Charismatic Renewal: Pointing to a Person and a Power

One of the top ten questions among evangelicals today is whether one is for or against the charismatic movement. It is a bad, polarizing, party-minded, Corinthian sort of question; I usually parry it by saying I am for the Holy Spirit. But why is it asked so often and so anxiously? Perhaps it is because some evangelicals feel threatened by charismatics, having perceived (they would say) several errors. I wish to report these, modify them, and then zero in on a number of significant insights noncharismatics can profitably gain from charismatics.

First, a word of introduction. The charismatic movement has its Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and liberal Protestant components, and focuses on celebrating the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The evangelical movement plays a minority role in most older Protestant bodies, and focuses on a longing to see God’s revealed truth reform and renew Christendom. These two movements, charismatic and evangelical, are overlapping circles; many evangelicals define themselves as charismatics; many charismatics define themselves as evangelicals.

Charismatic theology may look loose and naive beside evangelical formulations, sharp-honed as these are by nearly five centuries of controversy. But the two constituencies are plainly at one on such supposedly evangelical distinctives as personal conversion to Christ, lives changed by the Spirit’s power, learning about God from God through Scripture, bold expectant prayer, small group mutual ministry, and a love for swinging singing.

Most of what is distinctive in charismatic theology comes from older Pentecostalism, which sprang at the start of this century from the yet older Wesleyan tradition. Though charismatic Christianity treats experience rather than truth as primary and embraces people with many nonevangelical beliefs, it remains evangelicalism’s half-sister; this may explain why evangelical reactions to charismatic renewal seem sometimes to smack of sibling rivalry.

Commonly Voiced Concerns

Why do some evangelicals say they feel threatened? They mention the following:

1. Irrationality in glossolalia. Charismatics see their tongues as God-given prayer language, perhaps angelic. But to those who would only ever address God intelligibly, and who know from professional linguistic scholars (who are unanimous on this) that glossolalia has no language-character at all, it can seem shockingly silly, self-deceived, and irreverent. Granted, earlier diagnoses of glossolalia as a neurotic, psychotic, hypnotic, or schizophrenic symptom are not tenable; on the contrary, the evidence reveals glossolalia in most cases both psychologically and spiritually health-giving, so far as man can judge. Yet many still find the thought of making nonsense-noises to God deeply disturbing, and are unnerved by people who are exuberantly sure that this is what God wants them to do.

2. Elitism in attitudes. Charismatics see their kind of communal spirituality as God’s current renewal formula, and themselves as his trailblazers in this. Hence, they naturally talk big about the significance of their movement, and easily leave impressions of naive and aggressive arrogance as if they thought only charismatics matter, and none really count for God who do not join their ranks. The old Oxford Group had a similar self-image, and left similar impressions.

3. Judgmentalism in theology. Protestant charismatics (Catholics less so) tend to theologize their experience as man-centered in terms of recovering primitive standards of Christian experience through seeking and finding what was always available but what earlier generations lacked faith to claim, namely, Spirit-baptism and sign-gifts (tongues; interpretation; miracles; healing; and as charismatics believe, prophecy also). This Arminian “restorationism,” the equivalent in spirituality to Anabaptist ecclesiology, implies that noncharismatics are substandard Christians, and that the only reason why any lack charismatic experience is that either through ignorance or unwillingness they have not sought it. Such beliefs, however gently and charitably stated, are inescapably threatening.

4. Disruptiveness in ministry. The charismatic movement often invades churches in the form of a reaction (sometimes justified) against formalism, intellectualism, and institutionalism, in favor of a free-wheeling experientialism. Such a swing of the pendulum is bound both to win converts and produce division; frustration-fed reactions always do. Many churches have split because charismatics have either hived off or, in effect, have driven others out—in both cases with an apparently good conscience. Other churches contain charismatic cliques who keep a low profile but constantly scheme to move things their way. Pastors in particular naturally feel threatened.

Evaluating These Concerns

Judgmentalism evokes judgmentalism; many Christians, evangelicals and others, have written off the charismatic movement entirely as a delusive and perhaps demonic distraction. But inasmuch as it produces conversions, teaches people to love Christ, the Bible, and their neighbors, and frees them up for worship and witness, demonic delusion cannot be the whole story. A more discerning estimate is required.

Charismatic “restorationism” (a restoring of first-century experiences) is certainly doubtful. There is no way to establish the disciples’ Spirit-baptism at Pentecost as a normative experience for all later believers. Indeed, quite apart from the fact that as an experience we know very little about it, its dispensational uniqueness rules that out. Nine o’clock on Pentecost morning was the singular, unrepeatable moment when the promised Spirit first began his new covenant ministry of communicating communion with the glorified Christ. Since that moment all Christians have enjoyed this ministry from conversion on (Acts 2:38–39: Rom. 8:9–11: 1 Cor. 12:12–13.) Because the disciples became believers before Pentecost, their experience had to be “two-stage” in a way no later Christian’s can ever be.

Moreover, though the subsequent experience of those who testify to having received Spirit-baptism may be far richer than it was before, it does not seem significantly to differ from that of devoted people who have not known this “second blessing.” Contrary claims at this point simply force the question: Who is kidding whom?

Nor is there any way to make good the claim that the sign-gifts that authenticated the apostles (Rom. 15:19; 2 Cor. 12:12; Heb. 2:3f.) are now restored. The nature of those gifts is in many respects uncertain, and must remain so. We cannot be sure that charismatic phenomena fully correspond to them. For instance, charismatics commend private glossolalic prayer, but New Testament tongues are signs for use in public; charismatics who claim healing gifts have a spottier success record than did Christ and the apostles; and so on.

Yet one can doubt restorationism (which in any case is not approved doctrine among Roman Catholic and German Protestant charismatics) and still rejoice in the real enrichment that charismatics have found in seeking the Lord. Their call to expectant faith in the God who still on occasion heals supernaturally and does wonders can be gratefully heard, and their challenge to seek radical personal renewal can be humbly received without accepting all their theology. We should be glad that our God does not hide his face from those who seek him—neither from charismatics nor noncharismatics—until their theology is correct. Where would any of us be if he did? And we should not refuse to learn lessons from charismatics while contesting some of their opinions.

In passing, I urge that a better way to theologize what is called or miscalled Spirit-baptism is as an intensifying of the Spirit’s constant witness to our adoption and inheritance (Rom. 8:15–17), a deepening of the communion with Father and Son of which Christ spoke (John 14:21–23), an increase of what Paul prayed the Ephesians might enjoy (Eph. 3:15–19), and a renewing of that unspeakable joy in Christ (1 Peter 1:8) of which the Puritan John Owen wrote: “There is no account to be given, but that the Spirit worketh it when and how he will; he secretly infuseth and distills it into the soul, filling it with gladness, exultations, and sometimes with unspeakable raptures of mind.”

Vivid awareness of the divine love seems always to be the essence of the experience, whatever its adjuncts, as it has been also of countless comparable experiences. These have included sealing with the Spirit among the Puritans, entire sanctification among the Wesleyans, the noncharismatic Spirit-baptism of Finney, Moody, and Torrey, the Keswick experience of consecration and filling with the Spirit, the mystics’ “second conversion,” and other meetings with God to which no such brand name has been given. I propose the same theological account of God’s work in all such experiences as being biblically viable and fitting the facts.

A Catholic Assesses Charismatic Renewal In His Church

As one who regards himself as a “Catholic evangelical” and a leader in the charismatic renewal, I have watched with interest for signs of response by evangelical Protestants to the Catholic charismatic movement. It has seemed to me that the charismatic renewal among Roman Catholics offers an opportunity for evangelical Christians—Protestant and Catholic—to recognize a common loyalty to the basic beliefs that constitute Christian orthodoxy.

I see indications that some Protestant evangelicals are also perceiving such an opportunity. While some have rejected the charismatic movement as a whole—and thus have not seen the Catholic charismatic renewal as evidence of an evangelical awakening among Catholics—other Protestant evangelicals have taken a positive, though cautious view. Observers such as Robert Culpepper, Charles Hummel, and Richard Lovelace have described the Catholic charismatic renewal as a genuine movement of conversion to Christ and experience of the Holy Spirit. Lovelace comments in the Dynamics of Spiritual Life: “The Catholic charismatic sector is in many aspects among the most balanced and beautiful in this renewal, [although] no one doubts that eventually hard theological issues will have to be faced.”

The World Evangelical Fellowship has asked me, a Catholic participant in the charismatic renewal, to contribute a chapter to its forthcoming book assessing world evangelicalism in the eighties, and by inviting me to attend its general assembly in London this month as an unofficial observer.

After 13 years of growth, what is the state of the Catholic charismatic renewal today, and what might its significance be for evangelical Protestants?

The charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic church has, since its inception in 1967 in the United States, become a vast, sprawling movement involving large numbers of Catholics in virtually every country in the world. In a recent Gallup survey of American Catholicism, it was reported thhat 10 percent of American Catholics have had some contact with the charismatic renewal and 8 percent had attended charismatic meetings within the last month. That would mean 5 million American Catholics have had some contact with the charismatic renewal and 4 million actually attended a meeting within the month they were surveyed.

While the movement is largest and, in some ways, most developed in the United States, it is a significant presence in many other countries of the world. For example, in Colombia there are reported to be more than 10,000 Catholic charismatic prayer groups. In France, a few hundred thousand Catholics are now involved, and the numbers are growing in many more European countries. More than 20 percent of the Irish clergy and nuns have become involved in the charismatic renewal, and the charismatic influence on the Irish celebrations with Pope John Paul II was obvious—in music and in other ways.

This renewal movement is not organized centrally, and it does not have a handbook; it is happening spontaneously all over the world. There are, however, some important national and international centers that exercise a significant degree of leadership in the renewal. Some American leaders have been working with Cardinal Leo Josef Suenens for the past four years in Brussels at what is the de facto international headquarters of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic church.

The renewal has been amazingly well accepted by Roman Catholic church officials. Pope Paul VI put a final seal of approval on the renewal in 1975 when he gave an encouraging address to the 10,000 participants in the Catholic charismatic conference held in Rome that year. More than 400 bishops, either individually or as members of national bishops’ conferences, have issued positive statements on the renewal. More than 50 bishops are involved, and testify to renewal in their lives.

The normal format for the charismatic renewal is the small prayer group of 10 to 50 people. There are tens of thousands of these groups all over the world. I expect that, like any popular movement, there will be a peak and a decline of the charismatic renewal as a broad popular movement in the Catholic church. Often there are not sufficient leadership resources, wisdom, and maturity in local leadership to sustain a renewal group. Still, it is clear that literally million of Catholics have been renewed or converted to a signficant relationship with Jesus as Savior and Lord, and to a life of holiness and service empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The long-range fruit of the charismatic renewal, besides contributing to a heightened awareness of the evangelical heart of Roman Catholic Christianity, will probably be the emergence of renewal communities, sometimes called covenant communities. These appear to be the way in which the charismatic renewal will continue to function as a powerful leaven for good in the Roman Catholic church. Some of the most significant of these communities are interdenominational, and so the aspect of uniting with other evangelical Christians to give a common witness to the gospel is strikingly present in some cases.

To what extent is the Catholic charismatic renewal an evangelical renewal movement? I would say that it is broadly characterized by a basic conversion or reconversion, through which millions of Catholics have encountered and accepted Jesus Christ as the Savior who takes away the sin of the world, our sin, and as Lord: Lord of the universe, Lord of the church, Lord of our own lives. At the same time, there is emphasis on the need for the power of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life, and there is tremendous, widespread blossoming of the reading of Scripture and of giving testimony in evangelism.

In many ways I think it is more accurate to talk about what is happening as an “evangelical awakening” in the Catholic church rather than as a “charismatic renewal.” I personally feel more comfortable being called a “Catholic evangelical” than a “Catholic charismatic.” The focus in my life, as it is in most of the renewal movement, is not on the gifts of the Holy Spirit but on conversion to the person of Christ and entrance into a life of faithful service to him. This is not to deny the importance and relevance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his work in the life of Christians and communities. But it is really not my intention, or the intention of most of the people in the charismatic renewal, to put the focus on the gifts of the Spirit rather than on the person and work of Christ.

At the same time, because the movement is so broad, some of the same problems that the Roman Catholic church at large is facing—namely, various confusions of the gospel and unhealthy trends in spirituality—are not absent in some segments of the charismatic renewal. Some of the psychologizing of the gospel, some of the various liberalizing tendencies that are at work now in the Catholic church from liberal Protestantism can be seen here and there in the charismatic renewal. But these certainly are not dominant.

A struggle over the basic gospel message is going on right now in the Roman Catholic church, just as has been the case in many of the major Protestant churches. There has been immense confusion in the Catholic church since the Second Vatican Council, and in many ways what has happened has been just the opposite of the renewal the council intended. Liberal Protestant thought has made serious incursions into the Roman Catholic church. It is my hope that the charismatic renewal and the evangelical emphasis growing out of it will be able to contribute to the strengthening of orthodox understanding of the gospel in the Catholic church. I believe this struggle for the basic gospel is an area of common ground between Protestant and Catholic evangelicals.

I see the communities that are emerging from the charismatic renewal, and the renewal itself, as it continues to evolve, as part of a broader evangelical renewal in the Catholic church. I look forward to the time when we Catholic evangelicals have more contact with our Protestant evangelical brothers and sisters; we desire to serve the same gospel and the same Lord.

RALPH MARTIN

Charismatic Contributions

Despite some unhappy theology, the charismatic movement overall bears marks of genuine spiritual renewal, and though it or sections of it may have lessons to learn in doctrine, it has its own lessons to teach concerning practice.

Doubtless they are not unique, and could be learned elsewhere. But when God has brought new life to so many along charismatic channels, it would be perverse conceit on the part of noncharismatics to be unwilling to look and learn.

The charismatic movement, like the evangelical movement, is a fairly self-sufficent, transdenominational, international network, with its own established behavior patterns, literary resources, and leadership. How far to identify with all this, or with what one’s local charismatic community is doing, is something that each individual must decide for himself. But it seems to me Christians can learn more about the meaning of ideals to which lip service is too easily given.

First Ideal: Total Worship

The charismatic conviction is that worshiping God should be a personal realizing of fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit, and therewith—indeed, thereby—a realizing of spiritual oneness with the rest of God’s assembled family. Liturgical structures therefore must be loose enough to allow for spontaneous contributions and ad libs, and relaxed, informal, and slow-moving enough to let all bask in the feeling of togetherness with God and with each other. In pace, in cultivated warmth, and in its way of highlighting points by repetition, charismatic worship is to historic liturgy as Wagner and Bruckner are to Mozart and Haydn: romantic, that is, in the sense of directly expressing attitudes and feelings rather than classical, focusing on excellence of form. The aim is total involvement of each worshiper, leading to total openness to God at the deepest level of one’s being. To achieve this, charismatics insist, time must be taken; their worship meetings thus may be two or three hours long.

What does this say about the brisk, stylized 60-minute canter—clergy, and choir pulling along a passive congregation—which is the worship diet of so many Christians on so many Lord’s Days? All would no doubt protest that total worship was their aim, too—but are all as realistic and perceptive as charismatics in seeing what this involves? Charismatic practice, however childish and zany it may seem on the surface, convicts the restrained, formal behavior in church that passes for reverence of not being the most vivid, lively, and potent way of communicating the reality of God. Let all consider how “atmospheric communication” can best be effected.

Second Ideal: Total Ministry

It was Paul and Peter who first affirmed that every Christian has a gift or gifts for use in the church (Rom. 12:4–6; 1 Cor. 12:4–7; Eph. 4:7, 11, 16; 1 Peter 4:10.). Thus, the charismatics insist (making a point that is distinct from their hazardous claim that sign-gifts are back) that every-member ministry, achieved by discerning and harnessing each Christian’s ordinary gifts, should be standard practice in the body of Christ. Congregational behavior patterns must be flexible and decentralized enough to permit this.

There’s the rub! Every-member ministry is an ecumenical shibboleth as well as a charismatic slogan these days, and few hesitate to mouth it. But are all as practical as charismatics in devising new structures and reshaping old ones so as to make it happen? No. In many churches the complaint is heard that the talents of gifted people lie unused, and obvious needs in personal and neighborhood ministry go unmet because the pastor insists on being a one-man band and will not treat his flock as a ministering team. Some members of the team do some things better than he. Yet charismatics as a body are past this blockage point in a way that radically challenges all who are not.

Third Ideal: Total Communication

Charismatic singing (both from books and “in the Spirit”), clapping, arm-raising and hand-stretching, the glossolalia ritual of lead-passing from one followed by interpretation from another, delivery of prophecies from God to the group, loose and improvisatory preaching and corporate dialogue with the preacher by interjection and response, are features that impress different people differently; but none, can fault the purpose it serves: to make all that God’s people do together deepen, and share sense of God’s presence and power and openness to his leading at all points. When this is achieved in any measure, you have what Walter J. Hollenweger calls “atmospheric communication,” an established revival phenomenon.

Without advocating the practices mentioned or any technique of “working up” meetings (for manufactured excitement never communicates God), I urge that the charismatic purpose is right.

Fourth Ideal: Total Community

Community or fellowship, which means having Christ in common and sharing what we have from him, is a quality of Christian relationships that charismatics seek to maximize. Their distinction is that they share well, giving both themselves and their substance generously, sometimes recklessly, to help others. In their prayer groups, their discipling relationships, and their experiments in communal living, the strength of their desire to serve in love, whether wisely expressed or not, puts others to shame, while the vividness of their vision of each church—the whole church, as a great extended family, is magnificent.

Again, the question that arises is not whether all should imitate the particular things they do, but whether their example does not expose half-heartedness in others who say they want community but settle for locked-up lives and never squander themselves in love. If it does, what steps will those others now take in the matter?

We have seen that some Protestants are hostile to the charismatic movement because they disagree with some strands of its teaching, or because they feel it threatens them. Others, we know, patronize it as involving illusions that some people need which, therefore, should not be resisted, only ignored. These responses seem inadequate. The movement is forcing all Christendom to ask what it means to be a Christian, and to be Spirit-filled. It is bringing into recognizably evangelical experience people whose ears were closed to evangelical witness as such. As “egghead” radical theology invites the church into the wilderness of a new Unitarianism, is it not (dare I say) just like God to have raised up against it not a new Calvin or Owen, but a scratch movement that proclaims the deity and potency of the Son and the Spirit—not by great theological acumen or accuracy, but by the evidence of renewed lives and lifestyle? A movement which by its very existence reminds both the world and the church that Christianity in essence is not words but a Person and a power? Surely we see divine strategy here.

But whether or not I am right to think this is how Christians of tomorrow will see the charismatic renewal of today, I am sure we shall all do well to try and learn the lessons spelled out here.

J. I Packer, noted English theologian, is professor of systematic and historical theology at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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