Naming it, Claiming it — Let’s Talk about it

In the charismatic tribe of the Christian landscape, the “name it, claim it” thing is huge. The verse, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21) is understood to mean that if you speak positively, positive things will happen, and if you speak negatively, negative things will happen. Charismatics believe in making declarations and speaking boldly to objects and situations, and that by doing so they can “walk in authority” and make things happen that they believe should happen. Often, charismatics won’t even “ask” God for things as much as just declare the things they think God would want to happen, because of this viewpoint. I want to break this down and look at the aspects of this I think are false and the aspects of this I think are true, because I think this doctrine/teaching/practice includes both true and false beliefs, and it’s worth unpacking.

Asking God

First let’s talk about whether or not asking God for something in prayer is a good or bad idea. Charismatics have often taught that “asking” God for something in prayer is a weak position, because God has already imparted His authority to His people do works as Jesus did. Therefore, they believe that asking God for things is futile because you are asking for something you already have the power to change on your own through making declarations with your own mouth. They believe that “asking” God puts one in the role of a beggar instead of a son or daughter of the King, invested with Heavenly Authority. However, I believe the negative view of “asking” God is not scriptural. Here are some verses that support the idea of New Testament believers being in the right way when they ASK God for things:

“…Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6

“…You do not have because you do not ask God….” James 4:2b

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15 ESV

“Give us this day our daily bread…” Matthew 6:11

“Ask, and it will be given to you…” Matthew 7:7

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.” 1 Timothy 2:1 (see also Ephesians 6:17-18)

…and there are many more.

But this last one (from 1 Timothy) is a really big one. Notice the word “supplication.” The word supplication is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly.”

So, so much for “begging” being a totally bad thing. This is one point at which I disagree with the “name-it, claim-it” folks — when they wholesale dismiss the idea of asking God for things in prayer as being a healthy, legitimate way to pray.

Declaring things

However, there is a flip side to this. Just as my charismatic friends might think “begging” and “asking” for things in prayer is worthless, so also my NON-charismatic friends tend to ignore the value of making any declarations to effect things either. IMHO, I’d say that this is the opposite error. If the New Testament supports begging, it also supports declaring and commanding:

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them…” (See both Matthew 21:21 and Mark 11:23 )

“But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (No asking there! Acts 3:6)

“So Ananias went to the house, and when he arrived, he placed his hands on Saul. “Brother Saul,” he said, “the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” At that instant, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and his sight was restored.” (No asking here, just a declaration, and Ananias wasn’t even an apostle… Acts 9:17 )

There are lots more examples of everyone from Jesus to his disciples doing this sort of thing. Most Christians know the verses, they just put them in some category of “that was only for the apostles” or “that was only for back then.” I don’t think there is any specific justification for sidelining these verses and examples, however. Declaration is a real New Testament operation in the lives of believers.

The act of declaration too seems to be a prophetic unfolding of Colossians 2:15, which talks about Jesus stripping demonic principalites and powers of their strength and making a spectacle over them with His crucifixion, and then coupling it with Ephesians 3:10 which mentions again the principalities and powers and this time says it’s the job of the church to again “make known” (aka, declare?) the wisdom of God in disarming them at the cross.

How much power is there in my tongue really?

Ok, but does this really mean that every word that comes out of my mouth has power? This is again a place I disagree with the “name-it, claim-it” folks. The proof-text people use to support this is that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 18:21) I just don’t read this to mean though that if I say try to kill the weeds in my garden by telling them to “die, weeds, die” that this verse is promising my words have that kind of power. I know Jesus did this to a fig tree, but bear with me, because I think more was going on in that situation than a simple, “everyone’s words have power” sort of thing. I do believe the “life and death is in the power of the tongue” verse means something very different than that. Our ability to declare things in the New Testament power and authority is not because mere words themselves have power. It is because of a unique impartation of authority via the cross of Christ to believers that give anyone’s words any power — and most of the time, our words are blessedly powerless. This means that those who tend to obsess with fear over these things can relax, if someone who hates you tells you unfortunately to “drop dead and rot” you really have nothing to fear, their words have no more power than wind whistling through the dust that they are made of.

I suppose I should mention however one way in which words are powerful, and that is on the human psyche. If our self-talk is continually, “I suck” or “I am unloveable” or things of that sort, or if someone has been bullied by parents or peers with a continual litany of nasty words about their person, THOSE words do have a huge effect on the emotional and mental health (and eventually even the physical health) of a person. But this is not because the words are carrying some sort of mystical power. It is because the messages we believe shape our mindset about ourselves, which we then live out what we believe about ourselves and our lives. And social rejection in and of itself is also a powerful force to social beings, which humans are. We depend on connection and love for our psychological well-being. But this is different than some sort of magical force that can shape matter and energy merely by speaking words.

So, as I mention this, I know some things my readers might be thinking about. This would be a good time to mention two things that people have been indoctrinated with that have turned out to not be true, at all.

The first is the thing about plants — people believe that plants will thrive if you say nice things to them, and fail to thrive if you speak hatefully to them. They also believe that plants like classical music and hate heavy metal. Thankfully, Mythbusters took this one one. They proved it utterly false, you can watch that episode here.

The second thing that people are indoctrinated with is the “Messages from Water” guy’s pseudoscience thing where he thought nice thoughts towards some water and then froze it, and thought some nasty thoughts towards some water and froze it, and then photographed the crystals. His word supposedly demonstrates that not only our words but also our thought life affects everything in the universe on a molecular level. This ain’t true either, a bunch of high school science students discovered. Also a scientist named Kristopher Setchfield critiqued the experimental method that Masaru Emoto (the water guy) used in his work.

This sort of thing shows up everywhere though. I once watched a demonstration where someone was asked to hold their arm out and not let someone bend it, and then told to leave the room while unbeknownst to him, people thought angry thoughts in his direction. Then when he returned to the room the demonstrator easily pulled his formerly strong arm downwards. But things like this are also known to be very much affected by the “ideomotor effect” which basically is the fact that the person pulling on someone’s arm THINKS they are pulling with the same force and direction each time, but unconsciously their expectation of an arm being strong or weak due to this or that affects how they pull on the arm, sometimes in ways that cause a person to feel weaker or stronger due to speed, direction, etc. Peoples’ thoughts, including words said behind their back, can’t affect how strong their muscles are, or else every football team out there would be so weak before every game from all of the fans of the opposing team cursing them, that no one would be able to walk out onto the field for a game. And hated dictators and politicians would shrivel up and die rather quickly, instead of holding office for 20, 30, 40 years of oppression and terror.

And thank God for limitation on our power, right? I believe that God has limited the power that ordinary mortals have, including His own people, and we don’t have to go around worried about our own and everyone else’s thoughts and words having power over us. We get to be at peace, knowing that “sticks and stones can break our bones but the words” of the bullies around us can’t hurt us. Only God has power like that to effect things merely by speaking…and occasionally we get to walk in His power.

But it’s not an “always on” sort of thing. There are conditions to be met. And why would it glorify Christ when HE demonstrates power through His church, if everyone on Earth had tremendous power in their thoughts and words regardless of their relationship to Him? Unfortunately this is why humankind has developed physical weapons, because human fantasies of violence and darkness thankfully don’t work by thoughts and words alone. And this is why we’ve developed medical technologies — because unfortunately thoughts and words alone have long been insufficient to save people from disease, accidents, and disaster, or to heal people who are wounded or sick.

So when does it work? When doesn’t it work?

God alone is the one who holds the power of immortal life, and the creative power behind existence and creation. His words are the only words that go forth with so much power that they can create the fabric of time, space, matter and energy, such as whatever happened when He spoke, “Let there be Light.” It’s really important I think to have a grip on this, to know deep inside that the only person with such creative and destructive power is God Himself. This is to His glory.

A long time ago I wrote a short poem and posted it to Facebook. It went like this:

“When we speak to a person, it is called prophesy
When we speak to an object, it is called authority
And when we speak to the Lord, it is called, High Praise”

This poem had a context, and without the context, it was wildly misunderstood. The context was that the “speaking” was not just any words we happened to utter, but it was specifically words which were coming from our union with the Holy Spirit.

Outside of the Holy Spirit, if we speak to a person, it is not prophesy. Outside of the Holy Spirit, if we speak to an object, it has no authority. And unless you are speaking by the Holy Spirit, scripture says that you can’t even say “Jesus is Lord,” so apart from the Holy Spirit, there is no praise to God either. This is an important distinction to bear in mind as we go forward.

So if God’s words alone have power, when do WE as the body of Christ get to participate in this power? It is only when God in Heaven speaks something, and we hear Him, and tap into that, and become His mouthpiece on Earth of what He is already saying, that UNION brings Heaven to Earth and the power of His heavenly voice moves through our Earthly voices.

This is quite a unique trick, and something that only the sons and daughters of Heaven have the ability to do. We have the unique distinction of being “seated with Him in Heavenly places” so that our spirits can discern the will of the Father and know what He is saying in Heaven. When God the Father says something, or when the Son of God says something, the Spirit makes known to those who have ears to hear “what the Spirit is saying to the churches” and then those churches and individuals can execute His will on Earth.

There are times that believers gather together in prayer and worship, and as they bring praise and glory to the Father and the Son on Earth, God who is enthroned in Heaven is now likewise being honored as enthroned on the Earth, and this ushers in the atmosphere of Heaven into a room. God is praised in Heaven, and when He is honored and worshipped on Earth, through His Son Jesus, the same Spirit that honors Him above is being manifested through the praise of people below. In these moments, people may not specifically be aware that they are “hearing” God’s voice (although sometimes they very much ARE aware) but as they are swept into the atmosphere of praise and worship of the King, there is an alignment of thought and heart that takes place so that their spirits are energized by uniting with the purpose and thoughts of the Holy Spirit as He honors Christ.

It is written that the “Spirit of prophesy is the testimony of Jesus Christ” and what this means is that the same Holy Spirit that agrees with everything that testifies of Jesus Christ and his glory, honor, and person, is the Spirit that makes known the words God in Heaven speaks from His throne and thus, this Spirit is the Spirit of prophesy here on Earth. As people declare praise, honor, and glory in words and song, submerging all their emotions, thoughts, and words into pattern which conforms with the Holy Christ-honoring presence, they lock into resonance with that Spirit and then their entire being resonates with His own current thoughts and words. The words, actions, and thoughts then that they creatively express back to Him in worship often are not their own, but are words resonating with the Song of the Lord that He is singing over them from Heaven (Zephaniah 3:17), as they are singing back to Him, forming a united chorus. It is in these moments, when the overflowing utterances and heart of the living Christ and His Father are being caught within His worshippers, that declarations can be made. This is because these declarations are not the mere inventions of the worshippers, but are the result of their position of standing before the King and absorbing His counsel into their beings, which they are then able to declare before all Heaven and Earth.

This is where I believe “name-it, claim-it” takes off and has legitimacy. When it is His voice echoing through our own, anything is possible. When it is just our whims or our imaginations though, in ourselves alone, disconnected from His counsel, blessedly I believe our words have no power at all. If you don’t believe me, find the smallest thing you can, maybe a tiny leaf, or a drop of water, and try to bend it to your will with a word. You mortal shall find you are entirely unable to affect even the smallest thing. But in union with God and His Christ, we can do anything and everything that He imparts to us to do in that moment. In that moment, we share in His authority and become His conduits and enactors of the Kingdom come to Earth on these shores.

Death and grieving… post #1

There is a Scripture that says “We do not mourn as those who have no hope.” There is something about the hope that Christians express in the face of the death of a friend or loved one, that is unique and expresses the heart of our faith in Christ. But I am becoming suspicious, after attending funerals of two of my friends’ mothers, that we in American charismatic Christianity may have inadvertantly developed a culture when it comes to our death rituals, that has the appearance of presenting hope, but unfortunately is more truthfully an expression of our unwillingness to feel pain, or to grieve, to mourn, and to acknowledge with appropriate gravity than reality of many facets of what death really is.

Today we buried my friend Stephen’s mother Audrey (who was also something of a friend to me.)  I really appreciated how this funeral was conducted compared to other funerals that I have been to – most notably that Audrey’s coffin was not left by the graveside, but instead had already been lowered into the grave, and a pile of dirt and two shovels were at the graveside instead.  There came a point during the funeral when those in attendance were invited to place dirt on top of Audrey’s body (hidden by her wicker coffin) to signify dust returning to dust.  (Other funerals I have been at in my life have not allow people to experience the reality of burial with that degree of tangible rawness – for instance when my own step-father died when I was a teen, I was surprised to discover that we as family members would not be permitted to witness the actual burial.)

But Audrey’s funeral was refreshingly different on that level.  When it was my turn to shovel, and as I was tossing dirt on the wicker, I thought about a moment I had shared with Audrey when I first met her and with her permission had laid hands on her in prayer.  I thought about how the same physical body that I touched and prayed for now lay in the wicker coffin that I was shoveling dirt onto and in my mind there was this juxtaposition between touching her while she was alive, and now touching her with shovelfuls of dirt in her death.  As I held the memory in my heart of the brief relationship over a handful of occasions that she and I had had together, a deep place in my soul felt both the connection to her of one-to-one relationship, and the loss of her life here in this realm.  So in what was a very real moment for me, I spoke towards her body between shovelfuls, and said from that place in my soul, “Goodbye Audrey.”

It was all very vivid and very real. But somewhat predictably, someone immediately countered me and said somewhat gleefully, “Audrey would say, ‘I’m not here!'”  For me at that moment, it was so incongruent with what I was expressing, that I searched for some reply that would allow me to have that moment of goodbye in peace.   What came to mind in that moment, in that setting, was to share with the sister who had gently rebuked me, “In Jewish tradition, there is a belief that the spirit stays with the body for seven days after death.”   I can’t say i honestly was thinking of that idea when I shared my goodbye towards Audrey’s body, but at that moment I wanted to have the freedom to say goodbye without being silenced, and I knew Stephen would find what I had said to be worth consideration and contemplation (as I found myself doing also, after I said it,) because he’s just that kind of person.   The reality is that as much as we have hope and confidence in Christ after death, I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on explaining what actually transpires in the mystical connection between body, soul, and spirit, and what the medically indefinable point of total death really is.  So it seemed legitimate to toss into the mix the Jewish take on it.

But the reality for me was much more about how my charismatic brothers and sisters seem to often want to rush right over any grieving process, and straight into pearly gates and streets of gold and lots of dancing.   This is not an isolated incident, and I bear no malice for the woman who reminded me that Audrey has gone somewhere else, but it really felt like yet another time of many times I have experienced, that funerals have become a little bit too artificially happy in our this time and day among Christians.

Later on, I was with my friend Stephen as he ran into a neighbor on his street. The neighbor took a moment to express some condolences, yet the neighbor seemed strangely cheerful and even glib to me as he ran through a litany of phrases about how Audrey was out of pain now and was in a better place. I’m sure he meant well but I also got the distinct impression that it might have also been the easiest way to keep the conversation short, simple, and upbeat. I could be wrong but it seems to me that Audrey wasn’t really suffering a whole lot of pain until the very end of her life – not enough that I think it really justified the idea of being comforted to know that “at least she’s not in any pain now.” She did leave this planet praising the Lord cheerfully herself, and I’m glad to know that, and I know that she is happily praising the Lord in even better ways now, because that’s what her spirit was about in life, and I’m sure it is what her spirit is still about, even more so departed from this life.

To be sure, for someone who loved and longed for the Lord’s presence, death represents a promised transition into some realm in which we can be confident that the departed person has new and expanded, unfettered and direct, undistracted clear and incredibly tangible encounter, spirit to Spirit, with the most magnificent, wonderous and beautiful Being in all multitudes of universes. This is pretty dang cool, no matter how wonderful or terrible that experience for any particular person might be.

But – here’s the rub – this is not the side of death that funerals happen on.  A funeral is quite a different story entirely.  While we can envision (barely, and I mean barely) what a departed person may now be experiencing or enjoying, this is not the side of death that the living are privy to fully know about and see. For the living, these things exist only as a “hope,” thus the verse that, “We do not mourn as those who have no hope.”  Hanging on to hope is a good thing! But while funerals may rightly be tinged with hope, funerals are – or should be in some form or fashion – a time to mourn.  On our side of death-the side where someone’s heart has stopped beating, and decisions have had to be made about harsh realities like burial, or cremation, there are even harsher realities that funerals are meant to be a time to honor, with appropriate weight – things like the end of a legacy, the value of the person in our lives, and ultimately, the loss of that person from our lives.

We do ourselves and others such a disservice if we so lightly gloss over larger themes that mean more to those of us still on this side of death in our rush to sweep away every negative or painful emotion with our religious (and dare I say, sometimes callous) script of protective and artificial rejoicing.

matt.agnello / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

 It is not time to overbearingly rush right into platitudes with words like, “She’s in a better place,” or, “At least there’s no more pain or suffering,” or, “She’s dancing with Jesus now.” If these words are being said in an honest and a truthful effort to bring comfort and encouragement to a grieving family member or friend, that is one thing – but if these words are being said to preempt having to be serious and sober about someone’s pain and feeling of loss, or to simply make sure that nothing uncomfortable or disconcerting about the passing of another person gets any airtime, as I am perhaps erroneously becoming more and more convinced is the default, then we have turned the verse, “We do not mourn as those who have no hope,” into another idea altogether: “We do not mourn at all.”

Realistically, I am sure that for anyone who was deeply attached or connected to the departed person, no matter what words of victorious assurance or vicarious rejoicing that he or she might share with others at a funeral or upon sharing the news about the departure of their loved one with others, the reality will be that that person will still grieve to one extent or another.  (This is, I guess, unless we have somehow learned a little too well how to have so many “boundaries” in our relationships with others that we have stayed happily unattached to anyone, ever, and loss really is a foreign concept to us.  That’s a subject for a different blog post I think – LOL)
But I guess I wonder: have we created a culture where among believers it is not really safe to mourn, even at a funeral? Have we relegated mourning to be something that should occur “out of view,” only after the official and public funeral and/or announcements have occurred, instead of something which is viewed as an appropriate thing to share with others particularly during funerals, the very sacred communal  formality that was originally designed to bring people together to grieve and face the uncomfortable realities of human mortality, as community?

But more and more, our community has made grief unnacceptable; before funerals, it has become standard to collectively pray and focus on the possibility of the dead person being raised and not needing to be buried.   While praying for a resurrection certainly has some degree of validity, I wonder how much we have codified Christian conversation after a death in this way, to avoid beginning the process of grieving and facing loss?    And then, at the funeral, when talk of resurrection in the here and now subsides, we move straight to rejoicing – perhaps at least in our talk of raising someone from the dead at least we were able to admit we didn’t like the fact that they were dead.   But now that the deceased person is still a corpse, we have to move past our even subtle expressions of wishing the person was still with us, and go straight to expressions of joy to drown even that out entirely.

At the very least, I do think we are too quick to shut down (whether it is eagerness to comfort, or our own uncomfortableness with loss, pain, and mortality) those who do express thoughts and feelings that align with loss after someone has died. This is a travesty, because deep and painful emotions are not our enemies – they are part of the richness and fullness of our hearts and of what it means to love, to be alive, and to be aware. Death, however, is spoken of as “an enemy” in the New Testament (1 Cor 15).   Shall we not share emotions that represent it as such?   I think that we need to rethink our “religious death script” to include feeling these emotions deeply, and being able to relate to others who have these emotions and thoughts in their hearts. “Mourn with those who mourn,” I believe needs again to become a verse that we treasure in community, even as we treasure every verse promising hope, resurrection, and communion with the Lord after earthly death.