Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Are We Too Credulous?

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Matt Stone

2009-05-30

I would like to say from the outset, this is not an attack on pentecostalism. I have many pentecostal friends, I have some charismatic influences myself. But I have to ask, are we too credulous sometimes?

I was having a conversation with some friends the other week and they asked my view on Benny Hinn and other televangelists and megachurch pastors. I said the genuine servents are known by their fruit, that I’d trust someone like Billy Graham who hasn’t been so focussed on enriching himself way above the likes of Hinn. I qualified my comments to say, maybe some of it was genuine, but overall I’m skeptical.

This goes to other charismatic phenomena as well, including tongues. I know some of it is genuine. I have friends who speak in tongues. But I have to say, in churches where tongues speaking is an expectation, I have to wonder how many are faking it to find acceptance.

So, we got to talking about some of the spectacular megachurch pastor falls and why so few saw them coming. We got to talking about deliverance and healing ministries, how to tell fruitful from non-fruitful, how to spot fakes and manipulators. I think one charismatic gift we should all be seeking is that of discernment. In my own understanding I am influenced by Jonathon Edwards, who looked for increase of love in people having these experiences.

Tags Pentecostal, Truth

5 responses to “Are We Too Credulous?”

Kalessin

2009-05-30

In my experience, the deal is that success in ministry will cover a multitude of sins. Pentecostal ministers, at least in my experience in Australia, will be very curious about what a person with a ‘genuine gift’ is doing right.
The concept of gifting is the key here. Pentecostal history is filled with Samson-like figures who had great gifts and went belly-up in very short order (William Branham and various of the 50’s healing evangelists being the key object lessons: Gold, girls, glory). Gifting doesn’t buy you character, understanding or wisdom.
When I was at UNSW I knew a young Asian man who by his own account had several years before, as a non-Christian, walked on his own into a large Hinn meeting in (I think) Malaysia, and been healed of a serious shoulder injury in his seat. He walked out again and had been a Christian ever since.
Show some gifting, and make it work, and you’ll always at least get in the door. I expect that’s why the AOG in the US gave him a ministry credential.
But keep on saying things like “each member of the Trinity is also a Trinity,” and well… I think he was only in the AOG for 18 months or so. Could be wrong on the time-frames, but it wasn’t long.

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Matt Stone

2009-05-31

Thanks Kalessin, that opens things up a bit for me, and I find the Hinn healing story interesting. I suppose though, this just brings the difference between spiritual fruit and spiritual gifting into the spotlight. Could it be that too many are prone to the Corinthian mistake of getting their relative importance back the front?

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Jarred

2009-06-01

During the winter break of my junior year in college, I went on a two week mission trip to Jamaica with 21 others. The first Sunday evening we were in Jamaica, we went to a Pentecostal church and were treated to an absolutely horrible experience. What we saw there horrified our entire team, and we spent over two hours discussing the whole experience around our nightly fire when we got back to our host church’s property.
There were probably four or five of us in the group who had personal experiences with Pentecostal (though the church I was attending at the time preferred the term “Full Gospel”) churches prior to that night, and we spent a lot of our time reassuring everyone that what they had experienced is not universal in Pentecostal churches.
One of the things that particularly got me about the whole experience was when the preacher got up there and gave the invitation for anyone who wished to do so to come forward and receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. After a few minutes of waiting with no one coming up, he actually had the audacity to say, “So everyone is happy? Everyone has all of the Holy Spirit that we need?” His wording and tone came off as extremely manipulative and predatory. To me, it perfectly embodied the biggest problem in some circles: The desire or need for “spiritual experiences” for their own sake and some leaders’ willingness to take advantage of that.
It also seems to me that in some circles, charismatic gifts are used as a way to keep followers dependent on the “great men of God” who are up on the stage and/or behind the pulpit. Again, this seems antithetical to the overall gospel message as I understand it.
Anyway, I hope that doesn’t come across as too critical. My past is full of many positive experiences in Pentacostal/charismatic/Full Gospel churches as well, and I certainly do not mean to deny or negate those positive experiences. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of garbage out there too.

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Matt Stone

2009-06-01

Actually Jarred, it is preceisely that sort of manipulation that I have concerns about. I have visited some charismatic services which were absolutely awe inspiring, so I don’t want to be heard as tarring them all with the same brush. But there are others which friends have been involved in which were downright toxic, where prophecy was used as a control mechanism. I agree, sometimes charismatic gifts are used as a way to keep followers dependent on the “great men of God” who are up on the stage. We need to be on our guard against these type of churches. We need to provide more instruction on how to spot spiritual abuse.

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Mary

2009-06-02

Very interesting what Jarrad wrote… i too have had similar experiences that shocking in their co-ercion, arrogance and plain defiance of the Word of God… The greatest gift is love How thick can be people be… None of the gifts are meant to be used as weapons of superiority or indicative of some must have esotoric experience. Alot of damage has been done by that approach. I speak in tongues. It happened when i first became a christian. I was alone in a stinking awful bedsit room having fled an eastern commune i had been living in. I just said God if it be real show me and it happened Just like that No floorshow or so on. I just see it as a deep form of prayer that i use when am o/whelmed… It has not made me cutting edge in any way. The greatest gift is love…

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