Plain Old Bill
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What is thier theology? I don't know. Are they making it up as they go along.What makes them so popular?Are they a cult or are they headed that direction?
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I can do one better. When I was in grade school, I remember going with my family to sing at a church, and this lady got up and started saying, "Mecca lecca high, mecca hiney ho".I heard one famous TBN evangelist say "shaka zulu" while speaking in tongues
I'm interested in knowing what Baptist sect does this.Yea, and I'm sure there are people in the south who remember going to a Baptist church and seeing snakes handled as part of the worship service.
Thats kind of funny, we have a deacon I email with a lot and he swears anyone doing any of that is pentacostal. He grew up in a small country church, and his sife in a pentacostal church, so they see everything not just sitting there as being charismatic.Originally posted by colorado_cop:
Many Baptists believe that raising one's hands during worship, closing your eyes and focusing on the Lord, and becoming emotional (crying out to GOd) is a sign of charismaticism (is that a word). It's not. I guess they think you have to stare blankly ahead at the music pastor and mouth the words for it not to be. Anyhoo, it's not. One would have to carefully define Charismatic before we can define what "they" believe.
Originally posted by TC:
So, they don't stand on the promises of God - they just sit on them?
Charismatic ChaosNow, just a brief history. Historically, the Charismatic movement is the child of the Pentecostal movement. That began about 1900 and it went along for about 60 years and the Pentecostal Churches were primarily the Assemblies of God, the Four Square Church, and then there were some other smaller groups, the United Pentecostal group and so forth. But they were basically off to themselves. People used to call them the "Holy Rollers." They were a kind of a unique group that did not mainstream at all in Evangelical Christianity because of their strange beliefs.
In 1960 a remarkable thing happened. In 1960, not far from here, in Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, Rector Dennis Bennett supposedly got the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. And what happened was Pentecostalism jumped out of its own box and landed in Episcopalianism, and for the first time it transcended its denominational definitions. Since that time it has moved through the major denominations like a flood. It went beyond historical Pentecostal denominations and has continued to do that. That second movement is called the Charismatic Movement. They borrowed that concept of Charismatic because it is associated with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the believer.
But the Charismatic Movement can't be defined doctrinally. Why? Because it involves Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, anybody and everybody. So it resists, and has resisted any kind of doctrinal definition that is too rigid. What they all hold in common is an experience which they will call the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they wrongly define the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a post salvation experience that adds something to your Christian life that you previously didn't have, and is usually is accompanied by signs and wonders, most particularly speaking in tongues. And we are going to talk much more about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Tongues at a later time. But once you have had that experience, you have sort of jumped into this new level of spiritual awareness, and you have reached the level of the Charismatic.
The term the "Third Wave" was coined by C. Peter Wagner who is a Missions professor at Fuller Seminary and the author of several books on church growth. He is really the leading proponent of the Third Wave philosophy and methodology. According to Wagner, he said, "The First Wave was the Pentecostal Movement, the Second Wave was the Charismatic Movement, and now the Third Wave is joining them." And by that he means an inundating wave of the power of the Holy Spirit manifesting itself in visible ways. And while acknowledging the Third Wave's spiritual ancestry, that is, that it is the third of those three, Wagner nonetheless rejects the label "Charismatic and Pentecostal." In fact, most of the people in the Third Wave don't want to be identified in that way. Wagner says,
The Third Wave is a new moving of the Holy Spirit among evangelicals who for one reason or another have chosen not to identify with either the Pentecostals or the Charismatics. Its roots go back a little further but I see it as mainly a movement beginning in the 1980's and gathering momentum through the closing years of the 20th century. I see the Third Wave as distinct from, but at the same time, very similar to the first and second waves. They have to be similar because it is the same Spirit of God who is doing the work. The major variation comes in the understanding of the meaning of "Baptism in the Holy Spirit" and the role of tongues in authenticating this. I myself, for example, would rather not have people call me a Charismatic, I do not consider myself a Charismatic, I am simply an Evangelical Congregationalist who is open to the Holy Spirit working through me and my church in any way He chooses.
He refuses the label "Charismatic," not primarily because of any doctrinal distinction, but primarily because of the stigma attached to the name. It's important for me to mention that to you because if you talk to someone in the Third Wave they might endeavor to distance themselves from classic Pentecostalism or more contemporary Charismaticism, but the fact is that they are basically the Third Wave by their own admission of the very same kind of theology. It is accurate then to see the Third Wave as part of the whole Charismatic movement as we know it. While it is true that many who identify with the Third Wave will avoid using the term "Charismatic" and they'll even avoid using Charismatic jargon when writing or speaking about Spirit Baptism or other issues. Basically, the theology is the same. The terminology may change; the theology is for all intents and purposes identical. Most Third Wave teaching and preaching that I have listened to, that I have read, echoes standard Charismatic theology, and therefore in evaluating the Third Wave, we would assume that it is safe to say that the other issues that we have been discussing, that we find unbiblical in the Charismatic movement, are generally true of this movement as well, although there may be some individuals in the movement who would vary from that.
So at its very core it is an element of the Charismatic movement. At its core is an obsession with sensational experiences, a preoccupation with the "Charismata" that is, tongues, healings, prophecies, words of knowledge, visions, and ecstatic experiences, and that is, of course, where we find the indisputable link between the Third Wave and the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements. In all three movements there is a major absorption with these supernatural, sensational kind of power encounters or power displays as they like to call them. They de-emphasize what you and I would know as the traditional means of spiritual growth: prayer, Bible study, the teaching of the Word, and the fellowship of other believers. They don't intend to do that and they wouldn't do that in statement or even in print. But because of the very surpassing emphasis on the sensational experiences, those matters tend to get pushed significantly, if not all together, into the background. Pentecostals, Charismatics, and Third Wavers, all will affirm that any Christian who is not experiencing some supernatural events, some supernatural giftedness, some kinds of healings, some kinds of prophecies, words of knowledge, or manifestations of the Spirit of God, in visible tangible ways, is really stuck at a low level of spiritual progress; is denying the full power of God and denying himself the blessing of God.
I can do one better. When I was in grade school, I remember going with my family to sing at a church, and this lady got up and started saying, "Mecca lecca high, mecca hiney ho".Originally posted by Bethelassoc:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I heard one famous TBN evangelist say "shaka zulu" while speaking in tongues