Excesses in the 'Church'

Fascinating. I love it when the Holy Spirit confirms what He is saying..

Recently I wrote an e-letter to a brother in Christ I have not seen in many years. In it, I included the following; "After God came we joined a 'spirit-filled' Baptist church and have had some association with pentecostals and charismatics for many years. We agree with pentecostals insomuch as believing in the gifts of the spirit, and that a believer in the scriptures is on very shaky grounds (for example) by openly contradicting 1 Cor 14: 39. We have also seen that pentecostals and charismatics in general seem to be on rather shaky ground concerning 1 Cor 14: 40. We ourselves can and sometimes do speak or pray in tongues, have given prophecy, and have had genuine prophecy given to us. [My wife] has lain on the floor at Brownsville, and I cannot deny the influence for godliness that occurred in us from this event, though we have real issues with some of the things that have been done and said down there (for more on my position on that topic see here ). At the same time we have seen a lot of nonsense in the name of the Spirit of God, such as the pastor of a notable local Church of God teaching that the proper Holy Spirit way to handle 1 Cor 14: 28 is that if someone believes he has a tongue for the whole church he is to obey God and give it before the church, and that if it is genuine someone there will be given the interpretation – which is clearly in contradiction to what Paul is saying in this passage."

In thinking about this I decided that this topic would make a good blog entry. In thinking about that, I was reminded of Charles Carrin, a baptized-in-the-Spirit Baptist minister that we heard not long after God came and kept up with for a while, but haven't heard anything of or from in many years now (not personally, just ministry newletters and such). My reason for thinking about Carrin was that we had heard (or read – not sure which) him making the point back then that many churches who proclaim to believe the Bible have effectively torn out chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians. In their refusal to accept the possibility of tongues or prophecy or any such operation of the Holy Spirit today, they refuse to honor Paul's clear instructions in 1 Cor 14.

My flow of thought for the blog post was that although we have seen and known 'churches' that do indeed tear out chapter 14 as Carrin said, the counterpoint is that we have seen many 'churches' that have trampled on Paul's guidelines about orderliness in exercising the gifts of the Spirit, churches that really looked like nut-houses trampling on the Word and the true 'spirit' of the Spirit of Christ.

Figured I would link to Carrin's website if I could find it. So I found it.

And what do you suppose I found there?

The following is from Charles Carrin's current newsletter, July 2010, "Does The Public Think Your Church Is 'Mad'?"

"Transfer the Corinthian-crisis to many of today’s charismatic churches. Through a variety of abuses–tongues being only one of them–numerous churches are chasing off unsaved visitors as fast as they come. Instead of feeling welcomed, the people are repelled by excess. It matters not whether the problem is tongues or ear-splitting music, blasting shofars, tiresome services, flag wavers, etc. Paul would be just as angered at any one of our abuses today." ... "In some Charismatic Churches I witness an imitation of spiritual gifts that frightens me. Human emotion replaces holy order. In some cases the people have left the Holy Spirit and reverted to their earthy feelings. In these places a substitution is taking place. It is this: Human excitement is gradually replacing the Holy Spirit’s authentic presence. Most people do not recognize the change. Some of this is emotion out of control. Congregations do not always give the Holy Spirit the courtesy of awaiting His arrival. Instead they act as if He is automatically there if they wave flags, jump, blow shofars, blast the music, and clap their hands. He comes at their command. Not so." ... "I am grieved to tell you this: Several times, as a guest speaker, I have had to leave the pulpit and go to the office or lobby to wait-out the attack. The noise was unbearable. In one church when I went to the foyer I found it filled with visitors who had also fled the service. A very safe guess would be that once the “worship”was over they never came back. Does that fit Paul’s description of church madness? Absolutely. The most horrific moment of all came once when a matron bounded onto the platform dressed in a child-sized costume and did an interpretive dance to one of my favorite hymns. As a nine year-old, my grandson asked me to take him out of a service because the noise was giving him a headache." ... "During one service a young man ran through the congregation blowing a police whistle. In another, an old man walked about carrying a machine that blew bubbles into the air. Everybody had opportunity to do 'his thing'. Someone says, 'That is freedom, Brother!' No, it isn’t! It is religious silliness and has no place in the church."

And man do we have to agree with all of that. In fact at that 'notable local Church of God' to which I referred at the beginning of this post, there was a woman who attended there who we referred to simply as 'The Fire Alarm Woman', because at the end of every single service she would go down to the front at the altar call and make this ear-piercing 'woo-woooooo-wooo' fire alarm sound. You are never going to convince me that any of this foolishness and disorderliness has anything at all to do with the Spirit of God.

In fact, none of any of this churchy nonsense, on either side of 1 Cor 14, altar calls included, has anything to do with the Word of God.

Read your Bible people.