Father, Son and the Other One: Is the Holy Spirit Too Weird for American Christianity? - CHARISMA

Father, Son and the Other One: Is the Holy Spirit Too Weird for American Christianity?

2/6/2014 JEFF KENNEDY CHARISMA

 

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If you’re a Christian and you have a pulse, then you’ve heard about the latest dustup between conservative Christianity and the modern charismatic movement. In his most recent book, Strange Fire, noted cessationist John MacArthur accuses charismatics of everything from doctrinal heresy to just being plain weird. He often cites the worst cases and passes them off as the normative charismatic experience.

 

To be fair, I do think some of the excesses and abuses in the book warrant correction today. I must also say that I agree with some of what MacArthur and his surrogates teach about the Holy Spirit.

 

For instance, it’s true that God wants our worship to be doctrinally sound (1 Tim. 1:3), intelligible (1 Cor. 14:19) and orderly (1 Cor. 14:27). We need to be reminded that the Spirit brings conviction of sin (John 16:8) and transforms our character (1 Cor. 13:1-7). MacArthur’s emphases on these vital aspects of the Spirit aren’t wrong.

 

But as I read, I wondered, “How is it that such a biblically educated believer can so blatantly and effortlessly screen out the supernatural content of Scripture?”

 

At worst, MacArthur just morphs Christianity into a mere doctrinal system—a checklist of sacred beliefs. At best, he portrays the Spirit as that silent member of the Trinity who is busy with the discreet work of inner transformation.

 

He doesn’t speak to us. He doesn’t lead us. And He has no interest in setting hearts, hands and lips ablaze with His presence. At least, not today anyway.

 

The Legacy of Radical Cessationism

 

Here’s the problem with all this. More than a century of mere doctrinal inculcation has left us with a generation of believers who don’t even believe in the doctrine of the Spirit anymore. It’s counterintuitive, I know. But just consider this:

• The Barna Group found that most American Christians do not believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit. 
• Barna also found that younger generations were less likely to believe in and engage with the Spirit.

These statistics are alarming when one considers the mass exodus of 18- to 34-year-olds from the church.

 

In effect, we have barred would-be worshippers from the fullness of the Spirit’s experience while insisting that they learn the Apostles’ Creed. But the Holy Spirit is not merely a doctrine we learn about. He’s not a dove on a stained-glass window. And he’s not the “silent member” of the Godhead. He is God himself—the God who has “invaded our lives with transforming presence,” as Craig Keener puts it. 

 

A diminished view of the Spirit’s work is dangerous for several reasons.

 

First, minimizing the Spirit compromises biblical truth. The Spirit is instrumental in our personal rebirth and renewal (John 3:3, 5-8). He fills us as we gather and worship (Eph. 5:19). He also empowers us to meet our obligations through Spirit gifts (Rom. 12; 1 Cor. 12). The same power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is available to the believer (Eph. 1:19-20). The Christian faith is a lot of things, but it is nothing without the Spirit. We may engrave His name in the bedrock of our historic creeds, but without His presence, we are not of Christ at all.

 

Second, minimizing the Spirit will jettison our mandate. Christianity is not a nice family religion. It is a living, active and missional enterprise. If we make the mistake of treating the Spirit as nothing more than a theological abstraction, an amorphous concept or the “silent partner” of the Trinity, we will utterly fail to disciple the nations and the next generation. This is why Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise—God’s empowering presence (Acts 1:4–8). Take the Holy Spirit away from the church and all we’re left with is a grace-deficient, family-based cult. Christianity doesn’t work when the Spirit is ignored, marginalized or sidelined in favor of our Spirit-less ingenuity.

 

We’re losing our culture to darkness. And Christianity cannot be seen as a credible option in a culture where it is reduced to a mere historic curiosity, devoid of wind and fire—absent the Spirit of life.

 

Jeff Kennedy is executive pastor of adult ministries and discipleship at Eastpoint, a large and thriving church in the Pacific Northwest. He also serves as an adjunct professor of religion at Liberty University Online. When he is not teaching, writing, training leaders or grading papers, he is spending time with his wife and four happy children. He is also author of Father, Son and the Other One. You can visit him at jeffkennedy.tv.

A.W. Tozer: He Being Dead Yet Speaketh

An Open Letter to John MacArthur From A.W. Tozer: He Being Dead Yet Speaketh

10/23/2013 A.W. TOZER, charismanews

A.W. Tozer

That every Christian can be and should be filled with the Holy Spirit would hardly seem to be a matter for debate among Christians. ... I want here boldly to assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that received at conversion, and I might also say, far beyond that enjoyed by the rank and file of orthodox believers today.

It is important that we get this straight, for until doubts are removed, faith is impossible. God will not surprise a doubting heart with an effusion of theHoly Spirit, nor will He fill anyone who has doctrinal questions about the possibility of being filled.

In light of this, it will be seen how empty and meaningless is the average church service today. All the means are in evidence; the one ominous weakness is the absence of the Spirit’s power. ... The power from on high is neither known nor desired by pastor or people. This is nothing less than tragic, and all the more so because it falls within the field of religion, where the eternal destinies of men are involved.

Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind.

If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text. ... "Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God.”

For the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing.Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly. Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes.

Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance.

A.W. Tozer

It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called fundamentalists. This should prove to be disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are saved only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving fire that came atPentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No. He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative.

Now the Bible teaches that there is something in God which is like emotion. ... God has said certain things about Himself, and these furnish all the grounds we require. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). This is but one verse among thousands which serve to form our rational picture of what God is like, and tell us plainly that God feels something like our love, like our joy, and what He feels makes Him act very much as we would in a similar situation; He rejoices over His loved ones with joy and singing.

Here is emotion on as high a plain as it can ever be seen, emotion flowing out of the heart of God Himself. Feeling, then, is not the degenerate son of unbelief that is often painted by some of our Bible teachers. Our ability to feel is one of the marks of our divine origin. We need not be ashamed of either tears or laughter. The Christian stoic who has crushed his feelings is only two-thirds of a man; an important third part has been repudiated. Holy feeling had an important place in the life of our Lord. “For the joy that was set before Him” He endured the cross and despised its shame. He pictured Himself crying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin.

Aiden Wilson Tozer (April 21, 1897–May 12, 1963) was an American Christian pastor, preacher, author, magazine editor and spiritual mentor. This article is an excerpt from The Divine Conquest.

Fire In My Bones - J. Lee Grady - "John MacArthur"

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To My Fundamentalist Brother John MacArthur: Grace to You Too

10/23/2013 J. LEE GRADY, Charismanews

 

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John MacArthur

Fundamentalist pastor John MacArthur is a gifted preacher, author and lover of Scripture. His Grace to You radio program points countless people to the Bible, and his Master's Seminary trains hundreds of ministry leaders. He’s a staunch Calvinist, but that doesn’t make him any less my brother in Christ. 

Unfortunately, MacArthur can’t say the same about me—and that’s sad. In his new book Strange Fire, he declares in no uncertain terms that anyone who embraces any form of charismatic or Pentecostal theology does not worship the true God. 

My brother in Christ has written me off. 

In John MacArthur’s rigid world, anybody who has sought prayer for healing, claimed a miracle, received a prayer language, prophesied, sensed God speaking to them, felt God’s presence in an emotional way or fallen down on the floor after receiving prayer has already stepped out of the bounds of orthodoxy.

MacArthur says charismatics think they worship God but that actually we are worshipping a golden calf. “Every day millions of charismatics offer praise to a patently false image of the  Holy Spirit,” MacArthur says early in the book. “No other movement has done more damage to the cause of the gospel.”

He doesn’t just write off fringe elements of our movement; he skewers the original founders of Pentecostalism and even goes after Baptist author Henry Blackaby for teaching that God can speak to people today.

MacArthur, who is 74, urges evangelical Christians to engage in a “collective war” to stop the spread of the charismatic movement, which he describes as a “deadly virus,” a “deviant mutation of the truth” and a “Trojan horse” that has infiltrated mainstream Christianity. MacArthur writes, “Charismatic theology has turned the evangelical church into a cesspool of error and a breeding ground for false teachers.”

No one familiar with MacArthur is surprised by Strange Fire, since it is really a rehashed version of his 1993 book Charismatic Chaos. Unfortunately, some charismatics have given MacArthur plenty of new ammunition to support his case that we are all a bunch of sleazy con artists and spiritual bimbos. Our movement is new and fraught with problems, so MacArthur doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of troublesome doctrine. But instead of offering fatherly correction, he pulls out his sword and hacks away.

I’m no five-point Calvinist, but I will make five points here in response to MacArthur’s book:

1. Not all charismatics and Pentecostals have embraced errors or excesses. To MacArthur’s credit, he quotes charismatic leaders who have addressed legitimate abuses and errors in our movement. But then he writes us off with a broad brush. Actually, the majority of our movement is not in error, even though we all know of doctrines and practices that need correction. There are millions of healthy charismatic and Pentecostal churches around the world that are winning the lost, launching missionary endeavors and helping the poor. And charismatics and Pentecostals are fueling the global growth of Christianity—even with our flaws.

2. We must leave room for the present-day power of God. MacArthur believes God’s miracle-working power stopped around 100 A.D. He says healing, tongues, prophecy, visions and other supernatural manifestations described in the New Testament don’t work today. MacArthur is particularly irked that charismatics emphasize speaking in tongues (which he calls “gibberish”); he also complains that we have a “perverse obsession with physical health” (in other words, if you get sick, just accept it because God doesn’t heal anymore). But the New Testament doesn’t tell us that heaven flipped a switch and turned off the Spirit’s power. That is MacArthur’s opinion, not a biblical doctrine. 

3. The church needs a fresh emphasis on the Holy Spirit. MacArthur says charismatics are guilty of an unhealthy focus on the Holy Spirit. He claims that the Spirit points only to Jesus and that we shouldn’t seek the Spirit’s power or presence because He likes to stay in the background. My question: If that is true, why did Jesus teach so much about the Holy Spirit? And why is the Spirit’s powerful work so clearly highlighted in the book of Acts and the epistles? It’s true that the Spirit wants all the credit to go to Jesus, but we are making a huge mistake if we ignore the Spirit or limit His power. The church today needs God’s power like never before.

4. There is a difference between biblical correction and judgmentalism. Anyone who reads this column knows I speak out regularly about whacky practices in our movement—from prosperity doctrines to necromancy to adulterous pastors who say God told them to divorce one wife so they could marry another. I believe we must address sin in the camp. But there is a difference between confronting specific sins and condemning a whole movement to hell. John MacArthur’s book has crossed that line. 

5. We should love MacArthur anyway. Strange Fire lists numerous ways charismatics are misusing or abusing the Holy Spirit, in MacArthur’s view. But he forgets to mention that one of the important works of the Holy Spirit is to unify and connect the Christian community in deep fellowship. The New Testament urges us to “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3, NASB), and we are also told that love is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But Strange Fire was not written out of a heart of love. 

Still, there is no need to retaliate against MacArthur. He is our brother because we all believe in and worship the same Savior. The best thing we can do in response to this extremely unkind book is to love our brother in spite of his unfortunate bias against us.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of the Mordecai Project (themordecaiproject.org). You can follow him on Twitter at @leegrady. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books.

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