What is the evidence that all charismatics are apostate?

Who ever made that statement does not understand what apostate means, nor do they know what charismatics believe. Their beliefs are as wide and varied as Baptist and to say they are all apostate is a gross over statement in the least and an unchristian attack on brothers in the most.

Bro Tony

 

Caught up in false teachings...yes. Apostate? NO.

I concur with Tony.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

I concur with both Bro Tony and Jim.....

How did this gent from Fuller define "apostate"?

 

Here is a quote from a Pentecostal preacher:

Notice where he classifies himself. He also separates himself from the modern day Charismatic movement. His website is interesting.
http://www.pawcreek.org/

 

Agree. Charismatics, in great numbers, are victims of false teachings. They are further deceived by a counterfeit spirit who presents himself as the Holy Spirit. Thankfully, our Lord has used the Charismatic movement and its many false teachers, as He has used other false movements, to reach the significant numbers of the lost and save them unto Himself. Also, there is at least one great teacher of the Bible among the Charismatics, Chuck Smith. He is one of the best expositors of the Bible I am aware of. If you don't believe it, go HERE and listen. Start anywhere, and except for the gifts of the Spirit in Acts (and you'll be surprised with the balanced take on that), tell me where he is not scriptural. He's certainly more scriptural than any famous Baptist I have ever heard.

But apostate? Quite the opposite. Their desire to affiliate with God is a primary factor in their susceptibility to false teaching.

 

I didn't get saved in a Baptist church; I got saved in a Pentecostal church where the Gospel was forcefully preached every Sunday night, the Bible was preached every Sunday morning, and the whole church came together on Wednesday nights for family night. The kids were born-again Christians who loved Jesus and acted like it, and on Saturday night they held youth rallies and brought their lost school friends so that they could hear the gospel in music and testimonies and get saved. The women dressed like women and didn’t wear makeup or stick bones through their ears! The men wore trousers, socks, and shoes, and didn’t forget to get their hair cut. The whole congregation sang Christian hymns written by saints of God who had been saved for more than two weeks, prayed for the sick, and yielded to the Holy Spirit. And best of all, they loved Baptist Christians and didn’t poke fun at them or preach that they were demon possessed.

 

I may be of a different opinion than some on this board, however I feel that the charismatic movement was initially a legitimate movement within the body of Christ, bringing back into prominence the gifts of the Holy Spirit which IMHO had been supressed over the course of time.
Just as with anything else though, without a balanced view error creeps in......

I don't believe that the "gift of tongues" as practiced in some fellowships today is scriptural, however I do think that the gift of speaking in another language is still given in unique crcumstances. For example, the missionary to africa who speaks Swahili finds himself sharing the gospel in Urdu, a language in which he has not been trained.

A certain evangelist (who is as scripturally based as they come) recounted a time he was preaching at a camp meeting some years ago; when he felt it impressed upon him to speak to a visitor who was in a wheelchair. As he tells it, he stopped what he was doing, went to the man and told him that Jesus Christ the Lord had healed him, and the man got up out of his chair wholly restored. This man said that this was the first and only time in 40 years of ministry that this has happened.......

I write the above in order to say this: that I believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are just as real today as in the days following Pentecost, but discerment must be used to tell which gifts are real, and which "manifestations" are a result of emotionalism, error, etc.

 

Great post and excellent perspective.

 

I concur with Bro Tony and Jim.....I have many relatives who are Charismatics who teach salvation correctly. It's not common, and they aren't right on some other doctrines, but they are FAR from apostate! Of course, don't tell that to someone like Dr. David Cloud or other IFB types....they might put you before their firing squad!

 

Unfortunately the Pentecostal movement gave birth to the Word of Faith movement whose leaders [Kenyon, Hagin, Copeland, Hinn, Tilton, Price, Avanzini, Capps, Savelle, Cerullo, Crouch, and others] are apostate.

 

Amen.

ps - but some of them can be a bit wacky though

 

Now that I can agree with.

Bro Tony