A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post that mentioned a flat world. I’m not talking about literally, but spiritually. Our spiritual topography looks like Kansas since we’ve taken the magic out of it.
We disenchant reflexively but hunger for the magic again. During Christmas, I told my six-month-old son about Santa. Then I took the magic out of it in the next sentence on pure reflex.
Santa is based on a combination of stories and people. St. Nicholaus with a bit of Odin and some other tales.
Why did I do that?
I don’t know. With our greater knowledge, we disregard any magic, or anything more.
Not always, though. The desire for something more is out there and it gets people into trouble.
My wife likes the ghost hunter shows. I just read a book called Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation into Demons, Exorcism, and Ghosts. In my journal, I wrote this the day I started it: “This book on demons and ghosts in the modern day is captivating and scary. Our world is disenchanted so it’s hard to imagine it, even for religious types. It’s woven through our worldview yet we don’t think about it. The “other.” The spiritual.
Seriously. Our theology is bullet points and boring.
- God made everything and man.
- Man messed up.
- Jesus died for our sins so we can go to Heaven. The end.
God created two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, an upper story mansion and a lower story thatch hut. There was a rebellion in the spiritual realm, which led to a rebellion here where the two worlds met in Eden’s Garden.
Darkness spread across the land as evil men and evil spirits did what they wanted. Some evil spirits were so bad they were already tossed in the Abyss after taking human lovers and producing offspring.
Then God appointed some of his higher ranking entities to oversee different nations. They became their gods, and the rebellion continued.
When countries went to war, it was a battle of the gods. The spiritual is always tied to the natural in some way.
As the offspring of the spirit beings and humans died, they became demons.
Then came God the Son, incarnated as Jesus. God walked the earth and took on the powers of spiritual darkness. On the cross, he built the bridge between God and Man.
It’s more than just getting sins forgiven and going to Heaven. It’s choosing the world or God’s kingdom. Anything that isn’t part of God’s kingdom is corrupted in some way.
Jesus ascended, and the Holy Spirit came down to indwell the followers of Jesus, marking them for God and making them more like Jesus.
What did Jesus do? Pushed back against evil and corruption as a force for good. It wasn’t even always glamorous. He cried with Mary, he fed people, made wine for a wedding, and befriended outcasts, a blend of the mundane and the miraculous.
He also brought back the dead, exorcised demons, and faced the original rebel from the Garden. He challenged religious leaders, kings, and the largest empire of the time.
It didn’t end when the last Apostle died. Demons and other powers of darkness didn’t go on an extended vacation.
As this story covered by a local news outlet that the book mentioned will confirm: https://katv.com/news/local/i-could-see-the-demons-an-exorcism-in-arkansas
People like to dabble in it or jump feet first into it. I’ve begun taking it more seriously when I see these accounts on my Facebook or covered by less sensationalist sources.
If the Bible is true, then Christians have to stop seeing the world as spiritually flat and embrace the big story we’re involved in. Not just going on about your day, but involved in a cosmic war.
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