#2. ' 'ENTHUSIASM' IS A SIGN OF IMMATURITY'.

Not necessarily. Stolid Anglo-Saxons may not approve of too much enthusiasm, but other
cultures (Latins, Africans) like it. Two Israelite leaders, Eldad and Medad, got excited when the Spirit fell on them, so Joshua the institutional spokesman told Moses to stop them. Moses retorted by wishing the Spirit might similarly fall on the lot of them (Numbers 11:26-30)! The Bible urges us to clap our hands for joy, praise God with loud songs (Ps. 47:1), and dancing (Ps. 149:3). The Montanists in the second century were enthusiasts, with their protest against the formalism and worldliness of the official church, and reliance on words of prophecy. But they developed notions of spiritual elitism and withdrawal from the world.

Sometimes, of course, real movements of renewal have turned into hysteria, fanaticism, and anticlericalism. Enthusiasts tend to have visions e.g. of the end of the world (Joachim of Fiore, 12th century) or of judgments on social injustices (Thomas Munzer, d.1525).

Experiences of some of the mystics (Richard Rolle, St. Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross) reveal an affinity to modern 'charismatic' phenomena. Pentecostal leader Vinson Synan says these mystics are his 'soul-brothers'. The mystics maintained the need for the union of mind and heart, reflection and experience - correlating objective truth and subjective 'heart-work'. (4)

Whenever the Holy Spirit manifests himself in a person, a culture or an age he produces various attitudes: an ordering attitude, a praying attitude, and a questioning attitude, and an attitude of receiving. Without the receptive attitude the other three dry up. Without mystical experience, without an ongoing awareness of the presence of God, one does not live a full and rich Christian life... the charismatic renewal represents the re-entry into the world of the felt presence of God... it means mysticism, the attitude of receiving, is being renewed for us.' (5)

In all renewal movements there is a predictable dialectic: a move far enough one way will cause the pendulum to swing back to the other extreme.

The sad history of Enthusiasts illustrates both the dangers of unchecked fervency not centred on the revelation of Jesus Christ, and also the inadequacy of merely institutional or rational authority ... The faith is endangered when Christians have to choose between this uncontrolled fervency and desiccated, authoritative, uninspired orthodoxies in Protestantism or Catholicism. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love and community, the Spirit of reflection and control. (6)

We are thinking, willing, loving, fearing, hoping beings, and all that is saved should be engaged when we gather for worship. Pentecostalists and charismatics would claim that their renewal is a response to an arid church life, devoid of day-to-day contact with a supernatural God who 'does marvelous and wondrous things'. English evangelist David Watson used to say: ' I'm an Anglican clergyman and it's often said that delirious emotionalism is not the chief peril of the Anglican clergy...'

#3: 'PENTECOSTALISM IS AN ECCLESIASTICAL ABERRATION THAT CAN BE IGNORED.'        ????????? ??? ?? ?
Not without reason has Pentecostalism been called the 'third force within Christendom'.
It is said to have begun on the morning of Jan 1 1901 when in a little Bible school headed by Charles Fox Parham in Topeka, Kansas, a young student began praying in tongues as she sought to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Then there was the Azusa Street revival (1906). By 1936 this spontaneous movement had become a cluster of denominations regarded with suspicion and disdain by the older churches. Spurned and despised, the Pentecostals in turn denounced the 'barren religiosity' of the established churches.
Pentecostalism teaches a necessary second stage in a believer's relationship to the Lord - 'baptism in the Spirit' - whose initial evidence is speaking in tongues. Its mission has been to restore spiritual gifts that had been neglected or opposed by the churches: tongues, interpretation, prophecy, faith, miracles, healing, wisdom, knowledge, and discernment (1 Cor. 12:8-10).
Unfortunately it developed its own legalisms. 'Holiness' was reduced to lists of do's and don'ts. The early Pentecostals distorted the Johannine doctrine of the world: it was an entity to be avoided. Pentecostal origins were in the working classes, so they were ecclesiastically disenfranchised for their enthusiastic exuberance, and became isolated from the church at large, and from the theological enterprise.