There's no real context for this post, other than a discussion that's taking place on MetaFilter at the moment about some particular Charismatic quirks. The various waves of Charismatic/Pentacostal miracles are a topic of fascination and dread for me. The miraculous gold dust discussed in the MeFi thread was one of many apocryphal stories while I was still in the church, and by the time people I knew claimed to experience it, I had quietly eased out of the community, sorting through my own confusion about it.
What I did see, first hand, were the ripple effects from the infamous "Toronto Blessing" and the "Kansas City Prophets." One of the most vivid memories I have of the era is from the 1996 Passion For Jesus conference.
At one of the church services that followed the conference, a few thousand people squeezed into a converted soccer stadium to hear a sermon by one of the speakers who'd stayed late. I was troubled by my own questions but earnest and hopeful that I could make some sense out of my own struggles with faith and a sense of God's distance. The speaker began talking, but very quickly it became clear that there was not much content to the sermon -- the focus was on the "Move of God's Spirit" that the speaker felt was in the room. Slowly, around the room, people were chuckling here and there. Some started laughing. The speaker told us that was God moving. In the third row, I was grappling with the recent death of a friend with AIDS, and was only really beginning to scratch the surface on some of the questions that raised.
The laughter spread. By the time five or ten minutes had passed, hundreds of people in the audience were laughing -- many literally falling out of their folding chairs. The speaker was shouting over the din, announcing that this was God's joy, proof of his love. I rested my head in my hands and slowly, without much thought, began to sob: it was one of the most intensely, crushingly isolating experiences of my life. I'm pretty sure that no one was able to hear over the crowd.
Hours later, after the service had broken up, a friend asked me about my experiences at "ground zero" near the front row. I tried to explain, but at the time I wasn't quite sure what had happened. They assured me that tears were "another one of the ways God moves sometimes." I nodded; I supposed at the time that explanation was as good as any.
Comments
This is familiar territory Permalink
Submitted by Adrenalin Tim on Mon, 04/05/2010 - 21:05
This is familiar territory for me, too—all of it—the initial involvement, the current bafflement, and the 'crushing isolation' in between.
Thanks for sharing the MeFi link. I'll go check it out.
Having grown up exposed to a Permalink
Submitted by EclipseGc on Mon, 04/05/2010 - 21:23
Having grown up exposed to a lot of this on the periphery of my Christian experience I often grappled with some of these same issues. Somehow the laughter of others during an intensely painful personal time seems somehow disingenuous and certainly doesn't feel like "God". I won't claim to be able to judge the Charismatic movement, but I will say that I think they've fallen prey to the same deterioration the rest of "Christianity" has fallen prey... dogma and doctrine.
Doctrine attempts to create a simplified understanding of complex biblical concepts. Predestination vs. Freewill being the perfect example (and one which people can argue forever). Frankly in most places Doctrine fails to do anything except muddy the waters further by introducing man's interpretation of God's word as being fit for all human consumption, but we might all interpret the same scripture differently. Too often this leads to dogma, at which point it's no longer a talking point but somehow becomes a core salvation issues (Which it's not).
My grandfather is fond of saying "If you're not a Calvinist, you're not a Christian."... well I'm not a Calvinist. Calvin didn't come to die on a cross and wash away my sins. He's not my Christ, therefore anything he has to say is little more than an interesting side note to what Jesus said.
Getting back to the issue at hand, much of what occurs within the Charismatic church feels like this sort of fuzzy doctrine/dogma in which God causes people to laugh (or fall over, or whatever), and that is his spirit coming to land on them. This is a very pale ghost indeed when compared to the power of the spirit in the book of Acts, where the apostles preached the gospel and all who heard, regardless of what language they spoke, understood what they said. Seldom does the Charismatic movement even practice that other form of speaking in tongues which requires a translator (something that did not actually appear till much later and which Paul provides details on handling properly).
In any event, this is actually a bit of a pet peeve of mine, and I can't help but feel that it dilutes what Christianity really is. It dilutes when the spirit is really pushing believers to do supernatural acts... so much so that most Christians in developed countries don't actually believe those things happen any longer.
Kris
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