Charismatic Crackpot

We had a charismatic crackpot  in church recently.  Not all charismatics are crackpots, any more than all crackpots are charismatic.  Indeed, CJ Mahaney is one of my favourite preachers.

But this man, I fear, was both.  I’d never seen him before, but noticed him in the congregation.  He stayed quiet enough during the meeting, and I went to introduce myself to him afterwards.  Within seconds – literally – he’d told me of the wonderful ministry he had, the hundreds (literally) of amazing miracles God had worked for him in a few short weeks (more, in fact, than in the whole of Bible history) and that he was a direct descendant of a famous preacher (one who, incidentally, had no children…).  He told me he was full of the Spirit.  That he was on fire for God.  That he’d been a Christian for years before he was baptised in the Spirit.

I knew where this was going, so I smiled, and said ‘Well, my understanding of that is different from yours.’  I tried to wish him well and walk away, but he wasn’t having that.   It then went like this:

Him: Have you been baptised in the Spirit?

Me: In the Bible, baptism with the Spirit means conversion; it always does.

Him: No; I was a Christian for twenty years before I was baptised in the Spirit.

Me: No, you weren’t.  In the Bible, baptism in the Spirit is conversion – look at 1 Corinthians 12:12.

Him:  I’m on fire for God, sold out for Jesus.  It’s wonderful; everyone should be.

Me:  Undoubtedly.  But I’m a Bible man…

Him:  So am I.

Me:  … and in the Bible baptism with the Spirit is conversion.

Him:  It’s not; what about ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’  (He’s referring to Acts 19:2)

Me: If you read the passage, they replied ‘We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit…’ and when they were asked what baptism they had received, they said ‘John’s baptism.’  These people weren’t Christians.

Him: They were men of God.

Me: It doesn't say so; whatever they were, they weren’t Christians.  They hadn’t heard of the Holy Spirit and they’d only received John’s baptism, not Christian baptism.

Him: Are you filled with the Spirit?  I‘m on fire, on fire – you should be on fire like me.  I’m on fire, I’m full of the Spirit.

Me: Well, you’re full of something, that’s for sure.  But it seems to me that it’s yourself you’re full of, not the Spirit.

Now you may accuse me of being ungracious.  Possibly.  But I had tried to get away without offence, debate, or rancour; and please note:

• a) he wasn’t – in practice – evangelical, though he may have claimed to be, and even thought he was.

Like many charismatics (I’ve said this before, haven’t I?) he responded to my ‘the Bible says’ with ‘my experience is…’  When I pushed  him about the Bible (a little more than the above extract suggests) he made one attempt to respond.  Good.  But it wasn’t a good one, and he hadn’t thought it out.  When that was pointed out, he switched from his own experience to my experience…

‘Sola Scriptura’ is the basic principle of evangelicalism.  Experience – true or false – is  never an adequate response to the Bible.

• b) he wasn’t Spirit-filled, either – though he certainly claimed to be

The Holy Spirit is given to glorify Christ, Jesus said (John 16.14).  But this man spoke of himself, not Christ.  There was no obvious humility in him (in fact, there was obviously no humility) which is a sign of the Spirit’s work (Eph. 4:2).

These people are dangerous.  They mislead the immature and hinder the truth.  There are few greater needs today than for the church of Jesus to leave behind its gullibility.

(See, by the way, Conrad Mbewe http://www.conradmbewe.com/2012/05/prophet-tb-joshua-does-it-again.html for another story – much more interesting than mine.)

Sam Storms and Convergence

It occurs to me that I haven't ever said any more about Sam Storms' dangerous book 'Convergence' after this.

So here today is a link to a review by the redoubtable Tim Challies.  I share all his concerns, and it has the advantage (some of you will think) of being gentler than I.

Convergence

I’m troubled by this book.  I’ve had it on my shelves for a blog review for months now, but it troubles me and I’ve kept putting it off.  The problem is this: though Sam Storms is  a friend of, and much respected by, John Piper and Wayne Grudem and others of similar pedigree – I just don’t believe the book.

The book is a plea for the uniting of charismatic phenomena (tongues, prophecy and the like) and Reformed doctrine.  In that its focus is on phenomena, not ‘merely’ a deeper experience of God’s love, it is several stages beyond the arguments of Lloyd-Jones, and should not be confused with them.

A large part of the book is anecdotal, in the sense that it says ‘this is what happened to me’.  And I don’t believe it…

Let me highlight three things that to me are major problems.

First, he tells us that he has lied in print.  He went into print several years earlier arguing for a cessationist position when he not only did not believe that the gifts had ceased but actually was, himself, a tongue-speaker (at the time, suppressing the gift).  If by his own admission he’s lied in such a way, why should we believe him now?

Then – second - there’s the type of prophecy he describes.  A dream that a window in their yard would be broken by a foul ball in a baseball game.  And – wow! – baseball had never been played in that yard.  But sure enough, some visitors to the home, knowing nothing about the dream, played base-ball in the yard and broke a window.  Sure proof that God is at work?  Not really; the Bible gives four clear marks that God is at work and this isn't one of them.  (Jonathan Edwards unpacks them helpfully and at length in ‘Distinguishing Marks.’  Storm professes to be an Edwards fan - he must have read it.)  But this kind of thing – if it happened – is on a level with psychic claims in all religions and none.  Why would Almighty God give a dream about a window?  Is there anything like this in the Bible?

And then – third -  there’s his demonology – more ‘Buffy’ than Scripture.  A demon sat in their lounge wrapped in a scarf and beckoning their daughter to come to him; a ‘force’ which Storms himself compares to ‘Star Wars’: ‘a “wall” of energy or power or, as I said, what felt like “liquid air”, engulfed me.  It actually pushed me backward a step or two.’ A demon-possessed man smelling so badly that Storms asks ‘Do demons have an odor?’ and answers ‘Yes, they do!  And it is far from pleasant!’  Is there any of this in Scripture?

Some of it is pure spiritism: ‘Does the name “Derek” mean anything special to you?'  Oh, wow – again!  A God who can make a name pop into your head, but not tell you what it means!  Pop down to Waterstones in your lunch-break: you can read any number of mediums making the same claims – and they’re frauds.  It’s called cold reading, and easy to learn.  Waterstones will also sell you the 'How to' books!

And if you want a fourth,  there’s his naiveté; he apparently still believes that Paul Cain was an anointed man of God even at the time of his greatest sin and hypocrisy.  Really?  And the respect for the ‘Kansas City Prophets’?  Really?

So what do I think of Sam Storms?  Is he lying?  Exaggerating? Deluded, delusional, spin-doctoring, faulty in his memory, soft in his head, naive beyond belief?  Possibly. Some of these things.   I don’t know.  Just consider: if these things really happen, it’s very kind of the Devil, isn’t it, to make sure they only happen to charismatics?  And reason enough, in itself, never to become charismatic!

This is one of the most frightening books I’ve ever read.  Not because of the spiritual, evil, forces it describes.  But because story after story is designed to undermine serious Biblical thought and reflection, and infect the Reformed community with the worst of charismatic claptrap.   It is a most frightening trajectory, if the Reformed get on to it.

Grimshaw's remarkable conversion

Lying on a table in his friend’s room was a book which attracted his attention and finding it was a theological work, he picked it up with quickened interest and crossed the room with it. He stood facing a small shelf of pewter dishes and there examined the book, which he discovered to be written by the Puritan divine, John Owen. ‘Instantly’, a friend recalled in after years, ‘an uncommon heat flushed in his face.’ Puzzled, he turned towards the fire, wondering if the sudden wave of heat had come from a reflection of the flames radiated from the pewter dishes.



Turning again to the volume he now held, he opened it ant the title page and read, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith. As he pondered on the title another flash of heat suddenly passed over him. Astonished by a second occurrence of this phenomenon, he reasoned that this must be a divine indication that the volume would be of crucial relevance to his need and so requested a loan of the book. We can well imagine that he lost little time in finding opportunity to read a book so strangely brought to his attention.

(Faith Cook, William Grimshaw of Haworth, pp 26-27)

This event led shortly and directly to Grimshaw’s conversion, and the remarkable ministry he was to exercise in Haworth. So, what does a crusty old cessationist make of it?

Honestly – nothing at all. It gives me not a single thought that I ought to revise my convictions. Nor do my convictions make me doubt the history. Why should they? What happened, happened.

Proper cessationism – that is, mine (!) does not hold that God never does anything remarkable. It does not even argue that God cannot work miracles today. I simply believe that the ‘sign gifts’ were given for an age, and for a purpose, that has now been superseded.

A cessationist is not a deist – though some of us sometimes, I fear, sound like one. We do believe in God’s direct intervention. We do believe in spiritual experience. We do believe God answers prayer – providentially, remarkably, miraculously at times.

I will admit to this, though: sometimes we are so good at seeing the speck in the eyes of some of our wiser charismatic friends that we do not see the beam in our own.

My Favourite Charismatic

Expository Faithfulness from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.


CJ is one of the most faithful preachers I've heard.  This is great stuff - but listen, will you, to the way he introduces the Bible reading?  Do we super-reformed types regard the public reading of Scripture with such seriousness?  


Then, take a listen to the extended section when he gets to 'complete patience'.

I'm still not charismatic, Steve

An old friend – Steve Utley – commented on my re-posted ‘Why I am not a charismatic’.  Here’s my open response to him

Hi, Steve. Glad to hear from you.  Actually, I suspected you’d responded last time I posted this, but anonymously – was I right?

Thanks for taking my post seriously.  I’m always glad for any evidence that someone is actually reading them!  I’ll take opportunity here to respond.  Let me begin by saying that a) we’re in agreement about a lot, as you say; b) the gospel is bigger than this, and I quite understand that your church feels closer to some non-Charismatic churches than to some Charismatic churches who’re soft on the gospel, and c) you only took up one point in my post! 

You write:

Unlike you, I am not convinced by the argument Stuart Olyott makes for 1 Corinthians 13:10. Much as I appreciate his work, I think that his exegesis of verse 10 does not stand comfortably within the passage.

My main objections to this exegesis would be that:
1. The context of the passage is 'the supremacy of love'
2. V.12 seems to qualify V.10 by stating that it will be when we see 'Face to face' we will know in full, until then we continue in part.
3. Immediately following this passage and upholding love as supreme, Paul then enters into a very explicit discourse on the use and administration of gifts without the slightest hint that they will disappear.

OK: one at a time.

1. Yes, the context is ‘the supremacy of love’ but that doesn’t mean that what he says about the gifts is not to be taken seriously.  Love is supreme precisely because it continues when most other gifts have ended.  There will be a time, says Paul, when only ‘faith, hope and love’ remain (verse 13).  That ‘time’ cannot be a reference to heaven: for ‘faith’ is ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ (Hebrews 11:1) and is explicitly contrasted with sight – the sight of heaven – in 2 Cor 5:7.  And hope – ‘hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?’ (Romans 8:24).  Remarkable as it seems at first hearing, if we define faith and hope as the New Testament does there is neither faith nor hope in heaven.  But if that ‘time’ is not heaven, when is it?  How can the sign gifts remain right until the end of the age?

2. Indeed, the phrase ‘face to face’ is very important.  But it’s important to remember Paul’s Biblical background – he has not just plucked this phrase out of the air.  He is alluding to Numbers 12:8 where Moses uses both the concept of ‘face to face’ and ‘dark speech’ (it’s translated ‘riddles’ in the NIV, not very helpfully).  ‘Darkly’ or ‘dimly’ is also omitted from the NIV (what a nuisance that translation is at times!) but check in other translations.  The close use of both concepts makes it very clear that Paul is alluding to Numbers: so what does the passage in Numbers speak of?  It speaks of two different earthly revelations, and of the superiority of Moses’ revelation to that of other prophets.  In other words, it not only fits with the idea that 1 Corinthians 13 is comparing the incomplete revelation of the prophets with the complete and clearer revelation of Scripture: it requires it.  Nothing else makes sense of the allusion.  And if you object ‘but he says we will know fully, even as we are known, and that can only refer to heaven’ think about it.  We will never – not even in heaven after an eternity of eternities – know God as fully as he knows us; we don’t have the capacity for that.  He is using the phrase though to contrast the lesser with the greater – NT prophecy (the lesser) with full Scriptural revelation (the greater).

3. As for him entering into an explicit discourse in chapter 14 without the slightest hint that they’ll disappear – he’s just told them that!  What do you want him to do – end every paragraph with ‘and don’t forget – shortly after you’re dead, these gifts will disappear anyway; I just need to keep saying it in case somebody in two millennia misses it’!?

‘The New Testament has much to say on gifts, signs and wonders…’ you say.  Well, no actually.  Not that much.  It has a fair bit to say on circumcision, too.  My position doesn’t negate the passages that are there – it just understands them in the whole NT context.   There’s no authority beyond the New Testament – we’re agreed on that.  And I don’t appeal to any authority other than that – do I?  You may not agree with my understanding of 1 Corinthians 13, but at least we both accept that it’s part of the New Testament!

Did you know I was present when Wendy was healed of epilepsy?  I remember that Sunday morning so very clearly.  I wouldn’t want to doubt that it was a most remarkable answer to prayer.  Was it a miracle?  I don’t know; I remember too that she had at least one further attack after that morning before they disappeared completely.  And I know too that some forms of epilepsy do pass eventually.  So I’m hesitant to use the word ‘miracle’ (which I think has a very narrow definition); but not remotely hesitant to say that it is one of the most remarkable answers to prayer I’ve ever seen.  And yes, I’ve seen other, similar, answers.  My position on healing is, I think, roughly the same as Lloyd-Jones’: God still heals, but there are no healers.  (And I remember that Lloyd-Jones always insisted that he had never seen a genuine miracle).  As for ‘real, tangible healings at Citygate’ I’ve no reason to deny it – my theology doesn’t require it!  BUT I would caution you: be sure the people who seem to have been healed were actually sick with an organic – rather than psycho-somatic - illness, and had been properly and reliably diagnosed as such.  Then be sure that they’re actually healed, and healed without medical intervention.  Only then can you even begin to think of using the word ‘miracle’; the Roman Catholic Church, to its credit, examines all of Lourdes’ ‘healings’ in this scrupulous way.  Such caution IS necessary; twenty years or so ago a well-known Christian woman hit the secular press with accounts of her miraculous healing and, sure enough, all tests revealed no trace of the disease she said she had had.  It was only when a sceptical evangelical doctor eventually gained access to her medical records that it was shown she never had had the disease; she had self-diagnosed, and been mistaken.

Finally (for now!) you say

• I find that most rejection comes down to a personal experience (as did I) which we just know in our bones is not authentic. But is that the right thing to do?

Well, no it’s not.  But my reply would be that it’s the other way round: most people come to the Bible convinced that they’ve seen healings/tongues/prophecies etc and are therefore insistent that the Bible can’t mean what it says – and what Bible believers have believed it to say for most of the last two millennia.

Where, Steve, are the tongues that are not ‘angelish’?  Where are the organic healings that make the medical profession and the world sit up and take notice?  Why did no-one respond to the Pyromaniacs’ challenge for a well-attested, significant and accurate prophecy?  Why did John Wimber – the most remarkable and famous charismatic of his day – promise David Watson (the most remarkable, famous British charismatic of his day) that his cancer would be healed (just before he died of it!)  Why did people all over the world write to Watson with the same prophecy?  Why was there not a single voice saying ‘I have heard from the Lord, and this sickness is to death’?  Is it possible that the supreme and sovereign Lord allowed this so that we could face the facts – there are no true prophets today?

Well, blessings to you.  We’ll have to meet up some time and have a coffee, instead of bumping into one another by accident.  Give my love to your Mum and Dad.

Why I am not a charismatic

Why I am not a charismatic

Because I read my Bible...

You see, it happened like this. I was saved in August 1973. In September that year, I went off to University - one of the oldest and most elite academic insitutions in the country (Bradford). There I met lots of other Christians and began to go to an Elim Pentecostal church. Everybody - but everybody - seemed to be speaking in tongues. It seemed like a good idea... so I began to pray for it. I got lots of guidance (apparently you can be taught this supernatural gift) and, eventually, I began to speak in gibber... er, the tongues of angels.

Straight away I knew that I was now spiritually superior to those of my friends who didn't gibb - er, speak in tongues. And deep down, that bothered me; if a gift was genuinely of God, I thought, it shouldn't make me feel superior. So I began to wonder. I don't think it took more than ten days for me to decide my own experience was spurious, and I gave up g - er, you know.

Now I'm not daft enough (and wasn't daft enough even then) to think that my false experience meant that everyone else's experience was false, too. But it did open the possibility up in my mind. I read one or two books - Signs of the apostles, for example. But mostly, I read my Bible. And the gifts in the Bible just didn't look like the gifts in the Elim church.

I really wasn't impressed by the 'prophecies'. I mean, there are prophecies in the Bible, right? And they're pretty dramatic. And they're accurate. The prophecies I heard weren't even interesting.

But it was really 'tongues' that got me. Why was the most prolific gift the one gift that couldn't be tested, I wondered? I mean, my friends told me that some gifts of tongues were human languages, and some were the languages of angels (1 Corinthians 13:1). But I only heard the ones that - well, weren't human. Why? Could it be that all these people were fooling themselves?

And anyway, I understand English. I'm pretty good at it. I know a figure of speech when I see one. 'Though I speak in the tongues of men and of angels' didn't read like a prescription to me, or even a description; it read like a sarcastic comment: 'I don't care if you speak Latin, French, English and Klingon - or even Angelish - if you don't have love I don't want to know.' But my friends were ever so, ever so excited about speaking Angelish, and I couldn't understand it.

And then, of course, the 'tongues' in the New Testament were never Angelish. They were always human languages - someone even pointed out to me, eventually, that the languages (tongues) spoken in Acts 2 were all named. Angelish wasn't any of them. Hmmm.

And so I kept reading my Bible, and kept watching. I realised that though the 'gifts' being used in the church were given the same namesas the gifts in the New Testament, that was all they had in common. I realised that I could call myself Elvis Presley, but it wouldn't make my voice the real thing. The only problem left: where were the gifts today, then?

It may have been as late as 1977 that I discovered the answer; Stuart Olyott explained to me what 1 Corinthians 13:10 meant, and it made sense. I know this is a controversial passage. Hey, those who are in the wrong find any Scripture passage that proves they're wrong controversial! If you already believe that 'the gifts' are being exercised in the church, perhaps 1 Corinthians 13:10 might not persuade you otherwise. But when you've already realised the truth - well, that's different.

Nearly 30 years later, I'm still persuaded. There were sign gifts - foundations for the whole church. Once the foundations were laid, those gifts were no longer necessary. I've never - not even once - seen anything 'enough like' a New Testament sign gift to make me wonder if I might have got it wrong. And I watched with fascinated interest while the Pyromaniac asked for one well-attested prophecy that the Charismatics had got right. The rude people slandered him; the polite people challenged his exegesis. (You can read about it starting hereand here) None of them gave the answer he'd asked for. QED, as they never actually said in my geometry lessons.


(This post originally appeared way back, and is reposted as a) still reflecting my opinions and b) part of the re-post program for February)

The Charlatan

Peter was a preacher – the ‘was’ is important.  His ministry focused on miracles; thousands of people attended his crusades and church conventions in the seventies and early eighties.  Peter would stand at the front and call out the names of people he’d never met, describe their illnesses in detail, sometimes give their addresses and assure them that God wanted them well.  Somehow, Peter’s ministry prospered – and so did Peter himself.

Some people were suspicious, though – some people always are!  One of them was very suspicious, and in 1983 employed the aid of an investigator with high-tech radio scanning equipment.  They discovered that Peter’s wife, and a team of helpers, were meeting people as they arrived, chatting, getting personal details, asking if they had particular needs  - then writing them on index cards.  Elizabeth, the wife, would then use simple radio transmission to transmit the details to Peter on stage.  Not surprisingly, he was never wrong.

After he was exposed in this way, with exposure made on national TV, too, Peter and his ministry went bankrupt.  ‘Good,’ you say; and I agree.  But by 2005, Peter was back in business.  His website makes no mention of the scandal, but does invite you to send in for your bottle of miracle spring water and debt cancellation kit – stick with Peter, and you can be healthy and rich.  Sadly, once more, Peter is a preacher. 

There are frauds and charlatans in every walk of life.  In the US at least, one of the best ways of making a fortune from flim-flam is the religious way, and Peter is by no means alone.

There are charlatans in every walk of life; crooked accountants though don’t destroy our confidence in  accounting or accountants, crooked lawyers don’t destroy our faith in the law.  Crooked ministers, though, can all too easily inoculate us against the real thing.

My Sunday morning sermon this past week dealt with one of the dangers of the charlatan and how to recognise him;  Jonathan Hunt has linked to another ministry that appears to be - shall we say? - dubious.  It's a perennial problem.

Spurgeon and Prophecy

Phil Johnson, here, has a useful collection of Spurgeon stories. Spurgeon was undoubtedly a cessationist, and yet prepared, it seems, to see God at work in supernatural ways. I'm linking to this here primarily so that I can find it when I want it.