The Supernatural: General Accounts
Aurora Australis. Photo credit: Unknown | CC0.
Introduction
People across the world, regardless of religious affiliation, and including in the “secular West,” report encountering the supernatural. This page highlights some of them.
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Melanthia Mitchell, Teen Found Alive 8 Days After Wreck. Associated Press, Oct 12, 2004.
MSNBC News, Grandfather Kills Leopard With Bare Hands. MSNBC, June 22, 2005.
Benedict Carey, A Neuroscientific Look at Speaking in Tongues. New York Times, Nov 7, 2006.
David Bentley Hart, Mysteries of Consciousness. First Things, Aug 20, 2010.
Martha Beck, Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic. Harmony Press | Amazon book, Aug 2, 2011.
Tim Adams, Lorna Byrne: 'I Believe in Angels' – Interview. The Guardian UK, Dec 1, 2012.
Sam Parnia, Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death. NPR, Feb 20, 2013.
Sylvia A. Harvey, Vodou is Like a Gun (And That's How You Spell It). Salon, Mar 9, 2013.
Steve Taylor, Do Psychic Phenomena Exist? Psychology Today, Apr 16, 2014.
Mario Beauregard, Near Death, Explained. Salon, Apr 21, 2014.
M. Molly Backes, My Cousin is Not a Hero. Medium, Jul 25, 2014. A demonstration that personal crises can be interpreted cruelly, and hedonistically.
Meghan Daum, I Nearly Died. So What? New York Times, Nov 14, 2014. A demonstration that personal crises can be interpreted in many ways.
Meghan Daum, For One Essayist, "The Unspeakable" Isn't Off Limits. NPR, Nov 16, 2014. An interview about how death and dying meant nothing transcendent.
Eric Metaxas, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. Viking Press | Amazon page, Oct 2014.
T.M. Luhrmann, When Things Happen That You Can't Explain. New York Times, Mar 5, 2015.
Lisa Miller, Why Kids Need Spirituality. New York Magazine, Apr 16, 2015.
Orion Jones, What's After Death? People Who've Died Explain. BigThink, Apr 22, 2015.
Andrew Pinsent, Are Miracles Rational? Slate, Jul 14, 2015.
Stephen Barr, Has Science Subsumed the Miraculous? Slate, Jul 14, 2015.
Hayley Kiyoko, Demons. Hayley Kiyoko, Oct 11, 2019. An official music video to a song with surprisingly thought-provoking lyrics.
Benjamin Fearnow, Artificial Number of Witches Rises Dramatically Across U.S. as Millennials Reject Christianity. Newsweek, Nov 18, 2018.
Anthony Youn, I’m A Surgeon. Here’s What Happened When I Held My Patient’s Hand And Prayed For Her. Huffington Post, Nov 30, 2019.
Richard Beck, Magical Systems and the Soft Enchantments of Christianity. Experimental Theology, May 1, 2024. See also part 2. “In describing Christian enchantment as "soft magic" I mean that, following Sanderson, we do not know how this enchantment "works." Neither can we control or manipulate it. We could say that there is a apophatic aspect to soft magic, a persistent mystery. Consequently, and this is key to the point I want to make, the soft enchantments of Christianity cannot be exploited to solve our problems. God is not a tool to get us something we want.”
Scott Rice, Dreams, Visions, and the Bible: Reading the Bible on Turtle Island. Theology Lab, Jan 17, 2026.
“A Theology Lab educational conversation with the authors of Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation, Danny Zacharias and Chris Hoklotubbe. The video looks at how to read Scripture in light of an Indigenous - Native American, First Peoples - lens. This is part 2, which looks at how to understand dreams, visions and connections between the Bible and land (through stories). Alongside an exploration of the Bible, how to understand dreams and visions in relationship to Scripture, this conversation begins with the question about understanding Creator's presence on Turtle Island before settlers arrived. If part 2 on dreams, visions, the Bible and more interests you, check out part 1 of the interview for more on key ideas that underlie reading the Bible on Turtle Island.”
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These are the images used in artistic physical displays. They are survey questions and conversation starters that are topically and thematically organized. They demonstrate how Jesus is relevant to each topic or theme. You can also just view the images on your device. If you would like, see all our Conversation Stations; below are the ones that relate to the topic of the historical Jesus.
What Story Do You Live In? (and associated message)
Is Religion Just a Cultural Thing? (and instructions)
Who Do You Think Wrote This? (and instructions)
What Can We Do About Evil? (and instructions and conversation tree)
What Can We Do About Evil? (brochure version)
Find Your Heart's Desire? (and instructions and theology of desire)
The Supernatural: Topics:
This section on the Supernatural is organized as follows: The Natural highlights how creation itself is miraculous, since there is something rather than nothing; and creation points in its own way to God. General Accounts highlights how people who are not Christians have observed supernatural phenomena. Christian Accounts spotlights specifically Christian experiences and interpretations of the supernatural. Making Sense explores different ways of understanding supernatural events. Biblical Israel examines how the origins, literature, and early history of Israel point to a supernatural origin. The Decisive Miracle considers Jesus to be the supreme miracle of a God who reveals God’s own self.
