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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Ordered charismata
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
This is a spin-off from the Brethren thread, where Baptist Trainfan posed the following, in response to something I'd written:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
The idea that 'now is a time for prophecy' or 'now is a time for tongues' just seems completely contradictory and I wish we'd cut it out.
Why? If you believe both that these things are genuine, and if you take St. Paul's injunctions about worship being done "decently and in order" and about the "spirit of the prophets being subject to the prophets", then surely this is the right way to do things.
Is your difficulty that you don't believe in these things and think they are spurious (and, goodness, I have heard enough trite "inspired" messages to last me a lifetime)? Or is it more along the lines of "If the Spirit inspires, then one must not hold back and formalise what is uttered"?
In response, I would start by posing back the questions "what do you mean by prophecy" and "what do you mean by tongues"?
For some, 'prophecy' seems to be about either saying something nice about someone else or else making a prediction on their future (usually in terms as woolly as a horoscope). It seems rather far removed from the sense of an observation of the present and an expression of hope, couple with a warning, about the future, as we see in the Old Testament and in the apocalyptic sections of the New.
With tongues, my hunch is that 99% of what you hear in charismatic churches is gobbledygook that is aped from one another. I would love to see a proper study done on the phonemes used within charismatic churches to see if their is a common language within a congregation, within a group of churches and how they compare to the phonemes within individual languages with which a person is familiar.
As for the question of order, my interpretation is that things need to not be chaotic and unruly, but I cannot get my head around setting a schedule for the Holy Spirit. Is God really going to be confined to meet our clocks? This is linked to why I object to things like a liturgical calendar, as it flies in the face of Galatians 4. IMHO, the Spirit will do as it will, but it is neither a God of anarchy, nor of the timetable.
Well, that's my twopenneth. What do other shipmates think about the matter?
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Hmmm ... not a great deal these days. I've probably heard enough 'tongues' and so-called prophecy to last me a lifetime.
I still think there's something in it - although I might extend your 99% of 'tongues' being learned-behaviour, copy-cat (unconsciously) gobbledegook to 99.9% ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
The fact is, I'm not really interested in 'tongues', prophecy and so-called spiritual gifts these days - but I'd sit up and take interest if I came across an example that actually seemed to have some point to it - or which led to some definite change or tangible result - and I don't doubt that this can happen.
I'm a lot happier with liturgy, to be honest ...
I'm equally as happy visiting places where they go in for more apparently informal styles of worship ... I don't 'object' to that in any way ... it's just not where I'm at these days.
Sorry.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
But I will insist on God the Holy Spirit being referred to as 'he' rather than 'it'.
God is always personal ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Slightly tangential--
The use of a ordered liturgy or lectionary is no shackle on the Holy Spirit. He can and does work through these things, often to the dismay of the pastor who gets screamed at for deliberately choosing Bible passages to target one person's sin! (Yes, this happened to us, and the person would NOT believe us when we said those readings were all chosen long ago by people far away who had no clue what X and Y were up to. What made it worse was, the readings continued to target that particular sin for what? four Sundays in a row? The people will never forgive us)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Sure ...
I know it doesn't go on 'feelings' but I don't 'feel' any less charismatic, as it were - or any more or less 'spiritual' (however that's defined) now I prefer set lectionary readings and liturgies and so on to apparently informal, apparently Spirit-led worship of the kind charismatics go in for ...
For me, God seems just as real in the Daily Office as he did when I'd jump around and speak in tongues and so on ...
I'm fairly neutral about charismata these days. If it happens and is genuine - then great ...
But I wouldn't go around looking for it.
I know I've been critical at times on these Boards but I wouldn't criticise those who still want to worship in a way they believe is closer to the NT ... but I've long since given up trying to base current church practice on what are, after all, pretty ambiguous texts in 1 Corinthians ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Jammy Dodger
Half jam, half biscuit
# 17872
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Posted
Interesting question in the OP. I am coming from a both/and perspective here - rather than either/or. e.g. prophecy and tongues aren't the only gifts - teaching is also regarded as a gift. However - wouldn't this be in the context of a pre-planned programme or at least a pre-prepared talk. But you would hope that both the teaching programme and the preparation and delivery of the message were all Spirit inspired, wouldn't you?
(Though to be fair to jump back to the Brethren, back in the day, even the preaching was spontaneous on the morning - a brother would just get up and share a sermon - as someone who preaches I have no idea how this worked and I wasn't old enough at the time to assess how helpful it was!)
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Look at my eye twitching - Donkey from Shrek
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But I will insist on God the Holy Spirit being referred to as 'he' rather than 'it'.
God is always personal ...
Holy spirit is a "he" and not a "she"?
God isn't very personal, rather disconnected, and a participant observer at best. Having come to distrust all these ecstatic experiences as some form of shared non-ordinary, non-material reality at least and shared delusion at most.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I seem to remember that the Gospel Hall in my home town advertised the name of the next Sunday's preacher on a notice outside the Hall.
My Latin master, who took me for O level Religious Studies, was one of the names that appeared.
I can't remember him displaying fundamentalism or evangelical smarm.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Holy spirit is a "he" and not a "she"?
God isn't very personal, rather disconnected, and a participant observer at best. Having come to distrust all these ecstatic experiences as some form of shared non-ordinary, non-material reality at least and shared delusion at most.
Tangent Alert
Oh dear. Earwig O'Agen.
If we believe God is three persons, God isn't 'not very personal, rather disconnected'. He's more of a person than we are. Speaking of the Holy Spirit as 'it' implies that he is not fully a person, not fully one of the Trinity, and so not fully God.
Once we reach that point, the Holy Spirit has to be 'he' or 'she'. However the Holy Spirit is neither male nor female.
If English were like Greek, Latin, French etc, in all of which, grammatical concordance frequently differs from and prevails over biological fact, that would not be a problem. Pronouns, adjectives etc agree with Pneuma, Spiritus and Esprit according to rules of grammar.
English doesn't do that. However, it has no pronoun for persons without gender (rather rare; indeed the Holy Spirit may be the only example) or beings whose gender we don't know yet (frequent). Until about 25 years ago, that was fine. Everyone used 'he' as the nondescript pronoun as well as the male one without thinking about it.
We can't do that now. But it is still the case that as soon as anyone speaks of the Holy Spirit as 'she' they are making a statement, trailing a coat and distracting attention from what they are probably talking about. So we're stuck with retaining the old usage. It is more important that the Holy Spirit is not an 'it'. Therefore he has to be a 'he'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Use of 'it' is intended to distance from the masculonormative, not to impersonalise God. The restriction in English is that we have no gender neutral personal pronoun.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
English is an awful language isn't it? The equal despair is experienced when people consider thee-thou language as more reverent when it is actually the familiar.
It may play differently, different places, but using "he" for the holy spirit makes an equal statement, and we are hearing an avoidance of gendered language in general here. "His table" has become routinely "this table" also.
On the other, I think there's a grave risk with an excessively personal god.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I get that, Sipech, but one of my particular bug-bears is how loose some charismatic evangelicals can be when it comes to classic Trinitarian doctrine - I'm with Enoch on this one.
Coming back to the OP, though - does it really matter whether there are 'set' times for tongues and prophecy or whether they occur more apparently spontaneously during gatherings when the vast majority of them are bollocks at worst or wishful thinking at best?
I can't remember the last time I heard a so-called prophecy that wasn't a vague, cliche-ridden utterance that was instantly forgettable or a load of froth and bluster.
And I speak as someone who was said to carry a 'prophetic anointing.'
So, here's a 'prophetic word' - most of what purports to be prophecy is anything but. Let's get over it already and use our time more effectively in church meetings - with more of our energies expended on useful stuff in our communities rather than tickling one another's ears with pious sounding pronouncements that we consider 'prophetic'.
Sometimes I think dear old Bishop Butler had it right, 'Sir, it is an horrid thing, a very horrid thing ...'
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I think it was Enthusiasm that Bishop B. regarded as horrible ...
I've come along a rather similar road to Gamaliel (tho' with less active involvement in charismatic churches). However, serving at present in a "traditional" church, there are times when I yearn after a bit more liveliness.
I did get annoyed at a ministers' meting a few years ago, when someone shared a "picture" at the beginning of the day which dominated subsequent proceedings. I know we were there to sense God's leading, but IMO that's better done in the sanctified cut-and-thrust of a good Church Meeting (in which a "Word of Wisdom" can definitely play its part, provided its not announced by a flourish of claimed anointedness).
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
[tangent]I tend to use they/them to describe the Persons of the Trinity, actually - gender-neutral but not obtrusively so (I don't think), plurality works in the case of the Trinity, feels more natural and more personal than it.[/tangent]
Anyway I hadn't actually properly heard people speaking in tongues until this Sunday when I went to a local Salt&Light church (local town has a group of 5 of them plus one in a local smaller town - they seem to have cornered the market because no other charismatic church is there) and it was less scary than I thought it would be...but it does just sound like the vocalisations X Factor contestants put in their songs or something, it doesn't sound like a language? Or at least this kind of glossolalia didn't.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
That's because it isn't a language.
There's nothing scary about glossolalia. Nor particularly supernatural either. I could 'teach' or instruct you how to make a reasonably convincing go of it in a way that would pass muster in most charismatic churchesin less than 10 minutes.
As for the 'personhood' of God the Holy Spirit, what I am getting at is that many charismatics seem to reduce the third person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity to some kind of almost impersonal 'faith-force' rather like electricity, whose sole purpose seems to to equip them with spectcular powers and gifts.
It was the 'pretending' to special revelations and 'gifts of the Holy Spirit' that Bishop Butler found 'an horrid thing, a very horrid thing ...'
I'm with Baptist Trainfan - I do believe that God the Holy Spirit gives insights and direction and I have no difficulty with this in the context of strategy or a 'church meeting' in the Baptist sense - nor a macro Conciliar sense as per the Orthodox.
But I am very wary these days of so-called prophetic words in the context of public worship. Quite frankly, I have little or no interest in them whatsoever.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I’m always struck at Pentecost that there are two aspects to the gift of the Spirit which we tend to regard as incompatible. There is the ecstatic side of the tongues of flame. But when the apostles preach the reaction is “we understood them preaching each in our own language.
There’s the rational, logical side or, since that is a rather baldly misleading way of putting it, there is the gift of intuitive understanding.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jammy Dodger:
Though to be fair to jump back to the Brethren, back in the day, even the preaching was spontaneous on the morning - a brother would just get up and share a sermon - as someone who preaches I have no idea how this worked and I wasn't old enough at the time to assess how helpful it was!
I've heard from someone who knows that the speakers
a) had study bibles with in built notes
b) had their own notes on small pieces of paper inside
c) were usually one of a very small group of people week on week
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
As I understand 1 Cor 14, there is no reason why everything has to be spontaneous. Paul seems to assume that people will bring a hymn, some instruction, a revelation with them when they arrive, and contribute it at the appropriate time. He also says that prophets are responsible for their own self control (1 Cor 14:32). They don't have to leap up and speak forth irrespective of what else may be happening at the same time, or whether someone else is already talking.
So it doesn't shock me that some people in an assembly arrive with notes.
A thing that worries me about this, is that if someone prophecies, implicitly, they are saying, 'this is the voice of God'. That is a claim to authority, one that is either true or false. At Baptist Trainfan's meeting it sounds as though, because somebody said they had been given a picture, everyone else assumed that was God the Holy Spirit telling them what they'd got to talk about that day. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he wasn't. But people can use this, not always consciously, to manipulate deliberations.
[ 06. August 2015, 07:51: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well, one reading of the apposite passages in 1 Corinthians suggests that the apostle Paul wasn't so much trying to encourage spontaneous contributions at all, but to try to shut the Corinthians up and bring some semblance of order to the proceedings ...
ie. 'Don't all talk at once but let's have some order here ...'
I've also heard it suggested - even in full-on charismatic circles - that the 'everyone of you has a ...' thing suggests preparation and that people would come with prepared messages and insights and so on.
The thing is, as I see it now, it's actually quite difficult to work out/reconstruct the scenario the apostle Paul was addressing in Corinth - but there are hints and suggestions and a way of reading between the lines ... so to try to attempt to use it as some kind of 'how to conduct a church meeting' manual is way wide of the mark.
It's the principles of it rather than the detail of the practice that is important.
Even when it comes to more 'ordered' application of apparently 'prophetic' guidance and so on, I remain somewhat wary and sceptical.
I won't go into the detail or name names, but family members belonged to a large 'new church' network where the central, national leadership were insisting that two guys - of whom the congregation were wary, had doubts - should be set into leadership alongside the existing elder/s.
One of the top guys from this network came and preached what was supposed to be a 'prophetic' sermon based on the calling of David - 'man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart' - which essentially told everyone to shut up and put up ... God had called these men and that's all there was to it.
Within a few weeks scandal of a particularly shocking and appalling kind erupted when it emerged that one of these guys was heading off down to the red-light district immediately after the services to indulge in all manner of bizarre activities ... and, it also later emerged - he was actually abusing his own kids.
There was no scandal with the other guy but he proved a disappointing appointment ...
As you can imagine - that church was hit for six ... the fall-out was tremendous.
There was no redress, no attempt on the part of the national 'team' to apologise for getting things so flagrantly wrong ... nothing.
Ok, we can all be taken in by plausible looking characters - no-one could have predicted what one of these guys was up to -- but to hedge the whole thing around his 'calling' and appointment with 'prophetic' flummery and rah-rah-rah is, in my view, asking for trouble.
The issue, for me - isn't so much whether there ought to be 'set' or organised slots in church meetings for the delivery of tongues and prophetic words and so on - or whether these things should happen apparently spontaneously in the course of the meeting ...
The issue is rather about the content of these utterances and their validity.
Sure, shit happens anywhere and everywhere but in my experience that shit sticks and smells particularly shitty when its hedged around with apparently 'anointed' pronouncements against which there is no redress or little protection ...
End of rant.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
I've heard from someone who knows that the speakers
a) had study bibles with in built notes
b) had their own notes on small pieces of paper inside
c) were usually one of a very small group of people week on week
That certainly agrees with my (very limited) experience.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, one reading of the apposite passages in 1 Corinthians suggests that the apostle Paul wasn't so much trying to encourage spontaneous contributions at all, but to try to shut the Corinthians up and bring some semblance of order to the proceedings ...
ie. 'Don't all talk at once but let's have some order here ...'
I've also heard it suggested - even in full-on charismatic circles - that the 'everyone of you has a ...' thing suggests preparation and that people would come with prepared messages and insights and so on.
I'd go with that.
quote:
I won't go into the detail or name names, but family members belonged to a large 'new church' network where the central, national leadership were insisting that two guys - of whom the congregation were wary, had doubts - should be set into leadership alongside the existing elder/s.
One of the top guys from this network came and preached what was supposed to be a 'prophetic' sermon based on the calling of David - 'man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart' - which essentially told everyone to shut up and put up ... God had called these men and that's all there was to it.
That, in my book, is spiritual bullying and misuse of Scripture. And I've recently talked with a New Church leader of impeccable credentials who felt that he was ousted from leadership in a very similar manner.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm afraid it's all too common, Baptist Trainfan.
In fact, I'd say it was pretty systemic within the 'new churches' as a 'system' if you like. It almost inevitably becomes so, in my view, because of the 'high' status given to so-called prophecies and 'prophetic direction' and guidance.
Abuse follows as surely as night follows day.
The entire set of assumptions behind their modus operandi is, to my mind, fundamentally flawed. Sure, they do good work, they have lively services, they are probably more 'mature' now than they were back in the day - but even so ...
Which is one reason why, these days, if I ever moved to another town or city the 'new church' option would be one I wouldn't investigate when looking for a church.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As for the 'personhood' of God the Holy Spirit, what I am getting at is that many charismatics seem to reduce the third person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity to some kind of almost impersonal 'faith-force' rather like electricity, whose sole purpose seems to to equip them with spectcular powers and gifts.
Part of the reason I stick around with the charismatic church, in spite of what IMHO are its flaws, is that is has a much more thorough Trinitarian theology than the more ecclesiastically conservative churches.
There, you'll get a creed being mindlessly chanted which mentions the Holy Spirit, more as a tick-box exercise than an expression of faith, and maybe there are 2 Sundays a year when there's a special mention, but they are de facto cessationist. By all means, pay lip service to the Holy Spirit, but by no means allow there to be any disruption to The Way We Do Things Here(TM).
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
A stand-point which brings a whole set of assumptions with it, Sipech.
The reason I rather like the traditional liturgical approach is that it is more explicitly Trinitarian - the Trinity is named/invoked in the liturgy and, in the case of the Orthodox liturgy - it is made abundant clear that Christ is God and that God the Holy Spirit is God.
That doesn't necessarily mean, of course, that all the adherents of such churches are fully aware of the theology and the implications of all this - a lot of them aren't ...
But at least it's there in the liturgy itself.
I've come across plenty of charismatic evangelicals who are pretty hazy both on the deity of Christ and the deity of God the Holy Spirit ...
'Well, Jesus is sort of like God ... '
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
The bottom-line for me though is:
Do I trust the ancient liturgies?
Yes, I do. They've been developed and pored over for centuries.
Would I trust the kind of scholarship and preparation that someone like Baptist Trainfan would clearly bring to a sermon or the outline of a service?
Yes, I would.
Do I trust charismatic evangelical churches to weigh prophecy correctly and to put sufficient scholarly and thoughtful preparation into messages and sermons?
No, I bloody well wouldn't - and with good reason.
Obviously, the mileage varies and it is possible to come across theologically balanced, informed and sensible people in all the charismatic groups and churches I'm aware of. No question about that.
But the last few full-on charismatic services I've attended have been:
- Pretty chaotic and inchoate.
- Low on content and high on hot-air.
So, I'm sorry, I've been there, done that and have no intention of going back to it.
I have found a more excellent way ...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
More seriously, if I were to judge these things subjectively, in terms of my own daily devotions, I get far more 'out' of these now that I've got used to using a kind of Daily Office and lectionary format than I ever remember doing when I'd pick up the Bible at random and start reading it or when I used to try and screw up some intense and highly spiritually-charged encounter in the way that was expected of us back in the day in my full-on charismatic period ...
If you gave me the choice of a week at New Wine or a week in a monastery, I know which one I'd go for.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
the more ecclesiastically conservative churches... There, you'll get a creed being mindlessly chanted which mentions the Holy Spirit, more as a tick-box exercise than an expression of faith, and maybe there are 2 Sundays a year when there's a special mention, but they are de facto cessationist. By all means, pay lip service to the Holy Spirit, but by no means allow there to be any disruption to The Way We Do Things Here(TM).
It's not necessarily so, though I grant you it looks that way from the outside. My experience of Lutheran churches (conservative kind) is that the Holy Spirit is active and paid attention to (and certainly treated as a person, not a thing!) but his activity isn't spotlighted most of the time. I think this is because culturally we have a--well, an embarrassment about talking about anything so very personal as the Holy Spirit's work, plus a horror of looking like rah-rah enthusiasts. But over a couple of beers, you can get Lutherans to loosen up and talk about Him, as well as their personal experiences interacting with Him.
[ 06. August 2015, 12:17: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Question:
Which is worse, a creed 'mindlessly chanted' (how do you know it's mindless? Can you see inside people's heads?) ...
Or gobbledegook mindlessly spouted which bears no relations whatsover to any 'real' language and which may not even be the same thing as what the NT calls 'speaking in tongues'?
I'm not a cessationist, but the non-cessationism of most charismatic services is equally as cessationist to all intents and purposes as those churches you accuse of being practically so ...
Because the vast majority of the spiritual gifts practised in such places aren't the real deal but plastic copies or cardboard cut-outs of the real thing.
They only have 'meaning' and application within their own context and set of expectations.
I've mentioned here before how Dr Andrew Walker the sociologist once 'analysed' a large charismatic gathering and interviewed participants afterwards - there'd been a string of 'tongues' and interpretations and prophecies.
Hardly anyone could remember the prophecies nor the 'messages' apparently decoded from the 'tongues'.
He concluded that the important thing from the point of view of the participants was that these things were there, available and had taken place.
Why? Because that was how they 'evaluated' the sense of the presence of God. If there were tongues and prophecies then that must mean that God was truly among them - irrespective of what could or couldn't be deduced from the utterances themselves.
If the locus and focus of the presence of God is seen in a different way - in the eucharist, say - or, in the case of the Quakers in a 'gathered silence' - then the emphasis changes.
What you may consider a meaningless ritual may actually be full of meaning and significance for the participants.
Conversely, what you might take to be God the Holy Spirit stirring things up 'from the norm' in a meeting may be nothing of the kind - it may simply be the overflow of enthusiastic expectation and 'fleshly' reactions to particular 'cues'.
Trust me, I've been there, I've done it.
I used to be rather pleased with myself when I used to walk around meetings praying over people and watching them fall over ... until I realised how easy it was to induce the conditions where these sort of things take place.
I'm not saying that there isn't genuine stuff out there - but what I am saying is that appearances can be deceptive.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Btw, can they tell when/if someone's faking it?
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
They would claim so, Ad Orientem, but I've heard of experiments where recordings of people speaking in tongues in Pentecostal settings have been played to pastors alongside recordings of actors 'faking' it and doing the same thing and the results being pretty mixed ... they could identify some 'fakes' but by and large were unable to distinguish the apparently real from the phoney.
At any rate, the issue for me here is the assumption that some kind of disruption and 'disorder' is necessarily a sign of the presence and activity of God the Holy Spirit.
Why should that be the case?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
How structured or apparently unstructured something is is no indication either way of the Spirit's particular activity.
I know for the Orthodox, the Liturgy itself is seen as pneumatic ...
I don't have an issue with that ... as it's rather like the Orthodox approach to iconography. There are strict rules and practices governing how icons are painted - nevertheless, both the 'personality' of the artist and the 'spirituality' of what they are attempting to convey both come through - however 'formulaic' the approach.
How do I know this? Because I know an Orthodox iconographer and also my twin brother, who is an artist, attended an icon-painting workshop in an Anglican context.
My brother found that the whole process ran completely counter to the 'expressiveness' and apparent 'freedom' that he was used to from his artistic training and background -- but was nevertheless deeply spiritual. He was struck by the depth and insight of the whole thing.
Mind you, he also observed that the mainly Anglican participants were all pretty introverted and that this form of spirituality may well have appealed to them on that kind of level ...
Which wouldn't surprise me ... but then more effusively charismatic forms of spirituality tend to appeal to extroverts and people who aren't of that personality type struggle with it.
My wife is very much an introvert and she struggled for years in a charismatic setting as she was made to feel that her diffidence and lack of desire to 'express' her worship in effusive terms was 'her fault' - that there was something 'wrong' with her.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
I combine features of both -- I can be quite ebullient and sentimental ... so the charismatic thing can strike plenty of chords with me.
But I no longer restrict any sense of the vatic or the numinous to the apparently spontaneous.
FWIW, I once knew an interesting URC minister who combined - counter-intuitively perhaps - liberal theology with charismatic experience and practice - 'a smidgeon of Pentecostalism' as he liked to call it.
He wouldn't allow any of the popular charismatic choruses in his church - despite his wife's protests - as he believed them to be theologically unsound and slanted.
He once told me that he believed that the charismatics had actually marginalised God the Holy Spirit whilst believing themselves to highlight and celebrate his work and ministry.
His view was that most contemporary charismatic worship is overly Christocentric ('Jesus is my boyfriend') with God the Father given the occasional look-in during the sermons - and with God the Holy Spirit tacked on at the end during the so-called 'ministry time' that was becoming de rigeur in charismatic circles.
Broadly, I think he's right.
Which is why I think that most charismatic services these days are unbalanced from a Trinitarian point of view and why we need liturgy to get us back on track.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jammy Dodger
Half jam, half biscuit
# 17872
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
I've heard from someone who knows that the speakers
a) had study bibles with in built notes
b) had their own notes on small pieces of paper inside
c) were usually one of a very small group of people week on week
That certainly agrees with my (very limited) experience.
Thank you both. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Look at my eye twitching - Donkey from Shrek
Posts: 438 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2013
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... If you gave me the choice of a week at New Wine or a week in a monastery, I know which one I'd go for.
Gamaliel is that comparison entirely fair? I would like to spend a week in a monastery, but if what was on offer was a week in tent outside Shepton Mallet, I'd rather spend the week at home.
Apart from that, I've agreed with everything you, Baptist Trainfan and Lamb Chopped have said.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
I don't do tents.
But I'm not sure if I do hard beds, early rising and plain food, either ... ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
Now, be careful, that could so easily be misinterpreted! ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
I seriously thought of becoming a monk back in my Trad RC days. Some traditional Benedictine monestary would have been right up my street.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I can imagine that, Ad Orientem ...
I've only met one or two Benedictines and I've been impressed by them, I must say.
@Baptist Trainfan ... yes, it was a deliberate play on words ...
Meanwhile, on a more serious note -- irrespective of our 'take' on contemporary charismata, I'm wondering what biblical basis we have for considering them to have been delivered in an apparently spontaneous or unpremeditated kind of way ...
If I understand Sipech correctly, he objects to charismatic services having a 'set time' for the exercise of spiritual gifts - presumably he would rather see or hear them exercised in a more fluid and spontaneous fashion?
Back in the day, with the charismatic renewal in the Anglican church, this was how I first encountered spiritual gifts in a 'mainstream' - rather than in a Pentecostal - setting and I must admit I found them rather more convincing in that context. I don't know whether I would find them quite so convincing if I had my time over again ...
All that aside, though, what basis do we have for expecting them to be delivered/used in a more fluid or apparently informal way?
Clearly the Day of Pentecost was a one-off in terms of the 'tongues of fire' and so on ... only some claim to have seen instances of this phenomenon in subsequent centuries -- I'm wondering whether the hesychast 'uncreated light' thing is an example of that?
The only indication we have of 'unruly' behaviour in that instance was that they were taken for drunken men - 'These men are not drunk as you suppose ...' on account of the unintelligibility of their speech to all those other than the speakers of the languages in which they spoke, 'as the Spirit gave them utterance.'
Unless we take the apparently 'wild' behaviour of some of the 'sons of the prophets' or the 'school of the prophets' in the OT as indicative of how people behave under the influence of the Spirit - Saul stripping off and lying out all night appears to have indicated to some people that he was, 'among the prophets ...'
http://biblehub.com/1_samuel/19-24.htm
We don't see many contemporary 'prophets' taking their kit off and lying outside all night in the cold ...
So, my question is, where does this notion come from that charismata have to be exercised in a rather 'enthusiastic' or rumbunctious or apparently spontaneous way?
How 'ecstatic' are these things?
Sure, we've got Peter's sermon disrupted in the house of Cornelius in Acts 10 - but by and large I don't see a great deal of NT evidence for things not being done 'decently and in order' ... and there were exceptional circumstances in the Acts 10 case too ...
It strikes me that unless we can demonstrate a clear biblical reason as to why church meetings/services have to be apparently informal and 'spontaneous' it all boils down to an issue of personal taste or the expectations within our particular tradition ...
Certain charismatic churches 'expect' things to be noisy and disruptive - as it were - and that's what they get ... because it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
It's also very easy indeed to set up an expectation for a kind of 'charismatic liturgy' where the repetition of familiar songs and actions achieves the desired result in terms of people either falling over or laughing or whatever else or coming out with tongues, prophecies and so on as per the 'mores' and expectations within that group.
I really don't see what the issue is.
If you act in certain ways you get particular results - and that applies to any form of church service - be it a lively happy-clappy one or a more formal liturgical one -- they both achieve a particular result and evoke or induce a particular atmosphere.
I can't see how it can be otherwise.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I don't do tents.
But I'm not sure if I do hard beds, early rising and plain food, either ...
Fortunately, not much of that (well aside from the early rising, but usually not much earlier than regular work-day rising) in monasteries
I have not much experience of male orders but even the very enclosed and traditional female orders have comfy beds and nice food nowadays.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Gamaliel - better not go for the (Anglican) Franciscans then given that they go to New Wine!
How do you think this (your comments on charismata) fits into charismatic Catholics/Anglo-Catholics?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, my question is, where does this notion come from that charismata have to be exercised in a rather 'enthusiastic' or rumbunctious or apparently spontaneous way?
A question I have often pondered.
If you look at "classic" OT prophecy, as we find it in Isaiah or Jeremiah, it seems clear that there was a great deal of thinking and reflection involved. Prophecies didn't just happen. And there is no logical reason why "Spirit-led" HAS to exclude planning and preparation. It's just a human tradition that "Sprit-led" must mean spontaneous and unplanned.
The irony, of course, is that often what passes for a spontaneous Word of the Lord shows clear signs of someone having planned what they were going to say.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Fortunately, not much of that (well aside from the early rising, but usually not much earlier than regular work-day rising) in monasteries
I have not much experience of male orders but even the very enclosed and traditional female orders have comfy beds and nice food nowadays.
Clearly, monasticism has gone to the dogs. But it sounds much more attractive!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, my question is, where does this notion come from that charismata have to be exercised in a rather 'enthusiastic' or rumbunctious or apparently spontaneous way?
..... The irony, of course, is that often what passes for a spontaneous Word of the Lord shows clear signs of someone having planned what they were going to say.
Two other things. Prophecy (today) does not have to be couched in poor King James Bible language; nor prefixed by "Thus saith the Lord," which immediately sets up an unspoken challenge to anyone who might wish to evaluate it.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes - although to be fair, Baptist Trainfan, that doesn't happen so much in charismatic circles these days and - also in fairness - it was also something that the 'house churches' tended to avoid doing - as do charismatic Baptists in my experience ...
The cod King James English and 'Thus saith the Lord, yea verily, yea verily ...' stuff was very much the hall-mark of the older Pentecostal denominations and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the practice has largely died out there too to be replaced by more contemporary idioms.
To all practical intents and purposes though - other than on some memorable occasions where duff prophecy was confronted, by and large there was little redress in my experience when 'prophecies' went wrong -- and the example I gave from my brother-in-law's former church is the most egregious among several examples I could cite of congregations being manipulated by apparent prophetic words and direction from church leaders.
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the danger of that is endemic in all Pentecostal and charismatic churches -- we used to have some former members of the Apostolic Church in our outfit - you know, the Pentecostal denomination founded in Wales in 1908.
They used to tell lurid stories of 'prophecies' being used to direct and send awkward or contentious people out of the way ... the Apostolics had a thriving work in Nigeria so - putting it bluntly - if the leadership had someone awkward on their hands a sure fire way of removing them from the scene was to say, 'Thus saith the Lord - I am calling you to Nigeria my daughter/my son ..'
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Now, I'm sure it didn't happen as bluntly as that -- but I'm sure there was some truth in the accusation too ... I've come across Apostolic or former Apostolic Church people who believed that the charismatic movement as a whole was diluting and toning things down by dropping 'Thus saith the Lord ...' a prophecy was a prophecy and should not be gainsaid or couched in provisional terms ...
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
The way that this kind of approach lies open to abuse is obvious.
Coming back to other questions and comments ...
@Oscar the Grouch - yes, absolutely, I think there are cultural and traditional reasons for the way that 'prophecies' and 'words from the Lord' and so on are couched in the way they are.
Those church groupings which value apparent spontaneity will consider that to be the 'norm' and their practice will line up with their expectations.
As for charismata in RC or Anglo-Catholic circles ... I've met individuals from these traditions who are charismatic in experience and practice ... but I have never attended a charismatic service in either of these traditions so I can't comment on how things are 'done'.
I met an RC priest once who is regularly called upon to serve Mass to a charismatic Catholic gathering - although he has reservations about some of their practices ...
He told me that their services are indistinguishable from what has become 'the norm' in charismatic settings within the Anglican, Free Church and 'new church' contexts ie. fairly loud amplified music, the kind of soft-rock style and the same songs as you might hear at New Wine, Soul Survivor or Hillsongs and so on.
He didn't like the 'noise' as he believes that these people mistakenly equate noise and hustle and bustle with 'freedom in the Spirit'. He was also squeamish about the practice of some RC charismatics of praying in tongues at the Elevation of the Host ... he felt this was rather irreverent. Silence was the most appropriate response.
Other than that, I can't comment on how these things 'work' in more sacramental settings.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... He didn't like the 'noise' as he believes that these people mistakenly equate noise and hustle and bustle with 'freedom in the Spirit'. ...
I've never been able to understand that IMHO mistaken belief either.
A woman once told me that a young man she didn't know all that well came to see her to say, 'God has told me we ought to get married'. She declined to agree with his understanding of the divine will.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Silence was the most appropriate response.
I've never experienced tongues, but I've certainly experienced silent prayer both on my own, in a group and spontaneously.
Sarah Coaxley in her God, Sexuality and the Self, which is principally a study of the place of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, makes the connection between charismatic and contemplative prayer.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
A woman once told me that a young man she didn't know all that well came to see her to say, 'God has told me we ought to get married'. She declined to agree with his understanding of the divine will.
I had that happen to me in college.
My answer was, "Fine. Then God can tell me the same thing and we'll go ahead, shall we?"
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I don't think that charismatic and contemplative prayer are mutually exclusive - in some ways I think charismatics and contemplatives meet in the middle somewhere ...
I'd also suggest that not all charismatics lack nuance in their understanding of how the vatic or the 'prophetic' works -- and that each groups particular grasp or understanding of these issues is governed to a large extent by cultural expectations -- by which I mean the prevailing ethos or culture in which these things take place ...
Often, people on the 'inside' of those cultures aren't always the best people to try and evaluate them.
What may look dry, arid and boring to someone outside the tradition may not appear that way at all to those who have invested time, energy and commitment to it ... equally, what looks apparently spontaneous and 'free' to some may look rather stage-managed and not so spontaneous to those looking from the outside ...
I'd like to think I've seen both sides and can reach some kind of balanced judgement - but of course, I ain't always going to get it right either ...
But I would say that what resonated with me - as a former full-on card-carrying charismatic - when I first encountered (or rather, re-encountered) more formal forms of liturgy was how numinous and 'charismatic' in the broader sense I found that to be ...
The thing about Orthodoxy that resonates most closely with me, for instance, is its emphasis on the Holy Spirit - not so much in terms of special gifts and 'manifestations' as it were as the sense that God is 'present everywhere and fillest all things ...'
So, I 'get' what RCs are getting at with Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (for instance) even though I might have some qualms about the practice ... or I can see how the Stations of the Cross can be something that isn't performed by rote year after year but something that can grow and intensify in significance ... or how prayers around a table with bread and wine and some ritual - whether it be full-on bells and smells or a simply Brethren-style prayer - can be the 'very gate of heaven' ...
I'm not against what the charismatics are getting at or trying to achieve, I simply think that they've over-emphasised certain aspects to the detriment of others ...
The same criticism could be levelled elsewhere too , of course - we need an equilibrium, a sense of balance.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
A woman once told me that a young man she didn't know all that well came to see her to say, 'God has told me we ought to get married'.
A man once came to Charles Haddon Spurgeon and told him that God had told him that he should preach in his Tabernacle a few days' hence. Spurgeon basically replied by saying it seemed somewhat odd that God hadn't seen fit to tell him, too!
One might also recall Pusey's comment on the alleged restoration of the Apostolate in the "Catholic Apostolic Church" - presumably chosen through prophetic utterance (although I'm not sure of this): "it is, on the very surface, a large claim, that the Twelve Apostles should
be revived in the 19th century in the person of twelve English gentlemen".
[ 07. August 2015, 13:26: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, I don't think that charismatic and contemplative prayer are mutually exclusive - in some ways I think charismatics and contemplatives meet in the middle somewhere ...
That can certainly happen.
quote:
So, I 'get' what RCs are getting at with Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (for instance) even though I might have some qualms about the practice ... or I can see how the Stations of the Cross can be something that isn't performed by rote year after year but something that can grow and intensify in significance ... or how prayers around a table with bread and wine and some ritual - whether it be full-on bells and smells or a simply Brethren-style prayer - can be the 'very gate of heaven' ...
Indeed.
And in the end, it's all window-dressing. What really matters is that we actually meet with God. It doesn't matter how, in my opinion.
My mystical, contemplative side long had a fascination with the aesthetics of Catholic Christianity. Fascination with the aesthetics doth not a conversion make: there was too much in the way doctrinally I could never accept - I am, at heart, a dissenter. But I could certainly appreciate the sense of reverence, and of course the contemplative tradition.
My one experience of Orthodox worship was fascinating but I also found it very alien: I wasn't against it, I just couldn't relate to it. I guess I'm just too Western. The singing of the Russian choir was absolutely glorious though. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes -- I'd go along with all of that, Laurelin.
It's interesting - and no disrespect to middle-ground Baptist types - I once met a student who'd grown up in a rather 'beige' and MoR Baptist church - it wasn't full-on evangelical, charismatic or full-on anything much ... but a group of sincere and stolid believers ...
Through a friend, she visited an RC church where they were doing the Benediction/Exposition thing and it blew her away ... so much so that she became an RC. Her parents were startled and suspicious at first but they gradually came round.
I'm not saying this is right, wrong, good, bad or indifferent - simply that whilst our spiritual antennae may all be set differently, we can generally recognise 'when we get a signal ...' as it were.
For her, the RC Exposition thing acted on a level that went beyond the 'cognitive' and operated on a gut level ... her own Baptist background was strong on rationalisations and statements - but conveyed little sense of the numinous.
So, whilst what she encountered freaked her out to a certain extent it also struck her that there was something 'very real' going on ...
I think these things can be window-dressing - but that the window-dressing can also convey and impart part of the package as it were ... provide part of the retail experience and the sense of wanting to buy -- if we can put it in such mercantile terms.
Before anyone thinks, though, that I'm carrying more of a candle for the Catholics than the Baptists, I'd also add that one of the most memorable and almost mystical experiences I've had in relation to the Lord's Supper/communion was in a very unprepossessing Baptist chapel in South Wales when the enormity of what we were doing and how - in some indescribable way - it represented something cosmic and universal came home to me very powerfully.
No flashing lights, no bells, no smells, no stiring music or anything of that kind - just a chap saying a few words and reading the 'words of institution' and whoosh ... epiphany ...
To me, both that and the experience of the girl who became RC are both 'charismatic' ... and both were pretty orderly in terms of the way the activity was conducted.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, whilst what she encountered freaked her out to a certain extent it also struck her that there was something 'very real' going on ...
That's my reaction when I first ran into a charismatic gathering - freaked out, but struck that something very real was going on. quote:
I think these things can be window-dressing - but that the window-dressing can also convey and impart part of the package as it were ... provide part of the retail experience and the sense of wanting to buy -- if we can put it in such mercantile terms.
I like your window dressing concept. Whether fancy robes and classical organ and theatrical liturgy, or casual informality and modern music and chaotic sounding words no one understands, or three hours of preaching in a sing song voice punctuated with "amen brother, preach it!", or a room of people in total silence, or many other styles -- it's window dressing - inviting, enticing, but not itself the substance on offer.
Different people will be attracted to different windows. Some respond to the new and different (to them, even if it's centuries old). Others are attracted to the familiar (to them). Some of us have changed needs/responses once or more in life, and will cease responding to one window but find a different window intriguing.
No matter what the window dressing, some never get beyond it to the substance. In that sense they are all empty, meaningless.
People are attracted to different windows, none of the window dressings are objectively better than the others. Alas we humans tend to think "my way is objectively the best way" instead of delighting that other people have found a way that works for them even if not for us.
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