assemblies of god

I belonged to the Assemblies of God for about seven years after I became a Christian.

My biggest problem with the AoG is one that I think someone else already has mentioned, and one that I think is endemic in evangelical circles, not just in Pentecostal ones: self-righteousness. It's fairly customary in evangelicaldom to hear about how sinful the world is, and to castigate the world for failing to be godly, all the while telling other believers how much Jesus loves them.

I think that's a pretty backward approach, personally. The message we have is supposed to be life to a dying world, but we usually reserve our words of hope for other Christians, when the prophets usually had their harshest words for those who claimed to be following God. Back when Lawrence came out of the closet in Lynn Johnston's "For Better or for Worse," our pastor wrote a scathing letter to the editor of The Ashton Express-Times blating it for pushing sexual immorality. At the same time, there was a general feeling of sympathy for Jim Bakker, that he had been judged too harshly. (Swaggart didn't come up much, but I did know a few people who still regarded his teaching quite highly.)

Growing out of that is an increasing withdrawal from the world into safe little enclaves of Christianity. The AoG churches I was involved with operated Christian schools to keep the kids safe from the evils of public schools -- parents were generally discouraged from sending their kids to a public school or secular college, if not overtly than certainly by the attitudes regularly expressed toward such institutions -- and frequently they also provide all sorts of other approved alternatives to secular society. AoG runs its own version of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts -- Royal Rangers and Missionettes -- and so on.

And of course, you have all the other weird stuff popular in the Christian subculture: our own music and radio stations, our own TV shows and movies, our own T-shirts and books, and our own language, filled with words we all bandy about without really understanding. And of course there was the tendency to overlay spiritual values onto political ones. I can't recall a single negative thing being said about Bush Senior, or a single positive thing about Clinton. Pretty ridiculous.

The AoG is widely known for the emphasis it places on ecstatic experiences, particularly speaking in tongues. I really don't want to get into a major discussion on glossolalia, but I do think some of the negative reputation is well deserved. I remember one guest preacher actually *pushing* me backward so I would be "slain in the Spirit." If he were to do that today, I probably would have made more of an issue of it; as it was, I just got back up and told somebody else later what the idjit had done.

I heard a number of messages delivered in tongues while I was at the AoG. Virtually all of them were the sort of "prophetic utterance" you can find from a street-corner wingnut on any given day, a roiling mishmash of thoughts and personal convictions, delivered in a confusing ramble of King James and contemporary English, and invariably irrelevant to anything the church was going through at the time, except in the most generic way.

The emphasis on tongues and ecstatic experience took the place of solid understanding of Scripture. I was amazed at what people who have been Christians for years didn't know. Sylvia, one grandmotherly woman who attended the church the same time as me, once explained that she recently had hurt her back when she had been "slain in the Spirit," and had been told by the pastor (!) not to tell anyone about it, since that could be a stumbling block. After all, if God is behind it, no one should be hurt, right?

So anyway, Sylvia wanted to know if it said in the Bible that you shouldn't be hurt when you fall over under the Spirit's anointing. As you're probably aware, the Bible never says that you're supposed to fall over in the first place, whether the Spirit is moving or if it's just Benny Hinn waving his coat around.

That's probably the greatest flaw with Pentecostalism, actually, whether in the AoG or in the Nazarenes or some other denomination. Allowing experience to be its own validation, rather than measuring it against the revelation of Scripture, severs us from any objective standard for Truth, and allows us to be taken in by hucksters like Hinn, to be wowed by millionaires like Pat Robertson, to fall for the razzle-dazzle of prosperity gospels and to think we actually can make this a better nation through legislation and power-brokering.

That probably contributed to the distrust of intellectualism I encountered in the church, although I think this was mostly a product of the area. (The two AoG churches I was most involved with were located in predominantly blue collar areas.) This actually ended up being the last straw behind my decision to leave the church and start attending an evangelical free church with Niki, whom I was engaged to at the time.

Shirley Webber, the pastor's wife, had been teaching a series on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Much of it was marked by an enthusiastic endorsement of all sorts of behavior that clearly the Holy Spirit had to be behind. (One was a guy who supposedly ran around his church on the *backs of pews*. The proof that this was Spirit-driven? If it weren't, he would have fallen off.)

I have a lot of questions about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and how the gifts appear to manifest in Pentecostal and charismatic churches these days. Shirley finally told me that God had told her I needed to stop questioning and just have faith.

I finished out my commitment in children's church, and left.

Actual mileage is going to vary from one AoG church to another. Still, to be fair, I should point out that there was much that is good about the Assemblies of God. For starters, they have a cool name -- much better than "Presbyterian" or "Lutheran," to pick two other churches I've belonged to in my time. :-)

Secondly, the worship truly was phenomenal at Ashton Assembly of God. Mike Poppa, who pastored the church for its first 14 years, was a man who was well grounded in Scripture and who was determined to present the gospel in a way that would be accessible to today's culture. The worship I participated in there was some of the best I have ever known. Because the church was more spontaneous than many other churches, I'd say there also was a greater openness to being led by the Spirit than in churches dead set on following the strict order of things.

Thirdly, the devotion of many in the Assemblies of God is considerable. Although I think it's fair to say the church is withdrawn from society, I think the AoG churches I attended had a pretty good turnout for Sunday and Wednesday evening services. It wasn't just a one-hour-a-week thing. People took seriously the scriptural admonition to pray, and I knew several people who took the charge to evangelize seriously as well, and went out on the streets every week. I don't personally go for that style myself, but I do recognize its legitimacy among those who are so called and so gifted.

Fourthly, the things I'm talking about were overall trends, not indicators of every person in the church. I knew other church members who objected to the emphasis on tongues and had tough questions about the legitimacy of the way tongues was practiced as a gift; Pastor Mike Poppa was a phenomenal preacher who knew the Scriptures better than many preachers I've heard elsewhere; and while there were some nincompoops who believed in the standard bogeymen and toed the line, there were others who had no problem with believers who were trying to figure it out, no matter which way they ended up going.

I showed up at my old church about 18 months ago, out of the blue, after being gone for five years. I showed up with a full beard and a ponytail, having had neither when I left. I also had a black child with me in a lily-white church. I got not one cold shoulder, and everyone who figured out who I was was thrilled to see me again. Not a word of criticism about my appearance or anything else.

Lastly, many of the problems I encountered there are problems found throughout evangelicaldom. Good luck findng a church that is free of such ills. When you do, you will ruin it by gracing it with your presence, as I surely have done to some I have attended.