Tongues, Emotions, and Radical Pentecostalism

I had always been curious to hear what speaking in tongues sounded like. I had heard various views on it from my evangelical friends; that it was a gift only given to certain people, that it was only meant to be used in Bible times, or that it was just something “those crazy Pentecostals” did.

It was time to find out.

After our trip to the Eastern Orthodox church, Monica and I looked up all of the Pentacostal churches in town. There were plenty of Assembly of God churches and lighter charismatic denominations in town. I had been to an Assembly of God church before, and it seemed like it was just Baptist with a little more hand raising. But we wanted to find something a little more radical. (Maybe something slightly reminiscent of Benny Hinn.)
We found the perfect match: a wild, emotional, weepy, slightly cultish, 100% radically Pentacostal church just a few blocks from our house.

We walked apprehensively into the building, trying to be inconspicious but failing utterly. It is especially hard to go unnoticed when the worship leader loudly announces your presence to the entire congregation.

The Pentecostal service stood in complete contrast to the majesty and art of the Orthodox service. The worship was led by a man belting out lines from the pulpit, with a plunking out an accompaniment on an out of tune piano. It didn’t get long for the tongues to get started. Hand-raising, swaying, and streams of gibberish were all intertwined with the southern gospel style songs. In between songs, the worship leader would declare in a loud voice that the spirit was now filing the room, and would begin gasping, praying in broken fragmented sentences, or repeating IloveyouJesus, IloveyouJesus, IloveyouJesus, over and over again like an auctioneer. During these “spirit-filled” interludes, the people in the congregation would follow his lead. It seemed that “the spirit” could be turned on and off by command of the worship leader. When he wanted to make announcements he would go from gasping, emotion-filled tongue speaker to calm and collected orator in the snap of a finger. At one time, the worship leader called people up to be healed. A couple of people came up, and the rest of the congregation huddled around these people, placing their hands on them and shouting prayers all at once.

The preacher had no plan for his sermon whatsoever. He said he was preaching “as the spirit led”. I can’t remember much about the content of his sermon, except that he talked a lot about faith. He seemed to think that blind faith was the most important and obvious virtue you could possess. Once he said “faith is like your arms, you just have to have faith that they are there.” Monica and I still laugh over that one.

The whole service seemed like a combination of frothy emotionalism and bizarre rambling. It reminded me of a high powered version of Bible camp, were you were emotionally manipulated into a “spiritual high” that evaporated as quickly as emotions do.

I have some friends who are Pentecostal, and their churches just use the more charismatic singing and the speaking in tongues as a different form of worship. I have nothing against that. But this church took it to a creepy, extremist level. The entire service was centered around getting yourself worked up into a frothy-mouthed, screaming, wailing spiritual high. It was almost like “the spirit” was a drug that the worship leader and the pastor fed to the eager congregation.


-Carmen

The Start of Our Explorations: Orthodox Christianity

The air is charged with the scent of incense and the deep murmuring song of the priests. The embroidery flickers on their candle-gold robes as they perform their sacred rituals. The solemn icons observe the liturgy from all corners of the room, the wisdom in their faces intense and palpable.

The atmosphere is ancient, reverent, but never dismally so. The congregation stands, enraptured before the altar of their god, stirring the incense with their fingertips as they mark the sign of the cross over their chests and sink into an easy, lilting bow. Everyone who walks into the room is transfigured by the sacrosanct tranquility of the Orthodox liturgy.

This is what religion should be.

We began our exploration of churches with a visit to St. John of Kronstadt Orthodox Church. We weren’t disappointed. The service was beautiful. As I mentioned in my previous post: it didn’t matter that I didn’t agree with the theology of the church—the chants and rituals were more moving than the evangelical “praise and worship songs” had ever been to me, even as a Christian.

And as I soon discovered, my sister and I fit in perfectly with the members of the congregation—they were our “kindred spirits.” They didn’t meet us with judgment, they met us with love. Here we were valued for who we were, rather than for what we believed.

(I don’t mean to say that the evangelical church is full of judgmental people—that’s not completely true. But it is not entirely free of them either. More to come in a later blog post about this topic!)

So, what sets Orthodoxy apart from other denominations? Let me phrase it this way:

How many Orthodox priests does it take to change a light bulb?

Ha. Change? You must be kidding.

Not only the the liturgy of the early church is preserved by the Orthodox church, but the theology remains the same as well. And I like it that way.

There are many other differences between Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy (and Orthodoxy and Catholicism for that matter) But perhaps the most notable is simply how they treat religion. They are not obsessive-compulsive about dogma and doctrine—instead they value the mystical nature of their relationship with God. It is this that really sets them apart. They don’t try to wrap up their theology in a water-tight box. (Evangelicalism tries to do this, but all they end up with is a pretty misshapen box)

My sister and I now attend St John’s regularly. And even though we don’t believe in the teachings of the Bible, we feel at home in the Orthodox church. Why?

Because the Orthodox understand the art of religion. They understand the art of the unexplained.

(The website for St. John of Kronstadt Church is http://kronstadtchurch.org/ the website for their ancient Christianity coffee shop and bookstore is http://catacomblincoln.com/)


-Monica

My Perspective...

Does something have to be true in order to be beautiful?

No.

Don’t give me any of this “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature...” nonsense. What kind of human being are you anyway, Mr. Marx?

You don’t have to believe in the existence of Zeus and the rest of his merry (or sometimes not so merry) pantheon in order to appreciate the Greek myths. You don’t have to believe Christ died on the cross for you sins in order to feel the majestic exhilaration of an ancient hymn. You don’t have to believe in any kind of goddess or tree nymph in order to experience the harmonious energy of a pagan ritual.

Religion is beautiful. Religion is art. Religion is a part of who we are as humans—it defines us. Take away religion from us and you might as well take away music, drama, literature... Eliminate the entire concept of beauty while you’re at it!

I can’t tell you who is right or wrong when it comes to religion. I don’t know. Nobody really knows, do they? Sure, I tend to think there is a God out there, and I have some philosophical reasons for believing it. (Namely the question of the origin of the universe) But that’s not really my main reason for believing in God. I believe in God because I want to. I find the whole concept of God to be incredibly beautiful; and while I don’t think one religion has got everything right, I think they each provide something to be learned. But they provide more than that—they provide beauty.

Yann Martel, author of one of my favorite books—The Life of Pi— puts it this way: “I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" - and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.”

I agree with Martel; I think God is the better story. Atheism just seems so bland to me, so lacking. It’s like comparing the wild landscape as seen from the top of a mountain on a bright, crisp day, to the endless stretch of a concrete tarmac glazed with the red-hot spit of an angry sun.

Sometimes I think I’m an atheist, but I try not to be. I try not to “lack imagination and miss the better story.” And yet, I still am committed to reason. I believe there's truth out there: I'm no relativist. I still thirst for knowledge and truth, even though truth is hard to find, and pretty much impossible to prove. But as long as nothing can be proved about the existence of God, I’m going to believe.

So here’s the basics about me: I grew up in a Christian home, and I became a Christian when I was about 8. Recently though, I was confronted with a slew of doubts and questions about Christianity and ended up realizing I couldn’t believe it anymore.

Now that’s an extremely long story made short, and I will elaborate later, I promise. But for now that will have to do.


-Monica

The Purpose of this Blog

Sometimes we want the world to be black and white. Sometimes we think that we can find all the answers to all of life’s questions and lock them into place like the pieces of a perfectly geometric puzzle. It’s comforting to think that there is always a right, clear, objective answer. But life doesn’t always work that way. Some things aren’t black and white and obvious; they’re confusing and murky and more than a little unexplained.

I believe that objective truth is out there, the problem is that we can’t always see it clearly. Many people claim to have the right way. Thousands of religions and viewpoints claim that they have an exclusive hold on the truth about God, meaning, and life.

I believe that there is not just one right way. This doesn’t mean that different things are true at once, it just means that there is not one right way to live or one right thing to believe. I believe the unexplained can be beautiful.

The purpose of this blog is to explore these unexplained things in life.

First, a little background. My sister and I are former evangelical Christians who have now left the faith due to doubts about the belief system. We wanted to learn about different beliefs and viewpoints about the world, so we started studying. But we realized that we could only learn so much by reading. We knew that best way to learn about these viewpoints was to experience them first hand. So we started visiting churches and religious groups. This blog is going to be about our experiences going to various religious services, as well as our own thoughts on the many unexplained things in life.

Our viewpoints are fairly similar, but we don’t agree on absolutely everything. (What sisters ever do?) I consider myself an agnostic. My sister leans more towards theism; I toward atheism. I don’t see that there is much solid evidence for God’s existence. I think that if God does exist, it is impossible for us to know what he is like.

That being said, I am fascinated by religion. One can be a spiritual person even if they don’t believe in God. Humans throughout all of history have had a sense of spirituality and expressed it in many different ways; through rituals, worship, paintings, music, and emotion. We’re spiritual animals by nature. I think fundamentalist religion causes a lot of harm in our world, but a healthy religion or spirituality can be an enrichment to our lives.

We’re going to start posting about our experiences at some churches as soon as we can. We love a good discussion, so please send some comments our way!


-Carmen