As many of you know, I’ve been spending a lot of my recent months with believers from many different churches who are significantly more “Charismatic” than those I grew up around. I strongly believe God brought me into this company to stretch my understanding and experience of his character in news ways that would take me into greater intimacy with Him. But now, having observed a fairly wide spectrum of those in the movement, I’ve come to experience both what I would consider to be the strengths and dangers of this form of Christian expression. This may be the first post in a multi-part series.
I want to start out discussing a practice common in the Charismatic Movement often referred to as “Name It and Claim It”, the extreme of which can be witnessed in things like the Word of Faith movement. It generally involves a believer naming some kind of promise of God for their life, proclaiming that it is accessible in its fullness to them in the present moment, and then deciding to live as if this promise is already true rather than something that has to be waited upon.
There have been a billion-and-one Masters’ theses on the different sides to this practice, and I’m not here to try and re-invent that wheel having done way less research. I just want to tell you my personal experiences and interactions with those who have been around this kind of thing.
Strengths of Name-it-and-Claim-It: Something I’ve really admired about the Charismatics I’ve met is their ability to recognize God’s desire for their quality of life, and then “pray heaven down” in asking for it to come to fulfillment. It takes a whole lot of faith to pray for big things that seem really far off in the moment, and that’s the kind of faith I want to have. I want the kind of faith that Abraham had as an old man who was promised innumerable offspring. I want to be the guy who believes similar impossible-seeming promises from God.
And God makes lots of pretty big promises for his people in Scripture (Luke 10:19, John 14:12-14, John 16:23-24, Philippians 1:6, Romans 8:29, 1 John 5:4, 1 John 5:14-15). I love that my Charismatic friends aren’t afraid of these verses, and they declare them as God’s truth and believe that it can be fulfilled in their lives. There isn’t that automatic “well that was then” write-off mentality (of the more extraordinary passages of Scripture) that I often fallen into as a result of my lack of faith.
I also love their deep conviction that God can still work miracles, and that if we just have a childlike faith, we can see them in our life, and expect God to show up in really big ways to demonstrate his love and greatness. I believe God still works miracles and still speaks directly to His Church. I have a really hard time agreeing with the interpretation of the biblical references given in defense of the stronger cessationist views on prophecy, healing, and miracles; especially when I have personally been greatly encouraged in the faith as a result of prophetic words spoken over me, and have close and trusted friends who have personally witnessed miraculous physical healing.
I also love that a name-and-claim practice places greater emphasis on what God wants to give us, rather than what is wrong with us in the moment. Not only does this shift my gaze from myself to God, but this tendency also lends itself to practices of accountability and reproof that, rather than disheartening the believer by beating to death everything that is wrong and sinful in their life and demanding behavioral change, instead asserts their true identity in Christ and calls forth the believer to live fully within that identity by putting on the new self in exchange for the old (Colossians 3:1-14, Galatians 5:16-26). I’ve personally found the process of growing in discipline this way far more encouraging and effective than other methods I’ve experienced in other Evangelical circles (I think I’ll write a separate post about this later).
Dangers of Name-It-And-Claim-It: What gets me really uncomfortable among Charismatics is when someone depends on a feeling or untested prophetic word to determine what God’s will is for a particular situation. In an extreme (and blatantly unbiblical) example, someone might prophesy over you, “God is calling you into full-time ministry” because they sense that’s what God is telling them. I’ve heard of words like this one or something like “God is calling _____ to take over as senior pastor by the end of the year” being given and counted as authoritative without being tested. Quite the spiritual cover-up for blatant manipulation tactics.
However, in a much milder case, I’ve seen people declare, “God wants to heal you of your headache right now, let’s claim that in Jesus’ name!” While I really love the Charismatic practice of naming and claiming things that are obviously God’s will for you as proclaimed in His Word (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, and many more), I wince every time something is claimed in the name of Jesus when I can clearly see why it might not be God’s will to provide it in the moment.
I’ve specifically heard the following line of reasoning from some Charismatic friends of mine:
1) Since there is no sickness or poverty in heaven, and
2) God’s will is for the Kingdom of Heaven to invade earth (as evidenced in Jesus’s prayer for “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”), then
3) It is not God’s will for sickness or poverty to befall the believer on earth, thus
4) Healing and blessing is always God’s will.
I think that’s a logical, but incomplete line of reasoning. What I mean is that, if the Kingdom were only about healing and blessing, I think it could be true.
But the problem is this: in heaven, not only will I have no sickness or poverty, but I will be in perfectly intimate relationship with God and other people. And I can certainly conceive of (and have, to be best of my understanding, personally experienced) situations in which financial blessing or physical healing come in conflict with greater intimacy with God (*cough* Matthew 19:21-24 and 2 Corinthians 2:7-10 *cough*) or the people around me.
In this conflict scenario, if God wants to bring His Kingdom to earth, He has to decide whether he wants to bring the “Healing and Prosperity” Kingdom or the “Intimacy with Jesus” Kingdom reality into my life. I find it pretty absurd to think He’s going to go with the “Healing and Prosperity” Kingdom each time. In fact, I have a pretty hard time thinking he’d ever choose it. The Bible says He wants to give me good gifts (Matthew 7:11 and Luke 11:13), and I think He loves me way too much to ever give me physical healing or finances at the expense of His Presence, which is greater by far.
Notice that in the Scripture references above, Luke’s gospel replaces the words “good gifts” that appear in Matthew’s Gospel with “Holy Spirit”. Hmmm…I wonder what the best gift might be…and I also wonder who it might be that gives the best gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7-11)…Hmmm…
It seems silly to me that God would ever will someone health and wealth at the expense of the much greater gift of His Spirit. But I can certainly see why He would grant physical healing to me when it fosters more relational intimacy and godliness in my life (which I’m much more comfortable saying is always his will, based on how I read the Bible).
But theological scenarios aside, I think the real danger comes in when someone doesn’t receive healing after it’s been “named-and-claimed”, especially when that someone (because of their theology) is forced to question why God’s obvious will hasn’t transpired. I’ve heard of some pretty horrendous abuses, like young saints being told they just don’t have enough faith yet to make the miracle happen. Not only does this create spiritual hierarchy, but it actually turns the extravagant freedom of our foundational belief in salvation-by-grace-and-not-works into a system where faith itself is something we have to work to achieve (beyond our own capability) in order for God to simply act in love on our behalf.
I think this subtly paints a very cruel picture of a God who only acts on behalf of the spiritual elite and prophetic all-stars who have enough faith to make the miracles happen, while the “spiritual nobodies” are left without God’s presence, favor, and love. Doesn’t exactly sound to me like the same God who chose fisherman and ate with prostitutes.
Like I said, I think this is just Part I. I’d also like to thank Pastor Nar (a personal mentor and someone with tremendous perspective and significant experience in the Charismatic and non-Charismatic movements), Graham Cooke (a Charismatic preacher who does a great job of teaching things like prophetic responsibility), and Jonathan Gulley (the only guy on earth who quotes Bill Johnson and Bill Hybels with equal frequency) for helping me carefully consider certain Charismatic tendencies in light of Scripture. More to come on this stuff.
Related posts:
Hey Mike,
interesting blog post. I’m glad to see that you are considering the charismatic movement with an open mind and are able to see both the strengths and weaknesses (as there surely are both, no church/move of God/denomination is perfect). I’ve had quite a bit of experience with the “charismatic movement”. I don’t like to call it that because there are a lot of connotations that go along with that name, like you have to speak in tongues to be saved (which I’ve only run into once or twice), but I don’t really know what else to label it. Just so you know where exactly I’m coming from, I’ve read most of Bill Johnson books and am considering to going Bethel’s ministry school post graduation from UofM. I look up (to varying degrees) to people like David Crowder, Benn Dunn, Kris Vallotton, Jeff Jansen, Heidi Baker, Jason Westerfield, and Rick Joyner. They would all easily fall into the category of “charismatic” (in that they emphesis gifts of the spirit, etc), but their teachings and ministries and emphasis vary greatly.
Just a few thoughts from my own experience. First is that I don’t see a distinction between things like healing or prophecy and intimacy with Jesus. Your post seemed to imply that intimacy with Jesus via the Holy Spirit and “health and wealth” (though I agree the wealth part can get a bit sketchy). The only problem I’d note in this is that things like healing and prophecy are gifts of the Holy Spirit, by products of that intimacy. The Holy Spirit can work in many ways, and I don’t want to box him in, but I’ve seen the Holy Spirit work amazing wonders, with my own eyes, things like healings and words of knowledge, that have lead to greater intimacy with Jesus. Does it happen every time? No, but neither does the bridge diagram. I feel like the danger in things like healing or prophecy is that they are harder to control (as evidenced by 1 Cor 12-14). But as Jesus himself loves to point out, to whom much is given, much is expected. Jesus expects us to live up to a standard, just because some have fallen short of that standard within the realm of gifts of the spirit doesn’t mean the rest aren’t called to pursue that standard. It’d be akin to preachers saying that they aren’t preach any more because people have used preaching to bring condemnation on whole groups of people (you’ve seen the diag in the fall).
To whom much is given, much is expected. I’d argue (and you’d probably agree) that gifts of the spirit are rather volatile and a great responsibility. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use them, but only that much is expected of us. If there is one thing I’ve learned through my contact with people like Bill Johnson, it is that intimacy with Jesus is always the most important thing. It is why in the middle of Paul discorse on the spiritual gifts, he takes a break to speak about love (1 Cor 13 is probably the most quoted scripture for weddings, the epitome of human intimacy), essentially saying that spiritual gifts are nothing without love (ie, intimacy). The most important point in this is that after making his point that love is most important, he doesn’t bar the Corintheians from using spiritual gifts, but expressly promotes it (in the context of intimacy). He picks up in chapter 14 with this: “1 Pursue love (agape, the ultimate intimacy), and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” I would argue that you can’t separate love and spiritual gifts, like prophecy. We as humans can do humanly things, like feed the hungry and bandage the broken, but when we partner with God and his love through prophecy and healing, etc, our actions have the spirit, the very breath of God on them. not to say that simple acts of “non-supernaturally powerful” (if that’s even possible) love aren’t good or great or God’s will, but Paul does say to earnestly desire to prophesy.
We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because the baby pooped. I totally agree that we need to proceed with caution, always with a heart of intimacy toward Jesus, but proceed we must.
Joel/Peter say: “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below”
In the context of God pouring out his spirit (the gift of the holy spirit) is when prophecy, visions, dreams, signs in heaven and earth all take place. If true intimacy comes through communion with the spirit of God, then I would argue that sure things come as part of the relationship. What we need is people who understand this and are able to walk in true intimacy with Jesus and the Father, only then will the abuses within “charismatic movement” cease. Until then, we should chalk it up to a growing and (hopefully) maturing people who still do make mistakes.
I hope that this didn’t come across as corrective or condemning toward you or your views, as I hate it when people do that to me and my views. I find that arguing and debating and defending my views to be a huge waste of time, so hopefully this doesn’t seem like that. I truly appreciate your heart and desire for intimacy with Jesus. I simply wanted to share how I view the same situation you find yourself in.
Much love,
Steve
if God wants to bring His Kingdom to earth, He has to decide whether he wants to bring the “Healing and Prosperity” Kingdom or the “Intimacy with Jesus” Kingdom reality into my life.
I find everything wrong with this statement. They bring healing a prosperity because they love the person and want them to experience an intimacy with Christ. They are not bringing that “kingdom” just for the sake of bringing the kingdom, like a spiritual law or something. They truly want to LOVE those people and they truly want to praise God and marvel at how good they are. So if they choose to sing tongues of praise to God or silent words spoken during worship, they are still trying to experience God’s love.
I think why people are so closed off to this is because its not NORMAL. Its not what people are accustomed to or what people find as easy. I’m surely not saying that everyone has to be healing someone and that we need to be living in a way that is charismatic, but knowing that God is a supernatural God, and he wants to experience you in the supernatural should drive us to seek him in the same way. Jesus GAVE us the Holy Spirit, who would help us see Him when He had to go away. It’s time we start listening and experiencing the Holy Spirit. Again, charismatic doesn’t mean radical. But it does mean spiritual.
Steve, I think it’s interesting that you’ve met people who associate the term “Charismatic” with the notion that one must need to speak tongues in order to be saved when the entire reason the word exists in the first place was because there were some individuals who believed strongly in the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit in their first-century form who DID NOT believe that very thing (at least in the same way as Pentecostals do).
Also, I agree that if you listen to people like Bill Johnson or Heidi Baker for any amount of time, you’ll end up with the understanding that these people just want to be great lovers of God and people, and that their beliefs in the manifestation of the Spirit in the “Charismatic gifts” are not at the core of their theology, but simply complement the greatest evidence of the Holy Spirit in the believer, which is that person’s lifestyle of love.
Joey, this seems to be what you were also trying to emphasize in your comment. And I similarly have a big problem with the quote you put in your comment, particularly because it’s taken out of context from the post. I was only making that claim in the situation where God performing a healing miracle might cause me to reduce him to some kind of genie who serves me or does neat tricks. I don’t think this is always the case. I absolutely agree that God works miracles in people’s lives to demonstrate his immensely great love for them, and I myself have received some great miracles in this way.
But I can’t deny that I also have a great capacity to distort his character as the result of his working of miracles, and in many instances, I think God does me a huge favor in not giving me more of them, because I have such a propensity to turn God into someone who exists to make me comfortable. It was only this particular situation (where I would succumb to this weakness) where I was saying that God has to make this particular choice between miracle and intimacy.
I recently came across your weblog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will maintain visiting this weblog very often.
thank god for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The charismatic movement has been one of the movements that breed duplicity in the body of Christ and divided the body of Jesus Christ the Church with their man made doctrines,revelations and prophecies and invalid tongues.there are elected people in the charismatic movement and its only sound doctrine that can rescue the elect that has been deceived.My urge to the churches is to defend the infallible and integrity of the word of God.the influx of wrong doctrines should be checked