Four Types of Evil, Part III

Spiritual evil and the violence in nature cause people to lose their faith in God. Can this be prevented?

By Brian Lowther

Editor’s Note: Over the past few weeks here on the RWI blog, we’ve been exploring Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction. Today, Brian Lowther finishes his three-part series examining Seed #1: The Seed of the Problem of Evil.

In my last blog entry I looked at a few examples to substantiate my hunch that when we battle certain kinds of evil, it shows that God is not the source of these evils, that he does not condone these evils, and that he is actively and visibly opposing these evils through us. I think this idea and these examples go a long way in preventing people from walking away from faith. Today I’ll continue in that vein, with some examples from the categories of Spiritual Evil and Violence in Nature.

1. Spiritual Evil

I think it's safe to say that believers are doing what they can to address the roots of Spiritual Evil by casting out demons and delivering people from demonization through the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I won’t pretend to know much about the prevalence of this kind of demonic activity or the ins and outs of deliverance ministries. When the demonic activity described in the New Testament happens today, my initial response is to categorize it in a medical or psychiatric sense (e.g., seizures, self-harming behavior, schizophrenia, muteness, etc.) rather than demonic activity. I’m admittedly out of my depth when deciphering between demon possession and medical or psychiatric maladies. Having said that, I know there are legitimate deliverance ministries out there. Chuck Kraft’s Heart’s Set Free ministry is the first one that comes to mind. And to me, the existence and earnestness of these ministries says something about God. 

What do these things say about God? When believers are active in conquering the roots of this kind of evil, it says that God does not intend for people or the world to be infested with evil spiritual beings. And this allows believers to trust in God’s goodness, which prevents them from losing their faith.

For an fascinating blog entry about demonic activity and our response to it, see Roger Olson’s Should Western Christians Rediscover Exorcism?, including the comment thread. I also recommend the dispassionate way this man shares about his own experience in The Washington Post: How a scientist learned to work with exorcists.

2. Violence in Nature

In Part I of this series, I brought up the common assumption that violence in nature is normal and necessary and thus the way God intended things. I think this causes scores and scores of people to lose their faith in God, one prominent example being Charles Darwin.[1]

However, I’m not convinced that it was always necessary for animals to kill one another to survive. It doesn't seem that was the case in Eden. Even from an evolutionary perspective, life appears to have evolved for over 3 billion years without the violence and the killing normally associated with evolution.[2] Perhaps it is necessary now. But that doesn't mean it is how God intended or wanted it to be,[3] or how it will be in the future when the wolf will live with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6), or how we should foresee the kind of world God wants us to work towards.

Am I asking Christians to refocus all their attention on genetically re-engineering wolves so they won’t hunt, kill and eat lambs? No, I’m asking whether God wants us to do anything about a much more potent and efficient killing machine: the mosquito. Bill Gates—who is spearheading efforts to eradicate malaria—has said that the mosquito is the deadliest animal in the world.[4] When it comes to killing humans, no other animal even comes close. Actually, if we are talking about malaria, the plasmodium parasite in the gut of the mosquito is the real culprit. And, while Christians are noted down through history for being kind to people who are sick and helping them get well, we are not well known for fighting the viruses, the bacteria, and the tiny parasites—as in the case of malaria—that cause some of our most harmful diseases. We mount no offense against the pathogens themselves .

While treating the symptoms of diseases like malaria is necessary and perfectly good, ignoring its roots says something about God. It proclaims loudly and embarrassingly that “our God can merely get you a hospital bed to lie on [with a bed net perhaps] and a ticket to heaven,” [5] but either he does not know of the real cause of malaria, does not care, or does not have the ability to do anything about it.

One solution to this problem is a very public, top-to-bottom stance against disease at its roots, both in our theology and in our practical efforts. Otherwise I think people will continue to assume that God intended and created diseases like malaria and all violence in nature and thus will continue to lose their faith. 

Conclusion

As I said before, I think God has called us, commissioned us, and prepared us (i.e., he has given us the wisdom, ingenuity and the ability to work together, plus a Wonderful Counselor) to battle the four types of evil I've covered in this series. When we do, I think that says that God is not the instigator of these evils, that he does not approve of these evils, and that he is unmistakably opposing these evils through us. Being convinced of this, and being aware of and partnering with those who are attempting to fight evil at its roots, will go a long way in ensuring that people never turn their backs on God’s goodness and his powerful love.

But that’s just my speculation. What do you think?

Endnotes

[1] http://philosophiesofmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/charles-darwin-not-atheist.html

[2] This was during the pre-Cambrian era when life forms were very primitive. See: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camblife.html

[3] See Genesis 1: 29, 30: Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

[4] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Most-Lethal-Animal-Mosquito-Week

[5] Ralph D. Winter, “A Blindspot in Western Christianity?” in Frontiers in Mission.

Photo Credit: U.S. Army medical researchers take part in World Malaria Day 2010, Kisumu, Kenya US Army Africa/Flickr

Brian Lowther is the Director of
the Roberta Winter Institute

Four Types of Evil, Part II

Human evil and the evil of natural disasters cause people to lose their faith in God. Can this be prevented?

By Brian Lowther

Editor’s Note: Over the past few weeks here on the RWI blog, we’ve been exploring Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction. Today, Brian Lowther continues his three-part series examining Seed #1: The Seed of the Problem of Evil. 

I ended my last blog entry by describing my hunch that I think God has called us, commissioned us, and prepared us to battle four types of evil: human evil, natural disasters, spiritual evil, and violence in nature. When we do, I think that says something about God, that he is not the source of these evils, that he does not condone these evils, and that he is actively and visibly opposing these evils through us. If someone could be convinced of this, and if he or she were acquainted with numerous examples of God’s people attempting to overcome the roots of evil (and not just the fruits of evil) as a demonstration of his will, I think he or she would be far less likely to walk away from the faith.

Here are a few examples to substantiate that hunch from the category of Human Evil, then some questions about the Evil of Natural Disasters.

1. Human Evil

My mentor, Dr. Ralph D. Winter often described the hopelessness of rescuing girls from human trafficking, “For every one you rescue, ten more will show up the next day to take her place.” His point was that rescuing enslaved girls—which he would agree is crucially important—wasn’t getting at the roots of the problem. He knew that the roots lie deep within cultural, economic and political systems. To adequately address these systems, members of the society have to be transformed from the inside out, and in his mind, the gospel offered the best means to do that. As the gospel is planted, gradually the Holy Spirit begins to transform human beings, who in turn transform societies. The result is a reduction in the amount of war, violence, murder, oppression, and slavery, and an increase in the amount of peace, selflessness, equality, safety etc.

Obviously, there are examples where the opposite is true, such as Nagaland where over 90% of the Nagas are Christian;[1] it is the most Christian state of India. Yet it is also considered the most corrupt.[2] But for every Nagaland there are perhaps hundreds or thousands of examples of the Holy Spirit turning people from darkness to light to sacrificially serve their fellow human beings resulting in the flourishing of society.

One example that comes to mind is the way children—especially female children—were regularly left to die of exposure or sold into slavery in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Jesus’ treatment of and teachings about children led to the forbidding of such practices, as well as initiating orphanages and godparents. Another example is the way the ancient Greeks and Romans had little or no interest in the sick and the dying. But the early Christians—following Christ’s compassion for the sick—established institutions for lepers and the beginning of modern-day hospitals. Alvin Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World details dozens of other examples just like these, showing how the gospel changed human society for the better.

Now, back to my hunch: what do these things say about God? I think they say, if his followers are actively trying to conquer the roots of a certain evil, that evil must not be something God wants or intends in the world. God does not intend for the world to be full of orphans, slaves, sickness, etc. And this allows believers to trust in his goodness, which prevents them from losing their faith.

2. Natural Disasters

What are believers doing to overcome the roots of natural disasters? It’s hard to say, isn’t it? I think Christians are marvelously active in responding to catastrophes when they occur. I may even be able to find some good examples of believers helping to avoid a catastrophe through some type of early warning system. But I’d be hard pressed to find a theologically motivated initiative whose purpose was to address the roots of earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, or hurricanes.

Perhaps this is because we either don’t know what the roots of these problems are, or, if we do—such as the fact that earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates—there is currently no feasible way to address these roots.

I’m reminded of a few instances where people attempted such feats. In the 1960’s the U.S. Army drilled a deep well in the state of Colorado to dispose of waste fluids. After a year of dumping, a series of small earthquakes (almost 200!) broke out in the area. A connection was soon established between the waste well and the earthquakes. So the army removed the fluid and soon the earthquakes stopped. It begs the question, couldn’t geophysicists install wells like these along fault lines in earthquake hot spots, to set off smaller, controlled earthquakes and thus reduce sudden, larger ones? Apparently the answer is yes, in theory. But the financial outlay of doing so would greatly exceed the cost of recovery after a major earthquake.[3]

Another disaster eradication plan—also from the 60’s—involved dropping silver iodide from airplanes into the outer rain bands of a developing hurricane. The goal was to create a second eye to compete with a hurricane's powerful center, siphoning off some of its strength. They knew it wasn’t possible to stop a storm entirely, but even a small reduction in wind speed could significantly reduce the storm damage.[4] Over a decade they seeded the clouds in four hurricanes. The storms weakened a bit, but ultimately experts agreed that the results were just a product of a natural process.

As far as I can tell, neither of these projects were established explicitly by Christians for the glory of God. In fact, the only examples I can think of where believers are actively attempting to address the roots of a natural disaster are things like the Evangelical Environmental Network or the Regeneration Project, which are both attempting to address global warming.[5] Obviously, global warming is a contentious issue so I’ll stop here, because the important question to me for this essay is, what does our fighting the roots of the evil of natural disasters say about God?

If you discount these two organizations for just a moment, the answer is, it is our absence in fighting this category of evil, not our activity that is speaking for us and for God. Our inactivity implies that God created or at least approves all of the evil and suffering caused by natural disasters. Short of acting in these areas, we must insist, and insist very loudly that God does not cause natural disasters, and that the Bible gives evidence of another way to understand such events. Otherwise people will continue to walk away from the faith.

For a thorough and well written essay that explores the Biblical evidence that suggests another way to understand natural disasters, see Greg Boyd’s Satan and the Corruption of Nature: Seven Arguments.

Endnotes

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagaland#Religion

[2] http://morungexpress.com/do-you-believe-that-nagaland-is-the-corruption-capital-of-india/

[3] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6759689/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/can-earthquakes-be-tamed/

[4]  http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5a.html

[5] http://www.newsweek.com/2016/03/18/creation-care-evangelical-christianity-climate-change-434865.html

Photo Credit: Nav A./Flickr

Brian Lowther is the Director of
the Roberta Winter Institute

Four Types of Evil, Part I

The Problem of Evil undoubtedly causes people to lose their faith. But, are some kinds of evil more to blame than others? And, what does our battling those evils say about God?

By Brian Lowther

Editor’s Note: Over the past few weeks here on the RWI blog we’ve been exploring Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction. Today, Brian Lowther begins a three-part series exploring Seed #1: The Seed of the Problem of Evil.

I’m convinced one of the main reasons people lose their faith is the Problem of Evil, which asks, if God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? But, as I’ve considered the Problem of Evil, I recognize that not all evils cause the same amount of suffering. Chicken pox causes suffering, but not nearly as much as if a child is kidnapped. Chicken pox isn't likely to cause someone to lose his or her faith, but if someone's child is kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered, well that's another story.

Four Types of Evil

In my way of thinking there are four types of evil. First is human evil such as war, hatred, murder, lying, corruption, etc. Second is spiritual evil such as demons and demonic possessions. Third is natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and fourth is violence in nature, such as animals hunting and killing each other or parasites eating their host from the inside out while the host is still alive.

1. Human Evil

Now, in regard to human evil, do you know anyone who has lost his or her faith in God because of the amount of lying human beings engage in, or because of corruption, or because they are hated by another person? In my opinion, these evils cause people to lose their faith in humanity, not God.

Having said that, we can all imagine someone who would say, “I walked away because God could have prevented that person from killing my loved one and he didn’t.”

Along these lines, a close friend once asked me, “Why does God allow the church—his representatives on earth—to perpetrate so much evil?” He was referring to debacles such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Catholic Child Abuse Scandal of the last few decades, and dozens of other examples. I had to agree with him that the pages of church history are pretty ugly.

His question brings to mind two of Jesus’ parables about seeds and birds from Matthew 13. First is the parable where Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed that grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds come and perch in its branches. This is a pleasant picture – birds perched in the shade of a tree. But when read in the context of a parable that precedes it, these birds take on a new meaning. One of the preceding parables describes a sower spreading seed that is quickly devoured by birds. The birds are later identified as Satan. And, while the mustard seed is commonly understood to represent the progress of the body of Christ from small beginnings, it is easy to see how the birds that perch in the branches could symbolize demons led by the prince of the power of the air who have continually tried to infiltrate the Church throughout its existence.

2. Natural Disasters

Undoubtedly natural disasters are blamed on God. Think of insurance policies protecting against ‘acts of God,’ or how the governor of Tokyo said the 2015 tsunami was divine retribution for national egoism,[1] or when an American Christian broadcaster explained that the 2009 earthquake in Haiti was provoked by the Haitians' "pact to the devil,"[2] or when people said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on New Orleans for embracing gay pride events. If natural disasters are thought to be from God, it seems perfectly logical to me for people to lose their faith. Only a vicious, arbitrary and severe god would do such a thing. Who wants to trust in a god like that?

3. Spiritual Evil

Many of us in the West don’t take much notice of the spiritual evil that swirls around us. But I’ve heard numerous missionaries describe how demonic activity is taken much more seriously on the mission field. Whatever our cultural background may be, when we do encounter demonic activity such as terrifying nightmares or paranormal occurrences, I think most would assume it comes from a malevolent source, and not God. Because of this, I don’t think this is a main reason people lose their faith.

4. Violence in Nature

The common assumption is that violence in nature is normal and necessary. A pride of lions mercilessly hunting down and killing an elephant calf as it whimpers for its mother is called the “circle of life.” We’re used to it. Animals have to kill each other to survive. They don't seem capable of making a choice NOT to kill. We’re so accustomed to it that we assume that this is the way God created things. I can completely understand a person wondering, if God designed all this violence and cruelty and suffering, is he really worthy of my allegiance?

My Hunch

But here’s my hunch: I think God has called us, commissioned us, and prepared us to battle these four types of evil. When we do, I think that says something about God. I think it says that he is not the source of these evils, that he does not condone these evils, and that he is actively and visibly opposing these evils through us. My belief is that if someone could be convinced that God is not the source of evil, and if he or she were acquainted with numerous examples of God’s people attempting to overcome the roots of evil (and not just the fruits of evil) as a demonstration of God’s will, he or she would be far less likely to walk away from the faith.

In my next installment, I’ll explore a few examples to substantiate that hunch.

Endnotes

[1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/tokyo-governor-apologizes-for-calling-quake-divine-retribution/

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html?iref=allsearch

Photo Credit: Heather Paul/Flickr

Brian Lowther is the Director of
the Roberta Winter Institute

A New Interpretation of Genesis 1 and a More Complex Mission

Interpreting Genesis 1 so that it doesn't conflict with the latest scientific views about the age of the earth, while also making sense of the problem of evil, and what that means for Christian mission.

By Ralph D. Winter (compiled and edited by Beth Snodderly)

Editor’s Note: Today Beth Snodderly finishes her four-part series exploring Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction by compiling and condensing material from a number of Winter’s essays. You can read the previous installments here: Are We Building an Enduring Christianity or Not?, Emotionalism vs. Intellectualism, and Violence, Suffering, and Evil Are Not God’s Will.

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, two significant barriers to Christian belief are the rampant suffering, violence, and evil in this world as if there is no Satan behind it, and a Bible that is thought to have feet of clay, beginning with Genesis 1. Both of these obstacles to belief can be dealt with in an unusual way: a brief scenario that attempts conjecturally to interpret Genesis 1 in such a way as not to conflict with the latest scientific views. It may be helpful in dealing with either non-Christians or Christians about to lose their faith, people who believe current science is mainly correct in regard to 1) how old the earth is, and 2) how long ago humans first appeared, but for whom these two things are difficult to square with the Bible. This story will also be helpful to anyone who is confused about why and how radical evil appeared in our world. This scenario differs from the view of many scientists in that it explains the development of life by a means quite different from a Darwinian style random process. Furthermore, it allows for much of both the so-called “Young Earth” and the “Old Earth” perspectives. Most of all, it highlights a strikingly new dimension in the definition of Christian mission.

I am thinking more and more of the possibility (which I think should at least be considered!) that the lengthy “geologic ages” occurred before Genesis 1:1, and that no matter what you think about all those vicious animal fossils that have been dug up, you can’t interpret the non-carnivorous life described in Genesis 1 to be the same thing. Most people unthinkingly assume that way back when Genesis was written there was knowledge of a planet, solar system, galaxy, and indeed an entire universe and that precisely the beginning of all that is what is being referred to in Genesis 1:1. Certainly it is easy for us unthinkingly to read our knowledge today into something that was put together several thousand years ago when Genesis came into oral tradition and was later written down.

Now, I would not be giving this example if I had not discovered that Dr. Merrill Unger, who for nineteen years was chair of the Old Testament department at Dallas seminary, clearly espoused this view way back in 1958 in the pages of the Bibliotheca Sacra, and then, later described it in his Unger’s Bible Handbook. Please understand that the idea that the long geologic ages occurred before the Genesis account of a “new creation” is as an idea, not something I “believe” in the same way I believe some other things. This idea, however, does commend itself to me as the interpretation which is most fair to the Bible. I feel we must be very cautious that we do not find ourselves demanding that the Bible say what we would like it to say, or saying what we expect it to say, or even saying what many people think it says.

This “new creation” concept allows for both young earth and old earth views to be true. But there is something else that is the thing most important for me. If the thousands of forms of life that are now extinct lived before Genesis 1, their pervasively violent, perverted, distorted, carnivorous, predatory character could then be conceived to be the evil work of Satan and his rebel angels after his “fall.” This more concrete idea of a first fall would suggest that the second “fall,” that of Adam, resulted in the rejection of the newly created, undistorted life forms of Genesis chapter one, forcing them out of the Garden of Eden, into the larger planet where they would interbreed and intermarry with the long-perverted other forms of life. Result? A gradual reversion to the pre-Genesis perversity and viciousness that were the result of Satan’s earlier fall. This then provides a rationale for the need for God’s new beginning described in Genesis.

A More Complex Mission

For me, then, this would define a much more complex mission for redeemed man: to destroy the works of Satan. Since God is extensively blamed and his glory stained by common assumptions that there is no Satan, and all evil is God’s “mysterious will,” our mission is to “re-glorify” God. We can do this by seeking, in his name, to restore to God’s original intention, where possible, Satan’s perversions in all forms of life. This includes participating in serious efforts to eradicate diseases caused by viruses, many bacteria, and most parasites. This kind of activity would seem to be highly crucial in restoring the reputation of God, who is now being blamed for all sorts of evil. This basic type of amplification of mission can uniquely empower evangelism. As a Caltech scientist once implied to me, who wants to be in heaven forever with a God with a stained and gruesome reputation?

Insight into the Real Nature of Salvation

A major reason people are leaving the church, losing their faith, and staying away in the first place, is because the church has not adequately stepped up to bat along with civil forces to beat down the corruption, disease, and poverty of at least a billion hopeless people. Evangelicals have misread the Bible. Salvation is not just a “ticket to heaven.” In my opinion a basic problem is our blindness to the essentially wartime calling of those who follow Christ. The church has largely gone AWOL, distracted or preoccupied with programs that serve our own ends. But the Bible does not call us to save ourselves, to solidify our security, or just to talk about world problems. God is asking humans to choose to join him in the battle to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and restore shalom to creation.

Historically, in hundreds of foreign fields, schools and hospitals have portrayed God’s love, just as did the practical dimension of Jesus’ ministry. Missionaries in the past have transformed whole countries in many practical ways. Today we know far more about the problems and far more about the solutions than ever before. Yet the world still sees us as merely religious fanatics propagating a salvation that is not here but only in the hereafter.

Self-Serving Church or Challenging World Problems?

Building the Church in both number and depth is self-defeating if the larger purpose of God’s calling is ignored. It is like recruiting soldiers for a non-existent war. Why self-defeating? The self-serving church may expand by attracting people interested in their own salvation, but if it only serves itself it also crumbles and self-destructs. Isn’t this what happened to Italy, France, England? Is France the end product, where 80% are “Christian” but only 20% believe in God? The church is now crumbling globally (as well as expanding), like salt losing its savor. This is true even on the “mission field,” even where high percentages are believers. For example, Nagaland in India, or the Central African Republic, 97% and 70% “Christian” respectively, yet are also known to be exceedingly corrupt.

We often rejoice over the global gains of the Church, but there is another side! If people are being won into the front door and eventually move out the back door, what could be the answer? We are to be salt and light in this world. That means not just adding members to the Church but glorifying God by our good deeds (Matt 5:16). We are saved by the infusion of God’s power (grace) into our lives precisely so that we can do those good deeds (Eph 2:8-10).

Conclusion

We have greater opportunities and greater obligations than ever in history. Yet the chasm between our unemployed resources and an effective challenge to big world problems is very great. It is apparent that organized believers are largely missing in the conduct of the Kingdom of God, in bringing His will into the dark and suffering places in our world. [A notable exception is the 2008 announcement that billionaire Ted Turner was partnering with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the United Methodist Church to raise funds to stop deaths from global malaria. In January, 2016, the ELCA announced it had reached its $15 million goal of funds raised to combat malaria through its relief and development arm. “Thank you for naming suffering as contrary to God’s will and working to correct injustice,” an ELCA blog stated in announcing the successful conclusion of the ELCA Malaria Campaign (http://blogs.elca.org/malaria/2667-2/).]

The cure for a church that is in many ways staggering, stalling, and sitting down, the cure for our malaise and evaporating faith, is clear-cut definitive obedience. We must face and define the need to get organized answers to this world’s problems as well as getting individuals reconciled to God. In fact, getting people reconciled to God and to his Kingdom business must go together. Otherwise our absence at the frontlines of major global problems means we are misrepresenting God’s will and misusing the wisdom and resources he has given us to act out and speak out his love and glorify his name among all peoples. What kind of a Christ are we to follow? “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8, NASB). If we “declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples” (Psalm 96:3, NIV), we will then build the Church on a solid foundation that will not crumble.

References

Unger, Merrill F. 1958. “Rethinking the Genesis Account of Creation.” Bibliotheca Sacra 115 (January-March): 27-35.

______. 1967. Unger’s Bible Handbook. Chicago: Moody Press.

USA Today. 2008. Ted Turner Apologizes, Joins Churches’ $200M Malaria Fight. April 1. Accessed May 2, 2016. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-04-01-turner-churches_N.htm.

Image: Aftab Uzzaman/Flickr

Ralph D. Winter (12/8/24 – 5/20/09) founded the Roberta Winter Institute.

Beth Snodderly is the RWI's Theologian in Residence and Chair of the Board.

Violence, Suffering, and Evil Are Not God’s Will

People are rejecting the Bible and losing their faith for no other reason than its honesty! They do not realize that the Bible very reliably portrays a nation of people who gradually gained deeper insights, whose flawed words and deeds are not always what the Bible teaches.

By Ralph D. Winter (compiled and edited by Beth Snodderly)

Editor’s Note: Today Beth Snodderly continues her four-part series exploring Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction by compiling and condensing material from a number of Winter’s essays. You can read the previous installments here: Are We Building an Enduring Christianity or Not?, and Emotionalism vs. Intellectualism.

Insight into God’s Character: Violence, Suffering, and Evil Are Not God’s Will

We see two significant barriers to Christian belief: a Bible thought to have feet of clay beginning with Genesis 1, and the rampant violence and evil in this world. The reason I am so concerned to identify evil, and become known as a believer in Jesus Christ who is fighting it, is because a great deal of evil in this world is blamed on God. How attractive is our invitation to people to turn to and yield to their Father in Heaven if they continue to believe he is the one who contrives for most everyone and everything to die in suffering? Unless Satan is in the picture and we are known to be fighting his deadly works we are allowing God’s glory to be marred and torn down.

Violence in Nature

Is it a hazard to evangelism to be unable to explain why God’s creation pervasively contains so many violent elements, so much horrible suffering and pain? Ruth Tucker’s book, Walking Away from Faith, implies that to be the case. Do Christian missionaries need to think seriously about the apparent incongruity between the Bible’s “good creation” and a violence-filled nature? I think so.

The “good creation” of Genesis 1 describes both animals and humans as eating plants, not each other. The wolf lying down with the lamb (Isa 11:6) seems to be the kind of creation that could be attributed to God without qualification. On the other hand, most people have simply grown accustomed to the violence of the streets and the forests. Some people believe that everything—violent, painful, or not—is of God and we will someday be able to see this as part of his “mysterious purposes.” 

But now that we have inklings about how DNA can be altered, is it possible to hypothesize that fallen angels (who are at least as intelligent as humans) have been hard at work in distorting God’s original good creation into the violence in nature we now see? David Snoke, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, asks, “Why were dangerous animals created?” He suggests three possibilities: 1) fallen intermediate beings are responsible for dangerous animals, or 2) the Bible teaches that God is responsible for violence in nature, or 3) some process out of God’s control (like an unaided evolution?) is the cause (Snoke 2004, 119). I vote for the first of the three. He takes the second. Darwin, I suppose, chose the third.

But the phenomenal significance of all this for mission is plain. If dangerous animals are part of God’s original plan, and (thus logically) dangerous pathogens as well, we have no “mission” to eradicate dangerous viruses, bacteria, and parasites. And, in that case we have a perplexingly dangerous God to preach. What do you think?

Violence in the Bible

The danger is illustrated by Hector Avalos, former Pentecostal and now Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Illinois, who has lost his respect for the God of the Bible. He says that the Bible ought not to be studied and he is particularly offended by what he sees as the Bible’s “endorsement of violence” (Avalos 2007, 28). But in describing violence, is the Bible teaching it? Have people like Avalos “given up their faith” trying to explain away a number of disturbing things in the Old Testament, as if the Bible asks us to emulate or approve of all the gruesome and barbaric things it reports?

They may not realize that many things in the Bible are the result of a perfectly reasonable, progressively increasing understanding, which the Bible unblushingly reflects without the pretension of insisting that in the Bible there is “no progress of understanding.” At the time the Old Testament was put together as a book, later insights and interpretations were sometimes mingled with earlier understandings. One instance is the startling contrast between 2 Samuel 24:1-24 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-24. I have for some time considered these two passages to constitute the “Rosetta Stone of Biblical Hermeneutics.” In 2 Samuel the NIV says, “God incited David [to do wrong].” In 1 Chronicles the parallel account says “Satan incited David [to do wrong].” As I see it, the centuries-earlier passage speaks from the viewpoint of God’s overall sovereignty, while the post-exilic (post-Zoroastrian) passage adds a new insight. The people of Israel had become aware of the initiative of an intermediate being (Satan) that was created by God, not to be a robot, but with the same kind of freedom that humans have, namely, the freedom to do evil. The Bible does not attempt to pretend that either of these accounts was dictated from heaven.

Thus, here is an example where we do well to “lose our faith”—that is, lose our specious faith in the idea that our Bibles were dictated by God in the way that Muslims and Mormons claim for their holy books, the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon. Rather, we believe that “prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21, NIV). The key word here is “human,” implying limited, though inspired, perspective. In other words, many simplistic views of the Bible may need to be given up. Believing in an inerrant Bible is different from believing in inerrant interpretations.

The Bible is unlike any other religious book in the world. It doesn’t tell us of perfect people. It records horrendous evils and describes people who condone those evils. It even portrays the flaws of leaders. But it doesn’t teach those flaws. It records the literal truth of a chosen nation both seeking and denying God’s will. Does it intend for us to take its every sentence, its every event, as a model to be followed? Of course not. In one sense it mirrors for us how deep and dark our human past has been, how far we have come in better understanding God and his will for us. At the same time, for the same reason, it intends that we not slide back. Most important, we cannot logically criticize it for its honesty and accuracy!

But people are rejecting the Bible and losing their faith for no other reason than its honesty! They do not realize that the Bible very reliably portrays a nation of people who across the centuries gradually gained deeper insights, whose flawed words and deeds are not always what the Bible teaches, and that the story as it leads into the New Testament reveals an archangel adversary who is the most basic answer for the presence of suffering.

Human Suffering

Probably the most vexing and ineffective Christian teaching is what we come up with in the face of tragic and evil events. Why does God allow such things? One young person after his freshman year at college said to his dad, “There is so much evil, suffering, and injustice in the world that either there is no God at all or there is a God of questionable power or character.” This idea is all the more devastating when Evangelicals, having essentially given up believing in an intelligent enemy of God, take to explaining tediously that all this evil must be because God’s ways are simply mysterious. Satan, rampant and powerful in the New Testament, has mainly disappeared from significance following Augustine’s injection of some neo-platonic thought into the Christian tradition.

References

Avalos, Hector. 2007. The End of Biblical Studies. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Snoke, David. 2004. “Why Were Dangerous Animals Created?” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (June): 117-25. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF6-04Snoke.pdf.

Image: Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon by John Martin

Ralph D. Winter (12/8/24 – 5/20/09) founded the Roberta Winter Institute.

Beth Snodderly is the RWI's Theologian in Residence and Chair of the Board.

Emotionalism vs. Intellectualism

Are emotional good feelings, however valid and beneficial, any match for the likely moment when logical and hard intellectual questions surface? That is, are emotions more valid, more credible, more durable, than our use of the mind?

By Ralph D. Winter (compiled and edited by Beth Snodderly)

Editor’s Note: Today Beth Snodderly continues her four-part series in which she explores Ralph Winter’s Four Seeds of Destruction by compiling and condensing material from a number of Winter’s essays. You can read the first installment here: Are We Building an Enduring Christianity or Not?

Are we building an enduring Christianity or not? In one sense this question outranks all other mission frontiers, including the Unreached Peoples Frontier. That is, what is the wisdom of avidly building a widespread movement to Christ, which is going to collapse tomorrow into Gospel resistance? Is Christian faith blossoming around the world today only to fade tomorrow when it faces the hard questions of today’s anti-religious onslaught?

Adding Intellectual Insight to Emotional/Experiential Awareness

Christianity has clearly succeeded among rural populations and among uneducated people all over the world, but it is facing increasing opposition from the educated world because of religious teachings, which may have no foundation in the Bible whatsoever.

The reality of rejection of biblical faith accompanying increased education casts quite a shadow over Philip Jenkins’ rosy picture of the future of Christianity in the Global South. Even long before Jenkins’ book, The Next Christendom, appeared, mission leaders had been hailing the splurge of growth on the mission field. My own thoughts about the dread paradox of wild success leading on into desperate failure are as follows: There are at least two dimensions of knowing God in Christ. There is an emotional awe in worship and daily life, call it an awareness of God. And there is an intellectual insight into who he is. Is it possible to be aware of God with very little accurate insight into who he is? Yes. Is it possible to possess a lot of insight into the nature of God with little hour-by-hour awareness of Him? Yes.

Awareness arises in worship and in daily devotions and in hour-by-hour God-consciousness, in “practicing the presence of God.” It is the result of “praying without ceasing.” It flourishes in times of true revival and awakening. It is fair to say that the hallmark of the Evangelical movement in its early days was its stress on authentic, emotional experience. A central feature of the Evangelical Awakening of the 18th Century (which produced Evangelicalism), was an “assurance of salvation,” and, for many, “a second work of grace,” that was highly emotional in its manifestation. And yet that Evangelical Awakening eventually collapsed, largely due to English Evangelicalism’s serious weakness: anti-intellectualism (Rice 2004).

Today, that stress on “experience” (not intellectual knowledge) has moved on into the Pentecostal, Charismatic and Apostolic spheres, while older Evangelicals look on askance, holding tight to their less emotional forms of worship and their lists of doctrines. We are well acquainted with seminaries that have become cemeteries, hoarding massive information in their libraries about God’s nature but handling all that holy information with a professionalism that can easily replace any real awareness of the living God.

So what is the answer? We must begin by recognizing the all-important necessity of both awareness and insight. We must be willing to suspect insight without awareness and also to suspect awareness without insight. Clearly God calls us by heart and mind, not heart or mind. Yet the predominant character of much of the rapidly spreading “faith” around the world today consists of multitudes being entranced by the availability of the promises of God unrelated to a true and thorough insight into the nature of God and his creative handiwork.

Why have many Evangelicals been slow to add insight to awareness? Are emotional good feelings, however valid and beneficial, any match for the likely moment when logical and hard intellectual questions surface? That is, are emotions more valid, more credible, more durable, than our use of the mind? Or, are mind and heart both important? As crucial as it is that we hang on to the historic Evangelical awareness of God, we must seriously and even urgently add a competent intellectual grasp of God’s glory in the much larger world known to modern man.

For example, huge obstacles exist for anyone who would seriously attempt to evangelize in a scientifically-oriented society. If we recognize the existence of the “unreached people” of the scientifically educated community of, say, Hyderabad, we quickly face the frontier of “the religion of science” (Winter 2004c, 36-37). Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, asked, “Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?” (Collins 2003, 112). Most scientists will consider that the Bible is clearly of no value as long as they think it baldly teaches that the universe is only 6,000 years old. It is absolutely tragic that millions of keen thinkers are truly awed into a quasi-religious scientism through their contact with God’s Book of Creation without acknowledging the God of the Bible, while still other millions are caught up in God’s Book of Scripture to the point where they elevate it as a magical object which must somehow provide an explanation for all later scientific exploration of the universe.

We, as Christian leaders, must take the initiative of knowing both the Book of Creation as a revelation of God and the Book of Scripture as a revelation of God. Otherwise, we are planting a superficial and temporary kind of Christianity all around the world. The Unfinished Task is very nearly finished, if in fact we measure that task by geographical or even sociological penetration of the Christian faith. But all such gains are temporary where a population will soon become influenced by the dominant form of education today, which is highly secularized both in science and history—unless the Church does something to bring added insight.

References

Winter, Ralph. 2004c. Twelve Frontiers of Perspective. In Frontiers in Mission: Discovering and Surmounting Barriers to the Missio Dei. 4th ed, 28-40. Pasadena, CA: WCIU Press.

Collins, Francis. 2003. “Can an Evangelical Believe in Evolution?” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 20, no. 4 (Winter): 109-12. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/20_4_PDFs/109_Collins.pdf.

Rice, Jonathan. 2004. “The Tragic Failure of Britain’s Evangelical Awakening.” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 21, no. 1 (Spring): 23-25. Accessed April 29, 2016. http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/21_1_PDFs/23_25_Rice.pdf.

Photo Credit: YellowDog/Flickr  -  Josa Júnior/Flickr

Ralph D. Winter (12/8/24 – 5/20/09) founded the Roberta Winter Institute.

Beth Snodderly is the RWI's Theologian in Residence and Chair of the Board.