Spiritually confused

[DavidHawthorne]

Yes, I believe he was not telling the truth. I also believe, based on my experience, that most of what occurs in the charismatic movement with "tongues and the gifts of the Spirit" is emotionalism and self-deception rather than demonic in origin. For myself and many of the people I knew, the lure to believe in the charismatic movement was very strong for us because we were going through a period of inner turmoil and their doctrines seemed to give a key to powerfully take control of our lives and circumstances again. It offers a "quick fix" placebo whereas Orthodoxy teaches life-long repentance and transformation.
Please note that I am not saying charismatics are bad people or fools. I think that most of them really love the Lord and want to follow Him. And they really have a great sense of fellowship with one another.
It is just that their tradition keeps them from ever approaching the great question of the Church and how to judge between different doctrines in any objective manner. It is totally subjectivized Christianity .......the wife is calling me for dinner, I gotta run
In Christ,
Rd. David

[Anastasios]

I would suggest anyone interested see the documentary "The Blind and the Dead" by Texe Marrs available at www.conspiracyworld.com or .net or .org...sorry. It's also floating around various file sharing programs but well, I'm not advocating that avenue

It exposes the charismatic movement. Mr. Marrs is a Baptist and the rest of the material on his site is weird but I have that documentary and there are lots of footage. Crazy stuff.

[gimme your lunch money]

Whoa!!!! Far out!!......The only problem i have with this guy is that his brother is Jim Marrs. Jim Marrs is another conspiracy theorist but one who is not a Christian and one who even advocates the whole "Priory of Sion", Jesus-Magdelene progeny theory. That makes me raise an eyebrow or two about Texe as well. Perhaps both Marrs' are disinformation agents employed by the CIA......although I have no problems believing that the Charismatic movement is a fraud. Interestingly enough, even though Texe is a Baptist, he appears to be anti-Zionist which I find delightfully surprising.

[basil]

I can also confirm that what DavidHawthorne states is true, as I also attended a major charismatic university, at the time studying to be a preacher. I had to attend chapel twice a week and attended a charismatic church on Sundays and never once saw evidence of a real miracle, although some questionable "praise reports" claiming unverifiable miracles did get reported from time to time. I was not a skeptic, but slowly became one due to the lack of real miracles and beginning to study Church history.

I believe the devil may use "miracles" to delude some as a tool of deception, but more times than not, I think the reports of miracles are actually deceptive lies.

Basil

[gimme your lunch money]

basil: lemme quess: ORU??

[DavidHawthorne]

Actually it was the lack of seeing miracles as a charismatic that led me to study the Fathers. In the library at college we had the 38 volume Eerdman's set of the fathers so one day the thought occured to me that I could prove charismatics were the same as the early church in their beliefs and practices just by finding quotes in those books. The endeavor did not have the results I expected.............

In Christ,
Rd. David

[basil]

Yes, GYLM, it was ORU.

Although I'm openly critical of the theology of the university, there are professors teaching there from various Christians backgrounds. A pro-Roman Catholic, now Catholic convert, Dr. James Shelton, taught church history, which brought me 1/2 the way to Orthodoxy. I'm grateful for that. However, aside from the slightly more positive influence of some of the professors, the culture of the university is seriously distorted, as one could imagine, since it was founded by "faith" guru, Oral Roberts.

Basil