ESPN's Chris Broussard Condemns Homosexuality

The big news today is 12-year NBA veteran Jason Collins announcement that he is gay in a Sports Illustrated article. There has been speculation for weeks that an athlete from one of the four major, American team sports would come out soon - most of that speculation centered around potential NFL players.

In the fight for LGBT equality, this is a big day. It firmly inserts the debate into one of the largest arenas of American pop-culture - professional sports. But this post is not about the impact of Collins' announcement or even the morality of homosexuality. Over the next few days people will align themselves in support or against Collins and the issue of homosexuality in general. One of those people who has done so already is ESPN NBA analyst Chris Broussard.



Putting aside whether Broussard is "right" or "wrong," my question is, is an ESPN analyst the correct person to speak out against homosexuality? Certainly Broussard is entitled to his opinion, no matter whether I agree with him or not. I don't think there is a clear answer here - Broussard is not strictly a reporter who is asked to remain objective. He often argues with other analysts on a variety of shows like First Take. His articles are not kept to just factual reporting, but as an analyst gives a healthy dose of opinion.

With this in mind, is his opinion regarding the morality of sexuality relevant in the context of ESPN? Does ESPN have any business covering the moral aspect of the issue - or just how it impacts sports and the culture of sports?

One thing is for sure, today's events will certainly crank up an already heated debate.

UPDATE: ESPN released a statement regarding Broussard's words:

"We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today's news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins' announcement."

For a far better analysis then I could ever hope to write, check out Kate Aurthur's piece on BuzzFeed.

Basketball Jesus

It's no secret that I am a basketball fan, so this painting from Fr. Armand Tanqi made my day:

But I have so many questions -

Why isn't Jesus' hair tied back? Doesn't it get in his eyes when he's trying to play?
Is it just me, or is Jesus clearly a point guard?  And if he is a point guard, is he a score first point like Stephon Marbury or a set-up man like Steve Nash?
It has to be one or the other, because clearly Jesus' jersey is inspired by the Phoenix Suns.
I'm going with Nash - the floppy hair and his philosophy of pacifism are traits Jesus shares with greatest Canadian basketball player ever.

I swear in this one, Jesus is about to throw the alley-oop!

Image Source : http://www.god-answers-prayers.com/god_answers_prayers_gallery/page3.html

Call Me Spider-Man Because I'm Swinging on the Interwebs

Here's the stuff I've been reading this week:

Cruising around Patheos I found this blog about Christianity and Pop Culture. As a fan of metal music, this post hooked me - follow author Matthew Linder on Twitter.

Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus killed it this week:

• An Angry God vs. A God Who Gets Angry, (and this HuffPost Religion piece about the correlation between the belief in an angry God and emotional problems)
• This quote by Thomas Jefferson about John Calvin, and
• This picture of Jesus bringing his A-game which could only be better if it was a GIF.

Rachel Held Evans wrote about making humor work.

SUNDAY UPDATE: This post by Christian Piatt about about religion and race really struck me - especially this quote:

"Put another way: while we’re busy navel-gazing and discussing the meaning of Nietzsche’s 'death of God,' non-Anglo religious leaders were busy dealing with real-world problems, right in front of them."

Also, this CNN Belief Blog piece about when religion becomes evil was an interesting read.

Finally, Jen Hatmaker wrote about when it's time to cut people who are toxic to your life loose.

Upcoming this week, I am working on a longer piece and won't be posting every day. Thanks for checking in.

Follow me on Twitter: Sophia's Logo or Aaron Rostad

The Rapture - Making it Personal

Growing up, I went to an Evangelical, non-denominational K-12 school and my dad was a pastor at church that was affiliated with the church that had started the school. In fact, the school was started by my grandfather who was the senior pastor at that church. Between school, church, youth group and summer camp my adolescence was filled to the brim with Christianity and talking about being prepared for the rapture. I cannot even begin to count the times I was told that we were in the last days.

This brought an incredible pressure and anxiety about my life. I would go through periods of time, that despite being a person of faith, I was terrified that the rapture would happen right after I had sinned - thus making me "left behind." I would constantly fret over this, taking a personal inventory and praying for forgiveness for sins real or imagined.

If I came home expecting to see my family, and they weren't home, I would panic - like this girl:

I don't even find this video funny because I have experienced this panic before - it just makes me anxious. I can remember coming home to an empty house and being so terrified that the rapture had happened, but I was too afraid to try and call my mom or dad because if they didn't answer it would just confirm that I had been "left behind."

There was also this sense that I was supposed to desire the "coming of the Lord" as soon as possible - but I didn't. I wanted to grow up and experience being an adult. I wanted to drive a car. Mostly, I wanted to have sex. I often prayed for Jesus to come back, with the addendum that he just wait until I got married first. This always made me feel guilty, like I was putting my own human desires ahead of the plan of Heaven and will of God.

I can also remember being taught that despite no one knowing the day or the hour, that Jesus wouldn't return until every living person had been witnessed to. As a believer, this made a certain logical sense - if God was just, he couldn't punish people by sending them to hell if they had never had the opportunity to believe. I cannot even begin to describe the logical loopholes for people who had lived and died without hearing the good news. This put an incredible pressure on me - I felt that if as a Christian I was supposed to desire the second coming, I had a responsibility to try and witness to people to spur on the coming of the rapture.

I don't think I am unique in this position among people who grew up believing this. I want to hear your stories in the comments.

For an index of posts from "Rapture! Week" go here.

Consequences of Believing in the Rapture

In Case You Missed It: History of The Rapture

Belief in the rapture may seem like an innocuous eschatological world view to some, to others the consequences are readily apparent in "Christian" nations' foreign policy doctrines and attitudes towards Israel and the Middle East. In the first decade of the 21st century, many accused then-president George W. Bush of trying to spur on the coming of the rapture by changing U.S. policy regarding Israel and Gaza. Environmentalists accuse rapture-believing Christians of supporting policies that do not protect the environment based on a "we-are-close-to-the-end-so-it-doesn't-matter-anyway" belief. Both of these issues are of concern, but perhaps of even more concern is how it shapes the practices of the Church, and what mission Christians have in the world.

Wars and Rumors of War, Famines and Earthquakes (Matthew 24)

In the last few weeks the world has seen increasing tensions with North Korea, an increasingly violent, Syrian civil war, a terrorist attack in Boston and earthquakes around the world. Proponents of the rapture look at the news services and confirm their suspicion that these are indeed the "birth pangs" of the end times. Now, unlike any time before, we have instant access to information. Alarmists, conspiracy theorists and doomsday preachers have a potentially global audience through social media and the internet.

What is perhaps worse, is that some seem to encourage these military conflicts as necessary events before Jesus returns. This especially includes the rebuilding of the Temple on Mt. Moriah in Israel - a site that currently is home to two mosques. The return of this site to Israeli control would certainly either require military fighting, or a treaty that would lead to fighting.

This isn't a new phenomenon though, just a continuation of how misguided thoughts about the end of the world lead to violence. In The Rapture Trap, Paul Thigpen says, "Irresponsible rhetoric about an impending end of the world could and did provoke tragic results," (156).

He goes on to describe various Christian leaders and sects who used end times concerns to rally people to their causes - almost always ending in violence and death. We are not without modern examples of sectarian views regarding the end times resulting in death. It was only 20 years ago that the federal government of the United States led a siege against a fringe sect of Seventh Day Adventists that ended in the deaths of 86 people. Many who have written on the subject have pointed at the Branch Davidians belief in a fiery apocalypse as one of the contributing factors to their violent resistance and eventual deaths.

It seems reasonable to look at the correlation between distrust of governments and world institutions with apocalyptic worldviews. It is quite likely that "rugged individualism," so deeply entrenched in the Protestant ethic and American mindset, increases the tendency for this distrust. It can initiate a self-feeding where the distrust builds up apocalyptic mindsets, leading to more distrust, etc..

Apocalyptic worldviews leading to violence are not unique to Christianity, though. It has been suggested that the rise in jihadism and terrorist activities around the world by Islamic extremists is due to the belief in an Islamic prophecy regarding an imam returning. It is interesting to me that Americans, in their Islamophobia, are so quick to point to this as a source of violence, without acknowledging their own contributions to the violence by their own views.

It is not  only fringe sects whose beliefs are dangerous. "Of course, end times speculation does not always lead to the violence of Thomas Muentzer or a Jan Bockelson. Nor would we suggest that contemporary believers in the rapture are likely to raise a revolutionary army. The point to be made is that even it its milder forms, eccentric apocalyptic doctrine can lead to harmful delusions," writes Thigpen (160).

The Focus of the Church

Thigpen's point is that even without violence, these worldviews lead to a faulty view of the Church. "Dispensationalists see the Church more as a collection of individuals with a correct belief, a voluntary association of those who are already 'saved,' each waiting his turn to escape a corrupt world  and enter the safety of heaven," (163). In the following pages Thigpen goes on to explain that this view, "Devalu[es ...] the Church's purpose in the world," and that it, "warns Christians not to dirty their hands with attempts to improve the conditions of the world," (165-166).

Often times this is true. There seems to be an arrest in the development into a mature faith in Christians who focus on the rapture. Conversion and evangelism becomes the sole focus instead of deepening one's personal faith - moving from the milk to the meat. This conversion experience is preached as becoming a "new creation," certainly words from the Bible, but neglects the effort required to have a fuller expression of  faith - what Paul calls continuing to work out our faith with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). The continuing work of personal faith ought to be the apex of the Church's mission. Thigpen calls it a "repeated, lifelong giving of the self to God," (167).

That is not to say that evangelism deserves to be demoted, but must be combined with this continuing pursuit of faith and it must work hand-in-hand with Jesus' words about dealing with the "least." It has gotten better in recent years in regards to social issues, various ideas from the emergent, emerging, post-evangelical (etc..) Church have had increased the importance of the missions of social justice, eliminating poverty, slavery and other worthwhile pursuits. Too often, though, this third aspect of developing faith is given lip-service or dressed up in pseudo-psychology and self-help.

So then, while some actively work in pushing the world towards Armageddon, others let this ideology passively affect how they operate as Christians in the world. Altar calls and the sinners' prayer have replaced orphanages and soup kitchens. Conversion has replaced Catechism as the mode for developing faith.

Final Thoughts

Using Thigpen and a reference to the Catechism is not an implicit endorsement of all things Catholic. No institution or individual is without failures and shortcomings. Instead, it is to highlight that on this particular issue, the rapture, Evangelical thinking has perhaps gotten it wrong - and in doing so have undermined the true mission of the Church which is spreading the Good News of Jesus to all people and further developing personal faith into a more meaningful relationship with God. Further, this developed faith leads to a desire to be an agent of change in a way consistent with Jesus' message - changing how we treat the those with the least.

Tomorrow I will write about how belief in the rapture has affected me personally.
Go here for a rundown of the posts from "Rapture! Week"

In Defense of the Rapture

I am having a very difficult time with this particular post. In academia, you often have to disassociate yourself from your own views to write in favor of something you don't actually believe. I don't think I can do that in this case. As I plan on further writing tomorrow, I feel that the consequences of having an eschatological point of view that includes the rapture are unintentionally dangerous.

I am more than open to reading your thoughts on a defense of the rapture, and would even publish some of those thoughts. You can email them to sophiaslogo@gmail.com.

Instead, last night, Sophia's Logo co-founder, and infrequent poster, Monte, emailed me some material to be posted. You can find that here.

Or here for Consequences of Believing in the Rapture

The Hiddenness of God

Post by Monte:

The question was: if God wants a relationship with us, then why does He hide Himself?  This was my response:  

This is a fundamental question, perhaps THE great question we have to answer.  This question especially comes to the forefront when we experience a period of pain and suffering.  I don’t think I have a good answer, but I have a few thoughts.  

1.       It is true that it is often we that hide ourselves from God, not God that hides Himself from us.  In C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces the main character, Orual, comes to this very conclusion.  ‘How can we see you face to face,’ she asks, ‘till we have faces?’  In her pride, anger, and self-justification she veils herself from God.  It is ultimately only God’s grace that can reveal the falsehood under which she has been living and free her from it.

2.       Yet there is a part of this question that is unanswerable.  In that same book Orual also remarks, ‘what answer could you give, you yourself are the answer.’  That seems to me to be the lesson of the Book of Job.  God had made a ‘bet’ with Satan that we as the reader are aware of, but Job is not.  Job complains for chapters that he is in the right and God is in the wrong and he wishes there was a judge between them.  When God shows up, He doesn’t explain to Job why all his misfortunes befell him.  Instead God simply just shows Job who he is.  Job’s response is ‘I am undone.’  Job, for whatever reason, could not or did not get the explanation that we got, the explanation we would expect him to get.  Instead God’s nature was the only answer he got.  The reason being, I think, is that God’s ways are to a large degree incomprehensible.  And we should expect this!  If we understood God completely, if He was always there at our beck and call, that would be a pretty good indication that He was a function of our psyche.  Or to put it another way: for God to be completely knowable by us He would have to be on our level, but God being on our level would be solid evidence that He was our creation rather than we His. 

3.       I think that the hiddenness of God is always a problem, but it is particularly a problem for us as Evangelicals because of the way we ‘package’ God.  God is both transcendent and imminent—He is both present and hidden.  Many past ages and traditions within the Christian faith have emphasized His transcendence.  My impression, when I read these writers, is that because they begin with the presumption of God’s power, majesty, incompressibility, etc. His hiddenness is less of an issue.  For when you assume God’s hiddenness as a default position and moments of intimacy or revelation as unmerited (and uncommon) gifts of God’s grace, you are less likely to expect Him to be with you in tangible ways during times of crisis and you are therefore not as likely to get frustrated, feel abandoned, etc. when He is not.  This understanding on God’s transcendence, to some degree, negates the problem.  However, in our tradition we tend to emphasize the immanence of God.  We tell new or potential converts that God is ‘closer than a brother,’ ‘loves us like a Father,’ etc., which is all true.  However, without an understanding and expectation of His hiddenness, these analogies can cause confusion and magnify the problem of God’s hiddenness.  For example, one could think: when I text my friends, they get back to me within the hour.  Yet I pray to God and He doesn’t respond even after years of prayer.  How can God be closer than a friend when He is more distant (or rude) than my friends?  Or: I am a good and loving Dad, so if my daughter needed me I would be with her in a time of difficulty and I would let her know that I was with her.  Yet I have had times of difficulty in which I’ve asked God for help and He hasn’t been there (at least not in tangible ways).  If God says He is a loving father, why doesn’t He act like it?  He must either (A) not exist, (B) not care and therefore not be loving, or (C) lack power to act and therefore not be ‘God.’  These conclusions are false, but given the premises with which we often promote our faith, they are logical.  And I think that is one of the main reasons people turn away from Christianity in times of trial—they have nothing in their theology for the hiddenness of God because we’ve overemphasized His immanence.  Yes we should talk about how God is like a friend, husband, father, etc.—but we also need to show how God is not like any of these relationships because He is so far above and beyond us.  A good understanding of God’s transcendence will not answer the problem this question presents, for again, it is to some degree unanswerable, but it will minimize it.      

The Rapture in Pop Culture

(NOTE: If you only watch one video from this post, watch the very last one from the Rap-Sures)

The rapture is big business in Christian culture. As the publishers so willingly tell you (with a giant sticker on the front cover), the Left Behind series has sold over 65 millions copies. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' end times series was a sometimes entertaining and often cheesy depiction of life for those who had missed out on Jesus' magical, mystery tour to the afterlife. The books spawned an even cheesier movie starring Evangelical wunderkind Kirk Cameron:

"The future, as foretold by the Bible, has come to pass."

And if that wasn't enough, the 2000 release is being redone with Nicolas Cage:

Left Behind owes much to the 1972 film A Thief in the Night:

I wasn't alive in the 1970's, so would someone who was mind telling me if all movie trailers were like this back then? Just a collection of random music and action shots?

Anyway, original Christian rocker Larry Norman was responsible for the soundtrack to the film. This led to perhaps the singular instance of a legitimately good rapture reference in Christian pop culture, dc Talk's cover of Norman's song, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready":

dc Talk wasn't the only 90's "hip-hop" group to release rapture songs - my favorite is from kids rap group, The Rap-Sures, "Get Right, Or Get Left." If you only watch one video on this blog, this is the one:



I am sure I have left out good rapture material, post yours in the comments.

Yesterday: History of The Rapture
Tomorrow: In Defense of the Rapture
Bonus Material: Jesus Meme: Rapture Edition

Sometimes I Make Jesus Memes pt. 2

Many are probably familiar with the "Raptor Jesus" meme. It is especially pertinent here on Sophias Logo this week because rapture and raptor are from the same root word meaning to "snatch up" or to get "caught up."

Submit your own Raptor Jesus meme in the comments and for the list of "Rapture! Week" events go here.

History of "The Rapture"

4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17   (NET Bible)

No matter what your thoughts are regarding the topic - premillenialism, mid-Trib, skeptical, etc., the idea of the rapture does not have a long history. As John R. Coats - a former Episcopalian priest - wrote in his article "What's Real About the Rapture?": "In fact, before 1830, no one had heard that, '[i]n one cataclysmic moment, millions around the globe disappear.'" He continues, "It was around 1830 that [John Nelson] Darby, having selected scripture passages from Daniel, Revelation, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and elsewhere, pasted them together, called them a whole, and invented the Rapture, a word not found in the Bible."

This is technically true, in verse 17, as quoted above, "caught up" is translated from the Greek:

ἁρπάζω, which means, among other things, "to snatch away, or carry off." To be fair, this same verb does appear in other verses - specifically Acts 8:39, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and Revelation 12:5. The word in Acts and 2 Corinthians are referring to specific people who have already been "carried off." Acts relates the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch where after converting and baptizing the eunuch, Phillip is miraculously transported by God to another city. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes about someone he knows who was "caught up" to the third heaven - either bodily or spiritually, Paul does not know - and given a revelation of paradise. Neither of these references relate to the belief in a rapture of the church in the end times.

The reference from Revelation is a bit more tricky. The first part of Revelation 12, where this verse comes from, is the story of The Woman, The Child and The Dragon - a story that is indirect and open to interpretation. (This verse will be more fully unpacked on Wednesday, "A Differing View: In Defense of the Rapture.")

As Coats pointed out, the first inclination of this idea comes from Darby in the nineteenth century. Catholic scholar Dr. Paul Thigpen, in his book, "The Rapture Trap," details the history, or lack-thereof, of the belief in a rapture event.

For Dr. Thigpen, the main distinction is in the difference between an event he calls "The Second Advent" and the "secret rapture." Briefly, the Second Advent is the return to Earth of Jesus to judge all of humankind - both living and dead. Dr. Thigpen goes into detail demonstrating that Christian leaders throughout history, when writing about end times events, refer to the return of Christ in the manner of a Second Advent and not a Rapture. He writes, "Neither ancient Christians, nor medieval Christians, nor even the founders of the major Protestant movements ever heard of the secret rapture doctrine," (130).

He gives a history of great Christian thinkers and leaders throughout history whose writings support this idea of a Second Advent, and remain silent on "secret rapture." Men like Justin Martyr, Irenaues, Hippolytus, Jerome, Augustine, John Chrysotom and others from the early church. According to Thigpen, "When we find the Fathers speaking on a particular doctrinal issue in consensus, or near consensus, Christians should pay close attention," (130). He also points out that the doctrine was left out of the Nicene Creed - the foundational creed of orthodoxy. 

This matters because if we trusted the early church fathers to determine the canon, as well as orthodox belief and practices, their silence on this matter must be respected as much as their words on other doctrinal matters.

Unlike Coats, Thigpen acknowledges others, before Darby, who have preached the rapture, but agrees that, "The doctrine as it is currently taught in fundamentalist circles seems to have evolved in the nineteenth century," (143). 

According to Thigpen, as well as many others, it was Darby's idea of dispensationalism that began the very modern idea of a rapture. Further, it was the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909, drawing from Darby and dispensationalism, that popularized the rapture idea. Thigpen wrote that Scofield was, "an enthusiastic convert to Darby's dispensational beliefs. Scofield was a Kansas City lawyer with no theological training. But his legal background compensated in persuasiveness for what his background lacked as a biblical scholar," (145).

For the uninitiated, dispensationalism, specifically, is the belief that history has been divided into seven ages; and that through these seven ages God's revelations are different for each church of that age. This idea of ages became especially relevant with the progress of technology and media, twentieth century wars and the post-World War II establishment of Israel.

"After the reestablishment of Israel as an independent nation in 1948 - an event many fundamentalists saw as a sign of the end times - interest in biblical prophecy intensified," (Thigpen, 147).

Another popularizing aspect of the idea, according to Thigpen, is what he calls a bias of dispensationalism against the structure and hierarchy of the denominational churches. He writes that this "appealed to isolated Protestant congregations in America that were unaffiliated with any denomination," (147).

Finally, the publication of Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth" capitalized on growing fears of war, communism, the atomic age and changing social norms to promote an end times world view centered around the idea of a secret rapture. His book was fear mongering and opportunistic, released in 1970, with chapter titles like, "The Future Fuehrer" and "World War III." Critical of Lindsey, Thigpen writes that his "sensationalist style presented a heady mix of highly selective Bible quotes; news clips of world events that he claimed were 'fulfilling biblical prophecy'; frightening 'scientific' predictions of natural and man-made catastrophes; and a print version of the old revivalist 'altar call,' an appeal to readers to get 'saved' so they would not be left behind at the rapture," (148).

It is very clear that the rapture is a relatively new phenomenon in church history and not traditionally part of orthodox belief. So, either Thigpen's explanation of a Second Advent - the Catholic orthodox belief - must be taken at face value, that the original meaning and teachings of the church did not include the rapture; or, Darby's view of a later divine revelation supersedes the Bible, the Apostles and the teachings of the early church fathers. In my opinion, letting one man rewrite or reinterpret Scripture 1800+ years later is dangerous - especially in light of the consequences such a belief elicits (as we will see Thursday).

Tomorrow: The Rapture in Pop Culture

Refrences
John R. Coats, "What's Real About the Rapture" http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/1/post/2013/04/whats-real-about-the-rapture.html

Paul Thigpen, "The Rapture Trap" http://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Trap-Catholic-Response-Times/dp/0965922820

Rapture! Week

Last week I had planned on writing about the rapture - the belief that Jesus will return to instantly take Christians, living and dead, to heaven. Then, the attack at the Boston Marathon happened and I was drawn into the coverage. As I watched the news, my notes for this blog grew and grew until I had about a week's worth of material. So, this week will be Rapture! Week.

Here's the schedule:

Monday (Today): History of The Rapture
Tuesday: Rapture in Pop Culture
Wednesday: In Defense of The Rapture
Thursday: Consequences of Believing in the Rapture
Friday: Making it Personal
Bonus Material: Sometimes I Make Jesus Memes: Rapture Edition

On Friday I will be talking about my own personal thoughts, especially as I was growing up, impacted me. I would love to hear from you too - email sophiaslogo@gmail.com with your own story about how a belief in the Rapture affected you.

"History of The Rapture" will be up soon - stay tuned.

Sometimes I Make Jesus Memes

Can We Just All Agree To Ignore Pat Robertson?

It was only a matter of time before televangelist Pat Robertson would make controversial remarks regarding the events during the Boston Marathon yesterday. Wait no more:



While Robertson does not make a direct reference to Islam, it is pretty clear this is the "religion of peace" he means. It wouldn't be out of character as his Islamophobia is well documented here, here and here.

The reality, though, is that Robertson may not be entirely in command of his full faculties anymore. Whether he has called chronic illnesses "psychosomatic" or rebuking demons out of used clothing, Robertson has progressively moved into stranger and stranger territories.

At this point, it is not even worth arguing against his theology, LGBT bashing, Islamophobia and other craziness as it just calls further attention to him. It is a similar tactic that has been proposed for the publicity loving Westboro Baptist Church - ignore them, and wait for them to go away.

Theology Rap?

Rapper Shai Linne raps about "False Teachers" who preach Prosperity Gospel and rhymes Bible verses to back up his point:

From Christianity Today's Gleanings Blog via Matthew Paul Turner.
Shai Linne's blog Lyrical Theology

An Evening With David Hogan, A Critique of Signs and Wonders

Recently, I attended an event at a "church" that brought in faith healer and traveling evangelist David Hogan. Hogan has spent a couple decades as a missionary in Mexico with his Freedom Ministries, where he has claimed divine healings and other signs, wonders and miracles. The crescendo of his claims, though, is that the ministry has seen over 200 people raised from the dead, and he himself has been apart of 30 or more resurrections.

I will give my personal observations, but first: For the best critique of Hogan's ministry, Personal Freedom Outreach has a well researched and referenced article at http://www.pfo.org/exploits.htm. Also, because of Hogan's involvement with the revival at Brownsville in Pensacola, PFO's article includes some critique of that movement as well. Another good resource is this video about "glory of God clouds," and other revival events: 

(These links are not tacit endorsements of the rest of the content either PFO or "Wretched" produces, but these singular links, I do endorse.)

Now for what I observed:

I found it interesting that the staff at the event were vigilant in making sure that no one took any pictures or video of the event. They actually had spotters looking for people with their cell phones held up and would ask them to not take pictures or video. This is probably because they were themselves taping it to be sold later and didn't want any of it "leaked" before they got the chance to profit from it. This is the old "Prophet for Profit" cliche. It is hard to imagine Elijah or John the Baptist asking people to pay for their message.

In fact, the "pastor" of the church where it was held heavily promoted Prosperity Gospel. I have always had a hard time with this message, mostly because Jesus was pretty direct when it came to wealth - specifically that it made it harder to be a person of faith, and that one should "store up their treasures in heaven."

Anti-intellectualism was in full effect as well, with Hogan joining the likes of Pat Robertson condemning the Ivy League. This too is a larger topic for further consideration, but, put simply, why would God give man the capacity for intelligence, then be anti-intelligence? 

My final personal observation, was that Hogan claimed a certain apostolic anointing like Paul. In fact, he used a story about Paul from Acts to begin the evening. Hogan quoted Acts 19:11-12 to justify people bringing up articles of clothing to be blessed, so these clothes could be taken back to the sick and heal them. Hogan asked the technical crew to display the verses on the projection screens and said it didn't matter what version, so I will use the NET Bible (http://bible.org/netbible/):

19:11 God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul’s hands, 19:12 so that when even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his body were brought to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.

People were bringing up scarves, shirts, hats, ties - any clothing they could spare based on Hogan's claim that he would touch them and they would heal people. This verse doesn't say that God will give others the authority or the ability to do this - but the Signs and Wonders movement, tied to New Apostolicism and Latter Rain movement, relies on the gospel writer who says in John 14:

the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these

The problem I have with Hogan using Acts 19, is that after verse 12 it goes on to say:

19:13 But some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were possessed by evil spirits, saying, “I sternly warn you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 19:14 (Now seven sons of a man named Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this.) 19:15 But the evil spirit replied to them, “I know about Jesus and I am acquainted with Paul, but who are you?” 

I love irony like this.

UPDATED:
I will leave you with this - the human mind, power of persuasion and the placebo effect are very powerful. "Carpet time," (http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/carpet-time/) seems awfully similar to the "No Touch Knockout," challenged on National Geographic's "Is It Real?":