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?