A Charismatic Concern

Charismatic Christians want to reclaim the fullness of the gospel, particularly the work of the Spirit that results in the experience of God's presence, the realization of the power of God in life, and the response of heartfelt praise.

The charismatic renewal is a prophetic renewal movement. To a large degree its prophetic protest and its renewal goals are directed to the churches. Directly or indirectly, those in the movement are saying that the churches need renewal. How do the churches react to this implied criticism? What does the renewal offer which so many in the churches find compelling? There is general admission on the part of the churches that many Christians are living below their expected spiritual potential, and that persons who are drawn to the renewal are not the indifferent, but people who are genuinely and sincerely seeking a deeper and more meaningful spiritual life. The tendency to live below one's spiritual potential is due, in part, to the lack of a sense of reality in matters of faith, to an absence of the awareness of the presence of Christ in worship and daily life, and to a lack of joy, peace, and hope. There is an emptiness in the church's life which reveals itself in the daily life of its members. Ministers who lack nothing in education are wanting in warmth, personal conviction, and spiritual dedication. They preach the same message over and over, but no lives are changed. The hunger for God remains unsatisfied. Christians are aware of the void which accompanies materialism and secularism, and of a dissatisfaction which expresses itself in a desire to be fed substantial food and to reach out to God in prayer and praise. Presence is a major category in the charismatic renewal. God is presence: here, now, real, a person, loving, acting. He is not the great absent One. Nor is he the God of yesterday who was present in power to the early church, but now leaves us simply to "grit our teeth" and hang on in the hope that God is around somewhere. One evidence that God is present and acting, say the charismatic churches, is the lives of those in the renewal which have been changed. How can one receive the gospel and remain unchanged? Is not metanoia (repentance) the first demand of the Good News? Obviously the charismatic renewal has an experience orientation, but there is no claim that experience exhausts New Testament witness. To place the whole of the biblical testimony under the dominance of religious experience would be falsification. In the renewal movement, it is recognized that one whose religious focus is dominated by religious experiences is a spiritual infant. But to excise religious experience from either the New Testament or from the Christian life is to impoverish them both. Both Old and New Testaments record charismatic experiences. Especially with regard to the reception of the Spirit, it seems clear that in the New Testament this event or process was experienced, evidenced, and often immediately perceived, not merely inferred. Experience is linked with enthusiasm, an essential feature of New Testament Christianity. Beyond the New Testament witness there has been a fairly continuous and insistent tradition of charismatic experience, often disregarded by church historians and by the "main stream" of Christendom. We could make mention, for example, of Wesley's doctrine of the witness of the Spirit to the believer's spirit, which is the direct and immediate sense that one is God's child, the creation and object of his love. The experience of the presence of the Spirit is not sequestered for the few, but is the inheritance of every Christian. It cannot be standardized, but must be reclaimed afresh in every epoch. To understand the presence and words of the Spirit, the Scriptures are normative; but the whole of Christian experience, both contemporary and historical, should be consulted. Obviously the experience of the Spirit and his coming to visibility in ministries and giftings has never been absent from the church. In the charismatic renewal, the revitalization of Christian lives is manifested in exterior phenomena (baptism in the Holy Spirit, healing, imposition of hands, tongues). This is due not only to the inherent charismatic nature of the church, but also in part to the eagerness with which contemporary Western culture encourages people to seek a personal experience of reality. The depersonalization of much of contemporary life has prompted believers to search for the personal dimensions of ultimate reality. What must be recovered is the breadth of faith. The faith relationship is not exhausted by doctrinal statements. Within that relationship is a total response: intellect, will, memory, emotions, body, soul. It would be impossible to imagine an experience devoid of all emotional content, and it would be dangerous to exclude the emotions from the global assent of faith. What is offered to God in worship is the total person, including intellect and emotions.