The Strangest Fire

I grew up charismatic, in the 80’s and 90’s.

I grew up in a family that joined a pioneering kind of Pentecostal stream flowing out of the Jesus Movement of the 70’s, a stream that had strong pastoral personalities founding brand new churches, some of them mega, and even denominations, schools, TV stations, and seminaries. Part and parcel of this pioneering experience was an atmosphere of resistance from the non-charismatic church. There was a kind of scorn that developed among the Billy Graham Baptist evangelicals toward us crazy charismatics. Books and tapes and “discernment ministries” abounded telling of the eeeevils of charismatic Christianity. It was anti-intellectual, cultish…even O-ccultish. It was basically the church’s own version of Dungeons & Dragons.

There was also rejection and persecution from Christian family and friends when someone would get baptized in the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues, and join a Spirit-filled church. My parents experienced this rejection firsthand, and our family ethos was framed by a sense of persecution from the fundamentalists. The rhetoric, of course, then went both ways – WE were the alive church with genuine faith in a God who still does powerful things, while THEY were the dead church stuck in lifeless knowledge, stale religion, and nominal faith.

John MacArthur has long been one of the strongest voices opposing charismatic Christianity in America, and most of us charismatics viewed him as a kind of arch-nemesis in those days. We were also intimidated by him and by other leaders who seemed “intellectual.” Since our particular tributary in he stream was mainly led by untrained pastors whose casual charisma galvanized followers around exciting new spiritual experiences and ideas, the suited and tied academic in the pulpit armed with a doctorate and that thing called “theology” was pretty threatening. Instead of arguing, we avoided. We called it dead religion and moved on.

Of course, MacArthur has now launched another salvo against charismatics, this time lamenting the spread of Pentecostalism (and its ugliest manifestation, the prosperity gospel) globally, such that world missions is rife with tongue-talking, vision-having, prophecy-shouting “believers” (scare quotes MacArthur’s). This isn’t surprising for any of us charismatics. But it is a next (final?) logical step in MacArthur’s attack. The verdict is very simply that this global charismaticism is “strange fire,” an unbiblical, unChristian, and demonic last days deception. The adherents are likely hellbound, the set to whom Jesus will say, “You cast out demons, you prophesied, you did many wonderful works, sure. But, depart from me, I never knew you.”

The good thing about MacArthur’s strident claims is that they border on a degree of absurdity. What, substantially, does so distinguish charismatics and their Pentecostal mission from cessationists as to render the former hellbound and the latter unquestionably redeemed? It is, really, nothing except intellectual (gospel) content and a strong conservative cultural bias. And that’s where the beef of this critique is revealed: it is a somewhat elitist white critique, with a whole lot of anger at the “liberal” diversity infecting both American culture and the church. Since charismaticism is an inherently diversifying force in the church (black Americans! Women! Young people! Uneducated people!) and is wildly successful missionally in non-western nations, it presents a fearsome threat to established fundamentalist (mainly white) Christianity. Which makes sense: threatening homogeneity and self-absorbed religious power is, really, the whole point of Pentecost.

But the bad thing about MacArthur’s critique is that it continues to polarize the conversation about the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. And while I don’t think that his critique will gain much traction as the paradigm shift (schism?) within western evangelicalism continues, I do think it sets back the potential for charismatic Christianity to positively and creatively reform – not to mention the hope of unity in the church in general. His extreme critique creates a pendulum-like reaction in which ALL critique of charismatic expression is equal – an uncharitable, elitist, fundamentalist attack.

But the fact is that a careful, loving critique of charismatic Christianity is vitally needed. It is needed if abuses like prosperity theology are to be corrected and reformed. It is needed if some of the unhealthy leadership dynamics that seem all too common – cults of personality, unethical handling of power and finances, spiritual and emotional abuse – are to be addressed.

But one thing is certain. MacArthur’s critique backfires on its own claims to divine purity against diabolical power. The Holy Spirit is doing wondrous things the world over, rendering MacArthur’s book – not global charismatic Christianity – the strangest fire of all.