quote:

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As Martyn Percy wrote: "When the TB first ‘broke,’ British leaders in charismatic renewal were careful to ‘position’ the commodity in the‘charismatic market.’ It was variously described as a ‘spiritual topup,’‘in-flight re-fuelling,’ ‘refreshing, not revival,’ ‘latter rain,’ and the like. In other words, the TB was a form of resource for a tired or flagging movement" (p.17).

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Back in a moment with my reflections.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I had had charismatic experience well before Toronto. I encountered Toronto at Stoneleigh Bible Week 1994, doing "carpet time" right at the end of the week. We "exported" the blessing back to our church, which soon led to us splitting from our parent church and mission, becoming much more overtly charismatic in practice, and within a few years to us joining NFI.

By March 1998 I felt God was leading us to a new phase; I discontinued "receiving meetings", and shifted our emphasis to social action with a keynote message on God's call to Elijah to "go to the widow" (the late Simon Pettit preached memorably on "remember the poor" at the NFI Brighton leaders' conference eight months later, in November 1998. That's scary timing).

Shortly thereafter our church was spontaneously converged on by marginal, homeless people, I started getting more closely interested in prisons, and a social action programme was born. The church became one of the largest, if not the largest, protestant congregations in town.

Six years after that, the church was destroyed, largely by fellow-participants in "carpet time", and I was left near suicidal spiritually deconstructing my faith.

Ten years on from that, I've done some reconstructing. The church I'm in hasn't quite, to quote Adrian Plass, "split itself back to where it started from", but we are certainly not doing any carpet time (although the socially needy that scattered in the explosion have turned up again).

I've become highly suspicious of revivals, refreshings, and outpourings - and especially of human manipulation of them. I can look back at my carpet time and see a lot of psychological factors at work. But I can't shake off the feeling of having experienced God's presence then in a special way. In 1994-5 I devoured my Bible. Within a few years the "outpouring" had led us to concrete social action. Despite it all, it seems to have been a "time of refreshing" for me.

Here endeth this chapter of my autobiography.

More analytically, I think that through synchronicity and personnel, in the UK Toronto launched Alpha in much the same way that Mission England introduced charismatic worship songs and John Wimber to the mainstream ten years earlier.

[ 05. September 2014, 11:12: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I had a 'carpet time' - or more accurately, a hard wooden floor - experience in 1982 - at a time when such things weren't expected and were even discouraged in the circles in which I moved.

I'm not sure what to make of that now, but it was very intense, unexpected and wasn't consciously induced by anything I'd observed. I'd not seen it happen to anyone else, but I had heard of it happening.

It may have subconsciously been triggered by hearing accounts of such things and also by psychological reasons ... I was carrying a lot of guilt and was highly sensitive over sins that many people would have considered very minor ...

It was certainly cathartic and I felt joy, acceptance and a sense of 'cleansing' which I find difficult to describe. It also made me bolder in my witness to my faith for a time too.

I was charismatic at that time already but wondered about the veracity or validity of the 'tongues' and so on ... I felt I might be making it all up. This experience wasn't accompanied by 'tongues' or other manifestations/spiritual gifts but at the time I did wonder at the time whether this was the real deal in terms of 'baptism in the Spirit' as it were.

Now, I don't tend to be so prescriptive about issues like that and my view would be that something very real did happen - but that there was a lot of psychological stuff going on in there too.

The result of it all was that I was more open to charismata thereafter ... although nothing 'happened' to me and I was fairly sceptical during the first and second waves of Wimber influences and visits in 1984/85. That said, I admired the more laid-back and less 'authoritarian' feel of the Wimber team visits and the apparent 'democratisation' of the holy ...

I think I am quite a susceptible and suggestible bloke, despite how I sometimes post here aboard Ship. I'm quite easily moved by atmospheres and by various cues. I've never been to a hypnotist but imagine that I would be quite easily hypnotised.

So, when the Toronto thing came along I was certainly open to the possibility of it being the real deal. I was initially sceptical but then plunged in and found I could 'do the stuff' ... although I quickly backed off when I realised how easy it was to induce these things.

I'm not so convinced about the spread of Alpha being congruent with the TB. Alpha was spreading out from its HTB base independently of all that, if I remember rightly.

As for Mission England and the spread of charismatic style songs ... yes, but that process was already underway from the growth in popularity of Spring Harvest a few years before that.

But then, there are lots of interconnected influences within all these things.
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 

 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Thanks for your...er...contribution - unless of course you were using the emoticon as illustrative of what you did during the TB...?
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
20 years!!??

Oh my goodness - now I know I'm old!
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
'What did you do during the Toronto Blessing, Daddy?'



I might be slow on the uptake but I'm wondering what I might have said that amused Beeswax Altar so much?


 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Yes, I would like an explanation from Beeswax Altar too.
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 
I’ve never been a charismatic, although I have enjoyed and benefitted from that type of music / song. My introduction to this was in the days of Trevor Dearing in Essex (the 1970’s?) and the ‘black church’ scene in Britain.

However I did spend eight or nine years covertly researching a number of ‘new churches’, first the music and how it triggered certain behaviours and then the whole question of whether or not members of such churches receive ‘empowerment’ through their involvement.

The Toronto thing arrived just as I was beginning to write up the second stage of my research. I was delighted to have ‘missed’ it: although I continued to attend and observe the happenings, I had no need to make any comment on it.

I found the experience very scary – more for the people affected than for myself, I think. It seemed foolishness to me and bordering on the deceitful. But that’s not what you asked.

Today, I look back at it (from the outside) and reflect that it was, as with other shipmates, a step on a pilgrimage for me. A step which led me nearer to rejecting all churches and GOD altogether – which is where I am today. It was one of the factors that ultimately led me to question and to reject my faith.

So, when I hear of current outpourings (Todd B or Cwmbran for instance) I sigh ‘here we go again, it’s foolishness, it will go away soon’.

Just my reaction and feelings – which you asked for . Within my pilgrimage / mind-set (non theism) there is acceptance of the value for people of meeting with their gods provided that they don’t harm others or, in the context of the phenomena discussed here, don’t harm each other. It seems to me that such ‘outpourings’ are liable to harm people and this can be seen in the disillusionment and fall-out. I regularly heard it said of charismatic congregations “in the front door, out the back”. Sad, I think.

That’s the legacy left to me.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure, I'm not out to make any value judgements on the legacy this stuff has left for anyone ... theist or non-theist.

It does seem, though, that whatever one makes or made of it, the whole thing served in many instances to confirm people in one trajectory or another ... in your case towards a rejection of theism - in the case of Eutychus, Matt Black and myself, a rejection of certain aspects of revivalism yet not a moving away from a theistic paradigm ...

As far as the foolishness issue goes - yes, a lot of what I saw back then was pretty daft. To an extent, heavy and rather authoritarian though the set-up I was involved with undoubtedly was, it did protect us from some of the whackier manifestations ... or at least, tempered them in some way.

We didn't have as much of the screaming and 'dog-barking' that marked the Toronto thing - or 'move of the Spirit' as we called it - nor so much of the uncontrollable laughter - although that did happen.

I was still involved with our church but had pretty much backed off from the more revivalist gatherings by around 1996 ...

I was also writing long letters to the elders questioning various aspects of charismatic spirituality - and music - in general ...
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Thanks for your...er...contribution - unless of course you were using the emoticon as illustrative of what you did during the TB...?

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Dang...you figured it out.

Actually, the Toronto Blessing wasn't as big a deal in the United States. I believe the revival in Pensacola was going on at roughly the same time. Even for somebody who grew up in the charismatic movement, the whole laughing thing was a big strange. Who was that guy from South Africa?
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I was in a very charismatic university CU in the late nineties/early noughties. Toronto (and Brownsville, Pensacola – remember them?) were big news at the time.

Some of the weirder behaviour associated with Toronto etc. definitely caught on in our CU. Lots of howling, lying on the floor, and generally doing and saying outlandish stuff “in the Spirit”. I remember one girl in a sort of trance, making brushing movements with her hand. Sweeping out unbelief or something, supposedly. She was held up as an example of shining spiritual something or other to the rest of us… although it should be said, this particular meeting was one of those that did go too far into scaring people, there was an Argument™ and the particular speaker was Not. Invited. Back.

Good little Baptist girl that I was, I was quite freaked out and frightened by it in the first instance. I’d never encountered anything remotely like it before. I think the same was probably true of other fellow-students of mine who had grown up in non-charismatic churches, often Baptist or evangelical Anglican. In the end, I think I got kind of acclimatised to the weirdness, and joined in with the less extreme parts with a sort of “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” approach. I loved the singing. (Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)

OTOH, I can’t deny that in other ways it was an incredibly good time for me and I grew hugely. We prayed for hours (often in very unweird, simple, low-key ways). Like Euty, I devoured the Bible.

Still I wonder if part of the reason it was never going to last is that like me, quite a fair proportion of the little people in the plastic chairs (no pews in this revival! ) were never 100% convinced about the whole thing to start off with. Even at the time, we were filtering the wheat from the chaff.
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Who was that guy from South Africa?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)

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Exactly so, very significant. It's called hype or manipulation. It's what music does and the leaders / musicians knew it.

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Hello Mark Wuntoo I must see if your thesis is still around here somewhere!

Speaking as a musician, I made a deliberate decision not to have any music or singing in our "receiving meetings" in order to rule this out. (Where one draws the line between enthusiasm and manipulation in music/worship is still a vexed question for me).

Our meetings, mostly in our front room, started out with a few "house rules" and otherwise looked much like a Brethren "morning meeting" until the mayhem started (no barking or clucking for us mind you).

The hardest-to-explain thing I ever witnessed in those meetings was a lady I knew well prophesying over a Kabyle man I also knew well - in Arabic (along the lines, as I recall, of "you idiot, stop being so proud and start receiving the Spirit"). She didn't speak a word of Arabic.

I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I could lead you to the spot where it happened in my front room.
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Hello Mark Wuntoo I must see if your thesis is still around here somewhere!

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Don't you mean gold dust, Eutychus?
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 
My primary church at the time was a breakaway-group from a large charismatic denomination. To a large extent we seemed at the time to be receiving a lot of things second and third hand (though I wonder to what extent this is me looking back in time and assuming modern social-media savvy eyes to make something more primitive than it was and to what extent it was because the church was unaffiliated). It always seemed that we were at the periphery, and the 'good stuff' was happening a few removes away.

It corresponded with a time when I was involved in various christian activities which involved people of different traditions. In particular, a number of very down to earth, mostly working class, Anglicans. I remember being in a meeting where people started laughing/rolling around etc. and at one point one woman got on all fours and started barking. After about 5 minutes the vicar went over, tapped her on the shoulder and said gently "You don't have to do that, you know". At which point the lady, seemed to snap out of whatever mental mode she was in, and just stood back up. This was a very powerful object lesson for me.

I should note that bar the deliberate animal noises, the whole falling over thing was quite familiar to me. I'd witnessed it for many years in a completely different ethnic setting - though generally not in the orchestrated way in which it took place during the TB - usually a couple of people falling down during particular services - with screaming and shrieking not being completely uncommon.

Much more recently, I happened to visit a particular church in which I noticed a lady shaking, and frequently jumping off her seat during prayer. In conversation with other people later it appeared that she'd acted this way during the TB, and had experienced 'manifestations' like this ever since.

Not sure if anyone has read John White's book on Wimber, but at that point I was reminded strongly of his chapter entitled 'Godfrey the Godly Giggler'.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Gosh ...

I've heard some stories of 'xenoglossy' but never any that have been substantiated by anyone who can actual speak the languages that were purportedly being spoken ... although my brother-in-law, who is very level-headed, does claim to have been overheard saying part of the Lord's Prayer and snippets of the Psalms in Afrikaans.

He hastens to add that he wasn't overheard saying, 'Get off our lend, Kaffir ...' or 'You bleck bestid ...' which is the sort of thing normally associated with Afrikaans, I'm afraid.

In our neck of the woods there wasn't a great deal of glossolalia - or music either - associated with the TB ... I remember some of the Pentecostals becoming quite concerned about TB as it had all manner of other 'manifestations' apart from 'tongues'.

On the expectation and suggestibility side of things ... my 'take' would be that in the initial stages, to get the ball rolling, there was certainly some clear cues and planting of expectations, 'Some of you will shake, others of you may fall over ...'

Once it got going though, there was very little by way of preliminaries and people tended to do whatever it was they did ... laugh, keel over, shake ...

It did look a lot like learned behaviour to me.

Such 'hype' as there was tended to be pretty gentle on the whole ... but there was still a lot of suggestibility involved.

I did go to one Rodney Howard Browne meeting and that grated with me on all sorts of levels ... mostly culturally. He and his aides were throwing 'merchandise' - books, CDS etc etc - out into the 'audience' for people to catch. It was all very 'staged' and it looked pretty clear to me that he was on the look out for people who appeared 'open' or susceptible.

That said, there were some things that didn't lend themselves to immediate classification in the 'that's a set up' category ... including some stuff that happened to one or two of my friends.

I remained unmoved by the whole thing and I noticed that he made no attempt to engage with me when he passed along our row apparently meting out 'blessings' and 'manifestations' to anyone who appeared to be up for it.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
Don't you mean gold dust, Eutychus?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Gosh ...

I've heard some stories of 'xenoglossy' but never any that have been substantiated by anyone who can actual speak the languages that were purportedly being spoken ...

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I have, from the same period, and I've mentioned it before here.

David Carr from Solihull (under whom one Richard Taylor trained!!!) claimed his "tongue" was Old French, which I studied at university. He spoke and "ministered" at an NFI prayer and fasting I was at, and I could understand him perfectly when he prayed in tongues for people - and he was saying relevant things. It could possibly have been contemporary Québecois (which I didn't encounter for a few years after that). He claimed to be an unschooled lad and to have spent quite a bit of his professional life in football management. He certainly didn't strike you as someone who'd spent time mugging up stuff in a language lab.

When he burst out in Old French, I felt like someone from 1 Corinthians 14: "truly God is among you!" Ever since I've wondered whether it was a con; but the language was certainly authentic enough.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
That's interesting. I knew some people who were involved in his church who once told me that he'd been overheard praying in at least four recognisable languages ...

I always remained sceptical ... I always felt uncomfortable with that particular end of the spectrum, even though I hadn't had any direct contact with his church ...

I don't know what that should be ...

It always struck me as suspicious, though, when claims of actual languages were made ... it was often Old French or Old Spanish ... this made me wonder why it wasn't modern French or Spanish and whether Old French or Old Spanish simply referred to something that could sound sort of like French or Spanish but wasn't really ...



Oh Gamaliel of little faith ...

But I'll bow to your linguistic abilities and experience.

As for the gold-dust thing, I was well on my way out by the time that came along and never took that at all seriously ... although people I knew did ...
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Once the gold dust and gold fillings stuff started was when I began to metaphorically back away from it all...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Coming back to the 'legacy' thing ...

To what extent do Shipmates see things like New Wine and Bethel as heir/successors to TB ... perhaps not in a direct passing on the baton sense - but in the sense of seeking to occupy the same 'space' and deliver similar promises?
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
/tangent

What on earth is carpet time?

/end tangent
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

To what extent do Shipmates see things like New Wine and Bethel as heir/successors to TB ... perhaps not in a direct passing on the baton sense - but in the sense of seeking to occupy the same 'space' and deliver similar promises?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)

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Exactly so, very significant. It's called hype or manipulation. It's what music does and the leaders / musicians knew it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's when you fall over, supposedly overwhelmed by the power of the Spirt, and stay there for a while. The expression was coined, I think, at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, the venue of which features industrial carpeting.

The phrase is typical of the laid-back, Vineyard approach to spirituality.

[x-post]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What was wrong with slain in the Spirit?

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The phrase is typical of the laid-back, Vineyard approach to spirituality

A large part of the Vineyard ethos was an attempt to demystify spirituality. On arriving newly converted at a rather staid church for the first time, Wimber (a jazz musician, after all) did not ask "where be the mighty signs and wonders that our Lord doth command us his followers to perform?". As he used to tell it, he asked "when do we get to do the stuff?"

[my UBB code fell over]

[ 05. September 2014, 15:32: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 

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Posted by Ceesharp (# 3818) on :
 
As I recall, in my fellowship (inter-denominational but mostly R.C. charismatic community) we had long been familiar with the phenomena of speaking in tongues, shaking and falling in the Spirit, though usually the most extreme accompanying manifestation was weeping. We welcomed The Toronto blessing as a means of deepening the life in the Spirit. Most of our prayer meetings did not begin with manipulating music, just a couple of unaccompanied songs followed by praying with each other resulting in falling, laughing, weeping and on one occasion rolling. In our well-attended open meetings the high-power worship music was followed by an extensive teaching (not about the Toronto blessing) before praying for people, so not much emotive manipulation there.
Without exception, myself included, the various manifestations experienced were deeply and emotionally healing for those who experienced them. We all experienced renewed fervour for prayer, reading Scripture and service.
The only lasting visible effect twenty years later is in one of our older members, a retired academic of some considerable standing and an increasingly holy man, who is unable to pray for anyone else without himself falling over.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I think also the "Being slain in the Spirit" was associated with more 'old-time' Pentecostalism (and thus not an entirely new phenomenon as at least one poster here has confirmed), with which I think Vineyard and Co were keen to break.
 

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Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way. In the more extreme case people exhibited altered states of consciousness as a result of the group dynamic and "cues."

I'm certain that God was doing something to the church but I also think that church leaders very quickly latched on to what was happening and it all became very sign centred. The manifestations were the thing not God - we were encouraged not to think, analyse or pray just receive. Why on earth did God give me critical faculties then? Why were people lying around giggling when there was a community to serve? It was then I knew it was wrong - and, in one or two extreme cases, beyond exploitation to the point of demonic.

The church I was in at the time - moving into renewal and community work on a rough estate - broke apart as the leadership didn't go down this road when influential members wanted it. As a result a membership of 100 odd dropped rapidly below 30. I didn't see much or indeed any community impact from churches going through TB. Please show me what fruit they have now?

Martyn Percy is spot on in my view. There's no dunamis going on just an exercise in power dynamics and control. If you didn't receive then you were 2nd class: not in the eyes of the God I know. One might possibly extend Percy's ideas now and see TB as the death kicks of a moribund movement, having a last roll of the dice.

It put so many people off anything to do with the move of the spirit - and I say that as a convinced and believing charismatic evangelical. TB did the church way more harm than good as it highjacked the whole decade of evangelism.
 

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Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
I think also the "Being slain in the Spirit" was associated with more 'old-time' Pentecostalism (and thus not an entirely new phenomenon as at least one poster here has confirmed), with which I think Vineyard and Co were keen to break.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way. In the more extreme case people exhibited altered states of consciousness as a result of the group dynamic and "cues."

---

quote:

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Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way.

---

quote:

---

it all became very sign centred. The manifestations were the thing not God - we were encouraged not to think, analyse or pray just receive.

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quote:

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Please show me what fruit they have now?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
I recall someone commenting at the time of the TB that the only people in the Bible who were slain in the Spirit were Ananias and Sapphira.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Falling on the floor, plus (optional) rolling around on it laughing/ roaring

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quote:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
IMO it's really important to explain what's going on or what might happen, so people know what to expect and are set at ease. I think this is a huge part of helping people to feel welcome in a Christian community / church.

Tangent - I'd say the same thing about liturgical church services, where there's an often unspoken 'script' of stand up now, kneel, say this phrase, genuflect here etc. If people don't know what to expect and are caught by surprise then that can be really off-putting and uncomfortable.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The clincher for me came in a book by David Middlemiss, 'Interpreting Charismatic Experience' SCM 1996.

Middlemiss observed how people with learning difficulties in his Scottish congregation did not fall over, shake or do any of the other things that were expected to happen. He concluded that they were pretty guileless and therefore unlikely to put anything on in order to impress.

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quote:

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Without at all calling into question the holiness of the elderly RC gentleman who has been referred to but I submit that this is what is happening there ... the echo or 'trace' of TB remains in his reaction to praying for other people ... ie. he falls over. What's happening there? Is the Holy Spirit knocking him over every time? Or is it a conditioned, reflex response to what he was involved with some 20 years ago?

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quote:

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What's happening there? Is the Holy Spirit knocking him over every time?

Or is it a conditioned, reflex response to what he was involved with some 20 years ago?

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quote:

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Why were people lying around giggling when there was a community to serve?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:
Heidi Baker who must be a kind of poster girl for the Toronto Blessing and experiencing extreme manifestations of the spirit also heads up an organisation in Mozambique that is about housing orphans, bringing medical assistance; feeding people as well as preaching the gospel. She would say that she couldn't do the latter without the former....

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Well, that's where I get off these days I think.

A specific experience may lead to a particularly powerful ministry, but it's all too tempting to conclude a) that a specific experience will lead to a particularly powerful ministry or b) that it is a condition for a particularly powerful ministry, to be enjoined on others (and that's before we even begin discussing what a "powerful ministry" might actually look like in the long term).

I started speaking in tongues, spontaneously, on my own, after several years theological debate within myself, something over 30 years ago, while I was staying with a missionary family in Spain.

I'll never forget the day after sharing this experience. The wife of the couple cornered me with the sort of expression of naughty complicity more usually reserved for invitations to the adult section of a bookshop (or so I imagine).

"Now you're baptised in the Spirit", she said, "you'll be able to enjoy this" - and handed me a Dales Bible Week praise cassette.

I almost renounced my experience on the spot. The wind blows where it listeth, not channelled throught some sort of cookie-cutter initiatory programme.

[ 05. September 2014, 20:07: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ha ha ha ...



I can certainly sympathise with that, Eutychus!

It's impossible to 'prove' one way or another but I rather suspect that those who have gone on to work in challenging areas and to exercise a ministry in difficult situations would have done so anyway - with or without the TB thing ...

If anything, the whole tenor of the thing was to play down hard work and effort ... God was going to do everything, all we had to do was to 'let go'.

It's exemplified, I think, in the example that the late lamented Douglas McBain gave of one of the more obviously spurious stories from the TB era that was given extra spin and currency by being spread by the Mumfords and others ... I even heard Bryn Jones cite it ...

The story went as follows ... someone was going home from one of the meetings and was so 'drunk in the Spirit' that he was weaving all over the road and was pulled over by the police who sought to apply a breathalyser test. When he breathed on the coppers they were overwhelmed by the power of the Spirit and fell to the ground ...

'When God shows up evangelism is a breeze, people!' Mrs Mumford declared to great applause and hilarity at one of the rallies.

The trouble was, there was no evidence whatsoever for the event ever having taken place ... it was a complete urban myth.

I've not read it yet, but I like the title of Martyn Percy's essay about 1990s evangelical charismaticism, 'City on a Beach'.

Sure, there were people who went out and did some costly and difficult things, but by and large the whole tenor of 1990s charismaticdom was all about being blessed and waiting for God to 'show up' and sort everything out on your behalf.

It was all pretty shallow.

What depths there were were depths that were there already.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
You see, this is where I find myself uncomfortably sort of on the other side of the Cwmbran debate.

However much we were manipulated, deluded or self-deluded, I still think "God was in it" somewhere, and I can see some long-lasting positive effects.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:
What I have understood her to mean it's more that the latter (serving the community to an extreme degree) wouldn't be possible without time spent in God's presence (which might result in different manifestations and even extreme manifestations) rather than that the spiritual manifestations are necessary or a pre-requisite for powerful or effective service. I was especially thinking about her phrase that "all fruitfulness springs from intimacy".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:
I don't take intimacy to refer to sexual desire, sublimated or otherwise. Parent/child relationships and sibling relationships are intimate but not sexual for instance.

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quote:

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And since pretty much anything can lead to "one-upmanship" and unfortunately does this can't really be used as an argument against much in and of itself.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:

What I have understood her to mean it's more that the latter (serving the community to an extreme degree) wouldn't be possible without time spent in God's presence (which might result in different manifestations and even extreme manifestations) rather than that the spiritual manifestations are necessary or a pre-requisite for powerful or effective service. I was especially thinking about her phrase that "all fruitfulness springs from intimacy".

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The problem is that it phrasing it in such a way can end up implying that the experience is of necessity going to be of a certain level of intensity. I know all sorts of people who have served in all kinds of capacities, including incredibly sacrificially, often for decades at a time, who don't seem to have needed experiences of that kind to actually prime them to do so.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure ... and, as I've done before on these boards, I often think of my Great Aunt Nell, one of 12 and confined to a couch for much of her life through severe cerebral palsy.

She never got to go to any bouncy, lively church services. She never had any special 'experiences'. Yet the vicar took her communion every week and said at her funeral that he'd learned more from her about patience and long-suffering than anything he'd been taught at seminary.

I daresay that if Christians were to wait until they had special experiences and 'anointings' then nothing much would have been done over the last 2,000 years.

I don't know anything about Heidi Baker, but I can think of plenty of people who've done some pretty good stuff without having 'soakings' or 'anointings' and all the rest of it ...

There are people out there tonight who are caring for sick relatives, dealing with abusive partners, struggling to bring up families on low incomes, dealing with physical and sexual abuse ...

Where're the whoopy-doopy experiences for them?

How about those Christians who are living as refugees from Syria, or those who've fled Mosul in the wake of the IS carnage?

Are they having wonderful ecstatic experiences?

There'll be street pastors out on the streets this evening, Salvation Army officers staffing women's refuges and homeless shelters ... all without special ecstatic experiences to enable or equip them to do so.
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
Ah, the Toronto Blessing ...

I'm cautiously charismatic, I guess. And I would echo a lot of the critique here.

I read a bit of Martyn Percy's article. Not all of it (not had the time). What strikes me is his pointing out that previous Evangelical revivals (like the Wesleyan one) led, or were linked to, major societal reforms like the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women.

Also: things like simplicity and obedience and seeking to follow the gospel bear lasting fruit, no matter what kind of package they come in.

The 'fruit' of the Toronto Blessing seems pretty damn sparse in comparison.

I went to a lot of meetings during the TB. Much of it I would now dismiss as auto-suggestion. Some of it was downright appalling. One of the worst TB meetings I went to, this would be in summer 1994, was at a Newfrontiers church. That meeting is forever etched on my mind because at no point whatsoever in the proceedings did anyone open a Bible. Not once. Nope, it was all about the Experience - and personally I thought the Experience was completely naff, all that rolling about on the floor and laughing like a loon. It left me cold. It was unattractive and silly.

And yet not all the meetings were appalling. I too have friends who said they received significant emotional healing during TB-style meetings and since I've had similar experiences in non-TB contexts, I'm reluctant to dismiss that as just being auto-suggestion.

Maybe it's a case of the Holy Spirit doing His work despite our silliness and religious showing-off.

I've never thrown the charismatic baby out with the charismatic bathwater. I still believe in the power of the Spirit. But I'm not convinced that everything that happens under the charismatic umbrella is of the Spirit and I am very wary of hype and manipulation.

I was never particularly into Wimber and his teaching. But I did like a lot of Vineyard worship from the late 80s and early 90s. It wasn't entirely unlike a charismatic version of Taizé, in a way. Simple worship and, yes, intimate. It sounds sweetly old-fashioned now. Still heaps better than Bethel.

Wimber was not a great influence on me but the late, great David Watson (a wise bird) very much was, and also the late John White (the psychiatrist who eventually joined Vineyard).
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I have only seen negatives from this sort of thing. But I have a godless pentacostal relative who spends their time mutually reinforcing others who belief they can somehow call the spirit into themselves. Which has always seemed so terribly self centred, and in that context, I agree with the auto-suggestion. Which comes up in many religions, cults and political movements.
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
I had had charismatic experience well before Toronto. I encountered Toronto at Stoneleigh Bible Week 1994, doing "carpet time" right at the end of the week. We "exported" the blessing back to our church, which soon led to us splitting from our parent church and mission, becoming much more overtly charismatic in practice, and within a few years to us joining NFI.

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quote:

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godless Pentecostal

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quote:

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Sure ... and, as I've done before on these boards, I often think of my Great Aunt Nell, one of 12 and confined to a couch for much of her life through severe cerebral palsy.

She never got to go to any bouncy, lively church services. She never had any special 'experiences'. Yet the vicar took her communion every week and said at her funeral that he'd learned more from her about patience and long-suffering than anything he'd been taught at seminary.

I daresay that if Christians were to wait until they had special experiences and 'anointings' then nothing much would have been done over the last 2,000 years.

I don't know anything about Heidi Baker, but I can think of plenty of people who've done some pretty good stuff without having 'soakings' or 'anointings' and all the rest of it ...

There are people out there tonight who are caring for sick relatives, dealing with abusive partners, struggling to bring up families on low incomes, dealing with physical and sexual abuse ...

Where're the whoopy-doopy experiences for them?

How about those Christians who are living as refugees from Syria, or those who've fled Mosul in the wake of the IS carnage?

Are they having wonderful ecstatic experiences?

There'll be street pastors out on the streets this evening, Salvation Army officers staffing women's refuges and homeless shelters ... all without special ecstatic experiences to enable or equip them to do so.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:

That doesn't mean that people from other church backgrounds might not be more heavily represented in other places but it does again suggest that felt experiences of God's love and peace (and I am not saying either that these are exclusive to more charismatic Christians either but one of the common criticisms of charismatic Christians is that they overly focus on these experiences) and serving other people are not mutually exclusive things.

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quote:

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Gamaliel: Years ago, I read Brother Lawrence's 'The Practice of the Presence of God.' I was expecting some kind of mystical technique or other ... instead, it was all about getting on and doing the ordinary, everyday things 'as unto the Lord' ... peeling potatoes to the glory of God as it's been described.

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quote:

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Gamaliel: What didn't you like about it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:
In terms of dismissing the idea that greater intimacy (I am happy for suggestions of a better word here that doesn't hold unhelpful connotation if you can provide one) leads to greater fruitfulness what would you do with Jesus's parable of the vine which suggests abiding in Jesus as being the source of any fruitfulness and then later turns to talking about the disciples as friends. What does abiding in Jesus mean here?

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quote:

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My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name

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quote:

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It's a bit like the late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom's well-known book on prayer. When I first read it I thought, 'Is that it?'

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quote:

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Originally posted by Green Mario:

What do you do with all the description of fellowship with God in John's writings? or Paul talking about being in Christ. Is this just something that is objectively true or is there/can there be an element of subjective experience to these things in your opinion; and if there is should this be a normative experience or quite exceptional?

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I think that for many people it can be something that is experienced largely objectively for large periods of time - or 'worse', there are a fairly significant number of missionaries who have experienced what can only be described as a dark night of the soul - albeit one that continued for decades. There's the minister I know who has had a huge impact on other ministers, yet whose own ministry seems to have been mired in mediocrity and who confesses that he has been often confused as to why God has put him in the place he has.

The idea that our searching after God is always met with some kind of subjective intimacy is rather blown away by the witness of books like Job, or large parts of the Psalms.

These things are to be valued - but insisting on them threatens to create a new Law that is more tyrannical than the first one.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thinking about the Orthodox approach for a moment ... it's interesting that the Eastern Christian tradition doesn't put a great deal of emphasis on 'altered states of consciousness' as such ... it's more an issue of a sharpening or a quickening of the spiritual senses as it were.

The 'hesychasm' thing may sound rather hypnotic but it's not meant to induce trances and so on.

I can't remember which Orthodox writer/theologian said that 'the glory of God is a human being fully alive' - but that's the nub of it, I think.

We are to be fully human.

Barking and clucking and rolling on the floor doesn't necessarily add to that and may even detract from it ...

In some TB circles some of the more 'bestial' manifestations were seen as symbolic in some way - the roar of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah etc.

My brother-in-law did observe someone adopt some kind of 'birdlike' position and demeanour in a wrapt kind of way that seemed to suggest a dove-like sense of peace ... but generally speaking I'm not so sure that this kind of behaviour lent itself to 'interpretation' in that kind of 'prophetic' way ...

I'm not ruling that out ... but it would be pretty unusual I would suggest.

'Intimacy' with God needn't imply euphoric experiences necessarily ... sometimes it's simply hard-graft.
 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
Gamaliel, I'm very disappointed with you.

How could you start this thread now, when I'm not going to be able to give much attention to it for about three weeks? There's already been so much written that I want to respond to. But no time at the moment...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, reading the minds of people I've never met in real life is not one of my accomplishments, Goperryrevs ...

I obviously didn't spend long enough 'marinading' in the Spirit ...



I'm happy to lay off this topic for a bit and come back to it when you've had your say whenever you're able to do so.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Aaarggh ... getting people's names muddled up is one of my many failings.



Apologies Oscar the Grouch, for some reason I thought you were Goperryrevs.


 

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Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Falling on the floor, plus (optional) rolling around on it laughing/ roaring

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So the Toronto Blessing was the original ROTFLMAO?

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I would point out that this acronym was in use prior to the arrival of the web, and of the Toronto Airport blessing. Although I would be very surprised if anybody involved at the beginning of the Toronto events was using the net back in the 80's.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It's because Goperryrevs posted on the Cwmbran thread and I was flitting between the two.

Still, no excuse.


 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
Ha ha! Well done, Gamaliel. You've given me a good laugh.

I don't wanna stop the discussion, but will reserve the right to resurrect it when I have a proper chance to write seriously (probably at the end of Sept).

I'm sure everyone would love to hear my words of wisdom and experience on this...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
We wait with baited breath ...



It'd be good to hear your take on this one, Oscar, I do enjoy your posts.

I'd also be interested in hearing from people with experience of more recent developments ie. those for whom it led to further revivalist activity ... rather than marking a tipping point towards the exit as it were ...
 

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Posted by Darllenwr (# 14520) on :
 
I am beginning to wonder what hole I was down when all this was happening - it appears to have passed me by almost completely.

I can just about recall hearing something of the Toronto Phenomenon at the time, and being rather worried by it.

Cards on the table; I am currently a Lay Minister (Reader) in the CinW. At the time of Toronto, I had not long entered the Anglican setup and was in training for my current role. I live on the charismatic-evangelical wing of the church (OK, so you can start sticking your labels on now, if it will help you ) so speaking in tongues and the like were well within my experience, but barking like a dog or roaring like a lion? That was a different matter.

I think my main objection was that I could see no useful purpose to it, other than entertainment for a few. My perennial question was always, "But what is it doing for anybody outside the church?" - the answer at the time appeared to be, "Precious little" - which made me rather sceptical of the proposition that this was a move of God's Spirit.

I remain sceptical of dramatic phenomena. More cards on the table; I am NYFO - Not Yet Fallen Over. I have never done carpet time. This may well be because I fail to see the point. Yet I use tongues in prayer as a regular part of worship. You may draw what conclusions you wish - I won't take much notice (again, !).

I firmly believe that God speaks to His people through His Spirit, even today. What I find more difficult to believe is that this has to include weird phenomena like those associated with Toronto. I believe it was Adrian Plass who satirised the phenomenon, calling his version of it the "Taiwanese Tickle". His (fictional) Elder essentially shrugged his shoulders at it and remarked that, "It will pass".

I am always disturbed when I see the Holy Spirit being invoked as a form of entertainment. To my mind, there was a sizeable element of this tied up in Toronto, at least once it had moved elsewhere. As regards long-term 'fruit', I remain unconvinced.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think your post raises a point that needs making, Darllenwr, and that is that not all of charismaticdom succumbed to the TB thing ...

It was certainly possible to be charismatic in the mid-1990s and to have avoided it completely.

That said, most of the outfits who would have considered themselves to have been where things were 'at' were heavily influenced by it.

Where I was, the TB thing didn't last very long ... it sort of came and went and we simply picked ourselves up and got on with business as usual.

I also know of places where it was hardly ever mentioned thereafter ... a bit like an embarrassing incident on a first date ...

My experience of the charismatic scene in general is that - on the whole - it isn't that good at reflection and cogitation ... there wasn't a great deal of effort put into trying to understand what had gone on or to put it into some kind of theological context or framework ... still less to actually try to evaluate whether there'd been any fruit and what the purpose of the whole thing was.

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was a passing fad ... or, rather, the boiling over and culmination of heightened expectations ... rather like a saucepan of milk boiling over. Once the hot froth sizzles down the sides, the milk settles back down once you lower the heat.
 

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Posted by Lord Pontivillian (# 14308) on :
 
Darllenwr has just come and mentioned that Paul mentions that services out to be done in an orderly fashion, how some of the wackier elements of TB fit in with this he was not quite so sure. He also noted that the Celts thought of the Wild Goose as a representation of the Holy Spirit, as they cause chaos and shit when they turn up!

[ 08. September 2014, 21:53: Message edited by: Lord Pontivillian ]
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
I also very happily missed out on the Toronto Blessing - fair enough, I'm a hands-down for coffee MotR Anglican, but while I was university, friends who were of the more charismatic persuasion where caught up in with it/in it.

I don't know: it always seemed like a fringe thing that was viewed as slightly odd and not at all necessary. The kind of thing that if you'd told your mum about, she'd have said "That's nice, dear" before offering you another biscuit.

And twenty years later, I don't believe I've missed out on anything extraordinary. What I've read here simply confirms that.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lord Pontivillian:
Darllenwr has just come and mentioned that Paul mentions that services out to be done in an orderly fashion, how some of the wackier elements of TB fit in with this he was not quite so sure.

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That is easy. Well before Toronto, John Wimber used to say the emphasis should not be on the "decently and in order" but on the first part of the verse: "let ALL things be done"!

(He would then go on to back this up by saying that the place where everything was really decent and in order was a cemetery...)
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

(He would then go on to back this up by saying that the place where everything was really decent and in order was a cemetery...)

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Which is nonsense of course.

But 'decent and in order' is a very cultural thing.

I was brought up in South Africa and my Dad was a Minister for black churches in Soweto. The services were often total chaos with translations into seven languages and kids everywhere, often with nowhere to sit and people hanging in at the windows. Orderly they were not! But they were wonderful and the amout of community good those churches did was uncountable.
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 
I think somewhere up-thread somebody pointed out that there was a pattern to TB meetings / worship. I could rehearse an order of service giving almost a minute-by-minute programme! Order, though not IMO, decent.
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
Anecdotally there were reports of Communion being "pulled" in favour of "ministry time". May not be true, though.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Anecdotally there were reports of Communion being "pulled" in favour of "ministry time". May not be true, though.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Anecdotally there were reports of Communion being "pulled" in favour of "ministry time". May not be true, though.

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It was true in certain circles - in general it wasn't a huge consideration as most of these congregations didn't have communion that frequently to start with.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I think the different perceptions that some of us have ended up also depend on where we were at the time.

Would I be right that quite a lot of those posting here were in positions of Christian leadership?

As I said before, I was one of the little people in the plastic bucket seats and very much not a “leader”. I was never as convinced about the whole thing as many of the “leaders” seemed to be. I think a lot of us weren’t but we were nervous about saying so for being considered lukewarm or resisting the Spirit or something.

Actually, I think one of the biggest positives of the whole thing for me was that it forced me back to the Bible. I remember at a CU houseparty which upset and frightened people, one girl getting her big-chunky-Bible-with-enormous-concordance out and asking for chapter and verse for the people lying on the floor and the rest. She wasn’t being shirty, she genuinely wanted to know, from the point of view of “Maybe this is in the Bible and I’ve missed it. If so, I will happily go along with it. But I want to see where it is in the Bible.”

In that respect it was good for me. I admit to being a rather naïve and gullible person at times (especially at that stage in my life when I was younger and of fairly recent conversion) and there have been occasions when I accepted stuff just because Christians leaders told it was so. But in the end I wasn’t satisfied until I had really studied the Bible for myself to find out what it says about the Holy Spirit to the best of my understanding (FWIW, I’m still more or less a Pentecostal, but have severe reservations about extreme charismatic phenomena.)
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
As I said before, I was one of the little people in the plastic bucket seats and very much not a “leader”.

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quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I think the different perceptions that some of us have ended up also depend on where we were at the time.

Would I be right that quite a lot of those posting here were in positions of Christian leadership?

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I wasn't, I generally vacillated between feeling the effects of pressure to get involved in what was going on, and being a one man awkward squad.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I was in congregational leadership of a Pentecostal church at the time and also a housegroup leader. We didn't do plastic...
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Besides, I thought the whole point of the TB was to clear the chairs/pews away
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I wasn't a leader but at times I had pretensions and delusions that I might be ...

So, part of the TB thing for me was, 'Aha! I've got the anointing now ... my gifts and ministry will at long last be recognised ...'



I quickly came to the conclusion, though, that this wasn't going to happen nor was it desirable - at least not in that kind of context.

I think the 'context' comes into this, as ever. The 'shape' that the TB did seem to depend on the underlying shape and tendency/inclination of those fellowships that went along with it.

The reaction against it from some of the Pentecostals was different, I think, from their initial reaction against the charismatic movement in the older denominations. The thing that bothered a lot of the older style Pentecostals was that tongues weren't very much in evidence and also - as La Vie en Rouge has indicated with her CU friend - there didn't seem to be a great deal of scriptural evidence for some of the manifestations ...

The Penties do tend to proof-text, but at least they do go to the scriptures to test things.

Dr Andrew Walker the sociologist/theologian came from an Elim Pentecostal background and always maintained that the older school Penties weren't generally as easily taken in by fads and fancies as the later, more middle-class charismatics.

I wouldn't say that was always the case - I can think of examples where the opposite has been true - but as a general principle I think it holds water.

As for the Wild Goose and chaos, shitting everywhere ... well, yes, the Celts did use the Wild Goose as a symbol of the Holy Spirit and that was to do with freedom to fly hither and yon and so on ... but I'm not sure they'd have used the idea of the Holy Spirit 'turning up' or 'showing up' in quite the same way ...

Sure, the older traditions have the 'epiclesis' in the Eucharist but that doesn't mean that they are directing God the Holy Spirit as some kind of impersonal faith-force ... which is what I saw happen in some TB circles ... as if the Holy Spirit were some kind of vibe or power that could be thrown and tossed around a room ... like some kind of party-game ...

Grrr ...



As for the decently and in order thing - as time went on there was very much a TB liturgy - as Mark Wuntoo has indicated. You could pretty much set your watch by what was going to happen and when.

It is relatively easy to direct and induce these things in a congregation once they've got going. Heck, even I could do it and I wasn't officially on the leadership team ...
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
It was a mixture, I think. I remember seeing a VHS tape from Toronto, a lot of which struck me as quite weird, but there was one remarkable reconciliation between a German pastor and a very hurting Jewish man whose family had been decimated by WW2.

Never went myself; I know three church leaders who went there knackered and came back revived. For all I know there may have been movement in the reverse direction as well.

I've only heard John Arnott speak once (in the UK) and liked what he had to say. Good intro, including the phrase "People have asked me why I'm into this stuff when its so controversial and reputation-damaging. These days I tend to respond that Carol and I no longer have any reputation to lose". Then he spoke wisely and well about estranged family relationships, an issue which was a source of great pain to me at the time. I went forward for prayer, something changed in me and I was greatly helped in taking positive steps to restore good family relationships.

Of course I've read all the other stuff, and have my own reservations about the potential for manipulation and subsequent disillusionment. One swallow does not make a summer.
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:
being a one man awkward squad.

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Two actually
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
On the context thing, ExclamationMark, I think, has already alluded to the Decade of Evangelism and so on. The late '80s/early '90s was a time where revivalist expectations had been ratcheted up to some extent:

- By the growth of the 'new churches' - and although much of that growth was by transfer there were certainly new converts around too.

- By the rise of Spring Harvest and initiatives like the JIM (Jesus in Me) campaign.

- There'd been the 'March for Jesus' thing and also the 'From Minus to Plus' mass mailing campaign by Reinhard Bonkke.

Some of these - Decade of Evangelism, JIM and Minus to Plus - were seen as having failed to deliver the promised results ... so when the TB thing came along many people thought, 'Well, we've tried everything else, now this is God's way ...'

Whilst I think there is evidence for personal renewal in all of this - and I know people who say that they benefitted greatly, the impact in terms of evangelism was pretty negligible.

Indeed, to some extent it was quite a turn-off ... we lost a number of new converts who were freaked out by the whole thing.

Like at any other time, there was a mix of good, bad and indifferent.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Some of these - Decade of Evangelism, JIM and Minus to Plus - were seen as having failed to deliver the promised results ... so when the TB thing came along many people thought, 'Well, we've tried everything else, now this is God's way ...'

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quote:

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Indeed, to some extent it was quite a turn-off ... we lost a number of new converts who were freaked out by the whole thing.

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I think what it did for other people was promote the idea of a kind of charismatic pilgrimage (in the Lourdes sense) plus the idea that manifestations didn't have to be obviously useful or spiritual - so when the whole gold dust thing started at the tail end of the TB, even the EA did an article on it.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
[Tangent]
Wild Goose as a sign of the Holy Spirit in the Celtic Church sounds to me very much like a George Macleodism. I forget where the seed of doubt was sown for me but when you know of others then this comes far too easily.

However, a several of things rather suggest this. I cannot trace a scholarly reference to this prior to 1990 (it was in use by the Iona Community prior to this date).

Another is the role of Wild Geese in Scotland. One of my oddities is actually I have spent time studying wild geese. Firstly they are largely winter birds coming in around mid-September. Large flocks of them inhabit estuary salt water marshes and open fields. I am trying to think of a native wild goose that is here all year round, (Canada Geese are of course introduced). Checked my book on Scottish birds and only a small number of Grey lags fall into that category. They did not tend to hang around the dwellings of people. What they would have been for the Celts that lived near them is a good source of meat, when food was scarce. Especially as I suspect they tend to move later in the winter from the estuary to the farmland; this is the behaviour of Barnacle Geese I just cannot speak for other species. So the idea they bring mess and chaos is not I think how the Celts would have seen it. Harbingers of winter, particularly birds that fly high over head honking as winter starts, and a source of meat in tough times are far more likely concepts.

Finally, most intriguing, without a doubt the Celts did use the dove. The Saint of the isle of Iona is Columba, translated from the latin as "Dove" and he is also known as "Columcille" or "Dove of the Church".
[/tangent]

Jengie
 

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Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
I've been pondering what to post for a while.
My initial plan was to write a list of good things vs bad things (I know x people who became Xtians (and still are)/ x people who (credibly) say their lives were changed to some extent/ these ministries started vs x people put off / church splits/ nutters becoming more famous etc) but on reflection Toronto can't be presumed, let alone proved to have causality.
I suspect that Toronto was in some ways a catalyst: my friends would probably have become believers, Eutychus would have ended up serving the poor, and the church down the road would have disbanded anyway but not as swiftly or suddenly.
The TB for me seems to have been about a particularly experiential and participatory expression of the faith. Long term healthy spirituality needs to combine the objective and subjective and involve elements of both outward looking sacrificial service and and inward looking care for oneself. Therefore for some the TB was a corrective season that fuelled positive things on an ongoing basis. For others .....
I would agree that it was a springboard for the expansion of Alpha (and strangely thus also Emmaus and Xtianity Explored).
I wonder if the immediacy of at all made it in some ways a quite postmodern expression of Church?
It certainly “revived” the Asuza St model of touristic, marketable reivialism (yes, Bent Toddly I'm looking at you).
On a very subjective personal level I still expect God to do stuff (how ever you define that )if I pray for/with someone.
I'm also disappointed that genuine revival hasn't yet broken out in the UK.....
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
I suspect that Toronto was in some ways a catalyst: my friends would probably have become believers, Eutychus would have ended up serving the poor, and the church down the road would have disbanded anyway but not as swiftly or suddenly.

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Ah, I don't think I've ever agreed so heartily about something you've posted

quote:

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I'm also disappointed that genuine revival hasn't yet broken out in the UK.....

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This, on the other hand...

 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It always puzzled me how a bunch of people who were already Christians falling over or laughing together in a room was supposed to usher in revival.

One of the most telling and wince-inducing things about Martyn Percy's critique of the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship was that whilst they enjoyed world-wide fame among the charismatic Christian constituency, hardly anyone in Toronto itself had heard of them ...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
The Azusa Street 'marketable' model pre-dates Azusa Street.

Azusa Street itself was triggered/influenced by accounts of the Welsh Revival.

The Cane Ridge Revivals in Kentucky in the early 1800s also spawned a host of imitators. Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric US frontiers preacher helped initiate the first UK 'camp meetings' at Mow Cop in 1806 ... just a few miles from where I'm sitting ... although without the same kind of holy rollerin' - at least, not initially.

Revivalism was certainly being 'manufactured' and marketed as a commodity by the 1830s ... followers of Finney had manuals telling them how to go about inducing revival ...
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
And - while it may not have been "manufactured" - the early Pentecostal movement spread from Azusa Street to Norway (TB Barratt) and thus to England (AA Boddy).
 

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Posted by Darllenwr (# 14520) on :
 
In response to La Vie en rouge, at the time that TB was prevalent, I was in that in-between stage where I was neither fish nor fowl. I was a Reader-in-training, which meant that some people might have considered me a leader of some sort, but plenty more would not. Which is pretty much the case to this day.

From my own perspective, I reckon you are only a leader if people are following you. As far as I am aware, I have no followers, ergo I am not a leader.

I suppose that being buried in an Anglican church in the darkest Welsh Valleys largely protected me from the wilder excesses of Toronto - various stories filtered through but, personally, I saw none of it. I cannot recall there being any visible impact in this valley, though with my Reader training and a young son as well, I had a lot on my mind at the time, so may have missed what was going on.

A few years ago, I had occasion to attend a baptism at one of the more 'excessive' Pentecostal churches locally (Tram Road, Pontllanffraith). In fairness, it is probably not entirely unbiased of me to describe the church in this fashion - it is probably more correct to say that it didn't appeal to me. On the other hand, a Pentecostal friend of mine who also attended a service there (his daughter's baptism) remarked that it was louder than any heavy metal concert he had ever attended and the only time he had attended church and had his ears bleeding afterwards! You may draw your own conclusions. However, whilst it may be loud there were no evidences of the sort of activity that I associated with TB, albeit some 10 years after the events. It tends to suggest that Toronto did not leave much of a legacy around here.
 

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Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lord Pontivillian:
Darllenwr has just come and mentioned that Paul mentions that services out to be done in an orderly fashion, how some of the wackier elements of TB fit in with this he was not quite so sure. He also noted that the Celts thought of the Wild Goose as a representation of the Holy Spirit, as they cause chaos and shit when they turn up!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Darllenwr:
I am beginning to wonder what hole I was down when all this was happening - it appears to have passed me by almost completely.

I can just about recall hearing something of the Toronto Phenomenon at the time, and being rather worried by it.

Cards on the table; I am currently a Lay Minister (Reader) in the CinW. At the time of Toronto, I had not long entered the Anglican setup and was in training for my current role. I live on the charismatic-evangelical wing of the church (OK, so you can start sticking your labels on now, if it will help you ) so speaking in tongues and the like were well within my experience, but barking like a dog or roaring like a lion? That was a different matter.

I think my main objection was that I could see no useful purpose to it, other than entertainment for a few. My perennial question was always, "But what is it doing for anybody outside the church?" - the answer at the time appeared to be, "Precious little" - which made me rather sceptical of the proposition that this was a move of God's Spirit.

I remain sceptical of dramatic phenomena. More cards on the table; I am NYFO - Not Yet Fallen Over. I have never done carpet time. This may well be because I fail to see the point. Yet I use tongues in prayer as a regular part of worship. You may draw what conclusions you wish - I won't take much notice (again, !).

I firmly believe that God speaks to His people through His Spirit, even today. What I find more difficult to believe is that this has to include weird phenomena like those associated with Toronto. I believe it was Adrian Plass who satirised the phenomenon, calling his version of it the "Taiwanese Tickle". His (fictional) Elder essentially shrugged his shoulders at it and remarked that, "It will pass".

I am always disturbed when I see the Holy Spirit being invoked as a form of entertainment. To my mind, there was a sizeable element of this tied up in Toronto, at least once it had moved elsewhere. As regards long-term 'fruit', I remain unconvinced.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
I suspect that Toronto was in some ways a catalyst: my friends would probably have become believers, Eutychus would have ended up serving the poor, and the church down the road would have disbanded anyway but not as swiftly or suddenly.

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Ah, I don't think I've ever agreed so heartily about something you've posted

quote:

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I'm also disappointed that genuine revival hasn't yet broken out in the UK.....

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This, on the other hand...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It always puzzled me how a bunch of people who were already Christians falling over or laughing together in a room was supposed to usher in revival.

One of the most telling and wince-inducing things about Martyn Percy's critique of the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship was that whilst they enjoyed world-wide fame among the charismatic Christian constituency, hardly anyone in Toronto itself had heard of them ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
point 2 - for "revival" read lots/some/more than a few people becoming Xtians than do at present.

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quote:

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1) First, converted and unconverted men, women and children, stunned by a vision both of God's holiness and his mercy, are awakened in large numbers to repentance, faith and worship.
2) Second, God's power is manifest in human lives in ways no psychological or sociological laws can explain adequately.
3) Third, the community as a whole becomes aware of what is happening, many perceiving the movement as a threat to existing institutions.
4) Fourth, some men and women exhibit unusual physical and emotional manifestations. These create controversy.
5) Fifth, some revival Christians behave in an immature and impulsive way, while others fall into sin. In this was the revival appears to be a strange blend of godly and ungodly influences, of displays of divine power and of human weakness.
6) Sixth, wherever the revival is extensive enough to have national impact, sociopolitical reform follows over the succeeding century.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Azusa Street 'marketable' model pre-dates Azusa Street.

Azusa Street itself was triggered/influenced by accounts of the Welsh Revival.

The Cane Ridge Revivals in Kentucky in the early 1800s also spawned a host of imitators. Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric US frontiers preacher helped initiate the first UK 'camp meetings' at Mow Cop in 1806 ... just a few miles from where I'm sitting ... although without the same kind of holy rollerin' - at least, not initially.

Revivalism was certainly being 'manufactured' and marketed as a commodity by the 1830s ... followers of Finney had manuals telling them how to go about inducing revival ...

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Azusa is a convient C20th label and whilst it inspired church planting and missionary work to a far greater extent than Toronto it's focus was, like Toronto, on bringing Xtians into a greater experience of God.
Finney (give an American the gospel and he'll fix it as I once heared (an American) reformed pastor say ) et al were aiming to convert the unconverted.
Having been brought up in Essex I have a soft spot for the tale that in days of yore when the East Anglian Puritans felt at a low ebb spiritually they would visit the Lectures and Sermons of "Roaring" Rogers saying "let us fetch fire from Dedham".
 

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Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
point 2 - for "revival" read lots/some/more than a few people becoming Xtians than do at present.

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What? That's creative redefinition before you've even started!

According to John White in When the Spirit comes with power (p32-33), "revival" means:

quote:

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1) First, converted and unconverted men, women and children, stunned by a vision both of God's holiness and his mercy, are awakened in large numbers to repentance, faith and worship.
2) Second, God's power is manifest in human lives in ways no psychological or sociological laws can explain adequately.
3) Third, the community as a whole becomes aware of what is happening, many perceiving the movement as a threat to existing institutions.
4) Fourth, some men and women exhibit unusual physical and emotional manifestations. These create controversy.
5) Fifth, some revival Christians behave in an immature and impulsive way, while others fall into sin. In this was the revival appears to be a strange blend of godly and ungodly influences, of displays of divine power and of human weakness.
6) Sixth, wherever the revival is extensive enough to have national impact, sociopolitical reform follows over the succeeding century.

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We could debate whether that's a good definition or indeed a desirable state of affairs, but I think it's a bit more than a few more people becoming Christians, innit?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:
a few more conversions would be a good start and a desirable state of affairs

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I have no argument with that.

Where I do have a problem is when people prophesy or announce a revival and then retrospectively redefine "revival" as something else, as Paul Cain did in 1990 about the UK (see here).

It is very difficult not to fall into this trap if revival is part of everyday church discourse, especially if revival doesn't actually show up.
 

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Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
That's the point where, as Gamaliel observes, a short memory is required (or a healthy dose of cynicism).
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Yes, but cynicism to any degree is precisely the sort of attitude that is frowned upon in such circles. One is (or was) supposed to "believe the best" and "not make doctrines out of disappointments"
 

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Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
Holy cynicism?
So much for being as wise as serpents, part of being discerning (the great neglected gift of the Spirit as per Tom Smail if I recall) is spotting and rejecting the tosh.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes indeed.

The tosh can take over though. The more widespread it gets and the more people sign up for it the harder it is to shout that the Emperor has no clothes ...

I'd also suggest that we need a dose of reality and a sense of historical perspective when looking at past revivals. I grew up in South Wales and am all too familiar with a kind of rose-tinted spectacles view of the revivalist past.

A similar thing happens with the 'Celtic Christianity' that ExclamationMark has mentioned.

Post TB, people were looking for something more 'grounded' and although the so-called 'Celtic' thing had been around for a while, this seemed like a good route to take as it could fit - or be squeezed - into a largely anabaptist (small a) paradigm.

I think a lot of that was silly too.

Again, little sense of a genuine historical perspective.

And in a commodified, late capitalist religious paradigm all these things end up being 'marketed' and branded and labelled and ...
 

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Posted by Arminian (# 16607) on :
 
On the three occasions I saw John and Carol Arnott nothing particularly outrageous was happening. They seemed to be genuinely nice people not in it for the money. Didn't find anything to object to in the sermons either. Can't say the same for a lot of other charismatic 'stars' who don't have to speak for long before you find a psychological con job going on to open your wallet...

The only time I saw someone howling was actually between meetings whilst he was sat with a friend on his own praying. The next day he looked like a different person, more 'whole' and relaxed. None of the ministry team or Arnotts were about. Was it God, was it psychology at play ? Who knows...
 

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Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And in a commodified, late capitalist religious paradigm all these things end up being 'marketed' and branded and labelled and ...

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Church has become a product and we're caught up the advertisers "new is good: old is bad" syndrome. Hence Celtic, bethel, fire tunnels, cell church and all that garbage.

I just wonder how long it will be before the "new wine and old wineskins" analogies are dragged out again.

What we've lost is (firstly) a desire for the heart of the Christian faith (love, holiness, grace and sacrifice) because we're so afraid of being thought of as binary or judgemental and we don't want to count the personal cost. Then we've perhaps lost even the ability to discover the heart of the Christian faith as we drifted so far from the foundations of scripture, tradition and reason. Many churches will do anything to get bums on seats and quids in the bag, even to the extent of not talking about God. (I know churches within a few miles from where I am who actively brag about that).

All we've ended up with is church and denominations who are afraid to state what they believe, sacred to admit that they don't have the answers for some of the questions (which they pretend they do know) and a society that frankly is not bothered about the church at all because we have failed to deliver for them at a time of need. We're way too busy explaining arcane practices, wearing weird clothes and marginalising 51% of the population.

If we make a stand on something then at least we'll go down fighting for truth. If we don't stand for anything then we'll fall for everything.
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
"Fire tunnels" - that's a new one for me. If this is what is meant, then it sounds rather like a charismatic version of "Oranges and Lemons" I used to play as a child (without the "chopper to chop off your head"!)

I largely agree with EM except to say that we do live in an age where symbol and the visual may (like it or not) communicate better than words, hence this kind of multikinesthetic activity has its place. That is, of course, assuming that the theology behind it isn't loopy or pretentious!
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I quite like the wierd clothes ...



More seriously, I think it goes beyond churchmanship and 'style'. I well remember a friend I was trying to 'witness' to when I was keen new convert telling me that church was irrelevant because it was all fousty and old-fashioned with dirge-like tunes and men in black etc etc...

When I told him that there were churches around with guitars and joyful happy-clappy music he said, 'That's no good either, it frightens people ...'

I seem to remember someone saying, 'I sang a dirge and you would not mourn, I played a pipe and you would not dance ...'

Whatever we do isn't going to cut much mustard with a largely unchurched and dechurched/apathetic about organised religion and spirituality society.

I don't know what the answer is.

I know it doesn't lie in whether we roll around on the floor or whether we waggle thuribles around ...
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I can't remember which Orthodox writer/theologian said that 'the glory of God is a human being fully alive' - but that's the nub of it, I think.

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