Friday, November 11, 2005
The Charismata Discussion - Coming To A Point
Miscellanies continues to be the place to go to get everything and all things on this discussion. There have been some great entires into the discussion by 21st Century Reformation and Unveiled Face.
As the discussion continues a great post to read is "Proverbs for Bloggers" compiled by Mike at Eternal Perspectives. Mike gives no context for his choices, but I'm thinking this is a pretty good one. In the same vein is this post from Allthings2all.
The greatest progress has been made in this post by Adrian Warnock, posted at Theologica and his own blog combined with this post at Jollyblogger. These two primary protagonists have arrived at more or less the same place in terms of how they view prophecy, even if they use different labels. David says
A couple of things threaten to explode this hard earned meeting of the minds. The first is Pyromanics promised (at writing time, but likely up at post time) post on "Modern Prophecy." The other threat is the questions I am about to pose concerning the gift of healing. In my post deriding false prophets, I also lumped in false healers.
I am sure all of us have a story to tell of the "unexplained" healing. You know, the one that baffled the doctors. And most of us would, I think attribute that to God, and His Spirit. How are such things demonstrably different from the "faith healings" of tent revivalists and televangelists?
I would argue the difference is in the prior case there is no one claiming the "healing power." Does the gift of healing require an intermediary? Must the gift of healing be bestowed on a healer, or may it in fact be bestowed upon the healed? Is there ever a circumstance, in post-apostolic times, where it is bestowed on an intermediary? Does someone who prays for another to be healed, and sees that prayer answered have the "gift" of healing?
To my way of thinking the problem lies not in the healing, but in the intermediary. As with prophecy, someone who claims to be a healer, takes for themselves Godly authority. I think it quite possible that God grants that authority to some, thus the question about answered prayer, but I seriously doubt that anyone that "practices" the gift (distinct and separate from the role of physician, who may in fact be so gifted but accomplishes it not based on claims of Spirit interaction but of science) is genuinely endowed with that gift.
The problem with the "miraculous" gifts is that they imbue "the gifted" with a sense of power and specialness that is not real. The power and specialness belong to God, and we should never claim it as ours.
I look forward to hearing others comments on healing, then I think it may be time to turn our attention to the real bug-a-boo -- the one that we, well at least I, have been avoiding -- tongues.
As a tongue-in-cheek parting shot before my weekend away, I wish to turn your attention to this story
As the discussion continues a great post to read is "Proverbs for Bloggers" compiled by Mike at Eternal Perspectives. Mike gives no context for his choices, but I'm thinking this is a pretty good one. In the same vein is this post from Allthings2all.
The greatest progress has been made in this post by Adrian Warnock, posted at Theologica and his own blog combined with this post at Jollyblogger. These two primary protagonists have arrived at more or less the same place in terms of how they view prophecy, even if they use different labels. David says
I once spoke to Dr. Bill Edgar from Westminster Seminary about this and his comment was that charismatics and cessationists agree (or should agree) that God is doing marvelous things in our world, it is just that we differ on how to interpret them.Adrian says
We cessationists shoot ourselves in the foot when we only talk negatively about the charismatic gifts. This is similar to the way, when the subject of sex comes up, many Christians simply default to warnings against illicit sex and never talk about the beauties of sex. When the subject of charismatic gifts come up many of us automatically default to negativity without giving a corresponding positive explanation of the mighty works of the Holy Spirit today.
He goes on to ask Charismatics to "make a scriptural arguement for the continuance of revelatory authority" which I simply cannot help him with as I do NOT believe that there IS any continuance of revelatory authority.Each has conceded the other's major point in the discussion to date -- David agrees that the Spirit, in fact, acts boldly today, and Adrian concedes that authoritative revelation has ceased. This puts the two of them very much in the same territory, the difference now being emphasis, vocabulary and interpretation, as opposed to basic principles. That's real progress.
A couple of things threaten to explode this hard earned meeting of the minds. The first is Pyromanics promised (at writing time, but likely up at post time) post on "Modern Prophecy." The other threat is the questions I am about to pose concerning the gift of healing. In my post deriding false prophets, I also lumped in false healers.
I am sure all of us have a story to tell of the "unexplained" healing. You know, the one that baffled the doctors. And most of us would, I think attribute that to God, and His Spirit. How are such things demonstrably different from the "faith healings" of tent revivalists and televangelists?
I would argue the difference is in the prior case there is no one claiming the "healing power." Does the gift of healing require an intermediary? Must the gift of healing be bestowed on a healer, or may it in fact be bestowed upon the healed? Is there ever a circumstance, in post-apostolic times, where it is bestowed on an intermediary? Does someone who prays for another to be healed, and sees that prayer answered have the "gift" of healing?
To my way of thinking the problem lies not in the healing, but in the intermediary. As with prophecy, someone who claims to be a healer, takes for themselves Godly authority. I think it quite possible that God grants that authority to some, thus the question about answered prayer, but I seriously doubt that anyone that "practices" the gift (distinct and separate from the role of physician, who may in fact be so gifted but accomplishes it not based on claims of Spirit interaction but of science) is genuinely endowed with that gift.
The problem with the "miraculous" gifts is that they imbue "the gifted" with a sense of power and specialness that is not real. The power and specialness belong to God, and we should never claim it as ours.
I look forward to hearing others comments on healing, then I think it may be time to turn our attention to the real bug-a-boo -- the one that we, well at least I, have been avoiding -- tongues.
As a tongue-in-cheek parting shot before my weekend away, I wish to turn your attention to this story
A court in Madagascar has refused to rule on the banning of the popular FPVM protestant charismatic church....Wisdom from the unelect? We report -- you decide.
...The church was shut by police last month after the interior ministry declared it a threat to public order.
