Today we are going to look at “The Gift of Tongues: Comparing the Church Fathers with Contemporary Pentecostalism.” This may seem like a strange way to talk about the occult in the mainstream church, but it really isn’t. Pentecostalism is very much a mystical branch of Christianity. It is popular in both the West and (especially) the East. What I will show is how very similar Pentecostalism is with all the other occult mystical influences that we’ve discussed.
Cessationism
But first, lets talk about cessationism:
Cessationism is a doctrine that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing ceased with the Apostolic Age. The doctrine was developed in the reformation and is particularly associated with the Calvinists.
I’m not a Calvinist and I reject Dispensationalism. To the extent that I am anything at all, I’m an Anabaptist. Parts of Anabaptism have their origins in the historical German mystics, so I don’t even reject all of mysticism!
Yet, if you read what I’ve written, you might think that I’m a cessationist. Some have mistakenly concluded this in the past. But I’m not. I absolutely think that the miraculous is alive and well. Whether tongues, prophecy, or healing, all still happen. I think its rather obvious that the frequency of such things has declined since the Apostolic Age, especially in proportion to the purported number of Christians, but it has not ceased.
The Early Church
There is surprisingly little disagreement in the early writers of the first three or four hundred years of the church. All more-or-less agree that the supernatural gifts of the spirit are granted at the sole discretion of God himself:
The fathers are unanimous in affirming that it is the Holy Spirit, not the human spirit, that bestows and directs each of the gifts. [..] Human experience, effort, and education are irrelevant—the Spirit grants supernatural power to those, and only those, whom He chooses.
This means that “training” that one undergoes in Pentecostalism to develop speaking in tongues is not attested by any of the early writers.
And just like prophesy, the early writers emphasized that the mystical experiences had to be validated and interpreted for the edification of the church:
The intended use of the gift benefited the entire community, not just the speaker. For this to happen, the tongue had to be interpreted, leading the fathers to emphasize consistently the importance of interpretation.
The beliefs of the early writers can be summarized as follows:
The gift of tongues was a solitary and supernaturally endowed ability, given by the Holy Spirit to select Christians, enabling those believers to speak in previously unlearned, rational foreign languages. The intended use of the gift involved either the translation of the message (by an interpreter) for the general edification of fellow believers, or the translation of the message (by the hearer who heard it in his own tongue) for the evangelism of unbelievers.
Moreover, the early writers expressed that the gift was rare, not part of a normal Christian’s experiences. None commanded that Christians seek the gift out because it couldn’t be sought, only granted.
The Superiority of Mystical Experience
The understanding of speaking in tongues by the early writers bears no resemblance to the speaking in tongues as practiced by modern Pentecostalism. While the former is biblical, the latter is, at best, mostly harmless self-deceptive psychological illusion and, at worst, demonic occult mystical practice.
My purpose here is not to determine the merits or demerits of Pentecostalism. You can read the paper I’m citing from if you are interested in more of that. I’m here to discuss Pentecostalism’s relationship with the occult:
Such emphasis on tongues-speaking has led many Pentecostals to see the church as consisting of two classes of Christians—those who have spoken in tongues and those who have not. Hollenweger explains:
Stated another way, only those who are spiritually mature, having totally yielded themselves to God, are enabled to speak in tongues. Anyone else is, by default, considered less mature in the Christian faith. Pentecostal proponents argue,
Thus, because the gift of tongues equates with religious sincerity and personal faithfulness, it is exalted by the movement as a premier spiritual prize.
…and…
Pentecostals teach that all Christians, as they progress in their spiritual lives, should come to the place where they can speak in tongues. After all, the gift of tongues is connected to Spirit-baptism and Spirit-baptism, as a post-conversion experience, is something every Pentecostal Christian is encouraged to seek. Thus, the believer who never speaks in tongues is missing out on a vital part of the full Christian experience.
For readers of this series, these should sound incredibly familiar despite the fact that we have never discussed Pentecostalism! That’s because this is what every single proponent of the occult asserts.
Here are some examples:
I moved away from his kind of religion a long time ago, and I’m now much closer to what God requires of me. Don’t worry about Ramsey and his blather. He’s not going to hurt us.
You seem to be talking about what it means to ‘walk in the Spirit,’ as the New Testament would call it, from an epistemological perspective. I could not go beyond the limits of my mind in the Spirit until I was brought to a crisis where I had to deny that mind in order to move forward with the Lord. I would have intellectually assented to everything you are saying here before that, but I was unable to actually live this way, which is the only way to actually know what you are talking about in a subjective sense.
…
I hope and pray that your teaching will be in the ears of some of your readers when the time comes for them to take that leap and die that death. It is just the beginning of a new way of life with the Lord in the Spirit, an adventure unlike any we could ever know before because we could not know him that way as long as our mind was on throne dressed up in the things of God and ruling in the name of Christ while not actually being submitted to him.
Now the Pentecostal-inspired REV Commentary says this:
Speaking in tongues does not build up the understanding of the one speaking because the speaker does not understand what they are saying when they are speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues builds up the one speaking in their trust of God and in their spiritual sensitivity because the words come from the Lord through the spirit of God in the person and then to the person’s mind. Thus, speaking in tongues is an act of trust that God will fulfill His promise and the words in tongues will enter the speaker’s mind and thus can be spoken.
That sounds just like the Radix Fidem position:
God gave us reason for the sole purpose of organizing and implementing His Word in our lives. Reason is not capable of discerning the depths of divine truth; it cannot be put into human words. Reason must wait on the heart to communicate convictions to the mind within a context.
…
The intellect is flesh. The human brain remains fallen and mortal, entirely unreliable in its native pride against humility before the Lord and His revelation. It can be somewhat redeemed when it bows the knee to the heart. As with the rest of the fleshly nature, it will rebel constantly, and requires keeping the hammer and nails close at hand. You cannot trust your intellect to give you a good answer on anything, until it is clearly on the Cross.
The spiritual “heart” comes first and tells the physical “mind” what to do.
The mystics, especially those who portray the “Eastern” modes of thinking as being superior to the “Western” modes of thought, consistently portray their view as discovering something greater than the limited understanding that they left behind. They consider what came before them to be beneath them and of no (or at least lesser) consequence.
The mystical approach is viewed as a discovery, a whole new and greater mode of spiritual experience. There are two tiers of Christians, those who have discovered the real mystical faith and those who have not. If you don’t give up your Western ways and embrace the Eastern modes of thinking, you are a second-tier Christian.
This is generally associated with a strong deemphasis on using one’s mind, an emphasis on the spiritual and a rejection of the physical (doesn’t that sound Gnostic to you?). It is very much experience based.
Of course, if any of this were actually true, then virtually no one in the early church was a first-tier Christian. Not a single writer—not even the Apostle Paul who emphasized the mind, validation, and interpretation—ever experienced true Christianity.
The Arrogance of Mysticism
The occult mystics see their mystical experiences and powers as signs (or proof) of their greater spiritual maturity and enlightenment. Thus, anyone who does not share these experiences should not speak against those who do. Those who do not experience these things must be arrogant to speak in ignorance of that which they do not know.
This is projection.
Throughout this series, we’ve describe various forms of occult mysticism. But none of the mystics agree on what the correct mystical experiences are supposed to be! They are so convinced that their own breed of mysticism is correct and utterly superior to reason, yet they are also convinced that every other mystical experience is false except their own.
Should you join Radix Fidem, rejecting Western modes of thought (by paradoxically embracing Greek abstract distictions between heart and mind) for an Ancient Near East perspective, embracing Jesus as your Fuedal Lord?
Should you become a Pentecostal who regularly speaks in tongues both publicly, privately, and in your mind?
Should you join Tim Keller and embrace mysticism and Marxism?
Should you join John Mark Comer and embrace the Enneagram?
Should you embrace Dr. Michael Heiser’s polytheistic divine council and unseen realm?
Should you embrace the Contemplative Prayer movement?
Should you join Radix Fidem member John Providence and try to pick and choose which to accept and which to condemn?
There is no rational basis from which to judge between competing views. One prophet is as good as another. All of these claim to be superior ways to experience divine truth. All claim to be divine revelation.
Yet, none of them comport with the words of scripture. All fail the tests of scripture.
Works in this series:
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 1”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 2”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 3”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 4”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 5” (this article)
I do believe in “speaking in tongues” and no, I have never witnessed it. Nor do I have it. Like all the Gifts, I dont seem to have any of them but I dont deny them. More annoyed that a few people seem to have “all” of them evidently.
We’re talking about a time when people were prayed up much more than they are today. From what I have noticed, it starts with prayer. Not the incessant bablbing “father God, father God” prayers I heard in church or a few minutes of prayer before the service.
People back then really did pray. Hard. People did pray with a deep love and trust of God and had EXPECTATATION. I always admired that from the writings over the centuries of men who did do this.
A man steeped in prayer would have the discernment to determine if the one speaking tongues was actually doing so and could interpret. Again, Im not talking about a man who prays before a meal, or the corporate prayer in church.
As with all the Gifts, to bring them to fruition, or to their greatest potential it comes down to prayer. Something God requires of all. When Jesus said that you are to “love the Lord, with all your mind, body and spirit” he meant it. Prayer is the way to fulfill that, grow that.
The early church turned the world upside down because they were men of deep prayer, and many were indeed witnesses to Jesus. They still prayed.
Even Jesus prayed
The article that I linked in the OP goes into the specific instances of the modern speaking in tongues. After noting that the early fathers believed that the tongues were real (almost entirely human) languages, he notes that speaking in tongues has been empirically tested. Linguists have noted that it’s nothing but babel. Recordings have shown that the “interpretation” can’t be agreed upon when blindly tested. No two men will interpret the incoherent speech the same way. It’s a phenomenon of psychology, not theology.
One missionary couple went to India expecting to be able to speak the native language because they regularly “spoke” in tongues at home. They, naturally, failed and had to learn the language.
Scripture warns against vain repetitions, and yet that’s precisely what speaking in tongues begins as, just as your example “father God, father God.”
I very much appreciate your thoughts on prayer.