Holy molars!

When I lived in Bombay several years ago, a rumour went around the city of a miraculous multiplying chapatti that had turned up on Juhu Beach to the north of the city.
The story received wide publicity in the newspapers and by word of mouth. Someone had been walking on the beach and found a chapatti - common Indian flat bread. When he picked it up, it amazingly divided into two, and then each of the two divided again. Pretty soon there were said to be millions of miracle chapattis.
I was reminded of this when I first read reports of the miracles of gold teeth fillings that people are said to be receiving in certain Christian meetings across Britain and America today. A friend told me he knew of more than a hundred people who had received gold fillings in one meeting. Each one was etched with a tiny cross.

Persistent reports

It is easy to be sceptical, but the reports have persisted. The Sunday Telegraph devoted a full page (June 13) to the Miracle of the Molars, and Trevor McDonald highlighted the phenomenon in his current affairs programme on ITV on July 15. Writes Jonathan Petre in The Sunday Telegraph: 'Is this the latest example of millenarian madness, or is God trying to tell us something?'
That debate will surely continue endlessly and heatedly, and no one conclusion will ever be reached. The same is the case with the 'Toronto blessing' with its characteristic phenomena, and there are a plethora of other unexplainable things that raise many questions and receive few conclusive answers. There will always be believers who are convinced that they are a genuine work of God, other Christians who are sure they are a hoax or figment of imagination - and a great mass of people in between who are just very confused.

Irrelevant question?

It is therefore in a way irrelevant to ask the question: Is this genuine? Did teeth fillings really turn to gold? Is this God or the devil? The believers and the sceptics will remain unmoved. In a world where many things have no immediate rational explanation, that is not really the most important question.
Gerald Coates claimed at a Pioneer Trust conference in Norfolk in June, that more than 50 people had experienced the gold filling phenomenon. The Sunday Telegraph reported him as conceding that there was neither a credible scriptural basis nor scientific proof for what he believed was happening, but Pioneer staff disputed that he had said this when EN contacted them.
There are nevertheless some sound biblical questions we need to ask, which will save us from being 'tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine' (Ephesians 4.14).

1) Are all miracles Christian?

First, it is important to understand that unusual and unexplainable phenomena are not exclusive to the Christian faith. The 'miraculous' multiplying chappatis in Bombay were a phenomenon within Hinduism, and no Christian claimed credit for God, though doubtless some Christians were caught up in the excitement. A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary at Akita in Japan is supposed to have shed tears more than 100 times. Hindu statues of the gods Ganesh and Shiva 'miraculously' drink milk, first in Delhi and then all over the world.
How many times must it be emphasised that not every miracle or every sensation is a sign from God or a proof of the truth?

2) What excites us?

Everyone, Christians included, love a sensation with a bit of mystery thrown in. Sufficient millions were attracted by the 'prophecies' of Nostradamus for Channel 4 to run an evening of programmes and for newspapers to run banner headlines: 'World to End Next Week!' These things can so easily replace the main focus of our calling - preaching the gospel - which by comparison can seem dull and hard work.

3) What is the effect?

As a witness to the world, are these 'miracles' giving Christianity serious credibility or a tragically-lunatic label? None of us wishes our faith to be seen as ineffective or irrelevant. Nor do we wish Christ to be seen as the author of the bizarre, the ridiculous and the trivial.

4) Why were we saved?

We need to ask ourselves the question: Why has God saved us? Was it so that we might have weird experiences and the best supernatural dentistry? Or was it that he 'gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good'? (Titus 2.14).

5) What is the message?

In Acts, the power of the Holy Spirit resulted in the Word of God spreading (Acts 12.24, 19.20). But what is the message being conveyed by these 'miracle' meetings? Is it that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, or is it all a huge distraction from the gospel and the worship of Christ?

It seems to me that most of those involved in this current sensation are confirmed believers. Unbelievers simply look on bemused.

Questions raised by the recent dental phenomena of gold fillings and other alleged miracles