Something beyond--beyond facts and figures, beyond scientific explanations and the latest statistics . . . More and more people are searching for something to believe in that goes beyond cold, detached reasoning. Science may have given them the iPhone, but not something more meaningful to hear or to say.
This dissatisfaction with a flat, mechanical, black and white, chance-governed world is a genuine impulse of our God-created human hearts. I see the increasing openness in our culture to the "spiritual", supernatural, or mystical as a great opportunity to help people find that which their hearts have been designed to seek: God.
Yet, as great as the opportunity is, it is also a time of great danger, because starving hearts can be too accepting of all the "spiritual" options on the Great American Spirituality Buffet. Twinkie faiths and processed religions abound, giving some people a short-term "fill" that leads to long-term spiritual anemia.
How do we discern between "spiritualities" that are truly nutritious and those that merely taste good?
While studying for my preaching series in the Book of Acts, I ran across a short article in one commentary by Ben Witherington III on the difference between miracles and magic, since Acts depicts a number of miracles and also addresses issues of magic and sorcery.
Before I go on to list the distinctions, let me reaffirm something: it's a good thing that people are searching for something "beyond". The impulse is good and God-given. People involved in what might be characterized as magic are not to be condemned. Instead, we affirm their desire for something more and gently share with them what we have found to be the true food for the hungry human heart.
Witherington says,
What characterized magic is the attempt through various sorts of rituals and words of power to manipulate some deity or supernatural power into doing the will of the supplicant.
He goes on to list features found in ancient magic:
(1) complicated rituals
(2) magic spells and recipes
(3) the reciting of various names for various gods or even nonsense syllables
(4) the reliance of a professional technician who demands payment and relies on secrecy
(5) syncretism [the mixing of different religions]
The miracles in the Book of Acts are totally different. While "something beyond" is certainly happening, rituals, symbols, and formulas are never used. And when Simon the Great tries to buy the ability to do miracles from Peter, Peter rebukes him sharply: the gifts of God are not for sale. God and his powers cannot be controlled or manipulated.
Another very important point Witherington makes is that the miracles always occurred in an evangelistic context:
"Luke is not interested in miracles for their own sake . . . but he is interested in them insofar as they punctuate the central message about the spread of the word and the conversion of the various sorts of people that make up the Greco-Roman world. This also means that miracles in Acts are not seen as means of mere benevolence, making a person whole but without changing his or her own worldview, but rather they tend toward the transvaluation of the healed one's values. In Luke's hierarchy of values conversion is the primary value, and others, such as health, are subservient to it. Nevertheless, wholeness, involving the entire person, is a real concern for Luke, and both body and spirit are seen as a part of salvation. (p. 579, The Acts of the Apostles).
So, there are some things on the Great American Spiritual Buffet that may taste good, but will not bring spiritual health, but spiritual disease. How is one able to identify the nutritious from the malnutritious?
Ask yourself these questions: Does it involve complicated rituals? Is there a paid professional technician who requires secrecy? Is it not a part of a larger effort to lead people to Christ? If the answer is "yes" to any of these questions, then one has reason to suspect that the activity is of questionable spiritual nutrition. There is only one trustworthy feast--and it's prepared by our Lord, around his table.