Making Room for Mystery: Anomalous Events, Extraordinary Experiences, and Christian Faith

We sometimes hear about events that seem too strange to fit with our usual ways of thinking about what can happen. Someone perceives an appearance of a loved one in danger at the same moment the person is undergoing a crisis at a distant location. A patient who has long ago lost all cognitive functioning suddenly begins to interact with others for a short time before dying. Someone dreams of barely avoiding an accident, and the near miss occurs the next day. Some reports of strange occurrences can be explained away, but repeatedly hearing about such things from credible sources can lead us to wonder whether the world is more mysterious than the predictable order we have taken for granted. This book considers what it would mean for Christians to accept that the natural order has hidden depths that can produce strange phenomena. How might it affect our understanding of such things as divine guidance or petitionary prayer or extraordinary healings? How would we think about God’s action in the world if our understanding of the created order allowed more room for mystery? Read more