Signs and Wonders in New Orleans

CHRISTIANITY TODAY/NOVEMBER 21, 1986

Charismatics are overcoming the rifts that have divided them.

Looking out into the crowd of some 7,600 charismatic Christians seated in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans last month, Pentecostal Holiness leader Vinson Synan posed a rhetorical question: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” he asked, “if on Jesus’ 2,000th birthday, we could present to him a majority of the world?”

Winning the world to Christ by the millenium was the oft-repeated theme of the New Orleans ‘86 Leaders’ Congress. And the means to accomplish the task, speakers said, are the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit”—healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, words of knowledge—collectively known as “signs and wonders.”

Synan chaired the four-day event, which included a generous mixture of Catholics, Protestants, and Pentecostals, all with a common denominator: the belief in a baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience apart from conversion.

Last month’s gathering was just a beginning. Synan, along with a 40-member steering committee, is now planning the main event: the General Congress on the Holy Spirit & World Evangelization, expected to bring 70,000 charismatics to the same Superdome next July. This meeting will mark the tenth anniversary of the landmark 1977 Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches, which drew some 50,000 to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.

The leaders’ conference in October served in part as a dry run for next summer. It was also an inspirational rally to urge charismatic leaders to return next July with their flocks.

The Dominant Figure

Some well-known television evangelists did not attend last month’s event, including Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, both of whom had schedule conflicts. Conference organizers criticized evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, stating that Swaggart opposed the conference because of the presence of Catholics.

Tulsa evangelist Oral Roberts was on hand. He asked his audience to pray for the struggling Oral Roberts University Medical School, pleading, “Help me kick the Devil in the head.”

Without a doubt, however, the pulse of the conference was John Wimber founder of Vineyard International Ministries and the catalyst for the “signs and wonders” movement in Southern California (CT, Aug. 8, 1986, p. 17) Though still recovering from an angina attack he suffered in June, Wimber was at center stage for much of the meeting. He conducted healing services all three afternoons of the conference.

Wimber later said he felt vindicated by the fact that his often-criticized signs-and-wonders message had so thoroughly permeated the charismatic renewal. “This conference has been an affirmation for me,” he said. “There’s a sense that there’s now a credibility to what I’ve been saying.”

Overcoming Division

Despite a growing unity, there remain signs of conflict in the charismatic renewal movement. Synan observed that some of the disunity that characterized the 1977 meeting still exists. This was signaled in part by the presence of anti-Catholic protestors outside the Superdome.

“There’s joy and pain in an event like this,” said Bill Beatty, chairman of the National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal/Charis-center USA and a member of the conference steering committee. “We’re one in so many ways, and yet we’re not. We have to pray and fast for the Lord to solve our differences.”

Historically, divisions between Pentecostals and charismatics have been deep-rooted. When they began using spiritual gifts in the early 1900s, Pentecostals were ejected from mainstream churches. But charismatics, who began using spiritual gifts in the early 1960s, tended to remain in the churches of their upbringing.

Pentecostals looked askance at charismatics who drank wine or used tobacco. They were shocked at Catholics who claimed their baptism in the Spirit deepened their experience of the rosary and the Mass, and increased their devotion to Mary and the church.

There was also a fundamental theological difference. Pentecostals generally maintained that baptism in the Spirit must be accompanied by tongues, whereas charismatics believed that speaking in tongues, though important, is not the only authenticating gift of the Spirit. The two groups still disagree on this issue, but it is no longer a major obstacle to unity.

The presence of Synan, a Pentecostal, as chairman of last month’s and next year’s events, both reflects and advances the easing of tension between Pentecostals and charismatics. Several Pentecostal denominations that did not take part in the 1977 conference have representatives on the steering committee of the 1987 meeting. Among them are the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), the Church of God of Prophecy, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Though the Assemblies of God has yet to endorse the 1987 conference, three pastors represent the denomination on the steering committee.

Catholics, who made up one-third of the conferees, led last month’s conference in attendance. Episcopalians also were well represented, as were Maranatha Christian Churches, which sent 600 people. Maranatha, based in Gainesville, Florida, has drawn critical reviews in both secular and Christian media for its aggressive New Right politics and alleged authoritarian structure.

Representatives of the 14.5-million member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) also came to the Superdome. America’s largest Protestant denomination, the SBC has no organized charismatic fellowship. In New Orleans, SBC representatives asked for prayer as they seek to introduce charismatic renewal to Southern Baptists.

Looking Ahead

New Orleans provided an arena for charismatics to outline their ambitious plans to bring the world’s nearly 5 billion people to Christ. Perhaps the most amazing proposal came from Catholic priest Tom Forrest. The former director of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office at the Vatican is leaving in January for the Vatican to head up a worldwide evangelistic effort.

Forrest said the project will cost billions of dollars. In 14 years time, he said, Catholics hope to have three satellites in place for a worldwide Christmas Day broadcast in the year 2000 “to all of humanity saying ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’ ”

Synan summarized the predominant feeling of charismatics: “We’ve been in the upper room with our spiritual gifts. But we are supposed to go to the streets with our tongues and healings and prophecies. We believe the Pentecostals and charismatics have been raised up by God as the shock troops for the greatest final assault on the enemy.”

Already, 3,000 from last month’s gathering are preregistered for next year’s mega-conference. Donations taken last month not only wiped out the $100,000 debt from the 1986 conference, but gave the steering committee $100,000 in seed money for the 1987 meeting. At that meeting, charismatics will again discuss taking their signs and wonders from the Superdome to Canal and Bourbon streets and to the world beyond.

By Julia Duin in New Orleans.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

CHURCH AND STATE

Parents Win Textbook Trial

Fundamentalist Christian parents in Tennessee who objected to some of the textbooks their children were required to read in school have won their federal court case.

The parents maintained the books advanced ideas contrary to Christian teaching. Among the objectionable teachings, they said, were black magic, astrology, pacifism, and male-female role reversal. The books at issue are part of a basic reading series published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Federal District Judge Thomas Hull ruled that the parents may allow their children to skip the reading class, provided they learn to read at home.

Judge Hull said there was nothing wrong with the books themselves. He allowed that many “might find the plaintiffs’ beliefs inconsistent, illogical, incomprehensible, and unacceptable,” but said the plaintiffs’ objections were based on sincerely held religious convictions.

Even though Hull limited the scope of his judgment to the plaintiffs, Anthony Podesta, president of People for the American Way (PAW), called the decision “a recipe for disaster for public education, PAW contributed financially to the defense of the school board sued by the parents.

Michael Farris, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, agreed with Podesta that the case could eventually lead to basic changes in public school policy. “For those school districts that have shown religious tolerance and cooperation, there’s no change,” said Farris. “For those districts that have had the position that there is only one way to teach, it’s going to be a rude awakening.”

AIDS

A Baby’s Death

The death of a 20-month-old child from AIDS spawned a tremendous outpouring of grief from the congregation of the Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, suburb of Bloomington.

Jessica Hazard contracted the disease through blood transfusions she was administered in 1984 at the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, where she was born 12 weeks premature. After her parents announced she had AIDS, Jessica was temporarily banned from the Oak Grove church’s nursery. However, many Oak Grove parishioners took an active interest in her condition. The church conducted a series of meetings on AIDS and related problems, and made information available, including counseling advice, on the disease.

The disease reduced the baby’s functioning level from nine months to three. Jessica’s mother, Dorothy, said her daughter “never walked and didn’t talk. But you knew the Spirit moved in her. She smiled a lot, and she loved to be hugged and cuddled. Jesus worked miracles in her.”

PEACE

NAE Issues Guidelines

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has published a set of guidelines for its Peace, Freedom and Security Studies program. The NAE launched this program more than two years ago, when it “committed itself to a more serious and sustained entry into the organizational, educational and public opinion arenas in which America’s role in world affairs is shaped,’ according to an organizational press release. The new guidelines seek to provide a framework to improve the knowledge and skill of evangelical leadership “in supporting religious liberty, promoting the security of free societies and encouraging progress toward the non-violent resolution of international conflict.”

NAE president Ray Hughes said the publication “could be a historic, watershed document in the life of the evangelical church.” Hughes said the guidelines put the NAE “in the position of influencing the moral direction of our country’s policy.”

Billy Melvin, NAE’s executive director, said, “Our program offers a different focus, analysis, and prescription for work in the pursuit of peace. Alternatives to violence in world politics must be developed. We will challenge both ends of the political spectrum.…

NAE represents more than 46,000 churches from some 78 Protestant denominations.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Named: John J. Davis as the president of Grace College and Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. He replaces Homer A. Kent, Jr., who will return to full-time classroom teaching. Davis, who has written 13 books, is the fourth president in the institution’s 50-year history.

Died: Clyde S. Kilby, who established and was for 15 years the curator of the Marion E. Wade Collection at Wheaton College (Ill.). The collection today is a renowned research center containing the writings of Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Kilby died in his sleep at his Columbus, Mississippi, home on October 20. He said in a 1977 interview published in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “Imagination provides the willingness and possibility to get on the other side of the fence.”

Rose Warmer, whose missionary career took her to the concentration camps of World War II; September 19 in Haifa, Israel, at age 77, of a massive heart attack. Warmer was born and reared in a Jewish family in Hungary. She became a Christian in 1939 and was free from the danger of arrest because of her church membership. In 1944, however, she allowed German police to arrest her. She spent the last year of the war in Auschwitz and several other prison camps, sharing her faith among prisoners. For the last 36 years of her life she distributed Bibles in Israel. Though formally affiliated with Hebrew Christian Fellowship in Philadelphia, she was also sponsored by the Pocket Testament League, the Million Testament Campaign, and Bible Literature International.

Dismissed: By a federal judge, allegations by Lutheran and Presbyterian congregations in Phoenix, Arizona, that undercover government officials violated their constitutional rights. The congregations objected specifically to the use of bugging devices by federal agents seeking evidence related to the churches’ illegal harboring of undocumented aliens. Judge Charles Hardy said the First Amendment protects religious freedom for individuals, but not for the corporate expression of the church.

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