Missing the Mark on the Miraculous: Why Charismatic Phenomena are a Missed Opportunity for Apologetics

A couple years ago I stumbled upon a short self-published book by the name of The Prophetic Apologetic: A Charismatic Approach to Apologetics by Jonathan Ammon.[1] As soon as the title caught my eye, I recognized it as filling a much-neglected niche in Christian apologetics, namely, the confirmatory power of miracles for the truth of Christianity.

Christians who are immersed in the Charismatic Renewal profess to experience God not only in the intellect and heart, but also in tangible, observable ways. Like the early Christians, they recognize that the Kingdom of God announced by Jesus was not only proclaimed but also demonstrated. Thus, just as the first disciples had their message of the Gospel confirmed by “signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 2:4), Charismatic Christians—at least in theory—preach the message of Jesus alongside the confirmatory signs of prophecy, healings, and deliverance from demons.

As might be expected, the early church’s growth was in large part due to these miraculous demonstrations of spiritual power. In the time period of the New Testament, the prevailing philosophies, by and large, did not include abject materialism. Rather, followers of sundry religions and superstitions recognized the supernatural power behind their belief systems. Whether it was Greeks who revered oracles possessed by demigod spirits, Ephesians who practiced magical arts (Acts 19), or Jews who practiced rites of exorcism, the worldview of the Ancient Near East was one in which spiritual beings and spiritual power were widely acknowledged.

The question for early converts to Christianity, then, had become not whether spiritual power exists, but which religion was supreme. Of course, the religious pluralism of the time encouraged the practice of recognizing the power of other religious “gods” and appeasing them as needed, while still remaining loyal to the “god” of one’s own community. Yet when the Christians came along with their message of the One True God who had inaugurated His Kingdom under the headship of the One Lord Jesus Christ, no room was left for religious pluralism or the appeasement of other “gods.” The message of Jesus demanded total loyalty and the renunciation of all other idolatrous practices. Thus were the early Christians often accused of “atheism” for their denial of the pantheon of foreign gods. To recognize only one God was revolutionary!

What compelled people of this era to abandon their pagan practices and convert to the Christian way? Surely the message of the Gospel itself, with its once-for-all reality of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, was a primary element, as it remains today. The example of the church in caring for its own and for destitute outsiders must also have been a compelling testimony that earned respect from outsiders. Yet a third crucial reason is often omitted from the discussion when sermons are preached and books are written on biblical models of church growth—the visible spiritual power manifested by the church.

Saint Paul described the power of prophecy to convict outsiders to believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He writes, “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.” (1 Cor. 14:24-25) Along thematically similar lines, Paul’s cursing of Elymas the magician in Acts 13, supernaturally rendering him blind, led the proconsul of Cyprus to believe “when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.” (Acts 13:12)

In both examples, the power of God was manifested not simply in hearing the testimony of changed hearts (which is not to be disparaged) but also in outwardly observable ways.

This tradition continued after the writing of the New Testament, with early church fathers such as Justin Martyr declaring that many of the Christians were renowned for exorcising “possessing devils,” even though previously “they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs” (Second Apology). In another work written to a non-Christian Jew, he speaks of the continuation of the gift of prophecy in the church and notes that “it is possible to see amongst us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God.” (Dialogue with Trypho) That he speaks of seeing these gifts tells us that these gifts were miraculous and visible.

Similar writings on the charismata of exorcism, healing, and prophecy exercised by Christians could be cited from early church titans such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Novatian, and many more. John Wimber provides an appendix of such excerpts at the end of his Power Evangelism.[2] The overarching point of these examples, though, is to show that Christianity not only had spiritual power, but that it had a superior power. Pagans converted to Christianity upon seeing that the name of Christ brought deliverance and healing where their old “gods” and priests had failed, which attested to the authority and supremacy of Christ.

Circling back to the aforementioned book, The Prophetic Apologetic, I applaud the author for recognizing that the same demonstrable power that grew the church in its early years is the same power that the church needs today in its witness to the world. In an early section of the book, he comments on apologists who “state that they were Christians based on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus alone. I was shocked. Really? I thought, You are staking your eternity on document evidence and eyewitness testimony from two thousand years ago?”[3]

Not to be misunderstood, the author actually finds the evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus incredibly strong. His issue with this type of thinking is the obvious conclusion that “[a]nyone whose faith rests on apologetic argument can be persuaded to leave Christ with a different argument.”[4] That is to say, bare argumentation is rarely, if ever, the cause of a true conversion to faith in Christ, although it may be part of the process. Rather, he states, “if [people] are genuinely born again, it is because they had an experience with God.”[5]

While “experience” has become a buzzword in certain circles and immediately shot down as undermining Scriptural authority, Ammon’s basic point cannot be denied. The Scripture itself tells us that the “the things of the Spirit of God” (including the Gospel message) are “spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14) and require the Holy Spirit’s quickening to understand. Only faith imparted by the Spirit is sufficient to bring a man or woman to saving faith—in other words, an experience with God (cf. John 6:44-45).

That this experience can be initiated by witnessing spiritual power from other Christians is a natural corollary to this biblical teaching. Thus, even though today’s cultural milieu and popular worldviews are different from that of the Ancient Near East, the basic human desire for spiritual wholeness will be attracted to manifestations of spiritual power. In fact, in dealing with abject materialist atheists, seeing miraculous healings or accurate prophetic words can bypass endless rounds of argumentation on abstract reasons for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. Charismatic believers are equipped to both show as well as tell.

One of the principal themes of WeirdGod Publishing has been to push back against the multitudinous array of discernment ministries who explicitly deny the validity of the contemporary use of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. While I appreciate the needed critique of the abuses in the Charismatic world—which, sadly, are rampant—many of these bloggers go too far in their rank dismissal of the supernatural power available to believing Christians for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Some even go so far as to say that any truly supernatural phenomena experienced in Charismatic environments must be demonically energized, when it is not bare deception.

Miraculous demonstrations of power, though, when treated with due reverence and holiness, are a God-ordained means of encouraging beleaguered Christians and drawing outsiders to Christ. Without sidetracking into a discussion of cessationist doctrine, a fundamental basis of this Charismatic belief is that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), as are His promises to the Church of presence and empowerment (Matt. 28:20; Acts 1:8). My appeal to discernment bloggers and those who scoff at the Charismatic renewal, then, is to rethink the model of the Church as presented in the pages of the New Testament. Ought we not seek the same power from on high as that which propelled the early believers to evangelize the Roman Empire?

It is partly in light of these realities that I am presently working on a book project—tentatively titled A Magical World—in which I examine the supernatural in light of a biblical worldview. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that Christianity makes sense of the world and invite outsiders to recognize Christ as supreme. This will be based not only on researching secondary sources, but also on personal interviews with those in my immediate circles. My intent in doing so is to exhibit that the supernatural is all around us and that you don’t have to look very far to see God’s fingerprints.

Notes

[1] Jonathan Ammon, The Prophetic Apologetic: A Charismatic Approach to Apologetics (Independently Published, 2020).

[2] John Wimber and Kevin Springer, Power Evangelism (South Bloomington, Minn.: Chosen Books, 2014), 210-230. The above citations of Justin Martyr are also found in this appendix.

[3] Ammon, Prophetic Apologetic, 6.

[4] Ammon, Prophetic Apologetic, 15.

[5] Ammon, Prophetic Apologetic, 6.