PAST EXPERIENCES:  FONDLY REMEMBERED … 

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

In 1944 when I was eight years old, I was an observer of a Christianity which was new and different to me.  This phenomena was also different and suspect to the majority of American Christians.  It was Pentecostalism.

Pentecostalism was both different and refreshing.  From its inception, it brought into Christianity a super-naturalism that sadly was missing in the mainline churches.  But what most saw was a fanaticism and irrational departure from the accepted norm which took from Pentecostalism the attractiveness it presented.

This super-naturalism was a here-and-now presence of God.  The activity of God’s Spirit was attested in three functions.  There was then, and there is now, other activities but throughout this modern history of the Charisma there have been these three:  healing, tongues, and prophecy.  God’s activity was recognized in most church services by at least one and maybe all three phenomena.

But there was a problem with this super-naturalism.  It was limited, mystical, and in the final analysis natural,  not supernatural.

It was limited to the reality of experience.  One could give a Bible verse or what was announced as Biblical truth as the foundation for the Divine activity he claimed.  If this was so it must admit to the test of a fair examination of the Scriptures.  When it was found not to satisfy this kind of examination the reply then as well as now was, “I don’t care—I experienced it”.  This of course limited the reality of the phenomena, as far as truth was concerned, to experience.

This gave authority to a self-authenticating mysticism.  This mysticism objectively confessed the norm of Christian orthodoxy, but within their circle the experience thus satisfied all the requirements of regular Christianity.  This became so absolute that by the 70s there were atheistic Charismatics.

Thirdly this super-naturalism degenerated to naturalism in its dependence on the will and faith of the subject.  At this point there is some measure of schizophrenia.  Both the monism of the Holy Spirit at particular times and necessity of human cooperation were and are still maintained.

Some observations seem in order to finish these thoughts.

1.  My confidence in those Pentecostal Christians of my early years remains with me and my joy in their friendship and support is unfailing.
2. The recognition of Christian super-naturalism in the daily life of the church was a welcomed renewal.  This has continued and has brought a healthy appreciation of the Holy Spirit as the “Paraclete” who is our companion and comforter.
3. We do not have to be able to explain to others satisfaction every experience we have, but with equal certainty an experience is never to be the criteria by which either God or His work is explained and justified.
4.  

Let me close with this quote from Warfield in his excellent article on Christianity and Mysticism, pg. 450.

Biblical and Theological Studies,  B. B. Warfield, 1898.

Evangelical Christianity interprets all religious experience by the normative revelation of God recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures, and guides, directs, and corrects it from these Scriptures, and thus molds it into harmony with what God in his revealed Word lays down as the normal Christian life.

And thus it must be.