pilgrim.not.wanderer

Here’s an interesting article by James J. A. Smith.  It is called Teaching a Calvinist to Dance.  It is a kind of personal testimony and apology (i.e. apologetic) for being both Reformed and Pentecostal.  

I couldn’t disagree more with his enthusiastic embrace of Pentecostalism.  

I know, nothing is more thrilling for an author (and yet so boring for his readers) than criticizing a fellow Christian on the web.  And few things are more evident of self-righteousness than ill-tempered, uncharitable criticism.  

Still, I can’t help but disagree.  Read the article yourself and come to your own conclusion.  

As for me, Pentecostalism is a kind of cancer that eats away at Christ centered piety in the church.  I see the Pentecostal/charismatic world as a bastion of spiritual abuse.  Taking the Lord’s name in vain seems to be standard practice.  (I take that to mean using the name and the authority of the Lord to back up one’s own projects and desires.  ”God told me to do this!”  ”The Lord would have us do that!”)  Pentecostalism is an ugly, power hungry version of Christianity.   

At least that’s what Pentecostalism is to me, according to my personal encounters with it in real Pentecostal churches and with real Pentecostal people.  I’ve attended Pentecostal churches and have some friends who still do.  I’ve interacted with tons of Pentecostals at the bible college I attended.  I have no doubt there are many saintly folks among the Pentecostal set.  It may even be that the official teaching of Pentecostalism (if such a thing exists) disapproves of these kinds of abuses.  Still, my lived experience of Pentecostalism was saturated with this stuff.  

Whereas most people outside of the church think that fundamentalism is the big threat, in fact it is Pentecostalism that poses the great danger.  It is the Pentecostals who think they have direct line to God.  It is the Pentecostals who seem so unwilling to exercise their critical faculties.  Pentecostal leaders can hardly be reigned in and kept in check–they speak for God himself.  If you are worried about Pat Robertson and his kind, you are worried about Pentecostalism.

I’ve encountered first hand far too many “words from the Lord” from Pentecostals which turned out to be complete and utter falsehoods.  I simply don’t buy it anymore.  Don’t try it with me.  (Don’t take me as saying that God doesn’t lead us.  God does.  But that is a very different thing from the Pentecostal/charismatic practice of constantly receiving “words” directly from the Lord.  So many of these “words” are obviously not from God.)

Smith has this to say:

In particular, I think Pentecostal spirituality and charismatic worship take the sovereignty of God so seriously that you might actually be surprised by God every once in a while. You are open and expectant that the Spirit of God is sometimes going to surprise you, because God is free to act in ways that might differ from your set of expectations.

In my experience, nothing is LESS surprising and LESS unexpected that the kinds of “acts of God” which pop up during Pentecostal/charismatic worship.  These things are very predictable.  For the life of me, I don’t know why more folks don’t call Pentecostals/charismatics out on this.  The Pentecostal dog and pony show can be (and usually is?) just as empty and formulaic as your worst liturgical high-church nightmare.  

What can I say?  Maybe my view of things is skewed.  But that’s how I see it for now.  I’m not Pentecostal or charismatic, and I’m happy about it.  I’m not Reformed either.