Feb. 13, 2011
Background Scripture: Mark 9:2-13
Devotional Reading: Malachi 4:1-5

Last fall I enrolled in a two-day seminar. The topic was compelling and I found much that was helpful. Yet, by the end of it, I concluded that whenever the scriptures were found to record something that was not consistent with reason alone, the presenters discarded it as “fictional.”

At one point, they expressed concern that more Christians were not responding to their scholarship. I asked one of the presenters, “So how do you handle the mystical experience or the paranormal?” They indicated their approach had “no room” for those dimensions of the Christian faith.

That is hardly an isolated point of view. For centuries there have been those who have rejected Christianity because it accepts elements of faith which seem to defy reason.

Thomas Jefferson edited an edition of the Bible from which he had removed all elements he considered unscientific or contrary to reason, and today there are groups that produce versions of the Bible from which the paranormal and mystical have been removed.

I used the term “paranormal” rather than “supernatural” because it is a more precise term: That which lies beyond our normal experience.

For example, the concept of “weightlessness in space” for me is paranormal because it is not within my experience. But that does not mean that I must therefore disbelieve it.

The mystical experience is definitely paranormal for many people, but that doesn’t mean it is imaginary.

Unreasonable reason

Pure reason alone is often found to be insufficient. What we end up with may be impeccable in terms of reason, but totally lacking in power to change or help both individuals and society. In a sense, reason alone is unreasonable.
At the seminar, I wondered if the reason the organization was not growing as they wished was because they had stripped the Gospel of all that did not meet their canon of reason. What was left was not enough to be attractive and authoritative, for human beings are not limited to reason alone.

Often love is neither scientific nor reasonable, but human life without it would become brutish and even unreasonable.

This was suggested to me by my preparation for this week’s scripture, the account of the mountaintop Transfiguration of Jesus before Peter, James and John. Some of the sources I consulted rejected it out of hand as a “fictitious story.” Some questioned whether it was an actual historical event. Others thought of it as a “myth” or a “parable.”

My intention is not to quarrel with any of these interpretations – Christ didn’t teach us to quarrel – but to say they are asking the wrong questions. They want to know how this could have happened, when instead we need to ask what this episode can teach us.

Do faith, hope and love need to be photographic or recorded by scientific apparatus in order to be true? If there had been others on that mountaintop and they had not seen Moses and Elijah with Jesus, would that discredit this account?

Not votable

At a meeting I attended some years ago in Nashville Tenn., the late United Methodist Bishop James Thomas said, “There are some things in the Christian faith that are not votable.”

My initial response was to disagree, but I remembered Matthew 28:17, where the 11 disciples go to a mountain and experience the resurrected Christ: “And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted.”

And in John 13: 28, 29, when Jesus prays, “Father, glorify thy name. Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing by heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’” Taking a poll of the crowd that day would have proven or disproved nothing.

Don’t mistake me: I am not arguing for a fully supernatural faith or discounting reason as one of our religious faculties, nor am I advocating a literal interpretation of all the scriptures or our spiritual experiences. I am witnessing to the validity of my own paranormal encounters, including mountaintop experiences – whether they occurred on mountaintops or elsewhere. Without them my life would not be the same.

If you protest, “But I haven’t had any mountaintop experiences,” could it be that you haven’t climbed any “mountains,” or is it that you simply haven’t learned to distinguish between “thunder” and the voice of God?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.