Miracles Part II

February in Seoul, and the days are short. Aboard a bus from Incheon, I marveled at the Christian branding that consumed the city as theskyline was dotted with neon crosses. And the Korean (or Korean-American) brand of Christianity was much better than what I'd left behind. And I suppose it made sense... if Korean fried chicken was better and Korean Pizza Huts were better... then why wouldn't Korean early morning prayer be better?

Occasionally, I experienced that "mysterious" stuff that white people crave in Asia as Korean grandmothers told me stories about dangerous shamans cursing children. But like most white people encountering that "mysterious" stuff, I listened respectfully while mentally concluding that a heritage of superstition was influencing their interpretations of the truth.

According to Van: symbolic of the fear-based
belief system today is the cremation site of Pol
Pot (Cambodia's brutally violent atheistic
dictator) is now a shrine for people to pray for
happiness, protection, and good fortune.

I felt similarly when in Cambodia, several people asked me questions about my Jesus with fear and trepidation. One man, Van, asked me if I feared a spirit (the Holy Spirit) possessing me. Van too told me stories about witch doctors, seeing family members cursed before his very eyes, and the corrupt monks that had influenced his religious views to be a sort of defensive atheism. It was the oddest form of atheism I'd ever heard of: if he denied the spiritual then the spirits that had attacked his family could not catch him. 

When I returned to Korea, a great deal of odd things began to happen... including seeing demonic manifestations in two boys on separate occasions. I recounted the stories casually with some of my skeptical friends, hoping that I could share in their doubts and... I suppose... embrace that odd form of atheism that my friends in Cambodia chose. But the doubts proved irrational, and I was tired of being afraid. Truly, if I believed in Jesus, as I'd claimed... then truly, I knew how to access power over fear. So yes, I turned to prayer.

Now, my prayers before this had usually been quasi-meditative thoughts projecting goodness towards those I loved and seeking wisdom for myself. They were a natural graduation from my cute childhood prayers facilitated by my grandmother after a peppy bedtime story, and a cozy tuck-in. But when I learned how to pray again, I prayed boldly... I prayed intimately... I prayed loudly... I prayed quietly... I prayed all day until I began to see a shift in my environment... and it was powerful!

The prayer meetings I began to attend were full of those "fringe" people who believed in speaking in tongues, faith healings, and a whole bunch of other things that I was still on the fence about. I was ruined the day I was prophesied over... like genuinely, truly, authentically prophesied over. This guy I'd never met before, put a hand on my head, and spoke specific things over me that I'd never shared with anybody. (Incidentally, this was the night I met my husband. =D)

From there, things just got weird... to the point where I don't even want to take the time to write them all out, because I still have to come to terms with all that happened. But, one particularly interesting instance was when I heard God verbally tell me to take a homeless woman out to dinner. I'd seen her before, given her a few rolls of kimbab, but my non-existant Korean made me wonder whether or not inviting her to dinner would be productive.

As we sat down to dinner at a Japanese noodle shop, I felt disoriented... but I understood every word that the woman was saying. I felt as though I was speaking gibberish, but every word she nodded at and responded with something relevant. I understood when the waiter told me that my Korean was good for a foreigner, and the experience was so surreal that I texted a friend to pray for me. The odd thing was that I ended up texting her in Korean, using vocabulary and slang that I'd never known before. Incidents such as these began to mark my life, but I still didn't believe in the "gibberish" tongues that charismatics love so very much.

However, after a year after being prophesied over... and experiencing the bizarre and the supernatural all around me... I went to another prayer meeting where a woman spoke of my husband over me. Unfortunately for my theological convictions, as I began to worship God... my soul began to involuntarily speak in that "gibberish" language that I didn't believe in. At that point, I figured... why the ruse? I guess I'm one of those tongue-speaking, church-dancing, miracle-seeking, slain-in-the-Spirit weirdos that I always feared becoming. And you know what? It felt amazing!

Miracles Part I

In 2001, I saw HBO's documentary A Question of Miracles. It basically followed the work of two charismatic preachers, Benny Hinn and Reinhard Bonnke, as they went around the world claiming that God could miracles through them. SPOILER ALERT: Mr. Hinn and Mr. Bonnke are indeed followed by a camera crew, but their "miracles" are proven to be false. The documentary's most engaging scenes therefore are devastating stories about people who have watched their loved ones die AND to add insult to injury... they are broke after donating to faith healing ministries AND believe that they did not have enough faith to heal their loved one.

At that time, having very little faith in Christ (and even less faith in the church), I thought "of course" and continued to berate my "pushy" Christian friends for their manipulative faith. The more I read about Benny Hinn, TBN, and "faith healings," the more angry I became. I found countless accounts of Mr. Hinn proselytizing to the desperate, telling them that their faith would be measured by their giving to his ministry. Inevitably, Mr. Hinn could not deliver what he'd promised (or what God had promised) and the terminally ill were now grieved by financial despair.

My Christian friends had very little to say about the nature of such faith healings, and often dismissed them as part of a fringe movement. They explained to me that their Christianity was safer than Mr. Hinn's version, because their churches pursued "doctrinal soundness" and "theological integrity."

After (oddly enough) a miraculous encounter with God in my car some years later, I re-examined Christianity and ultimately embraced my friends' version. The shifts in my life were that I read Kierkegaard instead of Nietzche, I tried to respect Republicans instead of mocking them, and I only used "damn" and "hell" in the context of informing my non-Christian friends about their destinies. I found the process simultaneously cerebral and mind numbing. I ingested the words of the Bible, did good deeds, felt a connection to a loving companion I called Jesus, and occasionally (during the swelling notes of a good worship song) I would raise my hands in the delight of belonging to something greater than myself. Alas, I felt something missing... and was frustrated that cerebral Christians, atheists, agnostics, and others were all dishonest enough to lie that they too felt that missing hole. In their defense, our religious conversations are all so contentious that I understand the defense mechanisms that cause us to conceal our discontentment. But why Christians? Why were people of faith missing it?

The thing is... good theology, Bible studies, Christian philosophy, liturgy, and solid religious doctrine were all irrelevant to the reason I actually became a Christian: the miraculous. Fact is... Noah's ark is still very difficult to believe even with all of the brilliant apologists of our time proving our faith through rationalism. Fact is... Nietzsche is just as intelligent as Kierkegaard. Fact is... even if Team Christianity "wins" the argument against Team Secular, or vice versa, the argument was probably based on pretty arbitrary standards to begin with.

At this point, I'm thought... then, WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT?! We're groups that stand separated from each other, shouting that our way is the best way to get to the destination... when nobody actually knows where we're going, and nobody actually moves.

Mysterious far East!

I wanted to move... and so that's why I, like every other restless white American girl caught in a spiritual crisis, made my journey to learn the ways of Asian spirituality (which is superior to any other spirituality... in case you were curious). And what better place than the "mysterious far East" to learn about miracles?