Why was it so hard for me to give up the charismatic movement for so many years despite having mostly left it behind? I just couldn't convince myself that it was totally false. It took the Strange Fire Conference to finally shake me loose from it, and it was through the simple obvious observation that what they call the "gifts of the Spirt" have nothing in common with those gifts as described in the Bible. The "tongues" are not Biblical tongues, the "prophecies" are not Biblical prophecy, and so on. I'm not sure why that observation wouldn't disengage anyone from the movement as it did me, but I think I understand its pull in any case.
That is, I had "supernatural" experiences almost from the time I started thinking about religion. At first they were pretty clearly demonic, some rather frightening. After I was a Christian I had some that seemed to come from God, though there is no way to be absolutely sure.. If you've never had such experiences your biblical frame of reference will be more intellectual, Experience is of course generally untrustworthy anyway, but if you don't have a clear way of determining the source of such experiences you remain in fear of discounting something that really did come from God and being guilty of the "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit."
The problem is of course that the devil can also give supernatural experiences, and he can do a good job of counterfeiting experiences in such a way as to make them seem to be from God. But if we don't have the ability to determine the source of our experiences, and we fear getting it wrong we will be loathe to bring them into question. That way we can remain in a sort of limbo about them and never be able to decide one way or the other.
In my case the recognition that the Charismatic Movement has the "gifts of the Spirit" all wrong did disengage me from that movement, but I still remember many personal experiences of my own that I have no way of judging. At least they no longer keep me tied to that false theology, and that is a huge relief. It is now possible to see how most of it is false. Even then it is possible to cling to it for those other experiences that don't seem false or you don't know for sure where they came from. You may not call them "the gifts of the Spirit" but they still made a deep impression on you at the time as a communication from God Himself.
Having now rejected the Charismatic Movement I still have memories of such experiences, and the best I can do with them is avoid letting them determine anything to do with my theology, allow that they may have been from God and yet He wants His Word to be the standard, not any such experiences. As long as they don't contradict the Word I have no reason to reject them as false but I also know I'm not to let them determine anything I believe.
that's the best I can do with it. I don't know for sure if I'm right about why some doctrinally sound Reformed teachers can't bring themselves to denounce the Charismatic Movement but this is my guess. They've had such experiences and they don't know what to do with them and since the Charismatic Movement is the only branch of Christianity that affirms such experiences at all they can't bring themselves to reject it completely. I still think the Strange Fire Conference should be enough to convince anyone that the movement itself is invalid even if we don't know how to judge a particular experience.
It's possible I've written blog posts on this subject before but I don't remember. Probably did a better job of it too. Oh well.
Later (June 13): I found one of my posts on that subject which is pretty comprehensive: "Getting Free of the Deceptions of Charismatica."
https://watchpraystand.blogspot.com/2013/11/getting-free-of-deceptions-of.html
Seeking God again
7 years ago
