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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Toronto Blessing - 20 years on
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Here's a thread I promised to start.
I've recently read Martyn Percy's critique of the TB and Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) written in 1996.
Barnabas62 provided a link on another thread ... but I can't find it just now.
I'd go along with most, but not all, of Percy's observations.
My purpose though, isn't to go over the old ground of the critique ... which sees the 'Blessing' in terms of Systems of Exchange in sociological terms - but to explore what, if anything, has been the legacy of that period 1994-1996 within the wider evangelical charismatic scene?
For my part, it marked the high-water mark of a certain kind of revivalism. In my own experience it marked a transition - or perhaps the realisation of a trajectory I was already on - insofar as in the aftermath I began to read and fellowship more widely and to begin moving away from the revivalism I'd generally accepted up until that point.
1996/97 saw the greater take-up of the internet and online discussion boards such as this one ... and that exposed me to RC and Orthodox views as well as different flavours of Protestantism.
Our first child was born in 1996 and the growth of family responsibilities put a new complexion on things.
So, there was a whole load going on for me during that period and whilst I can't isolate the TB thing from the rest of it, I think it did represent something of a shift ...but along the lines of a trajectory I was already on.
That's only speaking for myself of course.
What experiences or insights have other Shipmates to share and what - if anything - has been left as a legacy from the TB days?
[ 08. January 2015, 14:32: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
My trajectory has been similar to yours, save for the timing of starting a family, as my first marriage broke up in 1998 and the second did not produce our first child until 2004. I think for me it marked the high-water mark of my charismatic scene involvement likewise, for a variety of reasons: the only way to go from that sort of 'high' was 'down', as it were; our Elim Pentecostal congo became much more whacky in its behaviour and practices which gradually repelled me and led me to begin to critique the whole set of pre-loaded theological and praxis assumptions held by the charismatic movement...which ultimately brought me to engage with other Christian traditions and...er...the Ship.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
here, with acknowledgement to Baptist Trainfan, is the recent reference to the paper on the TB: quote:
As Martyn Percy wrote: "When the TB first ‘broke,’ British leaders in charismatic renewal were careful to ‘position’ the commodity in the‘charismatic market.’ It was variously described as a ‘spiritual topup,’‘in-flight re-fuelling,’ ‘refreshing, not revival,’ ‘latter rain,’ and the like. In other words, the TB was a form of resource for a tired or flagging movement" (p.17).
Back in a moment with my reflections.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I had had charismatic experience well before Toronto. I encountered Toronto at Stoneleigh Bible Week 1994, doing "carpet time" right at the end of the week. We "exported" the blessing back to our church, which soon led to us splitting from our parent church and mission, becoming much more overtly charismatic in practice, and within a few years to us joining NFI.
By March 1998 I felt God was leading us to a new phase; I discontinued "receiving meetings", and shifted our emphasis to social action with a keynote message on God's call to Elijah to "go to the widow" (the late Simon Pettit preached memorably on "remember the poor" at the NFI Brighton leaders' conference eight months later, in November 1998. That's scary timing).
Shortly thereafter our church was spontaneously converged on by marginal, homeless people, I started getting more closely interested in prisons, and a social action programme was born. The church became one of the largest, if not the largest, protestant congregations in town.
Six years after that, the church was destroyed, largely by fellow-participants in "carpet time", and I was left near suicidal spiritually deconstructing my faith.
Ten years on from that, I've done some reconstructing. The church I'm in hasn't quite, to quote Adrian Plass, "split itself back to where it started from", but we are certainly not doing any carpet time (although the socially needy that scattered in the explosion have turned up again).
I've become highly suspicious of revivals, refreshings, and outpourings - and especially of human manipulation of them. I can look back at my carpet time and see a lot of psychological factors at work. But I can't shake off the feeling of having experienced God's presence then in a special way. In 1994-5 I devoured my Bible. Within a few years the "outpouring" had led us to concrete social action. Despite it all, it seems to have been a "time of refreshing" for me.
Here endeth this chapter of my autobiography.
More analytically, I think that through synchronicity and personnel, in the UK Toronto launched Alpha in much the same way that Mission England introduced charismatic worship songs and John Wimber to the mainstream ten years earlier.
[ 05. September 2014, 11:12: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I had a 'carpet time' - or more accurately, a hard wooden floor - experience in 1982 - at a time when such things weren't expected and were even discouraged in the circles in which I moved.
I'm not sure what to make of that now, but it was very intense, unexpected and wasn't consciously induced by anything I'd observed. I'd not seen it happen to anyone else, but I had heard of it happening.
It may have subconsciously been triggered by hearing accounts of such things and also by psychological reasons ... I was carrying a lot of guilt and was highly sensitive over sins that many people would have considered very minor ...
It was certainly cathartic and I felt joy, acceptance and a sense of 'cleansing' which I find difficult to describe. It also made me bolder in my witness to my faith for a time too.
I was charismatic at that time already but wondered about the veracity or validity of the 'tongues' and so on ... I felt I might be making it all up. This experience wasn't accompanied by 'tongues' or other manifestations/spiritual gifts but at the time I did wonder at the time whether this was the real deal in terms of 'baptism in the Spirit' as it were.
Now, I don't tend to be so prescriptive about issues like that and my view would be that something very real did happen - but that there was a lot of psychological stuff going on in there too.
The result of it all was that I was more open to charismata thereafter ... although nothing 'happened' to me and I was fairly sceptical during the first and second waves of Wimber influences and visits in 1984/85. That said, I admired the more laid-back and less 'authoritarian' feel of the Wimber team visits and the apparent 'democratisation' of the holy ...
I think I am quite a susceptible and suggestible bloke, despite how I sometimes post here aboard Ship. I'm quite easily moved by atmospheres and by various cues. I've never been to a hypnotist but imagine that I would be quite easily hypnotised.
So, when the Toronto thing came along I was certainly open to the possibility of it being the real deal. I was initially sceptical but then plunged in and found I could 'do the stuff' ... although I quickly backed off when I realised how easy it was to induce these things.
I'm not so convinced about the spread of Alpha being congruent with the TB. Alpha was spreading out from its HTB base independently of all that, if I remember rightly.
As for Mission England and the spread of charismatic style songs ... yes, but that process was already underway from the growth in popularity of Spring Harvest a few years before that.
But then, there are lots of interconnected influences within all these things.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Thanks for your...er...contribution - unless of course you were using the emoticon as illustrative of what you did during the TB...?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
20 years!!??
Oh my goodness - now I know I'm old!
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
'What did you do during the Toronto Blessing, Daddy?'
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I might be slow on the uptake but I'm wondering what I might have said that amused Beeswax Altar so much?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Yes, I would like an explanation from Beeswax Altar too.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
I’ve never been a charismatic, although I have enjoyed and benefitted from that type of music / song. My introduction to this was in the days of Trevor Dearing in Essex (the 1970’s?) and the ‘black church’ scene in Britain.
However I did spend eight or nine years covertly researching a number of ‘new churches’, first the music and how it triggered certain behaviours and then the whole question of whether or not members of such churches receive ‘empowerment’ through their involvement.
The Toronto thing arrived just as I was beginning to write up the second stage of my research. I was delighted to have ‘missed’ it: although I continued to attend and observe the happenings, I had no need to make any comment on it. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I found the experience very scary – more for the people affected than for myself, I think. It seemed foolishness to me and bordering on the deceitful. But that’s not what you asked.
Today, I look back at it (from the outside) and reflect that it was, as with other shipmates, a step on a pilgrimage for me. A step which led me nearer to rejecting all churches and GOD altogether – which is where I am today. It was one of the factors that ultimately led me to question and to reject my faith.
So, when I hear of current outpourings (Todd B or Cwmbran for instance) I sigh ‘here we go again, it’s foolishness, it will go away soon’.
Just my reaction and feelings – which you asked for . Within my pilgrimage / mind-set (non theism) there is acceptance of the value for people of meeting with their gods provided that they don’t harm others or, in the context of the phenomena discussed here, don’t harm each other. It seems to me that such ‘outpourings’ are liable to harm people and this can be seen in the disillusionment and fall-out. I regularly heard it said of charismatic congregations “in the front door, out the back”. Sad, I think.
That’s the legacy left to me.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Sure, I'm not out to make any value judgements on the legacy this stuff has left for anyone ... theist or non-theist.
It does seem, though, that whatever one makes or made of it, the whole thing served in many instances to confirm people in one trajectory or another ... in your case towards a rejection of theism - in the case of Eutychus, Matt Black and myself, a rejection of certain aspects of revivalism yet not a moving away from a theistic paradigm ...
As far as the foolishness issue goes - yes, a lot of what I saw back then was pretty daft. To an extent, heavy and rather authoritarian though the set-up I was involved with undoubtedly was, it did protect us from some of the whackier manifestations ... or at least, tempered them in some way.
We didn't have as much of the screaming and 'dog-barking' that marked the Toronto thing - or 'move of the Spirit' as we called it - nor so much of the uncontrollable laughter - although that did happen.
I was still involved with our church but had pretty much backed off from the more revivalist gatherings by around 1996 ...
I was also writing long letters to the elders questioning various aspects of charismatic spirituality - and music - in general ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Thanks for your...er...contribution - unless of course you were using the emoticon as illustrative of what you did during the TB...?
Dang...you figured it out.
Actually, the Toronto Blessing wasn't as big a deal in the United States. I believe the revival in Pensacola was going on at roughly the same time. Even for somebody who grew up in the charismatic movement, the whole laughing thing was a big strange. Who was that guy from South Africa?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I was in a very charismatic university CU in the late nineties/early noughties. Toronto (and Brownsville, Pensacola – remember them?) were big news at the time.
Some of the weirder behaviour associated with Toronto etc. definitely caught on in our CU. Lots of howling, lying on the floor, and generally doing and saying outlandish stuff “in the Spirit”. I remember one girl in a sort of trance, making brushing movements with her hand. Sweeping out unbelief or something, supposedly. She was held up as an example of shining spiritual something or other to the rest of us… although it should be said, this particular meeting was one of those that did go too far into scaring people, there was an Argument™ and the particular speaker was Not. Invited. Back.
Good little Baptist girl that I was, I was quite freaked out and frightened by it in the first instance. I’d never encountered anything remotely like it before. I think the same was probably true of other fellow-students of mine who had grown up in non-charismatic churches, often Baptist or evangelical Anglican. In the end, I think I got kind of acclimatised to the weirdness, and joined in with the less extreme parts with a sort of “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” approach. I loved the singing. (Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)
OTOH, I can’t deny that in other ways it was an incredibly good time for me and I grew hugely. We prayed for hours (often in very unweird, simple, low-key ways). Like Euty, I devoured the Bible.
Still I wonder if part of the reason it was never going to last is that like me, quite a fair proportion of the little people in the plastic chairs (no pews in this revival! ) were never 100% convinced about the whole thing to start off with. Even at the time, we were filtering the wheat from the chaff.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)
Exactly so, very significant. It's called hype or manipulation. It's what music does and the leaders / musicians knew it.
(Edited to add last sentence.)
[ 05. September 2014, 13:11: Message edited by: Mark Wuntoo ]
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Who was that guy from South Africa?
Rodney Howard-Browne. quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)
Exactly so, very significant. It's called hype or manipulation. It's what music does and the leaders / musicians knew it.
Hello Mark Wuntoo I must see if your thesis is still around here somewhere!
Speaking as a musician, I made a deliberate decision not to have any music or singing in our "receiving meetings" in order to rule this out. (Where one draws the line between enthusiasm and manipulation in music/worship is still a vexed question for me).
Our meetings, mostly in our front room, started out with a few "house rules" and otherwise looked much like a Brethren "morning meeting" until the mayhem started (no barking or clucking for us mind you).
The hardest-to-explain thing I ever witnessed in those meetings was a lady I knew well prophesying over a Kabyle man I also knew well - in Arabic (along the lines, as I recall, of "you idiot, stop being so proud and start receiving the Spirit"). She didn't speak a word of Arabic.
I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I could lead you to the spot where it happened in my front room.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Hello Mark Wuntoo I must see if your thesis is still around here somewhere!
Don't you mean gold dust, Eutychus? ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
My primary church at the time was a breakaway-group from a large charismatic denomination. To a large extent we seemed at the time to be receiving a lot of things second and third hand (though I wonder to what extent this is me looking back in time and assuming modern social-media savvy eyes to make something more primitive than it was and to what extent it was because the church was unaffiliated). It always seemed that we were at the periphery, and the 'good stuff' was happening a few removes away.
It corresponded with a time when I was involved in various christian activities which involved people of different traditions. In particular, a number of very down to earth, mostly working class, Anglicans. I remember being in a meeting where people started laughing/rolling around etc. and at one point one woman got on all fours and started barking. After about 5 minutes the vicar went over, tapped her on the shoulder and said gently "You don't have to do that, you know". At which point the lady, seemed to snap out of whatever mental mode she was in, and just stood back up. This was a very powerful object lesson for me.
I should note that bar the deliberate animal noises, the whole falling over thing was quite familiar to me. I'd witnessed it for many years in a completely different ethnic setting - though generally not in the orchestrated way in which it took place during the TB - usually a couple of people falling down during particular services - with screaming and shrieking not being completely uncommon.
Much more recently, I happened to visit a particular church in which I noticed a lady shaking, and frequently jumping off her seat during prayer. In conversation with other people later it appeared that she'd acted this way during the TB, and had experienced 'manifestations' like this ever since.
Not sure if anyone has read John White's book on Wimber, but at that point I was reminded strongly of his chapter entitled 'Godfrey the Godly Giggler'.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Gosh ...
I've heard some stories of 'xenoglossy' but never any that have been substantiated by anyone who can actual speak the languages that were purportedly being spoken ... although my brother-in-law, who is very level-headed, does claim to have been overheard saying part of the Lord's Prayer and snippets of the Psalms in Afrikaans.
He hastens to add that he wasn't overheard saying, 'Get off our lend, Kaffir ...' or 'You bleck bestid ...' which is the sort of thing normally associated with Afrikaans, I'm afraid.
In our neck of the woods there wasn't a great deal of glossolalia - or music either - associated with the TB ... I remember some of the Pentecostals becoming quite concerned about TB as it had all manner of other 'manifestations' apart from 'tongues'.
On the expectation and suggestibility side of things ... my 'take' would be that in the initial stages, to get the ball rolling, there was certainly some clear cues and planting of expectations, 'Some of you will shake, others of you may fall over ...'
Once it got going though, there was very little by way of preliminaries and people tended to do whatever it was they did ... laugh, keel over, shake ...
It did look a lot like learned behaviour to me.
Such 'hype' as there was tended to be pretty gentle on the whole ... but there was still a lot of suggestibility involved.
I did go to one Rodney Howard Browne meeting and that grated with me on all sorts of levels ... mostly culturally. He and his aides were throwing 'merchandise' - books, CDS etc etc - out into the 'audience' for people to catch. It was all very 'staged' and it looked pretty clear to me that he was on the look out for people who appeared 'open' or susceptible.
That said, there were some things that didn't lend themselves to immediate classification in the 'that's a set up' category ... including some stuff that happened to one or two of my friends.
I remained unmoved by the whole thing and I noticed that he made no attempt to engage with me when he passed along our row apparently meting out 'blessings' and 'manifestations' to anyone who appeared to be up for it.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
Don't you mean gold dust, Eutychus?
Now you see for some reason I never bought into that.
I think there was a definite divide between those who saw the phenomena as redolent with symbolic meaning (roaring = Lion of Judah) and those who saw them as physical byproducts of an inner spiritual experience.
I definitely fell (ha ha) into the latter category, pointed there by the John White book chris stiles mentions (When The Spirit Comes in Power, which was pre-Toronto (1988)), Catch The Fire by Guy Chevreau from TACF (which in turn pointed to Wesley's journals and [please picture a longish pause while Eutychus ransacks dusty bookshelves] Whitefield's Distinguishing Marks of the Work of a Spirit of God).
I think the gold dust proponents fell into the former category and were a lot more bonkers. Well a lot more bonkers than me. More Lord!
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Gosh ...
I've heard some stories of 'xenoglossy' but never any that have been substantiated by anyone who can actual speak the languages that were purportedly being spoken ...
I have, from the same period, and I've mentioned it before here.
David Carr from Solihull (under whom one Richard Taylor trained!!!) claimed his "tongue" was Old French, which I studied at university. He spoke and "ministered" at an NFI prayer and fasting I was at, and I could understand him perfectly when he prayed in tongues for people - and he was saying relevant things. It could possibly have been contemporary Québecois (which I didn't encounter for a few years after that). He claimed to be an unschooled lad and to have spent quite a bit of his professional life in football management. He certainly didn't strike you as someone who'd spent time mugging up stuff in a language lab.
When he burst out in Old French, I felt like someone from 1 Corinthians 14: "truly God is among you!" Ever since I've wondered whether it was a con; but the language was certainly authentic enough.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
That's interesting. I knew some people who were involved in his church who once told me that he'd been overheard praying in at least four recognisable languages ...
I always remained sceptical ... I always felt uncomfortable with that particular end of the spectrum, even though I hadn't had any direct contact with his church ...
I don't know what that should be ...
It always struck me as suspicious, though, when claims of actual languages were made ... it was often Old French or Old Spanish ... this made me wonder why it wasn't modern French or Spanish and whether Old French or Old Spanish simply referred to something that could sound sort of like French or Spanish but wasn't really ...
Oh Gamaliel of little faith ...
But I'll bow to your linguistic abilities and experience.
As for the gold-dust thing, I was well on my way out by the time that came along and never took that at all seriously ... although people I knew did ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Once the gold dust and gold fillings stuff started was when I began to metaphorically back away from it all...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Coming back to the 'legacy' thing ...
To what extent do Shipmates see things like New Wine and Bethel as heir/successors to TB ... perhaps not in a direct passing on the baton sense - but in the sense of seeking to occupy the same 'space' and deliver similar promises?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To what extent do Shipmates see things like New Wine and Bethel as heir/successors to TB ... perhaps not in a direct passing on the baton sense - but in the sense of seeking to occupy the same 'space' and deliver similar promises?
I think to a large extent the way the TB and similar things functioned was to shift a theological Overton window.
So if such things didn't become common practice, they at least became accepted occasionally so long you didn't frighten the horses (New Wine). Whilst similarly for some people it functioned as the start of a journey into the unknown (Bethel and further).
[ 05. September 2014, 15:14: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Falling on the floor, plus (optional) rolling around on it laughing/ roaring
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
It's when you fall over, supposedly overwhelmed by the power of the Spirt, and stay there for a while. The expression was coined, I think, at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, the venue of which features industrial carpeting.
The phrase is typical of the laid-back, Vineyard approach to spirituality.
[x-post]
[ 05. September 2014, 15:15: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
(Now I think about it, in a hyper-charismatic liturgy, the singing always comes at the beginning, before the “manifestations” begin i.e. it was a part of the meeting that always preceded the stuff that made me uncomfortable. Hmmmm…)
Exactly so, very significant. It's called hype or manipulation. It's what music does and the leaders / musicians knew it.
Maybe, but this isn’t what I meant. My point is that I enjoyed the singing but less the subsequent weirdness. If the music and hand waving was meant to manipulate me into being more susceptible to the “manifestations” that came afterwards, then it didn’t work in my case. But I could – and did – enjoy the first part of the meeting because I liked singing and nothing had happened at that point to make me uncomfortable.
I think I sort of switched off a bit later on in the proceedings. I suspect I was not alone therein.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's when you fall over, supposedly overwhelmed by the power of the Spirt, and stay there for a while. The expression was coined, I think, at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, the venue of which features industrial carpeting.
The phrase is typical of the laid-back, Vineyard approach to spirituality.
[x-post]
What was wrong with slain in the Spirit?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What was wrong with slain in the Spirit?
The phrase is typical of the laid-back, Vineyard approach to spirituality ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
A large part of the Vineyard ethos was an attempt to demystify spirituality. On arriving newly converted at a rather staid church for the first time, Wimber (a jazz musician, after all) did not ask "where be the mighty signs and wonders that our Lord doth command us his followers to perform?". As he used to tell it, he asked "when do we get to do the stuff?"
[my UBB code fell over]
[ 05. September 2014, 15:32: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Ceesharp
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# 3818
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Posted
As I recall, in my fellowship (inter-denominational but mostly R.C. charismatic community) we had long been familiar with the phenomena of speaking in tongues, shaking and falling in the Spirit, though usually the most extreme accompanying manifestation was weeping. We welcomed The Toronto blessing as a means of deepening the life in the Spirit. Most of our prayer meetings did not begin with manipulating music, just a couple of unaccompanied songs followed by praying with each other resulting in falling, laughing, weeping and on one occasion rolling. In our well-attended open meetings the high-power worship music was followed by an extensive teaching (not about the Toronto blessing) before praying for people, so not much emotive manipulation there.
Without exception, myself included, the various manifestations experienced were deeply and emotionally healing for those who experienced them. We all experienced renewed fervour for prayer, reading Scripture and service.
The only lasting visible effect twenty years later is in one of our older members, a retired academic of some considerable standing and an increasingly holy man, who is unable to pray for anyone else without himself falling over.
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
I think also the "Being slain in the Spirit" was associated with more 'old-time' Pentecostalism (and thus not an entirely new phenomenon as at least one poster here has confirmed), with which I think Vineyard and Co were keen to break.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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ExclamationMark
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# 14715
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Posted
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way. In the more extreme case people exhibited altered states of consciousness as a result of the group dynamic and "cues."
I'm certain that God was doing something to the church but I also think that church leaders very quickly latched on to what was happening and it all became very sign centred. The manifestations were the thing not God - we were encouraged not to think, analyse or pray just receive. Why on earth did God give me critical faculties then? Why were people lying around giggling when there was a community to serve? It was then I knew it was wrong - and, in one or two extreme cases, beyond exploitation to the point of demonic.
The church I was in at the time - moving into renewal and community work on a rough estate - broke apart as the leadership didn't go down this road when influential members wanted it. As a result a membership of 100 odd dropped rapidly below 30. I didn't see much or indeed any community impact from churches going through TB. Please show me what fruit they have now?
Martyn Percy is spot on in my view. There's no dunamis going on just an exercise in power dynamics and control. If you didn't receive then you were 2nd class: not in the eyes of the God I know. One might possibly extend Percy's ideas now and see TB as the death kicks of a moribund movement, having a last roll of the dice.
It put so many people off anything to do with the move of the spirit - and I say that as a convinced and believing charismatic evangelical. TB did the church way more harm than good as it highjacked the whole decade of evangelism.
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Higgs Bosun
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# 16582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I think also the "Being slain in the Spirit" was associated with more 'old-time' Pentecostalism (and thus not an entirely new phenomenon as at least one poster here has confirmed), with which I think Vineyard and Co were keen to break.
I recall someone commenting at the time of the TB that the only people in the Bible who were slain in the Spirit were Ananias and Sapphira.
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South Coast Kevin
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# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way. In the more extreme case people exhibited altered states of consciousness as a result of the group dynamic and "cues."
I fully agree that manipulation and suggestion can so easily creep in to charismatic church meetings / services, but I think there's a balance (hi Gamaliel!).
IMO it's really important to explain what's going on or what might happen, so people know what to expect and are set at ease. I think this is a huge part of helping people to feel welcome in a Christian community / church.
Tangent - I'd say the same thing about liturgical church services, where there's an often unspoken 'script' of stand up now, kneel, say this phrase, genuflect here etc. If people don't know what to expect and are caught by surprise then that can be really off-putting and uncomfortable.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It struck me at the time - and more so since - that there were lots of "cues" in the meetings which encouraged people to cast off restraint. Chairs being moved .... verbal cues "you may feel hot as the Spirit moves" ..... reports of what happened elsewhere - all this builds up a state of expectancy with people then vulnerable to be being led in a certain way.
Looking back, I realise I unwittingly did this, of which I repent. But I really didn't do it with the intention of provoking the phenomena. It seemed responsible to prepare people for what might happen.
I really did try my hardest not to engage in the kind of manipulation you describe, too. quote:
it all became very sign centred. The manifestations were the thing not God - we were encouraged not to think, analyse or pray just receive.
Again, I think mileage varied on this. I said every single time that the manifestations were not the thing. It was the presence of God (or what we took for it). quote:
Please show me what fruit they have now?
As I related, the social action programme we developed did seem to develop out of, or at least as the next phase of, the TB.
Our church parted company with its parent organisation, but we lost only one member as a direct result of Toronto.
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
I recall someone commenting at the time of the TB that the only people in the Bible who were slain in the Spirit were Ananias and Sapphira.
And I recall endless, stupid legalistic debates along the lines that falling forwards (John in Revelation) was kosher, but falling backwards (the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus) was not.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
IMO it's really important to explain what's going on or what might happen, so people know what to expect and are set at ease. I think this is a huge part of helping people to feel welcome in a Christian community / church.
Tangent - I'd say the same thing about liturgical church services, where there's an often unspoken 'script' of stand up now, kneel, say this phrase, genuflect here etc. If people don't know what to expect and are caught by surprise then that can be really off-putting and uncomfortable.
Except that in the case of most TB style meetings I've attended - at least initially - the explanation of what you might expect - however it was intended and it may have been unwittingly as Eutychus suggests - was rather like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the earlier 1984/85 Wimber visits - which are often overlooked when people talk/write about these things - there was an emphasis on 'modelling' and demonstrating these things ... rather like a cookery demonstration or similar.
I didn't attend any of the meetings with Wimber himself but one of his teams came and led a series of meetings in the city where I was living at the time.
Initially, I was impressed. The gentle, laid-back Californian worship style contrasted with the kind of forceful, gung-ho restorationist 'bringing in the Kingdom' style which was then very much in vogue among the 'R1' crowd (of which I was then a part).
Sure, there were rather 'soppy' - all about 'intimacy' with God and the Almighty cradling us and cwtching us as all - as we'd have said in South Wales.
However, they were also catchy and inoffensive and whether intended this way or not, they certainly 'softened' people up for the apparent 'signs and wonders' which followed.
At the start of the 'ministry time' they would call someone forward and pray for them, describing what was about to happen, 'Their arms may start to feel heavy and their shoulders will begin to droop ...' and lo and behold, so it would be ...
Looking back, it was clearly auto-suggestion and a form of self-hypnosis ... and it served to encourage other people in the 'audience' to do the same. Eventually, mayhem broke out and people were rolling and roaring and shaking and falling and goodness knows what else. Nothing happened to me, though.
Nor did it happen to anyone who didn't appear susceptible or suggestible.
When the TB thing came along, a decade later, I cut it more slack as it didn't come with such obvious cues ... but cues there certainly were, as ExclamationMark has said.
You don't need a great deal of pressure or manipulation when you have a receptive crowd. I found that myself when I started to do 'the stuff'. I'd walk up to someone and wave my hand over them or touch them and down they'd go.
I thought this was great, but I soon realised how I was generally working with people's suggestibility, susceptibility and sense of expectation.
There was one incident with a girl who had her eyes close throughout that I can't quite explain. She didn't appear to be aware of my presence at all but when I raised my hand towards she would flinch back or shake as if being given electric shocks. When I removed my hand ... and I didn't even touch her, the shaking would subside.
There were also one or two incident when I came from the side or behind a person who was being prayed for by others and when I extended my own hand they suddenly collapsed or even - alarmingly - shot back as if hit by a current or explosion.
I have no way of explaining any of that, other that it was all part and parcel of the general buzz and atmosphere. I certainly don't believe I was some kind of lighting conductor or some kind of conduit or channel for the Holy Spirit in some kind of mechanical way.
The language used to trouble me ... as Percy points out there was a kind of 'commodification' of God the Holy Spirit going on ... as if the Holy Spirit were some kind of impersonal 'faith force' that could directed at will ... like a fire-hose or a water sprinkler or something.
These days I'd suggest that the vast bulk of these 'manifestations' were human responses to cues and atmospheres ... my wife never once had any reaction whatsoever.
The clincher for me came in a book by David Middlemiss, 'Interpreting Charismatic Experience' SCM 1996.
Middlemiss observed how people with learning difficulties in his Scottish congregation did not fall over, shake or do any of the other things that were expected to happen. He concluded that they were pretty guileless and therefore unlikely to put anything on in order to impress.
I know that's not proof positive, but it does suggest to me that suggestibility and susceptibility lay behind much of what we were seeing back then.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
On the liturgical worship thing ... yes, it can be very off-putting when you don't know what to 'do' in a service. I've felt that way in liturgical settings but gradually you get acclimatised to it ... once you 'know the ropes' you know what's expected ... generally ...
Everything we do in worship is a form of learned behaviour. We get acclimatised to it.
The first time I attended a service/meeting where people were singing worship songs and raising their hands etc I thought it was very soppy and very exhibitionist. It took me a while to acclimatise to that.
It's the same the other way round with more formal, liturgical styles of worship.
In fact, it's the same in any social setting.
Which is the point I'm making about TB ... because what started to happen ... once the initial 'cues' had been assimilated - was that certain stimuli almost invariably triggered a reaction ... these things became 'fixed' in people's psyches.
Without at all calling into question the holiness of the elderly RC gentleman who has been referred to but I submit that this is what is happening there ... the echo or 'trace' of TB remains in his reaction to praying for other people ... ie. he falls over.
What's happening there? Is the Holy Spirit knocking him over every time?
Or is it a conditioned, reflex response to what he was involved with some 20 years ago?
I'm not saying it's like shell-shock but there are analogies here. There was a form of shell-shock reaction called 'trench-eye' whereby if someone who'd been under heavy bombardment later caught sight of something in their peripheral vision - a blue-bottle or a cricket ball or something - they would flinch or even duck down. I met a man the other week whose father suffered from it all his life. He would be in the kitchen or the garden and suddenly flinch or even through himself flat on the ground as if from an incoming shell or trench mortar.
Moreover, there quickly developed what some called a 'Toronto liturgy' ... the chairs would be moved, 'catchers' would usher themselves into position ...
Eventually, in the circles I moved in, the whole thing ran its course and fizzled out. There's only so often you can shake, fall over, laugh or sway around.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The clincher for me came in a book by David Middlemiss, 'Interpreting Charismatic Experience' SCM 1996.
Middlemiss observed how people with learning difficulties in his Scottish congregation did not fall over, shake or do any of the other things that were expected to happen. He concluded that they were pretty guileless and therefore unlikely to put anything on in order to impress.
Not proof positive, indeed, but interesting nonetheless. I do think it's helpful to explain what is or might be going on, but also we must avoid (as much as possible) leading people in to responding / acting in any particular way. A tricky balance...
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
You see, this is where I find myself uncomfortably sort of on the other side of the Cwmbran debate.
However much we were manipulated, deluded or self-deluded, I still think "God was in it" somewhere, and I can see some long-lasting positive effects.
I think God in his mercy gives out grace even when the theology is right off beam and leaders dodgy. So individuals can benefit even if leaders are corrupt. That is not, however, an excuse to allow bad leaders to continue. That's why Paul can say "the Gospel is preached, and in this I rejoice" and go on to warn people against those motivated by rivalry and selfish gain.
I also note that as a leader, I was able to lead the church, as a whole, "out of" Toronto. To come back to Gamaliel's wider question, the few people who were hooked on the manifestations are the ones that ended up going Bethelwards after our meltdown (which was completely independent of Toronto). To put it in cheesy terms, I think we can still see it as a "season".
[ 05. September 2014, 18:59: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Ceesharp
Shipmate
# 3818
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Posted
quote:
Without at all calling into question the holiness of the elderly RC gentleman who has been referred to but I submit that this is what is happening there ... the echo or 'trace' of TB remains in his reaction to praying for other people ... ie. he falls over. What's happening there? Is the Holy Spirit knocking him over every time? Or is it a conditioned, reflex response to what he was involved with some 20 years ago?
All I can say is that his life and ministry as a teacher/preacher and prison visitor have become progressively more fruitful over the years. I don't think it is a conditioned reflex, rather a continued openness to the power of the Holy Spirit.
[fixed quote]
[ 05. September 2014, 19:43: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Green Mario
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# 18090
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Posted
I'm probably slightly younger than some of you so I didn't experience TB so much directly at the time when it was a new thing; but have attended churches and New Wine subsequently which clearly were influenced by it.
My first and strongest experience of "carpet time" was being knocked over/passing out while worshipping at an event at a young adult conference at a TB impacted church in northern England in the early 00s. Nobody was praying for me and I was kneeling down at the time to worship. I don't remember others were falling down at that stage. I ended up feeling a huge amount of peace and experiencing God's love and remember it as a hugely positive experience that changed some things in me. While it is possible this was some sort of hypnotic experience I don't believe it was that and I strongly believe this was a genuine experience of God's love and peace, mediated through my human reactions to such a prescence.
SCK - I think you are right; there is a balance and I think there is a motivation to explain what might happen and give some context so people aren't frightened or put-off more often than not rather than to try to manipulate or give suggestion;s although I can see why this will then provide cues as to how to act.
On example of this is with New Wine/Soul Survivor where I have heard it mentioned that if people start groaning or making loud noises in ministry this is often an expression of release of emotional pain that has been stored up. If this is going to happen anyway it is clearly useful to put this in context and provide an explanation so that others aren't too disturbed by it; conclude incorrectly the people are mad or that its a demonic manifestation.
However at the same time providing this explanation does give people permission to respond in this way (which is sometimes perhaps a good thing if you think this might benefit them through being cathartic and healing but bad if you think it causes disorder or just embarrasses people unnecessarily for no gain).
Personally I think the risks of not explaining are greater than the danger of giving cues but there clearly is a balance that needs to be struck and this shouldn't be done out of a desire to cause a particular manifestation.
quote:
What's happening there? Is the Holy Spirit knocking him over every time?
Or is it a conditioned, reflex response to what he was involved with some 20 years ago?
My guess would be that this might sometimes be a learned/reflex response to sensing God's presence - so not God knocking him over but not entirely independent of God either.
Exclamation Mark said quote:
Why were people lying around giggling when there was a community to serve?
There are of course examples of people who do both to extreme lengths so they are not mutually exclusive. Heidi Baker who must be a kind of poster girl for the Toronto Blessing and experiencing extreme manifestations of the spirit also heads up an organisation in Mozambique that is about housing orphans, bringing medical assistance; feeding people as well as preaching the gospel. She would say that she couldn't do the latter without the former....People on these boards wouldn't necessarily like the people she associates with (Bethel etc.) but having read some of the stuff she's written if she isn't genuine she has an incredible ability to know just what the gospel should look like lived out in terms of miracles combined dependence on God with practical love, combined with evangelism combined with suffering of illness, stress and persecution (I think she is completely genuine BTW despite my natural cynicism towards people I perceive as celebrity Christians).
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
It is, of course, difficult to disaggregate the man and his ministry from the 'manifestations', Ceesharp.
I said I didn't doubt his holiness or effectiveness - but neither do I see either of these as being necessarily a corollary of the symptoms or 'manifestations' themselves.
I mean, what is happening when this guy falls over each time he prays for someone?
Are we to understand this as God the Holy Spirit knocking him over each time?
Or is it a human response to the presence of the ineffable?
Or is it some kind of conditioned response?
Or a mixture of all those things and more?
Sure, 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy' as it were ... and some kind of 'physical effects' seem apparent in scripture - 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' ... and indeed there are stories of the Saints levitating and doing much else besides ('although I don't tend to tell evangelicals that,' as an RC priest said to me recently).
Like Eutychus, I wouldn't write all of these things off ... but neither would I go out of my way to see them happen again.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Green Mario - your experience of peace and so on sounds very much like my own initial experience of this sort of thing ...
On subsequent occasions, though, I'm sure that when I fell over I was simply responding to cues or acting through susceptibility and suggestibility ...
I'm not saying that's the same for everyone but I can only speak as I find.
As for the groanings and so on ... well, perhaps and I'm sure in some instances this sort of thing can be cathartic ... but I'm equally sure it can be either neutral or even harmful.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Heidi Baker who must be a kind of poster girl for the Toronto Blessing and experiencing extreme manifestations of the spirit also heads up an organisation in Mozambique that is about housing orphans, bringing medical assistance; feeding people as well as preaching the gospel. She would say that she couldn't do the latter without the former....
Well, that's where I get off these days I think.
A specific experience may lead to a particularly powerful ministry, but it's all too tempting to conclude a) that a specific experience will lead to a particularly powerful ministry or b) that it is a condition for a particularly powerful ministry, to be enjoined on others (and that's before we even begin discussing what a "powerful ministry" might actually look like in the long term).
I started speaking in tongues, spontaneously, on my own, after several years theological debate within myself, something over 30 years ago, while I was staying with a missionary family in Spain.
I'll never forget the day after sharing this experience. The wife of the couple cornered me with the sort of expression of naughty complicity more usually reserved for invitations to the adult section of a bookshop (or so I imagine).
"Now you're baptised in the Spirit", she said, "you'll be able to enjoy this" - and handed me a Dales Bible Week praise cassette.
I almost renounced my experience on the spot. The wind blows where it listeth, not channelled throught some sort of cookie-cutter initiatory programme.
[ 05. September 2014, 20:07: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ha ha ha ...
I can certainly sympathise with that, Eutychus!
It's impossible to 'prove' one way or another but I rather suspect that those who have gone on to work in challenging areas and to exercise a ministry in difficult situations would have done so anyway - with or without the TB thing ...
If anything, the whole tenor of the thing was to play down hard work and effort ... God was going to do everything, all we had to do was to 'let go'.
It's exemplified, I think, in the example that the late lamented Douglas McBain gave of one of the more obviously spurious stories from the TB era that was given extra spin and currency by being spread by the Mumfords and others ... I even heard Bryn Jones cite it ...
The story went as follows ... someone was going home from one of the meetings and was so 'drunk in the Spirit' that he was weaving all over the road and was pulled over by the police who sought to apply a breathalyser test. When he breathed on the coppers they were overwhelmed by the power of the Spirit and fell to the ground ...
'When God shows up evangelism is a breeze, people!' Mrs Mumford declared to great applause and hilarity at one of the rallies.
The trouble was, there was no evidence whatsoever for the event ever having taken place ... it was a complete urban myth.
I've not read it yet, but I like the title of Martyn Percy's essay about 1990s evangelical charismaticism, 'City on a Beach'.
Sure, there were people who went out and did some costly and difficult things, but by and large the whole tenor of 1990s charismaticdom was all about being blessed and waiting for God to 'show up' and sort everything out on your behalf.
It was all pretty shallow.
What depths there were were depths that were there already.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
You see, this is where I find myself uncomfortably sort of on the other side of the Cwmbran debate.
However much we were manipulated, deluded or self-deluded, I still think "God was in it" somewhere, and I can see some long-lasting positive effects.
.. and yet there are times where he is in it in spite of what goes on, as well as alongside what goes on. After all, God responded to the acts of the Witch of Endor and sent Samuel to visit Saul.
So I think often that the best way of dealing with such things is setting aside what may be the sovereign and often mysterious workings of God and actually simply deal with the facts as we find them.
Of course God is merciful, and so in that sense can be 'in' all sorts of things - but we are still to be Berean.
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Green Mario
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# 18090
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Posted
Eutychus - I am not surprised you disagree with me with the way I expressed that! I disagree with myself. I will have another go (which you may very well still disagree with but at least will say what I actually want to say!)
What I have understood her to mean it's more that the latter (serving the community to an extreme degree) wouldn't be possible without time spent in God's presence (which might result in different manifestations and even extreme manifestations) rather than that the spiritual manifestations are necessary or a pre-requisite for powerful or effective service. I was especially thinking about her phrase that "all fruitfulness springs from intimacy".
I was responding to the idea that lying on the floor giggling (which I took as also short hand for spending extended periods worshipping, waiting on God or enjoying his presence as well as experiencing various spiritual manifestations in a way that could be considered by some self-indulgent) and serving the community intensely and effectively are necessarily mutually exclusive.
That was the point I was trying to make but which I made very clumsily.
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