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