Rejection of the Charasmatics and Biblical Literalism

Here is the back history. Which I suppose is a question stemming from my "strange" hybrid position of both being a Christian and fervently rejecting, and activly attacking, Creationism and Biblical Literalism.I responded: : where I identified my transformation from a Biblical Literalist to what I am today through my experiences in a charasmatic church, in particular the Pentecostals. I do think it IS possible to abandon the Charasmatics without abandoning literalism. There are plenty of reasons including many Charasmatic movements that are fraudlent, abusive, exclusionary, etc. I just happened to examine both by involvement with the Charasmatics and Biblical Literalism at the same time. This is where the interesting statment by Faith was given. It is a valid criticism for which I had to take a moment to examine. Did I just throw the baby out with the bathwater? After reflecting for a moment I don't believe that the path I took was invalid and I responded as such. The bolded part of the quote being what I feel is the fodder for a good debate on this issue. I believe what I said there, that it is reasonable to notice that the church and the dogma are wrong at the same time. Faith abandoned the church, but kept some of the dogma. This is also valid as the Charasmatics do not have sole ownership of Biblical Literalism. My belief though is that the more you move away from a literalist interpretation that drives some of these wacko churches, the less "literal" you actually are. In fact, the moment you introduce rationalization in order to eliminate one of the many Biblical contradictions, you have abandoned TRUE literalism.So, did I throw the baby out with the bathwater when I ditched both the Charasmatics and literalism?Comparative Religions or Faith and Belief I feel would be appropriate places for this. I let the mod who looks at this decide which is more appropriate.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Of course I believe that someone can experience the presence of God. I can only attribute what I experienced to God. I rejected the rationalization that I was having an emotional reaction to my surroundings or my thoughts becuase in particular they were not very inspiring at the time.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I know many of the experiences described to me were not real because of the circumstances surrounding them. Fake crying, fake speaking in tongues. The Bible specifically says that speaking in tongues was not meant to be unintelligible babbling but rather a speech that produced a meaning that could be understood by thouse of multiple nationalities.I am not saying that all the experiences I saw were fake. I know some very pious Pentecostals who REALLY DID cry and shake. When THEY got up from the alter they had snot all over their face, the eyes were red, and their were all sweaty. Whether or not it was God is not up to me to determine. I can only speak for my own experiences and to those that have enough external evidence to be skeptical of their validity.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

First off, just to clear up. When I made references to "the church" I wasn't trying to mean any church, just my church. Sorry. It is a bit of left over baggage from calling it "The Church" for so many years. It derives directly from the dogma of the church. Unless you can help me find it, there is nothing in Acts or after that specifies that the Holy Spirit will not continue to deliver gifts the same as it did at Pentecost. Paul even enumerates tongues as a gift of the Holy Spirit although Corinthians 12 does stand in stark contrast to the REQUIREMENT of tongues preached by most charasmatics.Besides that, it all started with a number of minor things that I discovered about the Bible that casts doubt over divine protection of accuracy which is something that most literalists espouse.The one that stands out in my mind as something that caused my the most shock during my research was the additions put into John 8.Page not found | Bible.org I discovered this and immediatly had Revelations 22:18 ringing in my ears.Slowly but surely I started reading the Bible with new eyes. Eyes that I felt were no longer clouded by a preacher standing over me, gripping my head and commanding the Holy Spirit to enter my lost soul. I was able to read the Bible for myself and I also started to question it more although I DID question it a lot during study when I was still in the church.Genesis 1 and 2 are undeniabley different and contradictory creation stories. The same is true for the flood account. It was also shocking to me to learn that it was the mainstream academic conclusion that these books were NOT in fact written by Moses. There is very little disagreement that 4 different individuals influenced the creation of those books.No ONLY did this go against what I had learned from the Charasmatics but the rest of my family who attended much more liberal churches.In the end, literalism also died by the hands of those working to convince me that, for example, there is no contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2. You actually have to apply a lot of subjective interpretation to get those books to jive with eachother and furthermore with reality. At that point you have abandoned literalism anyway. REALLY what you are trying to preserve at that point is Biblical "Correctness" and such a thing is entirely subjective not to mention defeating the purpose of a claimed God protected work.I can't deny that the EvC controversy did not also play a part. I had taken geology in college and enjoyed it quite a bit. A Christian friend of mine bought for me "Young Earth" and "The Answers Book" trying to convince me of a young earth and no evolution. I was shocked when I read them with the total falsehoods and innaccuracies contained within. What I new about even elementary geology was enough to pointout the outright distortions contained within. Once I learned more about evolution I was also able to identify the numerous innaccurate claims about that as well.While none of that really is direct "evidence" per say against literalism, it does speak to the whole concept of Biblical Correctness rather than Biblical Literalism and the drastic measures being taken by some Christians to maintain that. Lying does not even seem to be a barrier to some in this campaign.I came to the conclusion that a belief in the "correctness" of Genesis was not necessary for my salvation and I feel that such a belief has been validated. I also don't believe that such a belief is a hinderance to salvation.In conclusion, and more on topic, I feel that my journey to this place in my spiritual life is deeply rooted in the dogma of literalism espoused by in my case, charismatics. I am sure there are other denominations of Christianity that also espouse literalism and I feel it is equally valid to reject them along with their dogma for similar reasons.To be fair, I can see how you can reject the charasmatics without rejecting literalism if that is your choice. The falsehoods, the pressure, the financial abuse, the politics are all good enough reasons to say goodbye. In my case though, I questioned not only the external negativites of the church but also the doctrine that drove it.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

You can't really say for sure schraf. It is a personal thing. Some people might call the experiences that are legitimatly emotional or physical some kind of pathology. Given the circumstances, I happen to think it was God. I also have my opinion as to what was fake and what was not that I outlined to randman above.I feel, pretty strongly too, that there are a lot of people claiming Godly infilling and acting out the physical "proofs". There are many pressures to do this. You are not a "real" Christian until God proves that he has saved you by infilling you with the Holy Ghost. A "real" Christian is afforded certain political and social rights. For example, in that environment, a girl would never marry an 'unsaved' man, someone who had not yet spoken in tongues.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

It is subjective randman. I am not trying to pass judgement on those people.It SEEMED to me that they were obviously faking it. There was also the constant and intense pressure to "open up" so that God could deliver his gift as if it was YOU that was preventing it from happening.It also wasn't just one time or one thing. It was something that was based on years of experience living in that world. To me, I KNOW that a lot, if not most, was fake. That is my person judgement of the situation and no more.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Even though there may be no "right" interpretation there is such a thing as a wrong one. In the case of speaking in tongues, the claim is that God will make you speak in tonges just like they did at Pentecost.The BIG distinction there is that at Pentecost the speech was intelligible.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Some of it IS the Bible too.From acts: Tongues is always described as being miraculously intelligible to anyone who hears it. The babbling done by most Charasmatics is completely unintelligible.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Sure randman. I am happy that you had that experience. I am also in no position to judge that experience as real or not. Only you are.As I also mentioned before. I DID see some things that I was convinced was not fake. I don't think I EVER heard anyone actually speak in tongues though because I never understood any of it.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Where specifically does it say in the Bible that tongues is anything but intelligible speech?The WHOLE POINT about tongues is that it was a miracle because everybody could understand. Without that, why would it impress anyone per your statment? If a guy was standing on a wall babbling nonsensically, I would think he is crazy not that he was delivering a sign or "praying with the spirit".

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yes but that still means that it should be intelligible to some people, those ones who were of the right mind. Can you dig up a book/chapter/verse?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Is that ROT13 or something?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)