Major Distrust of Pentecostal and/or Charismatic Churches

[Jason76]

https://mwnation.com/are-pentecostal-churches-phony/

I can't really blame the authors here. Anyway, my impression of them is that appeal to immature believers who need "entertainment" all the time. However, I can see past the entertainment. I mean, I think a church should be about truth, not feelings. Also, the whole deal just comes across as massively fake.

Of course, we haven't discussed speaking in tongues yet, and surely that's a wrong thing biblically, but even aside from that, they are still bad churches.

 

[psalms 91]

I and a few million others dont see it that way. Yes there are some that are bad but I could say that about any denom so lets not use such a broad brush.

 

[NewCreation435]

I don't think it is my place to judge an entire denomination nor yours. There are bad churches out there of almost all denominations that have gone off the deep end theologically or were never on track to begin with. It is up to God to judge.

 

[tango]

https://mwnation.com/are-pentecostal-churches-phony/

I can't really blame the authors here. Anyway, my impression of them is that appeal to immature believers who need "entertainment" all the time. However, I can see past the entertainment. I mean, I think a church should be about truth, not feelings. Also, the whole deal just comes across as massively fake.

Of course, we haven't discussed speaking in tongues yet, and surely that's a wrong thing biblically, but even aside from that, they are still bad churches.

I am wary of particularly charismatic churches, partly for the reasons you mention and partly because I've found at least some of them put experience above Scripture. For a short time I attended such a church and, by the time I left, I had to say my theological concerns were sufficiently strong that I wasn't even sure their god was the same as mine. Certainly they followed teachers who described a god I didn't recognise.

That said it's not helpful to paint with a hugely broad brush because whether a church is good or not isn't necessarily a function of whether it's charismatic or not. There's also quite a broad scale of churches so without a useful definition of exactly what counts as a "charismatic" church all that remains is a generic criticism of Churches That Are Not Like My Church.

 

[MennoSota]

Pentacostal and Charismatic is a really wide ranging umbrella. Under that umbrella lives both PS91 and atpollard. Yet, their theology is vastly different.
I have been in charismatic churches that are Godward. I have also been in charismatic churches that are manward. Of course I can say that about non-charismatic churches as well. Some Presbyterian churches are so very Godward while others are literally Godless.
Ultimately it falls upon the shepherds of each church. God will judge them/us deeply for how they/we led the congregation. Where did they/we point them?

 

[atpollard]

A purely personal observation.

I have lived in the same county since 1989.

In the 1990’s, I attended a Church of God of Anderson Indiana with a middle class, middle aged all white congregation many of which traced their families back to the covered wagons crossing the Great Plains to spread the gospel in the great Holiness Movement that followed immediately after John Wesley.

In the early 2000’s, I attended an Evangelical Free Church with a dynamic young pastor that was attracting a lot of multi-generational families including grandparents, working adults, teens and children.

By 2010, I was visiting a Southern Baptist Church with a strong Caucasian-Hispanic mix and a bi-lingual service.

All throughout this period, I kept being drawn back to Pentecostal Church that always just felt somehow a little more like “home”. At a 30-40 minute drive (depending on traffic), it is far and away the least convenient Church that I have attended. However at this particular Pentecostal Church, a very white welsh-Italian American is friends with a Barbara (a former Black Panther) and Mari (a former NYC Decept) and a group of people from Caribbean islands and Germany and Sweden and Puerto Rico who run the spectrum from struggling with crack to owning multiple businesses.

At my little Pentecostal Church, over the last two decades, we have had someone in liver failure actively dying from a suicide attempt wake from a coma with no medical explanation. We have had multiple people recover from leukemia. We had a man with cancer eating away his face first get saved and then regrow part of his jaw. We even had a man pronounced dead by EMS and wake up during the paperwork and insist on returning to the service. I will not tell you that everyone gets cured. Elder Norbert found his healing by being called home ... but he died praying a blessing on the men that visited him to cheer him up.

At all of the non-Pentecostal Churches that I have attended, we prayed for the sick and comforted the families. At the Pentecostal Church, there is an expectation that God is STILL IN THE MIRACLE BUSINESS. I have more questions than answers about “tongues”, but if a few out of control babblers are the price to pay for creating an atmosphere where belief in miracles is “normal”, then it is a price I am willing to endure. Having tried both, I choose a living mess over a sleeping orthodoxy.

 

[MennoSota]

A purely personal observation.

I have lived in the same county since 1989.

In the 1990’s, I attended a Church of God of Anderson Indiana with a middle class, middle aged all white congregation many of which traced their families back to the covered wagons crossing the Great Plains to spread the gospel in the great Holiness Movement that followed immediately after John Wesley.

In the early 2000’s, I attended an Evangelical Free Church with a dynamic young pastor that was attracting a lot of multi-generational families including grandparents, working adults, teens and children.

By 2010, I was visiting a Southern Baptist Church with a strong Caucasian-Hispanic mix and a bi-lingual service.

All throughout this period, I kept being drawn back to Pentecostal Church that always just felt somehow a little more like “home”. At a 30-40 minute drive (depending on traffic), it is far and away the least convenient Church that I have attended. However at this particular Pentecostal Church, a very white welsh-Italian American is friends with a Barbara (a former Black Panther) and Mari (a former NYC Decept) and a group of people from Caribbean islands and Germany and Sweden and Puerto Rico who run the spectrum from struggling with crack to owning multiple businesses.

At my little Pentecostal Church, over the last two decades, we have had someone in liver failure actively dying from a suicide attempt wake from a coma with no medical explanation. We have had multiple people recover from leukemia. We had a man with cancer eating away his face first get saved and then regrow part of his jaw. We even had a man pronounced dead by EMS and wake up during the paperwork and insist on returning to the service. I will not tell you that everyone gets cured. Elder Norbert found his healing by being called home ... but he died praying a blessing on the men that visited him to cheer him up.

At all of the non-Pentecostal Churches that I have attended, we prayed for the sick and comforted the families. At the Pentecostal Church, there is an expectation that God is STILL IN THE MIRACLE BUSINESS. I have more questions than answers about “tongues”, but if a few out of control babblers are the price to pay for creating an atmosphere where belief in miracles is “normal”, then it is a price I am willing to endure. Having tried both, I choose a living mess over a sleeping orthodoxy.

I like how you include Elder Norbert finding his healing in glory. Having sought healing for loved ones and annointing brothers and sisters with oil, yet seeing God sovereignly take them home, I accept that our God may miraculously heal and keep brothers and sisters here for longer as well as choose to bring his children home.
I like Allistair Begg's comment about church prayer meetings. "At prayer meetings we spend more time trying to pray saints out of heaven than we do praying to keep sinners out of hell."

 

[Andrew]

I miss my Pentecostal church and the members there but they were anti trinitarian and after a while of going I just started to feel not so welcome there.

 

[atpollard]

I miss my Pentecostal church and the members there but they were anti trinitarian and after a while of going I just started to feel not so welcome there.

A mentor of mine named Hank taught me something very useful. Look at the palm of your right hand with the thumb facing up. Start counting from the thumb towards the pinky ...

• God
• Wife
• Family
• Church
• Job

This is the order of your priorities in life. Never let anything come between you and God. Never place anything except God ahead of your other half. After God and your wife, the next highest priority is the family that God has given you (two) to raise up. Then comes your extended community of believers (the Body of Christ) and last comes how you earn a living. If you get the first four things in your life in order, God will take care of your daily needs and you will be able to focus on your job without it defining who you are.

If a church denies the trinity, it is messing with the THUMB, and nothing is allowed to mess with the THUMB.