homepage
  roll on christmas  
click here to find out more about ship of fools click here to sign up for the ship of fools newsletter click here to support ship of fools
community the mystery worshipper gadgets for god caption competition foolishness features ship stuff
discussion boards live chat cafe avatars frequently-asked questions the ten commandments gallery private boards register for the boards
 
Ship of Fools


Post new thread  Post a reply
My profile login | | Directory | Search | FAQs | Board home
   - Printer-friendly view Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
» Ship of Fools   » Ship's Locker   » Limbo   » Purgatory: "I'm getting a picture…" (Page 9)

 - Email this page to a friend or enemy.  
Pages in this thread: 1  2  3  ...  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15 
 
Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: "I'm getting a picture…"
Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675

 - Posted      Profile for Komensky   Email Komensky   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Komensky's more sceptical than I am…

Perhaps you've had more [or a more reasoned] recovery than I have. Once I began to see how easily these things were summoned and faked I questioned everything--in contrast, many of my old friends in charismania believed everything [they were sure that people could walk on water and raise the dead, etc.]. Also, watching a magician friend of mine reproduce the 'miracles' of church life in nightclubs relieved me of many illusions too. It's just so simple to do.

--------------------
"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675

 - Posted      Profile for Komensky   Email Komensky   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:


I can still lapse into a triple on the tongues if I wanted to ... it's still there buried in my memory banks and my psyche - probably subconsciously. Hence I can recall it and 'use' it at will. Whether there is any cognitive content there is the moot point.

But it isn't a moot point. The advocates for 'tongues' have maintained since their modern version appeared in the early 1900s that it was a language. In fact the Greek texts preserve the understanding of the word as 'language'. Moreover, that is how tongues were understood in the early church. If someone wants to argue [and the evos love to use the adjective 'biblical'] that their babble is a divine or angelic language they ought to admit defeat. Of course, what happened is also par for the course: they simple moved the goalposts. "Oh, *these* kinds of tongues are special ways of praying…" and so on.

The HTB clergy regularly describe(d) 'tongues' as a language given to you by God. It just isn't, that's all. You can't have it and not have it.

--------------------
"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon
[QUOTE]
In other words I don't get why you would hold the charismatics to a higher standard than other Christian groups - unless there was a particular claim made by them that they were somehow better, which I haven't come across.

Chris stiles reply

I'm not sure what I can say to this. If you haven't come across charismatic claims of superiority then I'm not sure how broad your exposure to charismaticism has been.


But are charismatic claims of "superiority" (where you can find them) any more or less than other churches? Don't Orthodox claim to be "superior" to other churches on the basis of their historical continuity to the apostles? Are they not incredibly scathing of Protestantism for its propensity towards continual fragmentation? Don't Catholics claim superiority on the grounds of basis of the authority of St Peter's successors, or the exclusive brethren or other evangelical groups on their "superior" interpretation of scripture?

And what about the counterpoint that charismatic movements have been singularly successful in bringing believers of a wide variety of backgrounds together? What other Christian movements in the UK, for example, gather and network across denominational boundaries such a large and diverse group of Christians as New Wine, Grapevine, Soul Survivor, etc?

I think mdijon's point is well made.

[ 31. December 2012, 11:41: Message edited by: Drewthealexander ]

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
@TRM Just picking up the question of learning to prophesy...

My starting point on this is that prophecy is given sovreignly by God as a gift, and having been given is one we can learn to use. Is that how you took the question?

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
This is all SO exercising. TFMC and I were polarized again on this this morning. We both run out of love. Patience, tolerance, acceptance, energy. My rationalism, rationality, honesty to me sounds cold. She reacts to that. I react to her reaction. We drop it. And I'm one who accepts that in her case there has been one apparently genuine grain of wheat in alllll the chaff.

Chaff: "I'm getting a picture of a barbecue with corn cobs.". Chaff she was subjected to. And there can be no adult-adult conversation about this.

There IS baby, but the bathwater is oceanic.

She comes from a damnationist charismatic background full of tongues and words of knowledge and pictures that she repudiates but that leaves a vacuum and the longing for baby is still there to the point of a hungry barren womb.

She hates my 'realism'. I hate it too. Because I fail to put it across in love and joy and hope. Kindly. Which I'm seeking REGARDLESS of the 99.999% chaff vaunted as acceptable. My theology is all will be well, therefore all is well especially when it doesn't look and feel like it.

"Miracles can happen." - "Name one."
"Healings do happen." - "Name one."
"People can change." - "..."
"There IS hope." - "Not in this life."

And I know that they do, that there is but not as is meant.

"I will never say they don't, can't." - "Neither will I but what do we do in the meantime?."

It is acknowledged that these things don't happen most of the time. Most? 99.999% not is not justification for saying these things don't happen PERIOD. That the 0.0001% justifies the whole top-down, parent-child, undiscussable 99.999%?

She's playing Jonny Cash, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face ... gotta go.

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The book that Oscar the Grouch and I both warmly recommend does make the point that the charismatic movement has drawn together Christians from a wide range of theological backgrounds.

I think Spring Harvest in particular - with what was a moderately charismatic stance for a number of years - has been particularly successful in this.

I rather think, though, that the likes of New Wine, Grapevine, Soul Survivor, etc have tended to homogenise (sp?) things to a greater extent. I think that rather than creating diversity these large and well-attended, well-run and well-managed events have created more uniformity ... you'll hear the same songs, the same speakers, the same emphases ...

Hence my point about sending them a batch of ready -made 'prophecies' to save them the trouble ...

Whether greater uniformity is a good thing or a bad thing I leave others to decide. What has happened, it seems to me, is that these big events (for all the good they will undoubtedly have done) is spread a particular kind of charismatic spirituality that leads to copy-cat behaviour.

The stab-in-the-dark so-called 'words of knowledge' and vague, generalised 'pictures' that could apply to almost anything have all been popularised and promulgated by these big events. The small team of select few who apparently regularly receive 'words' and 'pictures' and revelations and so on at our parish wouldn't be doing so if the practice hadn't been popularised at New Wine and so on.

I recognise that Drewthealexander has moved from more 'rigid' and doctrinaire setting to a wider appreciation of the Christian scene overall - but New Wine, Soul Survivor and Grapevine etc are still drawing from a similar constituency. You won't find many RCs, Orthodox, Anglo-Catholics, MOR Anglicans, liberals, Methodists or URC at these events. You'll find some, but not many.

That's not to slag off these events, I'm sure they are very good (even though I have no particular desire to visit them myself which Drew appears to find rather puzzling).

But it is to put them in context.

I've got to be honest, but my impression looking back over my mum-in-law's very ancient copies of Renewal Magazine (going back to the mid-1960s) is that the charismatic scene is much less diverse now than it used to be. After the demise of the Fountain Trust the charismatic thing in the UK - at least in its more public and visible form - became something that was more explicitly evangelical - attracting evangelical Anglicans and Baptists alongside the 'new church' restorationists and the Vineyard types.

I think it has remained that way for better or worse. HTB and so on will give the occasional nod to the RCs and other more sacramental churches but by and large the charismatic thing as it is popularly and publicly seen is a 'low church' evangelical thing.

Sure, there are charismatic Catholics and individual Anglo-Catholics and so on who are charismatic in their spirituality and they do have some large rallies at times - but it's not on the same scale as the gatherings that Drew mentions.

The charismatic scene here in the UK has become just that, a 'scene' - it has its own music, its own publishers, its own celebrity speakers, it generates its own fads and trends.

I'm not saying that this is good, bad or indifferent - it's the way it is. At best it can mean that individuals are exposed to practices from other traditions, but at worst it leads to the kind of copy-cat faux-prophecy and faux-pictures and so on that some of us have been banging on about here.

By all means have your Grapevines, your Soul Survivors and your New Wines ... but don't expect me to attend unless you've got something going on there with more depth and substance to it.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
She NEVER plays the whole song. Played most of Gordon Haskell, superb. So I popped back, read you Gamaliel, popped back to her and reported what you'd said. Fascinating. Now she's busy ...

I got caught up with charismatic Baptists 15 years ago. For an acute, mercifully brief (like a terminal illness) period.

It really does seem that ALL (99.999%) of charismatics are damnationists - any here NOT? ... I'm getting a picture.

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
@Gamaliel - many thanks for your insights on the clucking (and related gubbins) thing....your assessment makes a lot of sense to me. Perhaps I'll be less distracted in future (when these things occur) having some idea of what may be behind them.

quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:

@TRM Just picking up the question of learning to prophesy...

My starting point on this is that prophecy is given sovreignly by God as a gift, and having been given is one we can learn to use. Is that how you took the question?

I would agree with you that prophecy is a gift from God. I guess where we differ, is on it being something we can learn to use....as opposed to just something we may use. I really don't see any suggestion in the bible that prophets ever had to learn to use this gift. Or indeed, that it was at any point less than a fully-functional ready-to-use gift, or that "practice-made-perfect". But I may have missed something in scripture. I would be more than happy to be corrected on my rejection of the need to learn to prophesy: if you (or someone else) can provide a tenable scriptural precedent for doing that, I will gladly concede the point.

Even if someone could do that, I would still have serious misgivings about this school of prophets idea. I've already banged on about the the dangers inherent in creating such an institution - especially in view of the fact that we are clueless as to what the purpose of it was in OT times.

Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The extent to which charismatics are damnationists or not will depend on the underlying theology of whatever group it is that they have charismaticised ...

I'm increasingly convinced that the charismatic dimension, in and of itself, isn't a theology nor ever was - it's rightly been described as 'a spirituality in search of a theology.'

Consequently, it grows a bit like mistletoe or ivy (if I can strip that of negative connotations) on plants that already exist ... so the charismatic scene in Methodism (for instance) - and there is one - will take on Methodist characterises. Among the Baptists it will take on the particular characteristics of that group. Not all Baptists are damnationist but evangelical Baptists tend to be (although not always) and the evangelical ones are those that are more likely to be charismatic.

As to whether charismatic spirituality can become parasitical and suck the life out of things or smother existing traditions and so on ... I think it's pretty mixed.

I'd agree with Drewthealexander that charismatics, for all the emphasis on the 'higher life' to some extent or other, have no more of a sense of superiority than many other Christians. At the risk of being patronising, there is something of a class or an education thing going on here. I know some fairly working class converts to Orthodoxy from RC backgrounds and they can sound as doctrinaire and dismissive of other Christian confessions as some of the working class Pentecostals I used to know in South Wales.

Where I am now the local Pentecostals are remarkably eirenic and are indeed exemplary in that respect - and could teach some evangelical Anglicans and Baptists a thing or two in that regard.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Pasco
Shipmate
# 388

 - Posted      Profile for Pasco   Email Pasco   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Komensky's more sceptical than I am…

Perhaps you've had more [or a more reasoned] recovery than I have. Once I began to see how easily these things were summoned and faked I questioned everything--in contrast, many of my old friends in charismania believed everything [they were sure that people could walk on water and raise the dead, etc.]. Also, watching a magician friend of mine reproduce the 'miracles' of church life in nightclubs relieved me of many illusions too. It's just so simple to do.
The rule of thumb is, if it cannot be attempted in a night club, it cannot be manifested in any other environment. Why else do the likes of Benny Hinn have security (?) - to ensure the game does not get given away it is vital that no one slips through the net including, especially, a victim of AMPUTATION:

A Miracle's Pretty Unlikely, That's Attempted Too Infrequently, Or Never.

With a bona-fide magic show, you get your money's worth as you know you're being conned in a nice way.

Posts: 997 | From: Domiciling 'ere, living locally. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675

 - Posted      Profile for Komensky   Email Komensky   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I'd agree with Drewthealexander that charismatics, for all the emphasis on the 'higher life' to some extent or other, have no more of a sense of superiority than many other Christians.

My experience differs from this. Throughout my life I have moved in Catholic and Protestant circles (coming from a predominantly Catholic family). It's only anecdotal, but I think that there is a greater sense of superiority amongst evangelical Protestants than any other group. I once visited a Baptist church in Florida where the preacher did not consider Catholics to be 'Christians'. I've heard similar things at the local evangelical-charismatic Anglican church back here in the UK. Once again, this is far from being a rule, but if I were to draw on my own experience, that would be my conclusion.

These things are largely a matter of perspective. Once, in Belfast, someone described HTB (London) as a 'den of Mary worship'. So there.

--------------------
"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I'm not as conservatively evangelical as TRM nor would I necessarily require chapter and verse on absolutely everything - I'm quite 'Anglican' in that sense - but I'll second his position on this one.

I'd like to ask how we can learn to prophesy?

Is it a matter of throwing out thoughts and impressions until sooner or later one or other of them seems to apply or stick?

I don't think it is. I would also suggest, when it comes to preaching or exhortation, that plenty of preachers can be 'prophetic' irrespective of their church tradition.

I've known one or two instances in very, very conservative evangelical circles with no trace of charismatic leanings whatsoever where the preacher has used a particular illustration or felt inclined, as it were, to introduce a particular instance of something as they were preaching only to find that it 'spoke to the condition' (to use a Quaker term) of someone in the congregation. I know of one instance that was so dramatic that an entire family - visiting that week - were brought to Christ.

If you want chapter and verse for this, I might suggest the one where the apostle Paul talks about people being 'convinced' and the secrets of their hearts being revealed - 1 Cor.14:24-25.

I don't think this can be taught. It either happens or it doesn't.

That's why I would run a mile from anything labelled as a 'school of the prophets'. The very nature of it and the very fact that they were choosing to describe it that way would suggest to me that it was going to be phoney.

I attended an ecumenical service at our local Methodist church yesterday and the preacher said all kinds of things in passing that struck a chord with me or which resonated somewhere deeply in my own soul. He even touched on one or two issues I've been considering a lot recently. That sort of thing happens all the time and in every conceivable Christian setting I can think of. But I wouldn't go and stick a label on him suggesting that he was a 'prophet'. There will have been other things he said that resonated with other people but not me and other people for whom nothing resonated at all.

The difference between that and the 'words and pictures' thing is that he wasn't throwing these things out willy-nilly in the hope that they might stick but preaching a very well-crafted but still very heartfelt and obviously sincere sermon. You could tell that he believed it with every fibre of his being. His personality was there, for sure, his natural gifts were there, for sure ... but somehow there was an extra dimension, a 'this is that' there too ... and I'd suggest that this is very often the case with people from all traditions. Charismatics would say that too.

The difference is, there are also more likely to over-egg it and over-stretch it.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, Komensky. The Pentecostals where I grew up in South Wales could be complete pains in the neck (and elsewhere). If they met someone from another church the first thing they'd ask wasn't how they were but, 'Are you baptised in the 'Oarly Ghoarst?'

In fact, whatever topic anyone was discussing their question would always be, 'Are you baptised in the 'Oarly Ghoarst?'

I'm afraid to admit it but I would never have taken matters charismatic seriously in the first place if I hadn't encountered more middle-class and educated charismatics at university.

But then, as Andrew Walker always maintained,'a charismatic is a middle-class Pentecostal.'

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
God bless you Gamaliel, and all here, but you especially in this work. This anointing. Irony and no irony intended. I usually say that - God bless you - when I meet with an implacable adversary and will continue no longer. That is not the case here.

I've been getting words of knowledge throughout the day. Recognising them. Subtle, profound, in a still small inner voice in the turbid, turbulent stream. I realise I've been getting them a long time.

I struggle to wake in the morning with hypnopompic and hypnagogic porpoising from rationality to delirium and back, with the Kraken of consciousness surfacing in the dream foam and shaking its head, reaching out to God like a drowning man (W!D territory [Smile] - stay with me on this - I make tea and join TFMC and we stare out of the superb 10,000 piece jigsaw window and I relate that experience of waking because she asks what I'm thinking but before that I'm praying a little more coherently, fully, narratively internally asking what SHOULD I be thinking, feeling, doing?

I got, 'This.'.

That is subtly, beautifully liberating, empowering.

Of God.

We then polarized as described anadromously.

What should we be doing Lord ?

'This'.

Hah!

I just got 'With fear and trembling'.

Who knows eh? Not without testing the spirits.

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Well, if anyone here can make any more sense out of your words of knowledge than I can from your 'normal' posts then they are a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

[Biased] [Big Grin]

Great post, though. I particularly liked the image of the kraken.

Now if I heard a word of knowledge at the next service I attend that talks about the 'kraken of uncertainty porpoising through the foam of conviction' or whatever it is, then perhaps I would sit up and take more notice ...

[Big Grin]

My brother's got a transcript somewhere of a 'prophecy' given by one of the restorationist apostles which, I kid you not, has a sequence along the following lines:

'And the purpose with which I have called you shall be for purpose, says your God, for it is not without purpose that I have called you to purpose and the purpose that I have purposed shall be purposed among you with purpose ...' and so on and on and on ...

I remember that one. It made me think of porpoises.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Oscar the Grouch

Adopted Cascadian
# 1916

 - Posted      Profile for Oscar the Grouch     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think it is. I would also suggest, when it comes to preaching or exhortation, that plenty of preachers can be 'prophetic' irrespective of their church tradition.

I've known one or two instances in very, very conservative evangelical circles with no trace of charismatic leanings whatsoever where the preacher has used a particular illustration or felt inclined, as it were, to introduce a particular instance of something as they were preaching only to find that it 'spoke to the condition' (to use a Quaker term) of someone in the congregation. I know of one instance that was so dramatic that an entire family - visiting that week - were brought to Christ.

If you want chapter and verse for this, I might suggest the one where the apostle Paul talks about people being 'convinced' and the secrets of their hearts being revealed - 1 Cor.14:24-25.

I don't think this can be taught. It either happens or it doesn't.

I think this kind of thing can happen to ANYONE. I don't believe in "prophets", but I do know that even the most staid, "traditional" person can sometimes say exactly the right thing at the right time - and not know how or why they said it.

It happened to me (as far as I can remember) once, many years ago. I was talking to a guy in his early twenties and suddenly got a clear impulse to ask him a question about asking God to help him let go of past anger and resentment. Where that came from I do not know. What happened next was that the guy stopped talking, looked at me in a very strange way and dashed off. I never met him again but have always thought that, somehow, something had hit home at that moment. What he did with it was up to him.

I'm not a prophet. I never was. Nobody is. But sometimes God uses us all in ways we can't fully understand.

--------------------
Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu

Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Indeed, and the same kind of thing happens to people without any faith position or commitment at all. Truth is truth no matter who points it out.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520

 - Posted      Profile for mdijon     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
[I mean, if everyones experience is now equal it's now open season to - say - invade every EO thread and tell mousethief that his knowledge of EO is null and void based on once visiting a Greek Orthodox church 20 years ago.]

But that's not what I'm doing. I'm not saying anyone's knowledge is null and void based on my knowledge, I'm simply asking how we establish what is normative. If we were discussing whether something was generally done in orthodox churches, and an orthodox poster said they had always seen it done but another said not, it would often be possible to point to sources indicating how common a particular practice is, or how endorsed it is by various authorities within the orthodox church.

So telling me that there is a particular Charismatic author who makes particular claims in a particular book seems very helpful. It gives us something concrete and if another poster wants to dispute how normative that author is they can explain why/why not, and produce alternate sources.

It seems to me that would lift the debate out of the "I've seen y" vs "I've seen x and I've seen more than you" rut.

--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
@Gamiel. You shared:

I've known one or two instances in very, very conservative evangelical circles with no trace of charismatic leanings whatsoever where the preacher has used a particular illustration or felt inclined, as it were, to introduce a particular instance of something as they were preaching only to find that it 'spoke to the condition' (to use a Quaker term) of someone in the congregation. I know of one instance that was so dramatic that an entire family - visiting that week - were brought to Christ.

I would have no hesitation in describing this as "prophetic".

I'm not sure where the phrase "school of prophets" originated. The inspiration for it comes from groups in the OT referred to as "sons of the prophets" - a sort of prophetic guild which gathered around a prominent prophetic figure. See
here for a brief and helpful summary.

The phrase "sons of the prophets" is used by Peter in Acts 3:25 to describe everyone who has faith in Jesus as Messiah. His Jewish audience would have recognised the allusion to the OT groups of people of the Spirit. Essentially, as I think has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussions, followers of Christ are people on whom the Spirit has been poured out. In that sense, the church is by definition "charismatic." One does not need to speak in tongues to be a man or woman of the Spirit.

Now to TRM's point on whether we can "learn" to use the given gift of prophecy. I can't really see why this would be any different from learning to use other gifts of the Spirit which include not only miracles, prophecy and the like, but also (as we read in 1 Cor 12) gifts of "helps" and "administration." I can't recall ever meeting someone with a ready made gift of administration that could not be further developed, refined, and matured.

So how might the prophetic gift be refined and matured? Well in the same way, I would suggest, as other gifts. Jesus's method of discipleship included teaching, modelling, and empowering. The main example of a charismatic gift that comes to mind from the Gospels is healing. Jesus taught his disciples quite a lot about that - for example about how to address demonic forces behind illness, and addressing misconceptions such as sickness being a punishment for sin. He healed many in the presence of his disciples, sent them out to do the same (in the same way as "sons of the prophets" acted as agents for their father figure - see the link above) had them report back on their experiences (the 72 in Luke) and taught them further (do not get over excited about authority of demons as much as you excited about your names being written in heaven).

I don't see any reason to think that it should be any different with prophecy - or with any other spiritual gift for that matter. The principle is that we are dispcipes of Christ, our master if you like, and this is the way discipleship works.

We have a little teaching on how to prophesy in the NT - Paul teaches the Corinthians how to prophecy in an orderly manners, and also reminds them what prophecy is for - to build up the body rather than to gratify themselves.

I would also say that not everything we need to know about developing prophetic gifting is to be found in Scfipture - it's the Spirit who leads us into all truth. As with certain other historical churches I hold that we learn from our traditions - the experince and reflections of the church universal and eternal - as well as from Scripture. But we must ask whether teaching or practice is consistent with the principles of scripture, and specific practice where we can find it.

Fundamentally, prophecy comes down to two dimensions - hearing what the Holy Spirit is saying, and sharing this is an appropriate way. I don't really see a problem in suggesting that these are two ares in which any believer can mature, and be refined.

I may well not have formulated this in the same way as other charismatic teaching on prophecy and don't claim it is a definitive view. Suffice to say it seems to me to be coherent, consistent with Biblical revelation, and helps me make sense of my own experince and that of others.

[ 31. December 2012, 16:57: Message edited by: Drewthealexander ]

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by chris stiles:
[qb]I'm simply asking how we establish what is normative. If we were discussing whether something was generally done in orthodox churches, and an orthodox poster said they had always seen it done but another said not, it would often be possible to point to sources indicating how common a particular practice is, or how endorsed it is by various authorities within the orthodox church.

So telling me that there is a particular Charismatic author who makes particular claims in a particular book seems very helpful. It gives us something concrete and if another poster wants to dispute how normative that author is they can explain why/why not, and produce alternate sources.

It seems to me that would lift the debate out of the "I've seen y" vs "I've seen x and I've seen more than you" rut.

You might find the work of David Lewis helpful in this respect. Dr. David Lewis, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, has made a rather exhaustive study of a Vineyard conference held in 1986 in Harrogate (UK) The results of his study appear in the book, Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact? (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). Dr. Lewis concluded that

Of 862 cases of prayer for physical healing, 32% (or 279) reported a “great deal” of healing or “total healing.” Another 26% (or 222) reported a “fair amount” of healing. The remaining 42% (or 366) reported “little” or “no healing.” (pp. 21-22)

Many case studies are reported in detail, in several instances with medical reports quoted at length. All the physical problems prayed for are listed in a detailed appendix (pp. 276-283). (These physical problems are distinguished from prayer for spiritual problems such as inner healing and deliverance, which are tabulated separately).

I must confess I've not read this myself (so may add it to my already over-long Amazon wish list). Twangist refers to Dr Lewis favourably and for all my occasional disagreements with him, I know Twangist is careful and judicious in his references.

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
What are the stats for people just going to the doctor?

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What are the stats for people just going to the doctor?

Not quite sure what the question is here? Are you asking if some would have got better anyway? If so, I'm sure some would. But the same can often be said about going to the doctor. Medical help can accelerate healing. As can God.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I'm sure. How does one differentiate? All of these people would have been 'under' the doctor too of course. Apart from a few ultra-extremists. And sick people with no previous religious activity pray.

What are the mortality rates for charismatic evangelicals compared with controls? What are the mortality rates for the people in the book? That would be a great follow up.

It seems the fairy godmother affect was at work: it didn't do John Wimber any good.

Don't worry Drewthealexander, these are rhetorical questions. Including this one:

Is this how we're to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations that Jesus might come?

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Drewthealexander, I knew you would accept the conservative evangelical instance I gave as 'prophetic' - so would most, if not all, charismatics I've ever come across. I think some charismatics can be quite insular and exclusive, but that same charge, as you rightly say, can be levelled at some Christians in almost any tradition.

On the whole, I've found charismatics prepared to 'rejoice in the truth' where soe'er it can be found.

I don't have any particular beef with your general points and certainly not with the broad principles you've outlined. Where I might differ would be in the way this stuff works out in practice - and I'd probably be a lot more dubious than you are when it comes to claims of 'inner healing' and so on which don't really lend themselves to quantification and verification in the way that physical healings might - although even there the prognosis is sometimes problematic. I've given instances of apparent healings that have, very quickly, turned out to be nothing of the kind. That said, I don't doubt that genuine ones do occur.

I'm not entirely convinced, though, it has to be said, that what the Apostle Paul meant by prophesying was what many contemporary charismatics take it to be today. It may include elements of that - but somehow, to me at least, what we read about in the NT - and also in early documents like the Didache - sounds very mysterious and not entirely like the kind of thing we so often see and hear about today.

I'm not saying that genuine gifts of the Spirit aren't available and that these things don't take place - sometimes they even happen in charismatic settings ... [Biased] [Razz]

These days, I'm more inclined to give credence to this sort of thing when I hear of it happening in circles that don't make a big deal out of it nor 'train' people to expect it to happen.

I'm not convinced, for instance, that the bulk of what are claimed to be 'tongues' are what the speakers believe them to be ... so often, it seems to me, they are simply rhythmic utterances that are induced by suggestibility or by instruction or else 'caught' by contagion, as it were, by hanging around with people who do this sort of thing.

As Komensky says, no study has yet found any that have had any cognitive content.

I could train someone without any faith whatsoever to make a pretty convincing fist at 'speaking in tongues' in about 10 minutes flat. It's easy. It's easy to make up and easy to reproduce.

That said, I am aware of instances of people who have apparently spontaneously started speaking in tongues when praying or when under duress - without any prompting, instruction or peer pressure nor even any expectation that such a thing were possible. I'm far more prepared to give credence to accounts of that kind than I am to testimonies from people who've been to one of the big charismatic rallies and prayed for in front of crowds of expectant or even hyped up people.

The report by Dr Lewis is an interesting one. i read it a long time ago now. The Twangist cited it further up thread and Chris Stiles has been rather dismissive of it. I'd be interested to hear his reasoning and a more detailed response.

I don't think that mdijon is being entirely fair on Chris by suggesting that this thread has descended into a 'I've seen more than you-uu-uu' fest, although I can understand why he's come to that conclusion.

Chris seems to know about statistics and so on so I'd be interested in his comments on the Lewis report in more detail.

I might be wrong, but as I've said before, my own impression of the initial Wimber visits was that whilst there was a lot there that was clearly down to suggestibility and heightened expectation - almost self-hypnosis to some extent - there was more 'there' there than I subsequently saw or heard of on subsequent occasions. I never caught the full Wimber A Team, as it were, but I did go to a few meetings led by his B or reserve team, as it were. I found it fairly convincing at first - but looking back with my subsequent 'Toronto' experience to go on, I can see that a lot of it was down to the planting of cues and suggestibility. I'm not saying that this was done cynically and deliberately - far from it - but I know first-hand just how easy it is to reproduce this sort of thing under the right conditions and atmosphere.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:

Now to TRM's point on whether we can "learn" to use the given gift of prophecy. I can't really see why this would be any different from learning to use other gifts of the Spirit which include not only miracles, prophecy and the like, but also (as we read in 1 Cor 12) gifts of "helps" and "administration." I can't recall ever meeting someone with a ready made gift of administration that could not be further developed, refined, and matured.

So how might the prophetic gift be refined and matured? Well in the same way, I would suggest, as other gifts. Jesus's method of discipleship included teaching, modelling, and empowering. The main example of a charismatic gift that comes to mind from the Gospels is healing. Jesus taught his disciples quite a lot about that - for example about how to address demonic forces behind illness, and addressing misconceptions such as sickness being a punishment for sin.

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ on this one, Drewthealexander. I can see where you're coming from, but I can't really accept the connections you are making. I would continue to maintain that there is not even a hint in the bible that spiritual empowerment was ever anything other than "ready-to-use". Nowhere is there any suggestion of a learning experience. Christ's teaching on the subject of healing is a world away from what has been mooted with regard to prophecy. Nor is there anything in his training of the disciples which could possibly indicate they were given the ability to heal, but then had to practice until they became proficient. If we are to make the comparison between healing and the modern incarnation of prophecy, it won't look too good for the latter. We don't read of the disciples endlessly declaring healing in God's name, only to find the healing hasn't happened. We don't get biblical false healings, vague impressions that a healing might have taken place, incomphensible or banal healings....or the disciples saying "if you don't think this is healing from God, just ignore it".

There isn't any scriptural support for the idea that people learned to use spiritual gifts as part of the discipleship process. It simply isn't there.

You also mention the gifts of "helps" and "administration" in this context. Again, would you believe a guy had a spiritual gift of administration, if he kept screwing up the accounts, until you trained him to do otherwise? How many times would the "helps" guy have to bring toast and Coke for communion - or wire up the toilet to the mains - before it would become clear he didn't have that gift....and that no amount of training would make him gifted? You might get him to be half-decent - even proficient - through training, but do you really suppose that the Almighty God gives gifts which are so poor they need that kind of assistance?

And yet that is (essentially) what is being said about prophecy. The vast majority of modern prophecy (at least, that which I've heard) is vague, pointless, inaccurate, banal or just weird. The suggestion of training these people would seem to be an admission that the problem is pretty widespread. But it is totally the wrong solution. These people - with their impressions and pictures - don't need training in prophecy. They need discipling, and then - if they are to speak in God's name - they will need a genuine prophetic gift. The issue is not a lack of training - no-one needed that before, did they? The issue is that people speak presumptiously....and their words so often lack anything resembling the divine imprimatur.

Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

 - Posted      Profile for Boogie     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
The issue is that people speak presumptiously....and their words so often lack anything resembling the divine imprimatur.

Welcome to the human race!

--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I wonder if it might be possible to move this on a little. @Gamaliel, (BTW I didn't mention inner healing - I might get around to sharing my views on it sometime, but in the nicest possible way I'd be grateful if you didn't attribute ideas to me I haven't expressed. As you've probably realised I am something of a pedant.....)

You said I might be wrong, but as I've said before, my own impression of the initial Wimber visits was that whilst there was a lot there that was clearly down to suggestibility and heightened expectation - almost self-hypnosis to some extent - there was more 'there' there than I subsequently saw or heard of on subsequent occasions.

This makes some of your other comments somewhat puzzling. If you know that it's possible, as you put it for there to be "more 'there' than I subsequently saw or heard" why assume that the church isn't starting to recapture more of the 'there'? Since other posters readily acknowledge that there is a lot of quite superficial 'recelation' shared, why assume that there is not, in addition to that more of the more profound 'there' you have witnessed? I would have thought that the likes of Jolly Jape, Twangist, Remarius et al could be credited with enough nous to recognise both.

@TRM. I'm happy to agree to differ. What I would be interested in is any prophecy you are aware of (shared yourself even?) that you would be comfortable to recognise as genuine. I would be particularly interested in the experience of the people who shared it. In what ways would they describe their gift as 'ready made' and to what extent, or in what ways might they say they 'learned' how to use it?

I have a nagging feeling that we are, to some extent, talking to cross purposes, but think that will be hard to resolve on a chat room format. Nonetheless, I think it would give us a helpful benchmark if we can identify any examples of prophecy that we can both recognise as 'good'.

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
'Where' is the 'there'? By faith? Entitely subjectively? Despite there being no quantifiable evidence? Nothing in the mortality rates? What does 'nous' discern that science doesn't?

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Ok, apologies for making the assumption that the inclusion of 'inner healing' on Lewis's list implied that you yourself were totally comfortable with the term and all associated with it - my bad, as the Americans say.

On the pedantry thing, yes, I've noticed that, it's part of your charm ... he said patronisingly. [Biased]

I might be tempted to assert that you apply this pedantry somewhat selectively, but then, I do the same thing too on those occasions when I'm being pedantic. We all strain gnats and swallow camels over some issue or other.

I'm not sure how my comments about the initial Wimber visits make my other comments rather puzzling. If you can be inclined towards pedantry, then you'll notice that I can be inclined towards ambivalence and a degree of lee-way and ambiguity.

My remarks left the possibility open that there was more 'there' there. I didn't posit it as an absolute certainty but as my subjective judgement that there was APPARENTLY more to it. I also acknowledged that my subsequent exposure and experience of these things has led me to wonder whether I was more credulous the first time around.

I still believe there was some 'baby' in the Wimber bathwater - but perhaps not as much baby as I initially supposed.

So I see these remarks as completely consistent and in-line with everything else I've said on these threads. It's beginning to remind me of some of the discussions I've had, here and elsewhere, on the issue of US gun control. Some American friends keep insisting that I'm pushing for a total gun ban when I've never said anything of the kind.

The fact that I question a lot of so-called prophecies and pictures doesn't mean I'm closed to the possibility of their ever being genuine instances. I've said that all along.

As for the church starting to recapture more of the 'there' - no, I don't see that at all. The church has allegedly been recapturing and recovering these things for the last goodness knows how many years and I don't see a great deal more evidence of 'recovery' or 'restoration' than I remember seeing 30 years ago.

I am certainly not saying that the likes of Jolly Jape, Twangist, Ramarius et al are lacking in nous - but what I am saying is that they are - as I was - operating within a paradigm where they are expecting these things to be recovered or recaptured and restored and will consequently applaud or acclaim instances that I'd remain sceptical about.

You'll probably think that says more about me than it says about them, but all of them seem to duck and dive to a certain extent to accommodate apparent vagueness and lack of application etc etc. Heck, Chris Stiles has already 'called' Ramarius on his apparent unwillingness to accept - on another thread - that the son of one of the Bethel guys mightn't actually walked on water as the preacher claimed. He was reluctant, if I remember rightly, to dismiss the story as a load of baloney.

I'm not a cessationist but I find the special pleading and ducking and diving that goes on to defend the indefensible to be rather worrying.

Charismatics seem always to be able to side-step the obvious Occam's Razor conclusions.

It goes like this:

An early Pentecostal missionary goes to India or China sincerely believing that they are able to communicate the Gospel in an unlearned language. When they arrive they find that they are unable to do so.

The Occam's Razor solution: They weren't speaking in tongues in the first place.

The non-Occam's Razor solution: Ah, I must have been speaking some heavenly language instead, the 'tongues of angels' that Paul refers to (rhetorically) in 1 Corinthians 13.

Or this:

Wimber and his pals find themselves praying for the sick and a number of people are healed. They believe that they can begin to expect even greater miracles. These do not take place.

Occam's Razor solution: Some of the apparent healings may not have been what they first appeared, yet God can heal in answer to prayer. But it didn't seem to work out the way they expected and claimed.

Non-Occam's Razor solution: Hmmmm ... these people weren't physically healed, but something must have happened because we believed ... and also because there was observable phenomena such as falling over, tears, laughter etc etc. (Ding!) I know, they weren't physically healed but they must have been spiritually healed ... there must have been some form of 'inner healing' going on ...

I could go on, but you get my drift.

The history of the Vineyard shows, as Andrew Walker observed, that it was when the physical healings didn't materialise on the scale that Wimber and his friends expected that the emphasis turned to other theandric and thamaturgical claims ... the inner healing stuff and so on.

I'll leave TRM to respond to the queries you've addressed to him about prophecy - but for what it's worth, I'd see the examples I've already cited from non-charismatic (or non explicitly charismatic) settings (I do believe that all Christians are charismatic in the sense that we have all received the Spirit) are good examples of genuine prophecy. I think similar examples can be found in charismatic circles and anywhere else.

What I don't find particular convincing as prophecy are the kind of vague, catch-all and trite 'pictures' and so on that so often pass for it in charismatic circles.

Just like my US friends who seem to think that any suggestion that further gun control might be considered is tantamount to disarming the nation completely, the like of Jolly Jape, Twangist, Ramarius and yourself - all good people - seem to be getting the wrong end of the stick and understanding me as saying that ALL charismatic utterances should be proscribed. A kind of amnesty on prophecy as it were.

I'm not saying that, but like TRM I don't see scriptural evidence for diddy-little inconsequential prophecies eventually developing into consequential and weighty ones. Christ's first miracle was to turn vats and vats of water into wine. He didn't start with a thimbleful and work his way up to a mug, then a pint glass, then a barrel ...

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:

@TRM. I'm happy to agree to differ. What I would be interested in is any prophecy you are aware of (shared yourself even?) that you would be comfortable to recognise as genuine. I would be particularly interested in the experience of the people who shared it. In what ways would they describe their gift as 'ready made' and to what extent, or in what ways might they say they 'learned' how to use it?

I have a nagging feeling that we are, to some extent, talking to cross purposes, but think that will be hard to resolve on a chat room format. Nonetheless, I think it would give us a helpful benchmark if we can identify any examples of prophecy that we can both recognise as 'good'.

OK Drew, I’ll do my best. If I understand you correctly, you want an example of a prophetic utterance, where the speaker has not learned how to use the gift. As to whether you will recognise it as ‘good’ is, of course, up to you….for myself, I would find it difficult to see it as anything other, but I wouldn’t fall out about it.

Here goes: A guy (we’ll call him Guy) has been a Christian for just a couple of months. Not a member of the charismatic movement by any means, though he knows a few. Certainly, no first-hand experience of anything like a spiritual gift. He’s got a neighbour who he much admires - a very active Christian. This neighbour – we’ll call him Frank – takes time out every week to attend an organisation’s meetings, where he hopes to be able to lead people into a relationship with Christ.

One day, Guy is working a few miles away, round someone’s house. A thought occurs to him, a thought which he later describes as “not belonging in his head”. It is a persistent thought, and he spends several hours resisting it…..not least, because it is diametrically opposed to what he believes. It goes something like this. He should go round to see Frank, and tell him he is an idolater. There is worse to come. Not only is Frank an idolater, he will very shortly suffer the consequences of his actions unless he immediately desists. In essence, Frank is basically floating down the sewer on the small, brown raft, and he needs to make landfall right now.

Guy is shocked that such a thought could even occur to him. He starts praying, because he strongly suspects that these thoughts must be coming from God. He does what anyone in that situation would – he tells God that he’s got it wrong – Frank’s one of the good guys. Then another thought comes to mind – a bible reference. He looks it up, only to find it’s one of those really scary ones about idolatry, and the message needs to be accompanied by that reading.

Long and short, he eventually (and very reluctantly) goes round Frank’s. He starts giving him the specific message about idolatry – word for word. He doesn’t get too far, before Frank collapses, sobbing uncontrollably….but he’s started so he’ll finish, and he then reads the scripture.

When Frank recovers, he tells Guy something. He tells him that his family have actually been deeply involved in the organisation he goes to every week for generations. He admits his commitment wasn’t about sharing the gospel at all, it was indeed a form of idolatry. The other thing he tells Guy, is this.: Two weeks ago, God sent someone else to him – with exactly that message, and exactly that scripture reading – and he chose to ignore it. Frank determines he will never go back to that organisation under any circumstances.

Well, Drew – for me, this ticks all the boxes as a prophetic utterance….of whatever sort you choose to call it. It is highly detailed, incisive, life-changing and has a serious predictive component – albeit a prediction of what will happen if Frank fails to immediately comply. It was confirmed by being exactly the same as the previous message (which Guy, of course, knew nothing about – and was delivered by someone who he had never met) and it was confirmed by Frank himself as the word of the Lord. It wasn’t vague, banal or inaccurate – it wasn’t presented as something which might be from God, and it produced immediate fruit. No learning experience there….no stabs in the dark, vagaries or platitudes, either.

Naturally, you may decide this wasn’t a prophetic utterance (if your standards are higher than mine) but I’ve yet to come up with an alternative, rational explanation.

Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

 - Posted      Profile for Boogie     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The Rhythm Methodist I had a very similar experience a few years ago. I had left a friend's a hour or so before, the thought was 'go back' and I resisted it for ages. When I did go back she had fallen badly - and really needed me there.

I put it down to God then. I don't now. I am convinced it was my own intuition. I don't believe God speaks, to me or anyone else. Otherwise, why would s/he not always send a friend to those in need?

If God picked and chose like that s/he would be mean indeed. Nope - God leaves it to us to do the thinking and the caring.

--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
You raise a good point, Boogie - and one I personally struggle with at times. Those instances when God appears to intervene, and those when he doesn't. I'm prepared to believe that I have a rather one-dimensional understanding of life - compared to him - and that the times I think he should intervene are not necessarily as clear-cut as they seem to me. Still, I do maintain a belief in a God who (sometimes) involves himself dramatically with his creation....even if he doesn't always do that when I think it would be most appropriate.
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
@TRM. Thank you for story. I'd say that was an excellent example. Extraordinaryily powerful in fact. I'd be interested in what Gamaliel makes of it. Has your friend had similar experiences since?
Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I've sent TRM a PM about this one as it triggered a thought about similar incidents I'm aware of - one in an Anglican setting and one in an Orthodox one.

I'm not sure I'd want to share the details with everyone but could share the bare bones if people thought it was helpful.

As to what Gamaliel makes of TRM's story. Why should Gamaliel make anything different of that than you might or TRM might?

I'd be happy to accept this at face-value unless other evidence was forthcoming to suggest an alternative explanation. Indeed, if this was the sort of thing that was generally talked about as prophecy rather than the rather vague and woolly 'I'm getting a picture ...' things that we've been discussing since the OP, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

You see, my view is that we trivialise the weightiness of incidents of this kind if we go in for the fluffy, vague, 'I'm getting a picture of a barbecue ...' or whatever people come up with in charismatic gatherings.

I could speculate as to the identity of the organisation in TRM's example ... although I'm not sure I'd base my views/reactions or attitudes to whatever organisation it was purely on the basis of something like this - although I'd accept it as a pretty strong clue that it was a bit of a no-no!

We have to take TRM's word for it that there was 'idolatry' involved. I would be very wary if a 'word' like this suggested that this or that church or Christian group were beyond the pale, though.

Howbeit, as TRM's framed and presented the story, I'm happy to accept it as it stands unless there were evidence forthcoming to the contrary.

I don't see how it contradicts anything else I've said on this thread nor my attitude towards these things.

Whether TRM's friend has continued to have experiences of this kind would, I suggest, be determined by whether or not he 'needed' to.

You'll note that he didn't have to 'practice' or develop some kind of facility in 'how to prophecy or hear from God.' How could TRM's friend have been 'taught' or trained in that? It sounds 'ready-made' to me.

I'm still a supernaturalist and don't agree with Boogie that God never speaks to anyone. I do think, though, that the Almighty treats us as grown-ups and allows us to work things through in our own minds, by discussion, sensible decision-making and so on. I don't believe that we are to go through life responding to promptings or imagined special providences every five minutes - indeed, I would see it as a sign of spiritual maturity not to behave like that.

Both the instances that TRM's instance reminded me of were pretty weighty and had potential consequences in terms of people adopting false teachings or heretical practices of a non-mainstream Christian nature if they hadn't paid heed. I'll say no more than that.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

 - Posted      Profile for Boogie     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Still, I do maintain a belief in a God who (sometimes) involves himself dramatically with his creation....even if he doesn't always do that when I think it would be most appropriate.

It doesn't need to be when you would think it most appropriate - there are a billion instances just today when anyone would think (know!) it was appropriate.

I see no reason why God would be so sparing.

Therefore I have to conclude that s/he leaves it to us.

--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk

Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008  |  IP: Logged
Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551

 - Posted      Profile for Ramarius         Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Happy New Year one and all...

@TRM. Thanks for your story about 'Guy.' I seem to think I've heard it before somewhere. It's very powerful and really helpful since it gives a concrete illustration of what prophecy means to you. I can see where you're coming from much more clearly now.

Here's one of mine. Last year I was with a group of people who regularly got involved in a type of prophetic evangelism. The starting point for this was something I mentioned in an earlier post about hearing God together, and picks up on Jolly Jape's comment that whilst a piece of revelation might seem inconsequential in itself, as part of a larger picture it can be very powerful.

The way we approached this group evangelism was to ask the Holy Spirit for some pointers to people we would meet - where we might find them, something about what they looked like so we would know who to approach, a name, and something about them that we couldn't know. I live near a large town in the North of England (let's call it Utopia) - we would normally go out in an evening for about an hour in the town centre, a local shopping area or the neighbourhood where our leaders lived. Here's an example of the kind of thing that happens. It's not untypical.

I was in a group of three, and as we prayed our 'pointers' were ‘underpass' blood' 'darts’  ‘subway’ and a blond man, name beginning with C with pain in his arm and wearing a check shirt.

Individually, these bits of revelation wouldn't amount to anything. Collectively they took us a branch of a healthy fast food chain in the centre of Utopia. We were surprised to find that next door to this was a blood bank, and a pub (with, inevitably, a dart board). When we arrived, the street was virtually empty. It was early evening, most commuters had gone home, and party-goers hadn't yet landed.

After about 10 minutes of hanging around we seriously wondered whether we had heard God at all and we're about to move one when three people - a man and two ladies - came around the corner. He was wearing a very loud check shirt. We approached him and told him we were on an 'alternative treasure hunt' (a non-threatening ice breaker that gives us an excuse to share further) and shared our pointers with him. His first name began with C and earlier that day he had hurt his right arm, a fact confirmed by one of his friends. Mrs Ramarius then explained we were Christians, that God was very interested in him and asked if we could pray for him. He said no-one had ever prayed for him before and asked what he should do. "Just relax" said Mrs R. I'll never forget his reaction when she prayed for him - a very simple prayer asking Jesus to heal his arm. He literally jumped back in surprise and started rubbing his arm. "It doesn't hurt anymore!" One of his friends grabbed his arm where he banged it in the first place and started squeezing it. There was definitely no pain anymore. He needed some time to process what had happened to him so, after a brief further chat when he thanked us for talking to him, went off with his friends for their evening out.

The idea that individual pieces of revelation can be combined into a larger and more powerful picture is something we've learned. TRM I fully recognise what you shared about Guy as an example of how prophecy works. All I'm saying is that it works in other ways as well, and if we start with the principles as to the way God works, we can discover he has an amazing way of taking our small and often insignificant offerings and turning them into something wonderfully glorifying to him.

--------------------
'

Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:

@TRM. Thank you for story. I'd say that was an excellent example. Extraordinaryily powerful in fact. I'd be interested in what Gamaliel makes of it. Has your friend had similar experiences since?

Thanks for your response. Guy has had a number of qualitatively similar experiences since then - though not all concerned with the prophetic. He views them as both undeserved and unexpected. I'm sure he would agree with Gamaliel, who says: Whether TRM's friend has continued to have experiences of this kind would, I suggest, be determined by whether or not he 'needed' to.
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660

 - Posted      Profile for Drewthealexander     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:

@TRM. Thank you for story. I'd say that was an excellent example. Extraordinaryily powerful in fact. I'd be interested in what Gamaliel makes of it. Has your friend had similar experiences since?

Thanks for your response. Guy has had a number of qualitatively similar experiences since then - though not all concerned with the prophetic. He views them as both undeserved and unexpected. I'm sure he would agree with Gamaliel, who says: Whether TRM's friend has continued to have experiences of this kind would, I suggest, be determined by whether or not he 'needed' to.
Then accept my best wishes to you both in your respective walks with Christ.

Back to work tomorrow, so will have to leave you to it.

Your aye,

Drew

Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Sorry Ramarius, whilst I find TRM's story quite convincing, I don't find yours convincing at all. It sounds very Darren Brown.

I also don't see a great deal of scriptural support for what sounds to me like a game of spiritual charades.

I once read about how the early Pentecostal missionaries in Brazil, I think it was, were praying when they received a word - 'Para' - which turned out to be the name of a town or city which they'd not heard of before. They subsequently went there and it turned out to the first place where they made any headway and a thriving work was established.

I have to say I have grave problems with this 'treasure-hunt' thing - both in terms of where it comes from - Bethel - and where it leads ...

I know you don't like comparisons with Darren Brown but I've seen programmes where he's taken people out onto the street to 'pray' with people and most people who are 'prayed' for say they feel better ... it's suggestibility. They weren't being prayed for at all.

It's like that sung prophecy on that video you posted once, when there was that 'prophetic' thing in the pub with so-called words of knowledge and such.

I'm surprised that you expect us to take it seriously. This is precisely the sort of thing that I'm bothered about.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
'Hurt his right arm' - did you read the accounts I gave up thread about apparent healings of orthopaedic complaints in response to prayer? The girl with the squint? The experience of my Christian physiotherapist friend who has all manner of stories of spontaneous remission of muscular pain where faith and prayer aren't even involved?

Had the guy broken his arm? Had he broken his wrist?

How do you know he wasn't stringing you along?
What further contact did you have with him to verify that a real healing had taken place?

Really, Ramarius, I'm surprised at you. I thought you'd be able to do better than this ...

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Thinking about it, and sorry to go on ... but that entirely random pattern of events that you describe could be something any of us could do. You could easily have ended up in that particular place talking to a bloke in a checked shirt (which are not uncommon) with a poorly arm without the rigmorole of the spiritual charades.

Tell me, did the Holy Spirit tell you in advance that this guy would have a poorly arm or is this something that simply emerged in conversation and which Mrs Ramarius and yourself took as some kind of confirmation that you were 'meant' to be there at that particular place and time? And why didn't the Holy Spirit guide you to A&E where there would have been some genuine cases of real need? If this guy was out for a night with his pals he can't have been that badly hurt, could he?

I'm honestly gob-smacked at your credulity here.

I've got a writing exercise (which I rarely use) but which I picked up from a published poet. It's all about dealing cards that you decide in advance are going to represent particular scenarios. It's used as a way of breaking writers' block as you quickly concoct a scenario to write about - a number of characters, different times of the day or night, different situations etc.

It's just a question of chance. Hence my comments about 'Chance' and 'Community' chest cards. Anyone can do this sort of thing.

A friend of mine (not far from Utopia) did an exercise rather like yours (before it became trendy) on several occasions with a group of evangelists. On one occasion they ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere. On another they ended up on the roof of a multi-storey car-park with no-one else around. There was one instance, though, and it hadn't been 'foretold' in advance where they met up with a bunch of punks and had a very encouraging discussion about faith and so on.

There's an element of loitering-with-intent in all of this - as well as reading patterns in the fire. A dartboard in a pub next door isn't that significant in this story, surely?

And what's all this about a bloke whose first name began with C?

Surely it's not beyond the wit of God the Holy Spirit to tell you that the blokes name would be Colin, that he was 26 years old and worked as a graphic designer and that his girlfriend's name was Christine and a trainee hair-dresser and that they'd both had a Big Mac and fries earlier in the evening ...

Now that might be a tad more impressive.

As it is, all you've done is string a bunch of random words and phrases together and kept going until you found a situation that you managed to contrive to 'fit' the apparent 'words' that you'd received.

I challenge you to show any instance of this kind of guess-work, charade-business in the scriptures.

This is precisely the sort of thing I'm beefing about, precisely the sort of thing I find myself opposed to. Ok, one might question what harm it did - probably not any harm at all. This guy whose name began with C may have been impressed - then again he might later have had a good laugh at your expense. We'll never know.

But it's pretty weak.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Sorry, but you've got me started again ...

Let's look at Acts, shall we? What does it say about the encounter between Ananias and Saul.

Rummage... rummage ... are here it is:

'Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord."
So the Lord said to him, "Arise and go to a street beginning with B where there is a dartboard, an underpass and blood and enquire at the house of someone whose name might just possibly begin with J for one named with a name beginning with S, for behold, he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man with a name beginning with A coming in and putting his hand upon him that a pain he's had in his arm all day might be healed ..."

Acts 9:10-12 (New Gamaliel Version)

I mean, it just doesn't stack up, does it? How anyone can say that this isn't Darren Brown territory is beyond me.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Gamaliel, NONE of it is convincing, none. I can make it ALL work, ALL be true, or some, there is no way of knowing at all. I don't find TRM's account convincing at all for rational, faithful reasons. And it really could all be 110% true. NONE of these accounts is Biblically normative. True or not.

Nobody here has EVER given a testimony of Biblical quality. Blessed are those who believe without seeing.

When it happens to you or me, and it has happened to me, it won't be transferable. If what has happened to me had happened to another and they told me, as I have told others, I would accept it could be well be true, but I don't know. And of my personal store ... I don't know, even though I dug in recently and blew a friend away.

I encountered a man who'd been a 'missionary' in Africa a few months ago. I WANTED to believe what he told me. He did. But it was so subtly hopelessly ambiguous. He was a faithful and true witness and believed. I could not possibly. Happy to relate it.

I have had my vicar tell me the most spellbinding account of healing being done through his DISbelieving, hopeless prayer. But I wasn't there. He HAS testified MOST convincingly of a word of knowledge. One. Once. As I recall. In three years. In a congregation of hundreds.

I served on a jury in a disturbing case and we will NEVER know, in this life, whether we found correctly. It completely changed the way I read newspapers. I don't. I know enough about the mind that if the plaintiff were lying they wouldn't know it and if the defendent were INNOCENT, they wouldn't either.

You and I are like Harry Houdini, unmasking fraud, even utterly understandable self-deceit and possibly missing miracles, in search of the miraculous.

For the likes of you and me, it's not to be, unless God comes to us like Gideon and his fleece. And like Gideon, we'll still have doubts.

In 12 years here I've learned that we are all alientaed from each other and God by disposition, that intellect is useless. How do we be kind? How do we bring the Kingdom closer?

I will continue to endure the blink making blast of charismatic chaff for the sake of fellowship and every now and again, like my wife's account, something looking like a kernel of truth will zip by, even ping off me.

For everyone with a miracle, I accept it is true for you. God bless you with more. God certainly has met us ALL in ALL of this, true or not, apart and here.

What is He trying to achieve in the impossibility of our agreeing?

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064

 - Posted      Profile for The Rhythm Methodist   Email The Rhythm Methodist   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
@Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

I would agree that experiences are not transferable by word of mouth. I assume by that you mean that I may have an experience, but the most you can end up with is an account of that experience. Whether or not you accept the veracity of my account (or my understanding of it) I would disagree with your statement that it is not biblically normative. The essence of the account is that God imparted detailed information to be delivered to a third party. There was no facility whereby this information could otherwise be available to the initial recipent. It was delivered, confirmed and happened to have the desired effect. I think that pretty much defines the biblical prophetic norm.

Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I can understand the point you're making Martin. I don't disagree in principle and would say that any prophecy, even if genuine, is going to be 'in part'.

I still have some issues with the story TRM relates, but would agree with him that it is closer to what we read about in the NT than anything our dear friend Ramarius has shared. I don't see identikit-piece-together-scraps-of-information prophecies in the NT. I do see the revelation of specific and verifiable information to third parties - such as advance notice of an impending famine and some of the other examples that have been discussed upthread.

I will agree that there can be a kernel of truth and wholesomeness amidst the chaff and I certainly wouldn't suggest that the lad in the checked shirt with the hurting arm whose name began with C was somehow scarred by the encounter with the Ramariuses and their friends. For all I know it could have been quite a significant contact for him and could lead to him being more open to the Christian faith in the fulness of time.

On the other hand he may subsequently have shrugged it off as something indifferent.

Either way, whether the God 'met with him' in that way or not, it neither validates nor invalidates the experience or the exercise in and of itself. God can work good things out of poor practice.

For my money, though, what Ramarius and his pals were doing was poor practice. Something without any scriptural warrant or support. I would commend them for their zeal and willingness to get out into the streets and to share the gospel with complete strangers. There's something self-fulfilling about the whole thing, though. They could have gone into town and had a similar conversation with similar results without all the preliminaries of so-called 'words' and so on.

That's why I've kept banging on about the kinds of exercises that take place in business brainstorming sessions, creative writing workshops, drama workshops and improvisations and so on ... because these are almost directly analagous and lead to apparent 'results'. Komensky's magician/stage performer friend springs to mind ... and Derren Brown big time ...

Nevertheless, 'God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform' and I'm quite sure he's more than capable of bringing something good out of dubious practices of this kind. I once met someone who had been converted to Christ by reading particular verses in the literature of a very dodgy cult that she belonged to. Even though these verses had been wrung completely out of context she received some appreciation of the Gospel and it led to her reading more widely and investigating what mainstream Christians believed - despite the best efforts of the cult to prevent her.

In the end, she was able to find her way out of the cult and into a mainstream evangelical church.

Great stuff. But that by no means justifies the way the cult was abusing the scriptures in its literature. God was able to reach her INSPITE of the errors, not in and through them.

At the risk of offending Ramarius I would suggest that there is a similar dynamic here - although I'm far from suggesting that he is involved in anything cult-like.

TRM's story isn't in every respect bob-on to what we might regard as NT practice, but I submit that it is closer to it.

As for the experiences of your vicar and the missionary you met etc ... well, as I've said all along, there is a baby there.

I can see how and why people put up with the chaff in order to benefit from the overall fellowship ... but when there's so much chaff that it gets in your eyes you either need goggles, or you need to turn off the fan that's spreading chaff around the room. At the moment, I'm wearing goggles. I've asked the leadership of my church to turn the fan down but so far they've not taken any notice. Sooner or later something will have to give - and it'd be sad if I had to move on. I'd rather work with some wonky practices than have everything squeaky-clean and predictable, but if the wonkiness becomes untenable I'm afraid there's little one can do except withdraw.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
TRM, brother, friend, your account isn't Biblically normative. The form of it. As for the content, it can easily be rationalised externally, very mainly due to the form.

God is with you in it all regardless.

We all appear to be desperate, middle class blind people looking for a shadow of doubt. I want what you say to be true, but it can only be true for those who do 'more' it seems.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Doing more convinces the doer. Well it would do wouldn't it? That's how we brainwash ourselves.

It NEVER works as a witness to others.

What does?

Ramarius' account has a better form, but Gamaliel's Derren Brown critique is telling and so is 'And the moral of this story is:' - there isn't one. There is no discipleship, no follow up.

I want the Heidi Becker(?) raising of the dead in Angola stories to be true. The missionary I met some months ago told how he was in an African village and they all queued up for healing prayer. An interpreter told him their symptoms, which of course made little sense to him and there was no Western medical diagnosis. He prayed without hope, without expectation. He asked the interpreter to ask what was happening, in every case he was told, 'They are healed.'.

May be they were.

No one will ever know in this life.

All of this seems a massive exercise in missing the point.

I now have to work out the chaotic finances of our mission to the homeless and vulnerably housed and work out how I buy a bed for a guy who's back's gone as his last cheap bed - a year old - disintegrated and he's sleeping on his sofa and working 14 hour days 7 days a week in warehousing. A mission that has cost me much time=money and money, much wasted money, threatened my tenuous job with nothing to show for it in terms of church growth but stumbles along.

Should I be praying for a picture?

I don't want to to discourage any one. In my discouragement. And we know who the author of that is.

So how can we encourage each other despite our polarised narratives?

Martin

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

 - Posted      Profile for Gamaliel   Author's homepage   Email Gamaliel   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Fair points, Martin.

What these stories have in common, it seems to me, is the common denominator of having to take somebody's word for it. The missionary had to take the interpreter's word of it that the African villagers were 'healed'. How did the interpreter know that without independent medical verification? It's always based on someone's say-so.

It's like the incident I recounted with my brother's visit to a meeting with the healing evangelist. Everyone there on the night would have been convinced that they'd witnessed a miracle and that the girl with the squint had received a healing whereby her squint was rectified. In the cold light of day, this was not the case.

There can be something very cruel about a lot of this stuff ... hope and expectation built up, only for it to be dashed.

In your particular case, Martin, the true 'miracle' for your hard-up friend working in the warehouse would be if your middle-class, charismatic co-religionists would club together and buy him a new bed - thereby relieving you of the total burden and improving someone's lot immeasurably.

Is that going to happen or are they going to stand around in their church services punting out twee 'words' and 'pictures' and so-called words of knowledge about the usual themes ... yadda yadda yadda ...

In terms of the lack of follow-up and discipleship in the Ramarius story - I couldn't agree more. I also think it's possible to over-estimate the impact that our verbal witness and testimony has. My brother once worked in a depot where he made it a matter of principle to 'witness' to as many of the blokes as possible. Years later, after working elsewhere, and far less fervent in his evangelicalism, he returned and worked there again. The very blokes he'd witnessed to with such alacrity couldn't even remember that he was a Christian, let alone what he'd said to them.

Now, this doesn't mean that he was 'wrong' to have testified etc nor that it is wrong for Ramarius to go out into the highways and byways ...

But it is a call for a reality check.

Heck, I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is and help out with some kind of donation for this friend of yours, Martin. It wouldn't be a great deal but, along with other donations, it might make a difference. Certainly as much if not more than any putative 'word' or 'picture'.

PM me the details.

James 2:15-16.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675

 - Posted      Profile for Komensky   Email Komensky   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
These connect to the perceptions of the Vineyard study. The study was not one about healing, but about perceptions of healing. Big difference. Don't make this mistake:

1. Person A has some kind of health complaint
2. Person B invokes spell, chant or prayer (etc.) in the name of X.
3. Person A feels better

Conclusion: the name of X healed Person A (with no proof of either the ailment or the 'cure').

Or, perhaps even an even easier analogy.

1. I stepped on a spider
2. It rained.
3. stepping on spiders causes it to rain.

--------------------
"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw

Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Gamaliel, Gamaliel. THAT is the Spirit of God moving. Most moving. I will not, cannot take you up on it. Your being truly willing, which my fellowship will not be, not without getting a clear picture, even if the bureaucracy all the way up to the PCC approves in weeks to come when his need is yesterday, is the silver lining of inspiration in all this discouragement.

I, the church according to my vicar, specifically in relationship to this man whom I said we'd failed years ago, to which my vicar said, "You are the church.", must be. Sacrifically. Cheerfully. HA! If only I hadn't had to take my wife, mother and sister to Amsterdam three weeks ago to give my daughter away and then take my wife away for Xmas. I could resent being a blessing (again and again and ...) for this man in comfort.

I'm CERTAINLY getting a picture Gamaliel, and you are in it.

So, just now, after editing out much, is the beginnings of a smile. I really MUST count it all joy. YOU have been used for me to see that this morning.

God bless you - Martin

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296

 - Posted      Profile for Jolly Jape   Email Jolly Jape   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Sorry to have been so lang away; RL, and all that.

I'd like to address a couple of points amde, before getting back fully into the fray, which will take some time, I guess.

Firstly, @ Martin

quote:
It really does seem that ALL (99.999%) of charismatics are damnationists - any here NOT? ... I'm getting a picture.
[sticks up hand, clicks heels] Yep, card carrying charismatic and believer in utimate reconciliation Sir!!!


@Chris Styles

quote:
There are structural (weak ecclesiology) reasons for why some of the sort of things that arise aren't put right in charismatic circles - in the same way as there are structural issues (clericalism) for why a disjoint set of things that arise aren't put right in some of those other circles.
If you don't think there are problems with clericalism in Charismatic churches, you really are more familiar with nonconformism than Anglicanism. Seriously! I realise that the direction of discussion here could have made it seem that I don't think there are many, if any, flaws within charismatic (Anglicanism, which is the stream I know best) but really, I'm fully aware of its shortcomings. I just don't think they are the ones that worry you [Eek!]

Also

quote:
[Side note: Do you not find it odd that you are comparing yourself to groups of people who - in a different context - you may argue are quenching the spirit and then saying 'we aren't any worse than that lot over there ?']
I think you could search the two and a half thousand posts which I have made on this bulletin board and I'm confident you would never find me writing any such thing. I just don't feel equipped to suggest such a thing to anyone of a tradition not my own.

@ Gamaliel

quote:

Oh come on, Jolly Jape ...

I didn't raise the issue of immorality, Chris Stiles did. I simply explored the issue and gave due regard to the issues you've raised - that this sort of thing can happen in other traditions and other circles.

I've been very even-handed.

As to whether I have caricatured charismatic practice in any way, I resent that remark. It is not true. I speak as I find and describe what I have heard and seen over the last 30 years.

You do me a disservice, sir, if you suggest that I am caricaturing the charismatic evangelical position. All the way through this thread I have acknowledged those aspects of the charismatic evangelical position - which is wider than any single 'position', of course - which I believe to be strong-points - such as a sense of the immanence of God and the liveliness and vitality shown by many charismatics as well as their sheer hard work and commitment.

I've also defended charismatics against some of the accusations levelled in some posts - such as those by The Rhythm Methodist - whilst broadly sharing his unease about particular features.

You are doing me a gross disservice if you suggest that I am exaggerating or caricaturing anything.

In fact, I challenge you to show me where I have done so.

Prove your accusation or else step outside like a man and face the consequences ...

I wasn't accusing you personally of all those things, merely responding to your "what's the beef" question, as to why I found most of the contra arguments, from whoever, so frustrating. And I do continue to think that many of them are based on inaccurate caricatures. To make a broad brush statement that most, even the great majority, of prophetic utterances are "bollocks" does seem, to me, to be a caricature.

Just to try one more time to explain how I believe these things work. Let me take the "someone here is afraid of losing their job" word that you cited as an example of a "jejune" prophecy. It is easy for us all to sit on the sidelines nodding our heads and say "yes, how awful", and so on. But, as always, context is everything. If someone in that congregation had been told, before leaving work on the previous Friday, that her name was on the list of those who would have to reapply for their jobs because of downsizing, would that not throw a completely different light on the value of that prophetic word? Prophecy does not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of those with whom God meets through it. God's intent is not to validate gifts, or to prove that He speaks today, or to raise up prophets, per se, but to help and encourage and build up His people, at least according to Paul. Would you rather that the prophetic voice remain silent, and that hypothetical woman remain unencouraged, if there is such a word, or that the person speak out in fear and trembling, obedient to what they believe God is telling them, just so that the "quality" however we measure that, of prophecy is maintained in some way, and nothing banal or naive, as it seems to us, is ever uttered?

--------------------
To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)

Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged



Pages in this thread: 1  2  3  ...  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15 
 
Post new thread  Post a reply Close thread   Feature thread   Move thread   Delete thread Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
 - Printer-friendly view
Go to:

Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement

© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0

 
follow ship of fools on twitter
buy your ship of fools postcards
sip of fools mugs from your favourite nautical website
 
 
  ship of fools