From base metal to gold: theological reflections on the gold teeth filling phenomenon

22nd April 1999

From base metal to gold: theological reflections on the gold teeth filling phenomenon

By Andrew Walker

Dr Andrew Walker goes beyond ridicule and scepticism to ponder the theological meaning of an interventionist God who appears to enter the world as a private dentist, bringing wonders which are more in keeping with the Fortean Times than the Bible.

In Ben Jonson's play, 'Volpone', the acquisitive Mosca opens the drama with the line, 'Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!' Mosca, like many late medieval adventurers, would have sold his soul to discover the formula to turn base metal into gold. Ironically, alchemy, as practised by people such as Paracelsus, was not at all about gold or greed, but was an attempt by mystics and hermetic philosophers to turn base human beings into men and women with pure hearts.

But what, we might wonder, is the philosophy and theology behind the recent reporting from Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, Sacramento – and now various British churches – that God is apparently visiting his people as a divine dentist and is replacing their amalgam fillings (in some cases) with pure gold?

Searching for an explanation

Of course, for many of us, our theological thinking is likely to take second place to historical, sociological and psychological explanations. After all, we have trouble with bona fide miracles at the best of times, and when religious movements throw up bizarre oddities, like the leg-lengthening in vogue in the independent charismatic movement in the 1970s, we instinctively search for naturalistic explanations.

In the search for an explanation, some of us might remember that teeth-filling has happened before, not only in the Third World, but in post-war America in the 1940s and 1950s. Others of us might have noticed how exciting new phenomena are spread from fellowship to fellowship with the almost unreflective mimicry of the Mexican Wave. Still others will think of placebo effects, excitation leading to false, exaggerated or delusional claims.

So many possible explanations come to mind that our theological thinking may never kick in. Indeed, even our naturalistic explanations may not kick in, because they are simply overwhelmed by laughter at this strange new phenomenon. Incredulity and laughter can threaten to drown any rational or spiritual appraisal of the divine dentist.

It would be a pity if this were to happen, because I don't find, in moments of sobriety, the 'new fillings for old' funny at all. The Ship of Fools interview with Dr Stephen Wood on 20th April – in which Wood was able to report that his dentist could tentatively confirm his new gold crown – demonstrated not only Wood's integrity, but raised the intriguing possibility that 'miraculous dentistry' might be genuine.

For the rest of this article I would like to suggest that we bracket out our natural impulse to giggle over or to rationalise the new alchemy, and concentrate on the theological meaning of an interventionist God who enters the world as a private dentist.

A trickster god

The first thing to note is that in the earlier Third World dental visitations, and in A.A. Allen's post-war ministry in the United States, God's dentistry was to the poor. People, so the stories go, were met by God because they could not afford proper dental care. In the recent rash of gold fillings, however, God seems not to be showing his much-heralded bias to the poor, but is offering private medicine to the better-off members of the suburban charismatic churches.

Of course, divine intervention is always selective. Jesus chose to heal only one sick man at the pool of Bethesda. Paul healed others, but could not persuade God to remove the thorn in his own flesh. While the sovereignty and selectivity of God is one thing, the manner and type of miraculous intervention is quite another.

Questions are raised in our minds about God's goodness and open-handedness when, on the one hand, he seems unwilling or unable to prevent Auschwitz or the contemporary tragedy of Kosovo, but seems both willing and able to adopt the role of a modern dentist and provide not only cosmetic wonders, but phenomena more in keeping with the Fortean Times than the Bible.

By contrast, the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels are not only signs of compassion and manifestations of divine power, they are also pedagogical tools both for teaching and revealing the Kingdom of God. These differ markedly from the many recorded miracles in history which come under the rubric of 'wonder-working oddities': the yearly uncongealing of saints' blood, for example, which seem to have no discernible spiritual or ethical value.

Now of course it may be that the recent spate of gold fillings will eventually be interpreted as symbols of God's alchemy: outward expressions of base lives changed by grace – rather like Paracelsus with his philosopher's stone. But the old Protestant hymn has told us something different for years:

Yes my friends there's something more,
There's something more than gold:
To know your sins are all forgiven,
There's something more than gold.

Surely these simple but wise words indicate that we don't need highly selective acts of eccentricity to reveal to us the nature of God. God is not a trickster, nor a mountebank. He does not do party tricks, like the 19th-century spirits who blew through trumpets and knocked on tables for the Victorian middle classes.

Doing divine dentistry, like doing a turn at a party, seems to be a form of showing off, the self-indulgence of a mischievous sprite, rather than a revelation of the majestic freedom of the Spirit as Lord and giver of life. In those fellowships where light entertainment and confessional formats have become de rigeur, there is always the risk that God will not be worshipped as 'Holy God, Holy and mighty, Holy and immortal', but will be celebrated, and thus domesticated, as the god who is the best show in town.

Trivializing spiritual reality

When the Toronto Blessing broke in 1994 with gales of laughter, some thought it revival, others, 'a refreshing', still more saw it as a kind of theanthropic therapy. It seems unlikely that the teeth-filling phenomenon will encourage such glowing epithets: it will probably be little more than a brief craze that will run its course with all the longevity of the latest pop song.

But God the gold-filler, like God the laughter-maker, strikes me as part of a tendency towards trivialization of spiritual reality, and a decreasing emphasis on holiness and moral responsibility for the sins of the world.

In 1987, I wrote a book called 'Enemy Territory', in which I suggested that it was not God but the master Trickster who had shunted us into privatised religious games rooms (our churches) where we imagine that we are battling devilish forces and growing in spiritual stature, when in fact the public world burns with the real evil let loose on the world. Hyperfaith is no kind of faith at all, because hyperreality, where it is exercised, is not the real world, but a fantasy land, and the real God does not dwell there.

I do not know who or what is behind the gold tooth phenomenon (although my reductionist juices are doing overtime), but I do know that if God is behind it, then this is not a God I want to follow. Jesus, I believe, is indeed Lord, but he is not a star turn at the circus, or a member of the magic circle, nor a peripatetic dentist. If he were any of these things, then he would not be the true Alchemist, but the god of the congenitally bored.

Dr Andrew Walker is the author of 'Restoring the Kingdom: the Radical Christianity of the House Church Movement', and Director of the Centre for Theology and Culture, King's College, London

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