1) Elitism: In any movement in which
significant-seeming things go on, the sense of being a spiritual aristocracy,
the feeling that 'we are the people who really count', always threatens at
gut-level, and verbal disclaimers of this syndrome do not always suffice to
keep it at bay. Here elitist tendencies are reinforced by the restorationist
theology which sees charismatic experience as the New Testament norm for all
time and is inevitably judgemental towards non-charismatic Christianity. When
you have gone out on a limb, as many have, in order to seek and find something
which you now think everyone should be seeking, though many are not, it is hard
not to feel superior.
2) Sectarianism: The absorbing intensity of
charismatic fellowship, countrywide and worldwide, can produce a damaging
insularity whereby charismatics limit themselves to reading charismatic books,
hearing charismatic speakers, fellowshipping with other charismatics and
backing charismatic causes; and this is the thin end of the sectarian wedge in
practice, however firm one's profession of aiming at catholic unity.
3) Emotionalism: Only a fine line divides healthy
emotion from unhealthy emotionalism, and any appealing to or playing on emotion
crosses that line every time. Though the white-collar charismatic movement of
today is (for cultural rather than theological reasons, it seems) generally
calmer than original blue-collar Pentecostalism ever was, its preoccupation
with expressing feelings of joy and love makes it vulnerable here. Its warmth
and liveliness attract highly emotional and disturbed people to its ranks, and
many others find in its ritual emotionalism some relief from strains and
pressures in other areas of their lives (marriage, work, finance, etc.). But
such sharing in group emotion is a self-indulgent escapist 'trip' which must
debilitate in the long run. Generally, the movement seems to teeter on the edge
of emotional self-indulgence in a decidedly dangerous way.
4) Anti-intellectualism Charismatic preoccupation with
experience observably inhibits the long, hard theological and ethical
reflection for which the New Testament letters so plainly call. The result
often is naivety and imbalance in handling the biblical revelation; some
themes-gifts and ministry in the body of Christ, for instance-being run to
death while others, such as eschatology, get neglected. Looking for a prophecy
(supposedly, a direct word from God) when difficult issues arise, rather than
embracing the hard grind of prayerful study and analysis, is a tendency that
sometimes obtrudes; so at other times does a doctrinaire insistence that for
Spirit-filled, Bible reading Christians all problems of faith and conduct will
prove to be simple. The charismatic movement has been called 'an experience
seeking a theology'; 'lacking' and 'needing' would fit, but whether 'seeking'
is warranted is open to doubt, sometimes anyhow.
5) Illuminism: Sincere but deluded claims to direct
divine revelation have been made in the church since the days of the Colossian
heretic(s) and the Gnosticizers whose defection called forth 1 John, and since
Satan keeps pace with God they will no doubt recur till the Lord returns. At
this point the charismatic movement, with its stress on the Spirit's personal
leading, and the revival of revelations via prophecy, is clearly vulnerable.
The person with unhealthy ambitions to be a religious leader, dominating a
group by giving them the sense that he is closer to God than they are, can
easily climb on the charismatic band wagon and find there good-hearted,
emotionally dependent folk waiting to be impressed by him; so, too, the
opinionated eccentric can easily invoke the Spirit's direction when he refuses
to let his pastor stop him disrupting the congregation with his odd ideas.
Living as it does on the edge of illuminism, the movement cannot but have
problems here.
6) 'Charismania' This is O'Connor's word for the habit
of mind which measures spiritual health, growth and maturity by the number and
impressiveness of people's, gifts, and spiritual power by public charismatic
manifestations. The habit is bad, for the principle of judgement is false; and
where it operates, real growth and maturity are likely to be retarded.
7) 'Super-supernaturalism' This is my word for that
way of affirming the supernatural which exaggerates its discontinuity with the
natural. Reacting against 'flat-tyre' versions of Christianity which play down
the supernatural and do not expect to see God at work, the
super-supernaturalist constantly expects miracles of all sortsstriking
demonstrations of God's presence and power-and he is happiest when he thinks he
sees God acting contrary to the nature of things, so confounding common
sense.34 For God to proceed slowly and by natural means is to him a
disappointment, almost a betrayal. But his undervaluing of the natural, regular
and ordinary, shows him to be romantically immature, and weak in his grasp of
the realities of creation and providence as basic to God's work of grace.
Charismatic thinking tends to treat glossolalia, in which mind and tongue are
deliberately and systematically dissociated, as the paradigm case of spiritual
activity, and to expect all God's work in and around his children to involve
similar discontinuity with the ordinary regularities of the created world. This
makes for super-supernaturalism almost inevitably.
8) Eudaemonism I use this word for the belief that God
means us to spend our time in this fallen world feeling well, and in a state of
euphoria based on that fact. Charismatics might deprecate so stark a statement,
but the regular and expected projection of euphoria from their platforms and
pulpits, plus their standard theology of healing, show that the assumption is there,
reflecting and intensifying the 'now-I-am-happy-all-the-day-and-you-can-be-so-too'
ethos of so much evangelical evangelism since D. L. Moody. Charismatics,
picking up the healing emphasis of original restorationist Pentecostalism-an
emphasis already strong in 'holiness' circles in North America before
Pentecostalism arrived-regularly assume that physical disorder and discomfort
is not ordinarily God's beneficent will for his children.l5 On this basis, with
paradigmatic appeal to the healings of Jesus and the apostles, plus the claim,
founded on Isaiah 53:3-6 and 10 as interpreted in Matthew 8:16 f and 1 Peter
2:24, that there is healing in the atonement,36 plus reference to Paul's phrase
'charismata of healings' ('gifts of healings', AV; 'healers', RSV) in 1
Corinthians 12:28, they make supernatural divine healing (which includes.
according to testimony, lengthening of legs, straightening of spines and, in
South America, ftlling of teeth) a matter of constant expectation, and look for
healing gifts in their leaders almost as a matter of course. But the texts
quoted will not bear the weight put upon them, and New Testament references to
sickness among Christian leaders that was not supernaturally healed make it
plain that good health at all times is not God's will for all believers. Also,
the charismatic supposition loses sight of the good that can come in the form
of wisdom, patience and acceptance of reality without bitterness when
Christians are exposed to the discipline of pain and of remaining unhealed.
Moreover, the charismatic supposition creates appalling possibilities of
distress when on the basis of it a person seeks healing, fails to find it, and
then perhaps is told that the reason lies not in God's unwillingness or
inability to heal, but in his own lack of faith. Without doubting that God can
and sometimes does heal supernaturally today, and that healings of various
kinds do in fact cluster round some people's ministries, I judge this
expression of the eudaemonist streak in charismatic thought to be a major
mistake, and one which makes against Christian maturity in a quite radical way.
9) Demon-obsession In recovering a sense of the
supernaturalness of God, charismatics have grown vividly aware of the reality
of supernatural personal evil, and there is no doubt that their development of
'deliverance' ministry and the impulse they have given to the renewal of
exorcism" have been salutary for many. But if all life is seen as a battle
with demons in such a way that Satan and his hosts get blamed for bad health,
bad thoughts and bad behaviour without reference to physical, psychological and
relational factors in the situation, a very unhealthy demonic counterpart of
super-supernaturalism is being developed. There is no doubt that this sometimes
happens, and that it is a major obstacle to moral and spiritual maturity when
it does.
10) Conformism: Group pressure is tyrannical at the
best of times, and never more so than when the group in question believes
itself to be super-spiritual, and finds the evidence of its members'
spirituality in their power to perform along approved lines. Inevitably, peer
pressure to perform (hands raised, hands outstretched, glossolalia, prophecy)
is strong in charismatic circles; inevitably, too, the moment one starts living
to the group and its expectations rather than to the Lord one is enmeshed in a
new legalistic bondage, whereby from yet another angle Christian maturity is
threatened.
