Charismatic renewal is not going way. According
to David Barrett, editor of World Christian Encyclopedia pentecostals
and charismatics numbered an estimated 100 million worldwide in
1980. He says that number jumped to about 150 million by 1985.(1)
The word 'charismatic' (Greek charisma - a gift
of grace) is useful as an adjective but sometimes offensive as
a noun. Here we will reluctanly use 'charismatic' as a noun,
and as an adjective, but with the understanding that every true
Christian is charismatic.
We are now hearing about 'post-charismatics'. They
had assumed the experiences in Acts 2,8,10,19 and I Cor. 12 and
14 were normative for all Christians for all times. Having sought
an emotional high, they found that their version of the charismatic
renewal promised more than it delivered. (2) Let us work through
the myths or misconceptions in order.
# 1: 'RELIGIOUS RENEWAL IS A FAIRLY MODERN PHENOMENON'.
Those unfamiliar with the mistakes of the past,
as Santayana said, are likely to repeat them. Movements of religious
renewal are not new. Thet happen when something lost is found:
the book of the law (Josiah), prayer and asceticism (Desert Fathers),
simple lifestyle (Franciscans), justification by faith (Luther),
sanctification (Wesley), spiritual gifts (Pentecostals).
Christian renewal emphasizes the church's organic,
communal nature and tends to idealise the primitive apostolic
church. Static institutions are challenged to change and become
dynamic.
Traditionalists are usually blind to the disparity
between the institution's claims and its inaffectiveness.
Renewalists often have little - or an idealised
- sense of history; God is on their side and against the institution;
they don't realize that they too will set up new institutions
which will eventually settle down, preserve a status quo and be
challenged again.
Howard Snyder and others have helped us formulate
a 'mediating model' of the church, which affirms history and expects
renewal - both. (3)
# 2 '"ENTHUSIASM" IS A SIGN OF IMMATURITY'
Not necessarily. Stolid Anglo-Saxons may not approve
of too much enthusiasm, but other culture (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)!
Experiences of some of the mystics (Richard Rolle,
St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross), reveal an affinity
to modern 'charismatic' phenomena.(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 dessicated,
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)
# 3 : 'PENTECOSTALISM IS AN ECCLESIASTICAL ABERRATION
THAT CAN BE IGNORED.'
Not without reason has Pentecostalism been called
the 'third force within Christendom'.
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 (I Cor.
12:8-10).
# 4: '"NEW-PENTECOSTALISM" IN THE 1960s
AND 70s WAS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE OLDER PENTECOSTALISM'.
The Neo-pentecostal renewal began in a significant
way in the historic churches in the 1950s.
Catholic charistmatic renewal (the term 'Neo-pentecostal'
soon went out of vogue) probably goes back to Pope John XXIII
convoking the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and his prayer
that the Holy Spirit would renew the church as by a new Pentecost.
Charles Hummell uses a World War II analogy to explain
what happened. Pentecostalists based their pneumatology on the
Synoptics and Acts: wasn't Jesus first conceived by the Holy
Spirit, then later baptized in the Spirit? Didn't the disciples
'receive' the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them, but were
later filled with the Spirit at Pentecost? Traditional theologies,
on the other hand, were Pauline. They said you mustn't build
doctrines from these events in the primitive church, but rather
ask 'What do the New Testament letters to various churches teach
us?' And only once is 'baptizing in the Spirit' explicitly referred
to there (I Corinthians 12:12-13). And so the battle-lines formed,
and the troops became entrenched within their fixed positions.
It was something like the French Maginot Line facing the equally
impregnable Siegfried Line. Each army was safe behind its ramparts
but unable to advance. Suddenly the German panzer divisions moved
swifly around these fixed positions and rolled into Paris without
a pitched battle.
So with our little theologies. We fight our wars,
protect territory already won, and are often ill-prepared to take
new ground. 'For decades pentecostal and traditional theologies
of the Baptism in the Spirit faced each other along one major
doctrinal battle line. Then suddenly the Holy Spirit moved around
these fixed positions to infiltrate charismatic renewal behind
the lines in mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches'.
(7)
Catholic charismatic renewal has less emphasis on
spiritual gifts and more on nurturing a personal relationship
with Christ and on developing Christian community. In 1979 the
Australian Catholic Theological Association said that through
the movement thousands of Australian Catholic men and women were
able to experience a deeper conversion to Jesus Christ; a renewal
of faith; an introduction to a serious prayer life; a new appreciation
of the Scriptures; and openness to the use of their gifts from
the Holy Spirit; a commitment to evangelism. (8)
# 5: 'CONSERVATIVE CHURCHES ARE FRIGHTENED TO TOUCH
CHARISTMATIC RENEWAL BECAUSE IT'S AN "ALL-OR-NOTHING"
PACKAGE.'
Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller
Seminary has popularized the notion of a 'Third Wave' of charismatic
renewal experienced in many churches in the 1980s.
Many historians feel this century has seen the greatest
outpouring of the Holy Spirit since the first century or two.
The first wave came ... with the Pentecostal movement. The second
came around the middle of the century with the charistmatic movement.
The Third Wave is more recent, having begun around 1980, with
the same powerful, supernatural acts of the Holy Spirit which
have been confined to Pentecostals and charismatics now being
seen in a growing number of evangelical churches.
Wagner goes on to talk about his '120 Fellowship'
that meets from 7.30 to 9.15 Sunday mornings.
We see signs and wonders on a regular basis. Because
of this realize we may be different from some other churches and
Sunday school classes, but we do not consider ourselves any better.
We don't teach a 'baptism in the Holy Spirit' as a second work
of grace (many of us have had experiences of what others might
call 'Spirit baptism' but we simply say it is a filling or anointing
of the Spirit which may happen to a person many times). Nor do
we permit ourselves to be called 'Spirit-filled Christians' as
if others in the church were something less than Spirit-filled.
We do our best to avoid the Corinthian error concerning tongues.
While we do not forbid tongues, neither do we stress (it). We
treat tongues as just another spiritual gift, but not as a badge
of spirituality. Many pray in tongues, but we do not encourage
public tongues in our class.(9)
His conclusion: 'I see the third wave of the eighties
as an opening of the straight-line evangelicals and other Christians
to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit'. (10)
Many mainline churches are now incorporating a 'soft-side'
charismatic renewing force into their worship/service, sponsoring
healing services, for example, or praying for healing and deliverance
in their normal worship times. Thousand are attending John Wimber's
'Signs and Wonders' courses in many parts of the world.
# 6: 'THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE TERM
"BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT"'.
'Baptism in the Spirit', in the pentecostal and
charistmatic traditions, is an effusion of God's Spirit upon a
Christian with power for praise, witness and service. It is an
experience 'which initiates a decisively new sense of the powerful
presence and working of God in one's life, (and) usually involves
one or more charismatic gifts'. (11) Pentecostals normally view
it as a 'second work of grace'. Charismatics have come to understand
it as a deepening of the faith grounded in the new life received
in Christ.
When a person becomes a Christian (and that can
happen in many different ways), he or she never realizes all that
has happened. A fuller understanding of 'justification', for example,
may come much later. But it happened earlier. So we mustn't
put dogmtic strait-jackets on this experience. Conversion can
be dramatic (if the person was running hard from God beforehand,
for example), or quite matter-of-fact.
So with the Holy Spirit. Luke and Paul write about
the work of the Spirit from different perspectives. For Luke
the Spirit gives believers power for witness in the world - and
that can be repeatable. Paul talks about the Spirit incorporating
us into the Body of Christ - that's once-for-all.
Words can have different meanings in different contexts.
Paul has perhaps five separate meanings for 'flesh'. The Bible
has many ways to describe the meaning of the death of Christ.
'Baptism' is used in the Scriptures as a flexible metaphor, not
merely as a technical term. I heard Canadian theologian Clark
Pinnock say: 'So long as we recognize conversion as truly a baptism
in the Spirit, there is no reason why we cannot use 'baptism'
to refer to subsequent fillings of the Spirit as well'.
# 7: 'RE SPIRITUAL GIFTS: THE BEST COURSE IS TO
BE CONSERVATIVE (STICK TO THE SAFE ONES, AND LEAVE THE OTHERS
WELL ALONE!)'.
Every church ought to be open to the full spectrum
of the gifts. Spiritual gifts are meant to create truly Christian
community. Where there is love, there'll be gift-giving. God's
gifts are love-gifts -- God at work.
Gifts are given freely bythe Holy Spirit to whomever
he wishes. They can't be manufactured byus nor is their presence
or absence a sign of Christian maturity.
In a truly biblical fellowship the focus is not
on the gifts, but the Giver (but that shouldn't be a cop-out,
ignoring the gifts we aren't comfortable with).
Here's a common problem: 'I had the best hands
laid on me, but nothing happened'. Well, what did you expect
to happen? Faith-filled prayer believes you have received the
Spirit: leave the rest to God's timing. David du Plessis ('Mr.
Pentecost') says, 'Baptism in the Spirit is always easy when Jesus
Christ does it for you, but always difficult when you struggle
to do it yourself or with the help of others'. (12) And Richard
Lovelace: 'Christians act as though fellowship with the Holy Spirit
were very hard to establish. Actually it is very difficult to
avoid! All that is necessary is for the believer to open up to
that divine Reality in the centre of consciousness which is the
most fundamental fact of a Christian's inner life'. (13)
# 8: 'PROPHECY ISN'T NEEDED TODAY --WE'VE GOT THE
BIBLE'.
Western fundamentalism has been infected with 'dispensationalism'
which sees the activity in the Book of Acts as transitional:
the canon of Scripture is now closed, and the curtain has been
brought down on all this sort of thing. When Paul says tongues
and prophecy will be with us 'until the perfect comes' (I Cor.
13:10) they say Paul meant a 'perfect Bible'; the rest of the
church interprets Paul as referring to heaven, 'when we shall
see face to face'.
Prophecy is a direct dominical utterance ('thus
says the Lord') for a particular people at a particular time and
place, for a particular purpose. The Divine Word also comes through
Jesus, through Scripture, through circumstances, and through visions
(more commonly in non-Western cultures). Prophecy gives the church
fresh insights into God's truth (Eph. 3) or guidance about the
future (Acts 11), or encouragement (I Cor. 14:3, I Tim. 1:18),
or inspiration or correction. It either edifies the church or
brings it under judgement ('God is in this place!' - see I Cor.
14:25). The biblical prophets combined judgement with hope.
# 9: 'TONGUES IS AN "ECSTATIC" GIFT (FOR
IMMATURE CHRISTIANS)'.
The gift of tongues ('glossolalia') is a quasi-linguistic
phenomenon, not language in the normal sense of the term. (14)
Tongues-speaking is not an indication of mental
imbalance. After fifty years of research the consensus still
runs, in the words of Virginia Hine twenty years ago: 'available
evidence requires that an explanation of glossolalia as pathological
must be discarded'. (15)
Two decades of research into the discrete functions
of left and right hemispheres of the brain appears to show that
the dominant cerebral hemisphere (the left, for 95% of the population)
specializes in thinking processes which are analytical, linear,
logical, sequential, verbal, rational. The right hemisphere normally
shows preference for thought that is visiospatial, simultaneous,
analog (as opposed to digital), emotional. While speech has been
seen to rise from mapped sectors of the left hemisphere, language-formation
capacities are probably spread over both hemispheres. (16) Glossolalia
may be right hemisphere speech, sharing a location beyond - but
not contradictory to - the usual canons of rationality. It is
appropriate to think of glossolalic prayer as neither irrational
nor arational, but rather transrational: when reason fails in
prayer, the Spirit helps (Rom. 8:26,27). It's spirit to Spirit
communication rather than mind to mind. (I Cor. 14:15).
Richard Beyer claims there is a 'fundamental functional
similarity between speaking in tongues and two other widespread
and generally accepted religious practices, namely Quaker silent
worship and the liturgical worship of Catholic and Episcopal churches'.
(17)
# 10: 'WHAT IF THEY'RE NOT HEALED?'
Let's look at the tough questions.
Does God want everyone healed? Pentecostalists
usually say 'yes' (and if you aren't, the problem is with your,
or your praying friends' or your church's lack of faith). Most
others would say 'no'.
Francis McNutt offers a more balanced view:
In general, it is God's desire that we be healthy,
rather than sick. And since he has the power to do all things,
he will respond to prayer for healing unless there is some obstacle,
or unless the sickness is sent or permitted for some greater reason.
(18)
The church today surely needs less pride and prejudice
in this area. 'But what if we pray publicly and they're not healed?'
is the kind of faithfless question that stymies our maturing in
this area. Our calling is to be faithful and obedient. It's
God's business whether he heals or not!
# 11: 'DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL SPIRITS IS A MEDIEVAL
OR ANIMISTIC IDEA. WE'VE NOW OUTGROWN ALL THAT'.
Naturalism is a view of the world that takes account
only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural
or spiritual.
This world view has influenced theology in this
century principally through Rudolf Bultmann: 'The forces and
laws of nature have been discovered, and therefore we can't believe
in 'spirits' .... whether good or evil.' (19) Against this, the
biblical worldview holds that the universe consists of both visible
and invisible creatures, angels, demons, and powers. As theologians
like Gustav Aulen and Helmut Thielicke point out, the inbreaking
of God's Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus Christ can't be understood
apart from its being a war against the principalities of evil.
Emil Brunner says we cannot rightly understand the church of
the New Testament unless we break out of the strait-jacket of
naturalism and take seriously the dynamic manifestations of the
Holy Spirit. (20)
Someone has calculated that 3,874 (49%) of the N.T.'s
7,957 verses are 'contaminated' with happenings and ideas alien
to a naturalistic world-view. Morton Kelsey notes that the only
large group of Christians who take seriously the idea of a direct
encounter with the non-space-time or spiritual world are the Pentecostals
and the charismatics, 'and they have come in for derision from
every side'. (21)
However, as C.S. Lewis and others have warned us,
there are two opposite errors we must avoid: either disbelieving
in the devil's existence, or giving Satan more attention than
he deserves. Cardinal Suenens similarly exhorts us to steer a
safe course between 'Scylla and Charibdis, between underestimation
and exaggeration...'(22)
Within the church the gift of 'discernment of spirits'
is very important. The Scriptures suggest various tests to discern
the spirits: Is Christ glorified? (John 16:14); the church edified?;
others helped? Does it accord with Scripture? Is there love?
Is Jesus Lord of the person's life? Is there submission to church
leaders - allowing others to weigh what is said or done?
# 12: 'IT'S ALL SO DIVISIVE THAT WE OUGHT TO LEAVE
CHARISMATIC ISSUES WELL ALONE'.
Divisiveness would head anyone's list of the issues
confronting us in the modern charistmatic renewal.
My observation, however, is that divisiveness is
not a function of the presence or absence of certain spiritual
gifts, but of insecurity, fear ('charisphobia'), insensitivity
('charismania'), or lovelessness on one or both sides.
David Watson talked about tidy churches, with piles
of papers neatly in order. The windows are opened, but the fresh
wind of the Spirit blows the papers about, so the elders scurry
around collecting them all again, and close the windows. 'You've
got tidiness, even stuffiness. That's the picture of many a church.
I would prefer to have the windows open with a fresh breath of
the Holy Spirit blowing.... Give me untidiness with life every
day if the alternative is tidiness and death. One of the tidies
places you can find is the cemetery.' (23)
Let us beware of the error Gamaliel warned about
(Acts 5:33-39). If this is of God, we must take the movement seriously.
Certainly the swift stream of renewal often throws
debris on to the banks. Old wineskins can't cope with new wine
without bursting. When the Spirit is at work, the devil will
be sowing weeds among the wheat.
# 13: 'EXPERIENCE-CENTRED AND WORD-CENTRED THEOLOGIES
WON'T MIX'.
The success of an experiential theology must be
judged by the ease (or lack of ease) with which it moves from
Spirit to Word. If Word and Spirit can be held in dynamic union,
then experiential theology has the possibility of becoming definitive
for the life and witness of the church today. Too often Word
takes the place of Spirit. (24) Our traditional theologies run
the risk of being rationalistic, contrived conceptual schemas.
The Holy Spirit is the subject of a sterile 'pneumatology', with
little openness to an experience of his power. But, again, an
experience-centred theology sometimes stays there. (25) Sometimes
there's an unhealthy identification of truth with a prophetic
leader, or a great experience: everything else derives validity
through reference to these. Or else the Bible is used as a sanction
for one's independent feelings and experiences. Or perhaps we
are not open to the whole of experience. (26)
Thus an unhealthy individualism and a pervasive
subjectivism often accompanies pieties of personal experience.
As Russell Spittler has put it:
Individualism is a virtue when it assures conscious
religious experience, but becomes something of an occupational
hazard for Pentecostal-charismatics. Add in some dominant personality
traits, take away an acquaintance with the church's collective
past, delete theological sophistication, and the mix can be volatile,
catastrophic. (27)
Let us beware of inhabiting simplicity this side
of complexity, or complexity the other side of simplicity, but
rather move to simplicity the other side of complexity! (28) The
security of the slogan is easier than the hard work of discovering
the truth. Much of what is written in pentecostal/charismatic
books is what Kilian McDonnell calls 'enthusiastic theological
fluff - pink hot air in printed form'. (29)
There is a great need for a thorough-going charismatic
theology. For example the justaposition of the ideas of 'baptism
in the Spirit' and the release of spiritual gifts may be seen
to be a most significant contribution to twentieth-century theology,
but a lot more work has to be done on it yet.
# 14: 'IN THE CHURCH'S WORSHIP, YOU CAN'T MIX CHARISMATIC
ELEMENTS WITH TRADITIONAL FORMS'.
Probably, in retrospect, it will be seen that in
corporate worship, 'in the sphere of liturgy and preaching, that
the pentecostal movement will have made its most important contribution,
and not in the sphere of pneumatology, as is constantly and quite
wrongly supposed'. (30)
Pentecostal/charistmatic worship features are invading
traditional churches with a rush! It's becoming more common for
worshippers of all kinds to raise their hands in adoration, as
they sing scripture-songs in their morning worship-services.
However these songs are as limited as is charismatic theology:
there are very few about mission and justice, for example; they're
mostly 'God loves me and I love him' songs. Nice, but there's
more; love issues in a life of witness and obedience in a hostile
world. (31)
The way forward ultimately is to integrate the unique
insights and results of charismatic renewal into the full life
of the church, with a submission to the order, tradition, doctrine
and spirituality of the church as a whole. It's not helpful to
go 'underground'. Every special movement needs the whole church
body to give focus, direction, discernment and correction; it
needs to be tested, evaluated, encouraged, improved and admonished.
As Leo Cardinal Suenans says: 'To be most useful, the charismatic
movement must disappear into the life of the church'. (32)
# 15: 'THE PROBLEM OF ELITISM SHOULD EVENTUALLY
GO AWAY'.
I'm pessimistic on this one. We enjoy sorting others
out according to false hierarchies of value. There have always
been 'haves and have-nots' in the church: only the categories
change. In one era a priestly caste takes special prerogatives
to itself and we have the evil of clericalism. In others there
are 'heresy trials' with the orthodox removing the heterodox.
In the charistmatic renewal, experience is the watershed: those
who have 'arrived' have been 'baptised in the Spirit' in a discernible
experience subsequent to conversion, and speak in tongues. But
the New Testament mostly uses ethical rather than experiential
categories to define stages of Christian maturity (e.g. Barnabas,
was 'spirit-filled', ie.. he was a man filled with goodness and
faith, Acts 11:24).
# 16: '"MAGIC ISN'T A PROBLEM IF WE'RE MINISTERING
IN CHRIST'S NAME.'
It is possible for a miracle-centred theology to
become 'theurgical' (Gk. 'theourgia' - magic). An openness to
signs and wonders can easily degenerate into 'miracle-mongering'.
Miracles are not just for show. 'Jesus resisted
the temptation to work miracles to dazzle people or to seduce
them into believing in him.... He refused to give the Pharisees
a 'sign from heaven'.... It was not as a wonder-worker that he
desired to be sought after'. (33) John Bodycomb writes: 'I am
uneasy about theological assumptions implicit in either that impassioned
roaring heavenward (reminiscent of the prophets of Baal) or in
that sycophantic sweet-talk that begins 'Lord, we just simply
ask you to ...' (whatever it is)'. (34) Magic involves repeating
formulas ('vain repetitions'). It's wanting blessings more for
my sake than God's. It's manipulating Deity for my ends.
# 17: 'THE CHARISMATIC RENEWAL IS ECUMENICAL'.
'If it is charismatic, it s ecumenical' says 'Mr.
Pentecost', David Du Plessis. But, he says, there has been a
dangerous tendency by Pentecostals/charismatics to criticize the
church, leading to the formation of schismatic, independent groups:
The more schismata the less charismata (I Cor.
12:25,26). I have a passion for unity because the prayer of Jesus
was for unity that the world may believe. And I have very little
hope for the world unless unity comes to Christianity.... (35)
# 18: CHARISMATIC RENEWAL AND MISSION.
Christians are commissioned to do in their world
what Jesus did in his: bringing salvation ('wholeness', the 'reign
of God'), where there is pain, sickness, lostness, alienation,
oppression, poverty, war, injustice. So the church's mission
has three dimensions: evangelism (preaching good news), works
of mercy (relieving persons' pain), and works of justice (addressing
the causes of pain); and three instruments: word (what we say),
deed (what we do) and sign (what God does).
Pentecostalists/charismatics have brought the church
back to 'signs and wonders' and they have generally done evangelism
better than others.
But pentecostal/charismatics churches are weakest
of all in the justice area. There's more in the prophets than
Joel's promise of the Spirit on all flesh. The prophets cried
out for justice, the redress of wrongs done to the poor.
# 19: 'BEING "BAPTIZED IN THE SPIRIT"
IS AN ANTIDOTE FOR ANTINOMIANISM'.
It isn't. Antinomianism (living carelessly and
'lawlessly') is as much a trap for Pentecostals/charismatics as
for anyone.
# 20: CONCLUSIONS: THE WAY FORWARD.
'As I observe it,' says Sherwood Wir the most important
gift God has given to the charismatic renewal is a fresh outpouring
of love. Not joy, not ecstasy, not tongues, not miracles, not
even martyrdom, but love. (36)
And there's something else the cautious ought to
be more afraid of : attributing the work of the Spirit to the
devil. That's a very serious sin, Jesus warned.
Paul sums it up: 'Make love your aim, while you
set your heart on the gifts of the Spirit' (I Cor. 14:1).
FOOTNOTES
(1) Christianity Today, May 16, 1986, 40.
(2) e.g. Eternity, Feb, 1980, 21ff.
(3) Howard A. Snyder, The Problem of Wineskins (1976),
The Community of the King (1978), The Radical Wesley (1980), Liberating
the Church (1983), all IVP, Illinois.
(4) Bengt Hoffman, a professor at the Lutheran Theological
Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in a book entitled Luther
and the Mystics, Minneapolis: Augsburb Publishing House, 1976.
(5) Mark Hillmer, 'Spiritual Renewal in the Family
of Lutheranism' - 6-page paper, date and place of publication
unknown.
(6) Roland Walls, article 'Enthusiasm', in Gordon
S. Wakefield, ed., A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, SCM,
1983, 133-4. Walls goes on: 'A growing number of Eastern Orthodoxy
which has been at pains to spell out the difference between natural
and supernatural enthusiasm. In this tradition, undisciplined
enthusiasm arises more from psychic and disturbed emotional sources
than from single-minded devotion to love of God and our neighbours
... The only fires that can be trusted are those of love of God
and our fellows, and the cleansing fire of repentance.
(7) Charles Hummell, Fire in the Fireplace, IVP,
1978, 189.
(8) 'Charismatic Renewal is a valid form of Catholic
Spirituality', The Advocate, 11 Sept. 1980, 10.
(9) Leadership, Spring Quarter, 1985, 114-115.
(10) Pastoral Renewal, P.O. Box 8617 Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 48106, July-Aug, 1983.
(11) a quotation by Father Francis Sullivan SJ in
David Parry, This Promise is For You: Spiritual Renewal and the
Charismatic Movement, London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1977, 144.
(12) Quoted in Larry Chistensen, Speaking in Tongues,
Minneapolis: Bethany, 42ff.
(13) Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life,
Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1985, 148.
(14) W.J. Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels, N.Y.,
MacMillan, 1972.
(15) 'Pentecostal Glossolalia: Toward a Functional
Interpretation', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
Vol 8 (Fall 1969), 2,217. See also J.P. Kildahl, The Psychology
of Speaking in Tongues, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1972.
(16) Russell P. Spittler, 'Bar Mitzvah for Azusa
Street: Features, Fractures, and Futures of a Renewal Movement
Come of Age', in Theology, News and Notes, Fuller Theological
Seminary, March 1983, 15.
(17) Richard A. Beyer, 'Quaker Silent Worship, Glossolalia
and Liturgy: Some Functional Similarities', unpublished essay
referred to in Michael P. Hamilton, ed., The Charismatic Movement,
Eerdman, 1975, 115.
(18) Francis McNutt, Healing, Indiana: Ave Maria
Press, 1974, 84-6.
(19) Hans Werner Bartsch, ed., Kerygma and Myth,
London: SPCK, 1953, 69.
(20) Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church,
London: Lutterworth, 1952, 49-53.
(21) Morton Kelsey, Encounter with God, Minneapolis:
Bethany, 1972, 26-36.
(22) Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenans, Renewal and the
Powers of Darkness, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984, 115.
(23) 'David Watson on Spiritual Gifts', Theology
News and Notes, Fuller Seminary, March, 1983, 18-19.
(24) Robert Johnston, 'Of Tidy Doctrine and Truncated
Experience', Christianity Today, Feb. 18, 1977, 11.
(25) Russell Spittler, op.cit., 16.
(26) See 'The New Pietism: Plus or Minus? unpublished
and undated paper by John Bodycomb, Uniting Church, Victoria.
It's what Bill Burnett, former Arlchbishop of Capetown calls
getting stuck in a kind of 'happy clappy groove'. (Interview by
June Coxhead in Vision Magazine, date unknown, p.19). One person
commented, 'I left my Pentecostal church. They wouldn't let me
bring my sorrow to the Lord! They won't touch a text like Ps.
1219:71 (NIV) : 'It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I
might learn your decrees'.
(27) Russell Spittler, op.cit., 16.
(28) See Rowland Croucher, Recent Trends Among Evangelicals,
Sydney: Albatross, 1986, Section One.
(29) 'Church Reaction to the Charismatic Renewal'
in Arnold Bittlinger, The Church is Charismatic Geneva: World
Council of Churches, 1981, 154.
(30) Quoted in Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals,
Augsburg, 1972, 466.
(31) I am told some exceptions are now appearing
in Graham Kendrick's songs.
(32) 'Catalyst', Mar. 1980, 1.
(33) Alan Richardson, A Theological Word Book of
the Bible, SCM, 1950, 153.
(34) J. Bodycomb, op.cit., 7.
(35) Interview with David Hubbard, Theology News
and Notes, Fuller Seminary, March 1983, 7.
(36) Sherwood Wirt, Eternity Magazine, Feb. 1980,
26.
Note on Bibliography : An excellent overview of
some of the literature on charismatic renewal may be found in
Cecil M. Robeck, 'The Decade (1973-1982) in Pentecostal-Charismatic
Literature: A Bibliographic Essay', Theology News and Notes,
Fuller Seminary, March 1983, 24ff.
Here's an article on an important modern movement
within Christianity I wrote about ten years ago. What has changed?
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