I'm still working through thinking about something that Brian McLaren said in response to a question last night. As I menioned in my previous post, my friend Joel asked something along the lines of, "Why do charismatic Christians--who want to pray for physical healing--and Christians who work for social justice usually not connect with each other very well? Why can't we do both?"

First off, a little background. I've been a part of the Vineyard movement of churches for about 5 years now. There's a variety of reasons why I wound up with this particular motley crew of Christians, but one of the big things that attracted me to the Vineyard was that people there wanted to experience the life and power of stuff that happened in the Bible. You know, healings and prophecy and that stuff that Jesus and the early followers did that we too easily say "that was then, this is now" to.

On the other hand, I've been increasingly challenged by Christian voices for social justice over the past few years. I blame this primarily on the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard, my family of Jesus followers for a few years who had the audacity to plant themselves in the midst of one of the poorest, most broken neighborhoods in Canada: Winnipeg's North End.

So, here's the essence of Brian's answer as I remember it. He essentially said that the root of our problem lies in our modern separation of the natural and supernatural realms. This is not the biblical worldview where miracles would be taken as a matter of course. The biblical worldview wouldn't ask, "do miracles happen?" but rather, "what do these signs of God's intervention mean?" So, although one of our modern obsessions when we read the Gospels's miraculous accounts is whether or not a miracle happened, the appropriate question to ask is, "what is God communicating through this?"

Once you see this, the miracle stories in the Gospels could take on a whole new light. They actually appear to primarily be speaking about issues of social justice. Interpreting them symbolically does not mean that you disbelieve that the miracles did not occur. That is an anachronistic reading that incorrectly injects our categories of thinking on the biblical narrative. Allow me to demonstrate this symbolic hermeneutic to the following passage about the Garasene demoniac:

When [the demoniac] saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spiritsc begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.(Mark 5:6-13, NRSV)

A quick interpretation would easily see the demons' calling themselves "Legion" is actually identifying them with the Roman occupiers. Jesus sends them into a herd of pigs, which everybody knows do not belong in Israel. One can then interpret this sign and wonder to say: God is interested in delivering his people from the tormenting Roman occupiers. They have no place in Israel.

That pretty much concludes the gist of what Brian had to say. What helped me tremendously is that I am challenged by these kinds of symbolic interpretations but I have often felt like they were denying that the miracles had actually happened. I know see how captive my thinking has been to a wrong way of thinking. It's not either-or; it's both. The divide is only as large as Western, dualistic philosophy has made it.

So, the social justice-ers are wrong if they think that their labors exclude the necessity of God's direct involvement in ways that may defy explanation. Sure, setting up a rehab centre for addicts is great, but God healing their addiction is great too. Why not pursue both as manifestations of God's kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven?

Likewise, charismatics are wrong in being so focused on the "supernatural" that they lose out on the "natural." There are no such things. There is a visible and an invisible realm perhaps, but they are both real and created and loved by God. We do not really love people if we pray for their healing but fail to ask why they're sick. Too many charismatics are just out for the thrill-factor of having God "show up" and fail to remember that God wants us involved in loving people in the real world. If miracles were enough for God's kingdom to come, then I don't think that the Incarnation would have been necessary.

This has been a really helpful evolution for me in my thinking about how I want to be faithful to live out my faith in every biblical way. Maybe now I sould go back and reread Ched Myers' commentary on Mark. It interprets the Gospel in just such a symbolic way and shows just how politically subversive Jesus was.