I didn't for a second imagine it was. I would make a guess it's much the same sub-Radio 2 soft rock it's always been - stuff you can bash out on a piano or acoustic guitar but expand pretty easily to a fuller band. But that is really absolutely irrelevant to any of the points I've been trying to make.
Issues of 'style' aside, we have no way of knowing of course, whether the glossolalia practised by the early Pentecostals or more recent charismatics - or by occasional 'tongues-speakers' in times past - was the same thing we read about in the pages of the New Testament.
It's a pretty big assumption that they are, but we'll let that rest.
We can't 'prove' that they are and we can't 'prove' that they aren't.
Either way, they are a physical manifestation of religious 'enthusiasm' and fervour - which doesn't necessarily mean loud and lairy, of course.
I'm suggesting that contemplative prayer has a similar aim - to engage with the divine - albeit from a different direction and via different 'means.'
Anyhow, I'm not at all bothered as to whether the Christian churches should 'remain in the 19th century' or try to be 21st century. I want them all to be 10th century ...
No, seriously, I do agree with @Hugal that contemporary worship music is almost a genre in itself, but any style of music used in worship is going to have links to the wider music scene in whatever society it emerges within. So, for instance, nobody knows what melodies were used in Russian Orthodox chant until the 19th century because nobody bothered to write them down. It seems that whatever they were they were related to prevalent folk styles.
Why should instruments and style of song matter? Most of those I know who insist on the organ being played don’t mind a string quartet. When an organist plays in a show offy way they are not pulled up but a band is seen as showing off.
Your own wording demonstrates the difference, the organist has to 'play in a show offy way' in order to stand out, the band by contrast is already on the stage.
Contemporary worship music is hardly the styles you see in the charts. It can be seen as its own genre almost.
That's only loosely true and also somewhat beside the point.
No just because the band is on stage doesn’t mean it stands out. If it is usual it becomes normal. Some organists can be seen. Things become normal very quickly.
No, this is basically an argument that symbolism doesn't matter because you always get used to it. You'll see what's in front of you, everyone would notice if the band was to the side, churches keep constructing their buildings this way, and if one of the musicians did something unusual everyone would notice it.
Ultimately the medium is the message, or at least part of it, which is exactly why @Baptist Trainfan's friend thought it mattered.
Karl LB. I see what you mean but these days contemporary worship style music is often a certain style. It doesn’t match the styles that tend to chart these days. It is not R&B or anything like that.
What @KarlLB said, it's generally sub-Coldplay AOR, sometimes with a bit of folk, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that in itself, but it comes freighted with a certain amount of cultural meaning. Which again brings me back to the earlier remark about much of your description was heavily culturally coded.
I've been an active and participating Christian for 43 years, more than half of that in avowedly charismatic settings and I've seen the whole gamut from traditional Pentecostal to 'new church' to the Anglican and Baptist charismatic scenes. I've also seen some of the fringe extremes. The only charismatic scene I have no direct experience of is the Catholic one.
I know what I'm talking about both as an observer and a participant.
You seen to have also missed out on the fairly short-lived Orthodox charismatic movement, which seems to have been confined to the USA, with its leader, Father Eusebius Stephanou, being "sat upon" by the Greek hierarchy.
. So, for instance, nobody knows what melodies were used in Russian Orthodox chant until the 19th century because nobody bothered to write them down. It seems that whatever they were they were related to prevalent folk styles.
It was written down, but the notation was less precise than more modern notations. Transmission was still, in part, by aural tradition. Transcriptions into staff notation date from the 17th Century, possibly earlier, in manuscript, with printed texts from early 18th Century onwards (a major anthology was prinited in Lvov in 1709). I do not know enough about folk music of that period to comment on any links between church chant and folk music.
On the brief flirtation some Orthodox had with the charismatic movement, I don't know the details but I am aware that there was some. I've loaned my late mother-in-law's old Renewal magazines from the mid-60s through to the '70s to someone down south. I must go and get them back. My mother-in-law was an 'early adopter' of the charismatic scene in the CofE through the ministry of the late Fr Michael Harper.
She was appalled when he became Orthodox ...
I remember reading an account in one issue of a charismatic gathering at Guildford Cathedral. I think it was the Pentecostal stalwart, Billy Richards, who walked out when he noticed an Orthodox priest a few pews in front.
I vaguely heard of some charismatic 'outbreaks' in Orthodox parishes in Greece that were quickly stamped on by the Church authorities.
I'd have deplored that at one stage. Now I'm inclined to think they had some sense ...
Not that I'd be in favour of heavy-handed tactics.
Anyhow, as @chrisstiles reminds us in the tangent on musical styles, these things are far more culturally-conditioned that we might think. None of it happens in a vacuum.
There were overlaps/parallels between 1960s counter-culture and The Jesus Movement, for instance and between socio-economic and cultural changes in 1980s Britain and the rise of the 'house-church movement.'
None of that takes God out of the equation but it is to acknowledge that there's more to these things than a few jolly songs and the exercise of apparent 'spiritual gifts'.
I am not putting down the contemplative at all. Just pointing out as GG kind of says charismatics are often contemplative . I find the distinction unhelpful. As I said mindfulness has grown in use in charismatic churches. Personally I don’t get on with it. My brain is not wired much that way. Others do though.
Sure, I can see that, but whilst I would say that on one level the 'charismatic' and the 'contemplative' are two sides of the same coin, there are distinctions.
I think there is increasing convergence though, and that accounts for the current interest in Mindfulness in @Hugal's circles.
It's not unusual to find charismatics exploring more 'contemplative' techniques these days, 'centring prayer', the 'Jesus Prayer', prayer-ropes etc.
That's been happening for some time and the trend continues.
In many ways I think today's more 'charismatic-lite' expressions are heading in a more 'quietist' and quite 'Quakerly' direction - just as the second and third generations of the Religious Society of Friends did back in the day.
I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent, but at the more 'reflective' and more middle-class end of the charismatic spectrum that's where things are heading.
Already the charismatic dimension in many churches has become a mild tinge and one of the reasons I suspect Hugal introduced a tangent about musical styles is because the charismatic thing has become more an issue of mood or style than of actual 'phenomena' as it were.
Although these still occur of course, but they aren't as centre-stage as they once were.
That's probably a healthy thing.
Incidentally, the late, great Professor Hollenweger, the first major historian and authority on Pentecostalism, once said that if you took away the music there wouldn't be a great deal left.
Harsh?
But I suspect the same is true with the contemporary charismatic scene. It's become all about tone and mood. It needs some grit to give it some ballast.
I imagine Hugal's contemporaries are looking to Mindfulness techniques - appropriately or otherwise - to find some much needed ballast to stop the thing floating away or getting stuck in the shallows.
I think they'd be better looking to Holy Tradition 😉. Or at least some of the older and broader small t traditions in general.
In many ways I think today's more 'charismatic-lite' expressions are heading in a more 'quietist' and quite 'Quakerly' direction - just as the second and third generations of the Religious Society of Friends did back in the day.
This is what I was alluding to with my 'base line' comment above. Not that the base line for accepting such things had been lowered but that once you no longer had a culture that emphasized and prioritized the production of 'signs', the actual observed number of them decayed to the base-line (which was fairly low, miracles by their nature being relatively rare for the most part).
I imagine Hugal's contemporaries are looking to Mindfulness techniques - appropriately or otherwise - to find some much needed ballast to stop the thing floating away or getting stuck in the shallows.
I think they'd be better looking to Holy Tradition 😉. Or at least some of the older and broader small t traditions in general.
Insofar as this involves looking at things like contemplative prayer and Lectio Divina it *is* looking at the Holy/Sacred Tradition, given the dates on the books that are in vogue it seems to be a backwash from the traditional/paleo-orthodox movement in the 00s.
I became aware of the 'traditional/paleo-orthodox movement' as you put it in the late '90s/early 2000s and was quite excited by it all as an antidote to the 'revivalism' that - to my mind - had peaked and imploded following the so-called 'Toronto Blessing' of '94/95.
Finding people - online and in real life - who were concerned about 'Cappadocian Christology' and so on was balm to a weary soul.
I often wondered what had 'happened' to it. Some of the 'alt-worship' types seemed to be heading in that kind of direction, as did some of the 'emergents'.
But I dunno, from where I was standing it all seemed to fizzle out - but then in 2007 we moved out of a large city to a smaller town and so probably weren't aware of things that were fizzing around in more metropolitan areas.
I think some of this stuff has simply become part of the landscape. So charismatics such as those @Hugal knows, will appropriate Mindfulness as some kind of approximation of what we might call more fully-orbed 'contemplative' Christian practice.
It also illustrates your point about how socio-cultural factors play into all these things.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that charismatics shouldn't look into things like Mindfulness, nor am I saying that Hugal is 'wrong' for it not floating his boat. The Mindfulness thing ain't going to suit everyone any more than a drumkit at the front of a church is going to be everyone's cup of tea.
Incidentally, a very eirenic Orthodox priest I know was nevertheless horrified to see that a notable and well-known Anglican evangelical church in the city where he lives had placed the drum kit in pride of place masking the altar.
I don't think one has to be a hyper-sacramentalist or Big O Orthodox to see the problem with that.
If a non-denominational or less 'sacramental' church did that, I'd have less of an issue - but that's another topic I think.
At any rate, I suspect that in 20 or 30 years time most charismatic churches will have morphed into something a lot lighter, more contemplative and more liberal and eclectic.
Who knows? They may by then regard drum kits as old-fashioned as pipe-organs.
I often wondered what had 'happened' to it. Some of the 'alt-worship' types seemed to be heading in that kind of direction, as did some of the 'emergents'.
I think the reality was that it was hard to do well, and hard to reproduce without a well structured ecclesiology which included some form of generalised education/catechism to perform a load bearing function of counteracting the pull towards the megachurch form (which is really what's going on with 'charismatic worship' at this point). It probably didn't help that a number of the thinkers behind it grew old and died without a second generation replacing them.
I think some of this stuff has simply become part of the landscape. So charismatics such as those @Hugal knows, will appropriate Mindfulness as some kind of approximation of what we might call more fully-orbed 'contemplative' Christian practice.
Yeah, I think a small part of it became part of the landscape, and things like mindfulness had the advantage that they were similar to existing charismatic practice and thus easy to slot in as an optional extra - stylistically they were a good fit.
I had meant to keep out of this one, but it is well known that the tongue of heaven is Welsh.
A friend was once praying over my wife in tongues and kept repeating cariad (beloved) The person did not speak Welsh and did not know the word at all.
Maybe Welsh is the language of heaven.
On the Welsh thing, and I do talk tidy and do speak 'Wenglish' rather than Welsh ... only half way there, see? ...
I heard of some English visitors attending a chapel in West Wales one Sunday. The congregation were bilingual and extemporary prayers were offered in both English and Welsh. After the first Welsh prayer one of the visitors 'interpreted' what they'd taken to be a 'tongue'.
Needless to say the 'interpretation' bore no relation to what the prayer had been in Welsh.
My brother in law was once told that he'd been overheard praying in Afrikaans when he was 'speaking in tongues.'
I'm not sure he believes that now or believed it for very long at the time. When I asked him what he was supposed to have said he quipped ... gallows-humour alert ...
'You bleck basted. Git orff our land, Kaffir!'
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Mea culpa, Hosts. You may want to hide that in one of those box things.
And I'm not suggesting that all Afrikaans speakers were racist Apartheid supporters.
@Hugal, seriously, if the tongues speaker were using the Welsh word 'cariad' then was the rest of their discourse in Welsh? Does your wife know sufficient Welsh to be able to understand the rest of what they were saying?
And to whom are 'tongues-speakers' speaking when they 'pray over' someone in tongues? To God? To the person they are praying for?
I've heard plenty of claims like this but have yet to hear one that bore much scrutiny.
(ETA to hide text, North East Quine, Purgatory host)
I was present for the prayer and no the rest was not in Welsh. I have some very very basic Welsh now and can say no. We have been over the use of tongues so many times on the Ship and it always ends up the same. If we want to talk about it fine but it is essentially fruitless
I wouldn't agree that any discussion of 'tongues' is fruitless.
It's only 'fruitless' if we have an entrenched position on the issue.
I can see how the repetition of 'cariad' might be comforting and encouraging but your story begs a few questions. I'm not doubting it's sincerity.
Why would there be a single intelligible word among a verbal stream that otherwise sounds as if it were unintelligible?
What did the rest mean? Why wasn't it interpreted?
Was the speaker addressing God or your wife?
Other than presumably providing some kind of comfort to your wife due to the use of the word 'cariad', what purpose did it serve?
Perhaps it reassured her of God's love, but then we've got that in the scriptures.
I don't know why tongues are any more out of bounds as a topic as any other claim, such as the Real Presence in the Eucharist or Apostolic Succession or divine healing or any other spiritual practice.
I wouldn't agree that any discussion of 'tongues' is fruitless.
It's only 'fruitless' if we have an entrenched position on the issue.
I think there is a kind of entrenched pattern to the discussion though; on the one side the argument is that this like any other miracle will be rare, and on the other it goes from being a human language to some kind of angelic language (with an occasional detour down 'groaning').
I wouldn't agree that any discussion of 'tongues' is fruitless.
It's only 'fruitless' if we have an entrenched position on the issue.
I think there is a kind of entrenched pattern to the discussion though; on the one side the argument is that this like any other miracle will be rare, and on the other it goes from being a human language to some kind of angelic language (with an occasional detour down 'groaning').
And these discussions tend to come to the place pretty quickly where the same things are being said over and over and over, and where the current thread looks more or less like every previous thread on the topic.
I can see that, but my argument would be that if these claims are out there - that tongues are actual human languages, or some kind of 'spiritual' or angelic language or some kind of deep psychic 'groaning' then we should get them out in the open and examine them.
Ok, I've shifted ground myself on this issue and whilst not a cessationist have gone from being a full-on, card-carrying charismatic to someone who believes most charismatic claims are 'over-egged' and don't stand up to a great deal of scrutiny.
They are products of wishful thinking and self-fulfilling prophecy that only hold currency among those who are committed to believing in their efficacy.
That applies to other things as well, of course.
But sure, we may end up going over old ground.
My aim in the OP wasn't to examine particular or individual charismatic claims but to explore how proponents of both charismatic and contemplative forms of spirituality might be heading in the same direction but from different angles.
Stories like @Hugal 's stop me from concluding once and for all that it's bollocks.
But I don't know, I can listen to Uncanny on Radio 4 and hear similarly striking stories, and yet accepting them at face value means I'd have to believe in aliens visiting earth, the spirits of the dead remaining earthbound and who knows what else.
Credulity in these sorts of things has never done me much good.
Would you wanr to see
If seeing meant that you would
Have to believe in things like heaven
And in Jesus and in saints and in all the prophets?
I know lots of people who have moved from one to the other. From what is being called contemplative to what is being called charismatic and the other way. As I said I find the distinction unhelpful. A choir led service that has complicated harmony, with lots of dynamics and complicated phrasing is as distracting as a a service with a band and a thumping preach. The choir progresses down the centre of the church and are dressed in unusual clothes. Some wearing medals. If that choir is accompanied by some classical instruments and not an organ then that is even bigger. You can’t criticise one type of service not in your tradition and accept one that has similar aspects to that which you are critiquing. I find traditional services dull. I do understand that people find both comfort and God in them.
All styles have a performance element. Be that a band, ritual movements or complex choir pieces. There is no real difference except on of preference.
With the greatest respect towards @Hugal I've heard more 'convincing' accounts than his and I mean no offence but I don't find his example very convincing at all.
For one thing, the only apparently Welsh word was 'cariad', which is a simple three-syllable word which it would be relatively easy to come up with in an improvised rhythmic utterance - which is what I largely take 'tongues' to be.
Most people can make a pretty good approximation of 'speaking in tongues' following a period of very basic instruction and actors can do it very easily.
Heck, my own 'tongues' can sound pretty convincing and people used to comment that it sounded like I was speaking an actual language.
That's as may be, but sounding like one and actually being one are two different things.
No, I don't write the whole thing off either, but part of me wonders why Hugal's pal didn't record his 'tongue' and take it to the linguistics department of his local university and ask them to analyse it. If they'd found some Welsh words other than 'cariad' then we'd be dealing with something substantial.
Allow me to proffer a possible explanation. The incident happened in South Wales by the sounds of it. Studies have shown that 'tongues-speakers' largely use the same speech patterns and shape similar sounds to those they use in normal speech. A native English speaker wouldn't use vowel sounds particular to Italian or Spanish for instance.
So it's hardly surprising that someone who engages in improvised an unintelligible speech is going to draw on speech patterns and variations on words and phrases from their own milieu.
Here's an example from what we might call a pre-tongues or proto-charismatic setting.
During the Welsh Revival of 1904-05, The Times reported that largely monoglot English speaking young people whose parents spoke Welsh would be heard using Welsh phrases in prayer during times of heightened religious emotion.
The newspaper concluded that residual Welsh forms and speech patterns had remained buried in their psyches from childhood and re-emerged under the influence of religious fervour.
I'd buy that. Heck, people noted after my wife's funeral how I delivered the eulogy in a stronger Welsh accent and idiom than I commonly use in everyday speech.
It was as if I were subconsciously reaching back into my geographical and cultural roots at a time of deep stress and emotion.
I don't have a problem with the idea that non-cognitive or unintelligible speech can convey emotion or 'meaning' - witness the keening or ululation practised in some cultures.
The issue I have is the attempt to make out that glossolalia is actually xenoglossy - the ability to speak unlearned languages supernaturally - or some form of unknown 'prayer language' or languages spoken by the angels which human beings can somehow tap into through the power of the Spirit.
The 'angelic' languages thing is based on poor exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12-13 and claims of xenoglossy have never been verified scientifically.
I'm nor saying this to show off, but I could make a pretty impressive and 'convincing' display of 'speaking in tongues' were I inclined to do so. If I did so publicly with some of you present you might go away thinking, 'I'd have dismissed it as all bollocks but what GG did then has made me think again, it looked and sounded convincing ...'
Yes, because I know the ropes. I've seen and heard it done. I didn't consciously 'practice' it as I might learn my lines for a role in a play. But over time and with repetition and 'use', I developed a rhythmic repertoire to which I added pauses, caesurae and variations in pace and tone that, on a good day, might convince someone I was speaking an actual language of some kind.
Linguists tell us that glossolalia differs from actual spoken languages in several important respects. There's no grammar or syntax for a start - pretty obviously as the apparent 'words' and sound patterns are unintelligible - but the underlying structure you'd expect from an actual language isn't there.
Sure, there are aspects they find hard to explain and I'd concede an element of mystery about it - other than when it's the 'angera-bangera-shondera-hondera' stuff - but to all intents and purposes it's pretty clear that we aren't dealing with actual languages whether known or unknown.
What we are dealing with, by and large, are unintelligible rhythmic utterances that occasionally show some parallels or echoes of what we might call 'normal' speech - hence 'cariad' in the instance Hugal cites.
I've heard native Welsh speakers use 'Iesu' when they speak in tongues, clearly an import from their mother-tongue. 'Iesu Crist.'
There's nothing particularly supernatural about that, they are simply reaching back subconsciously into their 'word-hoard'.
Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are consciously making it up or faking it.
What I am saying, from my own experience, that it is relatively easy to come up with something that sounds the part.
The Sunday before last, Pentecost, had the usual reading from Acts 2, and I was reminded of something I've thought for decades, which is that speaking in tongues has nothing to do with reciting gibberish and claiming it to be holy or angelic. Verse 5 says, "Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem." Presumably they all spoke different languages. The diaspora meant that the Aramaic of the Holy Land, or the Hebrew of Scripture, was foreign to many of them. The Septuagint was produced a couple of centuries before Christ in Alexandria, because the Jews there only spoke Greek.
Very 11, after a long list of languages and cultures listed says, " In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." So the miracle of tongues was the ability of the Apostles to speak to everyone in a way they could understand. The language bit may just be a metaphor for their ability to convey deep truths in a way each individual recipient needed and understood, or more literally, could mean that when they spoke, the listeners heard it in their own native tongues. But I find it impossible to read into it what charismatic groups call glossolalia.
My late father, who was a born again fundamentalist, who attended Baptist and Evangelical churches always regarded those displays as mentally unbalanced. I wouldn't go that far. I think many people in the Charismatic movements are fine Christian folk, but I don't get how their idea of speaking in tongues derives from the description in Acts 2.
The Sunday before last, Pentecost, had the usual reading from Acts 2, and I was reminded of something I've thought for decades, which is that speaking in tongues has nothing to do with reciting gibberish and claiming it to be holy or angelic. Verse 5 says, "Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem." Presumably they all spoke different languages. The diaspora meant that the Aramaic of the Holy Land, or the Hebrew of Scripture, was foreign to many of them. The Septuagint was produced a couple of centuries before Christ in Alexandria, because the Jews there only spoke Greek.
Very 11, after a long list of languages and cultures listed says, " In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." So the miracle of tongues was the ability of the Apostles to speak to everyone in a way they could understand. The language bit may just be a metaphor for their ability to convey deep truths in a way each individual recipient needed and understood, or more literally, could mean that when they spoke, the listeners heard it in their own native tongues. But I find it impossible to read into it what charismatic groups call glossolalia.
My late father, who was a born again fundamentalist, who attended Baptist and Evangelical churches always regarded those displays as mentally unbalanced. I wouldn't go that far. I think many people in the Charismatic movements are fine Christian folk, but I don't get how their idea of speaking in tongues derives from the description in Acts 2.
TBF - the Charismatics I knew did distinguish between the Acts 2 event and what they did, via something Paul said about "different kinds of tongues".
I know lots of people who have moved from one to the other. From what is being called contemplative to what is being called charismatic and the other way. As I said I find the distinction unhelpful. A choir led service that has complicated harmony, with lots of dynamics and complicated phrasing is as distracting as a a service with a band and a thumping preach. The choir progresses down the centre of the church and are dressed in unusual clothes. Some wearing medals. If that choir is accompanied by some classical instruments and not an organ then that is even bigger. You can’t criticise one type of service not in your tradition and accept one that has similar aspects to that which you are critiquing. I find traditional services dull. I do understand that people find both comfort and God in them.
All styles have a performance element. Be that a band, ritual movements or complex choir pieces. There is no real difference except on of preference.
I've been trying to steer the discussion away from issues of 'style' and preference. I'm not arguing here that a service with a robed procession is better or worse or duller or more comforting than the style you would prefer.
I'm not addressing worship styles particularly - and as @chrisstiles has reminded us several times now, our preferences are culturally conditioned. There's as much cultural baggage in the worship-band format as the robed procession you describe with people wearing meals and what-not. Both are culturally conditioned.
No, what I am driving at are issues of 'intentionality' and approach.
I'm suggesting that the charismatic dimension and more contemplative or meditative approaches can converge or overlap. I think you'd agree on that.
I'm not here to argue that the Prayer Book service in your Church in Wales parish is better or worse than one with a praise-band down the local gym.
I may very well prefer the former - with reservations about the medals - but that's not what I am here to argue.
I'm here to explore potential convergence in approach and intention between the charismatic and contemplative traditions.
Where does the common ground lie? Where do the differences lie?
I find contemporary praise-band services dull. I find nothing exciting or particularly uplifting about them whatsoever. But that's not the point.
I'm trying to get under the bonnet and go deeper than 'I like Matt Redman' or I like 'All People That On Earth Do Dwell'.
The Sunday before last, Pentecost, had the usual reading from Acts 2, and I was reminded of something I've thought for decades, which is that speaking in tongues has nothing to do with reciting gibberish and claiming it to be holy or angelic. Verse 5 says, "Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem." Presumably they all spoke different languages. The diaspora meant that the Aramaic of the Holy Land, or the Hebrew of Scripture, was foreign to many of them. The Septuagint was produced a couple of centuries before Christ in Alexandria, because the Jews there only spoke Greek.
Very 11, after a long list of languages and cultures listed says, " In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." So the miracle of tongues was the ability of the Apostles to speak to everyone in a way they could understand. The language bit may just be a metaphor for their ability to convey deep truths in a way each individual recipient needed and understood, or more literally, could mean that when they spoke, the listeners heard it in their own native tongues. But I find it impossible to read into it what charismatic groups call glossolalia.
My late father, who was a born again fundamentalist, who attended Baptist and Evangelical churches always regarded those displays as mentally unbalanced. I wouldn't go that far. I think many people in the Charismatic movements are fine Christian folk, but I don't get how their idea of speaking in tongues derives from the description in Acts 2.
To be fair, charismatics base their practice more on 1 Corinthians 12-14 rather than Acts 2, but yes, I don't see contemporary charismatic practice as relating to Acts 2 either.
The issue is how we interpret 1 Corinthians 12-14 and whether we regard it as a template for our worship today.
As an aside on the issue of 'dullness'. I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone to hear that I find 'dull' patches in each and every form of worship we can mention.
That's normal. That's human.
If I were to claim that my attention was fully engaged all the way from 'Blessed is the Kingdom ...' to the end of the post-communion prayers in the Orthodox Liturgy I'd be lying.
Even having to concentrate in the choir I find my mind wandering to what I'm going to eat for lunch or things I need to be doing.
I've found Quaker meetings pretty boring. Sitting quietly for an hour isn't necessarily the most exciting activity we can undertake.
But the Friends derive great benefit from it and I'm sure if I were a Quaker I would too.
Christian worship is not entertainment. Christian worship is not therapy.
That doesn't mean that it can't be entertaining or aesthetically stimulating at times, nor - and I love to use the opportunity to use words like this 😄 - that there isn't a kind of 'theandric thaumaturgy' in operation.
Heh heh heh ...
Thing is, we have to 'work' at these things. Worship-bands have to practice and work out their routines. Those who practice contemplative or meditative forms of prayer have to persist through times of dullness, dryness and anomie.
The issue isn't how dull or how exciting or entertaining it is but rhe intention and the object.
The language bit may just be a metaphor for their ability to convey deep truths in a way each individual recipient needed and understood, or more literally, could mean that when they spoke, the listeners heard it in their own native tongues.
So was it a "speaking" or a "hearing" miracle? I don't think that really matters.
I took the line in my Pentecost sermon that God spoke not in "formal" or "religious" language but in "heart" languages. I tied it into Bible translation: many people can understand or read languages such as English or Mandarin but these aren't their "own" languages.
A choir led service that has complicated harmony, with lots of dynamics and complicated phrasing is as distracting as a a service with a band and a thumping preach. The choir progresses down the centre of the church and are dressed in unusual clothes. Some wearing medals.
All styles have a performance element. Be that a band, ritual movements or complex choir pieces. There is no real difference except on of preference.
Yeah although I find in instructive that you have to compare a mostly - except on rare occasions - hypothetical situation to a weekly reality. Thing with the 'thumping preach' ? Very boring and fairly content free for the most part once you get over the techniques being used to rev you up. Surprisingly most church leaders aren't stand-up comedians.
I'm suggesting that the charismatic dimension and more contemplative or meditative approaches can converge or overlap. I think you'd agree on that.
I'm here to explore potential convergence in approach and intention between the charismatic and contemplative traditions.
Where does the common ground lie? Where do the differences lie?
Maybe a fruitful approach is to focus less on contemporary charismatic practice and more on the initial impulses of the Charismatic Renewal in the 60s/70s? In that sense perhaps paleo-orthodoxy is a form of Contemplative Renewal.
With both reacting to deficiencies in the mainstream church(es) and bringing in corrective influences (which are valuable in concert with everything else, but less so when focused on in an exclusionary way). And both mirroring contemporary shifts in thought (which again can be a mixed blessing; but is not necessarily entirely negative, as all truth is God's truth).
Yes, interesting and helpful observations as ever, @chrisstiles.
FWIW, and as an aside, I was struck by how much more actual theology there was in earlier editions of Renewal magazine than those my mum-in-law had delivered in the late '80s/early '90s.
She stopped subscribing to it during the Toronto thing, interestingly enough. Partly I suspect because my non-Christian father-in-law was put out by all that. He used to leaf tolerantly through the magazine without comment by and large. I'm pretty sure she stopped subscribing because she thought things had gone too far. But I digress ...
What I am trying (struggling?) to do - and I mean no disrespect to @Hugal here - is to focus the attention away from particular styles and modus operandi - whether processions with robes and choirs or soft-rock praise-bands - onto what we might call intention - as in the more RC sense of the word, if I can borrow their vocabulary for a moment.
Brother Laurence peeling potatoes for the glory of God, sort of thing.
Yes, he was doing it to feed the monastery but through serving his brother monks he was serving Christ.
At the risk of sound reductionist, I think some of the best or most laudable aspects of any Christian tradition can be found in the amount of effort and intentionality involved.
The early Dissenting groups within Protestantism went out on a limb for their beliefs. Sure, there was sometimes an eccentricity and wonkiness in that but many of the political and socio-cultural freedoms we enjoy today (and no, I'm not saying it's all perfect) wouldn't have come about without that.
They put effort into it.
Contemplative monks and nuns the same.
You don't become an 'effective' (for want of a better word) Benedictine monk without putting some effort into the daily offices or taking your turn weeding the vegetable patch.
Likewise, you don't become a skilled expository preacher in a Protestant mode without wrestling with the Greek or delving into the commentaries or working hard on the text.
All these things require both an active and a contemplative element.
@Hugal is clearly well versed in dance. He'll know far better than I do how much physical and mental co-ordination is involved, how much 'science' as well as practice, practice. practice.
You don't become a Nureyev by watching You Tube videos.
Anyhow - I think @chrisstiles is on the money and would agree with observations made by Dr Andrew Walker, Nigel Wright and Tom Smail back in the '90s that the more positive aspects to emerge from the initial charismatic renewal were:
- a genuine ecumenical impetus and desire to connect with fellow Christians in approaching the Divine - and also, I'd add, aiming to reach the world for Christ.
I do think the contemporary charismatic scene has largely lost its way but don't believe it is beyond recovery.
It is interesting that much of the apparent 'growth' (and I use the term guardedly because there is overall decline) is happening at both the more charismatic end of things and also at some sectors at the more liturgical and sacramental end.
That suggests to me at least that there is room and scope for some kind of convergence. Not in terms of the Orthodox introducing praise-bands and choruses nor in terms of evangelical charismatics adopting Byzantine chant ... but in terms of recognising a shared intentionality and desire to 'mean business.'
I say that to myself on a personal level too, of course. How intentional is my spiritual life and practice? Do I take opportunities to witness to Christ? Do I put effort into prayer, study and alms-giving? Do I love my neighbour as myself?
I'm reminded of Mother Maria of Paris who wrote that she wouldn't be asked how many prostrations she'd made and how many church services she'd attended when she came before the 'dread judgement seat of Christ' but whether she'd visited the sick, clothed the naked, fed the hungry ... and that's all I will be asked.'
What if one does these things through contemplative prayer? Or through a job which can only be tolerated with the aid of extensive contemplative prayer? My experience of trying to do those things directly is of rejection and alienation, for whatever reason. This is where I find many of the monastic traditions almost bullying in their prescriptions. The minimalism of centering prayer is very much more effective for me.
@ThunderBunk - sure, I can see that but if we were going to go down the 'spiritual director' / 'spiritual companion' route then a wise individual in such roles would 'prescribe' or recommend such elements within the 'canon' of contemplative practices that were most suited to the participants.
If that was the more 'minimal' practices associated with 'centring prayer' they'd run with that.
Upthread, @Jengie Jon incorrectly stated that 'minimalist' approaches such as the repetition of the word 'Jesus' were 'too radical' for the Orthodox. This is not the case.
The mileage will vary but my impression of practitioners of contemplative prayer in both Western and Eastern Christian traditions would avoid anything that appeared bullying or pressurising in any way.
There will be egregious examples of people who do apply these things in a heavy-handed way, of course.
If 'centring prayer' is your bag I don't see anyone trying to stop you practising that and pressurising you to adopt anything more 'maximalist'.
I was thinking mostly of that Benedictine insistence that the ethical is the only sphere of life of ultimate importance. Also the assumption that direct contact is the only valid form. I am sensitive to it because I've come across it before. It may be a symptom of our alienation from ourselves and each other, but I don't believe that engagement must be direct.
Commodification is a huge issue in all of this. If one is not hugely careful both contemplation and charismatic worship attempt to commidify God. I don't think there's any other mitigation other than awareness of the tendency.
With the greatest respect towards @Hugal I've heard more 'convincing' accounts than his and I mean no offence but I don't find his example very convincing at all.
For one thing, the only apparently Welsh word was 'cariad', which is a simple three-syllable word which it would be relatively easy to come up with in an improvised rhythmic utterance - which is what I largely take 'tongues' to be.
Most people can make a pretty good approximation of 'speaking in tongues' following a period of very basic instruction and actors can do it very easily.
Heck, my own 'tongues' can sound pretty convincing and people used to comment that it sounded like I was speaking an actual language.
That's as may be, but sounding like one and actually being one are two different things.
No, I don't write the whole thing off either, but part of me wonders why Hugal's pal didn't record his 'tongue' and take it to the linguistics department of his local university and ask them to analyse it. If they'd found some Welsh words other than 'cariad' then we'd be dealing with something substantial.
Allow me to proffer a possible explanation. The incident happened in South Wales by the sounds of it. Studies have shown that 'tongues-speakers' largely use the same speech patterns and shape similar sounds to those they use in normal speech. A native English speaker wouldn't use vowel sounds particular to Italian or Spanish for instance.
So it's hardly surprising that someone who engages in improvised an unintelligible speech is going to draw on speech patterns and variations on words and phrases from their own milieu.
Here's an example from what we might call a pre-tongues or proto-charismatic setting.
During the Welsh Revival of 1904-05, The Times reported that largely monoglot English speaking young people whose parents spoke Welsh would be heard using Welsh phrases in prayer during times of heightened religious emotion.
The newspaper concluded that residual Welsh forms and speech patterns had remained buried in their psyches from childhood and re-emerged under the influence of religious fervour.
I'd buy that. Heck, people noted after my wife's funeral how I delivered the eulogy in a stronger Welsh accent and idiom than I commonly use in everyday speech.
It was as if I were subconsciously reaching back into my geographical and cultural roots at a time of deep stress and emotion.
I don't have a problem with the idea that non-cognitive or unintelligible speech can convey emotion or 'meaning' - witness the keening or ululation practised in some cultures.
The issue I have is the attempt to make out that glossolalia is actually xenoglossy - the ability to speak unlearned languages supernaturally - or some form of unknown 'prayer language' or languages spoken by the angels which human beings can somehow tap into through the power of the Spirit.
The 'angelic' languages thing is based on poor exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12-13 and claims of xenoglossy have never been verified scientifically.
I'm nor saying this to show off, but I could make a pretty impressive and 'convincing' display of 'speaking in tongues' were I inclined to do so. If I did so publicly with some of you present you might go away thinking, 'I'd have dismissed it as all bollocks but what GG did then has made me think again, it looked and sounded convincing ...'
Yes, because I know the ropes. I've seen and heard it done. I didn't consciously 'practice' it as I might learn my lines for a role in a play. But over time and with repetition and 'use', I developed a rhythmic repertoire to which I added pauses, caesurae and variations in pace and tone that, on a good day, might convince someone I was speaking an actual language of some kind.
Linguists tell us that glossolalia differs from actual spoken languages in several important respects. There's no grammar or syntax for a start - pretty obviously as the apparent 'words' and sound patterns are unintelligible - but the underlying structure you'd expect from an actual language isn't there.
Sure, there are aspects they find hard to explain and I'd concede an element of mystery about it - other than when it's the 'angera-bangera-shondera-hondera' stuff - but to all intents and purposes it's pretty clear that we aren't dealing with actual languages whether known or unknown.
What we are dealing with, by and large, are unintelligible rhythmic utterances that occasionally show some parallels or echoes of what we might call 'normal' speech - hence 'cariad' in the instance Hugal cites.
I've heard native Welsh speakers use 'Iesu' when they speak in tongues, clearly an import from their mother-tongue. 'Iesu Crist.'
There's nothing particularly supernatural about that, they are simply reaching back subconsciously into their 'word-hoard'.
Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are consciously making it up or faking it.
What I am saying, from my own experience, that it is relatively easy to come up with something that sounds the part.
No the incident happens in Kensington Temple West London. The person did not know Welsh. I only mentioned in humour relating to the post before. I said I don’t want to get into this subject because it has been done to death here and I am surprised it is not a dead horse. By all means carry on the conversation but please excuse me if I don’t contribute. I am sticking to my guns on this one.
Fair enough, @Hugal you stick to your guns but don't be surprised when anyone suggests they may be firing blanks.
Why would the Holy Spirit insert one word in Welsh whilst leaving the rest of the apparent 'tongue' unintelligible? It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't sound at all scriptural to me.
So much for your claim that charismatics are good at exegesis ...
I really don't see what purpose it serves, but then I'd question apparent 'signs and wonders' claimed within my own Christian Tradition. Neither credulity nor cynicism are particular virtues though, of course.
But a 'La la la la, I'm not listening ....' or a 'Shondera-hondera angera-bangera Cariad, I'm not listening ...' doesn't strike me as the way to go.
But yes, I take your point about a humorous point relating to the previous one and I got that.
@Thunderbunk, yes, I can see that but surely the point of monastic traditions, be they Benedictine or whatever else, is that the 'full package' only applies to monastics?
I'm not sure anyone is seriously expecting non-monastics to go the whole hog, but I certainly take your point. The 'pressure' or 'bullying' thing isn't confined to any one tradition or flavour of course and there are examples across the spectrum.
And yes, the 'commodification' issue is a serious one too and like you I'm not sure what the answer to that is other than to be aware of it and try to avoid it ourselves so far as it is possible to do so.
I was struck by how much more actual theology there was in earlier editions of Renewal magazine than those my mum-in-law had delivered in the late '80s/early '90s.
In the mid-70s some of the theology was transferred to a sister magazine, "Theological Renewal" (at least I think that was its title). I don't think it lasted too long or outlasted the Fountain Trust. Perhaps the theology never returned?
I was struck by how much more actual theology there was in earlier editions of Renewal magazine than those my mum-in-law had delivered in the late '80s/early '90s.
In the mid-70s some of the theology was transferred to a sister magazine, "Theological Renewal" (at least I think that was its title). I don't think it lasted too long or outlasted the Fountain Trust. Perhaps the theology never returned?
I assume the energy behind it went elsewhere? Presumably the various constituents that used to be part of the Fountain Trust ended up in their own organisations, which then had to figure out the place of theology in their respective institutions. And reading on the topic the various organisations/proto-denominations never really worked on it until they had to figure out what they might want to teach new entrants to the ministry.
@Thunderbunk, yes, I can see that but surely the point of monastic traditions, be they Benedictine or whatever else, is that the 'full package' only applies to monastics?
I'm not sure anyone is seriously expecting non-monastics to go the whole hog, but I certainly take your point. The 'pressure' or 'bullying' thing isn't confined to any one tradition or flavour of course and there are examples across the spectrum.
Most of the monastic movements can - in their own way - be seen as earlier '---- Renewal' movements (fill in the blanks as appropriate), and recognising them as religious orders or religious congregations was the means of managing them within the RCC.
Whereas in the protestant world these things tend to spin off into denominations that continue to maintain that specific emphasis.
Indeed, hence the saying that the 'charismatic movement was a spirituality in search of a theology ...'
For my money, although he wasn't everyone's cup of tea, I think Tom Smail was the main theological 'big-hitter' from those early 'renewal days.
I had a lot of time too for Douglas McBain and Nigel Wright from the Baptist end of things.
Douglas McBain (who for a time was my London Area Baptist Superintendent) was of course involved in the very early days of the charismatic movement in Scotland, together with Tom Smail. He tells of one meeting where Tom - from a fairly liberal CofS background - declared his excitement with what was happening and said, "Well, we can forget all that theology then". "No", interjected a Pentecostal pastor, "We need your good theology!"
Nigel Wright is, of course, an excellent theologian, an admirer of Karl Barth.
Upthread, @Jengie Jon incorrectly stated that 'minimalist' approaches such as the repetition of the word 'Jesus' were 'too radical' for the Orthodox. This is not the case.
I am pretty sure I got that from reading Kallistos Ware, though I think I heard it repeated elsewhere. It may be dated but...
My RE teacher in my RC high school was a monk. But he dressed in normal clothes and lived a more open life than others. It was a little confusing at first. We got used to it.
Upthread, @Jengie Jon incorrectly stated that 'minimalist' approaches such as the repetition of the word 'Jesus' were 'too radical' for the Orthodox. This is not the case.
I am pretty sure I got that from reading Kallistos Ware, though I think I heard it repeated elsewhere. It may be dated but...
We don't have Pope's, so it's not as if the late - and I would say 'great' - Metropolitan Kallistos would be expected to have the last word on the matter. Besides, I've both read Orthodox commentators who've said what I've reported upthread and heard my own parish priest make the same point in a sermon.
I'm one of a handful of Orthodox contributors to these boards and I'm sure the others would correct me if I'm wrong.
My RE teacher in my RC high school was a monk. But he dressed in normal clothes and lived a more open life than others. It was a little confusing at first. We got used to it.
I get the impression this isn't as uncommon as we might imagine.
I even know an Orthodox monk who goes around in 'civvies' but that would certainly be frowned upon in most Orthodox circles.
FWIW, I'm very much in favour of monastic and neo-monastic orders and communities of whatever tradition and think it'd be great to have monastics out there teaching in schools or working in hospitals or in garages or on checkouts or ...
Sorry to double-post, but thinking about the theology and the exegesis side of things that @Hugal mentioned earlier ...
@Baptist Trainfan - yes, I've read an account by Tom Smail about the Pentecostal pastor's comments. The details differed slightly but the point was the same and is one well made.
I tend to think that the 'level' and quality of theology and exegesis - if we can put it that way - within charismatic circles very much depends on the 'origins' or 'heritage' of the group in question. So, for instance, it was generally of a high standard in New Frontiers. This was largely due to Terry Virgo's reformed evangelical background. Ok, I'm neither reformed nor Reformed these days but would generally say that these traditions 'do theology' well, even though it differs from my own Tradition in various important respects.
Equally, I'd say that it can be pretty good too in Anglican and Baptist charismatic circles, but that can't always be guaranteed.
That isn't to dismiss the old-time Pentecostals nor the 'independent' sector, as it were. An Orthodox friend told me he'd recently seen the website of an independent evangelical charismatic church which was making a big deal of controversies around the Council of Chalcedon and very much promoting a Big O Orthodox line ...
I know an Orthodox priest who is friendly with an AoG pastor and he tells me he's pleasantly surprised at how 'Orthodox' this guy is.
We can be far too patronising towards the traditional Pentecostal groups ...
We can find good, bad and indifferent theology anywhere and everywhere.
Comments
It's a pretty big assumption that they are, but we'll let that rest.
We can't 'prove' that they are and we can't 'prove' that they aren't.
Either way, they are a physical manifestation of religious 'enthusiasm' and fervour - which doesn't necessarily mean loud and lairy, of course.
I'm suggesting that contemplative prayer has a similar aim - to engage with the divine - albeit from a different direction and via different 'means.'
Anyhow, I'm not at all bothered as to whether the Christian churches should 'remain in the 19th century' or try to be 21st century. I want them all to be 10th century ...
No, seriously, I do agree with @Hugal that contemporary worship music is almost a genre in itself, but any style of music used in worship is going to have links to the wider music scene in whatever society it emerges within. So, for instance, nobody knows what melodies were used in Russian Orthodox chant until the 19th century because nobody bothered to write them down. It seems that whatever they were they were related to prevalent folk styles.
But that's all by the by ...
No, this is basically an argument that symbolism doesn't matter because you always get used to it. You'll see what's in front of you, everyone would notice if the band was to the side, churches keep constructing their buildings this way, and if one of the musicians did something unusual everyone would notice it.
Ultimately the medium is the message, or at least part of it, which is exactly why @Baptist Trainfan's friend thought it mattered.
What @KarlLB said, it's generally sub-Coldplay AOR, sometimes with a bit of folk, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that in itself, but it comes freighted with a certain amount of cultural meaning. Which again brings me back to the earlier remark about much of your description was heavily culturally coded.
You seen to have also missed out on the fairly short-lived Orthodox charismatic movement, which seems to have been confined to the USA, with its leader, Father Eusebius Stephanou, being "sat upon" by the Greek hierarchy.
It was written down, but the notation was less precise than more modern notations. Transmission was still, in part, by aural tradition. Transcriptions into staff notation date from the 17th Century, possibly earlier, in manuscript, with printed texts from early 18th Century onwards (a major anthology was prinited in Lvov in 1709). I do not know enough about folk music of that period to comment on any links between church chant and folk music.
On the brief flirtation some Orthodox had with the charismatic movement, I don't know the details but I am aware that there was some. I've loaned my late mother-in-law's old Renewal magazines from the mid-60s through to the '70s to someone down south. I must go and get them back. My mother-in-law was an 'early adopter' of the charismatic scene in the CofE through the ministry of the late Fr Michael Harper.
She was appalled when he became Orthodox ...
I remember reading an account in one issue of a charismatic gathering at Guildford Cathedral. I think it was the Pentecostal stalwart, Billy Richards, who walked out when he noticed an Orthodox priest a few pews in front.
I vaguely heard of some charismatic 'outbreaks' in Orthodox parishes in Greece that were quickly stamped on by the Church authorities.
I'd have deplored that at one stage. Now I'm inclined to think they had some sense ...
Not that I'd be in favour of heavy-handed tactics.
Anyhow, as @chrisstiles reminds us in the tangent on musical styles, these things are far more culturally-conditioned that we might think. None of it happens in a vacuum.
There were overlaps/parallels between 1960s counter-culture and The Jesus Movement, for instance and between socio-economic and cultural changes in 1980s Britain and the rise of the 'house-church movement.'
None of that takes God out of the equation but it is to acknowledge that there's more to these things than a few jolly songs and the exercise of apparent 'spiritual gifts'.
I think there is increasing convergence though, and that accounts for the current interest in Mindfulness in @Hugal's circles.
It's not unusual to find charismatics exploring more 'contemplative' techniques these days, 'centring prayer', the 'Jesus Prayer', prayer-ropes etc.
That's been happening for some time and the trend continues.
In many ways I think today's more 'charismatic-lite' expressions are heading in a more 'quietist' and quite 'Quakerly' direction - just as the second and third generations of the Religious Society of Friends did back in the day.
I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent, but at the more 'reflective' and more middle-class end of the charismatic spectrum that's where things are heading.
Already the charismatic dimension in many churches has become a mild tinge and one of the reasons I suspect Hugal introduced a tangent about musical styles is because the charismatic thing has become more an issue of mood or style than of actual 'phenomena' as it were.
Although these still occur of course, but they aren't as centre-stage as they once were.
That's probably a healthy thing.
Incidentally, the late, great Professor Hollenweger, the first major historian and authority on Pentecostalism, once said that if you took away the music there wouldn't be a great deal left.
Harsh?
But I suspect the same is true with the contemporary charismatic scene. It's become all about tone and mood. It needs some grit to give it some ballast.
I imagine Hugal's contemporaries are looking to Mindfulness techniques - appropriately or otherwise - to find some much needed ballast to stop the thing floating away or getting stuck in the shallows.
I think they'd be better looking to Holy Tradition 😉. Or at least some of the older and broader small t traditions in general.
But I would say that...
This is what I was alluding to with my 'base line' comment above. Not that the base line for accepting such things had been lowered but that once you no longer had a culture that emphasized and prioritized the production of 'signs', the actual observed number of them decayed to the base-line (which was fairly low, miracles by their nature being relatively rare for the most part).
Insofar as this involves looking at things like contemplative prayer and Lectio Divina it *is* looking at the Holy/Sacred Tradition, given the dates on the books that are in vogue it seems to be a backwash from the traditional/paleo-orthodox movement in the 00s.
I became aware of the 'traditional/paleo-orthodox movement' as you put it in the late '90s/early 2000s and was quite excited by it all as an antidote to the 'revivalism' that - to my mind - had peaked and imploded following the so-called 'Toronto Blessing' of '94/95.
Finding people - online and in real life - who were concerned about 'Cappadocian Christology' and so on was balm to a weary soul.
I often wondered what had 'happened' to it. Some of the 'alt-worship' types seemed to be heading in that kind of direction, as did some of the 'emergents'.
But I dunno, from where I was standing it all seemed to fizzle out - but then in 2007 we moved out of a large city to a smaller town and so probably weren't aware of things that were fizzing around in more metropolitan areas.
I think some of this stuff has simply become part of the landscape. So charismatics such as those @Hugal knows, will appropriate Mindfulness as some kind of approximation of what we might call more fully-orbed 'contemplative' Christian practice.
It also illustrates your point about how socio-cultural factors play into all these things.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that charismatics shouldn't look into things like Mindfulness, nor am I saying that Hugal is 'wrong' for it not floating his boat. The Mindfulness thing ain't going to suit everyone any more than a drumkit at the front of a church is going to be everyone's cup of tea.
Incidentally, a very eirenic Orthodox priest I know was nevertheless horrified to see that a notable and well-known Anglican evangelical church in the city where he lives had placed the drum kit in pride of place masking the altar.
I don't think one has to be a hyper-sacramentalist or Big O Orthodox to see the problem with that.
If a non-denominational or less 'sacramental' church did that, I'd have less of an issue - but that's another topic I think.
At any rate, I suspect that in 20 or 30 years time most charismatic churches will have morphed into something a lot lighter, more contemplative and more liberal and eclectic.
Who knows? They may by then regard drum kits as old-fashioned as pipe-organs.
I think the reality was that it was hard to do well, and hard to reproduce without a well structured ecclesiology which included some form of generalised education/catechism to perform a load bearing function of counteracting the pull towards the megachurch form (which is really what's going on with 'charismatic worship' at this point). It probably didn't help that a number of the thinkers behind it grew old and died without a second generation replacing them.
Yeah, I think a small part of it became part of the landscape, and things like mindfulness had the advantage that they were similar to existing charismatic practice and thus easy to slot in as an optional extra - stylistically they were a good fit.
A friend was once praying over my wife in tongues and kept repeating cariad (beloved) The person did not speak Welsh and did not know the word at all.
Maybe Welsh is the language of heaven.
On the Welsh thing, and I do talk tidy and do speak 'Wenglish' rather than Welsh ... only half way there, see? ...
I heard of some English visitors attending a chapel in West Wales one Sunday. The congregation were bilingual and extemporary prayers were offered in both English and Welsh. After the first Welsh prayer one of the visitors 'interpreted' what they'd taken to be a 'tongue'.
Needless to say the 'interpretation' bore no relation to what the prayer had been in Welsh.
I'm not sure he believes that now or believed it for very long at the time. When I asked him what he was supposed to have said he quipped ... gallows-humour alert ...
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Mea culpa, Hosts. You may want to hide that in one of those box things.
And I'm not suggesting that all Afrikaans speakers were racist Apartheid supporters.
@Hugal, seriously, if the tongues speaker were using the Welsh word 'cariad' then was the rest of their discourse in Welsh? Does your wife know sufficient Welsh to be able to understand the rest of what they were saying?
And to whom are 'tongues-speakers' speaking when they 'pray over' someone in tongues? To God? To the person they are praying for?
I've heard plenty of claims like this but have yet to hear one that bore much scrutiny.
(ETA to hide text, North East Quine, Purgatory host)
It's only 'fruitless' if we have an entrenched position on the issue.
I can see how the repetition of 'cariad' might be comforting and encouraging but your story begs a few questions. I'm not doubting it's sincerity.
Why would there be a single intelligible word among a verbal stream that otherwise sounds as if it were unintelligible?
What did the rest mean? Why wasn't it interpreted?
Was the speaker addressing God or your wife?
Other than presumably providing some kind of comfort to your wife due to the use of the word 'cariad', what purpose did it serve?
Perhaps it reassured her of God's love, but then we've got that in the scriptures.
I don't know why tongues are any more out of bounds as a topic as any other claim, such as the Real Presence in the Eucharist or Apostolic Succession or divine healing or any other spiritual practice.
I think there is a kind of entrenched pattern to the discussion though; on the one side the argument is that this like any other miracle will be rare, and on the other it goes from being a human language to some kind of angelic language (with an occasional detour down 'groaning').
Ok, I've shifted ground myself on this issue and whilst not a cessationist have gone from being a full-on, card-carrying charismatic to someone who believes most charismatic claims are 'over-egged' and don't stand up to a great deal of scrutiny.
They are products of wishful thinking and self-fulfilling prophecy that only hold currency among those who are committed to believing in their efficacy.
That applies to other things as well, of course.
But sure, we may end up going over old ground.
My aim in the OP wasn't to examine particular or individual charismatic claims but to explore how proponents of both charismatic and contemplative forms of spirituality might be heading in the same direction but from different angles.
But I don't know, I can listen to Uncanny on Radio 4 and hear similarly striking stories, and yet accepting them at face value means I'd have to believe in aliens visiting earth, the spirits of the dead remaining earthbound and who knows what else.
Credulity in these sorts of things has never done me much good.
Would you wanr to see
If seeing meant that you would
Have to believe in things like heaven
And in Jesus and in saints and in all the prophets?
All styles have a performance element. Be that a band, ritual movements or complex choir pieces. There is no real difference except on of preference.
For one thing, the only apparently Welsh word was 'cariad', which is a simple three-syllable word which it would be relatively easy to come up with in an improvised rhythmic utterance - which is what I largely take 'tongues' to be.
Most people can make a pretty good approximation of 'speaking in tongues' following a period of very basic instruction and actors can do it very easily.
Heck, my own 'tongues' can sound pretty convincing and people used to comment that it sounded like I was speaking an actual language.
That's as may be, but sounding like one and actually being one are two different things.
No, I don't write the whole thing off either, but part of me wonders why Hugal's pal didn't record his 'tongue' and take it to the linguistics department of his local university and ask them to analyse it. If they'd found some Welsh words other than 'cariad' then we'd be dealing with something substantial.
Allow me to proffer a possible explanation. The incident happened in South Wales by the sounds of it. Studies have shown that 'tongues-speakers' largely use the same speech patterns and shape similar sounds to those they use in normal speech. A native English speaker wouldn't use vowel sounds particular to Italian or Spanish for instance.
So it's hardly surprising that someone who engages in improvised an unintelligible speech is going to draw on speech patterns and variations on words and phrases from their own milieu.
Here's an example from what we might call a pre-tongues or proto-charismatic setting.
During the Welsh Revival of 1904-05, The Times reported that largely monoglot English speaking young people whose parents spoke Welsh would be heard using Welsh phrases in prayer during times of heightened religious emotion.
The newspaper concluded that residual Welsh forms and speech patterns had remained buried in their psyches from childhood and re-emerged under the influence of religious fervour.
I'd buy that. Heck, people noted after my wife's funeral how I delivered the eulogy in a stronger Welsh accent and idiom than I commonly use in everyday speech.
It was as if I were subconsciously reaching back into my geographical and cultural roots at a time of deep stress and emotion.
I don't have a problem with the idea that non-cognitive or unintelligible speech can convey emotion or 'meaning' - witness the keening or ululation practised in some cultures.
The issue I have is the attempt to make out that glossolalia is actually xenoglossy - the ability to speak unlearned languages supernaturally - or some form of unknown 'prayer language' or languages spoken by the angels which human beings can somehow tap into through the power of the Spirit.
The 'angelic' languages thing is based on poor exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12-13 and claims of xenoglossy have never been verified scientifically.
I'm nor saying this to show off, but I could make a pretty impressive and 'convincing' display of 'speaking in tongues' were I inclined to do so. If I did so publicly with some of you present you might go away thinking, 'I'd have dismissed it as all bollocks but what GG did then has made me think again, it looked and sounded convincing ...'
Yes, because I know the ropes. I've seen and heard it done. I didn't consciously 'practice' it as I might learn my lines for a role in a play. But over time and with repetition and 'use', I developed a rhythmic repertoire to which I added pauses, caesurae and variations in pace and tone that, on a good day, might convince someone I was speaking an actual language of some kind.
Linguists tell us that glossolalia differs from actual spoken languages in several important respects. There's no grammar or syntax for a start - pretty obviously as the apparent 'words' and sound patterns are unintelligible - but the underlying structure you'd expect from an actual language isn't there.
Sure, there are aspects they find hard to explain and I'd concede an element of mystery about it - other than when it's the 'angera-bangera-shondera-hondera' stuff - but to all intents and purposes it's pretty clear that we aren't dealing with actual languages whether known or unknown.
What we are dealing with, by and large, are unintelligible rhythmic utterances that occasionally show some parallels or echoes of what we might call 'normal' speech - hence 'cariad' in the instance Hugal cites.
I've heard native Welsh speakers use 'Iesu' when they speak in tongues, clearly an import from their mother-tongue. 'Iesu Crist.'
There's nothing particularly supernatural about that, they are simply reaching back subconsciously into their 'word-hoard'.
Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are consciously making it up or faking it.
What I am saying, from my own experience, that it is relatively easy to come up with something that sounds the part.
Very 11, after a long list of languages and cultures listed says, " In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." So the miracle of tongues was the ability of the Apostles to speak to everyone in a way they could understand. The language bit may just be a metaphor for their ability to convey deep truths in a way each individual recipient needed and understood, or more literally, could mean that when they spoke, the listeners heard it in their own native tongues. But I find it impossible to read into it what charismatic groups call glossolalia.
My late father, who was a born again fundamentalist, who attended Baptist and Evangelical churches always regarded those displays as mentally unbalanced. I wouldn't go that far. I think many people in the Charismatic movements are fine Christian folk, but I don't get how their idea of speaking in tongues derives from the description in Acts 2.
TBF - the Charismatics I knew did distinguish between the Acts 2 event and what they did, via something Paul said about "different kinds of tongues".
I've been trying to steer the discussion away from issues of 'style' and preference. I'm not arguing here that a service with a robed procession is better or worse or duller or more comforting than the style you would prefer.
I'm not addressing worship styles particularly - and as @chrisstiles has reminded us several times now, our preferences are culturally conditioned. There's as much cultural baggage in the worship-band format as the robed procession you describe with people wearing meals and what-not. Both are culturally conditioned.
No, what I am driving at are issues of 'intentionality' and approach.
I'm suggesting that the charismatic dimension and more contemplative or meditative approaches can converge or overlap. I think you'd agree on that.
I'm not here to argue that the Prayer Book service in your Church in Wales parish is better or worse than one with a praise-band down the local gym.
I may very well prefer the former - with reservations about the medals - but that's not what I am here to argue.
I'm here to explore potential convergence in approach and intention between the charismatic and contemplative traditions.
Where does the common ground lie? Where do the differences lie?
I find contemporary praise-band services dull. I find nothing exciting or particularly uplifting about them whatsoever. But that's not the point.
I'm trying to get under the bonnet and go deeper than 'I like Matt Redman' or I like 'All People That On Earth Do Dwell'.
To be fair, charismatics base their practice more on 1 Corinthians 12-14 rather than Acts 2, but yes, I don't see contemporary charismatic practice as relating to Acts 2 either.
The issue is how we interpret 1 Corinthians 12-14 and whether we regard it as a template for our worship today.
That's normal. That's human.
If I were to claim that my attention was fully engaged all the way from 'Blessed is the Kingdom ...' to the end of the post-communion prayers in the Orthodox Liturgy I'd be lying.
Even having to concentrate in the choir I find my mind wandering to what I'm going to eat for lunch or things I need to be doing.
I've found Quaker meetings pretty boring. Sitting quietly for an hour isn't necessarily the most exciting activity we can undertake.
But the Friends derive great benefit from it and I'm sure if I were a Quaker I would too.
Christian worship is not entertainment. Christian worship is not therapy.
That doesn't mean that it can't be entertaining or aesthetically stimulating at times, nor - and I love to use the opportunity to use words like this 😄 - that there isn't a kind of 'theandric thaumaturgy' in operation.
Heh heh heh ...
Thing is, we have to 'work' at these things. Worship-bands have to practice and work out their routines. Those who practice contemplative or meditative forms of prayer have to persist through times of dullness, dryness and anomie.
The issue isn't how dull or how exciting or entertaining it is but rhe intention and the object.
I took the line in my Pentecost sermon that God spoke not in "formal" or "religious" language but in "heart" languages. I tied it into Bible translation: many people can understand or read languages such as English or Mandarin but these aren't their "own" languages.
Yeah although I find in instructive that you have to compare a mostly - except on rare occasions - hypothetical situation to a weekly reality. Thing with the 'thumping preach' ? Very boring and fairly content free for the most part once you get over the techniques being used to rev you up. Surprisingly most church leaders aren't stand-up comedians.
Maybe a fruitful approach is to focus less on contemporary charismatic practice and more on the initial impulses of the Charismatic Renewal in the 60s/70s? In that sense perhaps paleo-orthodoxy is a form of Contemplative Renewal.
With both reacting to deficiencies in the mainstream church(es) and bringing in corrective influences (which are valuable in concert with everything else, but less so when focused on in an exclusionary way). And both mirroring contemporary shifts in thought (which again can be a mixed blessing; but is not necessarily entirely negative, as all truth is God's truth).
FWIW, and as an aside, I was struck by how much more actual theology there was in earlier editions of Renewal magazine than those my mum-in-law had delivered in the late '80s/early '90s.
She stopped subscribing to it during the Toronto thing, interestingly enough. Partly I suspect because my non-Christian father-in-law was put out by all that. He used to leaf tolerantly through the magazine without comment by and large. I'm pretty sure she stopped subscribing because she thought things had gone too far. But I digress ...
What I am trying (struggling?) to do - and I mean no disrespect to @Hugal here - is to focus the attention away from particular styles and modus operandi - whether processions with robes and choirs or soft-rock praise-bands - onto what we might call intention - as in the more RC sense of the word, if I can borrow their vocabulary for a moment.
Brother Laurence peeling potatoes for the glory of God, sort of thing.
Yes, he was doing it to feed the monastery but through serving his brother monks he was serving Christ.
At the risk of sound reductionist, I think some of the best or most laudable aspects of any Christian tradition can be found in the amount of effort and intentionality involved.
The early Dissenting groups within Protestantism went out on a limb for their beliefs. Sure, there was sometimes an eccentricity and wonkiness in that but many of the political and socio-cultural freedoms we enjoy today (and no, I'm not saying it's all perfect) wouldn't have come about without that.
They put effort into it.
Contemplative monks and nuns the same.
You don't become an 'effective' (for want of a better word) Benedictine monk without putting some effort into the daily offices or taking your turn weeding the vegetable patch.
Likewise, you don't become a skilled expository preacher in a Protestant mode without wrestling with the Greek or delving into the commentaries or working hard on the text.
All these things require both an active and a contemplative element.
@Hugal is clearly well versed in dance. He'll know far better than I do how much physical and mental co-ordination is involved, how much 'science' as well as practice, practice. practice.
You don't become a Nureyev by watching You Tube videos.
Anyhow - I think @chrisstiles is on the money and would agree with observations made by Dr Andrew Walker, Nigel Wright and Tom Smail back in the '90s that the more positive aspects to emerge from the initial charismatic renewal were:
- a genuine ecumenical impetus and desire to connect with fellow Christians in approaching the Divine - and also, I'd add, aiming to reach the world for Christ.
I do think the contemporary charismatic scene has largely lost its way but don't believe it is beyond recovery.
It is interesting that much of the apparent 'growth' (and I use the term guardedly because there is overall decline) is happening at both the more charismatic end of things and also at some sectors at the more liturgical and sacramental end.
That suggests to me at least that there is room and scope for some kind of convergence. Not in terms of the Orthodox introducing praise-bands and choruses nor in terms of evangelical charismatics adopting Byzantine chant ... but in terms of recognising a shared intentionality and desire to 'mean business.'
I say that to myself on a personal level too, of course. How intentional is my spiritual life and practice? Do I take opportunities to witness to Christ? Do I put effort into prayer, study and alms-giving? Do I love my neighbour as myself?
I'm reminded of Mother Maria of Paris who wrote that she wouldn't be asked how many prostrations she'd made and how many church services she'd attended when she came before the 'dread judgement seat of Christ' but whether she'd visited the sick, clothed the naked, fed the hungry ... and that's all I will be asked.'
I omitted the 'mutation' found in Welsh.
@ThunderBunk - sure, I can see that but if we were going to go down the 'spiritual director' / 'spiritual companion' route then a wise individual in such roles would 'prescribe' or recommend such elements within the 'canon' of contemplative practices that were most suited to the participants.
If that was the more 'minimal' practices associated with 'centring prayer' they'd run with that.
Upthread, @Jengie Jon incorrectly stated that 'minimalist' approaches such as the repetition of the word 'Jesus' were 'too radical' for the Orthodox. This is not the case.
The mileage will vary but my impression of practitioners of contemplative prayer in both Western and Eastern Christian traditions would avoid anything that appeared bullying or pressurising in any way.
There will be egregious examples of people who do apply these things in a heavy-handed way, of course.
If 'centring prayer' is your bag I don't see anyone trying to stop you practising that and pressurising you to adopt anything more 'maximalist'.
Commodification is a huge issue in all of this. If one is not hugely careful both contemplation and charismatic worship attempt to commidify God. I don't think there's any other mitigation other than awareness of the tendency.
No the incident happens in Kensington Temple West London. The person did not know Welsh. I only mentioned in humour relating to the post before. I said I don’t want to get into this subject because it has been done to death here and I am surprised it is not a dead horse. By all means carry on the conversation but please excuse me if I don’t contribute. I am sticking to my guns on this one.
Why would the Holy Spirit insert one word in Welsh whilst leaving the rest of the apparent 'tongue' unintelligible? It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't sound at all scriptural to me.
So much for your claim that charismatics are good at exegesis ...
I really don't see what purpose it serves, but then I'd question apparent 'signs and wonders' claimed within my own Christian Tradition. Neither credulity nor cynicism are particular virtues though, of course.
But a 'La la la la, I'm not listening ....' or a 'Shondera-hondera angera-bangera Cariad, I'm not listening ...' doesn't strike me as the way to go.
But yes, I take your point about a humorous point relating to the previous one and I got that.
@Thunderbunk, yes, I can see that but surely the point of monastic traditions, be they Benedictine or whatever else, is that the 'full package' only applies to monastics?
I'm not sure anyone is seriously expecting non-monastics to go the whole hog, but I certainly take your point. The 'pressure' or 'bullying' thing isn't confined to any one tradition or flavour of course and there are examples across the spectrum.
And yes, the 'commodification' issue is a serious one too and like you I'm not sure what the answer to that is other than to be aware of it and try to avoid it ourselves so far as it is possible to do so.
For my money, although he wasn't everyone's cup of tea, I think Tom Smail was the main theological 'big-hitter' from those early 'renewal days.
I had a lot of time too for Douglas McBain and Nigel Wright from the Baptist end of things.
I assume the energy behind it went elsewhere? Presumably the various constituents that used to be part of the Fountain Trust ended up in their own organisations, which then had to figure out the place of theology in their respective institutions. And reading on the topic the various organisations/proto-denominations never really worked on it until they had to figure out what they might want to teach new entrants to the ministry.
Most of the monastic movements can - in their own way - be seen as earlier '---- Renewal' movements (fill in the blanks as appropriate), and recognising them as religious orders or religious congregations was the means of managing them within the RCC.
Whereas in the protestant world these things tend to spin off into denominations that continue to maintain that specific emphasis.
Douglas McBain (who for a time was my London Area Baptist Superintendent) was of course involved in the very early days of the charismatic movement in Scotland, together with Tom Smail. He tells of one meeting where Tom - from a fairly liberal CofS background - declared his excitement with what was happening and said, "Well, we can forget all that theology then". "No", interjected a Pentecostal pastor, "We need your good theology!"
Nigel Wright is, of course, an excellent theologian, an admirer of Karl Barth.
I am pretty sure I got that from reading Kallistos Ware, though I think I heard it repeated elsewhere. It may be dated but...
We don't have Pope's, so it's not as if the late - and I would say 'great' - Metropolitan Kallistos would be expected to have the last word on the matter. Besides, I've both read Orthodox commentators who've said what I've reported upthread and heard my own parish priest make the same point in a sermon.
I'm one of a handful of Orthodox contributors to these boards and I'm sure the others would correct me if I'm wrong.
But I'm pretty sure I'm not. You are. 😉
I get the impression this isn't as uncommon as we might imagine.
I even know an Orthodox monk who goes around in 'civvies' but that would certainly be frowned upon in most Orthodox circles.
FWIW, I'm very much in favour of monastic and neo-monastic orders and communities of whatever tradition and think it'd be great to have monastics out there teaching in schools or working in hospitals or in garages or on checkouts or ...
I am not arguing, just pointing out why I believed that.
@Baptist Trainfan - yes, I've read an account by Tom Smail about the Pentecostal pastor's comments. The details differed slightly but the point was the same and is one well made.
I tend to think that the 'level' and quality of theology and exegesis - if we can put it that way - within charismatic circles very much depends on the 'origins' or 'heritage' of the group in question. So, for instance, it was generally of a high standard in New Frontiers. This was largely due to Terry Virgo's reformed evangelical background. Ok, I'm neither reformed nor Reformed these days but would generally say that these traditions 'do theology' well, even though it differs from my own Tradition in various important respects.
Equally, I'd say that it can be pretty good too in Anglican and Baptist charismatic circles, but that can't always be guaranteed.
That isn't to dismiss the old-time Pentecostals nor the 'independent' sector, as it were. An Orthodox friend told me he'd recently seen the website of an independent evangelical charismatic church which was making a big deal of controversies around the Council of Chalcedon and very much promoting a Big O Orthodox line ...
I know an Orthodox priest who is friendly with an AoG pastor and he tells me he's pleasantly surprised at how 'Orthodox' this guy is.
We can be far too patronising towards the traditional Pentecostal groups ...
We can find good, bad and indifferent theology anywhere and everywhere.
Sure, and I was teasing you. I take your point and accept it.
Pax vobiscum dear sister in Christ!