'Thus says the Lord': Overstepping our authority

Twenty years ago I was a member in good standing of Easton (Pa.) Assembly of God. That all came crashing down in one Sunday school class.

Laverne Webber, the wife of our church's pastor, was teaching a class on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is a fairly significant doctrine in the Assemblies of God; essentially it holds that there is a special encounter with God made manifest by glossalalia, the ecstatic utterance in unknown tongues.

I had questions. I still do. That's how I work. I ask questions until I understand, not to someone else's satisfaction but to my own. So I asked, and when the answers weren't satisfactory, I pressed. Other members of the class I found wanted to hear the answers too.

Well, Laverne kept leading the class, and I kept attending; and you know, I never did start speaking in tongues, and neither did anyone else in the class.

One week Laverne approached me. She had been praying and God had spoken to her. About me. The way he does.

"David," she said, "I really feel the Lord is saying you need to stop questioning, and just have faith."

I nodded agreeably, but inside I was thinking "Well, four more weeks, and then this session of children's church is done. I'll wrap up my commitment, and then I'll go."

I had helped to lead the children's ministry at church for two years. I had helped to write the curriculum because what we had been given was so stupid. They lost that commitment and support. I was headed toward a breakup with this church for a number of reasons, but two things hastened that split.

One, don't ever tell me to stop thinking and just "have faith."

Two, don't ever tell me what God wants me to do unless you're prepared to show me proof that he has authorized you to speak on his behalf. That is abusive and manipulative at its worst; and when it's at its best and just misguided, it still is the key to messing up impressionable minds.

If you are actually going to claim to speak for God -- even if you try to couch it terms of "I think God wants you to do thus-and-such" -- then you don't have the maturity to be in any sort of leadership.


Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.


Tweet

Remembering my time with Easton Assembly of God

This may be a surprise some people, but I used to be a holy roller.

I joined the Assemblies of God the summer of 1990, while I was still a student at Lafayette College, and remained a member until late 1996 or early 1997. I wasn't just a member in good standing, either; I got involved in children's church ministry almost immediately, and resumed that involvement in mid-1994, when I returned from Haiti, until I left to join Beloved at her church on College Hill.

There were a few bumps in my relationship with the church, but on the whole my experience and my memories are positive ones. They perhaps are exemplified in the working relationship I had with one person in particular.

Cami Sweeney became the head of the children's church ministry not long after I returned from Haiti and remained so when I left. A graduate of North Central Bible College, Cami had grown up in Easton Assembly of God and had fairly conservative social values and doctrinal beliefs.

We had a working relationship that was based on a mutual appreciation for each other's knowledge, ability and enthusiasm for children's ministry. We each brought a solid knowledge of Scripture, doctrine and church tradition to the table. We didn't always agree on how to interpret it, but rarely found anything worth fighting over. (And when we did, we always apologized sooner than later.) ; She appreciated my experience on the missions field, and I appreciated hers at Bible college.

We also both were appalled at the low quality of material we were given to run the children's program with, each believed we could do better, and worked in tandem or by ourselves to do just that. Puppet sketches, a cast of ridiculous characters for object lessons and Bible verse illustration, sermons, and basic silliness flowed from our combined imaginations for session after session. We talked at one point about seeing if we could find a publisher for our curricula, but nothing ever came of that, sadly. I still think we could have done it.

But for all that, Cami couldn't understand why I would presume to teach children's church without ever having spoken in tongues myself. She couldn't understand why I saw nothing wrong with Spider-man (after all, she said, he walks on walls!) or even with Santa Claus, and was in complete disagreement when it came to my frequent disdain for the Christian subculture we both inhabited.

We got along well — in hindsight our close work together made her in some ways one of my best friends at the church — but there were times we were an utter mystery to one another. Cami loved Frank Peretti's novels "This Present Darkness" and "Piercing the Darkness." I thought they were crap.

When she told me how much she hated "The Oath," in part because it had a dragon, I told her I valued her recommendation, and immediately went out and bought a copy on sale at the Evil Bible Bookstore. It was a page-turner, and easily his best work to date. When I told I had thought it was pretty good, she laughed and shook her head in disbelief.

The last two falls I was there, Easton Assembly of God hosted hell houses, an alternative to Halloween that's meant to scare people into faith by showing them the horrors of hell taht await drug users, gay people and Democrats. Pastor Webber urged members to invite their non-Christian friends, neighbors and relatives to them. I made fun of the concept mercilessly. "Invite your non-Christian friends, neighbors and relatives! They won't become Christians, but at least they'll stop talking to you.") Cami of course disagreed, and I usually let it go.

I finally left Easton Assembly of God at the end of 1996 when it became obvious that the church and I viewed the faith from essentially incompatible places -- I prefer to scrutinize church practice in light of established revelation, while the church was big on experience and urged critical thinkers of myself to stop questioning and just "have faith"-- and because of various other things, like the pastor's fixation on money.

Still, the church and the denomination continue to hold a place in my heart, and I remember people like Cami fondly, even though I'm sure I bewildered the heck out of them.

Remembering Easton Assembly of God

Some of the best worship services I've ever been a part of were at Easton Assembly of God while I was a member there.

The preaching was excellent under the first pastor there too. Nothing lasts forever. I stuck around for about four more years after we hired a new pastor, but eventually left. It was the lackluster preaching, particularly the wrongheaded messages like "Christians should smile all the time if they have the joy of the Lord!", combined with increased dissatisfaction with the church's lack of interest in the community around it, that did it. The differences between me and the church's take on the gospel eventually started to really get at me.

Another reason I left was an overemphasis on glossolalia. The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a trademark of the Assemblies of God. To their credit, I never heard anyone in authority claim that people who didn't speak in tongues weren't really Christians. But someone did tell me how mortified she was that I would presume to teach children's church without that gift.

The truth is, I'm a skeptical believer in the gift of tongues. I've yet to hear a reasonable biblical argument against the continued existence of glossolalia as a gift of the Holy Spirit.

 I believe the Holy Spirit can inspire people to speak either in a human language they don't know or in a heavenly language, but I can only think of one instance where I believe I might have witnessed it. In that particular case, the utterance had a lot of repetition, enough so that there was a recognizable structure to the language. The interpretation came out with the same manner of repetition.

Other times I've heard alleged messages in tongues, the interpretations were incomprehensible mishmashes of contemporary and King James English; they were so vague that they were meaningless; and so on. Usually, when I've heard people praying in tongues in church, it goes against what Paul sets down for guidelines about speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians.

Most ecstatic utterances in tongues appear to be just that -- ecstatic utterances born entirely of the human spirit, with nothing divine about them. Spoken tongues like that are found in other religions, notably at least one sect of Islam, and have been practiced by heretics throughout church history.

As to an utterance in a language unknown to the speaker but known to a listener, I've heard stories about that happening, but I have no way of knowing if there's any truth to them, so I don't bother to enter them as evidence one way or the other.

 I don't particularly disbelieve in glossolalia, but I don't believe I've seen more than one legitimate instance of it in my life. I do believe I've seen enough error, confused doctrine, abuse and misuse of the gift, and just muddled thinking to convince someone who's already skeptical that the whole thing is a fraud.

I will say that I've been tempted to use my knowledge of Haitian Creole during a worship service to order a large pepperoni pizza with an order of breadsticks and a bottle of Coke, and wait for the interpretation, but that's something that's amusing only in concept. It would be incredibly disrespectful to actually do it.

I left Easton Assembly of God years ago. I went to visit the church about 2½ years ago, when my foster son was with us, because I needed to get away for a little.

The worship is almost all done on an organ now and has none of the brilliance that made it work before, and the pastor's preaching is just as awful as ever. A lot of the church leaders from when I was a member have gone (not all), and it seemed a duller place than ever.

On the propriety of speaking in tongues

So I have an honest question for anyone who comes across this entry and feels like contributing their  2 cents. Where do you stand on speaking in tongues?

Let me explain.

I spent my first seven or eight years as a Christian as a member of Easton (Pa.) Assembly of God, where we were taught that in the first century it was a standard experience for a new believer to begin speaking in tongues, though not necessarily a universal one. Pastor Mike Poppa did observe that every time a new group of people received the gospel, the writer of Acts made sure to point out that they also began speaking in tongues.

I've met a few Christians who believe you shouldn't serve in ministry unless you've received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I'm aware of others who claim you can't be a Christian without it. Neither of those positions is biblical.

The only rules Paul sets out regarding glossalalia pertain to corporate worship, where he favors maintaining order and keeping everyone on the same page. He tells believers not to speak in tongues at all during gatherings, unless they also can interpret; and even then he says to keep the number of messages in tongues to a minimum. "I would rather speak one word that you can all understand than ten thousand words in a tongue none of you will," he says.

As far as private prayer goes, he's content to live and let live, and places no limits on speaking in tongues; in fact he says, "I thank God I speak in tongues more than any of you."

Still, speaking in tongues is a lightning rod of controversy to some groups. I'm curious to hear where others stand. Sound off in the comments.

Ordering pizza in tongues

I don't speak in tongues myself, but I can do a decent job pretending to when I need to.

Back in the 1990s, I was a regular in the children's ministry at Easton Assembly of God, We wrote, performed and produced some of the most ridiculous material ever presented in Sunday school or a children's church service. We're talking original puppet shows with handmade puppets; live-action Bible stories where King David fell to the ground, frothing at the mouth and pretending to be insane; other Bible stories where Lazarus came forth; worship songs with outrageous hand movements, a Bible-quoting superhero and his archnemesis, and on and on.

(As campy as we got, we never reached the level of Duncan the Donut Man, or Psalty the Singing Psalter. We did have standards.)

It all started when we were handed an eight-week stash of puppet skits that taught core Christian doctrines like sin, repentance and forgiveness; the importance of prayer; and even the Second Coming. Because this was an Assemblies of God church, one week the lesson was on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

This is a teaching, widely accepted among charismatic and Pentecostal Christians but hotly disputed by John MacArthur, that at some point the individual believer may have an intense experience with the Holy Spirit that leads to the ecstatic utterance in other tongues.

In this particular puppet skit, I was providing the voice for the puppet Robby, who was supposed to get the baptism of the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues. The script actually continued scripted nonsense on the level of "Untie my bowtie who stole my Honda," which we all found distasteful, I'd returned from the missions field in Haiti several months earlier, so it was agreed that when Robby began speaking in tongues, I would simply speak in Kreyol.

So, while 30 children watched, Robby prayed to receive the baptism of the Spirit and began rather excitedly to say, "Bonswa. Sa se Robby Callenberg; mwen rete bo 12 Rue Pelerin. Mwen komande un laj pitsa avek pepewoni e fwomaj anpil." ("Good evening, this is Robby Callenberg of 12 Pelerin Road. I would like to order a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.")

Todd Seymor, the assistant pastor, was kneeling behind the puppet stage with me. He didn't speak a word of Kreyol, but I guess "large pepperoni pizza" sounds the same in almost any language, Todd smacked me on the shoulder and tried desperately to contain his laughter.

I never did get the nerve to do that during a worship service. Maybe sometime if I don't mind blaspheming the Holy Spirit and going straight to hell ...


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


Tweet

The church burns my feet and so I keep moving

I've had a long and storied experience with Pentecostalism

I joined the Assemblies of God soon after my spiritual awakening in 1988. I got a lot out of the church at first; but when I returned from the missions field after two years, I was amazed by a lot of the problems I was starting to notice. There is a lot that is good in Pentecostalism and charismatic churches, and a lot that is true, but there is also a strong tendency to withdraw and to judge those on the outside.

A lot of the wake-up came for me when I returned from Haiti and realized what a different world I was living in from the rest of the church: I actually wanted to help people, instead of telling them to trust God or go to hell; wanted to rely on Scripture for understanding of God, not personal experiences (my own or others); and wanted to experience freedom, not shallow standards of righteousness that deal with superficial issues.

I tried for close for three years to change my church from within, but ultimately conceded that it was too much. I withdrew my membership from the church, read my copy of "Letters to a Devastated Christian" a few times, and cast about for a while for a new place to attend.

The church I attend now is charismatic in the general sense, with a contemporary service and worship  music, but not in the sense that people are speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Spirit are manifesting themselves.

Our old pastor resigned but was hoping to remain involved under the new pastor once things settled in. Naturally, it turned out to be a naive hope that it would happen that way. The new pastor's been here a little over a year, and Mark's family is still looking for a place to go. I'm back in a period of evaluation with my current church.

While I think our pastor is good at motivating others, he's not someone I find I hold in any great respect. I just find him too funny in his shallowness and too easy to make fun of, rather than someone whom I would listen to with rapt attention or to whom I would go with a personal problem.

My main reason for attending is, as before with Easton Assemblies of God, I see a chance to help other people. I also have a number of relationships there that I value, and my daughter has a number of friends there. Plus my wife wants to go there.

The church and single adults

Back when I attended Easton Assembly of God, one of the older church members felt a need to start a singles Sunday school class.

The single adult thing gets tricky. I started calling it the "Poor me, I'm Single" class since it was little more than a support group. I wanted to be involved with someone -- I was maybe 20 at the time, and wouldn't be involved in a serious relationship for another four or five years -- but the entire focus of the "class" was abject self-pity and coping with our "single disability."

Then there's the other extreme. I had another friend who, post-college, joined a "young adults fellowship" in the Allentown that often was little more than a meat market for single Christian folks to check each other out. Jenn insisted it wasn't, but people invariably started attending as unattached and then dropped out once they got involved.

Jenn would never admit it, but Faith Young Adults was a meat market.

Being single means opportunities that married folks don't have. As a single man, I was involved with the children's ministry to the point of helping to write the curriculum for two years running, in addition to a number of other church activities that took a lot of my time. When I graduated from college, I was able to announce to one and all that I was going to the missions field.

Now that I'm married, I don't have the time to write an entire children's church curriculum and I can't just up and take off for a third world nation. I have other duties as a husband and a father.

A single friend of mine who's 34 has the time to volunteer nearly every night at the soup kitchen. She'd like to be married and have kids, but since she's not, Debbee is using the time and energy she has to serve God in other ways.