Bjcorbin's Blog

I have been involved with the Charismatic movement for over a dozen years now and to be sure, those years have been the most fruitful of my Christian walk. It was in the midst of a Charismatic service that I first became tangibly aware of the Holy Spirit and that experience revolutionized my relationship with God. It transformed what had been a distant relationship (i.e. with the God of heaven) into a personal one; it changed my conception of the Bible from that of an ancient text to the “Living Word” of God; and it brought what had been an historical God (i.e. Jesus, who lived 2000 years ago) into the present tense. In the years since then, I have come to rely on the daily interaction of the Holy Spirit for even the most basic of things and that change has made all of the difference. In light of this transformation, I can testify to the many worthwhile aspects of the Charismatic movement and even endorse it to those seeking a more personal walk with the Lord. Unfortunately, within those same years, I have also witnessed first-hand several troubling trends, many of which seem to threaten its ongoing viability. For the purposes of this piece, I’ve dubbed these disturbing patterns “Charismania”, which is not a term that I coined, but one that seems to fit.

What tends to distinguish the Charismatic movement from other faith paradigms is its focus on the power of the Holy Spirit. While many traditionalists see that power as potentially dangerous, Charismatic’s view it as life-giving. I would submit that they are both right to some extent. Of course the problem isn’t with the Holy Spirit; it is with our motivations for and our responses to, His power. It has been said that “power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We may rationalize that the pursuit of Gods power is somehow different, but the Bible contains numerous stories of people who experienced manifestations of Gods power and still went on to fall to their own corrupt nature (e.g. King Saul, King Solomon, Caiaphas, Judas Iscariot…). Sadly, many within the Charismatic movement have met the same fate, as they have mistaken God’s willingness to act powerfully in and through their lives for His approval of their (often bad) choices. Like the Prophet Nathan did with King David, they assume that because God is with them, they have Carte Blanche to do whatever seems right to them. Ultimately many confuse the pursuit of God’s power with the pursuit of God Himself.

Throughout my years of involvement with this movement, the Lord has consistently spoken to me about the pitfalls that we so easily step into. He’s shown me that the frivolous nature of many of our gatherings essentially turns the upper room into little more that a night club (i.e. a place to go get a good buzz with our friends); that we are prone to treat the Holy Spirit like an amusement park attraction (i.e. just a vehicle for an exhilarating ride); and that we frequently use His grace like a stolen credit card (i.e. obtaining things we were never meant to have, with resources that don’t belong to us). Often, as the power of God begins to consistently manifest in a ministry, its leaders achieve celebrity status, easily becoming idols for throngs of followers who covet their giftings and/or experience. Such ministries frequently erode into little more than monuments to their founders and lucrative social networks. Instead of being transformed into the image of Christ, people are transformed into the image of the leadership, regardless of whether those leaders bear any resemblance to Jesus. Often these ministries are shamelessly marketed in the name of evangelism and services are tailored to engage an earthly audience as opposed to a heavenly one. In these atmospheres, Jesus becomes little more than a corporate sponsor, who donates His name appeal to a program that’s really aimed at attracting a crowd and cultivating return business.

The scripture teaches that what is pleasing to the flesh is not pleasing to the spirit; and that what is pleasing to the spirit is not pleasing to the flesh. Despite that scriptural distinction, western Christianity (as a whole) seems to want to use the spiritual power of God as a tool to satisfy our most natural (i.e. carnal) desires. We want to feel good and empowered and loved and secure. We want our enemies to be kept at bay and to have a sense of our own righteousness. And most of all, we don’t want it to cost anything or to have to wait for it. This makes stories of revival titillating, as we love the idea of a place we can go where God comes suddenly and miraculously deliverers us from all our troubles. But my experience is that seasons of “suddenly” are generally preceded by longer seasons requiring faithfulness and perseverance. It is my belief that many of us haven’t experienced that sudden move of God, because we haven’t been willing to endure the seasons that come before it. Sadly, there are many in the Charismatic movement who go from ministry to ministry (and/or minister to minister), looking for that one who can deliver all the experiences they’ve heard so much about. Often, these folks seem more interested in finding the place where God might be doing something spectacular than in finding the place He’s called them to be. This insatiable hunger for some sort of extraordinary event drives ministers and ministries to gravitate toward creating a spectacle, instead of simply being who they were made to be. It also creates the temptation to hype every little thing as “life changing” and “earth shaking”, which only serves to perpetuate the stereotype that this movement is little more than an elaborate form of emotionalism.

The prophet Isaiah said that to prepare the way of the Lord, we need to make straight pathways; bringing the valleys up and the mountains low. This is a picture of the steadiness that comes from having a singular reference point as we take the journey of faith. While I too have enjoyed my “mountain top” experiences with the Lord, I’ve come to realize that we don’t live on the mountain top and neither do the lost. Our constant pursuit of those kinds of experiences creates the anti-thesis of what Isaiah was talking about. What happens on the mountain needs to transform our time in the valley, which is where the light of God’s love needs to be shown. Even if we could somehow live on the mountain top, it would be the equivalent of the disciples deciding not to leave the upper room on Pentecost. The power of God has been made manifest on the earth to do the work of God and to bring Him glory. It is not simply meant for the edification of those who already believe.

While I don’t believe the things that I’ve described necessary represent the whole of the Charismatic movement, I do believe that they have become increasingly prevalent as the movement has gone on. I am blessed to attend a “Charismatic” church, where the Pastor preaches Christ and Him crucified; where character is valued above giftings; and where people are generally more concerned about how God is using them (outside the walls of church) during the week than about how He will interact with them (within the walls of the church) on a Sunday morning. Our church is by no means the exception, as we have many friends who are a part of ministries with this same kind of heart. I’m not advocating throwing the baby out with the bath water, but I do believe those of us within this movement need to take a hard look at ourselves. Are we really seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord or do we just want what we’ve been told is our inheritance? Do we really want to see God glorified or are we simply after our own blessing and prosperity? Are we really seeking to be transformed or do we just want our situations to change? In the end, there is nothing holy about the pursuit of God’s power apart from a genuine desire to fulfill His purposes.