Conclusion
Some Valuable Majority World Insights
In principle, many of us are willing to learn from believers in a range of cultures. But what happens when their input challenges centuries-old assumptions in our own cultures? We are not obligated to abandon our assumptions uncritically, but often believers from other cultures can help us in the areas where our assumptions reflect cultural blind spots. Some cultures understand biblical principles of hospitality, courage, sacrifice and faith much better than does most of our Western culture at this time in history.
Here I summarize two sample areas where believers in many parts of the world may help the Western church and Western seminaries challenge traditional modern Western materialistic monism: the issues of spirits and miracles. Not everything that all believers say in these contexts is compatible with biblical revelation, but much of it poses a potent challenge to the typical Western academic dismissal of these notions.
Missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert notes that Christians in India addressed a cultural blind spot that he carried: his scientific training stressed a naturalistic, empirical approach; his theological training emphasized theistic explanations. But he had lacked a functional category for superhuman activity other than that of the supreme God, despite its prevalence in parts of Scripture as well as many cultures’ belief in it. In recent centuries, Western thought had left no intermediate category between God and the natural world, but in his dialogue with Indian Christians he came to believe that such a sphere existed. 2
There are dangers of seeing spirits more pervasively than Scripture warrants; it should be noted that cultures that believe in possession by a spirit are more likely to generate more cases of the phenomenon so interpreted. 3 Still, one suspects that most Western Christians probably recognize spiritual realities far less than Scripture suggests.
Global Experiences concerning Spirits
John Pilch suggests that 90 percent of the world today accepts both “ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality,” the latter including God and spirits. 4 Further, anthropologist Erika Bourguignon points out that belief in spirit possession is widespread in varied cultures around the world, “as any reader of ethnographies knows.” 5 Already four decades ago she could attest spirit-possession beliefs in nearly three-quarters of representative societies studied; 6 some subsequent studies speak of altered states of consciousness in some 90 percent of societies. 7 Diverse cultures offer an array of different interpretive matrixes for these experiences, 8 although their experiences often do produce some similar beliefs even in very different societies. 9
Many early-twentieth-century Presbyterian missionaries to Korea learned in seminary that spirits were not real, but most came to believe otherwise in the context of ministry alongside local Korean believers. 10 A generation ago noted Western missiologist Stephen Neill warned that it was next to impossible to convince most Majority World Christians “that evil spirits do not exist.” 11 More recently, Peruvian missiologist Samuel Escobar reports a conversation with an indigenous teacher from the Peruvian jungle. When local people noticed demons in the Western linguist’s translation of Mark, the Western linguist explained that such spirits were only for the first century. While the local teacher respected the linguist, however, he insisted that their local environment matched better what they found in Mark’s Gospel: “we know that there really are demons and spirits; they’re around here.” 12
African scholar John S. Mbiti dismisses the ignorance of Westerners who deny spirits and witchcraft, which are local realities. 13 Africans often report encounters with spirits as genuine experiences. A Ghanaian physician trained in the West, for example, found his arm paralyzed by electricity for a few hours after touching a patient who had been to “fetish priests.” 14 Power encounters have often sparked church growth; thus tens of thousands of followers of traditional religions became Christians after early-twentieth-century African figures such as Garrick Sokari Braide or William Wadé Harris contested the older spiritual powers. 15 Such power encounters are widely reported in the spread of Christianity elsewhere, such as in Haiti, India, and the Philippines. 16 In many cases such power encounters have even led to priests of traditional religions becoming Christians. 17
Not surprisingly, such experiences influence how believers approach what they view as analogous accounts in the biblical text. 18 In one African theological journal a Tanzanian Lutheran writer notes, “the phenomenon of demon possession is a hard reality with which a good number of East African Christians struggle daily.” In contrast to Westerners, East Africans thus hear “the biblical accounts . . . not as myths, but as objective accounts of actual experiences.” 19
Western Academic vs. Indigenous Interpretations
Paul Stoller, an anthropologist working among Songhay Muslims, was warned that he would face an attack of sorcery; that night he felt pressed down by a suffocating weight and heard threatening creatures on his roof. The affliction stopped only when he recalled the locally prescribed cure (reciting some Qur’anic verses). This experience changed his perspective; indigenous understandings rather than his anthropological training enabled him to cope with the local reality. 20 Publication of his experience initially stirred controversy and disdain from some peers, though it eventually led to accolades. 21
Likewise, Solon Kimball, a noted anthropologist, 22 notes his own completely unexpected experience of encountering an apparition during his fieldwork in Ireland. 23 He learned only afterward that many local people had encountered the same figure. 24 Anthropologist Edith Turner confesses that “anthropology marveled briefly at Solon Kimball’s ghost story,” but then neglected its implications until other such stories began to be published. 25 Turner herself became a believer in genuine spirits in 1985 when she witnessed what she calls “spirit substance” ejected from a patient during a Zambian spirit ritual. 26 From a pro-shamanist perspective, she now rejects her former dismissal of spirits as cultural imperialism. 27 She complains that some academics “believe that trained anthropologists . . . understand aspects of a culture” better than people from that culture. 28
Anthropologists today often try to study experiences with alleged spirits from societies’ indigenous perspectives, rather than imposing a Western interpretive grid on them. 29 In contrast to theologians and parapsychologists, most anthropologists seek to study not spiritual phenomena but indigenous beliefs about spirits. 30 Thus one study offers as a working definition of spirit possession “any altered state of consciousness indigenously interpreted in terms of the influence of an alien spirit. ” 31 More recent studies work harder than most of their predecessors to take into account the indigenous frame of reference; 32 while traditional Western categories, often from a medical perspective, make cross-cultural comparison easier, more contextualized and phenomenological approaches prove more epistemologically open. 33
Yet the approaches of anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and indigenous interpreters often vary considerably from one another. 34 Even in the West, there is no unanimity regarding the meaning of possession experiences. Thus, for example, anthropologists have criticized psychologists and psychiatrists for ethnocentric understandings of altered states of consciousness, whereas others have criticized anthropologists’ limited competence in psychological and psychiatric matters. 35 Although reports from a range of sources provide valuable data, interpreting the data is often a matter of worldview. In many cases, indigenous approaches prove closer to the deliverance narratives of the Gospels than do Western materialist interpretations. 36
Despite frequent abuses and exaggerations, 37 some people in many African societies do seek to practice malevolent sorcery, as is inevitable in cultures that believe in sorcery. 38 Whatever the actual degree of efficacy, practitioners themselves, and often most of the culture, believe in their efficacy. 39 Despite the stigma in many places, some confessions of murder by sorcery appear in various societies. 40 One Western lecturer, after having denied the existence of witches, was corrected by an African student who noted that he was a witch and believed that he had an effective record of killing people through witchcraft. 41 Many others believe that witchcraft in their context kills. 42 Voodoo deaths, associated with spirits, are a real phenomenon, 43 though Western observers, usually seeking psychological rather than spiritual explanations, typically associate them with terror. 44
Western missionaries from desupernaturalized Europe, which had declared belief in witchcraft heretical because of its own earlier excesses, often taught ideas unworkable for an African context. 45 Local people often mistrusted traditional missionaries because the latter ignored sorcery. 46 Indeed, witchcraft beliefs fulfill roles within societies that if unaddressed by newer religious cultures can persist and grow. 47
Although harmful use of spiritual power may take different forms in different contexts, not all of which actually exercise the same degree of power, improper local accusations and responses to accusations may lead Westerners to too readily dismiss all indigenous beliefs about witchcraft. Negative spiritual power and sometimes power encounters with its practitioners appears in a number of biblical texts (including Exod 7:10–12; Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22; Acts 8:9–13; 13:8–12; 19:11–20; 2 Thess 2:9; Rev 13:13); the early centuries of Christianity include often still more elaborate stories of power encounters.
My own views on the subject were forced to shift after an unexpected and worldview-shattering experience of power related to traditional African curses in December of 2008. 48 Cognitive dissonance between my experience and my theological understanding of personal evil’s power persisted until, two or three years after the publication of Miracles, I was reading Job in Hebrew and realized that my worldview had previously simply blinded me to what was already clear in the biblical text. 49
Many Westerners doubt the possibility of miracles, an issue of no little importance for biblical studies, where, for example, some 30 percent of our earliest Gospel involves miracles and exorcisms. 51 Likewise, Western scholars who normally condemn allegorization sometimes welcome only spiritual applications of healing narratives. Although the Gospel writers do offer spiritual applications, it is doubtful that they intended exclusively spiritual applications. 52 One need only consider testimonies posted in sanctuaries of Asclepius to recall that a significant point of recounting testimonies was to encourage supplicants to have faith for their own needs, naturally including physical ones.
Some Western Christians made invaluable contributions to the world’s improvement during the early English Enlightenment, especially through experimental science. 53 Nevertheless, strands of the radical Enlightenment created false dichotomies that remain with the West to this day. These remain a mainly Western issue. Invited to lecture in 2015 to hundreds of theological students in Indonesia in connection with my Miracles book, my suspicion was quickly confirmed that defense of the reality of the supernatural was of very limited value; of much greater interest was how to distinguish divine activity from that generated by other spirits. Unfortunately for myself as a lecturer, I probably had less experience and expertise on that level than did many of my hosts.
Western scholars often read biblical miracle texts unsympathetically or even with embarrassment. This is unfortunate, since, as Geza Vermes points out in a different connection, “Religious writings disclose their meaning only to those who approach them in a spirit of sympathy.” 54 There is of course a place for academic attempts to construct detached readings for the purpose of allowing cross-cultural comparisons; even the etic categories designed for such comparisons, however, inevitably reflect particular cultural assumptions. Emic readings based on indigenous understandings often provide clearer insight into the thinking of a culture, although less handy rubrics for comparative evaluation among cultures.
The degree of probability assigned to miracles depends on one’s prior assumptions. 55 A theistic reading of evidence here will differ from a deistic or atheistic one. On atheistic premises, miracles are implausible; on theistic premises, one expects them at least on occasion. By a priori excluding the consideration of a god who can act in nature, Hume prejudges the outcome of his inquiry against miracles. 56 A neutral starting point would not presuppose the action or inaction of a deity, 57 but Hume simply presupposes divine inaction. 58
If on other grounds one has reason to affirm theism, 59 then what we call miracles might even be expected; 60 miracles are against the ordinary observed course of nature, but that is their point. 61 We might expect such unusual acts to occur at times, especially in particular settings that involve the message that this God seeks to communicate. 62 Thus many scholars consider the religious and theological context when evaluating miracle claims, 63 a position that has a long pedigree. 64 Indeed, if one allows for a deity who acts purposefully, then, as retired Oxford professor Keith Ward puts it, “it will be unreasonable not to accept reliable testimony” for miracles. 65
Western skepticism toward miracles was heavily shaped by an influential essay of David Hume that most philosophers today regard as circularly argued. 66 The most relevant point for the present discussion is that one of Hume’s key arguments is explicitly ethnocentric, rejecting all testimony from nonwhites and non-Western cultures, which Hume dismissed as “ignorant and barbarous.” 67 Hume’s racism is well-documented, and it plays a significant role in his argument against miracles. 68 (His ethnocentrism included anti-Semitism, thus prejudice against ancient Jewish civilization.) 69
Yet medical anthropology now rejects “medicocentrism,” the ethnocentric view that only current Western views of sickness and healing are authentic and that disputes the many claims to cures outside Western views. 70 Medical anthropology is a burgeoning field that has generated vast scholarship. 71 It also offers promise for biblical scholars; medical anthropology, John Pilch argues, “could help the exegete to adopt a transcultural stance” 72 when addressing healing claims in the NT.
Social scientists have noted that, despite a variety of interpretations, “people from all cultures relate stories of spontaneous, miraculous cures,” based on their experiences. 73 In addition to differing in their paradigms involving paranormal phenomena, many other cultures are in general more holistic than conventional Western culture, expecting spiritual beliefs to impinge on physical needs in ways that Western culture has often found uncomfortable. 74
Results from a recent Pew survey of Pentecostals and charismatics suggest that even in just the ten countries that Pew surveyed, some two hundred million Pentecostals and charismatics claim to have witnessed divine healing. 75 Although a large proportion of mainline Christians in the Majority World fit the broad Western definition of charismatic, 76 such beliefs and practices are not limited to Pentecostals and charismatics. In the same Pew survey, more than one-third of Christians worldwide who do not identify themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic claim not simply to believe in healing but to have “witnessed divine healings.” 77 However we construe many of these experiences, the number is certainly too high to accommodate Hume’s default claim of no reliable witnesses as a starting point for discussion—a position that in its traditional form is, despite its many vocal supporters, simply untenable today.
Western scholar of global Christianity Philip Jenkins notes that in general Christianity in the Global South is quite interested in “the immediate workings of the supernatural, through prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances, and healing.” 78 Historian Mark Noll observes that Western Christians working in the Majority World “consistently report that most Christian experience reflects a much stronger supernatural awareness than is characteristic of even charismatic and Pentecostal circles in the West.” 79
Reading Miracles with the Global Church
The above observations have some relevance for how we approach biblical narratives involving healings. Kenneth Archer, explaining the value of a Pentecostal hermeneutic, notes, “The essence of Pentecostalism is its persistent emphasis upon the supernatual within the community.” 80 This approach not surprisingly resonates with the majority of the world’s cultures.
Readings of Scripture in the Global South often contrast starkly with modern Western critics’ readings. 81 Thus a Western writer with experience in Africa suggests that African culture offers better foundations for understanding biblical texts addressing such issues. 82 Ghanaian theologian Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu notes that African Christians emphasize God’s power to act in ways that Western theologians too often restrict only to science. 83
Most Christians in the Majority World, less shaped by the modern Western tradition of the radical Enlightenment, find stories of miraculous phenomena far less objectionable than do their Western counterparts. 84 These other cultures offer a check on traditional Western assumptions; as Lamin Sanneh, professor of missions and history at Yale Divinity School, points out, it is here that Western culture “can encounter . . . the gospel as it is being embraced by societies that had not been shaped by the Enlightenment,” and are thus closer to the milieu of earliest Christianity. 85
Western missionaries to one region in Africa who merely left behind Gospels reportedly returned to find a flourishing church with NT-like miracles happening daily, “because there had been no missionaries to teach that such things were not to be taken literally.” 86 Indigenous readings of Scripture often noticed patterns there “that the missionaries did not want [local believers] to see.” 87
Thus, for example, one anthropologist recounts the experience of a fellow anthropologist named Jacob Loewen, who was doing Bible translation among the Choco people in Panama. 88 The wife of his host, Aureliano, was dying, and medicine was unavailable. While Loewen had translated the promise of healing in Jas 5:14–15, he felt that he lacked faith to pray. Nevertheless, reading this passage, the local believers prayed with him for her healing, and she rallied slightly. By the next morning, however, she was dying again, so the local believers anointed her with oil, without inviting Loewen, and this time she rose from the bed completely well. When Aureliano declared happily that God’s Spirit had chased away the fever spirits, Loewen observed that they had not invited him and his Western colleague to pray this time. Aureliano apologized but noted, “It doesn’t work when you and David are in the circle. You and David don’t really believe.” Loewen was a devoted Christian, yet found “himself unable to transcend the secular assumptions and understandings of his particular birth society.” 89
Challenging Western Skepticism about Miracles
By its own honor-shame conventions, the academy as a community of interpretation can exert no less pressure for conformity on its members than the ecclesiastical dogmas it once sought to replace. 90 Although encouraging individualistic approaches in some ways, in others members fear to contradict it, such as when some academicians have confided to me in hushed tones that they actually believe in miracles or spirits. In the Western academic worldview, everything may be subjected to critique except its own starting assumptions. 91 Thus students remain indoctrinated in traditional approaches until paradigm shifts offer new approaches, generally themselves adopted by new generations of students without critical evaluation of their underlying epistemic principles. Because belief in God is, unlike some controversial topics, excluded by the epistemic and thus methodological constraints of many disciplines, it cannot be openly discussed in those disciplines.
Cross-cultural studies suggest that socialization rather than exposure to science accounts for most of the skepticism in some circles. 92 African psychologist Regina Eya warns that all claims to extranormal healing are dismissed by many Western scholars, the credible along with the spurious, because of the inappropriate application of traditional Western scientific paradigms to matters for which they were not designed. 93
David Friedrich Strauss was the driving force behind viewing the Gospels as late and drawing on myths and legends because they included miracle stories. Yet he was so controlled by his ontohermeneutical presuppositions that when someone he knew was apparently cured via the ministry of German Lutheran pastor Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Strauss explained the previous condition as psychosomatic, despite contrary medical opinion. 94 That the cure was a legend that developed over generations, however, he could not assert. Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), on the other hand, lived a generation after Blumhardt (1805–1880), and so felt more free to dismiss the mere “legends” about him. 95 (Karl Barth, conversely, defended Blumhardt and considered him a mentor.) 96 Today extant, firsthand sources about Blumhardt overwhelmingly show that these reports were not legends. 97 Why was Bultmann so adamant?
As Justo González remarks in his commentary on Acts, the frequent denial of narratives’ historicity because of their miracle reports employs a questionable epistemological criterion. Bultmann denied that modern people who use scientific inventions such as the wireless can believe in miracles, 98 yet “what Bultmann declares to be impossible is not just possible, but even frequent.” Miracles are, González points out, affirmed in most Latino churches, despite the influence of the mechanistic worldview from much Western thought. 99 Cuban Lutheran bishop Ismael Laborde Figueras notes that it is hard to find Latin American Christians who do not believe in miracles. 100
Some Asian theologians have likewise complained that the approach of Bultmann’s school is irrelevant to Asian realities. The retired Methodist bishop of Malaysia, Hwa Yung, notes that Asian worldviews affirm miracles, angels, and hostile spirits. 101 It is actually the Western, mechanistic, naturalistic Enlightenment worldview that is culturally and historically idiosyncratic. 102
Western interpreters have often accumulated historical insights helpful for reading Scripture, insights that, when properly evaluated and applied, should become property of the whole global church. Likewise, some cases where most Western interpreters may learn from many Majority World believers include the latter’s more common experiences with spirits, miracles, poverty, injustice, and so forth. (Some of these issues are also prominent among minority-culture Christians in the Western church.) In many of these cases, global Christianity hears the Spirit in the biblical text more faithfully than do many Western exegetes. 103 The relative strengths and weaknesses of different parts of the global church will shift over time as we grow together, so long as we are all humble enough to learn from one another.
Because of our cultural blind spots, we all need one another’s help to hear Scripture fully. This is work for the entire global body of Christ, each culture bringing the contributions we are currently best equipped to contribute while also learning from others. The long-term hegemony of Western interpreters often yields less humility, and thus greater blind spots, but all of us may learn from one another. This is also the best way to forestall potential future hegemonies of different kinds.
We cannot understand the message of the inspired authors apart from the social and linguistic contexts in which they communicated; the message came to us already concretely enculturated. Neither can we fully engage or communicate their message, however, without grasping how it can engage us in our various cultures today. Scripture’s principles will be illustrated and reapplied in diverse ways in different cultures who hear and enculturate its message afresh.
Both aspects are consistent with Spirit-led biblical interpretation in Acts 2, where Peter applies Scripture to his hearers. Areas where believers hear the Spirit in many cultures today, such as on miracles and deliverance, are also consistent with what we see lived out in the book of Acts. Such insights and interests match well what we might expect for a Spirit-filled hermeneutic. That is because looking at Scripture through the lens of God’s own heart invites us to see there God’s concern for people and their needs, and how God can empower us to help meet those needs.