When God Talks Back

 A friend passed on a book review of anthropologist Tanya Marie Luhrmann’s book When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God, a book I had not heard about until reading the review.[i]  Written by Jill Wolfson, a novelist and journalist of high standing, the review describes Luhrmann’s accounting of years of “deep hanging out” with two different groups of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, an evangelical/Pentecostal segment of American Christianity.  This Christian branch is characterized by literal interpretation of the scriptures and worship experiences that include dancing, swaying and other deeply emotional expressions.  Wolfson’s portrayal of Luhrmann’s book, besides being well written, seems a fair representation, so much so that it nudges me in the direction of purchasing the book.  The only problem is that my books-to-read shelf is so over laden already that it is sagging in the middle, and adding another book on to a pile that will likely outlive me seems futile.  So many books, so little time!  So, for now, my thoughts about Luhrmann’s exhaustive study will necessarily rely on a second-hand source.

The focus of Luhrmann’s research is to ask how is it that intelligent, savvy, middle-class Americans come to the place where they carry on conversations with the invisible God in much the same way as friends talk over coffee, actually expecting two-way dialog.  Succinctly, while Luhrmann continues to question the existence of God, her in-depth engagement with the Vineyard brings her to an awareness that such prayer talk works.  The practices of the Vineyard and the support of its members enable participants to learn how to “hear what they determine to be God’s voice.”

So the Vineyard groups and other Pentecostal religious types can claim victory that their perspective has been validated by the scientific community.  God is good all the time, and is always available to talk with anyone who takes the time to sit down to carry on such conversations.  Evidently, Luhrmann in her post-publication sessions with the Vineyard groups did provide a kind of appreciative assessment of their way of prayer, even indicating that though she could not “believe in a God out ‘there’ as solid as a mailbox….in my own way, I have come to know God (through my time spent in the Vineyard).”

But, reviewer Wolfson also describes how Luhrmann has made similar discoveries in other forays into religious experiences and cultures.  Luhrmann, according to Wolfson, describes herself as a “spiritual mutt,” having familial and other close connections to a Baptist minister, Christian Scientist, Unitarian, and Orthodox Jew, and was herself for a time inclined toward atheism.  As an anthropologist she was struck by how most people seemingly choose to conduct their lives according to narratives and legends rather than listening to their logical, rational reasoning.

Consequently, she spent in-depth time with modern witches, followers of Zoroastrianism, a Black Catholic Church, and a Santeria group.  Moreover, Luhrmann conducted experiments among undergraduate students utilizing the same prayer methods employed by the Vineyard followers, which verify the same results about prayer as those found in the Vineyard groups.

When hanging out in depth with modern-day witches, learning their methods and following their rituals, she discovered that “witchcraft self-training worked,” and she even had a supernatural vision one night of “six druids” appearing outside her window.  Luhrmann reports that the techniques of witchcraft are the same as those she was taught in the Vineyard version of Christianity—and, indeed, all the groups that she studied.

Probably, the most fascinating implication in Luhrmann’s ventures into how prayer works stems from a research project developed and implemented among college students at Stanford.  Rather than having students meditate on some deity of a particular faith tradition, the students were instructed to meditate on Leland Stanford, Jr., who died as a child and for whom Stanford University was named.  These student “volunteers were invited to listen and use their inner attention to ‘experience’ Leland.”  The results as yet are unpublished, but some of the students reported visions of the “young Leland and feeling that he spoke back.”

Wolfson concludes her review indicating how Luhrmann, being asked to “weigh in” on the seeming heavy influence of Vineyard Christians and their ilk on politics, assesses such confluence of church and state.  Luhrmann’s observations are very interesting and can be read in the article, which can be found at the web site listed as an endnote.

My interest, however, lies elsewhere.  Is it significant that widely divergent paths to spirituality seem equally accessible through very similar prayer techniques?  What can we say about the ability of certain meditative techniques to bring a person into intimate connection with any entity?  Is this simply some kind of learned mind control?  Or are there other levels or planes of existence with which we can resonate through meditative practice?  Perhaps Quantum theorists have a point in arguing that there are “fields” beyond our ability to perceive, abounding with neutrons, protons, photons.  And who knows, maybe included in these sub-atomic dimensions are all that has ever been or will be.

One thing is certain.  Based on the results of Luhrmann’s research, the appreciation shown by Luhrmann toward the Vineyard, or any group espousing only one right way to “God,” does not mean it is the only way.  Indeed, her research indicates the very opposite.  If there is communication with realms beyond what we know in the present, Luhrmann’s research points more to the possibility that other dimensions of living, if they exist, are filled with every conceivable idea, personality, entity, or experience the cosmos can contain.  Perhaps we Christians would do well to exercise a little more humility in our assertions about the one right way to God.

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[i] The review can be found on-line at:  http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=54818