My Reformed Charismatic Journey Part 4

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The time has come for my final post in my “reformed charismatic” story series, which covers the six years since leaving university (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I know that I have said little about the “reformed” part of my theology – this is mainly because I have grown up believing in the doctrines of grace and have never found Arminian arguments persuasive. I have debated on the subject at various times, but it has usually served to further confirm me in my Calvinist interpretation of Scripture.

Rediscovering Word and Spirit

After leaving university, I got a job as a computer programmer back in Dunstable, where I had grown up. I got married and we bought a house in Luton, and returned to the church I had grown up attending. It was a time of transition for the church. Dr Jebb anounced his intention to retire from the pastorate, which he did after a year. The following year or so was spent searching for a new pastor, and eventually Mark Lawrence, from another FIEC church was appointed. His arrival brought many changes and some much needed fresh impetus to some structures that had stagnated during the “interregnum period”. But it was clear that the ghost of charismatic past had been decisively exorcised.

Shortly after moving to the area, my wife had begun the process of attempting to join the church, which involved working through various courses (West Street had the longest and most thorough new members course I have ever come accross). Unfortunately, she questioned some of the teaching (about head covering and spiritual gifts) which resulted in something of an impasse. So we were in the awkward position of myself being heavily involved in the church, leading a youth group, playing in the worship group and even teaching part time in the Christian school, while my wife was initially not even allowed to join me at housegroup because she had not yet come into membership. Without a pastor, no one knew exactly what should be done about her and being cast in the role of “problem person” made her wonder whether she really did want to join after all.

My interest in reading theology was growing, and it helped that I worked right next to an excellent Christian bookshop. It was there that I bought my first commentary – The Message of Matthew by Michael Green with the intention of reading it alongside the Robert Murray M’Cheyne reading plan that I do most years. Six years on I have bought about 100 more commentaries of which I have read about half. My desire to recieve some theological training at the church was not to be realised though, as Dr Jebb’s retirement meant the closure of the “Ministry Training Institute” – a Bible college he ran. Nevertheless in my lunch hours I would listen to the taped lectures from previous years.

It was during these 3 years in Luton that I felt that I would really like to go on a Bible week again, like the ones I had attended as a child. I assumed that nothing comparable existed. I was particularly skeptical about the Stoneleigh Bible week, but after listening their 1998 live worship CD, Beautiful Saviour, I figured that they must be doing something right for such Christ exalting songs to be coming from their movement. So in 1999 I went with a small group from our church. I warned my wife that though the worship might be good, we should beware of false teaching. Over the course of the week, all of my prejudice was blown away. After hearing Dave Holden, Terry Virgo, John Hosier, Greg Haslam, and Simon Pettit, I no longer believed that it was impossible to be a charismatic and retain an evangelical loyalty to the Bible.

We had to evacuate our tents due to flooding, but nothing could dampen our spirits that year. Our visit led to something of a renewal in the youth work (late teens and early twenties) I was leading at the church, and it was one of the most exciting and rewarding periods of my life to see God at work in their lives in a significant way. At the same time, a number of my close friends were experiencing similar renewal and giving themselves to the Word and prayer. Out of this flowed “Full Faith”, our own slightly tongue in cheek ‘church’ where we could preach sermons we had composed to one another.

The New Frontiers Years

We returned each year to Stoneleigh, and the final Bible week in 2001 coincided with a period of seeking God about where our future should be. The theme of the whole week was “Let’s Go”, and there was much encouragement to be willing to move on to new places to serve God. Later that year I found a job in Southampton and we moved house. We had both lived there before, but we were in a different part of the city now and so had an opportunity to try out some churches.

KCC, a New Frontiers church in Hedge End was first on our list to try, and ended up being the only one we tried. I was particularly impressed with the “Word Plus” course they ran in the evenings (although the name of the course amused me since I had recently heard some sermons warning against the ‘Gospel Plus’ heretics in Colosse who were considered to have great similarities with the charismatics). We found it to be a warm and welcoming church, and it very much feels like home for us now. Ironically, at this stage of my “reformed charismatic” journey I find myself in a church where not all on the eldership are Calvinists. But I have not heard “beligerent Arminianism” (to quote the classic introduction to Christian Hymns) being preached, so I will for now put up with those who “think otherwise”, trusting God to “make it clear to them” (Phil 3:5)!

Could Jesus get married and have children?

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Two people have independently asked me whether it would have been possible for Jesus to have married and had children. (The idea behind the question being that there might be a theological reason why this should be unthinkable). This is the sort of question I don’t tend to bother answering, as hypothetical questions often cannot be answered with any degree of certainty, and the answer is in many ways quite irrelevant. But since I was asked, I provide a few thoughts here.

He Didn’t

The most important answer to this question is to say “he didn’t”. Thanks to books such as “The Da Vinci Code”, the idea that Jesus could have secretly got married and had children has far more credibility than it deserves (which is precisely none). As Craig Blomberg says in his review of the book “there is not a shred of historical evidence that Jesus ever married Mary Magdalene (or anyone else) or ever fathered children.”

Personal Reasons

There were, of course, some very obvious reasons why Jesus would not want to marry and have children. He believed he was sent by God on a mission to die. Caring for a wife and children in the way that God intended a good husband to do would not be merely inconvenient, but impossible. Also, he required that people loved him more than their own families (Matt 10:37). This would hardly be an easy thing for his own wife to put up with!

There is no reason however to suspect that Jesus was in any way anti-marriage. The marriage service famously takes Jesus’ miracle in John 2 as an endorsement of marriage, but even without this episode we have evidence that he believed it was good. His thoughts on divorce showed how seriously he took it, and he appealed to creation as its basis (Matt 19:4-5). He was fine with Peter being married, and happy to visit and even heal his in-laws (Mark 1:30,31).

What God Has Joined Together

So what are the potential theological problems that Jesus getting married might cause? The first is that we don’t know what it would mean for the incarnate Son of God to “become one flesh” (Mark 10:8) with a finite fallen human being. The problem is not with the Jesus “becoming flesh”. He had already done that (John 1:14). In fact John argues forcefully against those who found this idea unpalletable in his epistles (1 John 4:2, 2 John 1:7).

Neither is the problem that that the sex inherrent in “becoming one” is sinful. Though the Christian church may have been influenced by those who taught that the body was sinful and the spirit pure, this type of idea has no basis in Scripture. Sex was created by God, and is a good thing in the context of marriage. And the idea that Jesus should have close physical contact with sinful humans is also not a problem – he was a baby in Mary’s womb and nursed at her breasts. He touched the lepers and the children, he let a woman wash his feet with her hair and John lay his head on his chest. There was nothing distant about the way he interacted with humanity.

So it boils down to what exactly is meant by the husband and wife being “no longer two, but one”. This is more than just the oneness of a physical relationship – it is a joining by God, and somewhat mysterious. It is therefore not easy to say whether Jesus could theoretically have been joined to someone in this way. It is however, quite helpful that he was not, as Paul contrasts in 1 Cor 6:16-17 the ‘oneness’ that comes from having sex, and the oneness we have with Jesus. It would be awkward to say the least to have a wife that was “one with him” in one sense, and others who were “one with him” in another.

Grandson of God?

The second difficult issue is – what about the children? Would they be in some sense “divine”? Would they be born with “original sin?”. We might say that children born of sinners are sinners, just as people who touched an unclean man became unclean themselves. But Jesus had a power that transcended those normal rules. He touched the lepers and they became clean, rather than polluting him. And what would be the spiritual status of someone who was the son of the son of God? How would they then relate to both Jesus and God the Father as father? Answering these questions requires a good deal of unsubstatiated guesswork and I’m not even prepared to try.

Conclusion

So I’m pretty much back where I started. The important point is – it didn’t happen, and it’s probably a good thing. This means that all human beings must relate to Jesus in exactly the same way – as their Saviour and Lord. Salvation means for each one of us to become “one with him” and to be adopted into his family, relating to his Father as our own also, and to love him more than anything else.

The Hermeneutics Police

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Hermeneutics is the art of determining what the “meaning of a text” is for us. Often people with an understanding of hermeneutics are on the lookout for misuse of Scripture. I call these people the “hermeneutics police”. For an example, see this article (which I enjoyed). Now on the whole, these guys do the church a great service by exposing some real exegetical criminals. But just occasionally, I wonder whether they get a little bit carried away and only allow us to take one “main point” away from a text.

The Meaning of a Text

Quite often the hermenuitics police point out an illegal use of a text: “That’s not the point, the original author did not mean to say that.” But how do you know what you can or can’t use a text for? Didn’t some of the biblical authors themselves use texts in inconventional ways? I think there are a number of levels of teaching that can be drawn out from a passage, which I will enumerate below. I will use the story of the Saducees asking Jesus a question about the resurrection in Mark 12:18-27 as my example text.

The Main Point

Well this comes as one example in a series of questions posed to Jesus that were designed to either trap him or test him. In each case he demonstrates his wisdom and authority and puts his questioners on the back foot with his superior handling of Scripture. I would say therefore that Mark’s main point in this passage is to show us (by means of an illustration) Jesus’ wisdom and authority. But we should note that even though this is the “point” of the passage, it is never stated explicitly.

The Direct Teaching

The passage does actually directly teach us some stuff (i.e. spelled out unambiguously for us). For example we are told about the Saducees’ beliefs (v18). We also are taught that Jesus believed in the resurrection of the dead (v25). Taking it for granted that Mark is viewing Jesus’ teaching with approval, we could also say that this passage directly teaches the resurrection of the dead. It also directly teaches that there will not be marriage when we are in the resurrected state. Notice that these direct teachings are not the same as what we picked out as the “main point” above.

Inferred teaching

There are also some inferred points that we can pick up on. For example, if we were doing a study on angels, this passage might suggest that they do not have gender. It might infer something about an “intermediate state” after death – Jesus considered the Patriarchs to be living. These types of observation will make their way into systematic theology books, but we are now some way off what is the “main point” of the passage.

Illustrated principles

Then there are some principles that are illustrated by the passage. We might observe how Jesus deals with a hostile question – he answers using Scripture. We might suggest that this is a good model for resolving theological debates. We might also observe that though the Saducees did in fact know the Scriptures, they didn’t really “know” them, and nor did they know the power of God. This could be seen as an example of how it is possible to have a lot of theological and biblical knowlege but still be in the dark. Again these are not the “main point”, but would hardly be disputed as “valid points”, even though we acknowlege that the author’s intention is not explicitly to teach us these things.

Vaguely related stuff

There are of course all kinds of other directions we could go in. We could talk about polygamy – it was clearly unthinkable to the Saducees that a woman might have seven husbands in heaven. You could equally discuss the ethics of “Levirite marriage” and whether it should apply to Christians today. You could even take the phrase “You are badly mistaken” and aim it at whatever group of people you felt were misinterpreting Scripture.

Conclusion

So if you were to preach on Mark 12:18-27, which of the above could legitimately come out? If the “main point” is missing, I would say something is wrong. There needs to be a sense of context. I would not have a problem either with people making points from what I have called “direct teaching” and “inferred teaching” so long as they were not misrepresented as being the main point. But what about “illustrated principles”? Must their use be banned? I don’t think so. Again as long as we are clear that they are not the “main point” of the passage, and we show how what we draw out harmonises with other Scriptures, then these things can be very profitable to discuss.

So I’ll agree with the “hermeneutics police” on most occasions – preachers often take a passage and make it prove some very “vaguely related stuff”. But please don’t insist that we can never consider some of the “illustrated principles” and ponder how we might apply them to our own situation. My own hermeneutic position is that God actually does intend to speak to us in this way through Scripture. As long as it is not uncontrolled, then finding practical points for our own application is a legitimate use of Scripture.

My Reformed Charismatic Journey Part 3

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OK, here is part 3 of my ongoing story of how I came to describe myself as a “reformed charismatic” (read part 1 and part 2 first). If you are interested in hearing my normal ‘testimony’, then Tim Challies has pretty much covered what I would need to say in his excellent post here.

Diversity at University

In 1994, I went to study a four year masters degree in electronic engineering at Southampton University. I quickly got involved in the Christian Union there, which I thoroughly enjoyed and kept me extremely busy particularly leading various hall groups and cell groups, leading worship and doing the PA. It was also a good learning experience as I came into contact with other Christians from church groups I didn’t even know existed. Despite our wide variety of backgrounds, there was a real sense of love and unity amongst the 300 or so members, and it seems a shame that once everyone leaves university they head back into their separate denominations and rarely do anything together again. It is not as hard to worship and witness together as we sometimes think.

Going to university in a place I had never been to before also gave me a chance to search for a church. I tried some of the charismatic churches first, but it was the height of the “Toronto Blessing” and many of them had put preaching on hold. I wanted to hear some good expository preaching, and also wanted a church that wasn’t making a big deal of whether you were ‘for’ or ‘against’ the ‘TB’. Portswood church, an evangelical (noncharismatic) church fitted the bill perfectly, thanks to the pastor John Symons, a man I have the utmost respect for, and whose warmth and wisdom were a real blessing to me throughout my time there.

Two notable things happened while I was at university, that would result in changes to my theological outlook; both were unplanned. The first happened when one day, feeling bored with my electromagnetism studies, I ventured into the theology section of the university library. There I picked up Calvin’s “institutes” and Hippolytus’ “The refutation of all heresies” (the sheer audacity of the title attracted me). I was already an occasional reader of devotional books (I liked biographies) and loved listening to my large collection of sermon tapes, but had never delved into anything like these books before. They encouraged me to start thinking more deeply about what I believed and why.

The second thing was I met Steph, who is now my wife. Steph was from a Pentecostal church in Bromley, and the Christian friends who had witnessed to her and discipled her could only be described as “nuts for Jesus”. For them, a Saturday wasn’t for shopping and watching TV – the morning would be spent praying and the afternoon evangelising strangers in the high street. It took some getting used to, but I learned to appreciate their zeal for God. It struck me as odd that the two groups of people I knew most bold in evangelism were those hyper-charismatics from Bromley and the anti-charismatics fron UBM. They would get on well together if they could understand one another.

Steph and I didn’t argue much, but when we did it was always about theology. I wanted her to stop listening to Kenneth Copeland and she wanted me to stop listening to Hank Hannegraaf. We argued passionately about the possibility of an outer court in heaven, the trichotomous anthropological nature and of course Calvinism and Arminianism. Most of our differences are now resolved thankfully – she has seen the error of her ways (hope she doesn’t read this!), but she did have one (typically Pentecostal) question that I couldn’t answer to my satisfaction. Why don’t you ask God for the gift of tongues? It bugged me that the honest answer was that I didn’t want it, mainly because it was weird, but I prayed about it anyway, not so much seeking the gift but just talking over my confusion about it. A breakthrough came one day when quite unexpectedly I started praising God in tongues after passing my driving test! I was shocked, and didn’t do it again for a number of years.

Well done if you’ve managed to stick with my story this long. Only one more part to go.

Which would you read first?

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Here’s a question to ponder. Suppose there was a controversial theological issue, on which you knew the basic for and against arguments and which side of the fence you were on, but had never studied in great detail. Suppose then that there were two thorough and carefully argued books written by acknowledged experts, one advocating the side you agreed with, and the other advocating the opposite position. And imagine that you had decided that to be fully informed you wanted to read both books. The question is: which book should you read first?

Arguments for reading the book you disagree with first:

It seems like the fairest thing to do. After all, you are already prejudiced against this view, so reading it second would seem like you weren’t really willing to hear what it had to say. It also will give you integrity as you discuss the issue with friends – you have read the best arguments against your own point of view. You might even go through a period of strongly sympathising with the opposing view, which would at least make you more understanding in future debates and discussions. Also, you might not even need to read the second book, if the one you disagreed with wasn’t persuasive.

Arguments for reading the book you agree with first:

You might end up changing your mind twice over the issue, when no changes were needed, in effect being “tossed around by every wind of doctrine”. You would be best able to critically read the opposing view if you were in full posession of all the arguments for your own first. Assuming that you are in a church that also holds to your initial view, you would avoid the potential for causing upset by advocating the opposing view without knowing all the counterarguments.

Another consideration – you might just read one:

With all the best intentions in the world, the fact is that you might only have time to read one book. Also, the chances are that the first book you read would enumerate all the arguments that the other book was going to present and refute them. It might sound so impressive that you can’t even be bothered to read the second book. So the one you read first could end up being the one that sets your future beliefs in the subject for some years to come (assuming that is, that you find it persuasive).

Leave your answers in the comments below.

(in case you’re wondering, the books that got me thinking about this are this one versus this one, and this one versus this one – although I have no immediate plans to read any of them)

In other blogs this week

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Here’s a few things that have caught my attention this week.

– I have found another New Frontiers member who likes N T Wright. Check out Sven on Moltmann
– Michael Spencer wrote an article lumping all charismatics in with the Word Faith tele-evangelists, which I commented on, but has redeemed himself with an insightful article on subjectivity and objectivity.
– Piper fans might enjoy this
– Mark Roberts wrote an interesting article on church growth. I would be interested though for him to elaborate on why numerical targets are bad.

My Reformed Charismatic Journey Part 2

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Here is the second part in my series on how I became a “reformed charismatic” (read the first part here). It really seems to be personal story telling time in the blogging world at the moment. Today’s installment covers from when I was about 12 to 18. I am particularly conscious as I write this that many of my friends look back on this time with mixed opinions and the internet is not the place for a full discussion of all the issues, so I will simply give the basic details and how I felt about it at the time.

Drifting Away

After Ern Baxter died, the church I attended slowly but surely became less and less charismatic. More hymns were sung and fewer choruses. The charismatic gifts were seen less and less. We no longer attended Bible weeks. This was largely due to the pastor’s growing concerns about the direction that the charismatic movement was headed in. It lacked commitment to Scripture, had antinomian tendencies, left false prophecy unchallenged and there were even a number of tragic cases of gross immorality amongst leaders. “Open to the Spirit” increasingly meant “open to anything whatsoever”.

By 1994, my church had lost any resemblance whatsoever to a charismatic church, and with the onset of the “Toronto Blessing” began to actively criticise the movement. Dr. Jebb had earlier written a booklet defending a basically Pentecostal doctrine of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which in his typical style was argued with hundreds of biblical references. He now wrote a second booklet arguing against his position in the first. It was in a difficult time for the church, with many people leaving, including the families of quite a few of my friends. Many though were persuaded that the charismatic movement had gone off the rails and we were best staying out of it. Others stayed simply out of love and loyalty to their spiritual family and home, not knowing quite what to make of the change in direction.

The big problem, we were told, was that the charismatics are after “experience” which is subjective, not objective. We should be content with the objective Word of God and remember that worship is not about enjoying yourself but honouring God. It seemed to make sense to me at the time, but it was not until a few years later, when I started reading John Piper, that the whole idea of honouring God by enduring boring worship was blown away (not of course that it was put quite like that, but that was the general impression I got).

I was now on the verge of starting university, and was encouraged to read books such as “Charismatic Chaos” by John MacArthur and “Christianity in Crisis” by Hank Hanegraaf. These confirmed to me that the charismatic movement was irretrievably lost in a mess of muddled thinking, and that I would do well to avoid it. I was also beginning to read more of the Puritans and Reformers who had a cessationist stance whenever they touched on these issues.

About this time I started going on yearly missions with UBM, where I found many evangelicals with a love for the Word and a heart for evangelism, but I quickly discovered that charismatics were viewed with extreme disapproval. So at this stage in my life all the people I looked up to in the faith were noncharismatic in practise and teaching, and I was regularly hearing anti-charismatic anecdotes which bolstered a growing prejudice against them.

Despite all this going on, these were years of significant spiritual growth for me. I was baptised, and got about as fully involved in church life as I possibly could. I loved the youth groups especially, and the atmosphere of controversy over the charismatic movement and particularly contemporary Christian worship music (which was viewed with extreme disapproval) did at least serve to get me thinking and studying the Bible for myself.

So I was in a fairly settled position. I believed that the charismatic gifts were still valid for today, but that most churches who tried to use them were seriously deficient in other areas. In fact, I do not ever remember hearing a cessationist argument in church, except for one sermon on why there were no longer apostles today. I had been warned of the excesses of charismatic practise, but had not rejected charismatic theology. Perhaps I would have left it at that, content with a noncharismatic evangelicalism, but there were still issues for me to think through, and some of these came to the forefront while I was at university (which will be the subject of part 3).

Dr Cale Speaks Out

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Outraged at my recent posting of the tentpeg song, Dr June Cale speaks his mind in the comments:

“I’m afraid this is the just the sort of thing I would expect from someone who pastors such a church as the Full Faith church. As I said in my comment in your guestbook, I am appalled that such behaviour as seen in the photos can go on, and that such songs as this can be used in your worship services. Honestly, I have never come across such a lack of discernment and I think your website visitors deserve an apology.”

He also posted some more of his caustic vitriol in my guestbook:
I was most concerned to see some of the manifestations in your so called Full Faith church as faith seems to be the last thing they are full of. As for the notices about pro-organ groups orgnising a battle, I could hardly believe such a thing could go on in the name of Church. I sincerely hope the gatherings have, like many of the genuine gifts, ceased long ago, and that that is the reason for the site not having been recently updated.

I would be grateful if you could provide some kind of response, either in this guestbook or on your weblog as I believe they are known.
Forgive me for not entering an email address – it is nothing personal but I don’t want to risk being infected with any viruses or should I say, “manifestations” from your site.

All I can say is that it is you, Dr Cale, who lacks the discernment. Your heresy hunting attitude causes you to write off all that is good in the modern church. If you don’t embrace the same manifestations as Full Faith, you are clearly from an apostate and dead church. I don’t even want to waste my time trying to reason with such closed-minded unbereans as yourself. You are clearly darkened in the futility of your understanding and are predestined to remain stuck in your parochial backwaters forever.

But hold on a minute, before I get too carried away. Don’t I remember you coming to Full Faith on more than one occasion, doctor? In fact, I have a funny feeling that you were our honoured guest, preaching behind more plants than the main Stoneleigh platform:

And don’t claim that you didn’t realise what our church was like. I have proof here that you were even dancing in a “Devenish” manner with the rest of the Full Faith apostolic team (even though someone has clearly tried to destroy the evidence):

A Tentpeg Through His Head

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By popular request I have posted a recording of my “tentpeg” song. This was written to go on the latest KCC worship album, but for some inexplicable reason it was rejected. It is thoroughly Scriptural, based on Deborah’s song in Judges 5, and the second and third verses especially correspond to Judges 5:24-30 (in fact if you think that the third verse is a bit tasteless, you’re right, but so was Deborah’s song – you’re supposed to be repulsed at the attitude of his mother and her ‘wise’ attendants). If you want to use the song in your church worship, feel free, but do let me know. Credit is also due to Dale Ralph-Davies whose brilliant commentary on Judges really brought this passage alive for me.

The recording is a bit raw. I didn’t have time for drums, so its just acoustic guitar and bass and my voice. I’ve thrown a few of the excellent Kjaerhus free effects on to tidy the sound up a bit, but don’t expect production quality. I just don’t have the time these days to finish my recordings off the way I would like to.

Come hear the story of Deborah
And the defeat of Sisera
She prophesied, “take an army, and fight against Canaan”
The people gladly followed under Barak’s command
And God gave the battle into their hands

There they fell, dead
God’s enemies defeated
Killed by the armies of Yahweh
But their leader ran away

Blessed be Jael the Kenite
Who offered milk and a bed for the night
She took a tent peg in her left hand, and a hammer in her right
And when he started snoring, she approached him from behind
And crushed his skull with all of her might

There he fell, dead
With a tent peg through his head
Killed by a friend of the family
As he slept in her bed

Poor old Sisera’s mummy
Wonders where her little boy has gone
“Now don’t you worry, he’ll be home soon”
“He’s probably raping a girl or two”
“And when he’s done with them he’ll steal some clothes for you”

There he lay, dead
With a tent peg through his head
Killed by a friend of the family
As he slept in her bed

My Reformed Charismatic Journey Part 1

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Adrian Warnock and Diane Roberts are putting together a Reformed Charismatic aggregator. They asked if I would mind explaining how I ‘evolved’ into a Reformed Charismatic. I had been planning to post something about this anyway as a follow-up to my ‘dividing lines’ posts (here and here). I wouldn’t actually say I evolved into one, rather that I started off as one, evolved away from it, and then came back. Following in the recent tradition of Jollyblogger and Adrian, I will post this as a multipart series. For brevity’s sake, it’s not my testimony, and neither is it intended as a defence of being reformed or charismatic.

The Early Years

I spent just about my entire childhood in church. It was (back then) a reformed charismatic Baptist church in Dunstable (which is mentioned in the Bible you know – look carefully) and it had its own Christian school which I attended. With a Saturday night youth group as well, I was in the building seven days a week most weeks. The pastor, Dr. Stanley Jebb, was a very scholarly evangelical Calvinist, who passionately believed in expository preaching. Every Sunday morning the whole church would gather at 10:00 for an hour’s ‘Bible school’ where we studied church history, or books like J C Ryle’s “Holiness”, or A W Pink’s “The Attributes of God”. At 11:15 we had the main morning service, and from the age of five children were expected to stay in and listen to the sermon. The pastor would quite happily discuss the Greek text and talk about some more advanced theological concepts (for example, at the age of seven I was well versed in the difference between syntheke and diatheke, and why ‘propitiation’ should be prefered to ‘expiation’). In many ways, some of his distinctive ideas lined up with traditional conservative evangelicals, teaching head-covering for women, strongly advising total abstinence from alcohol, keeping Sunday special and dressing smartly for church.

But we were also very definitely charismatic, and involved in the “restoration” movement (now more commonly called the “house church” movement – see Andrew Walker’s book “Restoring the Kingdom” for a historian’s perspective; see also a critical Banner of Truth article ). We went to some of the early charismatic Bible weeks (Dales and Downs) and eventually organised our own (the Anglia Bible week) with speakers such as Peter Lewis, Barney Coombs, Bryn Jones and Ern Baxter. Ern was an American and part of what was known as the “shepherding movement”, which our church was also in and came under his authority. He had a similar passion for the Word and Spirit as our pastor did, and would regularly come over to give teaching.

My earliest recollections of church include the charismatic gifts being used regularly. The times of worship were often powerful with a real sense of the presence of God as people sang “in the Spirit”. As young people we were encouraged to seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I still have a slip of paper from a Bible week when I was eight years old which states that I had asked that day to be prayed for to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. However I never did speak in tongues as a child (neither to my knowledge did any of my friends), and this was not considered a problem by anyone. In fact, that week is probably the time that I would say I became a Christian – it is my earliest memory of earnestly seeking God.

Read Part 2 here