Mystic Tongues Are Speaking (Part I)

I WANT to talk to you about the charismatic movement or neo-Pentecostalism, as it is also called. A movement that is bringing the so-called baptism of the Holy Spirit with all its concomitants, speaking in tongues and healings into the main line Protestant churches and Catholicism. "Charismatic," of course, stems from the Greek charisma., and refers to gifts of extraordinary power given a Christian by the Holy Spirit and for the good of the church. There are four reasons why I believe the charismatic movement deserves our attention:

1. Because it is represented to be the medium by which the energizing power of the Holy Spirit prepares the world for Christ's return.

2. Because it is crossing denominational barriers, and even social and racial barriers, in a striking manner.

3. Because it is even now confronting the Adventist ministry with questions of prophetic magnitude, and shall soon, I anticipate, demand from us exegetical judgments that can be made only by informed, Spirit-filled men. And this observation anticipates my fourth reason for examining the movement:

4. Because we need the Holy Spirit, need it desperately, to empower our ministry, and here is a movement purporting to do precisely that. I submit, therefore, that it deserves our prayerful and candid examination.

I propose to survey the movement briefly, and then I shall suggest four observations that should help you formulate your own answer concerning its nature and origin. Just thirty miles south of Andrews University is the University of Notre Dame, a Jesuit institution better known for its national football rankings than for its spiritual impact within the Catholic world.

But there, beginning in the summer of 1967, in Room 316 of the administration building, the cry was not "Win one for the Gipper!" but rather "Come, Holy Spirit, come!" And Catholic sources report that the Holy Spirit did indeed appear, with charismatic power, to several hundred priests, nuns, and students.

Typical of many experiences was that of Roger Alexander, a Roman Catholic student attending Michigan State University. Along with other students he went, one Friday night in 1967, to Notre Dame, hopeful of participating in the charismatic phenomena experienced by a number of students and faculty.

Here is his report of what happened in that room:

The meetings began on a Friday night, but the "laying on of hands" did not take place until Saturday afternoon. In this interval I heard many testimonials of the work of the Holy Splint in others' lives. I became more and more convinced of the validity of this experience, and yet when the leader said, "Would all those who would like to be prayed for please step to the center (we were sit ting in a large circle), something still held me back. As I watched my friends I became terribly frightened. One of my friends was shouting, "I love God." But as I gained control of myself, I stopped to think. Was it possible for someone possessed with a devil to cry out, "I love God"? These were people I knew, and they were certainly not prone to hysteria. Just then another group of friends came back to where I was sitting and asked if they could pray over me. I was still afraid so I asked to be exorcised first. (A few weeks before I don't think I even believed in the devil.) Then as they began to pray over me, a strange physical sensation started in my hands and feet and gradually spread over my whole body. It was like an electric current or as though the inside of my body were shaking against my skin. For the first time in my life I had a real understanding of the power of God. After this I sat for a short while and prayed, thanking God for the wonders He had shown me. Suddenly my lips began to tremble. Again I was afraid and so, accompanied by a girl from my school, I went out into the hall. And as I knelt down a strange series of sounds poured forth from my lips. I had no control over the sounds that I made, and yet I was filled with an intense happiness and peace such as I had never known before.¹

What has been happening at Notre Dame and other Catholic colleges is only a microcosm of the charismatic phenomena touching Catholicism. In the November 8, 1968, issue of Commonweal, a Catholic lay publication, Benedictine Father Kilian McDonnell reports that Catholic "bishops are mystified, cautious [they sound like some SDA bishops!], and basically unhappy" about the charismatic phenomena that only since 1967 have appeared within Roman Catholicism. McDonnell reports that, to date, Roman Catholic authorities have "made no overt measures to stem the movement." ²

I have examined reports of charismatic sessions not only at Notre Dame but also at Duquesne, and Holy Cross of Worcester, Massachusetts. A Pentecostal leader reports that some 10,000 priests, nuns, and laymen had, by the beginning of 1969, participated in the movement.³

Actually the Catholic-Pentecostal en counter is not so surprising as it seems. The two are not irreconcilable opposites; in fact, Pentecostalism has absorbed "essential elements of Franciscan and Jesuitic mysticism into its piety." ⁴

Interestingly, cells formed to experiment with charismatic phenomena are operative on non-Catholic campuses from Yale to the University of Washington. So widespread is the practice that the Government recently offered a grant for investigation of its psychological and linguistic phenomena. All across the country students are showing (between riots) increasing interest in charismatic gifts, particularly glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. (Glossolalia comes from glossa, "tongue," and lalia, "talk," "speech," "chat.")

Oral Roberts and a Vision

Some two thousand ministers affiliated with the historic Protestant denominations are reported to have received the gift of tongues.⁵ Perhaps you have noted that faith healer Oral Roberts has left the Pentecostal ranks and joined the Methodist ministry, in response, he says, to a direct vision of Jesus Christ, during which he was directed to take his healing ministry into the historic churches of Christendom, and through them, to the world. Writes Roberts of this experience, which occurred on May 9, 1968:

"Then I knew for certain . . . that the Spirit of the Lord was beginning to move over the earth in a way man had not experienced before ... to take His healing power to my GENERATION." ⁶

An interesting aspect of many charismatic sessions is their interdenominational character. Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics are meeting together, praying together, laying hands on one an other, and speaking in tongues together. And the movement is gaming worldwide momentum.

In his book Christian Reality and Appearance, John A. Mackay, president emeritus of Princeton Theological Seminary, suggests the potential of the movement:

In a time of revolutionary change when all institutional structures are crumbling in the secular and religious order, when the churches of historical Protestantism are becoming increasingly bureaucratized, when more and more church members are meeting in cells in an unecclesiastical underworld, when the Roman Catholic Church is developing evangelical concern and a deepening sense of what it means to be Christian, when the charismatic movement is growing across all ecclesiastical boundaries might it not happen that, unless our Protestant churches rediscover dimensions in thought and life that they are losing or disdaining, the Christian future may lie with a reformed Catholicism and a matured Pentecostalism? ⁷

A fascinating conclusion, is it not?

But let us ask, What is the meaning of this extraordinary movement that has so quickly sprung to prominence? Is it the initial sprinkles of the latter rain, which God's Word says will bring renewal and reformation to His followers? Could this be the work of that great angel of Revelation 18:1, "come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory"?

Or could this be the false revival of signs and lying wonders that the Bible says will precede Christ's coming?

If this movement is the work of the Holy Spirit, we have cause to ask: Why is it not manifest in the remnant church? Could it be that our lukewarmness has so grieved the heart of God that He has at last, sorrowfully, turned from us? Are others being qualified to bear the witness we have so long muted?

Or could it be that the Spirit is indeed among us too? That the latter rain is falling all around us, but that we are so blinded by worldliness and indifference that we perceive it not? and shall not, until in one last burst of glory, we see our sin and loss.

It seems to me that whatever this movement the harbinger of the latter rain or the "strong delusion" sent to those who "received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" the challenge to us is equally compelling, for in either case, only a living experience with Jesus Christ will suffice to save us.

The question remains, What is the meaning of this extraordinary movement? Let me advance, in reply, four observations that should help you formulate your own conclusion.

I. The charismatic movement owes its growth to churches that have failed and are failing their people.

Indeed, one might conclude that the movement owes its very existence to two diseases afflicting the body of Christ. The first is theological diversity ranging from fundamentalism through existentialism to universalism. The second is denominationalism the fragmenting of the body of Christ. "Which way to go?" is the cry of millions of bewildered hearts. And suddenly, piercing through the confusion of churchianity, comes an experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit, ratified, in most cases, by speaking in tongues. The experience testifies that suddenly, dramatically, a person can be brought to the heart of spiritual reality. No wonder this movement is sweeping like a spiritual broom through cobwebbed corners of ecclesiastical structures!

Consider, for example, how and why the charismatic movement began on the cam pus of Duquesne University, a Roman Catholic school in Pittsburgh. In 1966 two members of the faculty became concerned about the lack of dynamism in their faith life. In spite of all their activities in the church, their "ivory-tower scholarship," as they described it, left them empty. So they searched the Scriptures, prayed, and reasoned.

They discovered that the early church had power because Christ, after His ascension to the right hand of the Father, sent upon it the Holy Spirit. In an instant the frightened band of disciples was trans formed into a community of faith and love and action action so power packed that they turned the world upside down.

The two professors at Duquesne discovered that what the disciples asked for in genuine confidence of receiving, they did indeed receive. The Holy Spirit came upon them, to transform their lives they were suffused with Christ's love; every breath became a prayer of praise, every deed an act of faith; every word cried out for all to hear, "Jesus is Lord of my life." And so the two men prayed, day after day, "Come, Holy Spirit, come."

One day they learned of an interfaith prayer group where Christians laid hands on one another, praying in confidence for an outpouring of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. Together with another faculty member and the wife of one of them, they began to attend. Within a few short weeks, they say, they were changed men. Jesus became real to them. The Bible held new attraction. They found new boldness of faith, and confidence in Christ's presence and loving power. They received also, they say, many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

An All-Night Prayer Meeting

In mid-February of 1967 a small group of students together with the faculty members from Duquesne decided to spend a weekend in prayer, meditating over the first four chapters of Acts, and seeking the will of God. About thirty people took part in this retreat.

Friday evening they gathered in prayer to seek the will of Jesus Christ for their lives. All day Saturday they prayed and studied. Saturday evening had been set aside for relaxation. As a matter of fact, it was to be a birthday party for one of the priests who was on the retreat. Instead it turned into a night of prayer and seeking, from seven in the evening until five in the morning. During that night, by ones and by twos, they say, they received the Spirit of God. Some praised God in tongues, others quietly wept for joy, others prayed and sang. It was from this Duquesne week end that the experience spread to Notre Dame and now is penetrating Catholic corners across the land.⁸

Do you see what this experience suggests? Too long have sterile creeds and frigid formalism substituted for the living Christ in His living church. There is a hungry world out there, and the charismatic experience comes to them, not with a doctrine, but offering an experience in Christ.

Dare we impugn the motives of those who, on campus and off, of whatever church, with whatever group, are seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Or should our first question be, "Do I know the reality of the Holy Spirit in my life?"

I shall never forget those anxious weeks early in my ministry when I concluded that I was destitute of the power of God, that I walked into the pulpit with confidence in words rather than in the Word. And the awful distress that shrouded my soul when I realized I would be held accountable for the spiritual growth of my flock. I shall never forget those days and nights of prayer and searching that led me at last through the loopholes of my profession into the presence of Deity. Until one early morning hour there burst from my lips no, not a babble of unintelligible sounds but a clear-cut testimony of confidence and triumph: Jesus Christ is Lord of my life; I am accepted in Him!

Is the witness of your ministry all that it should be, my friend? The people will seldom rise above the spiritual experience of their minister, you know.

And you, teachers, what of your experience? One of our Adventist youth who visited a Protestant-sponsored college in the Midwest told me: "I was deeply impressed with the spiritual atmosphere. The students seemed to have one great preoccupation: How could they prepare for service for Christ? They prayed together, in their rooms, on their own. They talked about Christ it was the theme of conversations on campus. I believe many of the students I met really know Jesus Christ. I came away wondering if I really do . . . and wondering what has happened to my school . . . my church."

I say again, the charismatic movement owes its growth to churches that have failed and are failing their people. And we are in no position to mount the throne called Holier Than Thou and point our finger.

(To be continued)