This Sunday is Pentecost. It is one of those Christian holidays that comes around every year, which has the same biblical text, which can become something quite rote and somewhat forced. Yes, there is a Holy Spirit. He is a person, coequal in glory and purpose with the Father and the Son. Made of the same stuff. The prophecy of Joel was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when he manifested himself and sealed the initiation of the new covenant community (church) by resting upon and permanently making a home within all true believers. From that day forth, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was manifested in the lives of those who came to saving faith in Christ. Even Gentiles were revealed to be saved by the outward manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Signs and wonders accompanied the growth of the church in those years in ways that were undeniable.
Yet today many, if not most, Christians in America do not expect such manifestations of the Spirit. Of those who do, their expectations and behavior are very often divorced from the habitus (lifestyle+values) of early believers. I saw some footage a few weeks ago from a worship service in which a man was waving a sword, people were ringing a loud bell, and many were speaking in tongues.
Even if this sort of thing was seen in early Christian worship (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t), the charismatic tradition is widely known to be about as scripturally illiterate as the heathen population around us. They worship feelings.
I thing cessationism, the belief that the Holy Spirit stopped evidencing himself through signs and wonders, is biblically unsustainable and, frankly, depressing and wrong. But I also think the excesses of the charismatic tradition do a lot of harm to Christianity worldwide. There are insane stories of pastors making their people eat grass (we don’t have enough stomachs to do that), or starting sex cults.
Christians lack the discernment to see these things as unholy and ridiculous because we identify the Spirit with feelings. We make a terrible assumption that, when we feel powerfully, we must be animated by the Holy Ghost. The problem with that assumption is that we live in a world full of spirits, many if not most of whom are not in submission to Christ. They seek to lead us astray. If “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light,” (2 Cor. 11:14), then surely other rebellious spirits likewise enthrall Christians who do not read their bibles. If those who are having these experiences are not also driven into their bibles and regularly manifesting scriptural obedience, then I am of the mind that they are worshiping other spirits.
The Christian scriptures were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), then there is a conformity of the Spirit now with the ways in which he has behaved and manifested across the millennia. The modern day charismatic movement within Methodism, and within the global church more broadly, is full of excesses and craziness.
But we cannot then create a version of Christianity that is deprived of the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. That would be no Christianity at all. That would be a sad, inadequate, pointless faith. It is the Holy Spirit who binds us to Christ, who seals our fate with his, who sanctifies us, who serves as witness for us on the Day of Judgment. It is the Spirit who witnesses with our spirits that we are, indeed, children of God.
These are the things that cannot be replicated by any other spirit. These are the evidences of our salvation. These are the things we celebrate and anticipate on the day of Pentecost. I pray these things are on our minds as we assemble again this Sunday.
***Corrective Note - I had a charismatic friend call to lovingly let me know that this article had felt like a personal attack, and that a lot of my phrasing here seems to indicate that the charismatic tradition is the one “deprived of the presence and power of the Holy Ghost.” I meant to say the opposite. I think cessationism is wrong, and that the Holy Ghost is who he has always been and continues to do the things we are told he does in the scriptures. My corrective with the charismatic tradition is not that they have emotional worship, even that they may use swords, but only that many often lack the discernment to see the difference between their own emotions and the truth of God’s Word. I’m praying for a future in which the church holds in tension the traditions that are word-focused and those that are Spirit-focused. We have to have both. And for that, I’m grateful for the charismatic tradition, otherwise we would be fatally limited. I want a future in which we do not see these extremes so much as a place of discernment and balance. I’d like to apologize for any indication I gave otherwise.
Jeffery,
I have a problem with article. You are judging an entire movement by the small minority who show excess. To show this one video and claim that it represents all Charismatics is like saying Westboro Baptist Church represents all Christians who hold a traditional view of human sexuality.
If you would just take a moment and think about all the persons I know you know who are Charismatic, like myself, then you would realize how inaccurate it is to say "the charismatic tradition is widely known to be about as scripturally illiterate as the heathen population around us."
Brian
Thanks, Jeffrey
I always tell people that the litmus test for whether something is a work of the Holy Spirit is this: Does it point to Jesus? Does it lead someone to Jesus? (John 15:26).
One of the best descriptions of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is this: The Holy Spirit restores the image of God in us. (See "The Holy Spirit" by Matt Ayers, Seedbed)
Have a great Pentecost Sunday - it is our local church's last Sunday in the United Methodist Church! We officially join the Global Methodist Church on June 1st!