There are Christians out there who are aching for an experience of God that is different from what they get in (almost all) mainline churches. They have a hunger for something they’re not getting. They also want to be a part of a church or denomination that welcomes everyone, not just those who conform to someone’s definition of what a Christian should look like and do or who they should love.
And they’re forced to choose.
I really dislike labels, but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to use “charismatic” to describe the experience that is so difficult to find in my own and I think, most mainline denominations. “Spirit-filled” might also work, but that tends to suggest that there’s no “Spirit” in mainline worship. There are down sides to either term, but I’m at a loss to find one that works and doesn’t have some possible negative connotations. So “charismatic” will have to do, and it’s easier to type than “Spirit-filled.”
All that so that I can say this. It is possible to be charismatic and also inclusive. It is possible to be charismatic and respectful of church traditions and structures. It is possible to be charismatic and mature enough to recognize that not everyone “should be like you.” How do I know that? I’ve met people like that. I am people like that. Granted, we’re few, especially within the ranks of mainline churches, but we do exist.
But for the most part, people who hunger for that intimacy with God that they find in “charismatic” worship drift away to other congregations where, nearly always, they’re fed theology that has none of the generosity and kindness and we find in Jesus. Oh, they’re generous and kind, but only to people believe like they do. And how do I know that? Because I’ve worshiped among them. Not a lot recently, but I did for a long time when I first found what I’d been seeking for so long. Fortunately, the current political climate hadn’t poisoned the pulpits of as many of those meetings as they seem to have now, so I didn’t find myself shaking my head during “messages” too often. For nearly all of the time, worship and message were centered on God and God’s goodness, not who they were against. I don’t know if that’s still the same.
My spiritual director at the time used to say to me, “Enjoy the fish, Jeff, just don’t choke on the bones.” I’m afraid there are a lot more bones, these days. Political alignments and issues around sexuality race and the subjugation of women seem to be a much larger issue in charismatic denominations than they used to be. But this only heightens the need for an alternative place to meet God in this “charismatic” way without the poisons of destructive theologies and anthropologies.
We have driven, sometimes passively, sometimes actively, charismatic Christians out of our denominations. At this point I have to limit my comments to the Episcopal church, because that is my only strong frame of reference. I’ve known people who’ve experienced the same thing in other denominations, but only a few, and I know little of their histories, so I’ll stick with my own.
Episcopalians began to experience the charismatic movement back in the 1960’s. Shortly thereafter, the Cursillo movement migrated from the Roman Catholic church to the Episcopal Church. It was common in those days for those who’d rediscovered their faith through the Cursillo movement to move into charismatic circles as well, a deepening of their Cursillo experience. I don’t think that the contemporaneous rise of these two movements was coincidental. I believe that both were a move of the Holy Spirit to inject new energy and faith into the church. At the same time, the theology of the Episcopal church began to become more inclusive. Women were first ordained in 1974. In the decades to follow non-cisgendered persons were included in the ranks of the ordained and the church began to repent of its racist histories toward people of color and indigenous peoples. (We’re still working on that, but it’s happening.) I believe that these are also the result of this infilling of the Spirit that happened largely in the 60’s and 70’s.
I believe that because I’ve studied the history of charismatic Christianity. In every great inbreaking of the Spirit in the Church’s history, one of the consistent scandals of those inbreakings is that barriers were broken down. People worshiped alongside one another who would never have done so otherwise.
The clearest and most recent example of this that I can give is from the Azusa Street revival that began in 1907 in Los Angeles. It was led by a black man, William Seymour, a charismatic preacher who’d had to sit in the hallway to study at Charles Parham’s school in Texas. He later began his ministry in a refurbished barn/warehouse in Los Angeles, where the only benches to be had were planks laid across upturned buckets.
But in that church, the Spirit burned. Burned so brightly that some nights the fire brigade was called out because people witnessed flames above the roof. And wonder of wonders, men and women sat together in worship. White people and black sat side by side and scandalized the people of the time. This is what happens when the Spirit comes in power. It happened at Pentecost, people of every language and nation heard the Good News that they were beloved of God. And it happened, if more slowly, in the Episcopal Church, starting in the 60’s and 70’s.
But as so often happens with something new and wonderful like the Cursillo/Charismatic movement, enthusiasm led to excess. (Even Paul had a similar issue in Corinth!) Those who’d had this new and exciting encounter with God assumed that “everyone” should share in their passion, their joy. When they came back from a meeting or a Cursillo weekend, they were insistent that their congregations change to become like them. Their exuberance was downright frightening to those who hadn’t gone seeking it, and it often upset good rules of order. There was an adolescent disregard, dare I say disrespect, for the structures that had sustained the church for hundreds of years.
In my own experience, the natural but informal link between Cursillo and the charismatic movement led to Cursillo being painted with the same negative brush that was used to characterize the charismatic. The enthusiasms were similar, nearly indistinguishable to those who had experienced neither, and the Cursillo movement began to fall into disfavor. As a result, some dioceses no longer have any diocesan-supported Cursillo weekends any more. In another diocese in which of which I was a part, Cursillo’s leadership, their “Secretariat,” has nearly forbidden any charismatic expression of worship on their weekends. (While candidates are not so strongly discouraged from such expressions, team members are told quite clearly to refrain.)
And so over time these excited Christians were gently (and sometimes not so gently) set aside and they drifted away into more charismatic churches that would teach them over the years to come that their more inclusive and generous theologies were “unbiblical.” They left, or they stayed under the radar until alternatives like the ACNA gave them homes.
With maturity on both sides, however, we can find a new path for incorporating those who have had this intimate and powerful experience of God. One the one side, the church can be more tolerant of that “adolescent” exuberance so to guide it into healthy expressions without losing all that reinvigorating energy. On the other side, those who, like myself, find real life and power in charismatic worship, can understand that not everyone finds our path helpful, and stop insisting that the whole church look like us.
This requires a lot from leadership. It requires a willingness on the part of many to shepherd something they don’t particularly want or understand. (Though that may change with time?) It means more time allotted to separate times of worship where those who aren’t drawn to it aren’t forced to experience it. And it does require shepherding. There is no question that those who are touched by the Spirit in this way can become too “full of themselves” and wander in unfruitful directions. I have my own experience of this.
I had in my congregation a woman who was powerfully gifted. I sent her to be trained as a lay preacher and at her request, we created an evening worship service once a month that she led. I attended these services as a co-leader and so as to continue to guide her. Over time she was drawn into more and more excess, became increasingly resistant to any guidance. When I finally came to the point of requiring that the services stop while we worked things out, she left the church rather than be limited.
I learned from that, and as a result I also have compassion for those who would struggle to make room for the charismatic in their churches/dioceses. What I learned, more than anything else, is to respect the need for something I actually learned from a charismatic movement.
Early on in my discipling into things charismatic, I attended a week long series of workshops called “The Art of Hearing God,” led by Streams Ministries International, founded by John Paul Jackson. It was very empowering, but what strikes me now is the talk we heard on the last morning. The speaker from Streams Ministries got up, and with a demeanor much more stern than anything we’d heard all week, told us that just because we may be hearing from God, that did not give us freedom to disregard the pastoral guidance of the person leading the congregations we’re part of. Anything we think we may be hearing from God must, absolutely must be run through the pastor. If the pastor deems it something that should be shared with the congregation, we may share it. If not, we simply will not share it. We will not be a source of division and disharmony in the congregation.
That was something that I did not make clear with my talented lay preacher. At least, not clear enough. And so, as we may hope to raise up a new charismatic generation within our more inclusive churches, I have come to believe that this teaching, more than any other, needs to have a place in their educations.
Christianity is falling into increasing disfavor in the United States. I cannot speak for the rest of the West. But in the U.S., Christianity is best known now for it’s allegiance to a political movement that would take us back to a world where non-cisgendered people are invisible (they’ll never not be there) and women are relegated to a second-class status in both the church and the world. The country needs to be re-evangelized. Not to be made into little versions of our Christian selves, but simply told the truth that we know, that they are beloved of God.
If we are to take seriously both the Bible and church history, the moments of greatest evangelical (and I use that word advisedly) impact were accompanied by the gifts, not just the fruits of the Spirit. Pentecost being the initial moment, at which five thousand were added to the numbers of those who followed Jesus. Time and again, when God wanted to move the needle in the work of the church, there has been an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower it.
I believe that such an outpouring on the Episcopal Church helped change us from “The Republican Party at Prayer” (a nickname that we had in the 50’s) to the the church we are today. I am crying out for another such outpouring, and one that will be better shepherded by those of us who learned from our mistakes in the 70’s and 80’s.
Because there’s something deeply wrong in almost all of the charismatic churches that I now know. (I am fortunate to know one or two who are welcoming, even if they’re quiet about it.) It tears at my heart that those who are drawn to the things of the Spirit have no recourse but to sit at the feet of “prophets” who are so misguided. They need an alternative, and I think we, the mainline churches, are the only ones to give it to them.
I am not suggesting that every priest or pastor should go off to become like I am, like “they” are. I am asking that we begin to be open to folks like this, though, and encourage them. Identify the ones with sufficient maturity to help form them, while also discipling them in the love that is utterly inclusive. Unless God sees fit to create another Pentecost, or Welsh Revival, or Azusa Street, it won’t be a sudden thing, but maybe that’s all to the good. But please, please, can we begin, just begin to make space for a Christianity that is both inclusive and charismatic?
One Response
I am very interested in what you have to say but I don’t really understand it except to say I agree the church needs to make room for everyone. Having been raised Roman Catholic, but finding the Episcopal church when I was in my early thirties, I have found it to be so much more welcoming and accessible in comparison. But as I have changed and, hopefully, matured in my spiritual journey, I am thinking my church is not near welcoming enough. I see a strong resistance to anything but the traditional hymns. I see some groups like ECW and Men’s Group are very insular, even though they think they are welcoming. We have had a new rector for about a year. I was on the search committee. He is different in many ways from the previous rector who left to take a higher level position. This rector is having a tough time because so many of the older (more generous with money) generation are so resistant to change. One issue is that he is a micro-manager and is driving the parish admin and us volunteers who help her on a daily basis crazy. He challenges us much more, rather than spend his time making us comfortable. It is challenging for me too, but I believe you move forward or you die. I just wanted to share some thoughts with you.