pentecostals.15 Coincidentally, this made talk of angels acceptable in the 1970s just as occult practices were becoming acceptable in non-Christian Western society.16 Pentecostal theologians regard angelology as speculative and debate whether it belongs in the realm of practical theology. Since there are so many varieties of Pentecostals and no one faith statement covering all groups, it is noteworthy that angels do not feature in, for example, the British Assemblies of God (AoG) statement of faith.17 However, while very few reports let alone debates on angels have been obvious in recent British AoG literature, the AoG people are not closeted from today’s media world, Christian or otherwise. The following investigation of British Pentecostalism will show that there is a popular experience of angels and so it is important to discuss its relevance for today’s Pentecostals. Investigating Angels in British Pentecostalism To investigate the phenomenological perceptions of angels among British Pentecostals, I used a simple questionnaire of 24 questions with Pentecostals in the Yorkshire locality. These covered basic belief in angels and then whether or not they had personal experience of angels. The 195 results came from congregational members, not their officials.18 They can therefore be regarded as indicative of English lay Pentecostal thinking. I summarize the results in the following seven basic categories. Pentecostal Theological Declarations and Ordinary Pentecostals’ Knowledge on Angels Accepted beliefs about angels among classical Pentecostals and the Charismatic theologians19 were checked against the surveyees. Among those surveyed, 76.7 percent had always had a belief in angels and 39.7 percent had had encounters they attributed to the angelic; that is, they had no human explanation for the experience. In asking what angels were like, 71.1 percent considered that angels

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would be just like ordinary people when visible but 64 percent thought they were “beings of light” and yet 27.4 percent considered they were extra tall beings. There has not been a lot of teaching on angels; 45.9 percent had never heard any sermons on the subject despite Christmas or Easter stories, and 63.9 percent had never studied about them for themselves. However, at least 35.6 percent had heard some teaching on angels within the last five years. Angels, Conversion and Pentecostal Thought Since the Bible notes that angels bring messages to men like Cornelius, a “Godfearer” (Acts 10:19), surveyees were asked whether they believed angels are also involved in the plan of salvation of individuals who are actually seeking God’s ways?20 Of those surveyed none assumed there was any intermediary effect regarding angels providing eternal salvation; they did think angels could work through the church, when those not yet believers needed help in meeting God. Angels are recorded as having appeared in dreams to people to direct them to seek a missionary or obtain a Bible; as a result they have had opportunity to turn to Christ for salvation;21 35 percent considered that angels would meet people at death to receive them but not to police heavenly access. Pentecostals and “guardian angels” Judaeo-Christian cosmology has long had a notion of a personal, or guardian, angel, an idea that could have been imported from any number of possible sources during the exile and diaspora periods of Jewish history. The concept of a guardian angel is one that has proved remarkably durable, from the early church thinking Peter had a personal guardian angel when Rhoda presumed it was his angel at the door, looking just like Peter (Acts 12:15), to Catholics praying to their “holy guardian angel.” Angels are also seen to act as rescue agents, as for Peter (Acts 12:7)—yet James was not rescued (Acts 12:2)—or for Paul who was assured by an angel that all would be well despite a shipwreck (Acts 27:23). This is despite the logic that, with the exploding population on earth for the past century, and with angels not apparently multiplying, to have one angel per person seems impossible. For Pentecostals there is a heightened sense of the supernatural, of God’s immanence, and therefore intervening help, and this might be expected to make them more conscious of angels. However, they do not have any theological need of an intermediary with God, since the Holy Spirit provides that relationship with the Trinity. Certainly the questionnaire showed 93.8 percent agreement on not praying to angels. Some surveyed were not sure but only 2.6 percent agreed with the practice. None mentioned having any teaching on the subject. The questionnaire showed a great deal of confusion over whether all had guardian angels or not. Some believed that angels would care only for “those who feared the Lord” (27.2 percent); 41.5 percent thought angels would protect all children anywhere, but 93.3 percent declined to answer whether angels only protected believers’ children.

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Angelic Encounters among Pentecostals Stories of Pentecostal believers encountering angels began to emerge during interviews after questionnaires had been filled in. Certainly, on asking people about the subject, many told me that they had not revealed their personal encounters widely for fear of ridicule but once an accepting listener was available they told their stories readily enough; 36.9 percent of those surveyed answered in the affirmative as to having had angelic encounters. One story concerned a protective “angelic dog” that only appeared when a family worried about burglars and needed reassurance. Others saw four apparent policemen guarding their house at each corner. Some had visions of angels as extratall beings in protective mode over their endangered church building. Others saw and talked to “someone” who, after they had assisted with a car journey, simply disappeared. Supernatural inexplicable events are interpreted as intervention by angels. There are many other similar stories recently published from other sources.22 Some “Oneness Pentecostals”23 appear to attribute their experience of God’s immanence more to angels than to the Holy Spirit. William Branham, a healing evangelist of the midtwentieth century, was associated with this branch of Pentecostalism. He attributed his guidance and gift of knowledge about needed healings to angels.24 William Kay considers that “a non-Trinitarian theology prevents any proper personalization of our experience of God.” He therefore argued that “Branham needed to experience an angel because he had no way of appreciating the personal presence of Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit.”25 Angels in Pentecostal Literature If we look at the early Pentecostal literature we can see that in Confidence Magazine, which was issued from one of Britain’s first Pentecostal centers, Sunderland’s All Saints Anglican church, between 1909 and 1925, there are three references to testimonies that included an experience of angels.26 One cited by the editor, a well-educated and traveled Anglican vicar, Alexander A. Boddy, concerned his testimony of protection by angels as a boy when he could have slipped off the Manchester Royal Exchange roof watching a Sunday School Procession below.27 He took angels as a normal part of his theology, and that was not simply due to any naivety of the Victorian age. Another example recounted an account of a lady’s healing when an angel instructed and enabled her to walk; it was her first time out of doors in five years.28 While this was an unusual occurrence, angels became big news in the First World War when many a Christian magazine, including Boddy’s Confidence, reported on the Mons Angel. When the British troops were trying to retreat from a rout the German troops suddenly stopped advancing, apparently due to an angelic prevention.29 In the weekly magazine Redemption Tidings of the Assemblies of God (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) between 1924 and 1939, out of all the 780 issues there are 70 references to angels; 63 are to biblical references from the nativity

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story to explaining the theology of angels,30 very occasionally with a warning31 not to get too involved. Out of the 70 references there are 10 references to personal testimonies of angels.32 These references to angels show that they are assumed to exist, but not directly taught as a “fundamental” necessity of belief. From 1940 to 1985 again most references in Redemption Tidings were to angels in biblical stories.33 From the fringes of Pentecostalism came examples like the book Who Pilots the Flying Saucers? (ca. 1955), written by British Pentecostal healing evangelist Gordon Cove. He became fascinated with UFOs and thought only angels were capable of driving them and thus were responsible for unidentified lights in the sky.34 Articles in later Redemption Tidings provided some biblical bases for angels, possibly as a corrective to Cove’s ideas.35 Further influences on AoG’s general members have come from popular literature sourced since the 1950s from Charismatic churches. Testimonies occur throughout the magazines and at least occasionally refer to angelic protection.36 Arthur Wallis, the pioneer of British Charismatic groups, as much from his Brethren background as from his Charismatic one, assumed angels serve believers. In July/August 1982 of Restoration magazine, he wrote, “If ever we are to understand the nature of our spiritual conflict we must bring these heavenly messengers out from our world of fantasy and into reality. The awesomeness of God’s angelic host is in keeping with the magnitude of the spiritual conflict in the heavenlies.”37 Those of the Third Wave like C. Peter Wagner developed this into a fullblown praxis. He surmised that many an effective method of evangelism in Latin America was due to the way mission teams prayed.38 Angelic involvement was not deliberately requested or noted in this instance. However, there is an assumption that angels do have territorial remits as do their opposite numbers; this derived from Daniel 9–10. The popularity rating of Frank Peretti’s39 fiction series concerning angels fighting on behalf of Christians show how easily church members are influenced to accept how active angels could be. Of those Pentecostals questioned on the survey, 48 percent had read novels and 71.5 percent had seen TV programs concerning angels, although only 12.4 percent considered novels or TV programs would have influenced their thinking. We found 77.8 percent who thought demons were fallen angels, part of Satan’s retinue as he fell from heaven (cf. Rev.12:4 and 9). There were 57 percent of those surveyed who believed, as in the novels, that angels could be involved with demons in a battle over nations; 66.2 percent considered that the role of believer’s prayers did affect angelic work on their behalf. Angels in Pentecostal Worship Songs While angels have often been included in hymnody down the ages, recent songs have also shown how their involvement in the “spiritual warfare” practiced by the Third Wave has been incorporated into the Charismatic and classical Pentecostal church ethos. Graham Kendrick’s Make Way music to be used in the street

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evangelism was also aimed at the “spiritual powers in heavenly places.” Chris Bowater and Stuart Bell’s song “I Believe in Angels”40 and the group Heat’s song “As Angels Looked On”41 are typical reflections of supernatural phenomena within the normative understanding of Charismatic churches. Indeed, many instances of appearances of angels have been reported at large British Bible camps such as those held at Hollybush north Yorkshire from the1970s onward to New Wine in 2005 and 2007. The dimension of the “excluded middle,” as Hiebert called it,42 seems to have been restored to the Christian version of Western worldview though the “spiritual warfare” movement. Millennialism and Pentecostal Belief in Angels Around the turn of the millennium, angels took a higher profile in TV programs and films, and this may have influenced the general Pentecostal believer. Gallup surveys of North Americans between 1978 and 1992 show that belief in angels increased from 64 percent to 76 percent, possibly due to media productions.43 Of the classical Pentecostals, 71.5 percent had seen TV programs like “Highway to Heaven,” and “Touched by an Angel.” These programs appear to be good, happy stories with a sense of God’s kindness and mercy but without any mention of specifically Christian teaching. They represent a genre of escapism. Indeed, there has been a spate of Christian fiction on the subject,44 particularly the Left behind Series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. That style of “dispensational” eschatological teaching is standard among classical Pentecostals, although not the neo-Pentecostals, who have a “Kingdom Now” amillennial position. However, it is natural to mix angels in with eschatology after reading the book of Revelation where they deal out plagues and disasters. Interestingly, the local survey revealed that only 27.7 percent believed that angels did cause disasters at God’s command despite biblical stories.45 These may perhaps be the same people as those who support websites where tsunamis and earthquakes are seen as part of God’s last days’ agenda and angels are believed to be involved in this.46 Despite the fact that the people answering the questionnaire did not think they could be easily influenced by media (71.8 percent said they were not influenced but 15.4 percent were not so sure while 12.4 percent admitted to being influenced), it seems that Pentecostals have imbibed a syncretistic mode of thinking gained from contemporary media sources. In any case, there is a common biblical source for Pentecostal angelology and the New Age or occult messages on the media. Pentecostals have always sensed that their pneumatological distinctives are actually eschatological: the apparent restoration of spiritual gifts to the church was regarded as evidence that the “end times” were upon them. Many supernatural things were expected to happen, not least that the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh in these “times of the latter rain” and they shall all prophesy (cf. Joel 2:28–32 and Acts 2:18–21). Messages through supernatural gifts from God are thus pneumatologically understood within an eschatological framework. With this heightened sense of the eschatological era in which they live, angels come

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to the fore again since they also have a role in bringing the eschaton to bear in apocalyptic terms. Angels and Pentecostals Distinctives in Pentecostal beliefs in angels, compared to those who do not hold to active spirit beings among Christian streams of thought, are derived from a more overt sense of awareness of the providential, or interventionist, nature of God’s purposes on earth and his use of supernatural means. This conviction also necessitates at the ministry level the use of one of the charismatic gifts, the “discerning of spirits,” whereby spirits can be tested as good or evil (1 Cor. 12:10, 1 Jn. 4:1). While human subjectivity may be involved, the scriptures are for the Pentecostal the base for checking truth out as they understand the Holy Spirit gives light. Normally the Spirit’s gift of discernment is seen as enabling assessment of whether there are demonic forces at work in a person or situation. However, this gift may extend to include discernment of angelic or helpful spiritual beings, not just evil spiritual beings. That supernatural or spirit beings are involved in believers’ lives in this world is axiomatic to Pentecostals. It appeared during the survey that people were too embarrassed to share their experiences until it was seen as acceptable. They had feared they would be regarded as naive or not “politically acceptable” for public testimony. Therefore, the survey may have only touched the tip of the iceberg of evidence for angelic action as perceived “out there” among Western worldview Pentecostals. Certain Charismatic gatherings in recent years have claimed to see angelic light circles in their services, the latest of such publicized experiences as referred to above. If we were to go to an African church, angelic appearances may well be far more “normal” as Bible passages are taken even more literally.47 The interest taken in angels in the Pentecostal churches has not been prominent. Ministers do not seem to teach much on the subject even at Christmas or Easter when the biblical stories invite it. The angels remain in the background while the glory goes to the central person of the story whom they serve: Jesus Christ. Individuals, however, not only assume angels exist, but have stories to relate that show their awareness of the supernatural realm. The pneumatology of Pentecostals may simply mean that they are more open to the concept of the supernatural in divine providence; so angels have their unhighlighted place. Perhaps one of the attractions of Pentecostalism is that it can offer a supernatural perception of an unseen world, the “heavenlies,” inhabited by both angels and evil spirits relating to life. The conclusion of this survey is that Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians do believe that angels have a part in God’s overall plans in the world today, in service to God. Notes 1. Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the 21st Century (London: Cassell, 1996), speaks of Pentecostals as

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having a “primal spirituality,” to counter scientific rationalism in a premodern sense that is closer to postmodern worldview in terms of experiential epistemology. On the work of healing that seem to be “facts outside plausibility structures,” see Walter Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson 1997), 239. Andrew Daunton-Fear, “Deliverance and Exorcism in the Early Church,” in Exorcism and Deliverance: Multi-Disciplinary Studies, ed. William K. Kay and Robin Parry (London: Paternoster, 2011), 66. Pentecostals especially from the Majority World proclaim a message of deliverance from, or releasing from, all evil forces. Christ has conquered so there is freedom, which is part of the message of the gospel. Hollenweger devotes a chapter to Pentecostal demonology in The Pentecostals (London: SCM, 1972), 377–84. Peter S. Williams, The Case for Angels (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), indicates in chapter 2 that “they could be real” and provides a philosophic argument for their existence. See David Barrett, “Missiometrics 2007: Creating Your Own Analysis of Global Data,” International Bulletin of Missiological Research 31:1 (2007): 25–32 for a debate on statistics and variations; cf. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas, eds., “Introduction,” New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), xviii–xxiii. Allan Anderson brings an attempted clarification to the terms and statistics in his article “When is a Pentecostal Not a Pentecostal?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16:1 (2007): 58–63; see also Anderson, “Varieties, Definitions and Taxonomies,” in Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, ed. Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010), 13–29. According to the Pew Forum in 2006 there are over half a billion Pentecostal/charismatics in the world, that is, 27 percent of organized global Christianity but in many denominations and ethnic groups. See http://www. pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant-Churches/Pentecostal-Resource-Page. aspx [accessed August 30, 2012]. For information on the doctrinal roots of Pentecostalism see Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1980); “Signs following” imply the release of the supernatural charismatic gifts of the Spirit of God like tongues, prophecy, and healing. Allan Anderson, Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism (London: SCM, 2007), 29ff. The Indian revivals at Mukti, the Khasai hills (1908), Manchuria in China, and the Korean prayer and repentance movement (1906) have also been cited as sites of Pentecostal “spontaneous combustion,” A. A. Boddy, Confidence 3:6 (1908), and 6:9 (1908). Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 23. Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), and A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credibility (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1992). C. Peter Wagner, “Territorial Spirits,” in Wrestling with Dark Angels, ed. C. Peter Wagner and F. Douglas Pennoyer (Tunbridge Wells: Monarch, 1990), 83–110. The idea of “powers” is investigated further in Wagner, ed., Territorial Spirits (Chichester: Sovereign World, 1991), and George Otis, The Twilight Labyrinth (Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1997).

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12. cf. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, 379. 13. H. Bietenhard, “Angels” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 102. 14. Cf. Thai Buddhist concepts of “tewada.” 15. Billy Graham, Angels: God’s Secret Agents (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975). 16. Films like the “Exorcist” helped demonstrate the interest in the supernatural, or hidden, that is, occult world beyond the “natural” world. School children during the 1970s in the United Kingdom were delving into Ouija boards, levitation, and so on, as a normal “game.” 17. “Statement of Faith,” Year Book (Assemblies of God, United Kingdom, 2011). 18. This research was done during November 2004. Overall those questioned belonged to AoG (56.2 percent), Elim (2.7 percent), Apostolic (30.1 percent), networks like Groundlevel (5.5 percent), and three other independent Pentecostal churches; 60 percent were converted during their 20s–30s, 27.4 percent were older than at conversion. However, while 32.4 percent had never had any previous church affiliation, 49.7 percent had had some previous affiliation, and 14 percent had never changed affiliation. 19. See, respectively, Carole Baker, “Created Spirit Beings,” in Systematic Theology, ed. Stanley Horton, rev. ed. (Springfield, MO.: Gospel Publishing House, 1995), 179–94, and J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 169–95. 20. The Anglican writer John Woolmer cites examples of this in Angels (London: Monarch Books, 2003), 119–38. 21. Dudley Woodberry and Russell Shubin of Fuller Theological Seminary carried out a recent survey of 600 Muslim Background Believers from 39 nations and 50 ethnic groups. 25 percent considered a dream or vision as the means to conversion among Muslim Background Believers. See J. Dudley Woodberry, Russell G. Shubin, and G. Marks, “Why Muslims Follow Jesus,” Christianity Today 51:10 (October 2007), available online at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/october/42.80. html [last accessed October 19, 2010]. 22. cf. books like Joan Webster Anderson, Where Angels Walk: True Stories of Heavenly Visitors (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1995), and Hope Price, Angels: True Stories of How They Touch Our Lives (London: Macmillan, 1993). 23. Oneness Pentecostals appear to be modalist stressing subsequent functions of the Godhead, albeit believing in the deity of Jesus and using the name of Jesus only as their baptismal formula. 24. D. J. Wilson, “William Marrion Branham,” in New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard Van der Maas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 440–44. Recently the controversy over Todd Bentley’s Lakeland revival (2008) revealed that this idea of angelic communication is alive in some of the more marginal yet influential Charismatic wings of the church. 25. W. K. Kay, “Pentecostals and angels,” in Angels and Demons, ed. Peter G. Riddell and Beverly S. Riddell (Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), 61–83, quote at 82. 26. A.A. Boddy [ed.], “Missionary Evangelism Aided by Angels,” Confidence (March 1909): 74; “2 Angels Seen by 2 Ladies,” Confidence (January 1910): 4; “A Coloured Brother’s Testimony,” Confidence (January 1913): 9. 27. A. A. Boddy, Confidence (February 1914): 23. 28. A. A. Boddy, Confidence (January 1913): 17.

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29. There are fifteen references to angels in this issue of Confidence alone: J. Easy, Confidence (January 1916); “The Mons Angels,” 5–6, and “Angels at the Front,” 1 and 4. 30. For example, S. Wigglesworth, “Nativity Story,” Redemption Tidings 2:2 (February 1926): 4; C.L. Parker, Redemption Tidings 10:8 (August 1934): 6; T. Myerscough, Redemption Tidings 2:2 (February 1926): 19. 31. E.g. D. Gee, “Trying the Spirits,” Redemption Tidings 2:4 (April 1926): 3; W. Luff, “Angels of Light,” Redemption Tidings 3:19 (September 1927): 5. 32. For example, Mrs. Fisher and Victoria Bolton, “Protection in Tibet,” Redemption Tidings 5:1 (January 1929): 12; again, Ann and James Andrews, “China,” Redemption Tidings 7:6 (June 1931): 9; most were accounted for outside of Britain by missionaries. 33. Redemption Tidings from 1925 to 1985 have been digitized recently. 34. cf. demons as alternative, Brian Appleyard, Aliens: Why They Are Here (London: Scribner, 2005), 141. See also Gordon Cove, Who Pilots the Flying Saucers? (Chester: Wrights, 1955). 35. For example, A. J. R. Sharp, “Angel Ministry,” Redemption Tidings 49:34 (August 23, 1973): 3–4; A. Linford, “Angelic Visitations: Studies in Acts,” Redemption Tidings 50:17 (May 9, 1974): 3–4; B. Laws, “Christmas Angels,” Redemption Tidings 42:51 (December 16, 1976): 10–11. 36. M. Kerr, “Angels Unawares,” Restoration (May/June 1982): 25. 37. A. Wallis and R. Morton, “The Last Great Battle and Battle of the Ages: An Army or Sitting Duck? Angels on Our Side!” Restoration (July/August 1982): 8 and 12. 38. Wagner, ed., Territorial Spirits. 39. Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1986), and Piercing the Darkness (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1989). 40. Chris Bowater and Stuart Bell, “I Believe in Angels” (Guildford: Sovereign World, 1998). 41. Heat, “As Angels Looked On” in Is It Any Wonder Album (Eastbourne: Kingsway CD, 2002). 42. Paul G. Hiebert, “Spiritual Warfare and Worldview,” in Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassu Dialogue, ed. William David Taylor (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), 163–79. 43. G. Gallup, Jr., and D. M. Lindsay, Surveying the Religious Landscape (Harrisburg, Penn.: Morehouse Publishing, 1999), 158 and 39 on UFOs. 44. Patti Tunnicliffe, “What in Heaven’s Name? An Analysis of the Messages and Worldviews Coming from Aliens and Modern Day Angels,” Christian Apologetics Journal 2:1 (Spring 1999), available at http://www.ses.edu/index_htm_files/2. 1Tunnicliffe.pdf [accessed August 13, 2012]. 45. cf. Exodus 14’s “angel of death” or 2 Chronicles 32:21 on the rout of Sennacherib by angelic forces as well as the plagues of Revelation. 46. cf. the influential Elijah list—http://www.elijahlist.com/ and http://www.what saiththescripture.com/Prophets/The.5.Angels.of.Continents.html, where Doctorian relates his vision of the five angels who he saw in a vision on Patmos in 1998; it involved New York skyscrapers falling and later tsunamis in Asia. 47. Ayo Omideyi, Angels of the Lord (London: Sower Publications, 1996), is an example of the African Pentecostal position, which assumes a far more literalist perception of angelic activity than most white English churches own.

PART III

The Spirits of the Polis

CHAPTER 9

Spirits of the Political: Theological Engagement in the Public Sphere Sebastian C. H. Kim

Introduction One of the most difficult aspects of life in the church is finding its place in the wider society. How does the church relate to the state and public life? In what way do theology and politics interact with each other in a shared spirit? The church has been struggling to find appropriate models and approaches for engaging in public affairs with the “principalities and powers,” the many spirits of the world and different ideologies and movements. In this chapter, I will examine public theology as a pneumatological framework for Christian engagement in politics and public life and then illustrate this with three examples from different contexts. I will then discuss in pneumatological terms three ways in which Christian theology has public relevance and contributes to political life. Public Theology: A Pneumatological Paradigm In recent years, theological discourses have been developed to meet the need of articulating the church’s role in real politics as well as concepts of the political in relation to theology.1 Two distinctive examples are political theology and liberation theology. Both have made significant contributions in this regard. Another is public theology and this contributes particularly to a plural approach to the political realm and contemporary society. These three theological discourses share common approaches but also differ significantly in their methodologies and aims. Daniel Bell, Gaspar Martinez, and other scholars have compared them.2 Taking account of these discussions, I would argue that liberation and political theologies, in spite of their differences, share many common features in contrast to public theology, which has a different emphasis. The distinctiveness of public theology with regard to the other two theologies is fourfold: First, rather than confronting the authorities or challenging social structures, public theologians try to create common ground and methodologies for engaging in public issues with

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various conversation partners in the public sphere. This does not mean losing a Christian identity or distinctiveness, but rather, while keeping them, actively searching for a shared solution so that theological insights will not be excluded in public conversation. Second, the theological concerns and emphases are in pursuing the public-ness of theology—the public meaning of theology and theology of public life.3 Public theology works with “Church—academy—society” dynamics, seeking the implications of the kingdom of God in contemporary society as it exists, and promoting a theology of public engagement. Third, the attitude of public theology toward existing systems is not that they are necessarily indeed of redemption or evil or entirely wrong. Public theology takes a reforming position rather than a revolutionary one. But it challenges any kind of monopoly in public life and seeks for a more fair and open society by employing advocacy, critical dialogue, and debate. For this reason, public theology requires a certain degree of democratic development in society such that there is a reasonable level of engagement with critical inquiry and open debate in the public sphere. In particular, public theology, along with religious communities, closely works with civil society for its articulation of theology as well as the implementation of its findings. Fourth, major issues for public theology are inequality, the privatization or marginalization of religions in public life, the dominance of the state, the market, or the media in the public sphere. For the purpose of transforming the public sphere regarding these concerns, public theology is actively involved in policymaking both within and outside of local and central governments. Another key aspect of public theology is that it challenges monopoly of any kind—or any “totality” of system4 —creating theologico-political diversity and pluralization in the public sphere. Monopoly of power often leads to corruption of authority and of abuse of power over weaker bodies in the public sphere as anywhere else.5 We have seen throughout history various forms of dictatorship, tyranny, and economic exploitation, and also the monopoly imposed on people by ideology and religious fundamentalism with their exclusive attitudes toward other cultures and worldviews. Its opposition to monopoly does not mean public theology promotes the demise of strong conviction or faith, far from it—it seeks and promotes critical inquiry and open debate that is based on plurality of thinking and expression by all members of society. Public theology questions any truth claims and ideologies and refuses to accept any dogmatic insistence in public. It opens up critical debate so that the general public have the option of reasoned decision making. For this, discernment is required and the question of how to promote critical debate is an ongoing problem for anyone bringing theology to the public sphere. Pneumatological approaches for engaging with the powers and authorities have been put forward notably from Pentecostal-charismatic and liberation theological perspectives. Pentecostal-charismatic approaches include “power encounter” or “spiritual warfare” against supernatural evil powers as the cause of oppression, poverty, and suffering. They envisage the empowerment of individual and community through prayer and the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in spiritual battle against evil spirits in personal life, cursed objects, and

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territorial spirits dominating cities or other localities.6 Liberation theology, on the other hand, introduced a notion of spiritual liberation that is not only the supernatural or religious but political and social as well. They identify the forces of evil in socioeconomic structures and political establishments and aim to bring about structural change through social mobilization and political confrontation.7 Walter Wink extensively examined how the biblical concept of spirits could be applied to deal with social forces and political structures in the world and argued that Christians should acknowledge such powers and of the reality of the “fallen” world. Prayer was not a sufficient answer to such dominions; instead, he emphasized naming, unmasking, and engaging the powers in a political way.8 In spite of the different perceptions of the spiritual world and approaches to the powers and authorities, both these Pentecostal-charismatic and liberation approaches tend to hold a negative view of political structures and systems and are confrontational in terms of practical engagements. Although public theology shares the above understanding of the “fallen” nature of the world, the system and structure are not necessarily seen as evil and entirely wrong, but a part of God’s created order. Public theology is concerned with the “public sphere,” an idea first articulated by Jürgen Habermas in his classic The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.9 Habermas regarded the “public sphere” as an open forum in the situation where state and market economy dominate the daily lives of modern Western societies.10 Habermas provides a philosophical framework for the creation of a sociopolitical space where citizens can engage with ideas and arguments to shape society for the common good. In this chapter, I envisage the public sphere pneumatologically as a realm of interacting spirits, in the sense of ideas, concepts, opinions, ideologies, and philosophies. Christian theology enters this spirit world as one of many spirits negotiating, encountering other spirits in public conversation among equals, and bringing insights from the Holy Spirit into the arena. Public theology emphasizes the values of scripture and tradition, and, above all, the guidance of the Spirit, but it is open to scrutiny from outsiders. It pursues the common good by engaging in critical inquiry and open debate. From a Christian theological point of view, the role of the Holy Spirit is as a benign “helper” and “provider” (John 14:15–31; 16:4–15) for Christians in this process. Moreover, the Spirit gives the gift of discerning among the “spirits of the political.”11 The Spirit also empowers Christians to challenge “totality” or monopoly in the public realm of life and to people of any religious and sociopolitical diversity to engage in advocacy, debate, and consensus politics. Spirits of the Political: Examples of the Political Engagement of Theology in the Public Sphere As we consider the public sphere as a realm of interacting spirits, “the spirits of the political,” I would like first to give some contemporary examples of public theology from different contexts—South Korea, India, and the United Kingdom.

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All three cases are plural societies. Korea is politically separated into North and South. South Korea has secular government but people are very religious but in several different ways—Buddhist, Protestant, and Catholic—and they are deeply divided by both the ideology and theology of liberal and conservative sections. India is multicultural and multireligious with a secular state and yet a predominantly Hindu population. The United Kingdom is supposedly a secular society with a powerful media presence, but it maintains a traditional Christian influence and has also become multireligious and multicultural. In each context Christians have sought to bring out the public significance of the gospel by challenging dominance by any party in the public sphere. I will then go on to examine ways in which public theology enables churches to engage theologically with conflicting interests in the public sphere. Korean Case—Spirit of Debate rather than Spirit of Domination and Oppression After the Korean War (1950–1953), South Korea went through political chaos and eventually the military took over the government, which lasted until 1988. While conservative Christians focused their attention on church growth and spiritual renewal, there were growing numbers of Christians who stood against the injustice brought by the capitalist market system and military-backed government. The political issues the Korean churches faced in the 1970s and 1980s were about the problem of poverty and injustice toward factory workers and farmers, military dictatorship, and the relationship between the two Koreas. In the 1970s, South Korea witnessed the rapid rise of the jaebul—family-run business consortia—with the help of government policy, which started to dominate the Korean economy. As a consequence, there was serious exploitation of the factory workers in their working conditions as well as their wages. It was at this point that some Christian intellectuals realized that the poor were not just poor in the sense of lacking material things, but that they were also exploited and unjustly treated, and that the gap between the poor and rich and between employee and employer was widening. The government attempts to silence the opposition voices were highlighted when the Constitution was amended to give undemocratic authority to the president. Some Protestants raised a strong voice, challenging the status quo of the government and the capitalist market economy of the jaebul. In 1973, they declared “The Korean Christian Manifesto,” which was a significant document protesting against the regime and demonstrating the Christian position for justice.12 The signatories clearly stated their opposition to the current regime because of its human rights abuse, limitation of freedom of expression, and obstruction of the cause of justice. It warned that no one is above law and Christians are called to be involved in proclaiming truth and justice and fighting for the poor, marginalized, and oppressed. The declaration was the beginning of a human rights movement among some Protestant churches, which was led by Minjung theologians, but it also signaled the polarization of political positions among Christians, which continues to the present day.13

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Minjung theologians came to the conclusion in the 1980s that the injustice and oppression in the South was the direct result of the ideological polarization and military confrontation on the peninsula so they attempted to make peace and reconciliation with the people in the North. In February 1988 the Korean National Council of Churches issued a declaration “toward the unification and peace of the Korean people,” which made a significant impact both within the church and on the whole nation.14 The declaration acknowledged and confessed the sins of mutual hatred, justifying the division of Korea, and accepting each ideology as absolute. The document made practical suggestions to both governments, including a change in the status of relations from “ceasefire” to “peace” and, after a peace treaty is signed and the peace and security of the peninsula guaranteed by the international community, the withdrawal of the US army and the dismantling of the UN head office. The Declaration then proclaimed the year 1995 as a jubilee year for peace and unification when Koreans could celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation from Japan. Reflecting on the biblical pattern of restoration of a just community (Lev. 25), it set down practical steps toward the jubilee year. Minjung theologians under the military-backed government challenged the state authority, which justified totalitarian approaches to the public lives of the people in the name of national security and economic development. The majority of Korean churches either actively supported or kept silent on the exploitations and human rights violations by the military governments and large companies. However, the minjung theologians and activist Christians critically engaged in political issues as they held the spirit of protest toward the governments and also to the Korean churches. The result of their endeavors was the eventual overthrow of military rule in 1988 and the growth of civil society in South Korea. Indian Case—Spirit of Conversion over the Spirit of Caste Domination The issues relating to conversion have been a bone of contention between the Hindu and Christian communities in the history of modern India; as Shripaty Sastry put it, “in the whole of the Christian-Hindu strained relationship there has been no greater cause of friction than the Christian campaign of conversion.”15 This is particularly so in the context of India due to the caste system, the historical association of Christian mission with colonial government, and the politicization of conversion movements in India. In India, the conversion of an individual is not a matter of individual decision, but it has much wider implications for his or her family, caste, and society. In particular, when it comes to the “mass conversion” of a village or community, it is regarded not only as a religious matter but also as a political one. This understanding of “politicization” of conversion is not new debate as India witnessed “mass” conversion to Christianity in the 1930s, conversion of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and his followers to Buddhism in the 1950s, and conversion of people in Tamil Nadu villages to Islam in the early 1980s. Throughout Indian history, conversion from one religion to another has created communal tensions, particularly between Christian

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and Hindu communities. Although India has been declared a “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic,” the meaning of “secular” in the context of overwhelmingly Hindu population has been widely discussed among the leaders of religious communities and among the Indian politicians.16 In response to the conversion of dalits, or outcastes, the typical response from Hindu leaders is to accuse dalits who chose to change their religion of exhibiting no sign of any spiritual motive but only material interests. Their conversion appeared to Hindus neither to be motivated by appropriate spiritual concerns nor to show courage to take the moral consequences; as it was said, “they want to have the benefit of change without experiencing change.”17 In response to this, although a number of theologians and church leaders insisted that Christian conversion was founded in spiritual and religious motifs,18 a reinterpretation of the negative portrait of the “politics of conversion” was sought to by two Catholic theologians. Felix Wilfred, a leading liberation theologian, insisted that the church should reinterpret the meaning of conversion in the context of the sociopolitical situation of India. For him, conversion is a “response of commitment to the voice of God speaking through the yearnings and aspirations of the millions of our countrymen, through their misery and want.”19 In the same vein, Fernandes, a Catholic sociologist, argued that conversion in India has to be understood as a caste struggle of the dalits against their inhuman treatment and that, although conversion involves both spiritual experience and social change, the latter has primary importance for their motive.20 Therefore he discarded some Christians’ insistence on it being spiritual and the Hindu accusation of it being material, insisting that conversion in India was a sociopolitical movement in the process of “awakening [dalits] to the reality of their oppression” in the social context of “caste mobility.” Since salvation had to be “real” to dalits in their subhuman condition, in his view, conversion was a by-product of the movement among dalits for their uplift that took a “religious form.”21 He saw it as the church’s duty to be part of a movement to liberate people who are oppressed and believed this was the true meaning of conversion in India. For both Wilfred and Fernandes, conversion was regarded as a means to achieve the social end of sociopolitical justice for the dalits and the poor in Indian society. The shift in the definition of conversion in the Indian context to mean a protest against social injustice or the church’s turning to the world to be part of the people’s struggle was evident in the writings of these and other Catholic theologians. Perhaps George Mathew best summed up the liberationist understanding of conversion as the “politicisation of religion,” understood in the sense of “using religion as an instrument for changing the power balance,” describing conversion in India as “part of the proliferation of an ideology which questions the status quo” and as a “structural question.”22 In the context of the dominant Hindu population, Wilfred and Fernandes saw the uniform insistence by Hindus that conversion of dalits has limited value, since it is guided by ulterior motives other than spiritual ones undermines not only individual converts but also the Christian community as a whole. In spite of the praise heaped on Hindu pluralistic understanding of religious traditions,

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the theologians saw a dominating religious totalitarianism in Hindu traditions by which minorities have to conform to the majority Hindu idea of religion, which has very limited allowance for conversion to other religions. They insist that conversion is part of caste struggle and should be understood as social mobility and not just a merely spiritual activity. This interpretation of a spirit of conversion as a positive politics of protest against caste oppression is significant for dalit conversion and the theologians challenge the monolithic notion of all-embracing Hindu religions, which prevents any form of conversion and of group conversion as lacking spirituality due to the “politicization of religions.” Instead, by reinterpreting the traditional concept of individual and “purely” spiritual conversion, they have established the plurality of the meaning of conversion and legitimized conversion as a political tool for justice and not only a personal spiritual commitment. UK Case—Spirit of “Interactive Pluralism” in Place of Secular and Political Monopolistic Spirit Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was particularly concerned with relationship of the church to the secular state and to a society that is tending to become hostile toward any appeal to religion in public in Britain. During February 2008, Britain witnessed an unprecedented debate over a lecture given by the Archbishop of Canterbury on “Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective” at the Royal Courts of Justice.23 The Archbishop had chosen the topic of Sharia law as the key topic for his sophisticated and complex lecture. However, he was heavily criticized by the media, politicians, and other church leaders for his seemingly naive and positive suggestion that Sharia law should be adopted into the British juridical system. In his lecture, Williams started with the growing challenge in British society for public or legal recognition and provision for religious groups. His lecture was divided into three sections: first, an overall discussion of the rights of religious groups within a secular state, especially the meaning of Sharia law for the Muslim community in the United Kingdom, and their implications; second, questioning the validity of the legal monopoly of the secular state in the context of contemporary plural societies, arguing that this in fact goes against the spirit of the Enlightenment and also does injustice to communities and individuals who hold various affiliations and commitments; and, third, dealing with three perceived objections to his proposal and suggesting that the key perspective should be the promotion of what he sees as “interactive pluralism” in which a “complementary” legal system helps in the promotion of human dignity for all members of society by allowing the full expression and exercise of their aspirations.24 Although this idea of implementing various complementary legal systems has been discussed by scholars and implemented in various global contexts and in the United Kingdom, the suggestion by the most senior member of the Church of England of incorporating Sharia law into the British legal system brought much controversy. What the critics and the supporters are in agreement on is that the Archbishop’s lecture touched on more than the matter of Sharia law. While the

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initial reaction from the general public and the most of tabloid media focused on that issue,25 the articles with in-depth analysis addressed the wider issue of the application of the law in multicultural and multireligious contexts.26 Many commentators are critical of Williams as challenging the hard-earned British democracy, which is based on equality before the law,27 while some of the supporters present the positive aspects of this multiple approach to law and public life, and see that the debate was to do with “the challenges posed to the abstract universalities of a post-Enlightenment concept of law by the traditional values and identities associated with religious communities.”28 The heart of the issue here is in what way religious allegiance and secular ideology meet in the public life. Bishop Tom Wright welcomes the lecture as exhibiting the Archbishop’s “sensitive and intellectual rigour.” He supported Williams’ idea of “interactive pluralism” and argues that “the question of how we live together as a civil and wise society while cherishing different faiths is a deep and serious one and can’t be pushed away just because people take fright at certain misunderstandings.” His point was precisely that neither the secular state nor any particular religion should “monopolize” the legal system.29 The Archbishop’s notion of “interactive pluralism” is important and challenges the state monopoly in public life, arguing that the state should be open to scrutiny of its conduct of law by various groups including religious communities. Religious communities could make a vital contribution to mutual accountability in a wide range of the issues in public life of contemporary Britain but Williams sees the danger of the marginalization and privatization of the Christian church and other religious communities by the secular state and broadcast media. Instead, he tries to provide an alternative space other than media; that is, a “public” where religious voices are respected and not intimidated by secularists’ accusations of the incompatibility of religion and the state. Spirits of the Political: The Public Relevance of Christian Theology The above examples help us see different approaches to establishing the public relevance of Christian theology in diverse societies, and in particular insisting on plurality within the public sphere. They are not necessarily the most popular ones—indeed, they have faced serious criticisms from the opponents within their own contexts, although I do not have time to expand on these debates here. In this section, on the basis of the above case studies, I would like to draw out three areas of concern regarding the church’s engagement in the plural societies: first, the role of the church in creating the public sphere; second, the church’s place in the public sphere; and, third, appropriate theological discourse on public issues. Spirits of the Political as the Church Extending or Creating the Public Sphere If the public sphere is institutionalized and dominated by a powerful body, indeed, a single “spirit,” it could easily become corrupt and oppressive, as we have

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seen in medieval Christendom where church dominated the public life of the people or military dictatorships in the politics of twentieth century. In modern and postmodern contexts, the state (politics), broadcast media, and the market (economy)—each conceivable as a set of spiritual dynamics—tend to dominate public life and monopolize the mode of engagement, its rules, and regulations. The various forms of broadcast media provide a forum for the public, and this is the strength of liberal democracy, which relies on free and fair access to information and debate through the media. However, in recent events the media has often played the role of judge, asserting its own verdict rather than allowing the public to engage in a healthy debate, or it has been driven by the self-interest of profit making. Furthermore, the powerful bodies of the state, the broadcast media, and the market tend to incorporate a secular ideology and reject anything to do with religion. In response to this tendency, Bhikhu Parekh, scholar of political science and a member of the British House of the Lords, argues convincingly that the secularist’s notions of the strict separation of religion and politics, and also that political debate and deliberation be conducted in terms of secular reason alone, are problematic because secular reason is not “politically and culturally neutral.”30 Reasons, Parekh continues, are public “not because their grounds are or can be shared by all, as the secularist argues, but because they are open to inspection and can be intellectually discussed by all.” He further argues that, in spite of its many weaknesses, religion provides a “valuable counterweight to the state,” offers “an alternative source of morality and allegiance,” and reminds us that “human beings are more than citizens.”31 In other words, both secular reason and religious faiths have their own distinctive spirits to contribute to the wider discussion in contemporary society. Korean minjung theologians Wilfred and Fernandes and Rowan Williams share the conviction that the Christian theology has political significance in their own political situations, and that this is less to do with matters within the church or between different religious communities but more to do with the social, political and economic issues of wider society. They also believe that the conventional approaches lack the capacity to deal with the contemporary situation. Minjung theologians challenged the domination of the public sphere by the state and refused to conform to the “principalities and powers” for the sake of the poor and oppressed. Christians in Korea utilized the powerful symbol of Jubilee and facilitated a forum for a constructive discussion on the issue of peace and reconciliation in the Korean peninsula. For this, they have also used art, music, and poems to create a common public space—we might say, to reconstitute the common spiritual environment—especially among the South Koreans, where both could come to discuss and debate. Catholic theologians in India refused to accept the claim of Hindu leaders that the conversion of dalits lacked spirituality and sincerity due to the political nature of the movement. Instead, they brought the issue of group conversion into the public so that the politics of conversion has legitimate place in Indian situation of caste oppression. This was not meant to suggest a monolithic understanding of liberative nature of conversion, but rather, a diverse interpretation of motives of conversion; moreover, it brought the issue of conversion in

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the public domain for critical inquiry and open debate. Williams saw the danger of the marginalization and privatization of the Christian church and other religious communities by the secular state and tried to provide an alternative space other than media; that is, a “public” where religious voices are respected and not intimidated by secularists’ accusation of the incompatibility of religion and the state. Williams asserted the spirit of “interactive pluralism” in place of any form of state monopoly and opposed any tendency toward totalitarianism on the basis of dominance of secularism. What Williams calls “interactive pluralism” could be understood pneumatologically as the many interrelated spirits of the public sphere. Spirits of the Political as the Church Affirming Its Place in the Public Sphere The challenge public theology brings to our discussion is universal access to reasoned public debate and this has to be creative and inclusive. Jürgen Moltmann, in his book God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology, asserts that theology must publicly maintain the universal concerns of God’s coming kingdom because “there is no Christian identity without public relevance, and no public relevance without theology’s Christian identity,” and “as the theology of God’s kingdom, theology has to be public theology” in the mode of “public, critical and prophetic complaint to God—public, critical and prophetic hope in God.”32 Theology, he insists, should exhibit “general concern in the light of hope in Christ for the kingdom of God” by becoming “political in the name of the poor and the marginalized in a given society,” by thinking “critically about the religious and moral values of the societies in which it exists,” and by presenting “its reflections as a reasoned position.” In addition to this, public theology “refuses to fall into the modern trap of pluralism, where it is supposed to be reduced to its particular sphere and limited to its own religious society.” For Moltmann public theology is critical, prophetic, reflective, and reasoned engagement of theology in society for the sake of the poor and marginalized to bring about the full life of the Spirit for the common good. Ronald F. Thiemann, in his more pragmatic approach, defines public theology as “faith seeking to understand the relation between Christian convictions and the broader social and cultural context within which the Christian community lives.”33 In his emphasis on comparative studies in doing public theology, the goal is not an overarching theory connecting God, church, and the world, but rather “to identify the particular places where Christian convictions intersect with the practices that characterize contemporary public life” such as liberal democracy, a capitalist economy, and a secularized consumer society. He envisages mutual critique between the public and the church, saying that “the goal should not be the simple recommendation of one form of life over the other, but a careful and critical analysis of the variety of ways.” He insists that theology should be communal and a public activity, and that theology should “regain its status as a significant critical inquiry” in various contexts, since he believes that critical inquiry emerging out of deeply held religious convictions can “greatly enrich the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual life of our society.”34 In this sense, we might

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say that the spirit of theological inquiry seeks to engage discerningly but no less creatively and constructively with the spirits of the public sphere. Similarly, in addressing the question of the acceptance of the discipline of theology in wider public discussion, Linell E. Cady defines public theology as seeking “to overcome the cultural marginalization so highly characteristic of contemporary theology” and “to contribute to the upbuilding and critical transformation of our public life.”35 To achieve this, Linell E. Cady argues that theology should not only address itself to the wider social and political issues, but it must “appropriate a form of argumentation that is genuinely public.” She further argues that to achieve a public form of argumentation, theologians must make changes on two fronts: on the one hand they must “unmask the impossible pretensions to neutrality and universality that underlie the Enlightenment understanding of public” and the public exercise of reason and on the other hand they must respect “the Enlightenment distinction between open inquiry and dogmatic citation, and work to combat the authoritarian traces that linger on in contemporary theology.”36 Reflecting on the arguments above,37 I would like to make the following points for a rationale about public theology and affirming its place in the public sphere: First, theology is inherently public. In other words, the enquiry and findings are applicable to wider audience beyond the Christian community because of the evaluative and critical nature of theology and also because its context is not confined to the church but relates to the kingdom of God. Indeed, as Duncan Forrester comments, “to withdraw . . . from public debate would result in [theology’s] serious impoverishment.”38 Second, in order to establish a healthy development of public theology, theologians need to convince the Christian community of the public relevance of theology and, at the same time, persuade the general public of the necessity of utilizing theological insights in public discussion. Public theologians are willing to work with NGOs and other religious communities on various issues, but particularly because they desire to promote universal access to and open debate in the public sphere, at the same time they are ready to challenge any monopolization of it by government or other powerful interests. Third, for the authentic and sustainable engagement of the church in the public sphere, the church needs to be guarded from the temptation to pragmatic approaches and from measuring the result of ministries in numbers or external appearances, and to develop a public theology suited to the issues and relevant to the context. If we agree to some of the above rationale for doing theology in the public sphere, the natural question should follow: in pneumatological terms, how does theology engage the many spirits of the public domain in a meaningful manner? Spirits of the Political as Searching for Appropriate Theological Discourse on Public Issues The question of the appropriate method for engaging in the public sphere is not an easy one. The fact that theology is not “neutral” does not disqualify it from participation in public discussion; on the contrary, because of its distinctive

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perspective, theological findings can make an effective contribution to public issues. It seems quite obvious that there have to be various ways of doing public theology since the concept of public itself differs from thinker to thinker. Discussing the methodology of theology in public, David Tracy, perhaps the most quoted scholar in this field, argues that there cannot be a single methodology that is accepted in doing public theology. This is particularly so in view of the variety of social contexts in which public theology is being done: India, the United Kingdom, and Korea, for example, demand different approaches. However, it is clear from what we have said about the role of public theology in creating debate that it should be understood as a public conversation and not as one-sided preaching. By this I mean that the implications of public theology need to be applied to the Christian community as well as to the wider society. Doing public theology means the church is open to scrutiny from the public and willing to receive critique as well as exercise its prophetic role. This is the expression of a pluralistic pneumatology—the many spirits of the public sphere giving and receiving criticism. In the process, the Holy Spirit plays a guiding role for Christians. However, Christians cannot assume the Holy Spirit will provide an answer that applies to everybody; it is for Christians to interpret the insight they believe they have received in the common language of the public sphere. Williams’ argument for “interactive pluralism” has two dimensions of mutual accountability: one explicit and one implicit. It calls for the acknowledgement of the potential contributions of religious communities, the obligation on the state to provide this possibility in the public sphere, and the challenge to the state’s holding the monopoly over the conduct of the law. The other dimension is to do with bringing religious communities into the public discussion. Interactive pluralism helps religious communities to be more open for scrutiny of the public and hence encourages them to integrate into the wider society. This should be welcomed as the two dimensions would mutually benefit both religious communities and wider society as I have discussed above concerning the public engagement of the Church. Indeed, this is already taking place in that religious people are engaged in public life and contribute to decision making individually and collectively. The question that should be asked in the process of public decision making is what are the most appropriate ways and means to be engaged in matters wider than their own interests? Pneumatologically speaking, the spirit of theological inquiry ought to be open to other spiritual impulses, engaging, resisting, or receiving from them as the case may be. Conclusion We have discussed the public sphere as a way to bring about constructive engagement of the spirits of the political in contemporary society for the common good. Public theology is not a new concept; Christian theology has always tried to be relevant to the context and society. As Franklin I. Gamwell argues, politics is a common Christian vocation and democracy on the basis of reason alone is not sufficient without “explicating Christian concept of justice and common

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good.”39 In other words, the public engagement of Christian theology is vital for the common good of society not necessarily because Christian values are right or correct (often this was not the case as we witness throughout the history), but because they offer alternative perspectives and contribute plurality to challenge political tendencies toward totality or monopoly due to inherent nature of power seeking in politics. Advocating the church’s role in the polis, Martin Marty promotes the idea that churches should become “public Church,” which are especially sensitive to the “res publica, the public order that surrounds and includes people of faith.” Public theology then becomes, in Marty’s view, “an effort to interpret the life of a people in the light of a transcendent reference” and doing public theology or being public Church is to exhibit “commitment to relate private faith to public order.”40 What Gamwell and Marty both argue here is that the joining in with the spirits of the political is a common call for all churches and that interacting with the plural spirits of the public sphere is part of Christian vocation. In so doing, Christians contribute from their own theological understanding, in the belief that they are guided by the Holy Spirit as they seek with others the common good. Notes 1. See discussions on these in Hent de Vries, “Introduction: Before, Around, and Beyond the Theologio-political,” in Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds., Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World (New York: Fordham university Press, 2006), 1–88. See also discussion by Amos Yong on polis of politics, economy and society from the Pentecostal perspective: In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), esp. 3–14. 2. Daniel M. Bell, “State and Civil Society,” in Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 423–38; Marsha Aileen Hewitt, “Critical Theory,” in Scott and Cavanaugh, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology, 455–70; Gaspar Martinez, Confronting the Mystery of God: Political, Liberation, and Public Theologies (London: Continuum, 2001), 217. 3. Charles T. Mathews, A Theology of Public Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 4. See Claude Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political?” in Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds., Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 148–87. 5. See de Vries, “Introduction . . . ,” 87. 6. Charles H. Kraft, “Allegiance, Truth and Power Encounter in Christian Witness,” in Jan A.B. Jongeneel, ed., Pentecost, Mission and Ecumenism: on Intercultural Theology (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992), 215–30; John Wimber, Power Evangelism (New York: Harper and Row, 1985); Peter Wagner, “Territorial Spirits and World Missions,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 25:3 (1989): 278–88. Note that these power encounter ideas are contested within Pentecostal and charismatic circles even as they have not been mindful of public theology matters. 7. Gustavo Gutièrrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation, rev. ed. trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (London: SCM Press, 1973),

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81–173; Juan Luis Segundo, The Liberation of Theology, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976), 4–5. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 297–317. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: Polity, 1989). His initial theoretical framework was based on emerging male bourgeois societies, and was therefore criticized by feminist theorists. See Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1992); Nick Crossley and John Michael Roberts, eds., After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). For example, Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religion (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007); and Tim Gorringe, Discerning Spirit: Theology of Revelation (London: SCM Press, 1990). “Korean Christian Manifesto,” in Rhie Deok-Joo and Cho Yee-Jei, eds., Creeds and Confessions of Korean Church (Seoul: Han Deul, 1997), 270–76. Suh Nam-Dong, “Toward a Theology of Han,” in Kim Yong-Bock, ed., Minjung Theology: People as the Subjects of History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), 51–65; Ahn Byeung-Mu, The Story of Minjung Theology (Seoul: Korea Institute of Theology, 1990), 31–37; Ahn Byung-Mu, “Jesus and Minjung,” in Kim Yong Bock, ed., Minjung Theology: People as the Subjects of History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), 138–51; Moon Dong-Hwan, “21st Century and Minjung Theology,” Shinhack Sasang (Summer 2000): 30–54; and Na Young-Hwan, “Minjung Theology from the Evangelical Perspective,” Mockhea ywa Sinhack ( August 1992): 40–50. Yi Mahn-Yol, Korean Christianity and Unification Movement (Seoul: Institute of Korean Church History, 2001), 258–59. Shripaty Sastry, A Retrospect: Christianity in India (Pune: Bharatiya Vichar Sadhana, 1983), 6. See Sebastian Kim, In Search of Identity: Debates on Conversion in India (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003). The Hindu, August 15, 1981; Express Magazine September 13, 1981. See also Devendra Swarup, ed., Politics of Conversion (New Delhi: Deendayal Research Institute, 1986). See F. Hrangkhuma, ed., Christianity in India: Search for Liberation and Identity (Delhi: ISPCK, 1998). Felix Wilfred, “Understanding Conversion in India Today,” Indian Missiological Review 5:1 (1983): 61–73. Walter Fernandes, “Conversion, the Caste Factor and Dominant Reaction,” Indian Missiological Review 6:4 (1984): 289–306. Walter Fernandes, “Caste and Conversion Movements in India,” Social Action 31 (July–September 1981): 261–90. George Mathew, “Politicisation of Religion: Conversions to Islam in Tamil Nadu,” Economic and Political Weekly (June 19 & 26, 1982): 1068–72. http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575 (accessed January 12, 2012). For discussions of the lecture, see Mike Higton, “Rowan Williams and Sharia: Defending the Secular,” International Journal of Public Theology 2:4 (2008): 400–17; Jonathan Chaplin, “Legal Monism and Religious Pluralism: Rowan Williams on

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26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

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Religion, Loyalty and Law,” International Journal of Public Theology 2:4 (2008): 418–41. Andrew Brown, The Guardian, February 9, 2008; David Blunkett in Janes Sturcke, et al., The Guardian, February 8, 2008; Sayeeda Warsi, Sunday Telegraph, February 10, 2008; Matthew d’Ancona, Sunday Telegraph, February 10, 2008; Johann Hari, Independent, February 11, 2008. See Tina Beattie, “Rowan Williams and Sharia Law,” http://www.opendemocracy. net/article/faith_ideas/europe_islam/sharia_law_uk (accessed January 12, 2012); Andrew Goddard, “Islamic Law and the Anglican Communion: Is there a Common Vision?,” http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=274 (accessed January 20, 2012); and Tom Wright, http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=277 (accessed January 20, 2012). Theo Hobson, “Rowan Williams: Sharia Furore, Anglican Future,” http://www. opendemocracy.net/article/rowan_williams_sharia_furore_anglican_future (accessed January 20, 2012). Beattie, “Rowan Williams and Sharia Law.” Tom Wright, http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=277 (accessed January 20, 2012). Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 323. Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism, 328. Jürgen Moltmann, God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1999), 1–5. Ronald F. Thiemann, Constructing a Public Theology: The Church in a Pluralistic Culture (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 20–22. Thiemann, Constructing a Public Theology, 165–67. Linell E. Cady, Religion, Theology and American Public Life (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), 25. Cady, Religion, Theology and American Public Life, 31–64. See also William Storrar and Andrew Morton, eds., Public Theology for the 21st Century (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2004); John Atherton, Public Theology for Changing Times (London: SPCK, 2000); Michael J. Himes and Kenneth R. Himes Fullness of Faith: the Public Significance of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1993); and Benjamin Valentin, Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference (London: Continuum, 2002). Duncan B. Forrester, On Human Worth: A Christian Vindication of Equality (London: SCM Press, 2001), 72–74. Franklin I. Gamwell, Politics as a Christian Vocation: Faith and Democracy Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–6. Martin Marty, Public Church: Mainline–Evangelical–Catholic (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 3–22, 98–99, 170.

CHAPTER 10

Spirits and Economics Nimi Wariboko

Introduction Is spirit antithetical to economics? Economics is fundamentally concerned with the reproduction of life, dense material efforts to turning back the threats of death against life. Economics is devoted to the care of life, to the physical necessity of existence. But spirit, at the minimum, involves the freedom to transcend selfsustaining life, the bondage of physical life to physical life. One appears to be about managing necessity, the other about participating in freedom. One bears the burden of life and the other sees the fulfillment of life. Therefore, and ordinarily, they should run on parallel lines. But this is not the case; economics and spirit are imbricated in bearing life, the preservation of its unceasing spark. This imbrication is possible because humans can only truly bear the burden of life as free beings and never encounter themselves as finished natural formations.1 At the root of economics and spirit is unfinishedness, that supreme capacity to begin, to initiate something new. In their various intersections across time, space, and spheres, the human spirit is engaged to assist, promote, and elevate the care and service of life. Economics as the act tending the inescapable maintenance of self-sustaining life by human intelligence is a phenomenal nature of spirit. This does not mean that economics is identical to spirit; the continuous preservation of life through labor, work, and complex organization of the social realm or aggregate of households is not equivalent to spirit. The spirit goes beyond life that is only for the sake of living, that is mere acceptance of, and security and adaptation to life, or the quotidian defense of life. It is this extra dimension, this excess in multiform intersection of life and spirit that draws life forward and carries tremendous appeal for economics. The appeal lies in the unfolding of human possibilities as lived experience. This chapter explores the interplay between spirit and economics—not as argued, but as lived. It analytically describes how the part of life we call spiritual or religious finds expressions in economic activities. These expressions are deeply

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probed through the lenses of six paradigms that demonstrate how economic agents bring to bear their understandings of immaterial spirits on concrete exchanges and relationships. The paradigms range from the broad issue of the connection between religious ethics and the spirit of capitalism to spirits-infested commodities in the marketplace; from commodification of spirits to the so-called animal spirits that rule securities trading on Wall Street; from Pentecostal economic transactions with the Holy Spirit that produce and sanctify individual prosperity to the blessed investment cycle for national economic prosperity hidden plainly in Deuteronomy 28, one veritable attempt to explain economic cycle and wealth creation in moral terms. These perspectives, “case studies,” and orientations are creatively pulled together to show the deep interconnections between the spiritual and material realms in the striving of human beings for flourishing life. Encouraged by the insights of the paradigms, the chapter ends with a pneumatological reflection on ethics for a Holy Spirit–filled economic life. This is an ethics that focuses on giving people the freedoms to become both the means and the end of their national economic development, that is, citizens’ attainment of a certain mode of being. The attainment presupposes a certain transformation of the self in order to have access to the truth of wealth creation. At this juncture, I need to clarify my use of either the singular or plural versions of “spirit.” I do not presume or recommend any ontology of spirit/s. I am only using the term strategically and rhetorically to variously explore the relationships between spirit and economics. I only capitalize “spirit” when it refers to the Holy Spirit. Occasionally, spirit is used in a generic sense to encompass ethos, human spirit, spirits as supernatural entities, or even the Holy Spirit. Such usage is a not a judgment made on any religion but a mode of relating economics to different understandings of the spiritual and polyvalent meanings of spirit in the general culture. Unfortunately, it will take us too far afield to conceptualize each meaning of spirit in the various paradigms of the intersection of spirit and economics. The meaning of each usage is, however, clear or discernible from the context. In addition, I have resisted the temptation to reduce the richness, depth, and expansiveness of the word spirit in the English language to one philosophicaltheological concept so as not to circumvent my task of exploring the multiple sites of the interaction between spirit and economics in societies. For my purpose in this chapter, I have no interest in affirming one definition of spirit. Any attempt to name or reduce the surplus of meaning that pertains to the word spirit with the aim of making it immanent to something or transcendental will immediately drastically hollow out the purview of our discourse. I want my analysis and its contingent interpretation by readers to draw from the surplus character of the word spirit. What is then the impetus behind this chapter? The chapter acknowledges the tension between the economic and spiritual registers of thought. The usual response of theologians and social scientists to such tension is to resolve it. In such attempts “the tension functions as a motor of development for a paradigm of resolution.”2 But in this chapter, “the problematic character of the differential tension” is the issue at hand.3 It makes the tension and imbrication of spirit

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and economics a condition of thought. For instance, what is the character of indeterminacy between spirit and economics in social existence? Do spirit and economics “belong to something that, while expressed by each of them, is prior to them”?4 “They share, in other words, a common condition. Accordingly, the fundamental task of thought becomes one of thinking this common condition— or, more precisely, of thinking the commonality as it is differentially expressed” by the economy and spirituality.5 How does theological-ethical thought come to grips with and care for the human soul’s identification with the tension and imbrication of spirits and economics? Indeed, the problematic (the differential tension that exists between spirits and economics), as noted in this chapter, is a form of relationality. “To be problematic is not to be lacking in adequacy. The problematic is a mode of existence; it is not a predicate of judgment but an active mode of relating.”6 Finally, let me reveal my social situatedness that influences my analysis. I write as a pentecostal social ethicist/theologian, but this does not mean that I embrace all of the Pentecostal views described in this chapter. It, however, explains why I want to end the chapter with a pneumatological reflection on ethics for a Holy Spirit–filled economic life or highlight the possible contribution of pentecostal theology to the analysis of the spirit of capitalism or economic ethics. Religious Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism Long before Max Weber (1864–1920), political economists had taken interest in identifying religious and cultural factors or causes in overcoming poverty or improving material well-being. Weber was particularly interested in how a sociocultural ethos is formed or influenced by religion or theology in modern rational civilization. In his famous book, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism,7 he argues that Protestantism (Calvinism) provides the necessary psycho-spiritual motivation for workers to adopt more rational and efficient management methods, ascetic lifestyles, and pursuit of science and technology for the development of capitalism. His concatenated arguments are that theological concepts and ideas of a transcendental, sovereign God, providence, predestination, salvation, and calling are internalized by workers and entrepreneurs of Europe in ways that create a historically distinctive ethos, which he calls the “spirit” of capitalism. In this way of presenting Weber’s thesis, it looks like religion molded a “spirit” that animated the development of capitalism. But we can also read the development of the “spirit of capitalism” among Protestants as a result of a force of internal disciplining attributable to capitalism. This raises some disturbing questions about the connection between spirit and economics. To what extent is the spirit a dynamic built into the rationalizing process of a mode of production, civilization, or era? What is the nature and dynamics of mutual adaptation between the material conditions of production, distribution, and consumption and their accompanying spirit, ethos, or religious subjectivity? The spirit that Weber identifies as supportive of capitalism is, in truth, one of the three spirits of capitalism. His so-called spirit of capitalism can

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only animate and support the ethic of production. Capitalism cannot function without simultaneously having the tripartite spirit of production, consumption, and distribution. The Calvinist-Puritan this-worldly asceticism, which supports savings and production, needs the balancing ethic of consumption. Productive capitalism needs a consumptive market to buy all the stuff it is producing. Colin Campbell, in his 2005 book, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism,8 supplements the image of the spirit of capitalism Weber imprints on the people of Europe. Since an economy consists of production and consumption, Campbell argues that some other ethic supplied the impulse that led to increasing consumption that absorbed the ever-growing capitalist production. He traced the impulse to the “Romantic ethic,” which stimulates new desires and shapes attitudes toward consumerism. The generation of insatiable wanting (not wants) is based on emotional experience of imagination—dreams of finer lifestyles and enjoyment of novel goods. This form of imagination he names, “imaginative hedonism.” And in naming and calling attention to it he shows how the pursuit of wealth alongside the pursuit of pleasure creates the modern capitalist society. This writer is not aware of any convincing study that finally completes the tripartite image of the spirit of capitalism. No capitalist system operates without some mechanism for income transfers from income-surplus sectors (areas or persons) to deficit ones. What is the general, collective, or common spirit or ethic that animates that transference? What is the spirit of distribution that can animate such processes from within and in congruence with the other two? Weber supplies the productive third of the spirit; Campbell, the consumptive third; but who has articulated the distributive third? Elsewhere, I argue that the Pentecostal ethic (spirit) of capitalism is not only providing this missing part, but it is also a combination of all three.9 Every economy is a set of production (capital formation), consumption, and distribution (income transfers). How do we interpret Pentecostal practices to discern an ethic of distribution? In the popular Pentecostal preaching (especially the wealth and health gospel), what role is “investments in God” playing in terms of income transfers or distribution of products and services from producers to consumers? What role is divine investment (i.e., the transfer of financial resources to churches and preachers in the hope of economic gains) playing in the mobilization of investable funds for certain key nodal points in the economy? More importantly, the new face of Pentecostal social engagement as recorded by Donald Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori shows an emerging ethic of distribution (what economists call transfers of value).10 Thoughtful reflections on these questions and praxis are likely to engender a “Pentecostal Ethic and the Spirit of Distribution.” Pentecostal theologians may want to struggle with how to craft a coherent theology that can harmoniously and transformatively integrate the tripartite spirit of capitalism within its pneumatological worldview or reject such spirit of capitalism. At the grass roots, however, there is already an ongoing negotiation with “spirits” that cohere with the “spirit” of capitalism. There is the dialectic of spirit consciousness in the Pentecostal engagement with the market capitalism. There

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is the panic of spirit consciousness that resists its bondage to the capitalist system and its cohort of demons and is thus working to defetishize commodities for the sake of life that belongs to another spirit consciousness. In this struggle, commodities of the anonymous market must not be allowed to cross the threshold of the household; their accompanying spirits must be confronted with the Spirit of God to render ineffective the potentially evil and destructive forces inherent in them. Spirits-Infested Commodities This brings us to another paradigm of the connection between spirit and economics. In many societies people believe that commodities coming from the marketplace are loaded with spiritual forces or powers. This movement is never one-directional. Commodities are also recycled into the marketplace from the spiritual realm filled with spirits. Medieval practices of trading and trucking in personal objects that once belonged to saints or current Pentecostal televangelists’ practice of selling anointed handkerchiefs and oil are cases in point. Owing to space constraints, we will limit our discourse to spirits-infested commodities making entry into nonmarket spaces. Recently, an analysis by a so-called professor of spirituality dispensing “deep wisdom” appeared in the pages of a Nigerian newspaper. His article emphasized the dangers inherent in the global market network. The man, who calls himself Professor Nathan Uzorma Protus, argues that secondhand clothes sent to developing countries from advanced countries are first “blessed” by occult masters so these countries will continue to manipulate and enslave people in the poor countries who buy them. He further reveals that used garments (which are usually imported) in the market are carriers of demons. Some years back in Owerri at Douglas road, a man went to the market and bought some secondhand clothes. He went home with them. The next day he decided to put on one of them for work. Then he wore it, freely he went to work, but as he was coming back from his office, and was about entering a car he suddenly saw somebody who placed his hands on his shoulders and said “GIVE ME MY CLOTH OR ELSE YOU DIE.” Now, before the man could turn his face, the demon man fled. Unfortunately, the man saw himself naked. The demon man went away with his cloth. This created fear and sickness to the man. But he was saved at last.11

Anthropologist Brigit Meyer also reports a similar perception of commodities and the related anxieties they generate among Pentecostals in Ghana. She narrates the story of eroticized underpants: One day he [Pentecostal preacher in his early thirties] had bought a pair of underpants at the local markets; since the day he started wearing them, he had been harassed by sexual dreams in which he had intercourse with beautiful ladies,

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although in daily life he was alone. Only after some time did he realize that the dreams were caused by the underpants; having thrown them away, he slept undisturbed by seductive women.12

The preceding stories pinpoint another dimension of the connection between spirit and economics; the market is a magical place and also a domain of satanic activities. But to see the connection only in this way is to misinterpret the relation. It will also be wrong to interpret the reactions to the underwear or cloth as a continuation of the traditional or cultural sentiments, “domestication of modernity,” reenchantment of the market. The mistake is in not seeing that spirit and economics are always connected and consequently perpetuating the notion of exteriority between spirit and economics in the operations of global capitalism. Spirit as a dimension of life is both derivative from and regulatory of material experience. And everything economic participates in the spiritual and its creative ground or all-embracing function. There is a complex relationship of mutual constitution between them. Once we do away with the binary model and the false oppositional logic, we must admit that they are contemporaneous. Commodities are bearers of the spirit of their age and spirits reflect the material reality of their bearers. Spirits not only infest commodities; in turn, commodities infest spirits. There are “spirit-filled” commodities and commodity-filled spirits. Commodification of Spirits There is a market for spirits. Right from antiquity through to the present, spirits have been traded and exchanged hands based on transfer of consideration. Spirits are also noted to bring handsome profits, commodities, and cargoes to their owners or controllers. There is always trading on (perceived) exclusive access to spirits. To this day, gaining knowledge and powers in spiritual matters requires that one go through a certain established priesthood program after paying a fee. Spirits are “put up” for show through manipulation of objects and persons considered possessed by ghosts and spirits. And religious specialists continue to offer the services of their spirits in the marketplace for profits and access to power. John Peel in his study Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba13 examined the market for miracles dominated by Muslim clerics in nineteenth-century Yoruba. The clerics offered “magical” medicines to their clients to secure military victories or healing. Hausa traders in Kano, Nigeria, a city whose fame in commerce dates back to the sixteenth century because of the Islamic contact, often seek the advice and prayers of Muslim clerics (malams) for the continued growth of their commercial undertaking. The malams’ major task is to “utilize their Quranic or supernatural knowledge to ensure the success and well-being of their clients and their protection against the malams of their client’s enemies.”14 In return, merchants also frequently sent formal “greeting gifts” and “thanks” to the malams in appreciation of favors. And, let us not forget the study done by Robert B. Ekelund et al, Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, which reveals how the Catholic Church gained economically from providing its

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“customers” (parishioners) with “information about and guidance toward the attainment of eternal salvation.”15 So too are examples of trading in spirits and profiting from them readily available in the Bible. In Acts 9, Simon offers to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the Apostle Peter. Simon’s offer suggests an existing culture of trucking and trading in spirits. Never mind that Peter angrily deploys the very power that Simon seeks to turn off, that is, his power of sight. In Chapter 16, we read about the slave girl possessed by the spirit of divination who makes much profit for her owners who rent out her services until Paul, out of annoyance, casts out the spirit from her. These two biblical stories illustrate the power of exchange translatability in social intercourse and resistance to it as defined by absolute values. What is the value of one object in one sphere in relationship to another in a different sphere? The religious fundamentalists prone to absolutization of the sacred sphere may not want to ponder the imperatives of translatability, but in an exchange economy (barter or monetary) there is always the connection of potential translatability between all objects of society. The only real issue is the term of exchange: sacrifice, offering, devotion, service, power, flattery, or money. At the right register of exchange spirits easily slide into commodities and vice versa. The resistance that Peter and Paul exhibit toward the commoditization of the Holy Spirit should not lead us to think that there is no binding relation between spirit and commodities. They are always in a strategic situation toward each other and in this situation there are always the possibilities of changing the situation in favor of one. There is no way to jump outside the situation; there is no point where religion (economics) will be free from all relations between spirit and commodities. The very presence of resistance as illustrated in the Acts story and in many other cases in contemporary time means that there are power relations, not domination between them, to use the language of Foucault. Otherwise, it will simply be only one of them in social existence or the absolute obedience of one to the other. In their coexistence, there is always a creative tension waiting to be exploited. In the deep connection between spirit and commodities, resistance is not always simply to say no or resistance is not always conceptualized in negative terms. There is also a creative side to resistance, to change and recreate the strategic situation. Below, we will see how Pentecostal preachers render the relation between spirit and commodities fluid, reversible, and unstable. Animal Spirits and Trading in Securities So far we have dealt with the spirit-commodity connection as a second-order process of adjustment. In locating the ethos of capitalism in Protestantism, Weber presented the evolution of spirit as a way of making do with the altered material and spiritual realities of economic changes. Religion disciplined the souls of people for capitalism. In our second case of commodities infested with spirits, we saw men and women confronting spirits-cum-commodities in a struggle of power or domination. Next, we examined the situation of religious entrepreneurs trading

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and profiting from spirits. In all the cases, spirits and commodities are something the human being confronts outside of himself. He is yet to be presented as part of the ontological condition of spirits and commodities and they in turn are constitutive of him. Commodities and spirits are not merely objects or effects of changes that happen that are outside the particular moral, political, and economic subjectivation of persons. And spirits and commodities are not simply one step removed from the being of the human subject. The spirits that human beings confront in the marketplace, and presumably in the commodities they manufacture and sell, often originate from within them. Economist John Maynard Keynes illuminates this integral connection when he locates the spirit-commodity relation within human beings themselves rather than outside. Keynes makes this observation with respect to trading in securities when there is uncertainty about the future. Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our activities depend on a spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as result of animal spirits—of spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities . . . Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die . . . individual initiative will only be adequate when reasonable calculation is supplemented and supported by animal spirits.16

It is important to recognize under what condition Keynes resorts to the concept of “animal spirits.” He is concerned about the future and problems of anticipation. Modern finance and economic theory pride themselves on cold mathematical rationality, banishing from consideration any talk about spirits, enthusiasm, and emotion. But in the midst of inevitable uncertainties and insecurities about the future there is an “emotional serpent in the Eden of assumed rationality.”17 Rationality about the future that is unpredictable and essentially unknowable requires emotions, future-oriented emotions. The importation of a “future” into the present is what enables investors or decision makers to act. As Keynes informs us, the grip of emotion, which he dubs “animal spirits,” is explained by uncertainty about the future. The simple lesson here is that emotions (spirits) are located within finance itself rather than as an excess external to normal finance. For our limited purpose in this chapter, there is another insight we can garner from Keynes’s analysis. His notion of animal spirits is not only that spirit is characteristic of the human nature and human economic activities, but also that the appearance of the spirit is often born out of the unknowability of the future or out of rationalization about the unpredictable, which drives life.

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Concern for the future, the unpredictability of tomorrow, and the urge to secure oneself against it are indeed also a focus of spirituality and theology. The importation of the future into the present is a temporal orientation or historical practice that ties spirits and commodities to the same human striving for flourishing and the thwarting of all that diminishes life. Enhancement of life in every culture and age has never rejected the company of material and immaterial forces of existence. Pentecostal-Charismatic Economic Transactions with the Holy Spirit The topic of this section is well-known among religious scholars and thus should not detain us. Suffice it to mention a few examples. Katharine Wiegele’s book Investing in Miracles examines how members of the Catholic charismatic El Shaddai movement in the Philippines enact a regime of economic exchanges with God. They offer to God financial offerings and positive confession and he is obligated to act. With some “seed faith” and “love” offerings, following a well-written “prayer request” (contract?) strategically placed at the altar, a believer earns the right or privilege for God to send cargo his or her way. “El Shaddai changes the primary focus of one’s relationship with God—from salvation in the afterlife to this-worldly uplift. Rather than waiting to repay one’s debts to God in the afterlife, they invoke God’s generosity here and now through positive confession and tithing and, in so doing, lay claims on the power of God indebting God to them.”18 Underlying this theology is a certain belief about the nature of economic transaction between the Holy Spirit and believers. The tension between spirit and commodities that made Peter and Paul flinch has been reworked and recreated so that resistance to their mingling is no longer simply conceptualized in negative terms, but made a creative process. In the regnant “economic theology” of Pentecostals and Charismatics there is a positive correlation between spirituality and access to commodities (economic well-being). As the Pentecostal pastor Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria puts it: “Those who will get blessing from God will have to go beyond ordinary giving of offering or paying tithes. Daily they look for opportunity to do something special to God that will compel Him to do more than what He wanted to do for them. Those who trade with God never lose.”19 He also adds that the believer must be diligent in obeying the laws of God, living a sanctified, holy life. If Keynes eliminates the space between human nature and spirit-commodity, savvy Pentecostal-Charismatic preachers remove any meaningful distinction between spirit and commodities. Spirit and commodity are now part of a meta-narrative register of moral explanation of prosperity. The narrative accents individual progress as a blend of spiritual/internal and physical/external goodness and holds that paradise is both in the present and in the future. The result is that the old antagonistic division between the care for the soul and the care for external things has been discarded and the two have agonistically morphed into extropic transformation of the self for the self. The Pentecostal-Charismatic

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form of Christianity (especially among its wealth and health preachers and their followers) is increasingly becoming—if not already—the care for the soul that takes place within the care for the personal economy, for optimal mode of being. This kind of narrative against the backdrop of late-phase consumerist capitalism has an appreciable emotional resonance not only with how to fulfill desires, but also to know what to desire. These Pentecostal-Charismatic preachers are enacting a “transvaluation of values.”20 The main issue now is what work must the believer do upon himself or herself to be capable of acceding to the truth that will allow him or her to enjoy the benefits of the Holy Spirit and latest commodities without guilt. What price is required to attain certain kinds of knowledge that unlock both realms of spirit and commodities for accumulation and consumption of wealth? National Prosperity and Deuteronomy 28 Pentecostals’ hermeneutic framework for responding to the preceding questions often starts from 3 John 2. In this verse they discern a divinely sanctioned combination of wealth, health, and salvation (holiness, effected by techniques of the self on the self for the purity of the soul). The elaboration of the nature of the wealth and economic prosperity often takes them to Deuteronomy 28:1–14, drawing out its supposed meaning from a very privatized and individualized view of prosperity. Pentecostals use these verses of Deuteronomy to highlight the economic benefits that believers stand to gain when they pay the appropriate price of obedience and achieve a certain transformation of the self through the techniques of the self on the self. What is generally left unanalyzed in their hastiness to “name and claim” economic benefits of divine blessings is the wealth creation cycle, or the investment process that both constitutes and informs the attainment of national prosperity. Here I want to relate the meaning of the verses to national economic prosperity via the model of entrepreneurial investment cycle. In reading these 14 verses, it is remarkable to find the spiritual concern about national prosperity connected with the attainment of dynamic investment pattern. Believers are blessed as both the agents (means) and end (beneficiaries) of national wealth creation. Deuteronomy 28 is about a spiritual subject’s attainment of a certain mode of being as linked to the transformations he or she must carry out on himself or herself and his or her investments (endowments). The wealth creation process that is celebrated in these verses is remarkably close to what most economists affirm. It is a four-part process: assets, flow of income, conversion of income into assets, and the capacity to enjoy the income from one’s assets. To sustain, increase, and enjoy economic prosperity, believers must attend to all four parts. The wealth creation process starts with assets, which is what a person (nation) can use to earn income now or in the future. In verses 2, 3, 12, and 13 we see that land, trees, and even human personhood or bodies (the physical body and its endowments is always a great asset) are blessed. Every wealth creator must have something to start with: a piece of land, animal, brawn, talent, or brain to earn income in the form of produce, product, or money.

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The asset one has must yield a return or income, which by definition makes a property or endowment an asset. But there are cases when a person’s property does not yield any income. When this happens the investment cycle is cut short. The writer of Deuteronomy is careful to go further and bless the fruits, the yields from the assets in verses 4, 8, and 11. For instance, verse 4 states: “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle.” You may ask, why bless the fruits, yields from assets, when the assets themselves have been blessed? This is to activate the next stage of the investment cycle. People may earn money from their farms, but if their returns go into a pocket with holes they are not able to reinvest and grow wealth. Or people may consume all their income without saving or investing part of it. By not investing, they are not creating or renewing assets for the future. In verse 12, we see that the people who started with blessing on their selves, land, and cattle have realized some income, have saved part of it, and are now being blessed to be able to lend to nations. This is not only a conversion of income into investable capital, but also a transformation of economy from agriculture to service. Primary producers are transformed into bankers. What use is this whole process of wealth creation if the people’s welfare is not the goal of it? The writer of Deuteronomy responds in severe negative terms starting from verse 15. The people who disobey God, who do not live according to prescribed standards of righteousness, shall not enjoy the fruits of their wealth creation. The important point to note is that the writer assumes that the people are the rightful beneficiaries of their wealth creation. What Deuteronomy adds to our understanding of the interaction of spirit and economics is that meaningful prosperity involves making the people both the primary agents (means) and the end of economic development. This presupposes a certain transformation of the self in order to have access to the truth of wealth creation. We see persons and personhood being blessed to undertake economic development with the hope that they will have the capabilities to enjoy the fruits thereof. This whole idea of equipping persons with capabilities to reach a certain level of socioeconomic-spiritual well-being may not be too far from economist Amartya Sen’s notion of “development as freedom.”21 He argues that economic development is not just about quantitative increases in gross national product, but principally about giving people the freedoms (economic and non-economic), the capabilities to become both the means (agents) and the end (goals and recipients) of their own economic development. Bringing this about, he argues, involves deliberate successive removal and vigilant resistance to unfreedoms. Conclusion Our examination of the connections between spirit and economics has brought us to the point where we understand that the people in any nation should be appropriately seen as the means and end of their own economic development. Based on this insight, what should be the nature of a pneumatological reflection on ethics for a Holy Spirit–filled economic life? Pentecostal ethics should be about

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Spirit-led freedom to initiate something new amidst ongoing social reality; it should be for the transformation of all that thwarts life and the actualization of the God-given potentials of every person. Elsewhere I have interpreted this ethics as the Pentecostal Principle and as development as excellence.22 Pentecostal Principle and “development as excellence” are about the full actualization and maximization of potentials within any given human sociality in the anticipation of the new, the not-yet. The embrace of the not-yet, unfinishedness of life, is an orientation, as Paul Tillich rightly taught us, toward the kairotic moment, when the unexpected breaks into the economy and moves it forward. Those who believe in transformative change should not give up; there is always the possibility of a sudden rush of the wind of change. No one knows from which direction the new will come, but it must surely come and we must all in expectation of it become agents of the coming future in our own economic spheres of life. For the spirit-economics connection is always a strategic situation with possibilities of change in any society. By way of reaching a conclusion, let us restate our opening question: Is spirit antithetical to economics? The answer is no. In reaching this conclusion we did not try to reduce the complex and multiform relations between spirit and economics to any simple, dominant perspective. It is by focusing on the richness and depth of their interactions that we have been able to clearly and expansively show that spirit is not antagonistic to economics. Spirit and economics are agonistically interwoven in the existential strivings of human beings. This is not surprising since all of reality is en-spirited to various intensities and the economy is not abstracted from reality. For Pentecostals the varied levels of interaction between spirit and economics across space, time, and spheres of society may provide valuable insights on the polyvalent working and different degrees of intensities of the presence of the Holy Spirit in creation. Notes 1. According to Czech philosopher Jan Patoˇcka: “Paradoxically, work lets us feel our freedom; its character of burden is derived from burden as a more basic trait that has to do with human life as such, the fact that we cannot simply take life in indifference but must always ‘bear’ it, ‘lead’ it—guarantee and stand for it. Work that (according to Arendt) is always originally work for consumption is possible only on the basis of a free being in the world. Yet, at the time, it can break and repress the development of this freedom and all the problems linked to it.” Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, trans. Erazim Kohák (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1996), 15. 2. Daniel Coluccielo Barber, On Diaspora: Christianity, Religion, and Secularity (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2011), 20. I have relied on Barber here because I found his theorization of relationality and immanence very useful in thinking through the differential tension between spirits and economics. 3. Barber, Diaspora, 20; italics in the original. 4. Ibid., 21. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 37.

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7. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parson (London: Allen & Unwin, 1930). 8. Colin Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (York, UK: Alcuin Academics, 2005). 9. Nimi Wariboko, “Faith has a Rate of Return: Between Theology and Economics,” 2011, unpublished paper. Sociologists like David Martins, working off of Max Weber’s seminal thesis on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, have highlighted the protestant-ethic dimension in the Pentecostal ethic. They have shown how Pentecostalism has changed attitudes toward work and family life among its faithful. There is no need to mention that the prosperity gospel has been linked to consumerism. 10. Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement (Berkeley: University of California, 2007). 11. Professor Nathan Uzorma Protus, “Philosophical Reflection: Exposing Satanic Manipulation, Part 8,” Daily Sun, Wednesday, July 25, 2012, page 23. 12. Brigit Meyer, “Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana,” in Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure, ed. Brigit Meyer and Peter Geschiere (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 151. 13. John D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 14. Ahmed Beita Yusuf, “Capital Formation and Management among Muslim Hausa Traders of Kano, Nigeria,” Africa 45 (1975): 167–68, 178–79. 15. Robert B. Ekelund, Robert F. Hébert, Robert D. Tollison, Gary M. Anderson, and Audry B. Davidson, Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 26. On the same page the authors also state that “our focus in this book is on the Church as a provider of private goods— that is, goods and services that were ‘purchased’ in something resembling a market context.” 16. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Orlando, FL.: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich Publishers, 1953), 161–62. 17. Jocelyn Pixley, Emotions in Finance: Distrust and Uncertainty in Global Markets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3. 18. Katherine L. Wiegele, Investing in Miracles: El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 9. 19. Enoch Adeboye, How to Turn your Austerity to Prosperity (Lagos: CRM, 1989), 29. 20. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, trans. H. L. Mencken (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923), 9, 13, 61–62. 21. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Random House, 1999). 22. Nimi Wariboko, The Pentecostal Principle: Ethical Methodology in New Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012); and The Principle of Excellence: A Framework for Social Ethics (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009), Chapter 8.

CHAPTER 11

Talking Back, Acting Up: Wrestling with Spirits in Social Bodies Bradford Hinze

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ear the end of the fourth century, Evagrius of Pontus, a widely respected monk and spiritual guide in Egypt, received a letter from the leader of a local monastic community, Loukios. The letter pleaded with Evagrius to compose a treatise that would train the monks to wrestle with demons tempting them with evil thoughts and leading them into vicious behavior that put at risk the vitality of the community. Evagrius accepted the assignment and prepared a handbook entitled Talking Back (Antirrhêtikos) in which he identifies the evil thoughts through which demons worked and develops a strategy for combating these demonic powers. Widely acknowledged as the source of the tradition of the seven deadly sins, Evagrius identified eight evil thoughts (logismoi): gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride.1 He had come to the conclusion that these evil thoughts were each inspired by distinctive demons. The challenge was to respond quickly to these evil thoughts before they were able to take greater control in one’s life, thereby limiting freedom and wreaking havoc on the self and on the community. One had to talk back to the demons, refute their lies and halftruths, offer good thoughts from the scriptures, and restrain the destructive spirits as quickly as possible. These thoughts and spirits should not go unchecked. The deeper the patterns of thought and corresponding actions takes root, the harder it becomes to challenge and overcome them. Evagrius credited David and Jesus with developing this strategy of talking back. In Evagrius’ interpretation of the psalms, David is presented as “a warrior against the demons” who talks back against persecutors and enemies, even winning over the Philistines, all identified with the influence of demons.2 Jesus likewise talks back to Satan in the temptations in the wilderness by employing passages from the scriptures.3 Evagrius concentrates on the powers of destructive spirits at work in individuals and through individuals in communities. Regardless of how one assesses

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his particular understanding of these demons—and some of his most influential descendents on the devil and deadly sins did not follow all his views on central issues—in the venerable tradition of Evagrius I wish to advance the argument that there are destructive spirits, “powers and principalities” in the words of the Letter to the Ephesians (6:12), at work in collective bodies, institutions, and corporate practices that have their source in social and structural sin.4 This contention is indebted to the working assumptions of various networks of Faith-Based Community Organizing that have developed in the United States, Europe, and around the world. For these communities the power of God’s Spirit is invoked in the struggle for social justice and recognized as active in the collective agency of faith-based organizations to challenge destructive powers, what might be identified as manifestations of the demonic or evil spirits that are at work in social bodies as a result of social sin. Even though such faith-based groups employ the rhetoric of spiritual conflict at times with dualistic overtones—spiritual warfare between the Spirit of God and the demonic, angels and devils—these faith-based organizations also recognize life-giving powers, the Spirit of God active in various individuals and social groups, good spirits, in the public realm that have come to collaborate in the work of justice.5 There might be some inclined to resist any attempt to speak about destructive spirits in collective bodies corrupted by social sin. Is it even in keeping with the New Testament to speak about the demonic in terms of social sin and structures of sin? New Testament scholar Eric Sorensen has examined individual cases of possession and exorcism in the New Testament, early Christianity, as well as in ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures.6 The preponderance of evidence pertains to individual persons. But even he concedes that “the New Testament . . . makes use of exorcism as a means of visualizing its eschatological message of the Kingdom of God overcoming the power of Satan, which may also have held social connotations for early Christian audiences who associated the rule of Satan with Roman imperialism.”7 The story of the Gerasene demoniac is frequently cited as a case where more than a personal instance of healing and social reintegration is at stake. The demon’s name is legion, the name of “the largest unit of a Roman army,” and it seems likely that this story addressed the concern about the Roman dominance of Palestine.8 Throughout Jesus’ mission and ministry one can find forms of talking back to destructive social power systems associated with patterns of exclusion and disrespect for marginalized groups. Jesus’ parables and aphorisms provide idioms of resistance to power regimes: the first shall be last, and the last first, it is not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean, but what comes out of it. The parables of the rich man and Dives and the Good Samaritan disparage those who are not responsive to those suffering from poverty and the brutality of everyday life, and commend those, even the unexpected outsiders, who dare to get involved. Jesus’ beatitudes offer another form of talking back by portraying an upside-down world, a challenge to dominative powers, where the poor and the meek are blessed, and the rich and arrogant are cursed. Jesus imagines a new way of being into life by talking back.

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Jesus likewise forges a pattern of acting up by reaching out to the marginalized and excluded in his table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners, and his convivial and respectful relations with women. By driving out those engaged in commerce and overturning the tables of money changers in the Jerusalem temple he acts up against corruption in the temple and religious complicity with the Roman Empire. The story of Jesus in the gospel traditions reveal that the one who engages social powers is brought to death at the hands of the empire. Demonic Powers in Society in the Twenty-First Century What are the destructive powers at work in our own day? In keeping with the wisdom of prophetic literature and the psalms, listening to the laments of people especially the poor and marginalized enables one to begin to identify destructive powers.9 The laments of the poor surface social problems pertaining to unemployment, low wages, prejudice, violence, deficient health care, education, and housing. The sources of these problems can no doubt be traced back to destructive powers and vices at work in the lives of individuals, but they cannot be reduced to personal problems. One must also attempt to name and analyze pernicious social and institutional powers and dynamics at work. Over the last century there has been growing insight into the impact of social sins, also spoken of as structural sins. While these terms are attributed to Latin American liberation theology with good reason, their development can be traced back to a variety of grassroots movements in the twentieth century including the social gospel movement, the civil rights movements for blacks, women, gays, and lesbians, Minjung theology in South Korea, Dalit theology in India, the theology of struggle in the Philippines. I wish to explore the particular contributions on this topic developed by Faith-Based Community Organizing, which are consistent with the contributions of these movements, but without any particular debt to any of them. In light of these developments, I wish to suggest that Evagrius needs a twenty-first-century counterpart—we might symbolically name her Evagria—who would consolidate the collective wisdom of the last century by offering an analysis of deadly social sins and the demonic at work in social bodies, and the need for Christians inspired by the Spirit of God in ecumenical and interfaith communities with the good spirits animating collaborators who are sometimes opponents in the struggle for justice in the public realm. If someone were to write a letter to our contemporary Evagria asking her to write a handbook on how to do battle with these destructive social powers, what would be her response? It is not too difficult to imagine that a present-day Evagria would urge us to follow the lead of prophets. Prophets heed the groaning of the Spirit of life in the aspirations and laments of suffering in communities and the travail of the earth and respond to the Spirit’s beckoning by forming prophetic communities that talk back and act up against destructive spirits in social bodies, thereby unmasking and denouncing destructive spirits and promoting civic accountability and righteousness. I wish to suggest that our present-day

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Evagria could very well implore us to discover a prophetic way to wrestle with these powers in the practical wisdom offered by Faith-Based Community Organizing. Faith-Based Community Organizing is established on the conviction that the most effective way to wrestle with destructive powers is by forming communities that are ecumenical, interfaith, and intercultural to challenge them. Catholics have joined forces with Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and increasingly Baptists and Pentecostals committed to a prophetic model of discipleship. They have formed faith-based organizations to struggle against these spirits in an effort to promote the common good through civic involvement in democratic processes.10 People from other religious traditions have likewise joined forces with Christians and with people who have no religious convictions at all to work for social change. These faith-based groups draw their inspiration from Saul Alinsky, a son of Jewish parents of Russian descent, who was raised in one of the poorest slums in Chicago and eventually pursued graduate studies in criminology where he conducted research on organized crime and juvenile delinquency. Subsequently he worked as a union organizer under the influence of John L. Lewis.11 In the late 1930s he collaborated closely with Catholic and Protestant clergy and Jewish rabbis in Chicago to organize a federation of congregations, unions, and associations to address the problems facing some of the worst slums in the United States by developing what came to be called the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council in 1939. Based on that experience, he wrote a book in 1946, Reveille for Radicals, which offered a vision of a people’s organization and fostered their formation. In 1969 he established the Industrial Area’s Foundation (IAF), a training program for community organizations.12 Alinsky’s original closest disciples were all men, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, African Americans, and Jews. They initiated thousands of community organizers initially in the United States, but eventually in places around the world, resulting in a new generation of leaders that include women, Pentecostals, Muslims, and many others with no religious affiliation at all. The results have been impressive. Four large national FBCO networks are active in the United States: the Industrial Area Foundations or IAF (began in 1940), People Improving Communities through Organization (formerly Pacific Institute for Community Organization) or PICO (1972), Gamaliel (1986), and Direct Action and Research Training Center or DART (1982).13 They have developed 133 ecumenical and interfaith federations in cities across the country and around the world. These US federations have about 4,000 institutions as official members. About 3,500 (or 87 percent) of those institutions are religious congregations.14 Besides religious congregations, federations include labor unions, tenement associations, schools, and other community organizations.15 These federations are characterized as broad-based (since they are composed of various types of groups and organizations, not only religious); they are locally constituted; focus on various issues, not just one; staffed by professional organizers; and are political but nonpartisan.16

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These federations are being established to develop strategic responses—ways of talking back and acting up—in the public realm in order to challenge destructive social powers. The churches that are involved are not directly inspired by traditions of exorcism, deliverance, the gospel of prosperity, or liberation theology, but on the practical strategies developed by Saul Alinsky and those influenced by him. How do these groups help people to talk back and act up with destructive spirits in social bodies? The Anatomy and Taxonomy of Demonic Social Powers How do these groups understand destructive social powers? How are these demonic powers related to life-giving powers? We will pursue these questions by considering the power analysis as developed by Alinsky and his heirs. Saul Alinsky conceived of civic life as a battlefield between those who abuse economic and political power and those who are regularly exploited by them. Those exploited need to join forces to gain sufficient power to work for change. His 1945 book Reveille for Radicals put the matter simply: “The building of a People’s Organization is the building of a new power group . . . [, which is] an intrusion and a threat to the existing power arrangements . . . A People’s Organization is dedicated to an eternal war. It is a war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness.”17 In his 1971 book Rules for Radicals he differentiated life-giving powers and destructive powers. Power is the very essence, the dynamo of life. It is the power of the heart pumping blood and sustaining life in the body. It is the power of the active citizen participation pulsing upward, providing a unified strength for a common purpose. Power is an essential life force always in operation, either changing the world or opposing change. Power, or organized energy, may be a man-killing explosive or a life-saving drug.18

People and institutions exerting destructive power can only be effectively challenged by means of the dispossessed and marginalized joining forces to identify the sources of their collective grief and anger and by exercising their collective power to advance their collective interests for the common good of all. The heirs of Alinsky built upon his basic convictions to develop a multidimensional approach to power analysis. Greg Galuzzo from Gamaliel begins his day-long leadership training session by saying that in the United States many working-class and poor people get the message that their involvement in civic life doesn’t really matter. It may be shocking that among the over 100 democracies in the world, the United States is the fourth worst in terms of the percentage of citizens that exercise their right to vote.19 Galuzzo contends that people that have power try to discourage those without power from using their power or they try to thwart their exercising their power wisely.20 Alinsky’s conviction is in evidence in Galuzzo’s formulation: there are two groups with power: power elites who exploit others and those who need to get organized to exercise their

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collective power to challenge the power elites to bring about meaningful change. In this framework two perspectives of power come into view: on the one hand, power can be described in terms of power over others through control by one means or another; on the other hand, power is an ability to act, to do something, a capacity to effect a change. Ed Chambers from IAF goes beyond Galuzzo’s formulation by stating: “From one perspective, power is neutral. It may be used for evil or for good. From another, it is ambiguous because any employment of power by finite human beings, no matter how well intended and successful, will lead to unexpected consequences for self and others.”21 In the 1980s, over a decade after Alinsky died, Ed Chambers and others in the IAF in conversation with Leo Penta and Michael Cowan began to utilize certain writings by Hannah Arendt and Bernard Loomer to differentiate power in terms of a unilateral approach and a relational approach. It stands to reason that Hannah Arendt served as a helpful resource for the IAF since she too worried about the diminishment of civic involvement of people in democratic societies. She chose not to speak of two kinds of power, but preferred to contrast violence, force, or strength with a relational view of power, which she described as something that happens between people in the public realm through communication and action in civic engagement. “Power is what keeps the public realm, the potential space of appearance between acting and speaking men, in existence.”22 In an analogous fashion, Loomer, who was trained in process philosophy and theology, describes a linear approach to power as “the capacity to influence, guide, adjust, manipulate, shape, control, or transform the human or natural environment in order to advance one’s purposes.” By contrast, relational power is “the ability [of groups] to produce and to undergo an effect. It is the capacity both to influence others and to be influenced by others. Relational power involves both a giving and a receiving.”23 Arendt and Loomer provided the descendants of Alinsky a conceptual framework and justification for criticizing the use of power by economic and political elites who take advantage of people in society for their own purposes while commending a relational approach to power to motivate people to get organized to participate collectively in the public realm in civil society. More recently Jeffrey Stout has brought greater precision to this discussion in his study of community organizing in New Orleans in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane Katrina by the IAF federation called Jeremiah in 2005. Based on the social analysis employed by the Jeremiah organizers, he offers a general definition of power. Power can be defined as “the capacity that an individual, group, or institution has to produce effects the people would have reason to care about. It is because individuals in isolation have little power that a power analysis focuses mainly on institutions and on the people who play consequential roles in them.”24 Stout subdivides this general definition—“the capacity to produce socially significant effects”—into two specific forms, which follows the usual Alinsky distinction between two groups of power holders. On the one hand, “how easy it is . . . for major corporations and their executives to turn governmental institutions to their own purposes—how easy it is, in other words, to translate economic and political power that can be exercised over someone else.”25 These

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business and political elites, corporations, and institutions can exercise power in arbitrary and dominating ways for their own purposes. On the other hand, citizens in general and especially the marginalized rarely mobilize their power to hold these elites accountable and to prevent them from acting in arbitrary and dominating ways by promoting democratic change in the service of wider social interests and the common good of all. This capacity to produce socially significant effects applies whether this capacity is exercised or not, whether the effects are intentional or unintentional, whether they are bad or beneficial. Stout takes note of an important issue raised by Michel Foucault: “Whether the agents of power highlighted in IAF power analysis—namely, individuals, groups, and institutions—are the only sources of socially significant effects worthy of consideration, or even the most important ones.”26 For Foucault there are two “anonymous sources of power: . . . The first is the array of propositions that people living in a given place at a given time are in a position to entertain, accept, or reject. The second is the array of possible social identities that people living in a given place at a given time can acquire, adopt, or attribute.” These are not the result of intentional agents, personal, social, or institutional, but “simply . . . unintended by-products of earlier similar configurations of effects, interacting with historical contingencies without necessarily needing much direct help from intentional human agency.”27 Stout proposes, contrary to the faithful followers of Foucault, that these claims can supplement the positions used by community organizers without contradicting their agency-oriented approach. “Agents need not be disempowered by learning how they have been shaped by the vocabularies and identities lodged in their discursive and formative social practices. To the contrary, such knowledge can and should inform deliberate choices concerning which social practices to support, how to embed them in institutions, and how the norms and identities embodied in them should be revised.”28 There can be no decisive or ultimate social or political liberation for Foucault, there is only the ongoing struggle, which, like the art of wrestling honored in Stoic asceticism, “consists simply in being ready and on guard, in remaining steady, that is to say, not being thrown, not being weaker than all the blows coming either from circumstances or from others.”29 The power analyses developed by Alinsky, Galuzzo, Chambers, and Stout, and the community organizers who utilize them, do not draw upon particularly religious categories when scrutinizing the struggle against destructive powers at work in social groups and institutions and the life-giving powers available through community organizing. However, Christians involved in community organizing cannot help but think of destructive social powers in terms of the personal and social power of sin and for some in terms of the demonic and evil spirits, while life-giving social policy choices and institutional patterns of behavior might be considered manifestations of God’s Spirit or the power of good spirits at work in the public realm. The Catholic priest and the Lutheran pastor speak about the work for justice in terms of being a disciple of Jesus Christ by caring for the poor and fighting

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against injustice, but rarely, if ever, do they speak of domination in terms of the power of evil spirits. By contrast, Pentecostal and Baptist clergy more often speak of the devil and evil spirits at work in the unjust situations they confront. They all agree that economic and political elites who have power over other people can exercise their power arbitrarily in a dominating manner. That such an exercise of power is all too often destructive in the everyday lives of individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole, no one would refute. Clergy and their congregations concur that here sin can be at work, the result and accumulative effects of personal sin, but they also recognize the manifestation of social sin and structures of sin ingrained in patterns of behavior, practices, and policies handed on by groups and institutions, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unwittingly. There is no reason why all Christians involved in this work cannot speak of these destructive social powers in terms of the demonic. To acknowledge the demonic at work in social bodies is contrary to demonizing individuals since there is always room for personal change and collaboration in the advancement of the public good, which can provide the basis for social transformation. Christians involved in community organizing all understand the life-giving powers at work in their relational networks in terms of the work of the Spirit of God, not only among Christians, but also in the wider public realm. The agency of the Spirit is recognized in the communicative practices that create the conditions for people to share their deepest aspirations and their laments and form bonds of affection, solidarity, and collective action. In the fog of spiritual and corporeal combat created by ingrained practices of injustice and oppression, this Spirit is at work to give new sight to perceive a fuller yet still fragmented sense of the reality, to confront and potentially purify memories of a past that cannot sustain life, and to inspire the creative work of the imagination in envisioning a future worthy of inhabiting. This Spirit is recognized as an advocate and counsel before power elites who can exercise warped judgment in the pursuit of self-serving goals. The Spirit of life in this contestation instills courage in conflict, strength in the struggle, consolation in defeat, boldness in talking back and acting up before those who exercise abusive power. This Spirit is perceived at work in the good spirits of religiously affiliated partners and civic-minded, nonreligious, collaborators, but this same Spirit can be detected in business leaders and government officials who change policies and practices when challenged. Spiritual wisdom requires a certain detachment from past wounds and hard feelings from previous struggles and defeats with social and political opponents to pave the way for greater justice brought about by their change of mind and heart. There can be no ultimate dualism of the Spirit versus the demonic in the public arena. One must cultivate a spiritual tolerance for ambiguity in the ongoing struggle where there is far more fluidity and dynamism at work in the public arena. Politics and business are noble professions that can be corrupted just as the institutions they create can be forces for the public good. Even though vigilance is always necessary, genuine institutional reform and revitalization is possible. Hence there is an abiding need for the social

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discernment of spirits and hope among those who struggle to create a life worth living. Are the social effects of destructive powers in this corporeal combat with the life-giving power of the Spirit a part of a larger providential and teleological purpose? There are no easy answers. Religious congregations perceive in the drama of conflict the consequence of the complex phenomenon of sin and grace in the world. In this sense, it is a result of God’s creation of the gift of human freedom that has been squandered and the scourge of evil in the world. The gift given is abused by everyone caught up in webs of personal, social, and structural sin in the world. Yet here it is also important to incorporate the Foucaultian insight that there are anonymous sources of power at work in discourse and identity formation, and in governments and other regimes that wreak havoc on people. It is not simply the result of intentionality, corrupt individuals, or groups making bad collective decisions, but also the playing out of contingencies combined with the choices of unwitting agents, and as a result there can be ambiguous, but no doubt deleterious results. Can we say there is some sort of divine teleology built into the nature of things? Some Christians would claim that one finds here the eschatological teleology of struggle, of wrestling, in everyday life. Even when the struggle does not yield a particular victory over the powers, the agency of individuals and groups in cycles of social decline encounter the power and presence of the divine, the affirmation of human dignity, and the bonds of affection sustained in the struggle that yield courage, hope in long suffering, and joy. The power analysis utilized by community organizers is compatible with that offered by Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong in his recent writings. To use Yong’s earlier formulation drawing on the work of Walter Wink, people involved in community organizing struggle with the absence of the divine in their everyday social life, which in its pernicious form can be identified with the demonic. The biblical language of the powers for Yong, following Wink, illuminates the inner aspect of the reality of the powers that corresponds with the spirituality of institutions, while the outer aspect is the visible structural operations of the institutions. These can be potentially good or evil. But if by individual choices and institutional policies and patterns of behavior have become evil, the destructive powers at work can be identified as demonic in contrast with the power of the Holy Spirit.30 In his later work Yong further develops Wink’s dual-reference theory to interpret the Pauline and Lucan views of the powers as spiritual (inner) and sociopolitical (outer).31 These powers are created, but can become fallen. Can the fallen powers be chastised, corrected, and redeemed in the present age? Or must we wait until the end when these powers will be subjugated to the victory of God in Christ where reconciliation may yet take place? Yong adheres to the eschatological hope that these created powers can be restored to God’s providential plan for creation. These are assumptions that could be shared by community organizers, based on hope tempered by a Christian realism necessary to account for the ongoing nature of the struggle with sin in society. Based on this reflection on the nature of the destructive powers as informed by the contribution of Alinsky and his heirs, while acknowledging the Foucaultian

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proviso, how would our twenty-first-century Evagria name the powers? There is always sufficient reason to identify seven or eight deadly personal sins or evil thoughts as instrumental in the deterioration of the self, the family, the neighborhood, and larger social units. But Evagria’s special contribution would be to speak of a need for a taxonomy of social sins and corresponding destructive powers. Here is a provisional list of what she might include in her list of eight powers that correspond to deadly social sins. ●

(1) Social Oppression. Limitations on freedom and democracy by governments and businesses established through laws, public policies, and practices that privilege the powerful and undermine the power of individuals and groups. (2) Economic Injustice. Unjust distribution of wealth created by global capitalism that justifies corporate greed and the maximization of profits for the few to the detriment of the many. (3) Racism. One group based on racial or ethnic identity traits has a sense of entitlement and privilege over those who are perceived as different to the detriment of these others even to the point of hostility and violence. (4) Sexism and Heterosexism. Prejudice based on gender or sexual orientation that is institutionally embodied. (5) Consumerism and Materialism. The lure of escapism and anesthetization by drugs and alcohol, food, and entertainment, and the pursuit of possessions by disguising the fulfillment of appetites as needs are social and cultural powers promoted by the culture industry, markets, and organized crime. (6) Isolating Individualism. A social malformation that reflects the breakdown of bonds associated with friendship, families, and civil society through the dominance of market forces and the decline of the public realm resulting in social fragmentation. (7) Religious Extremism and Radical Secularism. Prejudice against and hostility toward particular religions or against the influence of all religious claims in the public realm. (8) Fatalism, Apathy, and Nihilism. Individuals and groups who are overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness, which can lead to self-abuse, violence toward others, including those who try to escape the cycle of destitution.

These destructive powers of social and structural sin are incarnated in social bodies, in institutions, in collective patterns of action in certain cases supported by laws and social policies. They are front lines of spiritual conflict in societies. How do groups wrestle with them? Wrestling Strategies Faith-Based Community Organizing trains people to collectively discern the use of power in society and search for strategies of collective action to challenge

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destructive powers and promote human flourishing. In the public arena people exercise their power as citizens by voting and by making their voice heard by those with institutional power through public discourse and collective action. The public realm is composed of systems of government and economic activity, political society, and civil society. Political society is identified with organizations with political goals—“political parties, lobbyists and political action committees, labor unions and business associations.”32 Civil society includes churches, ethnic associations, and civic groups, in other words, “all those organizational settings that are not part of political society or government and in which members of society reflect upon and form values and attitudes regarding their life together, social problems, and the future of society.”33 Faith-Based Community Organizing offers a pedagogy of the Spirit for individuals and groups to discern the spirits at work in society and to name destructive powers. Discernment is cultivated in various ways. First the cultivation of practices of personal discernment are fostered by initiating relationships through one-on-one encounters in which people learn to speak up for the themselves and listen carefully to one another in order to identify each other’s personal and collective aspirations, what disturbs them, the sources of their laments, and what angers them about the way society works. In this way, people determine the legitimate interests of individuals and eventually the shared interests and common good of the community. Second, Faith-Based Community Organizing promotes practices of collective discernment in several interactive groups. At the congregational level, people learn to weigh their concerns and hopes in social justice committees and parish councils composed of a pastor, lay ministers, and representative members of the community. These skills are also developed in ecumenical clergy caucuses, frequently composed of Catholic and Protestant clergy, but in some instances these are interfaith bodies bringing together Christian pastors with faith leaders from other religions, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhist, for example. Clergy share their distinctive faith convictions as they pertain to pressing issues in their communities and come to articulate together a shared religious vision and mission that will provide a framework for addressing their public concerns that can inspire and sustain their collective action. A third group is a federation of various groups, predominantly faith-based congregations, but also unions, housing associations, educational institutions, and other civic groups. Representatives from these various groups are convened on a regular basis to discuss their collective concerns and priorities. Third, in all three of these bodies, collective discernment focuses on how to pick an issue that people agree needs to be addressed and identify a mission target and strategy based on the information learned from the one-on-ones and discussions in parish-based groups, clergy caucuses, and federation councils. The community organizing staff, a core team of organizers, in collaboration with a board of directors representing all the share holders in the organization play an important role in (1) helping “cut an issue,” that is, identify key concerns voiced by these various groups that can be acted upon based on research about

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the issues potential strategic and tactical choices; (2) determining a “target” person or group who makes the decisions pertaining to the prioritized issue, and (3) developing ways to hold this person or group “accountable” by identifying a particular “demand” that needs to be met to respond to the problems being raised.34 Fourth, ritual performances are central features of social action employed by the group. One mode of social action takes place when representatives of the federation, including clergy, organizers, and lay leaders meet with individuals with decision-making authority to talk about the concerns and demands of the people. If the targeted person is not receptive and does not take actions in response to the concerns raised by the group, another mode of collective discourse and action is considered in which members from the congregations are mobilized through rallies, prayer vigils, and public demonstrations. Some rallies serve to foster the resolve of the group and their commitment to advance the issue. Others provide occasions for a public presentation of concerns by means of a ritual performance wherein selected officials (business leaders or government officials) are asked publicly to take a stand on the issue. Another mode of social action is to find a tactic that draws attention to the issue in the public arena. In all of these public performances, the power of the Spirit, the power of the God of justice and life, of conversion and reconciliation, is invoked in prayer, communal song, and public testimonials. These are events in the public realm, but they are deeply spiritual and the power of prayer, the power of God is always invoked.35 Conclusions The inspiration for the argument advanced in this chapter has been Evagrius of Pontus who responded to a request for help in battling with demons that were at work in a monastic community by creating a handbook for talking back to these spirits. Without denying the role of destructive spirits in the lives of individuals, I have concentrated on the destructive powers and spirits at work in societies created by social and structural sin. To challenge these destructive powers at work in social bodies, people must be organized. If these destructive powers are not challenged in our communities through grassroots democratic processes, there is no hope for undermining them. If religious congregations do not promote social justice in the public realm through community organizing, they are left to dispense charitable services. Notes 1. The list treated in “On The Eight Thoughts” in Evagrius of Pontus, The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 66–90; and Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayers, trans. John Etudes Bamberger (Trappist, Kentucky: Cistercian Publications, 1972), Praktikos, nos. 8ff and 16ff. A paper I presented at the 14th Spiritan International School of Theology Missiological Symposium in 2011, and published as “Talking Back, Acting

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3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

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Up: Wrestling with Spirits in Social Bodies,” in Spirits: Occultism, Principalities & Powers, ed. Charles A. Ebelebe (Enugu, Nigeria: San Press, LTD, 2012) has been revised significantly for inclusion in this volume. Evagrius of Pontus, Talking Back (Antirhêtikos): A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, trans. and intro. David Brakke (Trappist, Kentucky: Cistercian Publications, 2009); David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monks: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). As Brakke explains, Evagrius traced this strategy through the Fathers, presumably including Athanasius’ Life of Antony, which portrays Antony engaged in combat with demons, talking back using scriptural passages so as to echo the voice of the Lord himself, and drawing on the Stoic-influenced anthropologies of Origen and Didymus the Blind, which identify proto-passions or first movements in thoughts by means of images and impressions that incite vicious behavior (Talking Back, 17–26). Amos Yong examines three common hermeneutical approaches to “the powers”; see In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 139–45. Originally my chapter focused solely on the demonic powers at work in social bodies as a result of social sin. Thanks to the suggestions from editors of the volume, Amos Yong, Kirsteen Kim, and Veli-Matti Karkeinen, I have acknowledged the importance of the Spirit of God at work through individuals and groups in institutions and collectivities, as such good spirits, advancing social justice and the common good. Sorensen concludes that “the New Testament inherited its demonology from the Hellenistic Jewish environment familiar to Jesus and the first generation of his followers. Although demonic possession appears throughout the New Testament literature, exorcism of demonic spirits appears explicitly only in the writings of the synoptic gospels.” Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2002), 166. Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism, 166. Ibid., 130n76. References: Samson Eitrem, Some Notes on Demonology in the New Testament (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1966); Hans Dieter Betz, “Legion,” in PGM 22.b.35 and 35.15; Richard A Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 184–90; also see Horsley, Jesus and the Powers: Conflict, Covenant, and the Hope of the Poor (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011); and Chad Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1988). For a theological and pastoral proposal for heeding lamentations in the church, see Bradford E. Hinze, “Ecclesial Impasse: What Can We Learn From Our Laments?” Theological Studies 72 (2011): 470–95. In 2001 Mark R. Warren and Richard L. Wood, reported on data they compiled about different religious and non-religious groups in the U.S. involved in Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field. http://comm-org.wisc. edu/papers2001/faith/faith.htm (accessed August 8, 2012). On Black Pentecostals involved in community organizing in Boston, see Omar M. McRoberts, Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). For a brief sketch of John L. Lewis see Sanford D. Worwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy (New York: Random House, 1989; Vintage Edition, 1992), 41–45.

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12. Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946; New York: Vintage, 1989), and Rules for Radicals (New York: Random House, 1971; Vintage Edition, 1989); see also Nicholas von Hoffman, Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky (New York: Nation Books, 2010). 13. On the Industrial Area Foundation, see Edward T. Chambers, Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice (New York: Continuum, 2003); on Ernesto Cortes, IAF, and COPS, see Mary Beth Rogers, Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1999), and Mark R. Warren, Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); on the Gamaliel Foundation, see Dennis A. Jackobsen, Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001); on Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), see Richard L. Wood, Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Luke Bretherton emphasizes Alinsky’s friendship with Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain and the compatibility of his views with Augustine’s theology of the secular, in his Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 71–125. 14. Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field, Part III. This is estimated to be about 1–1.5 percent of all congregations in the country, which experts on civic participation in American history say is as good as any group has achieved numerically while being broad based. 15. Wood, Faith in Action, 68. 16. Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field, Part I. 17. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 132–33. 18. Ibid., 51. 19. Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2010: Democracy in Decline http:// graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf. 20. Greg Galuzzo, Leadership Workshop on Community Organizing, October 16, 2010, St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, Bronx, New York. 21. Edward T. Chambers with Michael A Cowan, Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice (New York: Continuum, 2003), 28. 22. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 200. 23. Bernard Loomer, “Two Conceptions of Power,” Process Studies 6 (Spring 1976): 5–32. 24. Jeffrey Stout, Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 55. This ethnographic study of post-Katrina New Orleans illustrates theoretical arguments advanced in his book Democracy and Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 25. Stout, Blessed are the Organized, 57. 26. Ibid., 302n33. 27. Ibid. 28. Stout believes that Foucault is wrongly inclined to reduce domination to any form of power over people, rather than “the defining trait of relationships in which one person or group is in a position to exercise power arbitrarily over others . . . Exercising power over someone is not necessarily a bad thing, but domination is” (303n33). While this might be true, Stout concedes he has not explored the later works of Foucault that may mitigate or nuance Foucault’s earlier position.

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29. Foucault maintains that this Stoic asceticism was distinct from Christian asceticism, but Faith-Based Community Organizing, I wish to suggest, cultivates this Stoiclike approach to social struggle as a spiritual mode of asceticism. Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Picador, 2005), 322. 30. Amos Yong introduces this topic in his book Discerning the Spirit(s): A PentecostalCharismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions, Journal of Pentecostal Studies, Supplemental Series 20 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 127–32. 31. Yong, In the Days of Caesar, 145–51. 32. Wood, Faith in Action, 127. 33. Ibid. 34. Wood, Faith in Action, 104. These methods are discussed in a variety of sources. Jeffrey Stout gives special attention to accountability in his book Blessed are the Organized. 35. For a discussion of the role of beliefs and prayer in faith-based organizing, see Wood, Faith in Action, 161–94.

CHAPTER 12

Demonization, Discernment, and Deliverance in Interreligious Encounters Tony Richie

Introduction The present chapter focuses on that aspect of the enspirited world often designated as the “demonic.” Further, it pays particular attention to the interreligious context with its all-too-common temptations to demonize religious others. It argues that, whatever the ontological realities behind the various strategies of demonization of other faiths, such practices have real and harmful sociopolitical effects. In short, this is a sociopolitical thesis of sorts rather than an attempt to make any kind of normative theological assessment. That is not to say that this chapter aims to be devoid of all theological content. Doubtless, the theological bent of the author is evident. However, the primary purpose of this writing is not to submit or defend a particular theological perspective on the demonic. Rather, as stated, it presents a certain sociopolitical aspect of interreligious demonization with a view toward effecting change toward a safer, more stable society. In addition to being motivated by sociopolitical rationales, and consonant with a move toward bringing this chapter into the overall volume’s compass, it may be significant to note that although this author is a Pentecostal Christian I am not speaking only to other Pentecostals—which would make for a rather insular discussion in any case. Rather, the presupposition is that where the entire global community is negatively affected by the demonization of religious others it inevitably becomes a matter of universal concern. However, herein the Pentecostal movement serves as an important example of our subject, partly because of its global prominence and distinctive demonologies and partly because of my own best familiarity with the tradition. That having been said, the following begins with some brief background regarding demonization in the religions before proceeding to examine its harmful effects militating against harmonious coexistence in a religiously plural world in select representative contexts. Finally, an attempt to provide suggestive guidance for improving interreligious relations

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through taking seriously the destructive impact of demonization and offering a more viable alternative of dialogue occurs at the end of the chapter. Demonization in World Religions Pentecostal Christian and scholar Ogbu Kalu describes an interreligious environment of foment in Nigeria, Africa.1 Most memorably, there is a great deal of physical violence, often with fatalities, and it is increasing in the midst of a weak political system.2 Much of the tumult is traceable to tensions between Christians and Muslims, in particular between Pentecostal Christians and Muslims. Kalu identifies “the lack of a viable Pentecostal theology of dialogue” in a pluralistic public space as a major aspect of the problem.3 He describes “a rising crescendo of religious violence” that occurs in a context of religious pluralism, Islamic political radicalization, economic competition, and clashing fundamentalist groups (Christian and Islamic) in which the demonization of Islam in Pentecostal rhetoric becomes a detonator.4 Notably, a strong plural presence of Pentecostals and Muslims without dialogue coupled with demonizing rhetoric toward the other is a recipe for religious violence. As will be seen, that disastrous scenario is often replicated elsewhere with others. The dangers of demonization are particularly potent with those for whom the demonic realm is ever near and always in mind. Christian theologians learn from historians of religions that traditional religious cultures from primitive times allotted significant space for the demonic realm and its inhabitants in an ageless battle for cosmic order combined with efforts to repel a dreaded demonic invasion.5 Apparently, fascination with demon spirits was universal in early cultures.6 Convictions regarding the reality of demons have continued through the passage of time. Although the following focuses on the Abrahamic religious traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—it is important to note that not only the Abrahamic traditions but also the religions of Egypt, Babylonia, Iran, Greece, Rome, India, China, and Japan, including Buddhism, have assumed that “hosts of evil spirits,” that is, demons, “worked with and against” human beings.7 Christianity inherited from Judaism an extensive demonology as well as an inclination, a departure from the norm among ancient religions, to identify demons as explicitly and exclusively evil.8 Islam affirmed belief in jinn, an order of spirits lower than the angels that may, however, exhibit greater moral ambiguities, and are able to exert spiritual influence on human beings.9 A pattern appears among world religions of associating religious rivals with demonic activity or influence, that is, of demonizing other religions. In postapostolic times, some Christian apologists traced the pre-Christian rise of pagan (polytheistic) religions to demonic activity or influence.10 Tendencies to identify so-called Christian based “cults” as demonic, at least at the popular level, continue to this day.11 However, demonization of other religions is not an entirely Christian phenomenon. For one instance, Islam traces idolatry and superstition to satanic deception playing upon the abuse of human freewill.12 Jinn may choose Islam and thus be good jinn. Or they may reject the one God and are clearly

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evil. Jinn may also choose one of the revealed religions other than Islam, such as Christianity or Judaism. These last have a morally ambiguous status.13 Implicitly, adherents of non-Islamic religions are assessed as under either outright evil or at least questionable spiritual influences. Unfortunately, the practice of demonizing religious others is not relegated to the religious past. Further, the harmful effects of a respective religion or religions demonizing religions other than their own, and therefore, all too often often, justifying the use of force and violence against those faiths perceived as inherently evil, must be addressed quite apart from modern theological assessments regarding the ontological reality of such beings. As the research of sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer indicates, demonization, or satanization, continues to be a means for some religious extremists to identify and describe those they perceive as enemy.14 It may even occur among rivals within the same general religious tradition, as with the satanization of Catholics by certain Irish Protestants.15 Or it may occur in interreligious contexts driven by sociopolitical concerns, as in the violent rhetoric of Osama bin Laden against America—or the “axis of evil.”16 In any case, in sociological terms satanization or demonization of one’s enemy often involves a process of constructing a cosmic battle between good and evil empowering oneself while reducing the power and discrediting the character of an opponent.17 This kind of worldview ultimately contributes to symbolic acts of violence performed as part of a cosmic struggle.18 The demonization of others becomes surprisingly easy when an individual or group feels deeply threatened.19 Significantly, demonizing the other in cosmic battle between good and evil can create a climate for combat through martyrdom that inevitably contributes to cycles of sacrificial violence.20 Harvard terrorism expert Jessica Stern utilizes Dostoyevsky’s 1871 novel The Demons to illustrate how young Muslim men may be seduced through attractively packaged bad ideas linked with aspirations for heroism against a foe perceived as responsible for the humiliation of their religion.21 Ironically, the “real demons” are the manipulators of the naive and the perpetrators of violence through demonizing others in pursuit of an evil agenda mostly driven by economics and politics. Today the American way of life, for an obvious example, is caricatured as motivated by evil and satanically inspired in order to justify force and violence against the United States.22 However, from another angle the Christian understanding of Satan as the arch-nemesis of all that is good, or the personification of all that is evil, has functioned throughout history as a way to demonize perceived opponents of Christianity, including Jews, pagans, and even Christian heretics.23 Stern argues that since those who demonize others see themselves as saints and martyrs then their attack is not only physical but it also involves psychological and spiritual warfare. Therefore, she argues, a psychological and spiritually informed response is required.24 A similar assumption undergirds this chapter. Pentecostal-Type Groups Demonizing the Religions25 The early-twentieth-century rise of the global Pentecostal revivalist-restorationist movement probably contributed most to increased attentiveness to the demonic

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and deliverance/exorcism beliefs and practices.26 The mid-twentieth-century rise of the Charismatic Renewal movement added further impetus through spiritual warfare theology, teaching that “malevolent beings conspire against God and human beings”; and, that Christians should actively oppose them through public prayers and exorcisms.27 Pentecostal theologian Stanley Horton suggests attendant confusion about the demonic necessitates careful treatment.28 Need for clarification may be especially acute in perceptions toward other religions since Amos Yong suggests Pentecostals have changed traditional definitions of discernment regarding distinguishing the Holy Spirit in general and pagan or demonic spirits in non-Christians religions in particular.29 Regarding religious affiliation and the demonic, a few patterns appear among Pentecostals. Most strongly disagree with the teaching that Christians can be “demonized.”30 However, they usually accept that the occult and witchcraft are satanic by nature.31 Some stop short of attributing adherence to Islam to direct demonic control but triumphantly describe superior Pentecostal power to exorcise demons through the Holy Spirit.32 Pentecostals often view Judaism more positively than Islam and frequently interpret the restoration of the modern State of Israel in terms of prophetic fulfillment; a few, such as Derek Prince, reject replacement theology, or the teaching that the Christian covenant supersedes the Jewish covenant thus completely abrogating any continuing relevance.33 Pentecostal television personality John Hagee is an example of “dual covenant theology” as well.34 Hagee generally exhibits very negative depictions of Islam as opponents of Israel,35 and accuses Allah of cooperating with Satan and demons to lead people into Hell.36 For Hagee, the world is locked with radical Islam in a battle for survival.37 He further insists Christians should politically support the modern State of Israel in what appears to be nearly unqualified terms.38 Finally, he describes the world as on the brink of Armageddon—a final climatic battle for world supremacy for which America and Christianity are advised to prepare in advance—not only spiritually, but militarily.39 In sensationalist titles like Can America Survive? John Hagee frequently emphasizes the demonic element in political events and makes direct comparisons to the Antichrist and the battle of Armageddon.40 However, he also clearly recognizes that extreme Islamist radicals like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad perceive of American Christians themselves as part of a satanic empire.41 In any case, although Hagee does not directly advocate individual violent acts, his fiery rhetoric on the Middle East coupled with a hard line political stance on American military intervention could arguably become a recipe for global violence. Much of this dangerous combination appears to be fueled by an enduring and indiscriminate demonization of Islam.42 While it might be argued that Hagee and those with similar views do not reflect the phobias identified above from the work of Juergensmeyer and Stern that typically involve religious violence derived from demonizing religious others, this could be a superficial assessment. True, American Christians, including Pentecostals, as a rule probably do not feel humiliated and threatened by Islam in the same sense that a young Muslim man in the Middle East might feel toward

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America and Christians. However, two things might contribute to a tendency by some American Christians to demonize Islam and thereby, perhaps inadvertently, pave the way for religious violence: first, a sense of absolute identification with Israel, a tiny state surround by threatening forces, and, second, a sense of vulnerability subsequent to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. If either or both of these are construed as driven primarily by Islamic religion then they could involve said dynamics of demonization and power manipulation from the American Christian perspective. In any case, demonization of religious others can be a dangerous bilateral problem. If a group of American Christians on the one hand and group of Middle Eastern Muslims on the other hand demonize one another, then, depending on the influence and ability of either or both, the consequences could be catastrophic. Prince and Hagee are not representative of all Pentecostals in their unconditional approbation of Israel or automatic demonization of Islam. Contemporary Pentecostal scholars such as Eric Newberg are stridently challenging such “Pentecostal Zionism.”43 According to Newberg, Pentecostal Zionism leads to “philosemitism,” but also to caricaturing Islam as “a devil-inspired faith,” and to tragic consequences, perhaps fostering Islamophobia.44 At times, Pentecostal missionaries have been oppositional to religions they encountered in the Middle East, considering their own faith to be superior to Judaism and Islam, the latter being described as satanically inspired, and have behaved aggressively and exclusively even toward Eastern Christianity.45 Of course, demonization of religious others is not confined geographically to the United States or the Middle East. Various Pentecostal-type groups go even farther in demonizing other faiths—and with disastrous consequences. Cephas Omenyo traces recent intensification of violent hostilities, often resulting in persecution and death, between Christians and Muslims in Ghana and Nigeria to an upsurge of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches demonizing Muslims and emphasizing deliverance practices.46 Unfortunately, Omenyo’s example is not an exception. Yong suggests demonization of religious others, with dire consequences, is a pressing and prevalent problem among Renewal (read Pentecostal-type) groups.47 Nor is demonization or its consequences confined to encounters with Islam. Brazilian Pentecostalism, particularly the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) denomination, a fast-growing but controversial movement, has consistently practiced exorcism on their converts from Umbanda.48 However, important to understand is that for the UCKG, demons are such a prominent part of daily life and their sense of mission is so particularly understood as doing battle against the demonic that it may even include their own members.49 The UCKG is an exceedingly complicated entity with not only religious but intertwining economic, political, and racial dynamics.50 Nevertheless, their demonization of others certainly generates tension. Demonization may be part of a complex cultural strategy. Thus Kirk Dombrowski documents Pentecostal demonization of Native American cultures.51 In this case, Native Americans survive as an oppressed minority. The

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situation is different among Nigerian Pentecostals. Demonization serves as a strategy for discrediting rival religions, like Islam or paganism, and for denouncing a cultural past considered to be a source of oppressive control.52 Christian conversion therefore becomes part of “a mode of socio-political collective advancement.”53 However, political responses to Pentecostal demonization of Islam can occur in the form of official “aggression, censure, or violence” against Pentecostals by the predominately Islamic government.54 Therefore, demonization is not merely a method of promoting violence against others by those who identify them as in some sense demonic but also part of a vicious cycle that can result in retaliatory violence. In such contexts, even Hinduism and Buddhism, often assumed to be tolerant and nonviolent, have become increasingly militant and evangelistic.55 Why are some Pentecostals so prone to demonize other religions? It may be helpful to identify contributing factors to their tendency of attributing to the demonic that which they encounter in their religious and societal contexts. The extensive anthropological fieldwork of Wilma Wells Davies in Argentina is informative in this regard.56 She suggests that Argentine and Latin American Pentecostalism, and perhaps beyond, has built upon a cosmology resonating with a “pre-existing popular religious worldview” that helps explain both its phenomenal growth and perceptions of spiritual power.57 As her title The Embattled but Empowered Community indicates, this cosmology, including a prevalent demonology, contributes to a religious identity in which spiritual power is understood as enabling and equipping the community of believers to achieve triumph when it perceives itself to be under attack from evil forces. Belief in cosmic entities as sources of power coupled with a pragmatic attempt to harness these powers for personal benefit sets the stage for a tendency to demonize opponents in an attempt to claim some sort of victory over them.58 Daily Christian life is therefore perceived as a global battle with the domain of evil (i.e., Satan and demons). Mark Cartledge suggests that Davies’ work is a good start that needs more follow-up and confirmation.59 Hans Geir Aasmundsen suggests that Davies is correct to an extent but her work is incomplete because it does not consider other factors (e.g., evangelism and ecclesial mission).60 Neither Cartledge nor Aasmundsen challenges her basic thesis, however. For the purposes of this study, arguably anthropological-cultural and sociopolitical components of Pentecostal cosmologies/demonologies can contribute to complex interreligious environments with potentially disastrous consequences. Spiritual Warfare/Mapping Movement Prominent deliverance ministries in the so-called spiritual warfare movement in Third Wave (Pentecostal-type) circles especially exhibit troubling tendencies to demonize other religions. Spiritual warfare refers to conflict with evil spirits and employs concepts like “territorial spirits” and “spiritual mapping” as part of deliverance/exorcism practices.61 George Otis, a pioneer in the movement, expresses particular concerns about demonic forces in Islam.62 Peter Wagner is

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without doubt the primary leader in the spiritual warfare/mapping movement.63 He indicates that when Satanists, Native American shamans, Hindus, and even Catholics (when praying to Mary or the saints) pray, they are in reality petitioning evil spirits.64 Satanism, witchcraft, Freemasonry, Eastern religions, shamanism, astrology, and any form of occultism are driven by demonic forces and are targets for spiritual warfare.65 Wagner admits that “non-Christian animism” may have “a mixture of truth, spiritual deception, and many stages in between.”66 Because human beings are created in the image of God they all have a spiritual dimension that may at times give them spiritual information that may be correct but distorted.67 He suggests that “it seems more reasonable to assume that each tradition might reflect some true aspects of reality, but have varying degrees of distortion.”68 Accordingly, testing all things (1 Thess. 5:21) is necessary and requires “enlightenment” from the Sovereign God.69 Indeed, some have a special charism from the Holy Spirit enabling them to identify the nature of various spirits—a critical, although not infallible, ability at times of deceptive demonic confrontation (1 Co 12:10).70 Wagner teaches that there are three levels of spiritual warfare: ground-level dealing with demonic deliverance of individuals, occult-level dealing with the powers of darkness operative through the New Age, Satanism, Eastern religions, witchcraft, and so on, and strategic-level (or cosmic-level) dealing against territorial powers.71 Wagner does not specifically identify major world religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism as inevitably demonic, but often employs the catchall “Eastern religions” in a way that surely encompasses at least some of them.72 He specifically identifies African traditional religions as likely demonic.73 Wagner builds on incidents in Acts 19 involving demonic possession, exorcism, and occult encounters through magical arts in support of spiritual warfare against religious superstition, recounting numerous contemporary parallels.74 He attributes deliverance from demonic superstitious practices to amazing turnarounds in whole communities.75 Wagner insists that the Holy Spirit’s power enables believers to overcome the strong man (Satan/demon) who binds human beings.76 Therefore, being filled with the Holy Spirit (in a Pentecostal-type way) is essential for power over demons.77 Concerns about Wagner and the spiritual warfare/mapping movement include potential harmfulness in religiously plural contexts. Asian Pentecostal theologian Samuel Hio-Kee Ooi critiques Wagner and the spiritual warfare/mapping movement in the context of traditional Chinese religions.78 Ooi does not deny demonic activity in his religiously plural context but neither does he equate Chinese religions with demonic possession; they have developed prescribed systematic ways of dealing with the problem of the demonic.79 Against a background of theological and practical objections to Wagnerian demonology, including weak scriptural support and irresponsible syncretism, Ooi concludes that its use is seriously detrimental to Christian identity and mission in the Chinese religious context.80

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René Holvast has provided a comprehensive historical-descriptive approach of the spiritual mapping movement with attention to theological and anthropological concepts.81 He concludes that the practice of spiritual mapping is a global export of an extreme Americanized version of Evangelical spirituality that is theologically weak and displays questionable integration with the social sciences, most notably, with anthropology.82 Amos Yong suggests that the Americanism aspect of Holvast’s thesis, while perhaps obvious to a point, overreaches the evidence and becomes distracting.83 However, the historical and theological analysis is its strength.84 Assessing the impact of spiritual mapping practices on relations with religious others is the present concern. Holvast describes the consistent tendencies of spiritual mapping advocates to demonize any and all non-Christian religions.85 Oddly enough, at least some of them also assumed that their work would eventually help bring about reconciliation between the monotheistic religions.86 Nevertheless, other leading proponents of spiritual mapping have described the religions as destructive systems inspired by satanic or demonic deceit for the express purpose of luring humanity away from the true God.87 Christian mission therefore becomes by its very definition exclusive in its self-understanding and confrontational toward other religions.88 Historical and anthropological data about the religions themselves might even be erratically utilized to justify and qualify these exclusive and aggressive attitudes and the activities they spawn.89 Again oddly, spiritual mapping itself may derive to an extent from an implicit theology of religions that encourages religious syncretism.90 Spiritual mapping appears especially susceptible to syncretism with popular folk religions through common cosmologies (i.e., demonologies).91 Nevertheless, the relations of the religions are conceived of as competitive power encounters that must be won by Christianity.92 Again, Christian mission becomes by nature combative and confrontational.93 Diminishing the Dangers of Demonization The preceding builds a case, based on the evidence of global interaction among the religions, with Pentecostal-type Christians serving as a kind of representative case study, that the tendencies of religious adherents to demonize those of other religions has serious and devastating consequences of a sociopolitical nature. Most notably, these destructive consequences include physical violence. They also include various forms of discrimination and impoverishment as well as other inhumane activities. Therefore, the following offers brief suggestions for a course of action designed to help minimize tendencies to demonize. They are only brief suggestions that must be followed up on later with more depth and detail but hopefully they will point in the direction necessary to overcome demonization and its destructive consequences for human life and happiness. First, we must revisit the diversity of scriptural teaching on religions in the context of demonization. For all of the talk in this chapter about temporarily setting aside the theological considerations, it is not realistic to expect those who revere the Bible as divinely inspired and authoritative to make dramatic changes

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unless convinced it will be consistent with biblical teaching.94 Second, we must enlist the best resources of Christian theology for development and refinement in our understanding of what it means to inhabit an enspirited world.95 Again, our worldview is determinative for our way of being in the world and, thus, for Christians must be guided by coherent Christian thought. Third, we must assist each other in learning to discern together that which is liberating and life giving and life sustaining (or not) wherever (or with whoever) it may (or may not) be discovered.96 If the sociopolitical consequences of demonization are destructive and ultimately deadly, then their curtailment ought to nourish life and enable liberty. A positive Pentecostal example may be in order. Pentecostal missiologist Corky Alexander tackles religious syncretism among Native Americans interested in contextualizing their Christian faith through the use of traditional tribal practices in Pentecostal worship.97 Without risking attractive detours regarding specific (and fascinating) practices—namely, the use of language, smudging, drums and rattles, dance, talking circles, and ceremony—I here focus rather on the topic of the demonic and discernment that inevitably arises. According to Alexander, Native American Pentecostals willingly admit that many practices from the pagan past are demonic in nature and in turn call for critical discernment in distinguishing between those and other practices deemed to have ongoing redemptive and liturgical value.98 They thus integrate beneficial practices that were given to them by the Creator in their pre-Christian journey.99 There is a careful distinction between cultural practices, which are gray or neutral, the demonic, which is evil, and that which has positive spiritual content and is considered worthy of retention.100 The practice of spiritual discernment is an important part of this process, especially regarding shamanistic elements of traditional religion.101 Alexander also postulates a place for cultural anthropology, biblical hermeneutics, and the transforming power of religious practices.102 Pentecostal pneumatology seems particularly apropos for the Native American context, although only Native American Christians appear fully qualified to discern their own communities.103 Alexander argues for Pentecostals to adopt an integration of critical contextualization and spiritual discernment in evaluating the use of traditional religious practices in Pentecostal worship.104 These Native American Pentecostal Christians, dealing with demonization through discerning deliverance in their diverse religious context, exemplify the theological and spiritual sensitivity and wisdom appropriate for other kinds of interreligious encounters as well. Conclusion The argument in this chapter is primarily sociopolitical. Of course, there is also need for more explicitly theological consideration but those will be saved for another venue. It has been the thesis of this chapter that even if we temporarily set aside theological considerations as to the ontological reality of the demonic or the absolute nature of a respective religion, the drastic sociopolitical consequences of the demonization of religious others are clearly too severe to

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allow their continuance. Forcing anyone anywhere to live in constant fear of religiously motivated violence is not to be condoned. This study concludes that abandonment of demonization and commitment to dialogue are essential. They are essential for interreligious relations. They are essential for human safety and security. They are essential for life. Demonizing rhetoric is inflammatory but dialogue is conciliatory. In closing please allow me to draw on my personal faith perspective. Scripture says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Prov 15:1, NRSV). Should not Jews, Christians, Muslims and others use language that deflects angry violence rather than that which infects human hearts with religious rage? Scripture also says, “The tongue of the wise dispenses knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly” (v. 2). In a world of multiple religious faiths coexisting in close proximity dialogue with each other is wise. Demonizing rhetoric, talk that stirs up trouble and strife, is foolish. Should not Pentecostals, and other Christians, as well as those of other religious faith traditions, work together to save rather than destroy lives? I think so. Notes 1. Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 2. Ibid., 225. 3. Ibid., 225–26. 4. Ibid., 226. 5. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred & the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), 29, 49. 6. Shirley Jackson Case, “Spirits and Demonology,” An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York; Philosophical Library, 1945): 223. 7. A. Eustace Hayden, “Spirits,” An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York; Philosophical Library, 1945): 731–32 (731). 8. Case, “Spirits,” 223. The Kabbalist belief that certain “Jewish spirits” might be considered “good-natured devils” who believe the Torah and are benevolent toward humans, Scholem, “In Kabbalah,” seems marginal in the overall Judaic tradition. 9. Paul E. Johnson, “Jinn,” An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York; Philosophical Library, 1945): 396. Cp. “Abdullah Y¯usuf ” Al¯ı, The Meaning of the Holy Qu’ran (Beltsville, Maryland: Amana, 2002), note 929, 6:100 (323). 10. Eliade, Sacred & Profane, 222–26 (223–24). 11. J. Lee Grady, “Sun Myung Moon, Mormons and America’s Biggest Cult,” in “Fire in My Bones,” Charisma Magazine (9–5–2012): http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/ fire-in-my-bones/15550-sun-myung-moon-mormons-and-america-s-biggest-cult# readmore. Nevertheless, Grady denounces hate speech against Muslims and others, including “Islam is of the Devil” slogans, “Why Terry Jones Doesn’t Speak for Me,” Charisma Magazine (9-19-2012): http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/fire-in-mybones/15582-why-terry-jones-doesn-t-speak-for-me#readmore. 12. Al¯ı, Meaning of the Holy Qu’ran, notes 628–30 on 4:117–21 (223–24). Cp S¯urah 5:90–91 and S¯urah 28:15. Al¯ı suggests this is not incompatible with an anthropological view of the origin of “Ancient Forms of Pagan Worship” in which distorted

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

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and misplaced human emotional and psychological needs are at work, 1538–42. Cp S¯urah 71:23. Robert Lebling and Tahir Shah, Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (), 22. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd ed. (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California, 2003), 164–86. Ibid., 173. Ibid., 182. Ibid., 182–83. Ibid., 185–86. Ibid., 172. Ibid., 165–70. Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 263–64. Ibid., xviii. Ibid., xxvii. Here Stern builds on the work of Elaine Pagels in The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics (New York: Vintage Books, 1996). Stern, Terror in the Name of God, xxviii. I borrow the broad designation “Pentecostal-type” from Cephas N. Omenyo, “Renewal, Christian Mission, and Encounter with the Other: Pentecostal-Type Movements Meeting Islam in Ghana and Nigeria,” 137–56, Global Renewal, Religious Pluralism, and The Great Commission: Towards a Renewal Theology of Mission and Interreligious Encounter (Global Renewal), ed. Amos Yong and Clifton Clarke (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2011), 148–53, to designate a diverse group with similar pneumatologies and charismologies. On distinctions within and around Pentecostalism, see Alan Anderson, “Pentecostalism,” 641–48, Global Dictionary of Theology (GDT ), ed. William A. Dryness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, assoc ed. Juan Francisco Martinez and Simon Chan (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008). Robert M. Solomon, “Healing and Deliverance,” GDT, 361–68, and Alan Anderson, “Pentecostalism,” 641–48, GDT, 646. Cp. John Christopher Thomas, The Devil, Disease, and Deliverance (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2011). Gilbert, “Spiritual Warfare,” GDT, 847. Stanley M. Horton, Foreword, Opal L. Reddin, ed. Power Encounter: A Pentecostal Perspective (Springfield, MO: Central Bible College Press, 1999 rvsd), viii. Amos Yong, “Discernment, Discerning the Spirits,” 232–35, GDT, 234. Opal Reddin, “Introduction,” Power Encounter, 1–17. Derek Prince, They Shall Expel Spirits: What You Need to Know about Spirits—Your Invisible Enemies (Grand Rapids: Chosen, 1998), is a notable exception, 142–44. Ibid., “Conclusion,” Power Encounter, 324–35 (326). Cp. Prince, They Shall Expel Spirits, 113, 129. Jesse Moon, “Power Encounter in Evangelism,” Reddin, Power Encounter, 302–23 (302–03). Derek Prince Promised Land: God’s Word and the Nation of Israel (Derek Prince Ministries-International, 2003) 55. John Hagee, In Defense of Israel (Lake Mary, FL: Frontline, 2007 rvsd ed), esp. chapter 10. Ibid., chapter 7. Ibid., 60–61.

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37. John Hagee, Earth’s Final Moments: Powerful Insights and Understanding of the Prophetic Signs that Surround Us (2011), 23–32. 38. Ibid., 89–104. 39. Ibid., 105–12. 40. John Hagee, Can America Survive? Updated Edition: Startling Revelations and Promises of Hope (New York: Howard Books, 2010), 221, 217, 222, 228. 41. Ibid., 141. 42. Hagee tends to speak of “radical Islam” and “Islam” without differentiation. For example, Earth’s Final Moments, 7, 24, 27, 28, 29. 43. Eric Nelson Newberg, The Pentecostal Mission in Palestine: The Legacy of Pentecostal Zionism (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012). See Newberg’s discussion of Prince, who married a Pentecostal missionary in Palestine, chapter 9. 44. Ibid., 212, 215. 45. Ibid., 216. 46. Omenyo, “Renewal, Christian Mission, and Encounter with the Other,” 148–53 (esp. 152–53). 47. Amos Yong, “From Demonization to Kin-domization: The Witness of the Spirit and the Renewal of Missions in a Pluralistic World,” Global Renewal, 157–74, 158–60. 48. Allan Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 70. 49. Waldo César, “From Babel to Pentecost: A Social-Historical-Theological Study of the Growth of Pentecostalism,” 22–40, in Andre Corten and Ruth R. MarshalFratani, eds., Between Babel and Pentecost: The Transnationalisation of Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (Bloomington, IN: University Press, 2001), 34. 50. Paul Freston, “The Transnationalisation of Brazilian Pentecostalism: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God,” 196–215, Corten and Marshal-Fratani, Between Babel and Pentecost. 51. Kirk Dombrowski, Against Culture: Development, Politics, and Religion (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001). 52. Ruth Marshall-Frantani, “Mediating the Global and the Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism,” 80–105, Corten and Marshal-Fratani, Between Babel and Pentecost, 87–88. 53. Marshall-Frantani, “Mediating the Global and the Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism,” 88. Cp. J.D.Y. Peel, “For Who Hath Despised the Day of Small Things? Missionary Narratives and Historical Anthropology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37:3 (1995). 54. Marshall-Frantani, “Mediating the Global and the Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism,” 104. 55. Michael Pocock, Gailyn Van Reheenen, and Douglas Mcconnell, The Changing Face of World Missions: Emerging Contemporary Issues and Trends (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), pp. 80, 94–95. 56. Wilma Wells Davies, The Embattled but Empowered Community: Comparing Understandings of Spiritual Power in Argentine Popular and Pentecostal Cosmologies, (Brill, Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies 5, 2010). 57. Ibid., 4. 58. Ibid., 47. 59. Mark J. Cartledge, “Review of The Embattled but Empowered Community: Comparing Understandings of Spiritual Power by Wilma Wells Davies,” Mental Health,

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61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

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Religion, and Culture 15:5 (2012), 551–52 (552). in Argentine Popular and Pentecostal Cosmologies (Brill, Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies 5, 2010) Hans Geir Aasmundsen, “Review of The Embattled but Empowered Community: Comparing Understandings of Spiritual Power by Wilma Wells Davies,” PentecoStudies: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Research on the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 11:2 (2012), 238–39, available online at http://www.glopent.net/pentecostudies/issues/2012-vol-11/no-2-autumn. Gilbert, “Spiritual Warfare,” 847–48, and Yong, “Discernment,” 234. George Otis, Jr., The Last of the Giants: Lifting the Veil on Islam and the End Times (Grand Rapids: Chosen, 1991), and Informed Intercession: Transforming Your Community through Spiritual Mapping and Strategic Prayer (Berrien Springs, MI: Renew, 1999). C. Peter Wagner, Spiritual Warfare Strategy: Confronting the Powers (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny, 2011). Ed Murphy’s The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare: Revised and Updated (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003) is an exhaustive treatment of the topic. Wagner, Spiritual Warfare Strategy, 192. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 64. Ibid. Ibid., original italics. Ibid., 64, 65. Ibid., 65, 66, and 142. Wagner, Spiritual Warfare Strategy, 253. Ibid., 23, 143, and 253. Ibid., 167. C. H. Kraft, “Spiritual Warfare: A Neocharismatic Perspective,” New International Dictionary Pentecostal Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess, assoc. ed. Eduard M. Van Der Maas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 1091–96, adds idolatry, divinization, ancestor worship, and reincarnation, 1093, 1096. Wagner, Spiritual Warfare Strategy, 210–11. Ibid., 211–12. Ibid., 143–44. Ibid., 161. Samuel Hio-Kee Ooi, “A Study of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare from a Chinese Perspective,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies, 9:1 (January 2006): 143–61. Ibid., 143–45. Ibid., 160–61. René Holvast’s 2008 dissertation, “Spiritual Mapping: The Turbulent Career of a Contested American Missionary Paradigm, 1989–2005,” http://igitur-archive. library.uu.nl/dissertations/2008–0710–200706/holvast.pdf, has been published as Spiritual Mapping in the United States and Argentina, 1989–2005: A Geography of Fear (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic, 2008). Holvast, “Spiritual Mapping,” 207–25. Amos Yong, “Review of René Holvast, Spiritual Mapping in the United States and Argentina, 1989–2005: A Geography of Fear,” Religious Studies Review 37:1 (2011), 32–33. Ibid., 33. Holvast, “Spiritual Mapping,” 145. Ibid., 78. Ibid., 142, 144, and 237.

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95.

96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

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Ibid., 154. Ibid., 159–60 and 167. Ibid., 189 and 241. Ibid., 192 and 197. Ibid., 198. Ibid., 221. See, for example, Graham H. Twelftree, In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among the Early Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007); French L. Arrington, The Spirit-Anointed Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of Luke (Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press, 2008), 214–15; Yong, “From Demonization to Kin-domization,” 160–68; Gordon D. Fee, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians, gen. ed. F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 471–72; Marion L. Soards, New International Biblical Commentary: 1 Corinthians (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1999), 210; Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS): New Testament VII: 1–2 Corinthians, ed. Gerald Bray, gen. ed. Thomas c. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 98; Anthony Palma, “1 Corinthians,” Full Life Bible Commentary to the New Testament: An International Commentary for Spirit-Filled Christians (FLBCNT ), ed. French L. Arrington and Roger Stronstad (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 799–913 (858). See, for example, Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963, 1979), 53–55, and “The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion,” Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T &T Clark, 1936–69), I/2 (trans. G.T. Thomson and H. Knight, 1956), 280. Cp. David L. Meuller, Makers of the Modern Theological Mind: Karl Barth (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1976), 91–93. Cf. Herbert Hartwell, The Theology of Karl Barth (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 87–88; Guy P. Duffield and N.M. Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology (Los Angeles: L.I.F.E. Bible College, 1983, 1987), 459–510; and French L. Arrington, Christian Doctrine: A Pentecostal Perspective, volume three (Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press, 1994), 149–50; and J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, three volumes in one (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 2:257–63. For example, see Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield, Eng: Sheffield Academic, 2000); Tony Richie, Speaking by the Spirit: A Pentecostal Model for Interreligious Dialogue (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2011); and Eldin Villafañe, The Liberating Spirit: Toward a Hispanic American Pentecostal Social Ethic (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993). Corky Alexander, Native American Pentecost: Praxis, Contextualization, Transformation (Cleveland, TN: Cherohala, 2012). Ibid., 47–48. Ibid., 78–79. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 91–92. Ibid., 92–94. Ibid., 110, 129. Ibid., 145–50.

PART IV

The Spirits of Nature and the Cosmos

CHAPTER 13

The Spirit in Evolution and in Nature Philip Clayton

S

uppose for a moment that, as theists believe, an eternal divine Spirit really did create this cosmos. Suppose that it was God’s intent to produce beings capable of knowing God and working in harmony with the Spirit. Suppose, further, that it was also God’s intent that they should do so not as machines but as imago Dei—creatures made in the image of God, agents who are freely responding to the divine lure. Some readers will believe that these three assumptions are actually true; others will hold that they are false. I will not try to offer proofs for or against these views, which philosophers refer to collectively as personalist theism. Instead, we shall concentrate on the implications of holding this set of beliefs. For those of us who are theists and also give any credence to the scientific study of the world, the evidence is overwhelming that God has chosen to achieve these goals through a long process of natural evolution. Perhaps God could have achieved these goals by creating the planets and all living things immediately, with six clicks of his fingers, as it were; or perhaps it was necessary that God use this more open-ended process that allowed for contingency, natural laws, and the agency of living beings. Christopher Southgate has argued powerfully for the latter answer, and Steven Knapp and I have also made the case that answering the problem of evil requires a long and indirect process of creation through evolution.1 Whether or not we are right about the necessity of evolution, the fact of evolution—whatever the final theory of evolution should turn out to be—seems incontestable. Moreover, the evidence is strong that this process of the gradual evolution of species can be scientifically reconstructed. (This too could have been otherwise.) The amazing growth of observation and analysis techniques in microbiology has allowed us to reconstruct the lineages of species with amazing precision, and a new field called population genetics is allowing us to trace the biological history of individual humans. For these and other reasons, it would be unwise to bet against the growth and increasing precision of evolutionary biology today. The next 10–20 years will bring amazing knowledge of how life originated, how

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more and more complex life forms arose in response to diverse ecosystems, and how the specific characteristics of particular populations evolved. There is no question that humans have biological tendencies to think and respond in particular ways—tendencies that to go far beyond the general features of sexual and aggressive drives. If you live another 20 years and pay even marginal attention to progress in scientific research, you will learn things from biologists about our brains, our bodies, and even our personalities that no human ever knew before. I do not believe that scientific progress will ever render theology invalid. But the developments of the coming years will make theologians work hard and think creatively, leading us to new reflections about our scriptural heritage and about some of the conclusions that the theological tradition has reached over the centuries. Knowledge of God as Self-revealing Spirit and knowledge of the evolving natural world are complementary, and those who wish to acquire a comprehensive understanding of humans and the universe must allow the two to work in partnership. If we think carefully about both the scientific and the theological requirements for this partnership, we can recognize how the two sides of this discussion mutually limit and constrain each other. Of course, scientists and theologians have sometimes chafed at their respective limitations. Crucial lessons can be learned, however, from the epistemic limits that the natural sciences have encountered and from the indirect ways that God’s Spirit works. In the following pages I seek to understand how the Spirit works “in, with, and under” the natural order and why it is important to discern this “deeper pneumatology” of Creation. My core thesis is that the perspective of “emergent complexity” that has arisen over the last few decades offers a more adequate and productive framework for discerning the deeper pneumatology than the framework that preceded it. Rather than writing abstractly about theories of emergence—sufficient treatments of that subject already exist2 —I wish to focus on a very specific question: what can biological emergence tell us about the “spirits” of the natural world and about the Spirit of the Self-revealing God? The Evolution of Agents Hindu theologians are famous for defending panpsychism, the view that all things that exist are permeated by and exist as spirit (Brahman). My process philosophy friends, influenced by the panpsychist Alfred North Whitehead, also affirm that all reality exists as a collection of self-determining individual moments called “actual occasions.” (Following the suggestion of David Ray Griffin, they now prefer to call this position panexperientialism.3 ) While I owe much to process theology, I believe that we can still affirm an initial creation by God and the existence of a human species that has the capacity to engage in relationship with God, without panpsychism. What God first created, it appears, was a quantum world, a world of subatomic mass energy. The quantum world had within it, like a seed, the potential

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to form stable atoms; atoms have the potential to form the strong chemical bonds that produce stable molecules; and molecules have the potential to produce and maintain self-reproducing cells. Biologically speaking, life began when these self-reproducing cells came into existence, because at that point the mechanisms of random (genetic) variation and selective retention by the environment first began to operate. Where exactly awareness or consciousness first arose is a matter of significant debate. Perhaps the first cells already had a rudimentary form of awareness, though there is no scientific reason to suppose that they were conscious. But on one thing virtually all biologists would agree: there is no scientific reason to imagine that preliving collections of molecules—nonliving chemical compounds—would possess awareness or consciousness. In the last paragraph I wrote of “potentials,” but what does this word really mean? Scientifically, it means that (for example) when we see the elements listed in the periodic table, we can specify how subatomic particles combine to form each of these items. We can also specify very precise natural laws, such as the Pauli Exclusion Principle, that determine how and why, given the subatomic particles, these particular elements will form. We understand the tendencies, the proclivities, for subatomic particles to form atoms in the way they do. No agency or outside forces are required for atoms to form. Hence scientists do not speak of agents in chemistry. (We theists speak of the initial creative Agency that set the whole thing in motion, but that is a different matter.) By contrast, even a single-celled organism is an agent in its environment. The fundamental laws of chemistry do not require the use of agency language, but I suggest that the core theories of biology do. Biology since Darwin has emphasized “the survival of the fittest.” Based on their genetic makeup and their particular phenotype (their particular body), individual biological agents are engaged in a struggle to survive in their particular environments. This process has a goal and an orientation—survival and reproduction—whereas chemistry has no such goal. The majority view in biology is that selection functions at the level of the individual (genotype or phenotype), although a number of biologists now defend the idea that some selection occurs at the level of the group as well.4 We study the actions of individual organisms in their environments because the actions of these individual agents play an irreducible role in the process of biological evolution. As I have shown in In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World,5 the evolutionary process has shown a strong tendency to increase the complexity of these agents over time. Sometimes the simplest organisms survive because their needs are simpler; bacteria have done amazingly well across evolutionary history, for example, and we often joke that if humans take themselves out through nuclear warfare or rampant pollution, the cockroaches are likely to be around millennia after we humans have gone extinct. Nevertheless, more highly adapted organisms often outperform the more primitive ones. A simple lightsensitive area of the skin is less helpful for finding prey and avoiding predators than are two eyes, and the highly evolved eyes of birds are clear improvements

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over their predecessors. Consider these three examples of adaptations that have helped species to flourish: ●

Evolution led many species to invest in a central nervous system and a rudimentary brain. Developing specialized nerve cells and a brain is “costly,” of course. Yet these structures allow organisms to perceive their environments more fully, to retain records of past interactions (learning), and to adapt behaviors to specific situations in ways that instinct alone doesn’t allow. As brains became more complex, they were able to form “mental representations” of the organism’s environment. At this level, a brain can “try out” a possible action and compute likely outcomes. An inappropriate idea can be rejected without harm to the organism, whereas an inappropriate action in the environment may well lead to the agent’s death. Mental representations also allow the agent to deceive others around him or her. In studies of deceptive behaviors in baboons, for example, young baboons clearly possessed a sense (a mental representation) of what another animal could and could not see; they then used this knowledge in order to deceive the animal and get access to a desirable food source. Finally, more complex brains allow for the evolution of consciousness. To be conscious of your own perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and desires allows you to choose among them in a far more sophisticated way than you could do without that awareness. If you are conscious, you can precalculate costs and benefits of a particular action or strategy; you can imagine your environment as being radically different than it actually is and thereby take steps to bring about the outcomes you desire; and you can (and do) engage in very complex reconstructions of the thoughts and intentions of other agents around you.

Not all organisms have engaged in the “arms race” of increasing complexity. But the unprecedented dominance of one species, Homo sapiens, on this planet makes clear that the investment in a complex brain and central nervous system— however risky it may have been as an evolutionary experiment—has the potential to far outperform all other biological adaptations. The Birth of Spirit Spirit is not a word that biologists use; the motivation for introducing the term has to come from elsewhere. One might say, for example, “Well, I have clearly encountered spirits, so I know they exist.” Now that is an argument that has a lot of force for the individual who has had such experiences, but it is not an argument that is likely to be very persuasive for those who have never had such experiences. Are there less subjective reasons for introducing talk of spirits? Scholars recognize three different types of motivation for speaking of spirits; I list them in order of increasing cogency. The first is that “spirit” is the appropriate term to use for the most complex types of agents that we encounter in

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the natural world. Empirical study reveals that there is a hierarchy of agential complexity. At the higher levels are agents capable of perception, then mental representations, then psychological states. We might say that such individuals have (respectively) awareness, then distinct mental states, and then a psyche. Although this is a good start, it still leaves unexplained why the term “spirit” is the right one to use. For example, why not just say that some species, or some persons, develop very, very complex psyches? In response, some philosophers have argued that particular human capacities are evidence of the presence of spirit, or even—more strongly—that only spirits would be able to exercise capacities of these sorts. Philosophers in different ages have made the argument in rather different ways. For the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, it was reason or logic (deductive thinking), or eternality (timelessness), or the capacity to directly apprehend the Forms that signaled this uniquely human ability. For the German Idealists, it was self-consciousness—the knowledge of one’s self, or knowing the self-conscious subject as other than the self of which it is conscious—that constituted Spirit (Geist). I argue in In Quest of Freedom (in a passage coauthored with Steven Knapp) that the ability to take moral responsibility for past and future actions of one’s self is what constitutes that uniquely human freedom that we associate with spirit. In a deterministic sequence of events, like the unfolding of a chemical process, there is no “self ” that takes responsibility for the outcome; nor must we postulate one. By contrast, each of us constitutes our humanness by choosing to take responsibility for our self and our actions over time. We proclaim that we are responsible for our actions from the past, and we stretch our identity into the future as we make plans and resolutions about who we want to be and what qualities we want to manifest. Continental rationalists such as Leibniz, following the medieval theologians, go a step further. They maintain that humans possess an enduring soul that provides them with self-identity over time; it’s here that spirit is to be found. In any event, the argument should be clear: multiple advanced psyches exist, which carry out clearly “spiritual” functions; hence one should acknowledge that there are multiple spirits. In the end, however, the most compelling reason to affirm that there are spirits in the world is the belief in a single divine Spirit, which is God. “From actuality, possibility follows,” argued the medieval philosophers; if God, who is Spirit, is present in the world, then it must be possible that at least one spirit exists in the world. And if one, then why not more than one? Christian theology added another compelling argument: men and women were said to be created imago Dei, in the image of God. God is Spirit; so we must be, or have, spirits. Finally, Scripture speaks of a “tempter,” which the tradition came to refer to as Satan or the devil; and the “powers and principalities” came to be understood as demonic forces, evil spirits, engaged in a spiritual warfare with humans and with “the heavenly host” of angels, that is, good spirits. Other chapters in this volume discuss the nature and role of these spirits in detail. Here I want only to stress that, once one has affirmed the existence of God, there appears to be no reason not to grant their the existence of spirits, at least in principle.

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Debating Spirits If you believe in God, you should not have any problem affirming the existence of spirits. But what if you are an atheist scientist? Christian philosophers have frequently contended that their arguments should be persuasive to all, even an ideally rational atheist.6 But is this true? Sometimes Christian philosophers maintain that atheists should accept our assumptions; if they do, and assuming our arguments are valid, they should be rationally compelled to accept our conclusions as well. But the “charity of interpretation” holds out a rather higher standard for argumentation between theists and nontheists: can we understand why, given their position, they cannot and should not accept our premises? In the interests of this deeper understanding, and a possible synthesis, let us follow the argument through from the other side, without presupposing distinctively Christian or theistic arguments for the existence of spirits. We have already noted that nothing in the biological sciences compels one to introduce the term “spirit.” Further, we saw that, although philosophical arguments in the Greek and rationalist traditions support using the word spirit, the strongest argument on behalf of this term comes from theology proper. Now rationalist philosophies and “theology proper” need not be inconsistent with science. But our ways of thinking and arguing are certainly not identical with the ways that scientists think and reason. Let us try to understand their reservations on the way to our final conclusions. In fact, biological scientists have several reasons to resist spirit language. The mandate of empirical biology is to create and test theories based on reconstructible causal sequences. A theory that cannot be tested and (at least in principle) shown to be false does not count as a scientific theory. This requirement on the way biologists do science leads them to think not in terms of substances but of properties and qualities. Structures—of cells and their components, of circulatory or skeletal or nervous systems, and of organisms as a whole—can be described with precision, and we can determine what functions they do and do not perform. Structures and functions, organisms and their properties, are therefore the primary building blocks of biological explanations. Each of these can in principle be explained, at least in part, by lower-level constituents and processes. The same is not true of spirits. Yet we have theological and philosophical reasons to speak of spirits and the things they do. Without a doubt, there are sharp differences, even tensions, between these two ways of thinking and speaking. Do scientific explanations rule out the existence of spirits as impossible? No, scientific explanations are not given in terms of spirits, but that is not the same as falsifying the claim that spirits exist. Are there some tensions between the two languages? Yes. In the remaining pages I would like to push into that tension, because it has some valuable things to teach us. We will see that there is not at present a comfortable resting place between them, a simple way to reconcile the two languages that both sides will be comfortable with. As Christian theists, it may be that most important thing is for us

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to learn to “sit with” the tensions, the discomforts, in order to understand them better. It may be a problem that Christian philosophers will solve some time in the future. But at present there is simply no general agreement that the problems about spirit language have been solved to the satisfaction of theists and nontheist alike—the overwrought claims of some Christian philosophers notwithstanding. Sometimes the most rational thing to do, in the interim period when a given philosophical problem has not yet been solved, is to learn to hold onto both sides of the tension at the same time. (By contrast, denying an obvious truth because it is in some tension with another obvious truth is not a particularly rational course of action.) I therefore close with three advantages that using spirit language brings us. I presuppose irenic Christian readers who do not want to undercut the conclusions and methods of the biological sciences any more than is necessary, since we know that biology is one of the ways that we learn what God has done in creation. At the same time, I presuppose readers who are convinced that some talk of spirits is essential. Holding to both of these requirements at the same time is more of a challenging task than you might at first imagine—a bit more like tightrope walking than at first meets the eye. Here’s why: (1) A spirit is an ontological reality. For empirical science you are a collection of properties, and each property is explained by very specific structural features of your body, your genes, and your environment. The easy thing, theologically, is to say that these various properties represent the image of God. But in fact the image of God goes a step further. God is Spirit—a Spirit that preceded creation and that could continue to exist if no contingent beings like ourselves existed at all. That means God is a different type of reality. If we are spirits, we share something of that same “spirit” type of reality. As it happens, I reject the Greek notion of spirits, according to which they exist as separate, individual, independent substances. The biblical notion of spirits, I argue, is of beings who continually owe their existence to God. Moreover, our spiritual existence comes through continual participation in the divine reality. When the New Testament repeats the phrase “in Christ” some 93 times, it is not just a truism; it is a statement of what it means to exist as a spirit in relation to God’s Spirit. The same holds true, I believe, for nonhuman spirits. They are not a separate realm of helpful or pesky creatures that God is somehow stuck with as God carries out God’s purposes in the world. All spirits exist through continual divine choice and through continual participation in the divine nature. (2) Spirits are moral agents. As St. Augustine saw, they exist by participating in the divine goodness. In a biblical worldview, evil is not a separate reality, at battle with the good, as it is portrayed for example in Zoroastrian mythology. Evil, Augustine wrote, is privatio boni, the privation of good . . . and hence the privation of God. It follows that we do not live in a Star

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Wars–type universe, with a Dark Force constantly battling against a Good Force. We live in a universe created by and rooted in goodness. Finite beings like ourselves have the capacity to live in the divine goodness and to be guided by it, but we also have the capacity to turn away from that nurturing Spirit and do things on our own, for we have been given enough independence of being to pursue other goals apart from God. Moral freedom is the defining feature of human agency, of spiritual agency. There may not be a specific moment or experience that a scientist could identify where a human being is truly or completely free. Still, to affirm that we are spirit is to affirm that there is a dimension or level at which humans (and other spirits) possess this freedom. In the words of the famous twentieth-century theologian Karl Rahner, freedom is the moment where a subjective and personal response to the infinite and the incomprehensible confronts this existent in his transcendence, and is either accepted or rejected . . . When freedom is really understood, it is not the power to be able to do this or that, but the power to decide about oneself and to actualize oneself.7

Freedom, ultimately, means choosing the direction of one’s life before God. Goddirectedness—Spirit-directedness—is not a matter of empirical fact. Theologians call it the optio fundamentalis, the fundamental option.8 A being that defines itself in its very nature before God, a being whose essence it is to choose for or against the divine lure, can only be understood as spirit. (3) Beings who are spirit exist in spiritual community. In the Apostle’s Creed we call this “the communion of saints”; in the New Testament it is ekklesia, the church. I am afraid our tradition has shown a preference for the more hierarchical and warlike of the biblical metaphors over the more subtle (and I think beautiful) biblical accounts of spiritual communion. We humans seem to like focusing on the various rewards and status symbols that members of this community might obtain. But the core ideas of Christianity are rather more lofty. The “mind of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:4) is the mind of kenosis, of self-emptying: “he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (2:8). Only one mindset characterizes spiritual communion, which is the one that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Lk. 22:42). The mark of this communion of spirits is not spiritual warfare, but perfect submission of the individual will to the will of God. This dimension, like the two that preceded it, is not directly available to empirical observation and testing, though we are told that the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22) are empirically visible. Even the theological tradition has distinguished between the “visible” church, with its institutions and power structures, and the “invisible” community of those whose spirits are aligned with God. Here, as in the previous two examples, the language of “spirit” is essential because it alone identifies what

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it means to be a person living before God, toward God. As each spirit by its very nature orients toward God and participates in God, so spirits participate in each other through their common source in the all-pervasive Holy Spirit—an invisible community of the Spirit. Conclusion It is time to get clear on the conclusions we have reached. We have found, on the one hand, that the story from God to worldly agents—the story of Creation— can only be told theologically. Science can reconstruct the stages of evolution, but there is nothing in science that allows one to tell this story as the story of God’s intentions. For that task, theological categories are necessary. On the other hand, we have also seen that science does not need to exclude the theological narrative. Scientific narratives provide neither the terms nor the means of assessment to formulate and test accounts of what God may have been intending to achieve through Creation and through divine Providence. The New Atheists have confused silence and rejection. But their antitheological science is a philosophical construct on their part, not a straightforward interpretation of science. Science as such simply does not address questions of theological ultimacy. So much for the “download” movement, from God to the world. What about the movement “upward,” to God? Does the increasing complexity of organisms across evolutionary history offer evidence of a gradual march toward Spirit and spirits—evidence, that is, of what purposes God might be trying to work out in the natural world? Attempts to make such arguments abound.9 In fact, I have some personal experience in this area. In a number of books I have advanced a version of this argument in forms both scholarly and popular, based on the patterns of emergence in natural systems.10 Of course, I am convinced that these are sound arguments, and many Christian and Jewish readers have responded with strong agreement. But the number of registered conversions over the last several decades does not suggest that the argument from emergent complexity to God is compelling for nonbelievers. In fact, the typical response of scientists to the argument in Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness goes something like this, “Your description of emergent phenomena in the natural world is accurate, and I find it very helpful to see the larger connections you draw between cases of emergence in different scientific fields. I can even agree with your description of the emergence of consciousness from the brain. But the moment you get into the theological staff—at the point where you begin to link emergent phenomena with God—you totally lose me. In fact, it was precisely on page 162 that you lost me; and nothing beyond that point really made any sense to me.” Amusingly, atheist scientist readers inevitably cite precisely the same page number as the point where they and the book’s argument parted ways. The argument may be sound, but it is not winning scientific support. Nor is my case by any means unique among Christian apologists, whether it is the authors of Bible.com or Francis S. Collins, the Christian evangelical and respected head of the National Institutes of Health. We have no alternative, then, but to acknowledge this outcome. It does not follow that we should stop speaking of

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spirits altogether; we have multiple reasons that we should both want and need to preserve these ways of speaking. But we also should not claim evidence that we do not have. Only the power of our worldview as a whole, and the way we live it, can make up for the conundrum that there appear to be two incommensurable ways of speaking about human experience the world—with, and without, the concept of spirits. Notes 1. Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp, The Predicament of Belief: Science, Philosophy, Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), chapter 3. 2. The history of emergence is summarized in Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004); scientists write about emergence in their particular fields in Clayton and Paul Davies, eds., The Re-emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006); and the significance of scientific emergence for religion and theology is debated in Clayton and Zach Simpson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 3. For a full exposition of the concept of panexperientialism, see David Ray Griffin, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001). 4. David Sloan Wilson, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (New York: Delacorte Press, 2007); David Sloan Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). 5. Clayton, In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). 6. J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000); William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999). 7. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York, 1993), 38. 8. For more detail see Clayton, In Quest of Freedom, chapter 6, esp. 154ff. 9. Apologetics texts cover the shelves of your local Book and Bible store, and a Google search of “evidence of God in nature” offers hundreds of sites and thousands of arguments. For a scholarly evaluation of recent “natural theology,” see Russell re Manning, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 10. See, for example, Clayton, Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), chapter 6, “From World to Spirit: Complexity, Anthropology, Theology.”

CHAPTER 14

Christian Animism, Green Spirit Theology, and the Global Crisis today Mark I. Wallace

But ask the animals and they will teach you; the birds of the air and they will tell you; speak to the Earth and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you (Job 12:7–8)

Christian Animism One morning, during a sabbatical in Costa Rica, my children and I sought a viewing of a quetzal in its natural habitat in the Monteverde Cloudforest Preserve. The quetzal is arguably the most beautiful bird in Central America. It is covered with shiny, metallic green feathers with a bright red breast and long streamers for its tail. Its train is so long that when the male quetzal leaves its perch it often flies backward for a moment to avoid damaging its sweeping tail feathers. With the help of a guide, we found a female quetzal in the forest understory preparing a nest in the decaying trunk of an old tree. Glittering in the light, we watched her bounce from the tree trunk to a limb overhead while making a whining, plaintive song. Her call sounded like the yelp of a newborn puppy, yearning and soulful. We listened to the quetzal for a while until she sallied forth through the damp forest. I resonated deeply to the longing in the quetzal’s call, and felt myself summoned into a sort of relationship with her through this song. The beauty of creation—the wonder of existence in the great gift that is life itself— echoed inside me in the cathedral quiet of this montane forest. In the refrain of a Native American prayer, Beauty is before me/In my youth I am aware of it And in old age I shall walk quietly/The beautiful trail.1

For me, the beautiful trail—the natural world—serves as the primary site for the sort of spiritual encounters observing the quetzal provided. Church sanctuaries and meditation rooms continue to be settings where such encounters take place,

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but I need to be outdoors, or in a worship space that tracks the rhythms of the natural world, in order to be brought short and rendered expectant of a visit from another reality. “I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum,” wrote Henry David Thoreau.2 The whoosh of a strong wind, the taste of the salty sea on my tongue, the graceful movement of a Monarch butterfly, the arch of the bright sky on a cold winter night, the screech of a red-tailed hawk—these events are preternatural overtures that greet me from another plane of existence. It is not that this other plane stands over and against everyday reality but, rather, that commonplace existence is a window into another world that is this world but now experienced in its pregnant depths and deeper possibilities. Daily, embodied life is an icon through which the supersensible world is encountered in the here and now. Life is twofold. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel who walked and talked with Jesus but did not recognize him until their understanding was changed—like the gift of bread and wine that is not experienced as God’s body and blood apart from its ritual transformation—the natural world stands mute until it is spiritually encountered as saturated with grace and meaning. In secular parlance, to be human is to dwell poetically on the Earth; in religious terms, to be human is to dwell mythically on the Earth.3 How to experience Earth mythico-poetically—how to find God through the daily miracle of ordinary existence—is the primary thrust of this chapter. The basic orientation that drives my appreciation of nature as sacred ground is what I call “Christian animism”—the biblically inflected conviction that all of creation is infused with or “animated” by God’s presence. The term animism has its origins in the early academic study of the vernacular belief systems of indigenous peoples in Africa and the Americas. It originated with nineteenth-century British anthropologist E. B. Tylor who used it to describe how primordial people attributed “life” or “soul” to all things, living and nonliving. Sharing resonances with the Latin word animus, which means soul or spirit, among other definitions, animism came to stand for the orienting worldview of indigenous communities that nonhuman nature is “ensouled” or “inspirited” with sacred presence and power. As Graham Harvey writes, animism is typically applied to religions that engage with a wide community of living beings with whom humans share this world or particular locations within it. It might be summed up by the phrase “all that exists lives” and, sometimes, the additional understanding that “all that lives is holy.” As such the term animism is sometimes applied to particular indigenous religions in comparison to Christianity or Islam, for example.4

What intrigues me about Harvey’s definition is his assumption that monotheistic traditions such as Christianity should be regarded as distinct from animism. Initially this makes sense in light of the historic Christian proclivity to cast aspersions on the material world as dead matter and the flesh as inferior to the concerns of the soul. Pseudo-Titus, for example, an extracanonical exhortation to Christian asceticism from late antiquity, urges its readers to cleanse themselves of worldly

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pollution by overcoming fleshly temptations: “Blessed are those who have not polluted their flesh by craving for this world, but are dead to the world that they may live for God!”5 At first glance, Christianity’s emphasis on making room for God by denying the world and the flesh is at odds with the classical animist belief in the living goodness of all inhabitants of sacred Earth. In the main, however, Christian faith offers its practitioners a profound vision of God’s this-worldly identity. Harvey’s presumption that Christianity and animism are distinct from one another is at odds with the biblical worldview that all things are bearers of divinity—the whole biosphere is filled with God’s animating power—insofar as God signaled God’s love for creation by incarnating Godself in Jesus and giving the Holy Spirit to indwell everything that exists on the planet. The miracle of Jesus as the living enfleshment of God in our midst—a miracle that is alongside the gift of the Spirit to the world since time immemorial—signals the ongoing vitality of God’s sustaining presence within the natural order. God is not a sky-God divorced from the material world. As once God became earthly at the beginning of creation, and as once God became human in the body of Jesus, so now God continually enfleshes Godself through the Spirit in the embodied reality of life on Earth. In this chapter, I will analyze the biblical promise of Christian animism: that human beings are obligated to care for creation because everything God made is a bearer of the Holy Spirit. In this formulation, however, I do not mean that nature is dull and inert and only becomes sacred and alive with the infusion of Spirit into all things. Nature, rather, is always alive and aflame with movement, weight, color, voice, light, texture—and spiritual presence. Nature’s capacity for relatedness, its proclivity to encounter us, as we encounter it, in constantly new and ever-changing patterns of self-maintenance and skillful organization is the ground tone of its sacred, vibrant power. As David Abram argues, matter is not a dead and lesser thing that stands in a lower relationship to animate spirit but a self-organizing field of living, dynamic relationships. Yet as soon as we question the assumed distinction between spirit and matter, then this neatly ordered hierarchy begins to tremble and disintegrate. If we allow that matter is not inert, but is rather animate (or self-organizing) from the get-go, then the hierarchy collapses, and we are left with a diversely differentiated field of animate beings, each of which has its own gifts relative to the others. And we find ourselves not above, but in the very midst of this living field, our own sentience part and parcel of the sensuous landscape.6

The insight that nature is a living web of gifted relationships is not, however, equivalent to other similar-sounding perspectives that are often equated or used interchangeably with the term animism in daily discourse. Paganism and heathenism, Latin and old English terms, respectively, stand for the paganus or country-dwelling people, and the “heathen” or people of the heath, both of which developed agricultural spiritualities of sacrifice and planting-and-harvest rituals prior to the arrival of Christianity in Western cultures. The term pantheism, on

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the other hand, emphasizes that God and the cosmos are one and the same equivalent reality without remainder. Animism—now refracted though biblical optics—shares affinities with these viewpoints, but emphasizes with more force the indwelling of Spirit in all things—echoing its Latin root’s notion of “soul” or “spirit”—so that the great expanse of the natural world can be reenvisioned as alive and sacred and thereby deserving of our nurture and love. Of the current models of the interconnected relation between God and Earth, pan-en-theism is closest to Christian animism. Panentheist theologian Sallie McFague argues for the mutual, internal relatedness of God and creation, but notes that God is not fully realized in the material world; God is in the world, indeed, but God is not “totally” embodied within everyday existence. She says Pantheism says that God is embodied, necessarily and totally; traditional theism claims that God is disembodied, necessarily and totally; panentheism suggests that God is embodied but not necessarily or totally. Rather, God is sacramentally embodied: God is mediated, expressed, in and through embodiment, but not necessarily or totally.7

While my sensibility and McFague’s are deeply aligned, Christian animism pushes further her initial point by suggesting that God is fully and completely embodied within the natural world.8 Here the emphasis does not fall on the limited relatedness of God and world such that God, finally, can escape the world, but rather the focus falls on the world as thoroughly embodying God’s presence. Unlike many Christian theologies that emphasize God’s transcendence, my position, akin to McFague’s, champions divine subscendence: God flowing out into the Earth, God becoming one of us in Jesus, God gifting to all creation the Spirit to infuse all things with divine energy and love. Or to phrase this point differently, as God’s Spirit ensouls all things with sacred purpose so also are all things the enfleshment of divine power and compassion on Earth. This dialectic of ensoulment wherein Earth is blessed as the living realization of divine grace and enfleshment wherein God pours out Godself into the carnal reality of lived existence is the mainspring of my Christian animist vision of reality. Now nothing is held back as God overflows Godself into the bounty of the natural world. Now all things are bearers of the sacred; everything that is holy; each and every creature is a portrait of God. Carnal Spirit Christian animism takes flight when the ancient Earth wisdom of the biblical witness is recovered afresh.9 A nature-based retrieval of the person and work of the Spirit as the green face of God in the world is an especially potent exercise in ecological biblical hermeneutics. Recovering biblical texts through environmental optics opens up the Spirit’s ministry as a celebration of the good creation God has made for the joy and sustenance of all beings. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Christian discussion partner, writes that when “we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch God not as a concept but as a living reality.”10 A retrieval

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of the Spirit’s disclosure of herself in the biblical literatures as one with the four cardinal elements, that is, Earth, air, water, and fire, is a principal means by which Christianity’s carnal identity can be established—not as a concept, but as a living reality, or better, as a living being.11 (Incidentally, I will use the female pronoun throughout this chapter to name the Spirit based on some compelling scriptural precedence.12 ) As Jesus’ ministry was undergirded by his intimate communion with the natural world, so also is the work of the Spirit biblically understood according to the primal elements that constitute biological existence. As Earth the Spirit is a fleshy, avian life-form—a dove—who is God’s helping, nurturing, inspiring, and birthing presence in creation. The mother Spirit Bird in the opening creation song of Genesis, like a giant hen sitting on her cosmic nest egg, broods over the planet and brings all things into life and fruition. In turn, this same hovering Spirit Bird, as a dove that alights on Jesus as he comes up through the waters of his baptism, appears in all four of the Gospels to signal God’s approval of Jesus’ public work. This winged, feathered God actualizes an Earthbased communion in which all beings are filled with divine presence, heaven and Earth are unified, and God and nature are one (Genesis 1:1–2; Matthew 3:13–17, Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:29–34). As Air the Spirit is both the animating divine breath who brings into existence all living things (Genesis 2:7; Psalms 104:29–30) and the wind of prophecy and judgment who renews and transforms those she possesses and indwells (Judges 6:34; John 3:6–8; Acts 2:1–4). Rûach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek) are the biblical terms for Spirit that mean breath, air, or wind. The breathy God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. In meditation when we say, “Focus on your breath,” in essence we are saying, “Focus on God.” Our lives are framed, and made possible, by the perennial gift of divine wind. We enter consciousness drawing our first breath—we inhale God at the moment of our birth—and we exhale God with our last breath; we pass into death by evacuating the aerial Spirit from our mortal bodies. The Holy Spirit is God’s invigorating, life-giving presence within the atmosphere who sustains our need for air existence and the existence of all creatures on the planet. As Water the Spirit brings life and healing to all who are baptized and drink from her eternal springs (John 3:1–15, 4:1–30, 7:37–38; Acts 8:26–40, 11:1–18). True thirst, true desire, true need is satiated by drinking the liquid Spirit who soaks God’s followers with a deep sense of wholeness and joy. In the eucharist, we eat God in the bread and drink God in the wine. In this act we are reminded that all of Earth’s vital fluids that make planetary existence possible— blood, mucus, tears, milk, semen, sweat, urine—are infused with sacred energy. Again, as with Earth and air, life is a primordial gift in which God graces all things with the necessary elements for survival and full fruition. The Water God entertains us with torrential rains, seeping mudholes, rushing rivers and cascading waterfalls so that life on this juicy, liquid planet can be hydrated and refreshed. As Fire the Spirit is the blaze of God that prophetically condemns the wealthy and unjust who exploit others, and the divine spark that ignites the multilingual

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and multicultural mission of the early church (Matthew 3:11–12; Acts 2:1–4). On the one hand, fire is a harsh metaphor for God’s judgment against human arrogance and overly inflated sense of self, but on the other, it is an expression of God’s unifying presence in the fledgling church, as happened at Pentecost with the Spirit’s incandescent announcement of herself in tongues of fire to a diverse collection of disciples, according to the Book of Acts. This sacred fire erased false differences and consumed the ethnic and cultural divisions that marked the early Christians apart from one another. In the wider biosphere, the Fire God continues as a unifying, vivifying power necessary for the well-being of planetary life: fire cooks our food, heats our homes, powers our transportation systems, and maintains our planet’s temperate climate. Without the gift of fire we would all perish, but with our dumping of carbon into the atmosphere, we have unleashed the sun’s lethal potential, and perverted nature’s balance, by producing a superheated weather system that will endanger the survival of future generations. To be human is to live in spiritual harmony with the primary elements. A full life consists of everyday gratitude, and care, for the elemental gifts of natural existence. In part, this elemental sensibility is recoverable by a return to historic belief and practice. Ancient Christian belief teaches that God is present to us “under the elements” of bread and wine. Putting to work the Christian animist model, this belief is deemed ever so true and now expanded as well: beyond bread and wind, God’s Spirit continues to be real under all of the cardinal elements—Earth, air, water, fire—that constitute the building blocks of life. While the Holy Spirit (often mistranslated as the “Holy Ghost” in older versions of the English Bible) is sometimes regarded as a vague and disembodied phantom irrelevant to religious belief or planetary existence, the Bible tells a different story of a radically embodied God who incarnates Godself as Spirit in the four elements. Correspondingly, and using language borrowed from French philosopher Luce Irigaray, Ellen Armour develops an “elemental theology” in which God is known and loved through the primal elements. By reimagining core liturgical practices in accord with the elemental dynamics of bodily existence, Armour injects new life—new elemental life—into the ritual heart of Christian faith: The central Christian rituals, baptism and eucharist, connect immediately with water and Earth. The waters of baptism signify the move from sin to redemption, death to rebirth. The grain and grapes that become bread and wine (and ultimately body and blood) are products of Earth and water. The Feast of Pentecost celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit—in the form of “divided tongues, as of fire” (Acts 2:3)—on Christ’s apostles, endowing their ministry with new authority as each listener heard the gospel message in his or her own native tongue. The Feast of the Ascension calls attention to air as the medium through which Christ ascends, thus linking the heavens and the Earth, human and the divine . . . We are quite literally sustained by air, water, and Earth—physically and, if we adopt this way of thinking, spiritually. We have, then, religious and moral obligations to the natural world. Elemental theology repositions the relationship between divinity, humanity and the natural world . . . The elements bind all three together in a fragile network of interdependency rather than domination.13

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Earthen Spirit This elemental model of the Spirit’s real and ongoing union with Earth is resonant with the fifth-century vocabulary used in Christianity’s early doctrine of Jesus Christ’s “two natures.” In 451 CE, the ecumenical churches met in Chalcedon, in what is today Western Turkey, to formulate a more refined understanding of how the divine and the human relate in Jesus of Nazareth. The historic churches decided that in the one person of Jesus, divinity and humanity are fully realized in an organic and permanent unity that admits no separation or confusion. The Chalcedonian Creed asks all Christians to confess to the one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, alteration, division, separation; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved.14

Jesus, then, is an integrated, complete, and whole person, fully divine and fully human, and his two natures are understood as being neither confused with nor collapsed into one another. The Chalcedonian formula is an instance of a productive contradiction. Such a contradiction imaginatively juxtaposes two apparently opposing ideas, in this case, the ideas of divinity and humanity in one person, in order to articulate a new vision of reality, in this case, the idea that this one person, Jesus, is a divine human being. Another way to refer to this type of tensive thinking is to speak of a “coincidence of opposites,” an instance of “semantic impertinence,” or a “nonoppositional dualism.”15 When dialectical thought is stretched to its limits there is the possibility of discovering, paradoxically, a previously undisclosed unity, a blinding flash of new insight, that was not possible prior to an inventory of the oppositions in question. When apparent polar contradictions are pulled to their breaking points it becomes possible to preserve the integrity of each and at the same time uncover a deeply rooted harmony between them that had previously been hidden. Borrowing from the Christological wisdom of the fifth century and applying it to the task of Christian animism today, we can see how important it is to hold together two seemingly opposing viewpoints in a tension-ridden unity that, nevertheless, preserves the independence of each individual viewpoint. Employing, then, the dialectical grammar of Chalcedon, we can say that the Spirit indwells the Earth and the Earth enfleshes the Spirit. This formulation of the relationship between Spirit and Earth signals an inseparable unity between the two realities without a consequent absorption of the one into the other. Another way to put this is to say that Spirit and Earth are one and that Spirit and Earth are not one. To be sure, Spirit and Earth enjoy a permanent and living unity one with the other; each reality internally conditions and permeates the other in a cosmic festival of love and harmony. Erotically charged, Spirit and Earth dwell in oneness and fellowship with one another. But both modes of being live through and

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with one another without collapsing into confusion with, or separation from, one another. The reciprocal indwelling of Spirit and Earth is neither an absorption of the one into the other nor an admixture of the two. By the same token, the mutual indwelling of Spirit and Earth does not signify merely an outward and transitory connection between the two realities. The point, rather, is that Spirit and Earth enjoy an internal and abiding union in their common life together. Insofar as the Spirit abides in and with all living things, Spirit and Earth are unified together while, at the same time, each reality also possesses its own distinctive identity. Spirit and Earth are internally inseparable because both modes of being are living realities with the same common goal of sustaining other life-forms. But Spirit and Earth are also distinguishable insofar as the Spirit is the hidden source of life for all things, while the Earth is the visible nesting ground, so to speak, where all things live and move and have their being. The Spirit is the “soul” of the Earth—the wild, life-giving breath of creation— empowering all lifeforms to enter into a dynamic relationship with the greater whole. In turn, the Earth is the “flesh” of the Spirit—the living landscapes of divine presence—making God palpable and viscous in nature’s ever-widening circles of evolutionary and seasonal changes. Whether manifesting herself as a living, breathing organism like a dove, or an active life force, such as wind or fire, Spirit indwells nature as its interanimating power in order to bring all of creation into a harmonious relationship with itself. Spirit is the vital rûach—God’s breath—that gives life to all beings. All things—rocks, trees, plants, rivers, animals, and humans—are made of Spirit and are part of the continuous biological flow patterns that constitute life on our planet. The Spirit ensouls the Earth as its life-giving breath, and the Earth embodies the Spirit’s mysterious interanimation of the whole creation. To experience, then, the full range of nature’s birthing cycles, periods of growth, and seasons of death and decay—to know the joy and sadness of living in harmony with nature’s cyclical processes and flow patterns— is to be empowered by Spirit and nurtured by nature’s bounty. The Spirit is the hidden, inner life of the world, and the Earth is the outward manifestation of the Spirit’s sustaining energies. Deploying Chalcedonian grammar to model the interrelationship between Spirit and Earth challenges the classical, philosophical idea of God in Christian thought. In the metaphysical model God is an immovable heavenly being insulated from this-worldly concerns. God is divorced from the passions and vagaries of transient existence. In the classical paradigm, God is unfeeling, self-subsistent, and independent from the ebb and flow of life and death that makes up our earthly habitations. Metaphysical doctrines about “divine apathy” and “divine impassibility”—the standard, philosophically influenced belief that God is a stolid, dispassionate being not susceptible to the whims and fancies of human emotions—achieved the status of obvious truth in early Christian thought as a reaction to the fire and fury characteristic of the gods and goddesses of preChristian Pagan mythology.16 In this respect, Christianity and Paganism go their separate ways in their own respective historical development. In the face of the

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malevolent and capricious actions of Pagan divinities, Christians envisioned their God as pure goodness and impassive to change and circumstance. Beyond life and death, the supreme God of Christianity was seen as quintessentially self-possessed and far removed from the tumult and impermanence of mortal existence. All flesh is mortal, all flesh is grass, says the Bible. But God, according to classical Christianity, is not mortal, God is not fleshly being. God is the All-Powerful who is uniquely immortal, invisible, and unchangeable. God, in a word, is Being itself—eternal and immovable. The Chalcedonian logic of the Spirit—that Spirit and Earth, interactively conceived, are one—opposes this metaphysical idea of God as unchangeable and apathetic in the face of the suffering and turmoil within the creation that God has spun into existence. The earthen God of biblical witness is not a distant abstraction but a living being who subsists in and through the natural world. Because God as Earth Spirit lives in the ground and circulates in water and wind, God suffers deeply the loss and abuse of our biological heritage through our continued assaults on our planet home. God as Spirit is pained by ongoing ecosqualor; God as Spirit undergoes deprivation and trauma through the stripping away of Earth’s bounty. As the Earth heats up and melting polar ice fields flood shore communities and indigenous habitats, God suffers; as global economic imbalance imperils family stability and intensifies the quest for arable land in native forests, God suffers; as coral reefs bleach into decay and ecosystems of fish and marine life die off, God suffers; and as our planet endures what appears to be the era of the Sixth Great Extinction, like the great extinctions of the ice age and other mass death events, God suffers. When we plunder and lay waste to the Earth, God suffers. Because God and Earth mutually indwell one another, God is vulnerable to the same loss and degradation the Earth undergoes at the greedy hands of its human caretakers. This means that God as Spirit, Earth God, lives on “this side of eternity,” as it were. Earth God lives on “this side” of the ecological squalor our global greed has spawned. God is not an inert, metaphysical concept but a living, suffering coparticipant in the pain of the world. The God of Christian animism has cast her lot with a depredated planet and has entered into the fullness of the tragic history of humankind’s abuse of our planet home. God has become, then, in our time, a tragic figure. God is a tragic figure not in the sense that God, pitifully, arouses our sympathy because God is weak and inadequate in the face of environmental terror—that God is somehow fated for destruction along with the destruction of the Earth. No, rather, God is a tragic figure in our time in the sense that the tragedy of human rapaciousness is now God’s own environmental tragedy as well. Who can say what profound torment is felt in the depths of the divine life when God surveys the devastation human avarice and stupidity has wrought? The sorry spectacle of Earth under siege and God’s longing for a renewed biosphere are one. In union of heart, in agony of spirit, God and Earth are one. In Jesus God enfleshed Godself at one time in one human being; in the Spirit God enfleshes Godself continually in the Earth. In both instances, God decides in freedom and love for all beings, and not by any internal necessity, to enter

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into the fullness of human tragedy. In making this decision regarding our sad ecodrama, Spirit puts herself in harm’s way by becoming fully apart of a planet ravaged by human arrogance. God is at risk in the world today. It is not an extreme statement to say, then, that the threat of ecocide brings in its wake the specter of deicide: to wreak environmental havoc in the biosphere is to run the risk that we will inflict lasting injury to the source and ground of our common life together, Earth God. Spirit and Earth are one. Spirit and Earth are one in suffering. Spirit and Earth are one in the tragedy of ecocide. Spirit and Earth’s common unity and life-centered identity raises the frightening possibility that despoiling our planet and chronically unsustainable living may result in permanent trauma to the divine life itself. Hope for Renewal The biblical ideas of creation, incarnation, and Spirit are the fountainhead of a Christian animist vision of the sacred character of the natural order. From this living source, to paraphrase Graham Harvey’s earlier comment, all that exists is alive, all that exists is good, all that exists is holy. We will not save what we do not love, and unless, as a culture, we learn to love and care for the gift of the created order again, the prospects of saving the planet, and thereby ourselves as well, are terrifyingly bleak. But insofar as God is in everything and all things are interanimated by divine power and concern, we can affirm that God is carnal, God is earthen, God is flesh. And with this animist affirmation, the will is empowered, and the imagination ignited, to fight against the specters of global warming and the loss of biodiversity as the great threats of our time. Hungry for eruptions of the animist sacred, personally speaking, I mourn in our time the continued loss of the wider community of nature as the seed bed for full fruitions of God in my life. Selfishly, I do not want the natural world to suffer further degradation because I do not want God to “die” for me. For me, climate change and the loss of natural habitats means God’s presence in the world is weakened and diminished as well. It is not that God is completely absent from me during this period of ecosqualor, but rather, as Martin Buber said about God in the death camps, I experience God in eclipse—I experience God being driven into hiding by laying waste to our common home.17 The burden of faith today is to maintain the seemingly impossible contradiction between faith in God’s earthen reality against the realization that Spirit is in retreat due to our continual assaults on God’s fleshy presence. In every respect, therefore, the Earth crisis is a spiritual crisis because without a vital, fertile planet it will be difficult to find traces of divine wonder and providence in the everyday order of things. When the final artic habitat for the polar bear melts into the sea due to human-induced climate change, I will lose something of God’s beauty and power in my life. When the teeming swell of equatorial amphibians can no longer adapt to deforestation and rising global temperatures, something of God will disappear as well, I fear. I am like the first peoples of the Americas who experienced the sacred within the Black Hills of what is now South

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Dakota, or on top of Mount Graham in southern Arizona, and then found that when these places were degraded, something of God was missing as well. Without these and other places charged with sacred power, I am lost on Earth. Without still-preserved landed sites saturated with divine presence, I am a wanderer with no direction, a person without hope, a believer experiencing the death of God on a planet suffering daily from human greed and avarice. The witness of Christian scripture and traditions is to the world as the abode of divinity, the home of life-giving Spirit, God’s here-and-now dwelling place where the warp and woof of everyday life is sacred. God is not a dispassionate and distant potentate, as in classical feudal theology, who exercises dominion over the universe from some far-removed place, rather, in and through this planet that is our common home, God, now grounded in the Earth, is earnestly working with us to heal the planet. It is not blasphemous, therefore, to say that nature is sacred. It is not a mistake to find God’s presence in all things. As Denis Edwards writes, “The Creator Spirit is present in every flower, bird, and human being, in every quasar and in every atomic particle, closer to them than they are to themselves, enabling them to be and to become.”18 To speak in the language of Christian animism, it is not wrong to reenvision Christianity as continuous with the worldviews of first peoples who bore witness to and experienced divinity everywhere—who saw and felt Spirit alive in every rock, tree, animal, and body of water they encountered. Christianity now can do the same, and Christians can say, “Sacred is the ground we stand on; holy is the land where we are planted; blessed is the Earth within which we live and move and have our being.” Without this affirmation— without the hope and energy and long-term staying power this affirmation brings to communities of faith—our capacity to heal the planet’s ability to sustain future generations is badly undermined. “We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption,” wrote Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in 2003. As we reach these catastrophic tipping points, what will human existence on Earth look like 10 to 20 years from now? Chronic heat waves will provoke megadroughts and render daily life unbearable at times; artic permafrost and sea ice will crack and disappear causing islands and shorelines to shrink and vanish; continued carbon dumping will render the world’s oceans more acidic and ultimately lethal to coral reefs and fish stocks; melting permafrost in Siberia and elsewhere will release huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere resulting in killer hurricanes and tsunamis; biodiverse ecosystems will collapse and produce dead monocultures of invasive species where the basic dynamic of plant pollination itself is undermined; and a hotter and less forgiving planet will cause crop failures and large stretches of arable land to become desert, mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria to reach epidemic proportions, and mass migrations of tens of millions of people as rising sea levels destroy homes and communities. In the near future we will look back at greenhouse gas–induced events such as the European heat wave of 2003 that killed 30,000 people—or Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the costliest natural disaster in US history that killed 1,800 people—as telltale portends of the coming storm.

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We will remember other positive environmental changes—the banning of DDT in the United States in the 1960s, the general eradication of ozone-depleting CFCs in the 1980s—and then wonder why we were not able to extricate ourselves from the Big Oil economy that was even then destroying the planet. In 2015, 2020, or 2025, we will rue the day we allowed global warming deniers to confuse the public into thinking that current climate change is a natural cycle for which we have no responsibility. We will recall the definitive reports by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, based on tens of thousands of studies by hundreds of climate researchers over many years of investigation, that made clear to us that our fossil fuel economy is the most important anthropogenic factor driving the dangerous climate changes we now see all around us. With an alarming sense of urgency, we will have known then, even as we know now, that it is time to act. Every generation, to borrow Thomas Berry’s phrase, has its great work. Every generation has an overarching sense of responsibility for the welfare of the whole that gathers together people and societies across their cultural and ideological differences. In this generation, our great work will be to fight global warming by reenvisioning our relationship to Earth not as exploiters but as biotic kinspeople with the myriad life-forms that populate our common home. This is the mandate of our time. As Berry writes, The Great Work before us, the task of moving modern industrial civilization from its present devastating influence on the Earth to a more benign mode of presence, is not a role that we have chosen. It is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves. We did not choose. We were chosen by some power beyond ourselves for this historical task. We did not choose the moment of our birth, who our parents will be, our particular culture or the historical moment when we will be born . . . The nobility of our lives, however, depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned roles.19

Every generation has a sacred calling to seize the moment and battle the forces of oppression and degradation so that future generations can live richer and more meaningful lives. The great work of our generation will be to develop inspired models of sustainable development that promote ecological and climate justice for all of God’s children. Sustainability is a proleptic, forward-looking category that focuses on the long-term viability of working organizational models, namely, How can institutions today secure and manage the labor and environmental resources necessary for achieving their economic goals while also preserving the capacity of future human communities and ecosystems to survive and flourish? Native American folklore often speaks of animal and related resource management practices done with an eye toward their impact on the seventh generation to come. Seventh-generation full-cost business and accounting practices relocate the goal of financial profitability within the context of fair labor performance, responsible consumption of energy, and careful management of waste.20 Sustainable development, then, articulates policies that address this generation’s vital needs

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without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own vital needs. For highly industrialized economies like our own, sustainability will be predicated on kicking our habits of dependence on fossil fuels, the primary source of global climate change. My hope is that Christian animism can provide the theological and moral foundations necessary for practical responses to weaning ourselves off unsustainable coal, oil, and natural gas supplies in order to save the planet for future generations. Religious faith is uniquely suited to fire the imagination and empower the will to make the necessary changes that can break the cycle of addiction to nonrenewable energy. Many of the great social movements in the history of the United States—the abolitionist groundswell of the nineteenth century, the suffragist associations of the early twentieth century, and, most notably in recent history, the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s—were energized by prophetic Christian leaders who brought together their scriptural values and passion for justice to animate a moral force for change more powerful than any other force to stop them. To paraphrase William James, religion today, in the face of cataclysmic climate change, must become the moral equivalent of war by becoming more disciplined, more resourceful, and more visionary in fighting the causes of global ecological depredation. The hope of Christian animism—the vision of Earth saturated with divine presence—can religiously charge practical responses to the crisis of unsustainable living today. The supreme calling of our time will be for all of us to find a spiritually grounded and morally compelling approach to engaging the problem of climate change—and to do so now before it is too late. Notes 1. Native American Prayer, “Now Talking God,” in Earth Prayers: From Around the World, 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth, ed. Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 32. 2. Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” in The Norton Book of American Nature Writing, ed. John Elder and Robert Finch (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 183. 3. The sensibility here is borrowed from Friedrich Hölderlin by way of Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur. Hölderlin writes that “Full of merit, and yet poetically, dwells man on this Earth” (quoted in Paul Ricoeur, “Religion, Atheism, and Faith,” in The Conflict of Interpretations [Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1974], 466–67). Poetry is a meaning-making activity that invests life with a measure of coherence and purpose. Language is a world-creating exercise that converts existence in empty space into habitation or “dwelling,” in Hölderlin’s parlance, in a world charged with rich possibilities. 4. Graham Harvey, “Animism—A Contemporary Perspective,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, ed. Bron R. Taylor, et al., 2 vols. (New York: Continuum, 2005), 1:81. 5. “Pseudo-Titus,” in Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 239. 6. David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (New York: Vintage, 2010), 47.

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7. Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 149–50. 8. For wider discussion, see Mark I. Wallace, “Crum Creek Spirituality: Earth as a Living Sacrament,” in Theology That Matters: Ecology, Economy, and God, ed. Darby Kathleen Ray (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 121–37, and http://www. jesusradicals.com/on-christian-animism/. 9. For this perspective see Norman C. Habel, “Introducing the Earth Bible,” in Readings from the Perspective of Earth, ed. Habel, vol. 1 of The Earth Bible (Sheffield, England: Sheffield, 2000), 25–37. The five volumes of The Earth Bible, edited variously by Norman C. Habel, Shirley Wurst, and Vicky Balabanski from 2000 to 20002 set the standard for systematic ecoexegesis of the Bible. Similarly, see Norman C. Habel and Peter Trudinger, eds. Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), and Richard Bauckham, The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2010). 10. Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (New York: Riverhead, 1995), 21. 11. The emerging field of ecopneumatology—nature-based reconstructions of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit—is represented by the work of Sharon V. Betcher, Spirit and the Politics of Disablement (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); Chung Hyun-Kyung, “Welcome the Spirit; Hear Her Cries: The Holy Spirit, Creation, and the Culture of Life,” Christianity and Crisis 51 (July 15, 1991): 220–23; Catherine Keller, Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (London: Routledge, 2003); Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); idem, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997); Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, God’s Spirit: Transforming a World in Crisis, trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1995); Nancy Victorin Vangerud, The Raging Hearth: Spirit in the Household of God (St. Louis: Chalice, 2000); Mark I. Wallace, Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005); idem, Green Christianity: Five Ways to a Sustainable Future (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), note: much of the material in this chapter is drawn from these two volumes; and Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). 12. On the biblical and theological history of feminine language and imagery for the Spirit, see Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Feminine Imagery for the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition,” Saint Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37 (1993): 111–40; Gary Steven Kinkel, Our Dear Mother the Spirit: An Investigation of Count Zinzendorf ’s Theology and Praxis (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990); and Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992), especially 128–31. 13. Ellen Armour, “Toward an Elemental Theology,” in Theology That Matters, ed. Darby Kathleen Ray (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 54. 14. “The Creed of Chalcedon,” in Philip Schaff, ed. The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1983), 2:62. 15. These phrases that speak to the reconciliation of apparently opposing positions to form a burst of new insight into reality are used, respectively, by Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskins from the 6th German ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933); Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multidisciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, SJ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977);

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16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

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and Walter Lowe, Theology and Difference: The Wound of Reason (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993). See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 172–277. See Martin Buber, The Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Humanity Books, 1988). Denis Edwards, “For Your Immortal Spirit Is in All Things,” in Denis Edwards, ed. Faith Revealing—Earth Healing: Ecology and Christian Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2001), 56. See also Amos Yong’s Pentecostal theology of Spirit-filled creation in The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the PentecostalCharismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 173–228, and Sharon Betcher’s ecofeminist pneumatology in “Grounding the Spirit: An Ecofeminist Pneumatology,” in Ecospirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth, ed. Laurel Kearns and Catherine Keller (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 315–66. Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999), 7. The seventh-generation ideal is also identified today as the triple bottom line business model (people, planet, profit). In this model, financial profits depend upon carefully managed environmental and social performance. Here corporate, societal, and ecological interests dynamically interact and mutually support one another. This model is analyzed as the “new bottom line” in Michael Lerner, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 227–40; as “oikonomia economics” in Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, 2nd. ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1994), 138–75; and “ecologically reformed capitalism” in Roger S. Gottlieb, A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 81–110.

CHAPTER 15

Spirits and the Stars: A Spirit-Filled Cosmology David Bradnick

M

any ancient religions ascribed significant roles to stars by associating them with a variety of spiritual beings, including gods, angels, and demons. The Sumerians, for example believed that the heavens were the realm of the gods, while the Assyrians and Babylonians believed that the stars were, in fact, embodiments of the gods. The Judeo-Christian tradition is no exception. Apocalyptic literature, in particular, often correlated celestial bodies with angels and demons, and numerous early Christian fathers maintained these notions. So, there is a long-standing tradition within religions of Semitic descent to identify celestial bodies as manifestations of divine beings or, at least, symbols of divine beings. As Christianity developed, an increasing number of theologians deemed it necessary to expel all pagan ideas from Christian beliefs, including pagan cosmologies.1 This led to the rejection of any correlation between the stars and spiritual beings. The advent of the modern period further challenged these presuppositions. Rationalism bifurcated the spiritual realm from the physical realm (i.e., Cartesian dualism and Kantian conceptualism) and, in some cases, entirely rejected belief in spiritual substances (i.e., material reductionism). Therefore, the heavens, which were once believed to be spirit-filled, were depopulated by modern philosophies and worldviews. This notion continues to dominate contemporary theology in which planets and stars are primarily understood in naturalistic terms. More recently, these modern ideas have been challenged by emergence philosophy.2 In brief, emergentism postulates that reality comprises many different ontological substrates whereby higher levels of complexity emerge from lower levels. Emergent realities are irreducible to lower levels, but they are capable of supervening upon these lower substrates. Using this framework, theologians, including Amos Yong and myself, suggest that spiritual entities, like angels and demons, can be understood, at least in part, as emergent

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realities, and this chapter expands upon this work.3 I argue that a rereading of ancient apocalyptic narratives, through an emergentist lens, may reveal a pneumatologically pluralistic cosmology. I begin by surveying ancient cosmologies in order to gain some understanding of the role stars played in connection to their religious beliefs. Second, I examine apocalyptic literature to explore how these beliefs were adopted and expanded upon in ancient Jewish and early Christian contexts. Next, I evaluate modern philosophical beliefs and how they impacted theological views of the cosmos, including its demythologization of entities like angels and demons. I suggest that an emergentist theology may be able to overcome weaknesses in modern philosophy, and it may also provide fresh perspectives on biblical notions of spiritual beings in the modern world. Finally, by appealing to Paul Tillich’s theology of symbol, I reconsider the stars in relationship to emergent spiritual realities. This reenvisioning may assist us in retrieving a multifaceted and robust spiritfilled cosmology, consisting of many levels of complexity, that is lacking in many contemporary Christian cosmologies. The Stars and Gods in Ancient Pagan Religions Ancient Sumerians believed that a hierarchy of 3,600 gods was responsible for maintaining order within the cosmos.4 The gods not only controlled the heavens, but they were fundamentally connected to celestial bodies. While the exact nature of this connection is difficult for contemporary scholars to discern, it is apparent that the mood of the gods was expressed in celestial bodies. As the heavens changed, the Sumerians interpreted the temperaments of the gods and believed that heavenly developments directly impacted earthly affairs. According to Woodley, those in Sumerian society who understood the stars held “the key of the future in [their] hands.”5 The relationship between the gods and the stars was so tight that even the cuneiform rendering of “god” used the symbols of the stars.6 Ancient Babylonians worshipped and revered the planets and stars, calling them “gods of the night.”7 Nergal, the god of war and pestilence, was associated with the planet Mars,8 Marduk, the most important Babylonian god, was connected to Jupiter, and Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility, was synonymous with Venus.9 Like the Sumerians, “the Babylonians looked to the stars for clues to the intentions of the gods. The practice of astrology implied that the movements of the stars and human affairs were interconnected.”10 Exploration of the heavens also gave the Babylonians insight into future events, and ziggurats acted as stairways to the gods.11 By understanding the movement of the stars, one could predict events of major significance to the empire.12 Later, this forecasting was advanced so that people could use the stars to predict individual fates.13 The Assyrians also worshipped benevolent and malevolent gods, goddesses, and demons who were closely connected to celestial bodies. Anu was believed to be the god of the heavens,14 and Ishtar, a female goddess, was called “Queen of Heaven” and “Mistress of Heaven.”15 Archeologists have found several artifacts depicting her as a star, or, in the very least, associating her with celestial bodies.

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Similar portrayals were not uncommon for the other Assyrian gods.16 Assyrians believed that the intentions of the gods could be deciphered through the stars and appropriate cultic action could and should be taken by worshippers. Zoroastrians also recognized the stars as divine beings. Tištrya, god of the rain star, was made the “lord and overseer of all stars” by the high god, Ahura Mazda.17 His role was to defeat the pairik¯as, “a class of female supernatural beings of malicious character,” whom he struck down, like shooting stars in the night.18 In this tradition beings of various ranks and virtue were acknowledged as astral objects. Ancient Egyptians understood stars and planets to be manifestations of gods, like Horus and Isis.19 Osiris, a major Egyptian god, was represented in the moon, and some stars were even manifestations of kings who had passed away.20 Egyptians believed that the power of the gods was made tangible in the world through heavenly bodies.21 For example, the flooding of the Nile was predicted through celestial signs.22 As Traunecker notes, the stars are “the deity’s visible face in the sensible realm of divine action.”23 As early as 1400 B.C.E., some ancient Greeks adopted Mesopotamian astrological views and myths.24 While a formal cult of the planets and stars was nearly nonexistent in classical Greece, it could be found in popular practice. Celestial worship was largely viewed as “archaic or foreign” by the elite.25 Aristophanes, for example, distinguished the Greeks from the barbarians by pointing to the barbarians’ worship of the sun and moon as gods.26 Although ritualistic worship of stars was not advocated by the learned, there were varying views regarding the actual divinity of the planets and stars. Some Greeks, including Plato and Aristotle, affirmed the divinity of the planets and stars.27 First, they argued that the movement of the planets confirmed their will and intelligence, thus demonstrating the presence of a soul.28 Second, the logical order of the entire cosmos, especially amongst the stars, revealed a “divine Reason” (nous) that directs all things.29 In describing the Greek mindset, Cumont writes, “the unceasing movement of these enormous masses showed that they were living beings, and the eternal immutability of their orbits proved that a superior reason directed their everlasting course. The admirable harmony of their relations, the inevitable, as well as the perennial, regularity of their revolutions implied the presence of a divine essence in them.”30 The planets and stars were recognized not as the highest deity, but as intermediate divine beings, nonetheless.31 Classical Greek thought on the planets and stars led to Roman views wherein the planets and stars were ascribed benevolent and malevolent characteristics as well as feminine and masculine ones.32 Roman intellectual Julius Firmicus Maternus (280–360 C.E.) wrote, Let us therefore worship the gods, whose origins has linked itself to us through the stars. Let the human race regard the power of the stars with the constant veneration of a suppliant. Let us call upon the gods in supplication and piously fulfill our vows to them so that we may be reassured of the divine nature of our own minds and may resist in some part the hostile decrees of the stars.33

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As demonstrated above, ancient religionists recognized a deep connection between divine beings and celestial bodies. One can only theorize why humans began to associate the two, and in some cases, worship them. Perhaps the gods/stars were envied, and subsequently deified because of their immortality stemming from their imperviousness to plagues and disasters.34 Theories concerning the origin of religion are tenuous, so one must avoid making unfounded conclusions on this point.35 But it is clear that ancient humans understood that they were not alone in the cosmos. Their fate was at the mercy of the gods. The world of humanity was not independent from the “spiritual” realm. The entire cosmos was integrally connected, and one need look no further than the stars to see the work of divine beings over humanity. The stars served as a constant reminder of the countless deities who inhabited the cosmos above. They were persistent reminders to the ancients of the divine powers that loomed over them and influenced the universe. The Stars in Jewish and Christian Literature Judaism and Christianity also contain a tradition of linking the stars with spiritual beings. Ancient Judaism differed from many pagan religions because it did not recognize the planets and stars as direct manifestations of Yahweh. However, it did so indirectly by associating Yahweh’s angels with the stars. Some early Christians maintained this tradition, while others rejected it. This section examines both traditions in order to see the connection that ancient Jews and Christians made between stars and angels. Job and Judges contain some of the first Jewish writings that associated the stars with angelic beings, perhaps as early as the tenth century B.C.E.36 Job states: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy. (Job 38:47)

Judges reads: The kings came, they fought; then fought the kings of Canaan, at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo; they got no spoils of silver. The stars fought from heaven, from their courses they fought against Sisera. (Judges 5:19–20)

The stars are understood here to be Yahweh’s angels, thus forging links between the celestial and earthly realms. The heavenly saga directly impacts human affairs. Connecting the stars and angels continued into the Second Temple period and became even more prevalent in Jewish apocalyptic literature.37 Texts from Daniel, the Enochic tradition, and the Qumran community reflect these developments.

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Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. Daniel (12:3) Be hopeful! For at first you were put to shame through evil and toil, but now you will shine as the light of heaven; you will shine and be seen, and the gates of heaven will be opened to you. (1 Enoch 104:2)38 For in the heights of that world shall they dwell, And they shall be made like unto the angels, And be made equal to the stars, And they shall be changed into every form they desire, From beauty into loveliness, And from light into the splendor of glory. (2 Baruch 51:10)

These texts show the Jewish apocalyptic belief that some righteous individuals will receive a resurrection of sorts, causing them to shine like the stars in heaven. Stückenbruck writes, “[I]t is not so much that the righteous will become stars, as it is that, similar to Daniel 12:3, they will become as stars.”39 In other words, the stars are understood to be angels, so the righteous are admitted into the hierarchy of angels.40 Other texts that contain a similar notion include Wisdom of Solomon 3:7; 1 Enoch 104:6; Similitudes of Enoch 39:5; and Matthew 22:30. In numerous texts, stars not only represent angels, but they can also refer to pagan deities (Dan. 11:37; Deut. 4:19; and Ps. 89:5–8).41 Furthermore, Collins asserts that the punishment of the seven stars in 1 Enoch is a “de facto polemic against the reverence for the planetary gods” in Greek culture.42 G. F. Moore also argues that the stars in Daniel 8:10 represent “celestial rulers of the heathen world.”43 In Isaiah stars reference both angels and a foreign king (Is. 14:13). The 19 biblical references to “the heavenly host” may also allude to astral worship and a henotheistic disposition that Yahweh is the supreme God in a cosmos populated with divine beings.44 Even the Watchers in 1 Enoch are depicted as stars (1 En. 86:1–6). It is evident that the stars held a prominent role in ancient Jewish cosmology, but their precise relationship to angels and deities is rather slippery for the contemporary mind to grasp. As Collins notes, “The stars were the visible manifestation of the heavenly beings, but the precise relationship between them is elusive. The distinction, however, is not always observed.”45 It is clear that the connection is more than mere metaphor. In the Second Temple period, as Jews developed a strict adherence to monotheism, the stars began to lose their association with foreign deities. Jews did maintain a tradition linking the angels with the stars, and this would penetrate into the early Christian worldview.

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Differing from some Jewish apocalyptic, early Christianity overwhelmingly rejected any belief that the stars are manifestations of pagan gods. Athanagoras (?—ca. 180 C.E.) summarizes this sentiment when he writes, “If, therefore, while I admire the heavens and the elements in respect of their art, I do not worship them as gods.”46 However, some Christians continued to maintain a connection between angels and the stars. For example, Theodotus (second century) writes, The stars, spiritual bodies, that have communications with the angels set over them, and are governed by them, are not the cause of the production of things, but are signs of what is taking place, and will take place, and have taken place in the case of atmospheric changes, of fruitfulness and barrenness, of pestilence and fevers, and in the case of men. The stars do not in the least degree exert influences, but indicate what is, and will be, and has been.47

According to Theodotus, while angels are not identical with stars, angels do use the stars to send messages to humans. Angels have some control over the stars, and, as in the Babylonian tradition, the person who can “read” the stars can foretell the future. Origen (185–232 C.E.) presents a unique view regarding the stars. He does not condone the worship of the stars, but Origen does believe that they are rational, living beings who fell from grace.48 The stars did not fall as far as Satan, and they are now performing penance for their sins. Stars currently serve as signs to humans, but they are also anxiously awaiting God’s redemption of the world.49 Origen does not connect the stars with angels, like earlier traditions, but he does recognize that they are more than just material matter—they are living, rational creatures. So, when Origen looked at the stars, he was reminded that the universe was populated with a multitude of different beings.50 While some ancient Christians refrained from equating the stars with angels, others were silent on the belief that angels communicate through the stars. It is unclear whether the silence is a rejection of this doctrine or mere omission on their part to discuss it. For many the stars continued to serve as signs of God’s activity, but one must be careful not to lose sight of the One who sent the message. Summarizing this quandary, Michael T. Cooper writes, “The relationship between Christianity and astrology has always been tenuous. While on the one hand there is outright refutation of astrology, there seems also to be acceptance. The rejection of astrology is generally focused on the tendency toward planetolatry, the replacement of the worship of God with the worship of the planets.”51 In other words, while some early Christian theologians took an active interest in astronomy, they were careful not to use the stars for astrological purposes.52 Basil, for instance, recognizes that scripture marks the end of time with signs and wonders in the heavens, but he mocks the use of astrology to determine individual futures.53 Cyril of Jerusalem and Augustine also come to similar conclusions. Augustine states, “[W]e affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who speak of fate,

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meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of each one’s conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion.”54 The tradition of looking to the heavens for signs from God continued into the Reformation period. For example, what is now known as the appearance of a nova caused a frantic stir in 1572 amongst astrologers and theologians as they attempted to identify the object and discern what it meant. Despite naturalistic explanations, many continued to interpret it as a sign from God.55 By and large the Christian West no longer recognized an ontological connection between the stars and angels, but some continued to believe that God spoke through the stars. The Stars and Spirits in an Emergentist Framework Viewing the stars as signs, however, did not go unchallenged in the modern era. Advancements in science and formal astronomy began to chisel away at beliefs concerning divine communication in the stars. The theories of Nicolas Copernicus (1473–1543), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), Galileo Galilei (1564– 1642), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727) gained prominence as alternative explanations for the alignment of the stars.56 David Albert Jones eloquently explains, “After Newton the world was not a meaningful cosmos but a silent empty space infinite in all directions.”57 Those who interpreted the stars as divine agents were escorted into the minority by science. Revolutions in philosophy also challenged ancient and medieval astrological views. The rise of rationalism and empiricism in the seventeenth century provided people with more naturalistic understandings of the universe, further suppressing any association between stars and heavenly beings. Rationalism in the form of Cartesian dualism drew distinctions between the physical and spiritual realm whereby physical substances, like stars, operated independently of spiritual entities, like angels. More radical forms of rationalism and Humean empiricism led to material reductionism—a belief system that rejects the existence of spiritual substances, altogether, in favor of a purely physical reality. Consequently, modern advancements in science coupled with these paradigm shifts in philosophy worked to eliminate the connection of spiritual entities with celestial bodies. This drastic departure from ancient and medieval thought dominated mainstream theology through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century as many theologians and Bible scholars demythologized the biblical message. Yet the advent of emergence philosophy at the end of the twentieth century challenged the dualism and reductionism that dominated the modern era.58 Emergence asserts that reality consists of many different ontological substrates. Higher levels of ontological complexity emerge out of lower levels, but they cannot be reduced to these lower constituent substrates. At the same time, the higher levels supervene, or influence, the lower levels. In other words, the impact of top-down causation is recognized by emergence philosophy.59 Emergence relies heavily upon evolutionary theory in which new entities and properties progressively emerge as new ontological levels give way to new possibilities. An example of this is the emergence of chemical properties from the physical realm, the

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emergence of biological entities and properties out of the chemical realm, and the emergence of human consciousness out of biological systems. Human consciousness is dependent upon physical, chemical, and biological properties but operates in accordance with “laws” that are irreducible to its constituent lower levels. Human consciousness can also influence these lower levels.60 In comparison to dualism and reductionism, the emergentist position sees the world as much more complex and interconnected. This has implications for a theological understanding of the world. If properties, like human consciousness, evolved from lower-level systems, then we must consider the possibility that higher-level systems may be capable of emerging in the future or have already emerged. I have taken this position alongside Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong in arguing that, whatever else, “spiritual” realities, like the demonic and the angelic, may be understood as emergent phenomena. Both of these deserve attention. Beginning with the demonic, rather than being construed first and foremost as fallen angels, an emergentist position considers its potential as a higher-level phenomenon that emerged from and subsequently to human consciousness.61 Within an emergentist framework, then, the demonic also has supervening influence upon humanity, maintaining the biblical notion that demonic forces are at work within the world (Eph. 6:12). Consequently, an emergentist theology does not reduce the demonic to merely evil acts of human discretion.62 Instead, it describes a world that embodies a multitude of emergent forces that extend beyond human properties and systems. If the demonic is an emergent reality, then this also evokes questions about the nature of the angelic realm. Adding to his argument about the demonic, Yong suggests that angels may also be understood as emergent (or this is at least one way to understand them). He writes: [A]ngelic spirits are emergent from their material substrates, constituted by but also thereafter irreducible to their outward physical forms. On the one hand, as agents of God who assist in the salvation of personal beings, they also are personal realities; on the other hand, as emergent from the complex matrices that constitute human relationships and their multiple environments, what we call angels are higher-level transpersonal or suprapersonal realities, constituted by and supervening upon the human relations from which they derive. Yet once emergent, they are irreducible to their underlying parts, even to the point of being capable of exercising “top-down” influence and agency in relationship to their lower-level realities.63

Adopting and expanding on Yong’s proposal for my own purposes, then, the cosmos is not only inhabited with malevolent emergent entities, but it may also be populated with a multitude of benevolent entities. This has theological implications for the way that we understand reality and how we evaluate ancient beliefs regarding the stars. Given the existence and magnitude of these emergent realities, the cosmos in an emergentist framework more closely resembles the cosmos as understood by ancient humans. In fact, it may

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be even more complex and spirit-filled, if realities are continuing to emerge. Therefore, it seems appropriate to revisit these ancient cosmologies, rather than dismissing them as primitive and superstitious. There may be something of significant value that the contemporary mind can glean from these worldviews—may be a connection may exist between the stars and emergent realities. This is a question that the final section explores. Emergence and Stars: Symbols of a Spirit-Filled Cosmos The previous section suggests that an emergentist theology may reveal a connection between the stars and spiritual realities. For the sake of clarity, I am not proposing that angels are ontologically identical to stars.64 This would require an absolute rejection of contemporary science, and an emergentist theology certainly does not require one to abandon science. In fact, as demonstrated above, an emergentist framework embraces scientific insights. Instead, it may be beneficial to understand the stars as symbols of “spiritual” beings. Symbols serve as powerful ways of speaking about reality. Strict demythologization projects of the modern era advocated that symbols be replaced with factual explanations. However, as theologian Paul Tillich suggests, symbols have an inherent value that cannot be replaced by “scientific substitutes.”65 Literal explanations deprive symbols of their “truth and of [their] convincing power.”66 Looking deeper into Tillich’s understanding of symbol, he suggests that symbols have six characteristics: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Symbols point beyond themselves to something else. Symbols participate in the transcendent reality to which they point. Symbols open up levels of reality that are otherwise closed for us. Symbols unlock dimensions and elements of our soul that correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality. 5. Symbols cannot be produced intentionally. 6. Symbols cannot be invented.67 Using Tillich’s criteria, stars function as symbols for the various spirits that populate the cosmos. The meaning of the stars cannot be reduced to their naturalistic explanations, but they point beyond themselves to emergent realities, like angelic and demonic forces. On the other hand, stars are not separate from this world, but they are intertwined with this world. In the same sense, emergent realities are also not separate spiritual forces as advocated in a Cartesian framework. Emergent realities develop out of physical systems and supervene upon them. Reciprocity exists so that the two cannot be bifurcated. The plentitude of stars also reveals the profuse emergent levels of reality that transcend mere physical systems. An emergentist cosmology allows stars to function as symbols of emergent realities—something that could not be achieved with modern reductionistic philosophies. The stars, as symbols, help us to imagine that which is unseen. They are reminders of the powers at work in the world. But the stars may also function on

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a different level. The stars may serve as foundational elements from which angelic and demonic powers emerge. Human consciousness is based upon biological life, and biological life relies upon our sun—a star. The sun provides energy that fuels biological systems; therefore, without the sun biological life, human consciousness, and, possibly, emergent powers would not exist. If these powers do indeed emerge from these lower levels, then the stars themselves participate in the reality of the angelic and demonic. In this way our sun participates in the reality of these powers. Furthermore, we must also consider the stars outside our solar system and the possibility of other solar systems that may sustain human-like or conscious life. Could angelic and demonic powers also emerge within these distant galaxies? Considering the countless solar systems that exist in countless other galaxies, a myriad of other stars have the potential to “give life” to a multitude of emergent realities. The implications for a spirit-filled cosmos are astonishing. Our cosmos may be teeming with emergent realities. Conclusion Regardless of how ancient beliefs in the stars started, it appears that the stars functioned as symbols, in the very least, for ancient peoples. Mircae Eliade eloquently writes, “[T]he sky itself directly reveals a transcendence, a power and a holiness. Merely contemplating the vault of heaven produces a religious experience in the primitive mind . . . The sky shows itself as it really is: infinite, transcendent . . . The sky ‘symbolizes’ transcendence, power and changelessness simply by being there. It exists because it is high, infinite, immovable, powerful.”68 This mysteriousness of the cosmos was lost, in part, to modern philosophies, but an emergentist theology helps to reestablish this intrigue. Stars can function as symbols once again. So, as the skies and its celestial bodies caused ancient people to reflect upon the complexity of the cosmos, the stars can continue to symbolize the multifaceted cosmos. An emergentist theology opens our eyes to the pneumatologically pluralistic world in which we reside. The world may be full of benevolent and malevolent emergent realities, and just as ancient people looked to the skies in awe and wonder, we too can be reminded of our place within the cosmos. We are not our own gods, but there are powers and forces at work in the cosmos, and, at times, they are vying to influence humanity. Notes 1. Apologists, like Justin Martyr, recognized Greek philosophy, especially Middle Platonism, as a source of revelation and should not be discarded a priori. He believed that Christianity, as an arbiter of truth, can be supplemented by Platonism. See Leslie W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 27–38. Tertullian, however, argued for a radical separation from Greek culture. This is demonstrated in his famous remark, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” See De praescriptione, vii. The struggle to preserve religious truth in light of pagan culture, however, was not unique to the second-century Church. These

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4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

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questions also extend to Christianity’s Jewish roots and include, but are not limited to, its reaction to Hellenization. See Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 2: The Coming of the Greeks (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 125–36. Philip Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). See Amos Yong, The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011); David Bradnick, “From the Protestant Era to the Pentecostal Era: An Intersection of Tillichian and Pentecostal Demonologies and Its Implications,” in Pentecostal Spiritual Presence and Spiritual Power: Pentecostal Readings of and Engagement with the Legacy of Paul Tillich; ed. Amos Yong and Nimi Wariboko (forthcoming), “Entropy, the Fall and Tillich: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Original Sin,” Theology and Science 7:1 (2009): 67–83; and “A Pentecostal Perspective on Entropy, Emergent Systems and Eschatology,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 43:4 (2008): 925–42. Wolfram Von Soden, The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 176–77. C. Leonard Woolley, The Sumerians (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1965), 128. Scott B. Noegel, Joel Thomas Walker, and Brannon M. Wheeler, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 13. Erica Reiner, Astral Magic in Bablyonia (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society), 19, 113. Ev Cochrane, Martian Metamorphoses: The Planet Mars in Ancient Myth and Religion (Ames, IA: Aeon Press, 1997), 30. James Evans, The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 297. Consequently, Babylonians addressed the planets and stars in two ways: their astral designation or the actual deities to which they correspond (Reiner, 5). John J. Collins, “Cosmology: Time and History,” in Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, ed. Sarah Iles Johnston (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 63. Evan Hadingham, Early Man and the Cosmos (New York: Walker 1984), 4. Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, God, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (Austin: University of Texas, 2003), 36. Von Soden, 157. Ibid., 199. Von Soden 199; Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 294. Keel and Uehlinger, 293–94. See Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism: The Early Period (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 41, 77; Mitra Ara, Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 181. Boyce, 85–6. Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 207. Pinch, 91, 207.

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21. Claude Traunecker, The Gods of Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 33. 22. C. Scott Littleton, ed., “Stars,” in Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, vol. 11 (Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 2005), 1336. 23. Traunecker, 33. 24. Kelley and Milone, Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy (New York: Springer), 3. Early Greek astronomy focused upon the sun, moon, and stars, rather than the planets, because their motion was much more predictable. Planets did not become important until later, around the fourth-century B.C.E., when the challenge of understanding their movements in the sky were solved. See Evans, 297. By the third-century B.C.E. the Greeks recognized seven planetary “gods” (Kelley and Milone, 36). 25. See Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 3. 26. S. Jim Tester, A History of Western Astrology (Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1990), 13. Anaxagoras also denied divine status to the stars and understood them as nothing more than “flaming stones” whose movement could be explained mechanistically. Samuel Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (London: Routledge, 1956), 23. 27. Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912), 39. See also Evans, 400. 28. Aristotle, On the Heavens, II.12. See also Kelley and Milone 36; Evans 296. Due to the seemingly unpredictable movement of the planets, Greeks called them “wanderers.” See Gabriela Roxana Carone, Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 55. 29. Francis MacDonald Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (London: Routledge, 1966), 38. 30. Cumont, 41. 31. Scott, 37. 32. Tim Hegedus, Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 3. 33. Julius Firmicus Maternus, “Liber Primus,” in Ancient Astrology Theory and Practice, trans. Jean Rhys Bram (Abingdon, MD: The Astrology Center of America, 2005), 20. 34. See Kelley and Milone 36. 35. In the nineteenth century early scholars of religion, like Friedrich Max Müller, E. B. Tylor, and Herbert Spencer, attempted to uncover the origins of religion, but, as E. E. Evans-Pritchard pointed out, these theories are largely speculative and lack substantial evidence. See Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (New York: Oxford University, 1968). The challenges of discovering the origin of religion caused a major shift in religious studies in the twentieth century when focus was directed to studies regarding the function of religion. 36. J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 59. 37. This may be attributable to a Jewish adaptation of Babylonian and Hellenistic astronomy and astrology. See Alexander Toepel, “Planetary Demons in Early Jewish Literature,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14:3 (2005): 231; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 60. 38. Translation taken from Loren T. Stückenbruck, 1 Enoch 91–108 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 561. 39. Stückenbruck, 573–74.

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40. See John J. Collins, “Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36:1 (1974): 33–35. Here Collins argues that the righteous are lifted to join the hierarchy of angels. See also John Joseph Collins, Daniel, ed. Frank Moore Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 393–94; Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 133; Stückenbruck, 151. 41. John J. Collins, “The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 93:1 (1974): 59. 42. Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 102. 43. G. F. Moore, “Daniel viii. 9–14,” Journal of Biblical Literature 15 (1896): 194. 44. Ida Zatellie, “Astrology and the Worship of the Stars in the Bible,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 103:1 (1991): 86–99. 45. Collins, Daniel, 331. 46. Athanagoras, A Plea for the Christians 16. 47. Excerpts of Theodotus LV. Although the dates of Theodotus’ life are uncertain, this work is commonly dated to 160–70 C.E. See Riemer Roukema, Jesus, Gnosis and Dogma (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 53. 48. Origen, De Principiis, I.7.2–4. Here Origen takes a Platonic stance in that the stars must possess a soul because of their movement. 49. Ibid., I.7.5. 50. For more on Origen’s view of the stars see Scott, 113–49. 51. Michael T. Cooper, “New Testament Astral Portents: God’s Self-Disclosure in the Heavens,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 1:2 (2007): 196. 52. See Daniel F. Stramara, Jr., “Surveying the Heavens: Early Christian Writers on Astronomy,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 46:2 (2002): 147–62. See also Benson Bobrick, The Fated Sky: Astrology in History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 324. 53. Hexaemeron VI.4–5. 54. Augustine, City of God V.9. See also Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis IV.18 55. For a detailed account of this incident see Charlotte Methuen, Science and Theology in the Reformation (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 33–47. 56. For an in-depth discussion on this see Avihu Zakai, “The Rise of Modern Science and the Decline of Theology as the ‘Queen of Sciences’ in the Early Modern Era,” Reformation & Renaissance Review 9:2 (2007): 125–51. 57. David Albert Jones, Angels: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University, 2011), 80. 58. The term “emergence” can denote may different types of emergence philosophies, for example, synchronic emergentism, diachronic emergentism, and a weak version of emergentism. Each of these possesses its own nuanced understanding of emergence. See Hans Lenk and Achim Stephan, “On Levels and Types of Complexity and Emergence,” in Complexity and Emergence, ed. Evandro Agazzi and LuisaMontecucco (River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 2002), 20–27. The exploratory nature of this paper does not lend itself to advocate a particular variety of emergence, so I will use the term in its broad sense. This, however, may open avenues for future research. 59. See Timothy, O’Connor, “Emergent Properties,” American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1994): 91–104. 60. See also Nancey Murphy, “Reductionism and Emergence: A Critical Perspective,” in Human Identity at the Intersection of Science, Technology and Religion, ed. Nancey C. Murphy and Christopher C. Knight (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 79–96.

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61. See Yong, 196–207. I propose that these emergent realities are not simply an idea that is confined to the human mind, but they are independent realities that have the capacity to exert causation upon humans. You can also find an extended argument in my forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Loosing and Binding the Spirits: Toward an Emergentist Theology of the Demonic.” 62. This reductionism is characteristic of modern theologians, like Bultmann and Schleiermacher, who attempted to demythologize the demonic. Contemporary theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg has also attempted to understand the angelic and demonic in a pneumatological and scientific framework, using field theories of physics. See his Systematic Theology, volume 2 (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 102–09. 63. Yong, 216. See also Amos Yong, “Speaking in Scientific Tongues: Which Spirit/s, What Interpretations,” Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity 3:1 (2012): 130–39, which clarifies that in dialogue with science, emergentism provides one, rather than the only, plausible interpretive perspective on the angelic (136). 64. The term “spirit” is used here and henceforth in an emergentist sense. Spirit does not suggest something that is separate from the physical realm (i.e., Cartesian dualism), but a reality that is dependent upon and participates in the physical world while also supervening upon it. 65. Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 51. See also Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Chicago: Chicago University, 1951), 240–41. 66. Ibid., 41. 67. Ibid., 41–43. 68. Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. by Rosemary Sheed (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1996), 38–39.

CHAPTER 16

Vector Fields as the Empirical Correlate of the Spirit(s): A Meta-Pannenbergian Approach to Pneumatological Pluralism Erwin T. Morales

Introduction1 Wolfhart Pannenberg’s pneumatology is unique in the use of the concept of a field of force in modern physics to conceptualize the Spirit of God.2 Objections from other theologians, especially those most knowledgeable in physics, were swift to come.3 This chapter proposes a revision of Pannenberg’s use of the field metaphor to overcome these objections. My thesis is that instead of looking at fields of forces in physics as the locus of the activity and description of the Spirit, it is not only more scientifically accurate but also more theologically fruitful to correlate the Spirit with the vector fields that guide the dynamics of all physical, biological, social, and historical phenomena. Such revision is significant because unlike fields of forces, vector fields can be posited at every level of organization in the cosmos. Similar to David Ray Griffin’s proposal but without recourse to process philosophy, the payoff “is that there may be many spirits or spiritual realities in the world, but rather than being transcendental, disembodied, and self-conscious entities they are naturally embedded in the dynamic processes of the world.”4

Motivations for a New Pneumatology Pannenberg’s Pneumatology Wolfhart Pannenberg always endeavored to make a case for the public relevance of theology in response to the challenges of modernity, postmodernity, and the liberal and pietistic Christian reactions to such challenges, all of which would have relegated religion into the private sphere indifferent to the public concerns of society and immune from critiques of public discourse.5 For Pannenberg, one way

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to public relevance and universal validity of Christian theology is for it to critically appropriate the sciences and lay theological claims to scientific understandings.6 When Pannenberg desires that theology be made a public and rigorous academic discipline, it is not only theology as a whole but specifically pneumatology that must be made so. Pannenberg deplores that contrary to the biblical portrait of the Spirit of God being involved in every divine activity in the world, Western theology restricted the work of the Spirit to soteriological functions and pietistic subjectivism, especially when the spirit was identified with the mind, and thus disconnected from God’s universal activities in creation.7 When theology subsequently attempted to separate the Spirit from the human mind, “theological talk about the divine spirit lost its last empirical correlate, and consequently it has become almost meaningless.”8 Traditional Western pneumatology not only failed to give a biblical account of the Spirit but also led to anthropocentrism, atheism, subjectivism, meaninglessness, and privatization of theology. To redeem pneumatology from these, theology must overcome the subjective bias of traditional Christian piety, and the only way to do so is through “an understanding of the spirit on the basis of his function in creation and this [sic] regard to his contribution to an explanation of nature.”9 In other words, pneumatology must be reconnected to a theology of nature that lays theological claim to scientific understandings. Theology must find an “empirical correlate” to the spirit, different from the human mind, that will locate the Spirit’s function in the whole cosmos, and thus be able to appropriate the natural sciences. The question is, “Can we in any intellectually serious way attribute a function in the explanation of nature to the Holy Spirit?”10 What is the Spirit’s empirical correlate? By “empirical correlate,” Pannenberg does not mean evidence for the existence or work of the Spirit in the empirical sciences. Rather, he means a principle in an explanation of nature that theology may appropriate not scientifically but theologically. It is that part of empirical reality, not with which the Spirit is identified, but to which the Spirit corresponds.11 The Spirit as a Field of Force Pannenberg’s discovery of a new empirical correlate of the Spirit began in the phenomenology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which claimed that energy is always the physical manifestation of a spiritual reality.12 This is true especially for energy that allows an entity to transcend itself and evolve into a higher form. As the physical correlate of the Spirit, however, it must be both immanent and transcendent as the Spirit is. In other words, energy can be the Spirit’s correlate in the empirical world only if it is conceived of as a field, which not only is contained within a thing, but also has, in principle, infinite spatiotemporal extension, as Michael Faraday claimed.13 Pannenberg sees Faraday giving priority to fields of forces over bodies, so that the spiritual transcends the material. “Faraday,” claims Pannenberg, “regarded bodies themselves as forms of forces that for their part are no longer qualities of bodies but independent realities that are ‘givens’ for bodily phenomena.”14 In response to his critics, Pannenberg reiterates this: “My own

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point was that the fields of modern physics are not bodies in the way the Stoic doctrine of the pneuma considered pneuma a bodily reality, occasioning, thereby, Origen’s objection to its application in the doctrine of God.”15 Thus, although fields of physical forces are manifested physically, Pannenberg can see in them the universal activity of the Spirit. What finally motivated Pannenberg to move in this direction is his discovery of the origin of the word field. Pannenberg found out “that the modern field concept emerged as a further development of the Stoic doctrine of pneuma (spirit), which was related to the early Greek idea of pneuma as moved air—an idea which is rather close to the ancient Hebrew term for spirit (ruach).”16 For Pannenberg, the concept of field as the Spirit’s correlate is not only scientifically informed but also biblically justified. The Inadequacy of Field of Force as the Spirit’s Empirical Correlate Theologians and physicists were quick to critique Wolfhart Pannenberg’s use of the concept of field. One of the most common objections is that fields of forces are actually physical or material, and therefore, Origen’s opposition to the Stoic doctrine of pneuma also applies to Pannenberg’s. John Polkinghorne points out that because mass and energy are interchangeable through Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc 2 , energy or field of energy is not a spiritual concept.17 In fact, all physical entities in the universe are excitation of fields, and thus, a field cannot be metaphysically distinguished from matter.18 Stephen M. Barr agrees with Polkinghorne and deems Pannenberg’s use of fields as a “theological dead end” precisely because physical fields are material and unable to comprehend the incorporeal aspect of the Spirit.19 This objection, however, seems to arise from a misunderstanding of what Pannenberg is seeking to accomplish. Pannenberg is not identifying the Spirit with physical fields. In fact, Pannenberg is clear on this when he qualifies his discussion by explicitly stating that “the principal differences between the ways of describing reality in physics and in theology prohibit us from offering a direct theological interpretation of field theories of physics.”20 Yet, identification seems to be Wicken’s interpretation of Pannenberg’s work when he asks, “Is God conceived here as a field as in physics? If so, why the need for God at all?”21 Neither is apologetics Pannenberg’s aim, contrary to Wicken’s assumption in claiming that he does not “see what relationship any of this has with the theological project of making religious sensibility intellectually supportable.”22 Rather, Pannenberg is correlating the Spirit with fields. In other words, he is locating the universal activity of the Spirit in fields, and thus giving the function of the Spirit an objective content. Nevertheless, Pannenberg cannot escape Wicken’s charge that he has “physicalized” the concept of God. Pannenberg responds that the reverse is true, that “the modern concepts of fields and energy went a long way to ‘spiritualize’ physics,”23 and that “modern physics should no longer be called materialistic.”24 Which one moved to the other’s direction, however, is irrelevant in this objection. What is

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critical is that through Pannenberg’s use of the field concept in physics, physics has now control over theology in its pneumatological formulations. Related to this is Amos Yong’s question of whether Pannenberg’s use of field of force can withstand new developments in physics such as quantum field theory, and Wicken’s pessimistic outlook that “Pannenberg continues theology’s long tradition of making itself vulnerable to scientific erosion by anchoring itself to physical cosmology.”25 The problem with positing a field of force as the Spirit’s empirical correlate is that a field of force is narrowly defined and it is tied to a very specific theory. Apparently, what needs to be done is to broaden the Spirit’s empirical correlate so that its concept is more flexible and is not bound to a specific physical theory. Perhaps, Pannenberg’s detractors themselves may point us to a revision of his pneumatology. Polkinghorne suggests that “if there is a hint of a move in modern physics in the direction that Pannenberg desires, it does not arise from field theory but from developments in chaos theory and complexity theory.”26 Now, if the science of complexity is where Pannenberg should be engaged, what precisely could serve as the Spirit’s empirical correlate? Barr claims that if physics seems less materialistic as Pannenberg observes, it is not because of field theory but because of, among other developments, “the ever deeper mathematicization of physics, which Pope Benedict XVI has referred to as ‘the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature.’ ”27 Perhaps both Pannenberg and his critics are right. A deeper mathematicization or higher abstraction of the field concept may be what Pannenberg is really looking for. Vector Fields as the Spirit’s Empirical Correlate Introduction When Michael Faraday introduced the concept of field to explain electric and magnetic forces, he used a notion where in each point in space there is already a force that acts on a body. In other words, in each point in the subset of space where a force can be felt, one can conceive of a vector whose angle as measured from a predetermined axis represents the direction of the force and whose length represents the intensity of the force. The set of all these vectors forms a vector field. The vector field is the mathematical equivalent of the physical field of force. Although the concept of a vector field originated from its use in representing physical forces, it is now abstracted as a purely mathematical concept and used in the sciences to describe the dynamics of various phenomena even where there is no physical force. It is the main thesis of this chapter that the vector field be considered as the Spirit’s empirical correlate. This does not do away with physical fields since, as mentioned, a vector field is the mathematical equivalent of a physical field. The use of vector fields, however, releases pneumatology from being bound to a specific theory (classical and/or quantum field theory) and relates pneumatology with other scientific theories that use the concept of vector fields.

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What might be appealing to Pannenberg is how the vector field is introduced in the study of the sciences. Countless introductory works in mathematics and physics use the phenomenon of air or wind as an example of a vector field.28 To describe the movement of wind, one conceives of a vector in each point in the range of space where the wind occurs. As in the case of the vector field representing a field of magnetic force, the direction of a vector represents the direction to where the wind is blowing in that particular point, which may not be the same direction in another point in space. The vector’s length represents the wind’s speed, which, likewise, may not be equal to the wind’s speed in another point in space. Furthermore, since the wind’s direction and speed change over time, the vector field has both a spatio and a temporal structure. The point here is that instead of associating the fields of the four fundamental forces in physics with pneuma as Pannenberg initially does, it is more appropriate to associate with pneuma the concept of vector field, which is a higher abstraction and able to model the fundamental forces of physics, wind, and countless other phenomena in nature. Besides this use of the vector field to model wind, is there any other advantage that justifies this shift? The answer lies in the presence of vector fields in all levels of phenomena in nature. Vector fields open up new vistas through which Spirit’s activity may be sought. Vector Fields in Dynamical Systems: Chaos Theory and the Sciences of Complexity When modeling the wind, velocity is not the only variable to consider. Air has other properties, such as temperature and pressure, that may change in space and time. In general, to describe the instantaneous state of a phenomenon, more than one variable may be necessary. Furthermore, these variables may not necessarily correspond to a point in physical space. Such a variable may be the instantaneous rate of change of a measurable quantity. The relationship between these variables is mathematically represented by differential equations and the movement of the variables is graphically represented as a trajectory in a mathematical space (possibly with more than three dimensions) called the phase space or state space, which frequently does not coincide with physical space.29 Given an initial condition, the integral curve is a solution of the differential equations used to model a system. The set of all integral curves of a given system is its phase portrait. The vector field is the set of all vectors tangent to the integral curves. To see the difference between a physical field such as that of gravity and a vector field, consider the case of a simple pendulum. The gravitational field within the vicinity of a simple pendulum is constant in intensity (around 9.8 m/s2 ) and direction (perpendicular and pointing to the ground (see Figure 16.1). The horizontal axis is the distance of the pendulum’s bob from a vertical line passing through its pivot while the vertical axis is its height from the ground. Now, the differential equation that defines the motion of a simple or frictionless pendulum is θ¨ +( g/l ) sin θ = 0 where θ is the pendulum’s angular displacement, l is its length, and g is the acceleration due to gravity.30 The vector

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Height from the ground

8 6 4 2 0 –4

–2

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Angular velocity (radians per second)

Figure 16.1 Gravitational field near the surface of the earth acting on a simple pendulum 3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3 –2

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Angular displacement (radians)

Figure 16.2 Vector field of a simple pendulum

field of the simple pendulum, however, has a different form and can be visualized in the pendulum’s phase space (see Figure 16.2). The horizontal axis is the angular displacement θ while the vertical axis is the angular velocity θ˙ . The gravitational field restricts the movement of the pendulum through physical space, whereas the vector field places constraints on the trajectory of its state in the phase space. If we are given a damped pendulum instead of a simple pendulum, the gravitational field is still the same. Yet its vector field becomes different31 (see Figure 16.3). Notice that unlike the simple pendulum that keeps on moving, the damped pendulum eventually settles down due to friction. From this example, we see that unlike a field of force, a vector field captures the dynamics of a phenomenon and is therefore more suitable to be the empirical correlate of the Spirit of God.

Angular velocity (radians per second)

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3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3 –2

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Angular displacement (radians)

Figure 16.3 Vector field of a damped pendulum

Another advantage of using vector fields becomes obvious: no charge of the Spirit being “physicalized” can be leveled against it. Mathematical Platonism may be raised, but only if an ontological reality is attributed to vector fields, something that is not necessary in reckoning vector fields as the Spirit’s empirical correlate. As a mathematical concept, vector fields may be considered as a mental construct, and thus, the Spirit is again related to the mind. That may be the case, but that is not the only or even the primary relationship between the Spirit and vector fields. What is crucial is the universality of vector fields not only in the physical level but also in chemical, biological, social, and higher levels of organization. Electric fields between electrons and protons are involved in chemical reactions. If the Spirit is correlated with merely fields of forces, the Spirit is seen as that which binds atoms and molecules. The Spirit is not involved in how a chemical reaction takes place in time and space. But if the Spirit is correlated with vector fields that arise from the differential equations of chemical kinetics,32 the Spirit forms not only the spatial context in which a chemical reaction takes place, but it also becomes the condition of the possibility of any chemical reaction at all. Thus, the concept of a vector field is more comprehensive than that of a field of force. Vector fields can be constructed to represent regular phenomena such as the movement of celestial bodies. Even most irregular phenomena, however, may be represented with vector fields when their underlying dynamics is governed primarily by deterministic equations. Some of these irregular phenomena are actually a physical realization of “mathematical chaos.”33 Many phenomena are a combination of deterministic chaos and inherently nondeterministic (stochastic) processes. In any case, the vector field is the precondition of these phenomena. As noted above, Polkinghorne suggests that Pannenberg engages with chaos theory rather than field theory. Through the use of vector fields, Pannenberg can maintain the field metaphor when engaging with chaos theory. As I will explain

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now, such engagement also accentuates the Spirit’s role as the origin of life more than any physical field theory can ever do. The use of differential equations and vector fields in chemical kinetics suggests that the same tools and concepts of dynamical systems theory are applicable to the study of the origin of life. There is, in fact, a subdiscipline of biology called evolutionary dynamics, which is “an effort to cast the basic tenets of Darwinian natural selection (replication, competition, strategy dependent fitness, mutation) in a mathematical framework that can be simulated, interpreted, and often rigorously analyzed.”34 At the center of evolutionary dynamics is the differential equation called the replicator-mutator Price equation, which models both selection and mutation.35 In fact, not only evolution itself but also the origin of evolution, that is, when chemical kinetics becomes evolutionary dynamics, can be modeled with differential equations.36 Through differential equations used to model evolutionary dynamics, we obtain vector field as the Spirit’s empirical correlate. This answers Pannenberg’s question of whether there is “any equivalent in modern biology of the biblical notion of the divine spirit as the origin of life that transcends the limits of the organism.”37 By correlating the Spirit with the vector fields of evolutionary dynamics, we are able to reckon the Spirit as guiding the origin and evolution of life. The Spirit can be related not only to the origin of life but also to health and healing. In cases where differential equations can be derived to model various phenomena, one can posit the existence of a vector field. In other cases, one can still determine whether a given irregular phenomenon is governed by deterministic chaos (which implies the existence of a vector field) or stochastic noise by empirically obtaining a time series of one or more variables of the phenomenon and carefully applying an algorithm to calculate a measure of chaos.38 Such experiment has been done on human electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG). In an article with a rather provocative title, Donald S. Coffey mentions research investigations that detected a higher level of mathematical chaos in the ECG of healthy hearts and in the EEG of healthy brains than in chronic hearth failure and epileptic seizures.39 The presence of a higher level of mathematical chaos means a greater role of the vector field in maintaining health, since the other options are only regularity, in which case the vector field is trivial, and pure randomness, in which case the vector field is indeterminate and not amenable to divine action (see next section). Likewise, healing can be achieved as the level of chaos or the richness of the structure of the vector field is increased.40 The universal activity of the Spirit can also be located in the human mind. Besides physics, chemistry, biology, and physiology, psychology has also seen applications of chaos theory. Unlike in the lower fields of the sciences, however, chaos in psychology, as Susan Ayers argues, can be employed in three ways: First, concepts can be applied metaphorically. For example, in psychoanalysis, where [sic], although not literally applicable, concepts of chaos may enable a new

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perspective or understanding of psychological processes. Second, concepts can be applied analogically, where some correspondence or partial similarity is assumed between psychological and physical systems and chaos is proposed to explain psychological processes. Finally, concepts can be applied practically [or empirically], trying to highlight indicators of chaos in psychological processes or developing chaotic models of behaviour.41

Practically or empirically, chaos is present in many neurophysiological phenomena.42 After surveying numerous research cases on the applications of chaos in psychology, Ayers concluded that “the application of chaos theory remains metaphorical except in neuropsychology, where practical application is possible.”43 That was in 1997. Twelve years later, psychologists are still empirically applying chaos theory not only in neurophysiology but in other areas as well. For instance, in developmental psychology, the increase in a child’s lexicon per unit time can be modeled based on experimental data and with greater explanatory power as a logistic function, which is a prime example of a dynamical, and often chaotic, system.44 This means that there is a vector field guiding the lexical development of children. In some cases, however, the application of chaos theory remains analogical. For instance, “mental states, disordered or not, are viewed as attractors, as dynamical invariants that are constantly in flux, rather than as constants or lesions.”45 Yet the general trend is to employ chaos theory practically or empirically in psychiatry.46 Even romantic love between two individuals and a love triangle have been modeled as a dynamical system with complex behavior.47 Not only are the human body and mind dynamical systems, but interactions of human beings also result in a dynamical system. Chaos theory has been applied in the social sciences as well. For instance, economics is a mathematical science and models have been used even before the discovery of chaos. Chaos, however, has appeared in both equations used to model economics systems and time series of real economic data.48 Politics is another area where chaos has been detected.49 What all these suggest is that every level of organization, from physical phenomena to political ones, is a dynamical system, which implies the existence of vector fields. In many cases, such systems are also chaotic, which implies the possibility of divine action as I will explain later on. Among the many criticisms Jeffrey S. Wicken levels against Pannenberg’s use of a field of force, Wicken deplores that Pannenberg “puts too many metaphysical eggs in the basket of physics, and a misconceived physics as well.”50 The use of vector fields, however, permits Pannenberg to put his metaphysical eggs not only in the basket of physics but in those of the other sciences from chemistry to medicine and from psychology to political science. But are these disciplines the places where the Spirit’s universal activity may be found? “History is the most comprehensive horizon of Christian theology,” asserts Pannenberg.51 Yet Pannenberg has not demonstrated how the field of force may provide hints to the Spirit’s universal activity in history. Pannenberg has attempted to demonstrate through quantum indeterminacy that the Spirit is the

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field of possible future events that constitute and act on the present.52 Yet the Spirit not only transcends history but is immanent within it. In fact, the Spirit is God’s principle of immanence in the world. Does the concept of vector fields provide an opening for the Spirit’s work in history? Apparently, historians are employing the language of chaos theory to describe history.53 Unlike in the other sciences, the use of chaos in historical theorizing is of course metaphorical. One could conceive the whole world as a high- or infinitely-dimensional dynamical system whose variables are everything that changes.54 This set of variables follows a trajectory in its phase space, and most probably its deterministic component would follow a chaotic trajectory within a strange attractor guided by a vector field. Because this kind of talk is metaphorical rather than empirical or even analogical, the use of vector field as the Spirit’s correlate suggests that the Spirit has not only an empirical correlate but analogical and metaphorical correlates as well. The universal function of the Spirit may be found not only in the empirical sciences as Pannenberg desires, but in the entire range of human knowledge. Pneumatological Pluralism and Panenpneumatic Divine Action The vector field is the Spirit’s correlate in all organizational levels of nature, from subatomic physics and celestial bodies to the horizon of history. In as much as they are all vector fields, they are the empirical correlate of the one Spirit of God. Although there may be a vector field throughout the whole expanse of the phase space of a particular dynamical system, the vector field may be well-defined only within a finite subset of that phase space. For example, the vector field of wind exists everywhere in the earth’s atmosphere. A storm in New York is not the same storm in Amsterdam happening at the same time, although a vector field may be continuously defined within the whole Atlantic Ocean and its coast lines. A vector field can be divided into regions and each region is given its own identity. In this way, a specific vector field or region thereof is the empirical correlate of a particular spirit. Thus, the world and all its parts are not merely inhabited but constituted by a plurality of spirits whose objective function is found in the vector fields. As the constituents of the created world, the spirits are God’s creatures. According to Pannenberg, “fundamentally the angels of biblical tradition are natural forces that from another angle might be the object of scientific descriptions.”55 Looking at vector fields as the empirical correlate of the spirit world allows both theology and science to study the same phenomenon from different but complementary angles. In the biblical tradition, God brings about his will in creation through angels as God’s agents. In contemporary theology, however, scientifically informed models of divine action do not appropriate the concept of God’s ministering spirits. By looking at various vector fields as the empirical correlate of angels, however, one can put the idea of angels back into a model of divine action. Divine action is a complex topic and is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here, however, I wish to propose a rough sketch of a model of immanent noninterventionist divine action

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that appropriates the presence of chaotic vector fields, and therefore, of spirits as vector fields. Contrary to popular notion, chaos can in fact be controlled within a certain range using subtle perturbations to the vector field even if the equations governing the system are unknown.56 Control of chaos in various natural phenomena is an active area of research. For example, researchers report that they were able to control a realistic model of El Niño. “While we obviously do not propose here the control of actual El Niño events,” the authors qualify, “we do show that chaos control in a realistic El Niño model can contribute to the understanding of El Niño’s dynamics.”57 The economy is another area where chaos control might be possible.58 If human beings can theoretically control the climate and the economy, perhaps God could do no worse using no less sophisticated schemes. This model of divine action, however, puts restrictions on what God is capable of accomplishing in a noninterventionist manner. First, the desired behavior of a system should be located within its strange attractor. Otherwise, no perturbation to the vector field can lead the system into its desired state. Thus, not every desired outcome is possible for God to accomplish without violating the laws of nature. Second, the initial condition must be located within what is called the basin of attraction.59 This is the region of the phase space where the system eventually enters the attractor where the desired state is located. If the initial condition is not located within this basin, the desired outcome, even if it were located within the attractor, is not possible for God to accomplish. Third, all systems are interconnected and interdependent, and a perturbation on the vector field of a system may affect other systems. Thus, even if a certain system’s desired outcome is located within the attractor and its initial condition is located within its basin of attraction, the necessary subtle perturbations on this system’s vector field may produce undesirable consequences in other systems. Fourth, in some cases it is possible to overcome these undesirable consequences in other systems if God were to perturb the vector fields continuously in time and distributively in space (control of “spatiotemporal chaos”). Thus, this model of divine action sees God always at work immanently in all creation. Since the beginning of creation, God acts in every event to maintain the best of all possible histories bounded by the above restrictions on divine omnipotence. These four issues on what God may be able to accomplish in a noninterventionist manner through subtle perturbation of the empirical correlate of the spirits are significant in forming a pneumatologically pluralistic theodicy. Natural evil can be attributed to such restrictions on divine action, namely, when natural forces become closed to God’s providence. “The temporal inversion in the structure of natural forces,” writes Pannenberg, “and their operation causes them to become ungodly and demonic forces only when they close themselves against the future of God, the kingdom of his possibilities, and thus become closed systems.”60 In this sense, good and bad angels correspond to vector fields in which divine action through subtle perturbations is possible or not, respectively. Finally, there is, of course, the question of the source

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of indeterminacy in nature through which God could exert influence without violating the laws of nature. One answer is quantum indeterminacy.61 Whatever the causal nexus might be, however, immanent noninterventionist divine action where spirits are found in all systems, namely, panenpneumatic divine action, is generally possible in a pneumatology that finds the empirical correlate of the spirits in vector fields. Another example of an area where chaos control might be possible is the human brain.62 Of course, human free will precludes God from overpowering a person, but these advances in chaos theory and its applications in a wide array of disciplines, debatable and provisional as they are, suggest that God is capable of exerting some influence in the human mind as well as in the natural processes. There is even some evidence suggesting the presence of deterministic chaos in cancer and epilepsy,63 so that it is theoretically possible for God to prevent or cure these diseases in certain cases. “Petitionary prayer implies belief in God who acts in the particular as well as in the general. We have given reasons why, with appropriate safeguards for creaturely freedom, belief in such a God is a coherent possibility.”64 With dynamical systems theory, it is not only possible but also probable. It is epistemically justifiable to believe that through subtle perturbations of vector fields and with the above restrictions, God is able to heal diseases, especially “dynamical diseases,” which result from the loss or presence of complexity.65 Pannenberg proposed that force fields be considered as the empirical correlate of the Spirit of God. A more theological fruitful and scientifically accurate proposal is to see vector fields as the Spirit’s empirical correlate. The various vector fields in the constituent parts of and organizational levels in nature allow the theologian to interpret them as the empirical correlate of spirits. These spirits are deemed good or bad depending on whether they close themselves to God’s divine action through subtle perturbations. In any case, the world is constituted by vector fields as the empirical correlate of the Spirit. “Spirit is neither a metanor an epi-phenomenon; it is the phenomenon.”66 And with the Sprit loosed in all phenomena, “the world remains a great enchanted garden.”67 Notes 1. I am grateful to Drs. Karl Giberson and Richard Carlson for their constructive critiques of an earlier draft of this chapter. All responsibility lies with me alone. 2. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994), 2:79–84. 3. See, for example, John Polkinghorne, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” Zygon 34:1 (1999): 151–58. 4. Amos Yong, “Introduction,” in this volume, p. 7. 5. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), 13–15. 6. Ibid., 17–18. 7. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature,” Theology 75:1 (January 1972): 11–12.

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8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

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Ibid., 12. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 16–19. Cf. the view of Thomas F. Torrance: “This is not to say, of course, that every theological concept and statement must have a specific empirical correlate, but that in so far as they are true, theological concepts and statements are integrated within a coherent system which at certain essential points must be correlated with the empirical world.” The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (London: T&T Clark, 1996), 83. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Spirit and Energy: The Phenomenology of Teilhard de Chardin,” in Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg, ed. Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen (Peru, IL: Open Court, 1997), 82–83. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Spirit and Energy,” 83. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:79–80. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “God as Spirit—And Natural Science,” Zygon 36:4 (December 2001): 788. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings: Response to Hefner, Wicken, Eaves, and Tipler,” Zygon 24:2 (June 1989): 257. John Polkinghorne, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” Zygon 34:1 (March 1999): 154. John Polkinghorne, “Fields and Theology: A Response to Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Zygon 36:4 (December 2001): 796. Stephen M. Barr, “Theology after Newton,” First Things 187 (November 2008): 31–33. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:83. Jeffrey S. Wicken, “Theology and Science in the Evolving Cosmos: A Need for Dialogue,” Zygon 23:1 (March 1988): 52. Ibid. Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation,” 258. Pannenberg, “God as Spirit—And Natural Science,” 788. Amos Yong, “Discerning the Spirit(s) in the Natural World: Toward a Typology of ‘Spirit’ in the Religion and Science Conversation,” Theology and Science 3:3 (2005): 320; and Wicken, “Theology and Science in the Evolving Cosmos,” 49. Polkinghorne, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” 154. Barr, “Theology after Newton,” 32. For example, William Leonard, Rob Dufresne, and William Gerace, Minds on Physics: Fundamental Forces and Fields, Activities and Reader (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1999), 92. For the historical origins of this concept, see David D. Nolte, “The Tangled Tale of Phase Space,” Physics Today 63:4 (April 2010): 33–38. Vladimir I. Arnold, Ordinary Differential Equations, trans., Roger Cooke (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1992), 33–34. For an analysis of the damped pendulum or a pendulum with friction at the pivot, see Moshe Gitterman, The Chaotic Pendulum (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2010), 10–11. For the use of differential equations and vector fields in chemical kinetics, see Kenneth A. Connors, Chemical Kinetics: The Study of Reaction Rates in Solution (New York: VCH Publishers, 1990).

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33. For a popular treatment of chaos theory, see James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987). For a technical treatment, see John Guckenheimer and Philip Holmes, Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical Systems, and Bifurcations of Vector Fields (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983). 34. Darren Pais, Carlos H. Caicedo-Nunez, and Naomi E. Leonard, “Hopf Bifurcations and Limit Cycles in Evolutionary Network Dynamics,” SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems 11:4 (2012): 1754–1884. For a textbook on evolutionary dynamics, see Martin A. Nowak, Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 35. Karen M. Page and Martin A. Nowak, “Unifying Evolutionary Dynamics,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 219:1 (2002): 93–98. 36. Martin A. Nowak and Hisashi Ohtsuki, “Prevolutionary Dynamics and the Origin of Evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:39 (September 30, 2008): 14924–27. 37. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theological Questions to Scientists,” Zygon 16:1 (1981): 68. 38. The algorithm is known as the Grassberger-Procaccia algorithm. Peter Grassberger and Itamar Procaccia, “Measuring the Strangeness of Strange Attractors,” Physica D 9:1–2 (October 1983): 189–208; and A. M. Albano, J. Muench, and C. Schwartz, “Singular-value Decomposition and the Grassberger-Procaccia Algorithm,” Physical Review A 38:6 (September 15, 1988): 3017–26. For an alternative state-of-the-art method, see Igor Djurovi´c, Vesna Rubeži´c, and Ervin Sejdi´c, “A Scaling Exponentbased Detector of Chaos in Oscillatory Circuits,” Physica D 242:1 (January 1, 2013): 67–73. 39. Donald S. Coffey, “Self-Organization, Complexity and Chaos: The New Biology for Medicine,” Nature Medicine 4:8 (August 1998): 883. 40. Ibid., 883–84. For recent advances in the application of chaos theory and nonlinear science to biology and medicine, see Bruce J. West, Fractal Physiology and Chaos in Medicine, 2nd ed. (Singapore: World Scientific, 2012); and Robert A. Meyers, ed., Systems Biology (Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). 41. Susan Ayers, “The Application of Chaos Theory to Psychology,” Theory & Psychology 7:3 (June 1997): 379. 42. Henri Korn and Philippe Faure, “Is There Chaos in the Brain? II. Experimental Evidence and Related Models,” Comptes Rendus Biologies 326:9 (September 2003): 787–840. 43. Ayers, “The Application of Chaos Theory to Psychology,” 393. 44. Paul van Geert, “Nonlinear Complex Dynamical Systems in Developmental Psychology,” in Chaos and Complexity in Psychology: The Theory of Nonlinear Systems, ed. Stephen J. Guastello, Matthijs Koopmans, and David Pincus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 246–48. See the whole book for other recent applications of chaos theory in psychology. 45. Wolfgang Tschacher and Uli Junghan, “Psychopathology,” in Chaos and Complexity in Psychology, ed. Guastello, et al., 327. 46. A. Bystritsky, A.A. Nierenberg, J.D. Feusner, and M. Rabinovich, “Computational Non-linear Dynamical Psychiatry: A New Methodological Paradigm for Diagnosis and Course of Illness,” Journal of Psychiatric Research 46:4 (April 2012): 428–35. 47. J. C. Sprott, “Dynamical Models of Love,” Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences 8:3 (July 2004): 303–13. 48. For instance, chaos has been detected in the time series of Standard and Poor’s Composite Price Index (S&P500). Lex Oxley and Donald A. R. George, “Economics on

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49.

50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63.

64.

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the Edge of Chaos: Some Pitfalls of Linearizing Complex Systems,” Environmental Modelling & Software 22:5 (May 2007): 580–89. For the state-of-the-art research on applications of nonlinear dynamical systems on economics, see the journal Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics. For instance, Michael McBurnett detected chaos in a time series obtained by a public opinion poll on presidential candidates. “Complexity in the Evolution of Public Opinion,” in Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications, ed. L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliott (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 165–96. Wicken, “Theology and Science in the Evolving Cosmos,” 49. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology: Collected Essays (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970), 1:15. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:98–102. This trend can be traced backward up to George Reisch, “Chaos, History, and Narrative,” History and Theory 30:1 (1991): 1–20. See also Michael Shermer, “Exorcising Laplace’s Demon: Chaos and Antichaos, History and Metahistory,” History and Theory 34:1 (1995): 70; and John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 89. We should also take into account the requirement that the variables be linearly independent. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:106. First demonstrated by Edward Ott, Celso Grebogi, and James A. Yorke, “Controlling Chaos,” Physical Review Letters 64:11 (March 12, 1990): 1196–99. A relatively comprehensive reference on chaos control is Heinz G. Schuster, ed. Handbook of Chaos Control (Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH, 1999). Eli Tziperman, Harvey Scher, Stephen E. Zebiak, and Mark A. Cane, “Controlling Spatiotemporal Chaos in a Realistic El Niño Prediction Model,” Physical Review Letters 79:6 (August 11, 1997): 1034–37. Michael Kopel, “Improving the Performance of an Economic System: Controlling Chaos,” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 7:3 (September 1997): 269–89. Edward Ott, Chaos in Dynamics Systems, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 55. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:108. First proposed by William G. Pollard, Chance and Providence: God’s Action in a World Governed by Scientific Law (London: Faber and Faber, 1958). Steven J. Schiff, Kristin Jerger, Duc H. Duong, Taeun Chang, Mark L. Spano, and William L. Ditto, “Controlling Chaos in the Brain,” Nature 370:6491 (August 25, 1994): 615–20; and Leon D. Iasemidis, Deng-Shan Shiau, J. Chris Sackellares, Panos M. Pardalos, and Awadhesh Prasad, “Dynamical Resetting of the Human Brain at Epileptic Seizures: Application of Nonlinear Dynamics and Global Optimization Techniques,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 51:3 (March 2004): 493–506. Edwin M. Posadas, Stuart R. Criley, and Donald S. Coffey, “Chaotic Oscillations in Cultured Cells: Rat Prostate Cancer,” Cancer Research 56 (August 15, 1996): 3682–88; and Roxana A. Stefanescu, R.G. Shivakeshavan, and Sachin S. Talathi, “Computational Models of Epilepsy,” Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy 21:10 (December 10, 2012): 748–759. Polkinghorne, Science and Providence: God’s Interaction with the World (Boston: New Science Library, 1989), 80.

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65. Jacques Belair, Leon Glass, Uwe an der Heiden, and John Milton, “Dynamical Disease: Identification, Temporal Aspects and Treatment Strategies of Human Illness,” Chaos 5:1 (1995): 1–7. 66. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, quoted in Pannenberg, “Spirit and Energy,” 86. 67. Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, trans. Ephraim Fischoff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 270.

Conclusion: The Holy Spirit in a Spirit-filled World: Broadening the Dialogue Partners of Christian Theology Kirsteen Kim

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wareness of a wider pneumatological understanding of life, the universe and human society—such as is promoted in this book—necessarily leads Christian theologians to a deep interest in, and enrichment of, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit since this is framed in the same language of “spirit.” This concluding chapter will pick up some of the insights of the earlier ones to point to such new developments in Christian pneumatology. It will also draw attention to an important substratum of this volume: that helpful sources for doing theology of the Holy Spirit in a spirit-filled world are to be found in popular religion and in Christian theologies that relate to religious traditions in Africa, Asia, and other regions where there is awareness of a wider spirit world. Increased interaction with emerging theologies from different parts of world Christianity will aid theological reflection in interaction with plural pneumatological thought in contemporary science, and in political, cultural, and religious studies. Developments in philosophy and science add credibility to plural theologies, illumine the biblical material, and create further possibilities for global theological conversation that does not marginalize those whose many-spirit cosmologies differ from predominant Western and elite one-Spirit worldviews. The chapter will examine the difficulties for Christian theologians negotiating the spirits and suggest areas of Christian theology that would benefit from further exploration of the spirit-filled world. Problems for Theologians Who “Loose the Spirits” For many Christian theologians, the sub-title Loosing the Spirits will be incomprehensible at best and dangerously heretical at worst. The sensitivity and risks of engaging in this discussion in the churches were apparent in 1991 at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra. The theme “Come, Holy Spirit, renew the whole creation,” which was an Orthodox theological formulation drawing attention to the integral relation of heaven and earth and also reflected the concerns of ecotheologians, turned out to be highly problematic

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for the unity of the Council when the spirits and opinions of non-Western theologians and indigenous peoples were “loosed” and spoken for the first time in such a forum.1 The reasons for the ensuing controversy were both legitimate philosophical and doctrinal concerns on the one hand and the unfortunate legacy of a history of cross-cultural encounter in the context of Western colonialism on the other. Enlightenment thinkers struggled to find a role for spiritual entities in the material universe. The spirit-filled world that had inhabited the continuous multi-layered universe of “personalistic” cosmology disappeared in the simplified “naturalistic” world. Amos Yong’s Introduction to this volume helpfully delineates the “naturalistic” worldview of the modern West, as distinct from earlier understanding. Naturalistic culture has been inhospitable to the Holy Spirit and pneumatology in general because it rejected intermediate spiritual beings or cosmic spirits as a category, focusing only on the meta-cosmic or the material and leaving out the middle zone of spirits.2 The dominant philosophy of deism dismembered the Trinity by removing God from involvement with the physical world and considering only the human nature of Jesus Christ.3 Doctrinally, not only was the new worldview hostile to Trinitarian understanding but it also privatized spirit as the perceived or personal, the nonmaterial, and, by implication, the unreal, or else philosophized upon it as the ultimate, the transcendent, or wholly other. Faith was “spiritualized” and God as spirit was foreign to the real world. The Holy Spirit was separated from the material world except as “power from on high” (Luke 24:49): a cipher for ecclesiastical authority, an appeal to conscience, or a transcendent experience. As for “spirits”—the angels and demons of the premodern West, they were given naturalistic explanations or else relegated to the realms of the superstitious, the paranormal, the irrational, or the imaginary. The educated elite who adopted the new worldview became the “cultured despisers” who recognized no higher power or need of faith and looked down not only on theologians but especially on faith as the “tradition” that was holding back progress, the institutions that stood in the way of change or the opium that prevented revolution (cf. Chapter 5). Whereas Protestant monotheism might be tolerated, the angels and saints of Catholicism and the spirits and ghosts of popular religiosity were denounced as “superstition” and evidence of lack of education or blind faith. While there was much that was unsavory and exploitative in contemporary religious practice, attempts to displace something now labeled “religion” by something else called “science” not only caused a backlash that distorted faith into fundamentalism but also contributed to ideological conflict causing suffering and oppression in the last two centuries—in some cases on a massive scale.4 The philosophical and doctrinal shifts in the West affected the attitudes of Westerners to other cultures in a period when they entered into a colonial relationship with much of the rest of the world. By the late nineteenth century, the philosophies of other cultures were rarely accorded that title, but more often looked down on as “religions” or, in their popular forms, despised as “superstition.” Even Western missionaries, whose faith might be questioned at home,

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were, nevertheless, mostly convinced that their Western culture was superior to that of the other cultures they encountered. Although they believed in God, anything that smacked of polytheism or a pluralistic pneumatology tended to be denounced and demonized or regarded as occult. The spirit world of other peoples tended to be mislabeled wholesale by missionaries as evil, even when it was part of a functioning worldview that had maintained social cohesion for centuries.5 These attitudes to pluralistic pneumatologies persist today, not only among the Pentecostal leaders cited by Tony Richie (Chapter 12) and others. They are also in the predominant “world religions paradigm.” This view, which is the foundation of the teaching of religious education in UK schools and elsewhere, accords certain organized faiths that have a literary tradition equal respect in the public sphere but local or indigenous religions, which are mostly spirit-religions of some sort, are rarely considered.6 The former are increasingly politically important, and this is one of the reasons that Christian theologians have entered into dialogue with them, but the latter, which are in the main the faiths of native peoples who have suffered most under the enterprise of the West and its allies, are commonly disregarded. Revivals of similar traditions in the West—Paganism, Wicca, for instance—are also rarely treated theologically or admitted to interfaith discussion. In this respect, this book could be regarded as an attempt to advance Christian theological dialogue with Indigenous Religions. So among theologians, discussion of “spirits” (plural) may elicit incomprehension, cultural distaste, or even outright rejection (as Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen recalls in Chapter 2). Among those Christians who give some credence to the spirit world of angels and demons—some Catholics, Evangelicals, and Pentecostals— the reaction to “spirits” is one of fear. As is clear from the papers by Anne Dyer (Chapter 8) and Richie, among classical Pentecostals “spirits” are assumed to be evil spirits and any involvement with them, other than straightforward exorcism, is shunned. These reactions are deeply problematic when we consider that “personalistic” cosmologies including a range of spiritual entities were the “matrix” within which the New Testament was written.7 On the other hand, Dyer shows how at a grassroots level, classical Pentecostals in Britain also have a belief in angels as signs of the providence or intervention of God—and perhaps also an openness to meeting “angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). John Levison (Chapter 1) illustrates the complexity and ambiguity of the spirit world—or worlds—of the Bible, even within the New Testament. His work suggests that Western theologians have, for lack of philosophical tools and cultural sensitivity, only poorly appreciated biblical references to exorcism, demons, angels, healing, discernment, and other terms that presuppose a spirit world. Many Western theologians influenced by a deistic or monistic perspective refer to “the Spirit” or just “Spirit,” failing to notice that the Spirit sent from the Father and the Son is often distinguished in the New Testament from other spirits as the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Christ, the one Spirit, or the Holy Spirit. They also neglect the New Testament concern with exorcism and with “testing” (1 John 4:1) or “discerning” (1 Corinthians 12:10) the spirits. Nevertheless, as Levison shows, in the lives of the New Testament Christians

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the difference was not always clear-cut between the Holy Spirit and other spirits, between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, or between the Jewish and Christian spirits. What is meant by “Holy Spirit” in the different New Testament documents cannot be fully understood without better appreciation of the spirits with which it shares an affinity as “spirit” and from which it was also distinguished as “holy.” Sources for Spirit-filled Theology In view of the prejudices described above against pluralistic pneumatologies, our attempt to “loose the spirits” and do “spirit-filled” theology might seem doomed to failure and even theological censure. However, as this volume demonstrates, certain changes in thought and society have opened up the possibility of constructive theological engagement with pluralistic spiritualities of various sorts. Philosophical and scientific developments that enable a “reenchantment” of science, for example, in the work of David Ray Griffin, have been rehearsed by Amos Yong in the Introduction. Drawing on Griffin’s work, Philip Clayton (Chapter 13) explains in this volume how even evolutionary biology, which seemed at one time closed off to any philosophy that was not materialist, can allow for “emergence of Spirit.” Moreover, in Clayton’s view, if at least one spirit exists in the world, then in principle there is the possibility of others so that a pluralistic pneumatology is also conceivable within emergence philosophy. Furthermore, Clayton suggests that such a language of “spirits” could complement biological language without contradicting it. As Jürgen Moltmann has argued, the Gaia hypothesis that is the foundation of ecology is also amenable to dialogue with Christian theology, as long as its pantheism is transmuted into panentheism to allow for the openness of the ecological system to the future or to a transcendent power.8 However, as Kärkkäinen points out, Moltmann’s and most other developed Western theologies of creation—even those that are explicitly pneumatological—remain “unitive” in that “they speak only of one spirit, the Spirit of God, and leave out of consideration other spirits, powers, energies” (Chapter 2). Theologians in dialogue with the physical and mathematical sciences have come furthest in moving from “unitive” to “plural” pneumatologies. Erwin Morales (Chapter 16) explains Wolfhart Pannenberg’s use of Michael Faraday’s electromagnetic field theory as an “empirical correlate” of the work of the Spirit in order to rescue pneumatology from subjectivism, privatization, and limitation to the human mind. In so doing he pluralized pneumatology because Faraday conceived of many interlocking force fields as the domain of the Spirit. Morales criticizes Pannenberg’s view because he has made himself captive to the field concept in physics and suggests that mathematical complexity theory might be a more far-reaching choice. Within this, Morales chooses the more comprehensive and abstract theory of vector fields, which, by its nature as a pure mathematical tool, lends itself to application to any area of science. Furthermore, he claims, since mathematicians use wind or the movement of air as

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an analogy to explain a vector field, this theory correlates with pneuma-tology in its original sense. It also allows for many spirits as well as one Spirit. Morales demonstrates that vector field theory offers a possible correlate to a pluralistic pneumatology, and that therefore makes the latter logically conceivable within a scientific worldview. But even vector fields are only a model; mathematical models only approximate to reality and, as other commentators have warned, it is unwise for theology to tie itself too closely to any one theory.9 Furthermore, there are a variety of theological pneumatologies, each suggesting different scientific correlates, and vice versa. As well as developments in science and philosophy, certain social changes also suggest a shift in paradigm from unity to plurality. Increasing global interaction is driving cultural change and this may be connected with the shifts in science and philosophy. Particularly since the end of the Cold War, global migration and the rise of economies in Asia, in Latin America, and also now in Africa have facilitated the inclusion in scientific enterprise of people whose cultural heritage is not Western and who offer new cosmologies as possible ways of understanding and modeling the universe. Such social changes are also visible in the cultural shifts that in the West are referred to as post or late modernity. As Yong points out, religious pluralism as a facet of multicultural societies also offers resources for pluralistic pneumatologies. The new plurality of cultural and religious understandings is recognized as a strength to be celebrated rather than squeezed into a single model. The philosophical shifts above are steps toward legitimizing Western academic engagement with worldviews that incorporate “spirits” and that once seemed so foreign to Western thinking. And as a result of sociopolitical changes, “personalist” worldviews have been reintroduced into the West from animistic religions, stimulating also revivals of ancient Western “personalist” outlooks or paganism. Walter Staggs (Chapter 7) describes a more recent form of religiosity in the West that shares some key characteristics of “personalist” worldviews: belief in the paranormal—although in this case the spirit world shows the results of processes of demonization in that it is almost entirely associated with horror. African and Asian pneumatologies and Indigenous Religions offer a wealth of resources for loosing the spirits in theology, such as Native American spiritualities, Aboriginal dreaming, and Shamanism in Central and East Asia. Many of the “world religions” also include earlier local religions, notably Hinduism, but popular forms of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity too include belief in multiple spiritual beings: bodhisattvas, jinn, angels, ghosts, and so on. This volume introduces three such worldviews: Astrology, African Religious Traditions, and Shintoism. David Bradnick (Chapter 15) believes that emergence philosophy legitimizes pluralistic pneumatology by allowing for the treatment of spiritual entities, like angels and demons, at least in part, as emergent realities. He draws attention to astrological understanding of the stars in ancient West Asia as suggesting a contemporary emergentist view of the cosmos as populated with both benevolent and malevolent entities, of which the stars are symbols. In this way, apocalyptic literature may be regarded as more than mere fantasy and given

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greater respect as in some sense describing the world as it is. Kwabena AsamoahGyadu (Chapter 3) describes a shared worldview across sub-Saharan African cultures that is predominantly plural and spirit-filled. Although there is a belief in a Great Spirit more powerful than all the others, day-to-day experience is of the many spirits and ancestors who are the Great Spirit’s creation and representatives. Human beings engage these for practical ends to solve problems, avert misfortune, seek guidance, and achieve well-being. The spirit world is real because “this is where the vital decisions are taken that affect people’s lives.”10 Shintoism, as described by Naoki Inoue (Chapter 4), has “myriads” of kami or spirits. These can indwell human beings and make them heroes worthy of veneration. Furthermore, not only people but animals, trees, and supposedly “inanimate” objects like stones and rivers can be inhabited by spirits and therefore become objects of worship. The spirits are also active in natural and creative processes. Kami can be good or evil but coexist harmoniously. If approached in the right way they offer a this-worldly salvation of blessing and freedom from curses. All three of these systems of belief and practice could be described as “animism” since “life” or “soul” is attributed to all things, living and nonliving (Chapter 14). When animism was coined in connection with E.B. Tylor’s evolutionary theory of religion, it stood at the bottom of the ladder of religions. This primitive association is still current and needs to be overcome if we are to benefit from these sources for “spirit-filled” theology. All three have a philosophical expression and practitioners educated in their arts, but they are also very closely related to popular religious expressions. They have the potential to draw the masses because of either fear of evil spirits or hope of blessings. They describe entities that are tangible in everyday life and whose effects are vividly experienced and call forth the full range of human emotions. Popular belief in spirits is open to abuse, manipulation, and commercialization, but any religious system may be corrupted, so this problem should not automatically disqualify it from theological consideration. As Yong points out in the Introduction, many resurgent indigenous spiritualities are less hierarchical than the “personalist” cosmologies that developed in Christianity and Buddhism and other world religions and so exhibit pluralism not only in a numerical but also in a political sense. However, it is important to point out that many non-Western pneumatologies are not pluralistic at all. Advaitic Hinduism, for example, stands for “nondualism” (advaita). Advaitic philosophers teach that the differentiated world we see is an illusion and aims to transcend it to the Real, which is beyond the “names and forms” of the different religions.11 In this view we are all part of a greater whole and share the same Spirit. In the socially and religiously plural context of India, advaita has been used politically to bind together one nation in a “unitive vision.”12 Christian theologians who use Hindu nondualism constructively to shape their pneumatology have often had similar motivations toward pan-religious unity and have tended toward monism and pantheism in their treatment of the Holy Spirit.13 In East Asia, similarly, the philosophers of China sought philosophies that would unite disparate peoples and encompass other streams of thought. Neo-Confucian scholars were

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divided as to whether ethical principle or life-giving spirit was the primary unifying force in the universe.14 Christian theologians of the Holy Spirit have been particularly attracted to the latter, known in Chinese as qi and in Korean as chi. Recent Korean contributions to this approach include Grace Ji-Sun Kim, who describes chi as the Eastern term for the Holy Spirit and tries to develop a hybrid pneumatology of Spirit-chi.15 Or Koo Dong Yun who has developed a more nuanced “chiological approach to pneumatology” that challenges Western theologians to think of the Holy Spirit in terms of energy and change.16 In Korean theologies especially such visions of the life force that overcomes death have been applied to reconciliation and ecology.17 Both advaitic and “chiological” approaches have value in theological discussion but they do not introduce pluralistic dimensions of pneumatology. In fact they may reinforce tendencies in modern Christian theology toward “naturalistic” pneumatology of the psychological or materialistic kind. Advaitic philosophers rank belief in personal gods as a lower form of religion that is overcome by selfrealization and Neo-Confucian scholars were highly critical of popular Buddhism as superstition. Both traditions are linked with cultural hegemony in India and China, respectively, and therefore tend to be elite worldviews far removed from popular polytheism and animism. This shows that depending on the choice of translation of the biblical pneuma, Christians in the same context may arrive at very different pneumatologies, some pluralistic, others not.18 Negotiating the Spirits in Intercultural Theology Having established that it is reasonable in scientific terms to conceive of the world as infused with the Spirit of God and filled with all sorts of spiritual entities, following Pannenberg’s lead, Morales shows how such a mathematical model can be applied by use of analogy to medicine and psychology, and by metaphor to history. In each case, an entity that shows some affinity to “vector field” or “spirit” needs to be identified. Other chapters in this book illustrate a similar approach by relating a pluralistic pneumatological model to economics, the arts, history, society, and politics. The models they apply are conceptual, or derived from premodernity, or from contemporary Indigenous Religions. They identify “spirit” differently in each context. However, Nimi Wariboko (Chapter 10) demonstrates further that the identification of “spirit” is not straightforward, even in a defined field such as economics. Spirit has been linked to religious ethics by Max Weber in his theory of “the spirit of capitalism,” or in quite different contexts to holy objects such as Catholic relics, Pentecostal-anointed handkerchiefs, and the like. Spirits have been offered for trade as commodities in the form of medicines, esoteric knowledge, and miracleworking power. Maynard Keynes described the “animal spirits” that infect the human beings who deal in the marketplace. The Holy Spirit has been mechanized in forms of prosperity theology that promise an outcome of blessings in return for the devotion that is put in. And the Spirit is also associated with economic empowerment in the form of community development. Whereas Weber

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distinguished the “spirit of capitalism” from “the impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money” and saw it as incompatible with dealings with spirits, Shamans and Neo-Pentecostals recognize in capitalistic commerce a spirit-filled arena.19 There is no doubt there are “deep interconnections between the spiritual and material realms in the striving of human beings for flourishing life” (Wariboko, Chapter 10), which is the concern of economics. The question is what are the spirits at work, to what end, and how are they operative? Although earlier on in his paper Wariboko uses spirit(s) only “strategically and rhetorically,” toward the end of it he puts forward his answer to these questions in a more ontological vision of the life-giving Spirit in the economic context as bringing about the “full actualization and maximization of potentials.” Investigation of different spirit worlds cannot be done adequately by scientific method alone, as Staggs points out in the case of the paranormal. Reality is not only “out there” but also constructed by those involved. Horror, for example “creates a kind of reality of its own within the psyche of the participant” (Chapter 7). Beauty similarly is elusive of scientific explanation; it is famously said to be “in the eye of the beholder,” and so is generally explored through the arts instead. Robert Johnson (Chapter 6) points out that in the late modern shift from “religion” to “spirituality,” the media, arts, and culture have become identified as primary means of spiritual experience, tending to displace the emphasis of the Reformers on the Spirit illuminating the Word. Whereas an earlier generation might have associated the spirit with the illustriousness of the art or with the inspiration of the artist, today the spirit is linked with the experience of art. Johnson’s series of examples of theologians, philosophers, and students illustrates the way in which paintings, films, and other art forms can suggest something beyond, the disclosure of the Other, the feeling that there is “something there.” Johnson leaves open the question of whether such experience is an encounter with the actual Spirit of God or some created spirit. Any intercultural theology must negotiate complex questions about the nature of spirit and spirits. It is clear from the foregoing discussion that Holy Spirit can only be understood from some prior understanding of “spirit,” which is suggested by a particular language, culture, or discipline that frames the discourse. There is no universally shared concept of spirit but each context offers a number of translations for the term. Appropriations of any particular meaning of spirit must be made with care and in full awareness of possible implications of adopting the system of which it is part. Bradnick, for example, points to significant distinctions between astrological understanding of the stars and planets and their treatment in the Old Testament, and between some Jewish and later Christian interpreters. Some meanings of spirit and some pneumatological systems may simply not be appropriate to convey the biblical message and the Christian experience. Christians in any particular context may differ in whether they find continuity of spiritual worldviews. In addition to the lesser spirits of an African worldview, Asamoah-Gyadu describes the widespread belief in the Great Spirit, whose name suggests the chief characteristic of being higher and more powerful all the others. Since the Great Spirit is also acknowledged as the creator and mover of the

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universe and the source of human life, some theological interpreters have tried to reconcile the tradition of the Great Spirit with the Holy Spirit of Christian theology. However, both Pentecostal and African Independent Church Christians deny this view and regard the Holy Spirit as having a still superior power and also of being of a different kind from the traditional spirits, who are treated as demonic. Similarly, several authors in this volume take issue with some dominant post-Enlightenment philosophies of spirit as correlates of the Holy Spirit, notably Hegel’s Geist, although others are in continuity with it. Inoue grapples with the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the kami or spirits, which are ubiquitous in the perception of most Japanese people, given that, from a Moltmanian point of view, the Spirit of God dwells in everything in the world. He points out that no absoluteness is claimed for the kami as for the Holy Spirit, that they are not universal, and that they are not working toward any purpose or vision. He finds a number of points of commonality, which suggest that kami are “reflections of the people’s spiritual yearning for transcendence.” But, although such comparative study may aid interreligious understanding, he concludes that the Spirit of God is “essentially different” from Shinto’s kami (Chapter 4). Although “spirit” is not a term limited to Christian vocabulary, and theologically the Spirit is not limited to the church, there is a sense in which Christian understanding of spirit will always be distinctive from any other perception. That is because the New Testament and subsequent doctrine of the Trinity links the Spirit inextricably to the particular person of Jesus Christ and the revelation in him. This association does not preclude continuity with other worldviews because Jesus was a human being and because the Spirit in the New Testament is the powerful, creative, and life-giving Spirit of God. But it does give the Christian spirit a distinctive quality, connoted in the New Testament by the adjective “holy.” The association of the Spirit with Jesus Christ is unique to Christianity and in this picture power is not the main issue but the values and quality of life communicated in Christ. Such an identification of “spirit” has profound implications for the way Christians understand the other areas of life treated in this book. Discerning the Holy Spirit in a Spirit-filled World From a Christian theological point of view, what has been learnt from this excursus into other spirit worlds? While many authors have dealt phenomenologically with the topic, several have taken a normative approach from a Christian perspective. These experiments with Spirit and spirits contribute to three key questions in Christian pneumatology: the relationship of spirit to matter, complexity and difference in history, and theology of power. In so doing they begin to move pneumatology forward beyond the unitive pneumatological consensus that Kärkkäinen describes. Jürgen Moltmann’s ecotheology is rightly valued for its attempt to overcome Enlightenment dualisms in Christian theology and reunite heaven and earth, spirit and matter, in a theology of “immanent transcendence.”20 Building on

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Moltmann’s panentheism, Mark Wallace (Chapter 14) challenges assumptions that Christianity is distinct from (and far superior to) animism and recasts panentheism as “Christian animism” or “divine subscendence.” He describes “the Spirit as the green face of God in the world” that “ensouls all things with sacred purpose” as “the enfleshment of divine power and compassion on Earth” (Chapter 4). In dialoguing with animism, Wallace also potentially tackles the lacuna identified by Kärkkäinen in Moltmann’s work and introduces “spirits” into creation theology. However, “spirits” are not explicit in his chapter, and in places his descriptions of “Christian animism,” such as “all that exists is alive, all that exists is good, all that exists is holy,” tend toward pantheism in which no distinction at all is made between material and spiritual. Inoue and Asamoah-Gyadu who write about indigenous animism in Japan and in Africa show a more complex view. Inoue is careful to point out that a Shinto worldview does not claim that everything is filled with kami, but only that kami potentially indwell all things. The spirits and ancestors of the African spirit world described by Asamoah-Gyadu are identified with particular places and persons. Unlike spirit, which might be thought of as uniformly present, the presence of spirits is differentiated. Both Moltmann and Wallace develop their cosmologies in response to ecological crisis and environmental degradation but several contributors point out that there is another appropriation of animism in Christian theology, and that is prosperity theology. Prosperity theology is a response to poverty that uses the expectation of animism that the Spirit and the spirits are potential sources of material blessing, both individual and communal (Innoue; AsamoahGyadu; Wariboko). Prosperity theology is often combined with very practical and entrepreneurial approaches to wealth creation and linked to business initiatives that make the church communities where it is preached upwardly mobile. But this may put it in direct conflict with ecotheologies that stress that economic growth will further damage the environment and side with spirits believed to be oppressed by economic enterprise.21 This situation highlights the complexity of spirit worlds and their interaction, and the need to nuance pluralistic pneumatology. Patrick Oden (Chapter5), noting that Hegel’s dialectic of Spirit as the Ideal versus spirits is of little practical use to historians, turns with other contributors to Pannenberg, whose theology of the public revelation of God in history describes a scenario in which human and other spirits, by exercise of their free will, can either oppose God’s work or instead join themselves to God’s Spirit and “resonate” with the whole creation. By recognizing that spirits can be good as well as evil, Oden puts forward a view of history that is both less antagonistic and also more realistic than Hegel’s. In his approach, human beings can be agents of history by joining in with “the spirit of the age.” Their identities may clash with each other as they experience the freedoms God has provided but at the same time they are part of the end that God has determined. For Oden, use of the language of Spirit and spirits suggests both the complexity of human experience of history and also the overall order brought about by the creative work of the Spirit of God as he pictures the relationship in terms of the mathematical model of fractals.

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Oden’s Christian pneumatological interpretation of history certainly accommodates the plurality and complexity of society and allows for recognition of difference. But it remains within the Hegelian framework that it wishes to reject in its association of the Spirit of Christ with the particular Western spirit of progress, “the spirit of the age,” which shapes global destiny. From the perspective of modern European history (in Europe and beyond), it is possible to see the Spirit of Christ in the people of God or the Church as playing a central and decisive role in history. It is conceivable that the best in our culture is due to the influence of the Christian faith and Christian institutions. But from the perspective of Asia, for example, the Christian church is not, nor rarely has it been, center stage in Asian history. It is not possible to ascribe the best of most Asian cultures directly to the revelation of Jesus Christ. On the whole Asians cannot look back and say that obedience to the Word of God in Christ is responsible for moral progress or social transformation (though in many recent instances there are good arguments that this is an important factor22 ). If present at all, Christianity has generally been marginal to society and Christians have been a minority. What is more, in the colonial period, the church played an ambiguous role, sometimes supporting but often working against the aspirations of Asian peoples for the liberation that the Spirit brings. Pluralistic pneumatology will recognize that each region and community has a distinct history and that, though there may be overlaps in trajectories, they do not all readily line up toward the same end or fit into a tidy model. Underlying much of the discussion in this book is the topic of power, as spirits are frequently referred to as powers and forces. That traditional spirit worlds are realms of power is made very clear in the case of Africa and the questions that arise are of access to power, mediation of power, and power relations. In the dialogue with science and ecology, spirits are referred to as forces and the key questions are those of control. The two worlds meet together in Bradnick’s chapter on the stars and the question of cosmology. Until recently in Christian theology, discussions of spirits have been largely confined to personal beings indwelling individuals, resulting in struggles of conscience or communal conflict (Chapter 11), or to spirit possession, dangerous or deviant behavior, and the need for exorcism (Richie). Both of these approaches treat spirits as conflicting powers in adversarial relations. Rarely until recently has such language been applied to other dimensions of the New Testament perspective on the demonic: the “principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12) to which the apostle Paul refers. Richie warns against the demonization of the other that may result from theologies of possession and deliverance and also about the extension of this to religions and territories in the theology of “spiritual warfare” associated with Peter Wagner. He calls for a theology of dialogue instead. But Bradford Hinze (Chapter 11) points to New Testament struggle against political power in the context of opposition to and deliverance from the oppression of Roman imperialism, for example, in the story of the Gerasene demoniac, and social power in terms of overcoming marginalization and exclusion.

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Hinze begins with the theology of Evagrius who advocated wrestling with inner demons and he extends this into the sociopolitical sphere in his study of Faith-Based Community Organizing, which is “talking back” to the destructive spirits at work in collective bodies, institutions, and corporate practices and addressing social and structural forms of sin. His approach draws on the prophetic tradition and the liberating ministry of Jesus. Although the advocacy and social work to which Hinze refers is based on Saul Alinsky’s view of civic life as a battlefield in which life-giving powers struggled with destructive ones, Hinze also sees the possibility of a more relational understanding of power in civil society that recognizes powers for good that also collaborate in the public sphere. Sebastian Kim (Chapter 9) takes this insight further when he identifies a clear distinction between political and liberation theologies on the one hand, which take a confrontational approach to the powers that be, and public theology on the other, which aims to create common ground and to reform rather than revolutionize. Both Hinze and Kim discuss the sociopolitical theological method of Walter Wink but Kim departs from Wink’s depiction of the powers in his image of the public sphere as a world of constructively interacting spirits in the sense of ideas and opinions, and the Holy Spirit beyond it as “benign helper and provider” for the common good. Such pneumatological plurality is also the basis for Kim’s argument that public theology resists monopoly of the public sphere by any one spirit (even the Christian spirit) and encourages a plurality of voices and critical debate. Adversarial pneumatologies dwell on the absolute power and authority of the Holy Spirit over the spirits. While this is true, and provides reassurance for Christians in times of oppression, the sociopolitical correlates of this view may tend toward exclusion, demonizing, and violence toward the other. An alternative of picture suggested in this volume is of power relations rather than domination and negotiation between spirits, spirits that may be good or bad in different measures, or just plain indifferent. In this vision the Holy Spirit is not a crushing force but a facilitating grace that works with and around human, community, and other spirits to bring about conciliation and peace. A theology of the Spirit of Christ among the spirits is a theology of relation, of enabling and empowering through self-giving service. Such a theology does not imply the naive embrace of any and every spirit. It recognizes the possibility of evil forces and by the Holy Spirit it exercises the gift of discernment of spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10). Living among the spirits will involve challenge and struggle but it is not a return to dualistic conflict or to survival of the fittest. It is a moral and ethical approach that encourages respect, participation, and collaboration. We have taken a risk in this book of loosing spirits that for many Christians should remain bound (cf. Dyer). Scientific and sociocultural shifts encourage us the think again about a plural pneumatology as the framework for understanding the biblical testimony to the Holy Spirit. After several centuries during which such a worldview has been dismissed, interdisciplinary and religio-cultural discourses have allowed us to reimagine a spirit-filled world. Recasting Christian theology within it is an ongoing task for ecumenical learning, interdisciplinary discussion, and global conversation.

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Notes 1. Michael Kinnamon, ed., Signs of the Spirit: Official Report of the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Canberra, 1991 (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1991); Kirsteen Kim, “Spirit and ‘Spirits’ at the Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1991,” Missiology: An International Review 32:3 (2004): 349–65. 2. Paul G. Hiebert, “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” Missiology 10:1 (1982): 35–47; Aloysius Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 71–74. 3. Alasdair I. C. Heron, The Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit in the Bible, in the History of Christian Thought, and in Recent Theology (London: Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1983), 99–116; H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit (Digswell Place, UK: James Nisbet, 1928), 2–3, 20–21, 44–45, 147–49. 4. Cf. Mary Heimann, “Christianity in Western Europe since the Enlightenment,” in Adrian Hastings, ed., A World History of Christianity (London: Cassell, 1999), 458–507. 5. As documented, for example, in Africa: Birgit Meyer, “Modernity and Enchantment: The Image of the Devil in Popular African Christianity,” in Peter van der Veer, ed., Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York: Routledge, 1996), 199–230 (222); Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa, from Antiquity to the Present (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 53–54; Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 92; Kevin Ward, “Africa,” in Hastings, ed., A World History of Christianity, 192–237 (202). 6. Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005), 3–4, 23, 29; Suzanne Owen, “The World Religions Paradigm: Time for a Change,” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 10:3 (2011): 253–68. 7. Robinson, The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit, 2. See also more recently, Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Where Theologians Fear to Tread,” Modern Theology 16:1 (2000): 39–59. 8. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 1–19. 9. Celia E. Deane-Drummond, The Ethics of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 228–31. 10. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, quoted by Asamoah-Gyadu in this volume (Chapter 3). 11. For introductions to advaitic thought, see Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 239–43; Klaus K. Klostermaier, Survey of Hinduism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), 355–68. 12. Stanley Samartha, One Christ—Many Religions: Towards a Revised Christology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 110–11. 13. Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007), 67–102. 14. See Xinzhong Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 105–21; John H. and Evelyn Nagai Berthrong, Confucianism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: One World, 200), 92–105. 15. Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

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16. Koo Dong Yun, The Holy Spirit and Ch’i (Qi): A Chiological Approach to Pneumatology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publication, 2012). 17. Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World, 132–39. 18. Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World, 140–76. 19. Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 134, 142–43. 20. Moltmann, God in Creation, 17. 21. For example, Chung Hyun Kyung, “Come, Holy Spirit—Renew the Whole Creation,” in Michael Kinnamon, ed., Signs of the Spirit: Official Report of the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Canberra, 1991 (Geneva: WCC, 1991), 37–47. 22. Kirsteen Kim, “Christianity’s Role in the Modernization and Revitalization of Korean Society in the Twentieth-century,” International Journal of Public Theology 4:2 (2010): 212–36.

Index African Independent Churches (AICs), 41–2, 48, 50, 251 African indigenous traditions spirituality, 45–6, 48, 177, 247 angelology, 10, 30, 32, 114, 118 angels, 3, 7, 79, 108, 111–19, 156, 191, 213, 214, 216–22, 236, 244–5, 247 see also celestial bodies and stars animism, 249 Christian, 197–8, 205, 209, 252 animus, 198 see also pneuma, ruah, soul and spirit anointing service, 51 Antichrist, 174 apocalyptism, 30 Aristotle, 191, 215 Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena, 9, 248, 250, 252 astrology, 214, 218–19, 247, 250 atheism, 192, 195, 228 Augustine, 48, 102–3, 218 baptism in Jesus’s name, 23–5 of John, 16, 22 of the Spirit, 24 water, 202 Baptists, 158, 162 Barth, Karl, 32, 85 Berkhof, Hendrikus, 34 binding and loosing, 7–8 see also loosing blessings, 43, 48, 56, 62, 64, 150, 248, 249 blessings vs. curses, 56, 62 Bradnick, David, 10, 247 brain, 4, 5, 188, 190 Buddhism, 3–4, 42, 165, 176–7, 247 Bultmann, Rudolf, 35

Calvin, John, 34 Catholicism, 158, 165, 244–5 celestial bodies, 213–14, 216, 219, 222, 233, 236 chaos theory, 230–5 charisms, 177 ch’i, 33, 249 Christology, 35, 36, 74, 75, 77, 80, 92, 94, 95, 112, 113, 116, 119, 161, 203, 244, 245, 251, 253, 254 Clayton, Philip, 10, 246 complexity theory, 230–1 consciousness, 220–1 conversion, 129–31, 133 cosmology, 3, 10, 29, 31, 36, 65, 103, 253 African, 9, 42, 45, 49 agent-centered, 2–4 ancient, 214 emergentist, 221 Jewish, 217 Judeo-Christian, 115 New Testament, 30 pagan, 213 Pentecostal, 176 personalistic, 1, 2, 9, 244–5, 247 pluralistic, 30, 35, 39 pneumatological, 33, 214 process, 6, 7 spirit-filled, 34, 113, 220, 244 unitive, 31, 37 creation, doctrine of, 31, 32, 33–4, 59, 60, 62, 65, 75, 76, 78, 152, 163, 188, 195, 198–9, 200, 201, 204, 236, 237, 246, 252 see also ecology, environment, and nature cults, 172 Dalit theology, 130–1, 157 Daoism, 3 defetishizing commodities, 142, 145

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deities, 3, 5, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 216–7 see also demigods, divinities, gods and goddesses deliverance, 36, 50, 51, 159, 174, 177, 179, 253 ministry of, 113, 176 see also exorcism demigods, 4 demonization, 171–6, 177, 179, 180, 247, 253 demonology, 10, 30, 171–2, 176, 178 demons, 3, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22, 24, 42, 45, 50, 79, 108, 117, 119, 145, 155, 174 see also celestial bodies and stars devil, 8, 42, 49, 50, 51, 156, 162, 175, 191 dialogue, interreligious, 55, 61, 65, 93, 172, 180, 245, 253 discerning the spirits, 15, 119, 163–5, 179 see also gift of discernment divine action, 236–7 divine subscendence, 200, 252 diviner, 50 see also mediums divinities, 42, 46, 47, 205 dualism, 36 Cartesian, 4, 5, 213, 219, 220 moral, 3, 6 see also good vs. evil, matter vs. spirit, and natural vs. supernatural Dunn, J. D. G., 23–4 Dyer, Anne, 9, 10, 245 ecocide, 206 ecodrama, 206 ecology, 10, 32, 77, 200, 208, 253 economics, 9, 29, 141, 143, 146, 149, 151, 152, 164 ecotheology, 251 egocentricity, 72, 76, 79, 80 emergence philosophy, 10, 213, 219, 246 empiricism, 4, 111, 219 energies, 29–32, 36 Enlightenment, 4, 10, 30, 97, 101, 111, 244, 251 eschatology, 59–60, 64–5, 76, 78, 118, 156, 163 eucharist, 201–2 Evagrius, 155, 156, 157, 254

evil, 3, 5, 35, 41, 47, 50, 51, 80, 103, 126, 127, 145, 163–4, 172–3, 176, 187, 193, 237, 245 see also good vs. evil evolution, 187, 190, 219, 234, 246 excluded middle, 118 exocentric relationship, 74–6 exorcism, 20, 21, 30, 35, 50, 112–3, 156, 174–5, 245 experientialism, 31 Faith-Based Community Organizing, 158, 161, 164–6, 254 Faraday, Michael, 228, 230, 246 force field, 32, 80, 227, 229, 233 Foucault, Michel, 161, 163 free will, 98, 103, 172, 238, 252 freedom economic, 151 moral, 194 of spirits, 71–2, 77, 79, 141, 155 fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), 194 Gefühl, 91 Geist, 251 ghosts, 97, 98, 99, 104, 105, 146, 244, 247 gift of discernment, 119, 127, 254 Global North, 31–3 Global South, 4, 31–3 global warming, 206, 208 see also ecology glossolalia, 51 god(s), 2, 3, 5, 20, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 55, 56, 58, 63, 204, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 222, 249 goddess(es), 44, 57, 214 good vs. evil, 20–1, 173 see also theodicy grace, 25, 51, 163, 198, 200, 218, 254 Griffin, David Ray, 6, 7, 188, 227, 246 Habermas, Jurgen, 127 healing, 36, 50, 201, 245 Hegel, Georg W. F., 71–2 hell, 3 hierophanic beings, 46 Hinduism, 131, 176–7, 188, 247–9 Hinze, Bradford, 9, 10, 253–4 historiography, 71, 77 history, 9, 10, 34, 37, 71, 75, 77–9, 82, 83

Index

Holy Spirit, 6, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 36, 55, 111, 112, 115, 119, 126–7, 136–7, 142–3, 149, 150, 163, 174, 177, 195, 200, 201, 202, 243, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 254 filled with the, 22, 23, 177 indwelling of the, 199–200, 204 in Luke-Acts, 16, 19, 22, 23, 42, 50, 92, 95, 147, 244 horror, 98–105, 247, 250 imago Dei, 191 immanence of God, 115, 116, 236 immanent transcendence, 60, 64, 94, 251 incarnation, 74, 77 indigenous healers, see shamans Inoue, Naoki, 9, 248, 251–52 inspiration, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 30, 47 interreligious context, 9, 171, 173, 180 see also dialogue, interreligious Islam, 158, 165, 172, 174–7, 198, 247 Islamophobia, 175 Jesus, 20, 21, 203, 251 jinn, 172–3, 247 Johnson, Elizabeth, 32–3 Johnston, Robert K., 9 Judaism, 158, 165, 172, 174, 177 justice, 128, 130, 131, 136, 156, 157, 161, 162, 165, 208, 209 justification, 36 kami, 55–8, 61–5, 248, 251–2 Kärkkäinen, Veli Matti, 9, 251 Käsemann, Ernst, 22–3 Kim, Kirsteen, 11 Kim, Sebastian, 9 Kuyper, Abraham, 34 Levison, John R. (Jack), 9, 245 Lewis, C.S., 86, 89, 94 liberation theologies, 35, 36, 77, 125, 130, 157, 159, 254 loosing Christian pneumatology, 31 of the Spirit, 31, 36 the spirits, 23–5, 29, 112, 243, 247, 254 Lutherans, 161

259

Macchia, Frank, 27 material reductionism, 1, 77, 89, 219 materialism, 5, 6, 10, 164 Mbiti, John S., 32, 42, 44 McDonnell OSB, Fr. Kilian, 34 McFague, Sallie, 200 medium(s), 47–8, 97 metaphysics, 35 Methodists, 158 middle-zone, 244 see also excluded middle mind, 4, 191, 228, 233, 246 Minjung theology, 128–9, 133, 157 miracles, 146 modernism, 31, 133 Moltmann, Jürgen, 24, 32, 33, 34, 35, 55–60, 67, 94, 134, 246, 251 monism, 4, 5, 11 Morales, Erwin T., 10, 246, 249 music, 91–2 natural vs. supernatural, 111, 195 naturalism, 1, 2, 4, 10, 97, 219, 244, 249 nature, 3, 5, 10, 58, 64, 199, 206 see also ecology and environment neuropsychology, 235 new birth, 36 occult, 174–7, 245 Oden, Patrick, 9, 252–3 Oneness Pentecostals, 116 ontology, of spirits, 7, 61, 99, 193, 219 oppression, 75, 104, 126, 129, 162, 164, 208, 254 ordo salutis, 35 Origen, 218 out-of-body experiences, 2 paganism, 204, 245 panentheism, 7, 55–6, 200, 246, 252 pan–experientialism, 7, 188 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, 10, 32, 33, 71, 74–7, 79, 227, 229–30, 246, 249, 252 panpsychism, 188 pantheism, 7, 55–7, 60, 62–5, 199, 200, 252 parables, 87, 90, 156 Paraclete, 95

260

Index

Paradise, 3 paranormal, 9, 97–8, 100–1, 104, 105, 244, 247, 250 parapsychology, 97, 106 Paul, apostle, 15, 16, 55 Pentecost, Day of, 25, 202 Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, 4, 9, 31, 33, 41, 42, 49, 50, 51, 111–2, 115, 119, 126, 142, 144, 149–50, 152, 158, 162, 171–6, 245, 251 perichoresis, 59–61, 63, 65 physics, 229, 231 Plato, 102–3, 109, 191, 215 pluralism, 8, 58 interactive, 131–2, 134, 136 pneumatological, 8, 9, 10, 99, 100, 101 religious, 6, 55, 65, 172 scientific, 7 pneuma, 1, 23–4, 201, 229, 231, 249 see also animus, ruah, spirit, and soul pneumakinesis, 98, 105 pneumatology, 9, 10, 11, 23, 58–9, 63–5, 107, 118, 119, 243, 249 African, 247 Asian, 247 bound, 30 of the Global South, 36 holistic, 32 panentheistic, 56 plural, 29, 31, 37, 253–4 revisionist, 35 subjectivistic, 5 triadic, 6 unitive, 29, 31, 32, 37, 246, 251 vacuous, 5 Western, 228 polis, 6, 137 political theology, 125 politics, 9, 29, 34, 60, 127, 136 polytheism, 249 poor, 157, 159, 161 positivism, 4, 10 possession, 19, 21, 48, 156, 177–8, 253 postcolonialism, 31, 34–5 postmodernism, 6, 31, 111, 133 power, 253–4 of God, 23, 31, 35, 50–1, 166 over demons, 177 of the Spirit, 147, 166, 251 power encounter, 30, 126

powers, 29–31, 35, 42, 157, 159, 160–6 prayer, 43, 46, 51, 126–7, 174 principalities and powers, 10, 35, 125, 133, 156, 191, 253 process philosophy, 160 process theology, 76, 160, 188, 227 prophet, 15, 16, 17, 18, 24, 157–8 prophetic predictions, 15, 16, 17, 18 prosperity gospel, 159, 249, 252 psi theory (psychial theory), 99, 101, 105, 107 psyche, 5, 100, 191, 250 public sphere, 127, 135–7, 160 public theology, 125, 126–7, 134–5, 254 public Church, 137 purgatory, 3 quantum indeterminancy, 238 racism, 164 Rahner, Karl, 24 Rahner’s Rule, 63 rationalism, 4, 10, 219 releasing, 112 see also loosing revelation, 75–6, 78, 79, 80, 86, 88, 90 Richie, Tony, 9, 10 ruah, 2, 95, 201, 204, 229 see also animus, pneum, spiritus and wind salvation, see soteriology sanctification, 36, 112 Sanneh, Lamin, 42 Satan, 8, 35, 49, 173–4, 191 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 90–1, 93–4, 96 science, 8, 188, 195, 243, 253 Second Temple literature, 23, 216–17 secularism, 131, 164 self, human, 9, 62, 75, 76, 101, 142, 150, 191 shamans, 2, 51, 177, 179, 250 Shintoism, 9, 55, 247–8, 251 sign, 219 sin, 155, 162–4 structural, 156–7, 163–4, 166, 254

Index

sociopolitical sphere, 9, 29, 127, 130, 171, 179, 254 soteriology, 35, 36, 62, 78, 79, 115 soul, 102–3, 108, 198, 215 see also animus, mind, pneuma, spirit of Apollos, 22–5 bound in the, 17 burning with the, 16, 22–5 of capitalism, 142–4 foreign, 16 infested commodities, 142, 146–8 lying, 15 pythonic, 16, 20, 21, 24–5, 26 as a sentient being, 102, 105 spirit, 15, 19, 22, 44, 82, 93, 97–8, 111, 132, 141, 143, 156, 191, 194–5, 243, 249, 250 of an unclean demon, 20 spirit vs. matter, 199, 251–2 Spirit, 25, 35, 60, 72–3, 86, 87, 88, 93, 94, 105, 106, 156, 163, 165, 174, 187, 190–1, 193–5, 227–8, 234, 243–44, 249, 251–2 as air, 201 creator, 33, 24, 207 Earth and, 36, 203–4 as earth, 201 as fire, 201 of God, 29, 56, 61, 77, 79–80, 157, 162 Great, 42, 44, 93, 248, 250 of Life, 24, 92, 157, 207, 234 ministry of, 29–31 outpouring of the, 25 as person, 95 as power, 95 of prophecy, 24 as the vitality of God, 34, 63–4 as wind, 204 as water, 201 spirits, 1, 2, 5, 7, 29, 30, 32, 46, 55, 71, 93, 101, 111, 119, 125, 135, 142 145–6, 172, 192, 196, 236–8, 244–5, 247, 252 in African thought, 30, 41–3, 49 ancestral, 3, 7, 33, 45 animal, 148, 249 as benevolent entities, 220, 247 biology and, 10, 187, 189, 192 as causal agents, 1–2, 9

261

evil, 8, 15, 22, 26, 42–3, 80, 113, 126, 156, 162 Greek notion of, 193 human, 3, 16, 23, 24, 25, 45, 74–5, 77, 79, 85, 92 in Israelite and early Jewish literature, 26 lesser, 51, 73, 86 of the living dead, 44 as malevolent entities, 3, 174, 220, 247 as moral agents, 193 of the polis, 9 territorial, 127 traded as commodities, 249 unclean, 20 spiritual boundaries, 25 disciplines, 47 experiences, 92, 97, 99, 197–8, 250 forces, 30, 46, 145 formation, 85 mapping, 176–8 realm, 145, 213 through art, 87, 89, 91, 94 warfare, 24, 30, 118, 126, 156, 173–4, 176–7, 191 wisdom, 105, 162 world, 23, 104, 106, 127, 245 spirituality and the art(s), 85, 87, 91, 93, 250 contemporary, 31 in films, 100 spiritus, 1 see also animus, pneuma and ruah Staggs, Jr., D. Walter, 9, 247, 250 stars, 3, 10, 213, 216–19, 221, 250 Stoicism, 229 suffering, 43, 205 supernatural, 42, 100–1, 114–5, 126 covering, 43 forces, 30 intervention, 50 supernaturalism, 7, 30 superstitions, 5 supervenience, 219–20 suprasensory realm, 43 Supreme Being, 42–4, 46 sustainable development, 208–9 symbols, 5, 221 systems theory, 234–35

262

Index

“talking back, ”156, 167 “testing all things” (1 Thess 5:21), 177, 245 theism, 192 theodicy, 237 Tillich, Paul, 32, 34, 86, 89, 94, 152, 214, 221 tongues of fire, 202 speaking in, 50, 51 top-down causation, 219 transcendence, 56, 64–5, 85, 89, 251 Trinity, 6, 29, 59, 61, 63, 65, 93, 115, 251 vector fields, 227, 230–3, 235–8, 246, 249 violence, 173, 176, 178, 180 religious, 172, 175

Wallace, Mark, 10 Ward, Keith, 42 Wariboko, Nimi, 9 wealth creation, 150–1 Whitehead, Alfred North, 6, 7, 188 Wicca, 245 wind, 4, 86, 94–5, 114, 152, 198, 201–2, 204–5, 231, 236, 243 Wink, Walter, 35, 127, 163, 254 witchcraft, 41, 47, 174 witches, 42 Yong, Amos, 25, 33, 163, 174, 178, 213, 220, 230, 244, 246–8 Zoroastrianism, 215

Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Kirsteen Kim, Amos Yong: Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World - PDFCOFFEE.COM (2024)
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