spiritual power and worldview

Oh, how to begin this conversation. Hmmm...spiritual power is not something that is talked about widely in the circles that I run in. However, when I read the Bible, I have found that you cannot read a single page without some sort of spiritual power being demonstrated or proclaimed. So, what comes to mind when I say the words, "spiritual power"? My mind immediately thinks of things like - heaven, hell, God, Satan, angels, demons, miraculous healing, and the like. All of these things, I believe, are related to the topic of spiritual power; and I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my parents when I told them I was taking a course at the seminary on spiritual power, and one of my folks asked, "So are you going to learn to do exorcisms?" It's was an honest question, and one that makes me smile. I reassured them that no I would not be learning to perform exorcism...bummer.

I think a natural starting point for talking about spiritual power ought to begin with worldview. Okay...so what is worldview [and is there more than one worldview?] and why is worldview important? One definition of worldview is our basic assumptions about reality which lie behind the beliefs and behaviors of any given culture. Other common worldviews include - naturalist, dualist, animist, theist, post-modern, deist, New Age, and sacramental. What is missing? What other worldviews are there? Think about this - if you subscribe to a particular worldview, what does this worldview say about how you experience the world around you? Or...or how has your worldview changed over the course of your life?

Why is worldview important? I think, simply, that worldview is important because worldview is the lens by which we experience and understand all aspects of life including spiritual power. For example, someone who subsribes to a naturalist worldview [by which I mean that reality is only those things by which our five senses can detect] will have a very, very small [or no] understanding [or appreciation for] of spiritual power or their understanding of power will be relegated to the physical realm.

Another popular worldview in the Western world is what I'll call a dualist worldview, whereby a spiritual realm and the physical realm do exist but are separate realms which have very little to do with each other. A good example of this view is the view that we [as human beings] have physical bodies with spiritual or immortal souls in the sense that we are embodied souls and when we die our bodies decay and our souls are lifted to heaven where we will live with God [somewhere up there] for all eternity. Now, I have oversimplified this worldview just a bit, but the point is when we die our bodies decay and remain while our "soul" is lifted upwards to heaven.

A third worldview, which is where I am at today, is what is sometimes referred to as the sacramental worldview. This view acknowledges the physical realm and the spiritual realm, but instead of being distinct entities [as a dualist view hold], these two realms overlap and kiss each other. See the slide below. This I believe is the biblical worldview, meaning that when we read the Bible we should read it through this set of lenses. God and humans [and the earth] are intimately connected, like two lovers. For example, when we die though our bodies are buried, there will come a time when Jesus Christ with a whole heavenly host, will descend upon the earth, and God will make all things new. The dead will rise [not decay eternally] with Christ, and we will be renewed - made more fully human [if that is possible to conceive] and fully restored in to the image of God. I could go on and on about this, but the point is a sacramental worldview recognizes that the spritual and physical realms overlap and are connected to one another. In my next post, I'll give one example from the Bible where this is most evident.



Questions to ponder:
1) What worldview do you subscribe to? What does your view say about you and what does it say about God?
2) How has your worldview changed?
3) Does anything I say surprise you? How?