Confessions of a Lapsed Charismatic

I reckon my charismatic credentials are pretty solid, i have hung out with all stripes of charismatics from crazy independent pentecostal revivalists to charismatic high church Anglicans, and I liked them all and learned form them all.  I am a firm believer in speaking in tongues, guidance and inspiration, and God's power to heal.  But when I came to NZ I subconsciously moved out of the charismatic stream i had been inhabiting and became much more middle of the road.   Now it is time to confess

1. I love 1 Cor 12 but the work of the Holy Spirit is about so much more than giving gifts to particular Christians - what about Rom 8, John 14 &16, Gal 5, etc, etc?
2. An emphasis on gifting is often at the expense of an emphasis on character, the gifts of the Spirit get prefered over the fruit.
3. The pressure in charismatic circles for something to happen means that people are tempted to manipulate God or others in order to validate their ministry.
4. Those who do not or cannot operate in the gifts are often made to feel like second class Christians
5. An over emphasis on healing can make it hard for people to deal with the reality that often the thorn in our flesh is not taken away but God's grace is sufficient for us
6. When experience and power become the key criteria, Christ and the right handling of scripture often get lost in the shuffle.
7. Many non charismatic Christians and churches are filled with the Spirit
8. I long to see the Spirit moving more and more in my own life and faith community - but I don't want to presuppose how it is going to happen or what it will look like.
9. I'm not going to mention "falling" over or gold dust.
10. When you get given a few to many meaningless "word of knowledge" you start to wonder if you can trust these people at all.
11. I love going to church where people put their hands in the air
12. Most of the charismatics i meet are the most sincere, loving and passionate Christians you could hope for.

Let me know what you think, what has your journey with charismatic Christianity been like? :-)

Perhaps related, Daniel Kirk has been wondering if god really speaks, and John Byron wonders if beinga Christian has anything to do with being bad at maths.

Fee on Women and the Spirit

A number of fine folk have pointed to this article, the first I saw was Nick so I'll HT him, here's the section of the article dealing with Fee's stance on women in minstry:

“It’s a given,” he says. “The real question is, Which comes first, gender or gifting? What [opponents of women in ministry] are trying to tell me is that gender comes above gifting. How can that be? The Spirit gives the gifting. If a woman stands and prophesies by the Spirit, and men are present, does the Spirit not speak to them? Come on! How dumb can you get?”

His advocacy, Fee says, is on behalf of the Holy Spirit rather than women. “The Spirit is gifting women,” he says, “but many evangelicals are not prepared to adjust because of the ‘box’ they’re in.

“I’ve been blacklisted over this issue,” he adds. “People have said, ‘We can’t have Fee speak because he’s pro-women.’ I am pro-Holy Spirit! I just can’t get over that some people think gender comes before gifting.”

Let me know what you think :-)

Jenkins on Miracles and Prophecy in the Southern Churches

This is a big 2 page quote from Philip Jenkin's The Next Christendom, (148-9), but I though it was well worth sharing, especially as google books only has a snippet view available.  A challenge to those Western Christians who think the highly charismatic southern churches are necessarily syncretistic.  Enjoy!

THE OLDEST CHRISTIANITY

Considering the central role of healing and exorcism in Southern churches, it is tempting to look for older pagan roots, and to ask just how the emerg¬ing congregations justify their ideas. Of course, Southern churches thrive because of their appeal to distinctively African or Latin American ideas— their ability to work within traditional culture—but these examples of accommodation do not amount to a betrayal of the faith, still less to syncretism. The rising churches can plausibly claim to be following abundantly documented precedents from the founding ages of Christianity. The Bible itself so readily supports a worldview based on spirits, healing, and exorcism. When Jesus was asked if he was the Messiah, he did not give an abstruse theological lecture but pointed at the tangible signs and wonders that were being done in his name. “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” When Paul took the Christian faith to Macedonia, the first known mission into Europe, he was responding to a vision received in a dream.

In understanding what can look like the oddities of Third World churches, it is helpful to recall one basic and astonishing fact, which is that they take the Bible very seriously indeed. To quote Richard Shaull, “In Pentecostalism, poor and broken people discover that what they read in the Gospels is happening now in their midst.” For Southern Christians, and not only for Pentecostals, the apostolic world as described in the New Testament is not just a historical account of the ancient Levant, but an ever-present reality open to any modern believer, and that includes the whole culture of signs and wonders. Passages that seem mildly embarrassing for a Western audience read completely differently, and relevantly, in the new churches of Africa or Latin America. As David Martin remarks of another region in which this type of faith has spread in recent years, “The Pentecostal emphasis in Korea is really to see ‘The Kingdom’ both future and present in the signs of the Kingdom, especially healing and the ‘baptism of the Spirit.”

Against this background, we need to think exactly what we mean when we say that a given person “believes in” the Bible and its stories. It is possible to believe in the stories recorded as if they are literally correct narratives of events that really occurred, but this is quite different from seeing them as applicable to present-day conditions. In Southern Pentecostal and independent churches, though, belief goes much farther, to the stage of participation in a present event. It has been said of Prophet William Wade Harris that after his conversion, “it was no longer a ques¬tion of what Moses did, or what Elijah did, or the words and works of Jesus as reported in the Bible. It became a question of involvement—as with the ancestors, the living dead—with Moses, with Elijah, with the archangel Gabriel, and supremely with Jesus.

For many new believers, stories of miracles and healing are so self-evidently crucial to the early Christian message that some suspicion must attach to any church that lacked these signs of power. As one Old Testament passage complains, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.” To quote a modern follower of the Shona prophet Johane Masowe, “When we were in these synagogues [the European churches] we used to read about the works of Jesus Christ . . . cripples were made to walk and the dead were brought to life . . .  evil spirits driven out . . . That was what was being done in Jerusalem. We Africans, however, who were being instructed by white people, never did anything like that . . .  We were taught to read the Bible, but we ourselves never did what the people of the Bible used to do.”
 

Parallels with ancient Christianity are just as clear when we consider prophetic leadership. In most Western cultures, the word “prophecy” is much debased from its original meaning. Today, a prophet is basically a fortune-teller, whose reputation stands or falls by the accuracy of his or her predictions. For the world of the first century, though, a prophet was someone who spoke the inspired word of God, which might or might not be relevant to current worldly concerns. Often, then and now, the prophetic inspiration was conveyed by means of material symbols. Isaiah Shembe received his divine call when he was burned by lightning, leaving a scar on his thigh.  The vitality of prophecy in the contemporary South means that the rising churches can read biblical accounts with far more understanding and sensitivity than Northern Christians can. In the book of Acts, prophecy was a sign of the true church. And if that was true two thousand years ago, why should it not be true of a man or woman today, Kimbangu or a Shembe? Prophetic powers are exactly what Jesus promised his disciples, without any caveat that these gifts might expire with the end of the first century.

Let me know what you think :-)

a refined quartet of posts

• Marilynne Robinson on the human mind and the new atheists (HT)
• A charismatic Christian thoughtfully critiques the charismatic practice of "tongues" (HT)
• Do you need biblical inspiration for a get well card?
• And more on biblical beer drinking (Hat Tip)

Habets, The Anointed son: Book Review Part 3

[Following on from Part 1 and Part 2.]

The final three chapters of the book get stuck into the theological ramifications of the Spirit Christology that Habets has exposed in the NT and argued is essential for contemporary theology.

Habets, The Anointed Son: Book Review Part 2

[Following on from Part 1.]

Habets' next two chapters deal with both the NT scholarship and Habets' own appropriation of NT Testament theology respectively.

4 Interpreting the Evidence: Christology in New Testament Scholarship

The fourth chapter begins with a brief summary of approaches to NT Christology, especially regarding how the different Christology of the NT corpus are to be reconciled (or not) to each other.  From the beginning Habets suggests that one of the reasons scholarship has struggled with this question, to the extent it has, is that it has presupposed a Christology from above and then tried to read that back into the NT accounts instead of seeing "how and why the earliest communities of faith came to a belief in the deity of Jesus Christ in the first place" (p89).  Habets claims that Spirit Christology can provide the "integrative framework" that can be used to hold together all the "NT Teaching on the identity of Jesus" (p102).

The rest of the chapter is then spent arguing for and outlining a "retroactive hermeneutic" and the role of the Spirit in the interpretations of the present (p103).  For Habets "The canonical authors are consciously writing to and for Spirit-inspired readers" (p105).  He argues that just as the Gospels are examples of reinterpretation of the life of Jesus from the perspective of the believing community so we must read them retroactively, conscious of Christ's presence with us now by the Spirit (p116).  As arguing for this hermeneutic is really the function and bulk of the chapter, its title is somewhat misleading.  Notwithstanding, the chapter makes a number of important and provoking assertions regarding the role of the Spirit in interpreting and appropriating scripture today, exposing essential issues for anyone who comes to the scriptures from a perspective of faith.

5 Explaining Jesus: The Testimony of the New Testament Writers

This chapter again suffers from something of a title confusion.  At 70 pages it is the longest chapter in the book, yet 66 pages are devoted to the Gospels and Acts, 3 to Paul and the rest of the NT barely gets a look in, although Hebrews does receive some mentions.  After exposing the diversity of NT Christology in the previous chapter it was a shame not to have it play a fuller part in this one.

The great strength of this chapter is the amount of ground it covers and the depth of the references to secondary literature.  Each section of the chapter would function well as a starting point for research into a particular facet of Jesus' life and work.  This gives the book its potential to function admirably as a text book for students looking for research topics.  Due to the amount of ground covered Habets has to deal quickly with a number of contentious points which he does not have space to argue thoroughly.  This leaves plenty of room for debate and exploration on some finer points, especially around the role of the Spirit in the death and resurrection of Christ.  However the overall thesis of the chapter, that the NT conceives of Jesus Christ's identity in pneumatological terms, is not undermined.

The chapter takes the reader on a tour of the Gospels from the point of view of the Spirit and provides some fascinating insights.  For example, in discussing Jesus' temptations in the wilderness Habets concludes, "The temptations were not levelled at his human weakness but rather aimed at his relationship to God," (p141) and Habets demonstrates the integral connection between Christ and the Spirit using a discussion of the unpardonable sin (p160).

The final instalment of the book review to come soon! Watch this space.

Habets, The Anointed Son: Book Review Part 1

Part 1 of the book review covers the first three chapters of Habets' The Anointed Son.

The first thing that needs to be said is that at the beggining of each chapter Habet's has provided a mouth-watering selection of quotes.  The book is probably worth buying just for those selections alone, although maybe they would need to be set over some soft focus photos of inspiring scenery or babies or something (;-)!!). 

The second thing that needs to be said is that Habets probably wouldn't divide his book this way.  The first 4 chapters constitute the prolegomena and chapters 5-8 are the constructive stuff.  But I have only read the first three chapters and I will treat the survey of NT scholarship alongside Habets' own exegesis of the NT in the next part of the review.  Which makes sense to me if only because it is my own area of specialization.  The third part of the review will cover chapters 6-8 which is where all the fun constructive theology will take place.

1 Spirit Christology: Awaiting the Promise

The first chapter sets about phrasing the question.  Habets states that this work will "introduce the doctrine, examine the various mutually exclusive proposals, and offer a constructive Trinitarian proposal." (p7)  He signals that he wants to avoid the traditional polarity between Logos and Spirit Christologies and present a Spirit Christology whitch is interwoven with, rather than seperated from, the traditional Logos Christology encapsulated in the creeds (p9).

2 Understanding Jesus: Approaches to Christology

In the second chapter Habets embarks on an extensive discussion of how function (what Christ does) and ontology (who Christ is) relate within Christology.   The discussion then moves into a defining of Christologies  from "above" and "below."  Habets is especially insistent that not all Christologies from "below" are equal.  Habets wishes to follow Gunton in asserting that while Christology may begin on the ground, it may not remain there and must move upwards (p42).  Habets suggests Kaseman and Pannenberg have helped pave the way in their own treatement of Christology.  He shares their refusal to presupose a "pre-formed Trinity" at the beggining of Christological enquiry and argues that instead the confession of Jesus' divinty (and hence the Trinity) should arise out of Christology (p43). This chapter asserts a methodology "that seeks to bridge the gulf between Jesus' humanity and divinity (the two nature Achilles heel of classical Christology) by means of the Holy Spirit." 

3 Logos and Spirit

The third chapter surveys the Christology of many of the important theologians from the Apolostolic Fathers through to Chalcedon.  Habets observes that in the early church "Spirit Christology was eclipsed by Logos Christology due to the fear of patripassianism [that God the Father suffered in Christ] . . . it enabled Christian faith to be harmonized with the fundamental principles of Greek philosophy." (p63)  This tendency is then tracked through to Chalcedon where Habets concludes, "perhaps the most serious problem with Chalcedonian Christology is that it has encouraged the wrong kind of Christology, exclusively from above.  It has encouraged the church to start with the deity of the Son of God and then to fit (the problem of his) humanity into the divinity.  At all costs the divinity must remain inviolate, while the humanity may be short changed." (pp87-88)  Thus the next task is to return to the biblical witness to uncover the Spirit Christology which has lain hidden by such historical tendencies.

I think Spirit Christology is a fascinating and important area of theological development and I am finding myself, thus far at least, in complete agreement with Habets' conclusions and approach, and, more to the point, excited for what will come next.

Book Notice: Myk Habets, The Anointed Son

Congrats to Myk Habets on the release of his book, The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology. I've just ordered my copy, a review to follow.

Endorsed by no less than Gary Badcock, Amos Yong, and Ralph Del Colle! (All heavyweights in the the area of Pneumatology/Holy Spirit) Del Colle writes:

After the initial emergence of Spirit Christology some three decades ago, various models from different perspectives have been proposed. In this comprehensive work by Myk Habets we now possess a definitive account of this new approach to the mystery of Christ and the Spirit that will stand as a classic in its own right. Habets advances the conversation with his own constructive proposal that garners biblical, historical, and systematic arguments in demonstration of the rich harvest that was once only a promise.

His other book to come out this year is too pricey for me! But has also received a warm reception. Don't forget me, Myk, when you are rich and famous! :-)

Essays on the Spirit

Well I have finally got round to putting up some of my essays on googledocs. It is not so much that I think everyone needs to hear what I have to say, but that I have put heaps of work into them all and if they can be of use to anyone else, so much the better. This year our church has as its teaching theme Zechariah 4:6 "'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty." And so I thought I would highlight in this post essays that I had written where the Spirit of God was a significant theme. The essays are presented on the right hand side-bar of this blog. Spirit related ones are:

• Exegesis of John 16:5-15
• Paul's Practical Pneumatology in Romans
• The Spirit and Science
• The Spirit and the Cross

The first two are probably the most accessible. (BTW Pneumatology = theology of the Holy Spirit.) The second two were written for one of the taught courses I took for the Masters program I am on. The Spirit and the Cross is a piece of work I especially enjoyed doing and if I have time next year I will try to bring it up to publication standard.

I should add that all these essays have moments of embarrassment for me. I would love to go through them all and improve them. But who has time for that? They may not say things as well as I might want to, but they do say them and I think some of the things they say are worth saying. Just remember these are the writings of a student, not an expert. I reserve the right to be wrong! (and to change my mind) So feel free to laugh at me fumbling my way through the complexities of a new discipline :-) The other thing is that it may take some effort to read for a non-specialist reader, but either have a dictionary handy or open an Internet dictionary and enjoy learning some new words as you go!

If you find any of the links don't work, please let me know. Let me know what you think :-)

NT Wright on the call to holiness for God's people

"The major theme which marks out Paul's theology of God's people as renewed by the Spirit is the renewed call to holiness. It is a holiness not defined by Torah [OT law], and yet in much of what Paul says he can draw upon Torah for outline guidance... It is, as the prophets always wanted, a holiness which comes from the heart; and it is a holiness which ought to make the pagan nations see who the living God really is. It is in other words, not simply a matter of 'now you are saved, this is how to behave'; it is a matter of the genuine humanness envisaged as God's will for Israel being attained through the Spirit by God's renewed people. It is summed up well at the start of Romans 12, in the appeal for self-offering and transformation trough the renewal of the mind, resulting in the mutual upbuilding of those who, though many, are one body in the messiah."

[Source: N.T. Wright, Paul in fresh perspective, Fortress 2005, p124]