Will the Real Charismatic Christianity Please Stand Up: Reforming the Charismatic Movement and the Question of our Roots

John Calvin, Getty Images 51246861

As I am sure many of you have picked up on, a recent YouTube video by Mike Winger about the moral failures of Shawn Bolz and the ways in which the Bethel Redding leadership team were complicit in his abuses has recently exploded all over the internet. I appreciate voices like Winger's who are willing to stand up and be counted to expose the many abuses currently happening in the charismatic movement in North America. It is not an easy thing to say what needs to be said in these situations, as I am in no doubt that Winger has received vast quantities of slander in return for his decision to speak the truth for the sake of those who have been mistreated. But, as Winger himself surely knows, pointing out the problems is only the first step. It is a necessary first step, but we then need to begin to prayerfully consider how to put the shattered pieces of our former charismatic world back together again. What should we do next as Christians who do not want to throw the entire charismatic baby out with the NAR/Christian nationalism/word-of-faith/health-and-wealth bathwater? This was the subject of my last blog post about the concept and practice of receiving, giving and self-giving, but I think we are in even greater need of theological and practical reconstruction in light of Winger's video.

            This brings me to the elusive question of the roots of the charismatic movement. Many people wiser than I have pointed out that to move forward after catastrophe and devastation, communities often need to look backwards before they can look forwards. What are the roots of the contemporary charismatic movement? This is a question with a wide-ranging breadth of possible answers and approaches. Where should we look to find the good, healthy, God-given, God-ordained parts of charismatic Christianity that God placed in our collective DNA from the start? Do we look to Azusa Street? To the Welsh revival? To the Anaheim Vineyard? To Pearson Airport in Toronto? Or what about to the historic Protestant teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin? Or for charismatic Catholics, perhaps to some of the leading lights of the counter-Reformation? Pinpointing the roots of contemporary charismatic movements and churches is a particularly difficult task given the staggering width, breadth and depth of diversity within the constellation of movements and churches that can be roughly gathered together under the banner 'charismatic/Pentecostal'. But, no matter how difficult the task, I think we need to search for a God-ordained past in order to re-orientate ourselves to our God-given future. The task of reforming and reviving the charismatic movement in North America is an essential one, but it is not going reform or revive itself. At this point in our collective journey, we are in urgent need of clear-headed, prayerful, communal and humble discernment rooted in proper, Spirit-illumined biblical interpretation and reflection on the historic teachings of the Christian church. What does it mean to be a charismatic Christian? What should it mean? What is God at work in our midst attempting to make it mean? How can we listen to and cooperate with this work of the Spirit and heed the voice of the psalmist in Psalm 32:9 (NRSVUE) "Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you."

            I do not want to present myself as some kind of charismatic theological 'guru' who has all the answers. Instead, I want to suggest ideas I have, hopes, dreams, thoughts, wonderings, which can hopefully be stimuli in our wider, cooperative, community-based efforts to rebuild our corner of the global Christian church in the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. In this light, on the question of our roots, I wonder if we might benefit from looking further back in the church's history than charismatics are used to doing? I don't know about you, but I have heard no end of stories about the Welsh revival and Azusa and Toronto and Anaheim and so on. But all of these events are less than 150 years old, which in the grand scheme of the Christian church is but a breath. What would it look like for contemporary charismatics to look further back to, for example, the Protestant Reformers? I am not suggesting the Reformers because they were infallible, and I am well aware that our charismatic Catholic brothers and sisters will likely want to look elsewhere. I want to suggest a nugget of wisdom from the Reformers simply because I myself am a Protestant charismatic and I simply don't know enough about counter-Reformation figures to speak knowledgeably about them. Also, looking back to Christian tradition is much more reflexive for charismatic Catholics than it is for charismatic Protestants, so our Catholic brothers and sisters are likely already quite good at this practice of cultivating theological, ecclesial memory.

            To suggest one nugget of our shared, rich theological heritage that goes back to the Reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, I want to briefly mention what theologians refer to as 'theological anthropology'. It has been popular for some time in certain streams of charismatic Christianity in North America to claim that because believers are now 'saints', as the New Testament epistles make clear, we are no longer 'sinners' in a substantial sense, although we do still commit sins. This theologizing is often paired with a kind of positive thinking/speaking about oneself which will supposedly render us almost totally victorious over sin at all points. The Reformers, by contrast, whilst they were well aware of places in the New Testament such as Romans 6 that speak of the believer being victorious over sin by virtue of their dying and rising with Christ in baptism, were also keenly aware of the acute nature of human sinfulness after the fall of Adam. Martin Luther in his lectures on Romans wrote, concerning 7:24, "But surely no man except a spiritual man would say that he is wretched. For perfect knowledge of oneself is perfect humility, and perfect humility is perfect wisdom, and perfect wisdom is perfect spirituality" (LW 25:335). John Calvin, in like manner, at the very start of his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, writes "Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy—this pride is innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity. Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord, who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured. For, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy, a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us" (Battles, 37-38). To our modern earns, filled as they are with messages of pseudo-spiritual self-help within which we deserve the world and ought never to be called into question, these comments sound as painful as fingernails on a blackboard. But Luther and Calvin are not being miserable about human sinfulness for the sake of being miserable about human sinfulness. They are instead being profoundly realistic about human nature by seeking to hold in tension with one another the very real nature of our victory over sin in Christ and also our ongoing battle with what Paul rather curiously calls 'the flesh'.

            For the Reformers, it is extremely dangerous to misjudge the qualitative difference between humans and God. To know God is to know that he is perfectly holy and, correspondingly, to know ourselves is to know that we do not have any of the answers to our own problems. The purpose is not to be depressing, or to repeat the absolutely horrendous trope that has reared its ugly head again in light of the recent revelation of Philip Yancey's 8-year affair ('but for the grace of God there go I... if God didn't look after me I'm sure I would also have a scandalous 8-year affair... my wife certainly can't trust me to treat her with basic decency'), no, that is not the point of a realistic assessment of the self in contrast to God. The purpose is to help us, by the power of the Spirit, relocate our ultimate confidence in our battle against sin from ourselves and our own capacity to Christ and his capacity. As Calvin writes so eloquently writes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 10:12 "let us observe that there are two kinds of assurance. The one is that which rests on the promises of God, because a pious conscience feels assured that God will never be wanting to it; and, relying on this unconquerable persuasion, triumphs boldly and intrepidly over Satan and sin, and yet, nevertheless, keeping in mind its own infirmity, casts itself upon God, and with carefulness and anxiety commits itself to him". Thus, the purpose of a sober theological anthropology is not to deny that Christians can and ought to live in a significant measure of victory over sin (as per Romans 6), or to 'sin-level' - 'oh I am sure I could do something like that just like Yancey'. The purpose is to place our confidence for our victory over sin in Christ and therefore to rely on him and not ourselves and by relying on him to, in Calvin's words, 'triumph boldly and intrepidly over Satan and sin'. This sense of sobriety over sin which we can glean from the Reformers is in stark contrast to claiming that, because we are all 'saints' and not 'sinners', we will essentially be good to go if we just think and speak positively enough about ourselves. Victory over sin is the inheritance of every Christian in Christ, but it must be fought for with diligence that relies on Christ and his work in us rather than our own willpower, insight or giftedness.

            As many of you know, I submit each of my blog posts to a group of seasoned Vineyard pastors and theological leaders to ensure accountability and balance in what I write. The blog still expresses my own views, and does not necessarily represent the views of anyone else, including Vineyard Canada, but I do take steps to ensure accountability. I don't want to be some rogue agent who just says whatever he wants without being under any guidance and spiritual authority in the church. I am, after all, attempting to write for the sake of the church. Therefore, by way of conclusion to this blog post, I want to note that one of my reviewers pointed out the very important fact that I need to be careful not to conflate the Vineyard movement with other parts of the charismatic movement from which it has differentiated itself since at least the early 90s. This is an easy mistake for me to make, given that my early ministry experience was in Catch the Fire which, despite originally being a Vineyard church, is now much more in line with the Revival Alliance group (Bethel Redding, Che Ahn, Heidi and Roland Baker, and so on) than it is with a more historic Vineyard posture. As early as the early 90s John Wimber was in clear disagreement with people such as C. Peter Wagner over issues such as NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) teaching and other such things. Other common points of departure between Vineyard and some other parts of the charismatic movement include ideas such as 'the radical middle', centred set belonging, a no-hype focus, and an 'everyone gets to play' team leadership model versus the super anointed main leader/'apostolic' power couple leadership. I will make efforts in my subsequent posts to be more discriminatory between historic Vineyard practices and other approaches. If you are still reading this far in, thank you for your time! I'm always open to discussion and feedback in the comments on the blog and on socials or via email.