Talk:Charismatic Christianity/Archive 1

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Archive of discussions for 2004 until 2005, when the article was merged with Charismatic Movement. Note: discusssions may be refactored.

Related text

The text below was posted at Charismatics, and is pasted here for anyone to merge in. Charles Matthews 09:16, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

CHARISMATICS

by Daniel F. Rice

Charismatic movements of today have their roots in phenomenologically oriented forms of Christianity, such as Pentecostalism.

The term Charismatic is a loose-fitting generalized term used to describe a largly informal and highly adaptable existential spirituality within Christianity. It is both experience-based and Bible-based in its doctrine.

Some groups are more Fundamentalistic while fringe groups can verge on New Age practices such as visualzation and inner healing.

Charismatic expressions are not the exclusive attribution of any single denomination, nor is it uniquely Protestant. Tha Catholic Church has had its own Charismatic proponents - especially over the past forty years.

There have been a number of Charismatic movements, all of which differ and vary significantly. The most dramatic of these movements was the Pentecostal movement of the twentieth century. The irony of that movement is that it found root and prospered in the age of Modernism, science, and secular humanism. It found widedpread interest in the poorer segments of American society and among the Black population.

The term Charismatic is a generalized designation, often used to describe very different things to different groups. Each Charismatic group tends to use this word a little differently. Not all Charismatica are the same. There can even be radical differences between groups.

Christians who are at odds with Charismatics, often the Southern Baptists and other such Calvin-based denominations, use the word in a derisive manner and generally believe and teach that Charismatics are everything from shallow to dangerous -- even demon possessed. In recent years, due to the growing popularity of Charismatic movements in North America, Calvinist and Reform theologians have attempted to prevent the members of their own churches from going over to the Charismatic churches by emulating them in worship style and jargon. They have written many books about the gifts of the Spirit and "carismata" (spiritual gifts) in order to put a more clearly Evangelical spin on Charismatic issues -- coming closer to Charismatics in language in order to blunt its effects.

Nevertheless, within the various Charismatic movements there is still no sigle meaning to the word, nor do these groups teach a single unified doctrine about Charismatic issues. Each group understands and describe these phenomena somewhat differently. There is no final agreement on these issues, and in the end, most Christians believe them to be important, but secondary issues to the core beliefs such as are stated in the Apostle's or Nicene Creeds. Those creeds are the true core of both Charismatic and non-Charismatic Christians.

In short, the term Charismatic is use to describe those Christians who believe that manifestations of Spirit seen in the first century Church, such as gossalalia, healing and miracles are available to contemporary Christian, and ought to be experienced and practiced today.

The word Charismatic is derived from the Greek word CHARIS (Xaris), meaning a grace, or a gift. Those who are designated as Charismatics are those who have received phenomenological giftings of the Spirit of God, such as speaking with tongues, prophecy, gifts of healing, supernatural manifestations of understanding, insight, wisdom and knowledge. This is not to be confused with paranormal experiences, psychic powers, or what is commonly considered the occult.

Charismatics are generally Evangelical in doctrine with an emphasis on the historical experiences recorded predominantly in the book of The Acts of the Apostles (ACTS), Romans, and First and Second Corinthians.

Charismatics believe in the gifts of the Spirit, and that these are distinctly different from the natural talents and natural motivations resident in the human personality. Non-Charismatic teachers often interpret the gift of the Spirit as "motivational gifts" which can be understood as spiritually enhanced natural giftedness or tendencies of one's own personality enhanced by the Spirit. Sometimes Charismatics will adopt these teachings too, but they do not explain phenonmena like glossilalia. That gift has been the cause of controversy among Christians of all ages, not just in modern times.

As recently as the 1960s and 1970s there was a renewed interest in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in mainstream churches such as the Episcopal, Lutheran and Catholic churches. The Catholic Carismatic Renewal was focused in individuals like Kevin Ranahan and his group of followers at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Ranahan's counterpart in the Episcopal Church was Father Dennis Bennett of Ballard, Washington. On an international level there was David Duplessi and a host of others during that time, including Lutheran and even Southern Baptist ministers. The later did not last long with their denominations, either volunteering to leave, or being asked to do so. But in the Episcopal and Catholic churches priest and ministers were permitted to continue on in their parishes, provided they did not allow these concerns to create major divisions within their congregations.

Since then the term Charismatic has been used to describe vastly different kinds of Christian groups from major denominations like the Assemblies of God, to faith-healers like Kathryn Colman and Benny Hinn, to Prosperity preachers like Kenneth Copland, to Vineyard churches established by John Wimber.

The thing these churches, movements and groups have in common is that they all believe and promote the supernatural manifestations of the Spirit in their meetings. This is not really that different than early American church movements like the Shakers, Quakers, Finney's followers, revivalist, followers of Billy Sunday, Oral Roberts, R. W. Shamback; Methodists (the origianl "holy-rollers"), and Holiness churches of earlier American history.

There is more to write about here, but it is late.

I integrated his comments, although I changed them substantially. I'll leave them here as is in case anyone wants a baseline to compare with. Glen Davis 02:30, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Nitpicking

Suggestion: The "fundamentalist" link under "Theological Distinctives" should go to the "Fundamentalist Christianity" article rather than the general "Fundamentalist" one, or is there a good reason to keep it as is? [Unsigned comment by User:70.80.50.187 04:03, 13 December 2004]

Catholic Charismatics

From my observations, besides pentecostals, catholic charismatics, majority philipino, are the largest segment within this umbrella. Often they are called "THE charismatics" from within the catholic church. Although they were obviously heavily influenced by pentecostalism, they may not admit it, and contain many elements such as a promininence in devotion to Mary which would cause friction with other "charismatic" protestants. Is this true? If so then it seems the article should be changed to reflect all this. [Unsigned comment by User:67.180.61.179 06:20, 7 January 2005]

This seems more complete coverage than found at Charismatic Movement

Should they be merged? Paul foord 13:16, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A glaring ommission

There is no discussion of the early church fathers with supporting quotations. I strongly believe there should be. Please see: http://www.victorious.org/sprgifts.htm ken 17:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

I added:

Dr. Dale A. Robbins writes in regards to charasmatic beliefs that Church history argues against the idea that charismatic gifts went away shortly after the apostolic age. Dr. Robbins quotes the early church father Irenaeus (ca. 130-202) as writing the following,"...we hear many of the brethren in the church who have prophetic gifts, and who speak in tongues through the spirit, and who also bring to light the secret things of men for their benefit [word of knowledge]...". Dr. Robbins also cites Irenaues writing the following, "When God saw it necessary, and the church prayed and fasted much, they did miraculous things, even of bringing back the spirit to a dead man." According to Dr. Robbins Tertullian (ca. 155–230) reported similar incidents as did Origen (ca. 182 - 251), Eusebius (ca. 275 – 339), Firmilian (ca. 232-269), and Chrysostom (ca. 347 - 407).[1]

ken 01:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

Recent edit

Recent edit:

- Made a few changes to the criticisms section.

- Removed the following section because it is unnecessary and irrelevent. Why on earth does anyone care what charismatic churches there are in India? It is also completely unrelated to the rest of the article.

Charismatic Churches in India

• Association of Vineyard Churches
• Bible Brethren Fellowship
• Blessing Youth Mission
• Christian Fellowship Centre
• Eternal Light Ministries
• Fellowship of Evangelical Friends
• Fellowship of Gospel Churches
• Gospel Echoing Missionary Society
• Native Missionary Movement
• New Life Churches
• Orissa Missionary Movement
• Prince of Peace Church
• Tamil Christian Fellowship

--EthanSudman 04:58, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

List of Charismatic Churches in India I have made of these entries. Sarcelles 09:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

While I personally don't care, and did not put it there -- I would assume that information about charismatic communities in the world's second largest country, and where Christianity is growing apace is relevant, especially to people from there, who can access the web and read English. Ethnocentrisms is a strange sentiment on this topic. It should be restored. -- Anon. [ User:138.88.94.214 23:55, 29 October 2005]

Merging

I have merged both the page and the discussion into Charismatic Movement (a much better title) and turned this page into a disambiguation. User:DaveDave 18:55, 25 December 2005

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