Chapter 4: The Charismatic Tradition: Discovering the Spirit-Empowered Life
Chapter 4
The Charismatic Tradition: Discovering the Spirit-Empowered Life
Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.
— Ephesians 5:18b-19
Now is the Lord appearing in this day of his mighty power, to gather His elect together, out of all forms and observations, kindreds, tongues and nations; and is making up his jewels, his mighty host, and exalting Jesus Christ to be King of Kings, to lead his Army … in the mighty power of the living Word of God.
— William Dewsbury, 1655
4 
WHILE THE HOLINESS TRADITION centers upon the power to be, the Charismatic Tradition centers upon the power to do. While this distinction is important, we must not make too much of it, for — as we shall see presently — these two Traditions are most healthy when they refuse to function independently of one another. (So it is with all the Traditions.) The Charismatic Stream of Christian life and faith focuses upon the empowering charisms or gifts of the Spirit and the nurturing fruit of the Spirit. This Spirit-empowered way of living addresses the deep yearning for the immediacy of God’s presence among his people.
SEEKING A HISTORICAL PARADIGM
Every time I consider the Charismatic Stream I think of Francesco, a young man who lived at the height of the Middle Ages. He was born and raised in Italy, but French influences were also prominent from the outset. His given name at birth was actually Giovanni, but when his father, Pietro Bernadone, returned from a business trip to France, he immediately changed the child’s name to Francesco, “the Little Frenchman.” His mother, Pica, was French, and Francesco learned his mother’s native tongue at her knee. He particularly loved the French ballads popularized by roving troubadours.
Before the Hound of Heaven conquered his heart, Francesco was the fun-loving leader of a frolicking group of young men from the area. His first biographer notes, “Up to the twenty-fifth year of his age, he squandered and wasted his time miserably. Indeed, he outdid all his contemporaries in vanities and he came to be a promoter of evil and was more abundantly zealous for all kinds of foolishness.”1
In his early twenties Francesco left home to fight in a bloody skirmish with a neighboring city, where he was taken as a prisoner of war. A one-year incarceration there, along with a one-year convalescence back home, proved to be a critical turning point. During these dark, lonely months Francesco experienced an ever-growing, ever-deepening, converting grace. Living as a hermit beside the tumbledown, nearly abandoned church of San Damiano, he heard the debar Yahweh (the word of the Lord) — “Rebuild my church” — coming from the church crucifix. This Francesco did, at first by literally repairing the ruined walls of San Damiano and then by undertaking the far greater task of rebuilding the spiritual heart of the church — a rebuilding that was desperately needed.
Pietro Bernadone was livid about Francesco’s new life, especially the young man’s lavish generosity to the poor with Pietro’s hard-earned money. Finally, in an act of desperation, he hauled his recalcitrant son before the local bishop, demanding justice. Francesco responded by renouncing all claims to his father’s estate and returning all goods — including the clothes off his back, so that he stood naked before the bishop. He then turned to Pietro Bernadone, saying, “Until now I called you my father, but from now on I can say without reserve, ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’ He is all my wealth and I place all my confidence in him.”2
And so, mindful of the jugglers that accompanied the French troubadours, Francesco declared that he was Le Jongleur de Dieu, living in utter poverty and wandering through the towns and villages, preaching the gospel. Many of the young men who had been part of his thrill-seeking circle in earlier days joined him. Another person joined him too — Clare Favarone, a well-to-do young lady from Francesco’s hometown. Thus began one of the great spiritual movements of history.
The story of that movement is so well known that by now you have probably guessed that the Francesco I have been telling you about is none other than the little, poor man of Assisi, St. Francis. What an extraordinary story! What a powerful influence! But why would I think of Francis as a pivotal figure in the Charismatic Tradition?
Power in the Spirit
Well, first of all, because of the striking power in the Spirit that surrounded all that Francis did and said. Perhaps one story will suffice. Clare — who by this time had established the “Second Order” of the Franciscans, “the poor Clares” — had often requested the opportunity to eat with Francis, but he had never granted her request. Finally some of the brothers urged him to consent, saying, “Father, it seems to us that this strictness is not according to divine charity … especially considering that she gave up the riches and pomp of the world as a result of your preaching.” In the end Francis was persuaded, and so a meeting was arranged at the little church of St. Mary of the Angels. Francis had a meal prepared and spread on the ground, as was his custom. Meeting at the appointed hour, “St. Francis and St. Clare sat down together, and one of his companions with St. Clare’s companion, and all his other companions were grouped around that humble table.” As they ate, Francis “began to speak about God in such a sweet and holy and profound and divine and marvelous way that he himself and St. Clare and her companion and all the others who were at that poor little table were rapt in God.”
In the meantime the people of Assisi were horrified to see in the distance St. Mary of the Angels and the entire forest around it enveloped in flames. They rushed up the hill, hoping to put out the blaze before everything was lost. But upon arriving at the little church, they found nothing amiss. No church on fire. No forest ablaze. Nothing. Entering the church they discovered Francis, Clare, and the others “sitting around that very humble table, rapt in God by contemplation and invested with power from on high.” They then realized that the fire they had seen was not a material fire, but a spiritual fire. The blaze they saw was “to symbolize the fire of divine love which was burning in the souls” of these simple servants of Christ. The end result of this astonishing event was that the people of Assisi returned home “with great consolation in their hearts and with holy edification.”3
I know I said that one story would suffice, but how can I leave out the most famous Francis story of all: the taming of the ferocious wolf of Gubbio? It seems that a huge wolf had been terrorizing the citizens of Gubbio, killing several children. The people were so traumatized that they would hardly venture out of their homes, and certainly not beyond the town’s boundaries. Hearing this, Francis immediately determined to find the wolf. He struck out on the road to the area where it was often found, his companions following along at a safe distance. Seeing them coming, the wolf charged at them, open-mouthed and menacing. Francis firmly and gently called out to him, “Come to me, Brother Wolf. In the name of Christ, I order you not to hurt me or anyone.” His companions, at first frightened, were astonished to see the wolf stop in its tracks, close its jaws, lower its head, and lie down at Francis’s feet like a lamb. As it lay in front of him, Francis addressed the wolf: “Brother Wolf, you have done great harm in this region, … and this whole town is your enemy. But, Brother Wolf, I want to make peace between you and them, so that they will not be harmed by you any more.” He then proceeded to propose a peace pact between the wolf and the people of Gubbio: the wolf would promise not to terrorize and kill, and the people would promise to treat the wolf with courtesy and provide it with food. As the people watched in astonishment, “The wolf showed by moving its body and tail and ears and by nodding its head that it willingly accepted what the Saint had said and would observe it.” At this all the people “shouted to the sky, praising and blessing the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In this dramatic act the shalom of God descended upon that city, for we are told that “from that day, the wolf and the people kept the pact which St. Francis made. The wolf lived two years more, and it went from door to door for food. It hurt no one, and no one hurt it. The people fed it courteously. And it is a striking fact that not a single dog ever barked at it.”4
Francis’s entire ministry was rich in miracles and healings, signs and wonders, revelations and visions. Once he encountered a blind girl from the city of Bevagna in the Spoleto Valley. Seeing her inward heart-devotion, he “marked the eyes of the blind girl with his spittle three times in the name of the Trinity and restored to her the sight she desired.”5 One man from the city of Orte had a tumor between his shoulders “the size of a large loaf of bread.” Francis, seeing his condition, laid hands on him and blessed him, and “he was suddenly so completely healed that no trace of the tumor remained.”6 The stories go on and on.
Growth in the Spirit
But these things, by themselves, do not make Francis a paradigm for the Charismatic Stream. Power is not an end in itself, it was never intended to be. Healthy spiritual power is, of necessity, tied to spiritual growth. And it is right here, at the linkage between spiritual power and spiritual growth, that we see how intimately connected are the Charismatic and the Holiness Traditions. That interconnection is exactly what we would expect. These two traditions should work hand-in-glove and should fuel each other. What makes Francis so important for our study, then, is the way he integrated in his person the empowering gifts of the Spirit with the nurturing fruit of the Spirit — love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and generosity and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. We are drawn to the sheer beauty of his personality.
All of the wonder-working events in Francis’s life had this soul growth as their objective. We are told that after one astonishing miracle Francis remained in the area “because of the great good which he saw the Lord was performing in the souls of the people who came there, for he saw that many of them … were inebriated with the love of God and converted to heavenly longings.” This is the point of all the miracle stories. Nor were all the miracles of an outward nature. Many, in fact, were deeply interior, involving unusual discernment and wisdom. Whether outward or inward, the results were always the same, however: deeper love of God, greater holiness of life, fuller freedom in the Spirit.
Bonaventure said of Francis, “By the range of virtues which shone forth in his life, he stood head and shoulders above all others.”7 Francis wandered the hills and villages, constantly preaching conversion to the values of the gospel. He taught his followers to greet everyone with the salutation “Peace and good!” Now, for us to realize how dramatic this statement was, we must recover some sense of the violence and carnage of the age; these people lived under constant threat of blood vendettas and murder and pillage. Against that backdrop the greeting of peace and goodness from these humble “friars minor” came as a blessed shock.
Perhaps this focus upon goodness can be best gathered up in Francis’s “Salutation of the Virtues.” Francis made these simple statements in praise of the various “strengths” — which is what the word virtues means — that make a moral life possible. These strengths, he says, are rooted in God and come forth from God. They are the energies of the converted life. The more we ponder this simple text, the more we see Francis as a theologian of the Spirit, for it is the Spirit who brings us into ever-deeper, ever-fuller purity of heart.
Hail, Queen Wisdom! May the Lord preserve you with your sister holy pure Simplicity!
O lady holy Poverty, may the Lord save you with your sister holy Humility!
O lady holy Charity, may the Lord save you with your sister holy Obedience!
O all you most holy virtues,
may the Lord save you all,
from Whom you come and proceed.8
Joy in the Spirit
Holy joy is one of the most common marks of those who walk in the power of the Spirit, and Francis and his merry band possessed it in abundance. Their joy must have been a wonder to watch; just reading about it quickens the heart. These young troubadours of the Lord went from town to town, inebriated with holy joy. Even when Francis stood in front of the pope, he all but danced. Thomas of Celano wrote of this event noting that Francis “spoke with such great fervor of spirit, that, not being able to contain himself for joy … he moved his feet as though he were dancing.”9
My favorite of the stories that illustrate the joy in the Spirit felt by Francis and his band centers on Francis putting together the very first Christmas creche in the little town of Greccio. (Manger scenes are so common today that it is hard for us to imagine the feelings that must have accompanied that original experience. The story is preserved for us in Thomas of Celano’s First Life of St. Francis.)
The year was 1223. Francis by now had resigned as the head of the order that bears his name and was three years away from his death. The Christmas feast was nearing, and in delightful spontaneity Francis declared, “I wish to do something that will recall to memory the little Child who was born in Bethlehem.” So in merry abandon he found a nearby cave and made the necessary arrangements. Just imagine the mystery and intrigue as the people of Greccio wondered what Francis was up to in that cave at the edge of town. Then Christmas Eve — “the day of joy … the time of great rejoicing” — arrived. The people of the neighborhood lit candles and torches “to light up that night” and made their way to the cave “with glad hearts.” Standing at the edge of the cave, they saw revealed by their lights a tiny baby in a manger — a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth and warmed by the hot, steamy breath of a half-dozen cows and sheep. What in the world?!
Then Francis appeared, and “he saw it and was glad.” Ah, now the people caught the point: “Greccio was made, as it were, a new Bethlehem.” They were “filled with new joy over the new mystery. The woods rang with the voices of the crowd and the rocks made answer to their jubilation. The brothers sang … and the whole night resounded with their rejoicing.” Francis stood over the manger scene, “uttering sighs, overcome with love, and filled with a wonderful happiness.” Francis sang to the people in “a sweet voice, a clear voice, a sonorous voice.” He preached, speaking “charming words.”
Then a member of the crowd had a vision that he shared with those gathered around this simple manger scene. His vision was of a little child lying in a manger, lifeless. But in the vision Francis went up and touched the child and the child awakened “as from a deep sleep.” The lesson of the vision was not lost on the assembled crowd, “for the Child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many; but, by the working of his grace, he was brought to life again through his servant St. Francis and stamped upon their fervent memory.” What a reverent, jubilant, solemn celebration! And what a wonder-filled pageant for illiterate people who did not have the luxury of reading and rereading the story for themselves. On that night the joy of Christmas became palpable to the people of Greccio. Each observer, Thomas noted, “returned to his home with holy joy.”10
I commend Francis of Assisi to you as a model of charismatic jubilee.
SEEKING A BIBLICAL PARADIGM
The Apostle Paul is without doubt one of the finest models of the Charismatic Stream in the entire Bible. He had a well-nigh amazing balance between the rational, objective apprehension of the gospel and the ecstatic, subjective charisms of the Spirit — enveloping both in the nurturing, maturing fruit of the Spirit. He could boldly declare, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you,” and at the same time confess, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 14:18, 13:1). He gives us both the most carefully reasoned theological treatise in the New Testament — Romans — and the finest practical teaching on exercising the spiritual gifts — First Corinthians.
The man himself was something of a wonder. Raised in Tarsus — a city created out of the combined influences of Athens and Rome, Babylon and Nineveh — he was the child of this Hellenistic/Oriental world. His family held the coveted title civis Romanus (or citizen of Rome), and he had a Roman name, Paullus, Paul. But he was also, and equally, a “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” and he had the Hebrew name Saul.
A brilliant student, he was sent to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, the leading teacher of the school of Hillel. He quickly rose in the ranks, and some have even suggested that he took a seat on the Sanhedrin, Israel’s ruling body. Be that as it may, we first encounter Paul in Acts, when Stephen was proclaiming gospel truth to “the rulers of the Jews.” The Sanhedrin responded with utter rage; these dignified elders “ground their teeth at Stephen” (Acts 7:54). The Sanhedrin’s “Hall of Polished Stones” reverberated with the howling of a lynch mob. Stephen was dragged to the Rock of Execution, and as this first Christian martyr was being put to death, Saul guarded the coats of the killers, nodding his approval of their killing work.
Saul’s approval, in fact, went so far that he took a leadership role in the persecution that followed, “ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). Eventually this led Saul to that fateful Damascus journey during which a blinding “light from heaven” struck him to the ground and the risen Christ called him by name: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:3-5).
No doubt you are acquainted with the rest of the story. Saul’s three-day fast at the home of Judas on “the Street called Straight.” The vision to Ananias and his obedience to that vision. Ananias’s tender words to Saul: “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17b). The divine commissioning of Saul as “Apostle to the Gentiles” and the sobering reminder, “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). Saul’s sight restored and his baptism into Christian fellowship. His dramatic proclamation in the synagogues: “He is the Son of God.” His powerful disputation with the Jews, “proving that Jesus was the Messiah” (Acts 9:20-22).
At this point the story fades some, although we do know bits and pieces. We know, for example, that Saul went to the deserts of Arabia for three years.(Gal. 1:17). This would not have been difficult logistically, since Damascus was the terminus of one of the great spice routes from southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. And it was an essential solitude for Saul. At this critical juncture he needed, not the apostles, but the risen Jesus alone; not a city, but the wilderness. Much later he insisted that his gospel message did not come from any human or earthly source: “I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12). We cannot understand all that follows in this great man’s life without recognizing the importance of those three years alone in the school of the Spirit in the Arabian deserts.
We do know that he returned to Damascus briefly (Gal. 1:17). This is most likely when the plot to get rid of him once and for all was hatched and when he made his daring midnight escape over the city wall in a fish basket.11
We do know that he spent time in Jerusalem with Peter and James; then, when things got a bit risky, he slipped off to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:26-30). There he disappeared from sight for perhaps a decade, only to reappear in Antioch ready for his famous missionary journeys.
The details become much clearer from this point on. The story of the commissioning at Antioch, the subsequent missionary journeys, and the final trip to Rome are well known and sufficiently documented that I do not need to detail them here.12 But perhaps it would be useful to highlight an incident from each of his three mission trips to illustrate the charismatic character of his effective ministry.
First Journey: Power Encounter at Cyprus
We see, at the very outset of these missionary journeys, the frequent and intentional mention of the superintending role of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. When persecution scattered the early followers of the Way, evangelistic fires broke out in Antioch and spilled over unintentionally into the non-Jewish Greek population. Barnabas, “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” was sent to look into this unusual phenomenon (Acts 11:24, italics added). Seeing that it was the work of God, he knew that Saul was just the person to help out. For a full year the two of them worked together in Antioch, and “the disciples were first called ‘Christians’” here because people saw that the way of Christ was more than just a movement within Jewry (Acts 11:26). It was a perfect place to launch a mission to Gentile peoples.
While the leaders of the church at Antioch — “prophets and teachers” — were “worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’” (Acts 13:2, italics added). This was followed by more fasting, more praying, and then a commissioning of these two with the laying on of hands. While human instrumentality was used, Luke made it quite clear who was in charge of this effort: “So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit …” (Acts 13:4, italics added).
Traveling to the island of Cyprus, Barnabus and Saul had extraordinary results — so much so that the proconsul of the island, Sergius Paulus, invited them to speak at the palace. But one man, Bar-Jesus or Elymas by name, tried to stop them. He was the local magician, and these gospel heralds were crowding in on his territory. The battle was set — occult magician versus Spirit-empowered apostle. “But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit,” applied the gospel medicine to Elymas: “The hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun” (Acts 13:9, 11, italics added).13 Perhaps the Venerable Bede was correct when he commented on this event, “The apostle, remembering his own case, knew that by the darkening of the eyes the mind’s darkness might be restored to light.”14
We today may wonder at Paul’s authority and power in this situation. I mean, few of us are at the people-blinding level! But Paul had learned, through a process of time and experience, that when he spoke, God spoke. He knew how to discern the movements of the Spirit, and he knew how to work in cooperation with those movements. That knowledge produced a spirit-empowered life.
Second Journey: Exorcism at Philippi
How Paul and his team ended up in Philippi in the first place is itself a charismatic wonder. Paul kept trying to go north, but he was hindered on two separate occasions: first the team was “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia,” and then, when they tried to go into Bithynia, “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (Acts 16:6-8). We have no hint as to the means the Spirit used to convey this restriction — a prophecy perhaps, or a vision, or simply a growing conviction that this was not the way. But by now Paul and his companions were well acquainted with walking in responsiveness to the movements of the Spirit. So instead of going north, they angled west until they came to Troas, where they waited for further guidance.
And further guidance they got in abundance. Paul had a vision in the night: “There stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’” (Acts 16:9). Notice that the region, Macedonia, was specified in the vision, but not the specific city. God’s guidance was for them to go west instead of north as they had wanted; that was the supernatural side of the equation. They used their sanctified common sense in choosing Philippi; it was the major city in the region and, being a port city, the easiest to get to.
As usual, Paul began his work by using the religious life of the place — whatever it happened to be — as his starting point. In the non-Jewish context of Philippi there was no synagogue, but there was a small prayer gathering of women by the river. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke joined them:15 “We sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there” (Acts 16:13). It is moving to realize the cultural biases that these evangelists had to overcome to meet at a public site with Gentile women. Now, watch how God honors this small effort.
The first miracle was that the businesswoman in the group, Lydia, was soundly converted and then baptized — “she and her household.”16 She then urged Paul and the others to stay in her home, giving Paul a base for his operations (Acts 16:14-15).
The second miracle took place as Paul and the others were continuing in their regular practice of gathering by the river, “the place of prayer.” It seems that a young slave girl “who had a spirit of divination” latched onto Paul and his company, crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” Now, this was actually quite good — even accurate — advertising for Paul and his team. But Paul had no need for that kind of publicity. Besides, this poor possessed child needed deliverance, which is exactly what she got. Paul, whirling around, spoke directly to the spirit possessing the child: “1 order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And “it came out that very hour” (Acts 16:18). A dramatic event, to say the least.
But rather than thanking Paul for this wonderful work, the owners of the child, seeing “that their hope of making money was gone,” had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown into prison on a trumped up charge of “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe” (Acts 16:19-21).
However, in this too God honored their efforts, for the next miraculous event came in response to their midnight prayers and praises. God, in wonder-working power, threw open the doors of the prison for Paul and Silas and threw open the door to Christ for the jailer. “Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that … all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. … Then [the jailer] said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’” (Acts 16:26-34). Conversion at the riverside, the healing of a possessed child, conversion in a jail — those results are hard to improve upon.
Third Journey: Extraordinary Works at Ephesus
In Paul’s third missionary journey he spent extensive time in Ephesus. He began by completing the work in some of Apollos’s converts, for he laid hands on them and “the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6). Next, he preached in the synagogue, and when he was rejected there, he set up shop at the lecture hall of Tyrannus. Perhaps sensing that it was important to stay with certain groups for extended periods in order to establish them in the faith, Paul used this hall as a base of operations for two years. It became the daily gathering place for preaching, teaching, and argumentation as “the word of the Lord” went throughout the region.
It is instructive to see that extensive teaching work and miraculous manifestations went hand in hand. Paul had a marvelous ministry of the Spirit, which exuded power in both word and deed: “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).
Paul’s work of exorcism was so stunning that some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to imitate it by saying, over some poor individual in need of help, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” The evil spirit in the man responded, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” At last this man possessed by the evil spirit “leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:13-16).
These “power encounters” were not infrequent occurrences in Paul’s ministry. I mentioned the encounter at Cyprus, the exorcism at Philippi, and the wonderful works at Ephesus; but I could just as easily have told about the great “signs and wonders” that occurred in Iconium, or the healing of the man crippled from birth at Lystra, or Paul’s supernatural vision at Corinth, or the miraculous healing of Eutychus by the hand of Paul at Troas, or Paul’s encounter with an angel of God while at sea, or Paul’s own healing from a viper bite at Malta (Acts 14:1-4; 14:8-18; 18:7-11; 20:7-12; 27:21-26; 28:1-6). Paul knew how to exercise spiritual authority. Furthermore, he knew that the work of God was a work of the Spirit. This is the Charismatic Tradition at its finest.
SEEKING A CONTEMPORARY PARADIGM
In the most unassuming of places in the heart of Los Angeles, a work of the Spirit broke forth in 1906 that was destined to become the fountainhead of a worldwide Pentecostal explosion. William J. Seymour was the divinely chosen leader of this work, which came to be known as “the Azusa Street Revival.” By perceiving the deeper implications of Pentecostal glossolalia, Seymour stood at the forefront of one of the most revolutionary social movements in history, a movement intent upon “erasing the color line.” In the midst of the most racist era of a totally segregated society, huge throngs of people from virtually every race, nationality, and class on earth came together at Azusa Street. Meeting night and day continuously for three years, Azusa Street was an all-inclusive fellowship beyond the color line. Seymour, with far-sighted leadership, harnessed the power released in glossolalic worship to break racial, gender, and nationalistic barriers and offer the world a historic opportunity for genuine healing and reconciliation. It was an explosion of Spirit-empowered, charismatic fervor at its best and most powerful. Then, right at the moment of Seymour’s greatest influence, white supremacy reared its ugly head, denouncing and rejecting this grace-filled work of God. … But that is running ahead of my story.17
Searching for Freedom
In the salt tang of gulf breezes William Joseph Seymour was born 2 May 1870 in the bayou country of Centerville, Louisiana. With virtually no opportunity for formal education in this center of Ku Klux Klan violence,18 Seymour worked hard in the fields while managing, in the frontier tradition of Abraham Lincoln, to educate himself.19 During those years he drank deeply from the wellspring of black Christian spirituality — “the invisible institution,” as it has been called.20 Here he developed a lifelong love for the tradition of spirituals, which sprang out of the blood-soaked soil of slavery.
At the earliest possible moment Seymour left his southern roots in search of the greater freedom of the North. In 1895 he headed to Indianapolis, Indiana, the pre-Civil War center for the Underground Railroad. But even there he found only the most menial and unskilled occupations open to him, and so he took a job as a waiter in a large downtown hotel restaurant. He also joined the Simpson Chapel, a black congregation in the largely white Methodist Episcopal Church. His denominational choice is significant. A far easier option would have been the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had a congregation closer to his residence. But by choosing the more interracial Methodist Episcopal Church, he acted on his long-held determination to seek racial reconciliation through the power of the Spirit.
In 1900 Seymour headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he encountered the “Evening Light Saints” (later to be called the Church of God Reformation Movement), a white denomination that reached out vigorously to African-Americans. Drawn by its racial inclusiveness and its strong holiness emphasis, Seymour joined this group and soon felt a call to enter a preaching ministry. With few (and small) congregations in the movement, such a call meant that Seymour constantly traveled. He cared for his own support during this time, since offerings were not taken at evangelistic services.21
In his evangelistic efforts Seymour traveled to Texas looking for his relatives who had been separated from him during slavery days. Finding family in Houston, he decided to make his home there. For a time he served as an interim pastor at a black holiness church while its pastor, the Reverend Mrs. Lucy Farrow, was in Kansas serving as governess for the family of Charles F. Parham, a well-known evangelist and Bible teacher of the day.
Upon her return to Houston, Rev. Farrow told Seymour about her Kansas experiences, giving a glowing account of having spoken in “unknown tongues.” Seymour wanted to learn more, and so when Parham came to Houston to establish a Bible school, Seymour gained admission. Parham’s own segregation attitudes, coupled with those generally held in the Houston area, barred Seymour from actually attending classes. But he was allowed to sit just outside the classroom door, which Parham carefully left ajar. In the afternoons Seymour and Parham preached together in the black sections of Houston. Parham, however, observed strict rules of segregation in the large evening services in Caledonia Hall downtown, so Seymour sat in the rear of the auditorium. Parham also prohibited interracial mingling at the altar afterwards, a practice that hindered Seymour from receiving any experience of glossolalia there.
While Seymour had been giving pastoral leadership to Rev. Farrow’s congregation, a visitor from Los Angeles, Mrs. Neely Terry, attended a service. Very impressed with Seymour’s pastoral and godly demeanor, she told her prayer group back in California all about the inspiring pastor in Houston. Sensing divine urgings to establish a “holiness congregation,” the prayer group wrote to Seymour, inviting him to come as their pastor and including travel expenses. Seymour jumped at their invitation, seeing in it a “divine call,” and in January 1906, after only a few weeks at Parham’s school, he left Houston by train for Los Angeles and the more open racial climate of the West.
The enthusiastic little group met Seymour at the train station, and nightly meetings began immediately. Controversy soon erupted, however, when the new preacher began giving sustained attention not just to the holiness teachings of the day, but also to divine healing and glossolalia as a sign attending baptism in the Holy Spirit.* The conflict reached such heights that at one point influential members of the group literally padlocked the meeting house door, refusing entrance to Seymour and those with him. Seymour responded by undertaking a solitary vigil of prayer and fasting that continued for many days. People were moved and drawn to him by this godly example — even those who did not accept his teachings on tongues. Seymour became known as a man of deep prayer.22
“This Is That”
Those first months in California were intense times of spiritual searching. Finally, on 9 April 1906, the day after Palm Sunday, a spiritual breakthrough occurred. It began in the home of Edward Lee, a janitor and intimate member of the prayer group. Seymour had anointed him with oil and prayed for him with the laying on of hands, when suddenly Lee burst forth into ecstatic speech. “At last,” exclaimed Lee, “This is that.”23
Astonished and awed, Seymour and Lee walked the short distance to 214 North Bonnie Brae Street, the home where the evening prayer service was to be held. Seymour began preaching to that little prayer group from Acts 2:4: “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (KJV). He never finished his sermon, however, for Lee lifted his hands, opened his mouth, and electrified everyone with a torrent of glossolalia. Immediately the entire company was swept to its knees, as if by some unseen power, amid an outpouring of tongues and sudden joy. Jennie Evans Moore, who later married Seymour, went to the piano (though she did not know how to play) and played flawlessly as she sang (in a voice known for its beauty) in six foreign languages she did not know, with interpretation for each: French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Hindustani.24
For three days this little prayer group of cooks, janitors, laborers, railroad porters, and washwomen carried on in exuberant celebration and ecstatic worship. Of those days Douglas Nelson writes, “At times they shouted their acclaim for all to hear, at other times an awesome hush descended. Some fell into trances for three, four, or even five hours. Unusual healings were reported. Clusters of people outside whispered reverently that God’s power was falling again as in the book of Acts.”25
On the third night of this spiritual Pentecost — 12 April, Maundy Thursday — Seymour himself experienced a deep touch from God. It was late and most people had already left, too tired to continue praying; but Seymour and a white friend remained on their knees, determined to “pray through.” Finally his exhausted friend said, “It is not the time,” to which Seymour exclaimed, “I am not going to give up.” He continued on alone until suddenly
a sphere of white hot brilliance seemed to appear, draw near, and fall upon him. Divine love melted his heart; he sank to the floor seemingly unconscious. Words of deep healing and encouragement spoke to him. As from a great distance he heard unutterable words being uttered — was it angelic adoration and praise? Slowly he realized the indescribably lovely language belonged to him, pouring from his innermost being. A broad smile wreathed his face. At last, he arose and happily embraced those around him.26
Within days this jubilant, ragtag group was joined by huge crowds of both black and white, necessitating a larger facility. Quickly an old two-story building at 312 Azusa Street was secured. Clearing out the debris and sweeping the dirt floor clean, parishioners placed a pulpit — two large wooden crates — in the center of the room with a prayer altar in front of it. The pews, forming circles surrounding pulpit and altar, were redwood planks laid across nail kegs and old boxes.* Upstairs one long room was designated “the upper room” and was furnished with redwood planks set upon backless chairs for prayer. A single sign cautioned, “No talking above a whisper.”27
A surge of interest brought huge crowds from virtually every race, nationality, and social class to Seymour’s congregation. Meetings were held three times a day — morning, afternoon, and evening — often merging and flowing into one continuous worship experience from early morning to late night. The inside of the building overflowed with perhaps eight hundred persons, while four to five hundred more stood on the board sidewalk outside, squeezing together at the windows and doors in an attempt to see inside. These meetings continued on unabated for three years. The miracle Seymour had been seeking happened: by the power of the Spirit, a revolutionary new type of Christian community was born. As Frank Bartleman, a journalist who chronicled the events of Azusa Street, exclaimed, “The ‘color line’ was washed away in the blood.”28
Not only were people streaming to Azusa Street, but they were going out as well. Within weeks of those Holy Week meetings the first overseas missionaries from Azusa Street departed for Scandinavia, India, and China, followed by others to Africa and elsewhere. In September 1906 Seymour launched a newspaper, The Apostolic Faith, which quickly grew to nearly fifty thousand subscribers and was distributed literally around the world. This humble ministry from Azusa Street was indeed “a contribution from the ghetto to the world.”29
“For Such a Time as This”
What might account for the unusual impact of Seymour and his Azusa Street Mission? Conditions there were the exact opposite of those usually thought essential for any lasting influence. One eyewitness summarized the situation this way: “No choir. … No collections are taken. No bills have been posted to advertize the meetings. No church organization is back of it. … You find a two-storey whitewashed old building. You would hardly expect heavenly visitations there, unless you remember the stable of Bethlehem.”30 Other leaders, most particularly Charles Parham, had stressed glossolalia as a valuable experience for the Church today. These leaders had greater resources and more extensive contacts than Seymour. But it was at Azusa Street that the power fell, and it was from Azusa Street that the influence went deeper and wider than anywhere else. Why?
The only complete answer to that question, of course, can be found in the wisdom of divine Providence. Azusa Street was a supernatural work, a Spirit-empowered work, a charismatic work. God freely chose the insignificant, the unimpressive, the foolish to show forth his glory. But alongside this, and in conjunction with it, I would like to suggest four additional factors that might help us understand the amazing impact of this work.
First, Seymour understood clearly the implications of glossolalia for interracial reconciliation and community. This he saw in ways that Parham and many of the other white leaders never saw. As a son of slaves he understood Pentecost as a new Jubilee requiring the release of the broken and the bruised from their oppression. He consistently connected what was happening at Azusa Street with the Pentecostal outpouring in the second chapter of Acts, where the result of the “tongues like as of fire” was reconciliation between nations and races and cultures. In the very first issue of The Apostolic Faith Seymour stated, “Multitudes have come. God makes no difference in nationality, Ethiopians, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, and other nationalities worship together.” Three months later, in December 1906, he wrote, “The people are all melted together … made one lump, one bread, all one body in Christ Jesus. There is no Jew or Gentile, bond or free, in the Azusa Street Mission. … He is no respecter of persons or places.”31 In those early years white leaders came in large numbers, repenting of their racial attitudes and working alongside Seymour.32 Never in history had any such leadership surged into the church of a black pastor.
At the beginning of the century W.E.B. DuBois declared, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.”33 In the ministry of William Seymour the color line was overcome, and a challenge of reconciliation was set before the whole world. In some ways the interracial miracle at Azusa Sheet was more astonishing than the miracle of glossolalia. In Seymour we see the Charismatic Tradition interfacing powerfully with the Social Justice Tradition.
Second, Seymour exercised an equality and acceptance of each person under God as potential participants in leadership. He threw the door wide open for any and all whom God gifted and anointed. In the third issue of The Apostolic Faith Seymour noted, “No instrument that God can use is rejected on account of color or dress or lack of education. This is why God has built up the work. … The sweetest thing is the loving harmony.”34
This openness extended all through the social strata of that day, including women. Many of the most powerful leaders flowing out of the Azusa Mission were women — Julia Hutchins, Neely Terry, Jennie Moore, Agnes Ozman, Florence Crawford, and others. Women by the score would arm themselves with Bibles and anointing oil and walk from house to house, looking for people in need. If they found any who were sick, they would anoint them and pray. Then they would volunteer their services in the name of Jesus, cleaning house, doing dishes, caring for children.35 Affirming this leadership, Seymour declared, “Before Jesus … organized His church, He called them all into the upper room, both men and women, and anointed them with the oil of the Holy Ghost, thus qualifying them all to minister in this Gospel. On the day of Pentecost they all preached through the power of the Holy Ghost. In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, all are one.”36
Third, Seymour stressed genuine Christian love above all else. This was more important to him than glossolalia. He wrote, “The Pentecostal power, when you sum it all up, is just more of God’s love. If it does not bring more of God’s love it is simply a counterfeit. Pentecost means to live right in the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, which is the standard.”37
This description of divine love as “the standard” was common with Seymour. Sometimes he called it “Jesus’ standard” or “the Bible standard”; at other times he spoke of “the Azusa standard.” In each case he was pointing people to divine love as the central reality of the Spirit’s presence.
Seymour’s stress upon the primacy of love is quite astonishing, especially in light of later historical developments in Pentecostalism. Many white leaders simply never understood his insight here, and so they made glossolalia the distinctive mark of Pentecostal fellowship. For Seymour, however, the primary evidence of the Holy Spirit was divine love. “Tongues are one of the signs that go with every baptized person, but it is not the real evidence of the baptism in every day life. If you get angry, or speak evil, or backbite, I care not how many tongues you may have, you have not the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” “Pentecost,” he said, “makes us love Jesus more and love our brothers more. It brings us all into one common family.”38
This call to “one common family” was a practical ecumenism of the most radical sort. Never content to think of love in the abstract, Seymour felt that it must “make all races and nations into one common family.” He longed for a whole Church — not just holy individuals but a divine community inseparably joined together beyond race or gender or class or nation. At one point he exclaimed, “O how my heart cries out to God in these days that He would make every child of His see the necessity of living in the 17th chapter of John, that we may be one in the body of Christ, as Jesus prayed.”39
The fourth critical element was Seymour himself. The Azusa Street Mission, and the revival movement it spawned, had at its center a holy man. Rev. Glenn Cook, an early leader of the movement, wrote, “This man … really lived what we had been preaching for years, a sanctified life. It was the wonderful character of this man whom God had chosen that attracted the people to keep coming to this humble meeting.”40 William Durham of Chicago visited Azusa Street and declared that Seymour was “the meekest man I ever met. … He is … so filled with God that you feel the love and power every time you get near him.”41
A key feature of Seymour’s leadership was the power of his discernment, allowing him to instantly bring a person or group back to a sense of the holy. As Rachael Sizelove observed, “The Lord gave Brother Seymore [sic] wisdom to rule the people as he did to Moses. No one dared to get up and sing a song or testify except under the anointing of the Spirit.”42
It was a gentle and long-suffering leadership as well. On one occasion Rev. Cook and other ministers met with Seymour to contend with him over some doctrinal matter. Afterward Cook acknowledged, “The contention was all on our part. I have never met a man who had such control over his spirit. The Scripture that reads, ‘Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them,’ was literally fulfilled in this man. No amount of confusion and accusation seemed to disturb him. He would sit behind that packing case and smile at us until we were all condemned by our activities.”43
The impact of Seymour’s life and leadership is summed up well by the effect he had on Florence Crawford upon their first meeting. Crawford, after reading the writings of John Wesley, had been seeking long and hard after “perfect love.” But to no avail. The counsel she received from the leading clergy of the city had proved fruitless. Finally she visited the Azusa Street Mission:
They sang a little, but that did not seem to touch my heart. They went down in prayer but that didn’t move me at all. … Finally a big colored man got up on his feet. He said, “Hallelujah!” It just went through my soul. He waited a minute, and again he said, “Hallelujah!” I thought, “God, I have heard the voice from heaven. I have heard it at last. … He has the thing my heart is reaching out after.”
I forgot everything else, for I heard the voice of the great Shepherd of the sheep. … The one thing I wondered was, How could I get it? How could I receive that wonderful blessing on my soul that I had hungered for so long, and that this man had? … Oh, the hunger that God planted in my soul! It didn’t matter what my people would say — my friends and all — but only, could I get it?44
Seymour was truly a powerful example of holy and charismatic elements of life working hand in hand.
Rejection and Obscurity
Seymour’s story does not have an altogether happy ending. That ending, twisted and complicated, is a sad account of rejection and condemnation, and I can only sketch out the barest essentials here. The troubles began with Charles Parham, though they certainly did not end with him.
Seymour had invited Parham to Los Angeles, hoping that he would lead area-wide revival meetings to strengthen the movement. Such large-scale meetings were something a black leader simply could not accomplish in the dominant white society, and Seymour needed white partners who would value not only glossolalia but racial equality and Christian unity. Seymour further hoped that Parham — who was then at the height of his power and influence-might assume a leading role in shepherding the movement.
Parham did indeed go to Los Angeles, but unfortunately he was unable to rise to the occasion. Arriving at Azusa Street, he recoiled in disgust at the racial intermingling. He was aghast that black people were not in their “place,” and simply could not abide “white people imitating unintelligent, crude negroisms of the Southland, and laying it on the Holy Ghost.”45 Parham made his way through the crowd, stood at the pulpit, and delivered a stinging rebuke: “God is sick at his stomach!” He proceeded to explain that God would not stand for such “animalism.”46
Up to this point Seymour had believed that Parham’s segregated work in Kansas and Texas was a temporary accommodation to local custom, but now his deep-seated social and racial beliefs were ail-too clear. In reality, Parham maintained close affinities with the Ku Klux Klan, believed that the mixing of the races had caused the flood in Noah’s time, and viewed the Anglo-Saxon race as the lineal descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel.47 Needless to say, a sharp line of demarcation appeared between the vision of Seymour and that of Parham.
When it was clear that the majority of the Azusa Street Mission would not accept Parham’s leadership, Parham left with an estimated two to three hundred followers and opened a rival campaign at a nearby Women’s Christian Temperance Union building. This repudiation of the Azusa work — and competition with it — undermined Seymour’s position and seriously weakened the movement. In the years that followed, Parham used every opportunity to condemn the Azusa Street Mission in the strongest possible terms.48
Parham’s separation was the first, but it was by no means the last.49 Gradually the white leadership, many of whom had initially truly humbled themselves in the intoxicating milieu of spiritual ecstasy, found reasons to remove themselves from Azusa Street. They could live with glossolalia but not with the revolutionary interracial fellowship that Seymour insisted flowed from it. They abandoned love and reconciliation. The movement split irreparably along racial lines.
Many great and powerful days lay ahead for William Seymour, for there is triumph amid betrayal. Missionaries by the score continued to flow out from Azusa Street, spreading the message of glossolalia and reconciliation worldwide. C. H. Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ, came to Azusa Street and was profoundly touched. Seymour and Jennie Evans Moore were married 13 May 1908 and continued to minister together for many years.
However, after 1909 Seymour’s influence was only a shadow of what it had been.50 In 1915 Seymour published The Doctrines and Discipline of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission. It afforded him the opportunity to express several concerns he had about the direction of the Pentecostal movement. He urged “colored brethren” and “white brethren” to love and respect one another, adding, “I hope we won’t have any more trouble and division spirit.” He expressed his abiding concern for unity: “I can say through the power of the Spirit, that wherever God can get a people that will come together in one accord and one mind in the Word of God, the baptism of the Holy Ghost will fall upon them, like as at Cornelius’ house (Acts 10:45-46).” Finally, he warned against viewing glossolalia as the only evidence of the baptism of the Spirit. This, he said, was a change from the beginning days of the Azusa Street Mission. He then gave what he felt were other, more essential evidences, particularly Christian love.51 This ninety-five-page position paper only underscored the widening breach between Seymour’s vision and the direction of the movement he was so instrumental in founding.
Some have suggested that Seymour’s decline was due to limited abilities or weak leadership. Yet the real reason for his decline lies in precisely the opposite direction: his leadership was too effective, too successful. He had called for an all-inclusive community of loving persons beyond the color line. In 1906 Seymour’s way was a direct challenge to the prevailing white supremacy. Indeed, if continued, it could well have meant a martyr church. Douglas Nelson writes, “Seymour championed one doctrine above all others: there must be no color line or other division in the church of Jesus Christ because God is no respecter of persons. He resolutely refused to segregate or Jim Crow the movement. … For this reason, and this reason alone Seymour was rejected and forgotten by the movement he created.”52
On 28 September 1922 at age fifty-two William Seymour died in almost total obscurity. A heart attack was the medical cause of death. Some say he died of a broken heart.
Throughout his ministry Seymour was reticent to speak of himself, but following the painful split with Charles Parham, he shared with sixteen-year-old Frank Cummings a dream he had had before the Azusa Street Mission opened. He dreamed he was in a great forest. Small fires broke out, he said, burning and crackling and finally merging into a great wall of flame. In the dream a preacher rushed up to the fire with a wet gunnysack, desperately trying to put it out. But the fire leaped over the preacher and spread far beyond his reach. “Frankie, son,” Seymour confided, “this teaching is meant to spread over the entire earth.”53 And so it has.
DEFINING THE CHARISMATIC TRADITION
We do not live our lives “under our own steam”; we were never created to do so. We were created to live our lives in cooperation with another reality. The Charismatic Tradition gives special attention to this other reality, which is, quite simply, life in and through the Spirit of God.
Frankly, there are no “noncharismatic Christians.” I understand what is meant by that term, and I see the historical and sociological reasons for it, but the Christian life is by definition a life in and through the Spirit.
The Charismata
Now, the charismata are identifiable expressions of that life in specific forms for specific purposes. Every follower of Jesus is endowed by the Spirit with one or more of these spiritual charisms. These are not the same as natural talents, though they sometimes fit together with them.
The sign of the presence of the charismata is that the effect of one’s actions greatly exceeds the input of the human being. In other words, if we knew only what the human being put in, we could not imagine the outcome. The results are always incommensurate to our efforts. It is, you see, a work of the Spirit.
We are fortunate that Paul addressed in considerable detail many practical matters relative to exercising the spiritual gifts. No biblical writer has given us more. The bulk of this teaching is concentrated in three crucial passages: Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and especially 1 Corinthians 12-14. We would do well to meditate at length upon these teachings. In all three we find lists of gifts — lists that, while they vary somewhat, all contain the same essential features: gifts of leadership, such as apostleship, evangelism, and preaching/teaching; ecstatic gifts, such as tongues, discernment of spirits, and prophecy; and gifts that build community life, such as wisdom, faith, and helps.
A person with the charism of apostleship, for example, is endowed with spiritual abilities to pioneer in new areas, planting churches cross-culturally. A person with the charism of evangelism has special spiritual enablement to touch those outside of the community of faith with the evangel, the good news of the gospel. A person with the charism of faith has spiritual abilities to see creative, new possibilities and trust God for them. And so forth.
We must always remember this threefold function of the charisms of the Spirit: leadership, ecstatic empowerment, and community-building. Any efforts to restrict the work of the Spirit to leadership gifts only, or ecstatic gifts only, or community-building gifts only, simply miss the point. This temptation toward restriction arises because of the vested interests and particular histories of differing groups. But it is a temptation that must be resisted if we are to be faithful to the biblical witness.
The ecstatic gifts are most often given to show us that God is present where we assume that he is not. At Pentecost everyone assumed that those disciples huddled together were outlaws. But by supernatural visual aids and heavenly sound effects God demonstrated in no uncertain terms that he was with them (Acts 2:1-13). The same was true at the home of Cornelius. The Jewish Christians, you understand, had assumed that God could not be present and active among Gentiles, and God had to show them otherwise (Acts 10). And the contemporary story of William Seymour and the folks at Azusa Street is only another verse of the same song. To reiterate: the ecstatic gifts often help us see that God is present and active among peoples and situations we have written off as hopeless.
Building in Love
First Corinthians contains the most extensive teaching we have in the Bible on spiritual gifts. At its center is the famous “love chapter,” which should give us some inkling of how central divine love is to any effective functioning of spiritual gifts. The section that precedes 1 Corinthians 13 may be lesser known, but it is intimately tied to it and contains great practical wisdom. I would like to focus on this passage as a summation of the essential principles we need for the exercising of spiritual gifts in such a way that they build rather than destroy community life.54
Taking responsibility is the first principle. “Indeed,” says Paul, “the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body” (1 Cor. 12:14-16). This is a passage for all who feel that they have nothing to offer the community. The charism of helps may have small effect when compared to the charism of prophecy, but it is absolutely essential for life together. Every charism is needed, no matter how insignificant it may seem to us.
Accepting limitation is the second principle. “If the whole body were an eye,” writes Paul, “where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? … there are many members, yet one body” (1 Cor. 12:17-20). This is a passage for all who feel that they have everything to offer the community. No single individual contains all the charisms of the Spirit. We are limited in the good we can accomplish by ourselves. This is a divinely imposed limitation in order to defeat our egoism.
Esteeming others is the third principle. “The eye cannot say to the hand,” says Paul, “’I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this” (1 Cor. 12:21-24a). This is a passage for all who feel that they can live independent of the community. Any proper exercise of the charisms of the Spirit is a joint effort. God has arranged the functioning of the gifts in this way so that we will always be dependent upon one another and always esteem each other.
Maintaining unity within diversity is the fourth principle. “God has so arranged the body,” teaches Paul, “giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor. 12:24b-26). This is a passage for all who bring division to the community, either deliberately or inadvertently. While we are all different personalities and exercise differing gifts, we still function as a whole. We are inseparably linked together, suffering together and rejoicing together.
What a wonderful description of our life together! Spiritual gifts are given to build us up as a community of faith. But of course this way of living and relating can be done only through an all-encompassing supernatural love, which is precisely why Paul sets agape at the center of his teaching on the charisms of the Spirit. Love, you see, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:7-8a).
DISCOVERING THE MAJOR STRENGTHS
The gains of embracing the Charismatic Tradition — this Spirit-empowered life — are numerous. I shall mention four.
First, the charismatic Tradition offers an ongoing correction to our impulse to domesticate God. We have a perennial tendency to manage and control the work of the Spirit. We want a nice, tidy God. But as Jesus reminds us, the Spirit blows where he wills (John 3:8). This is actually a great grace, for it reminds us that God is in charge of this enterprise, and that he is alive and active in our world. The moment we feel that we have the spiritual-life business all figured out, God surprises us with outbreaks of the Spirit we could never have imagined. All our little attempts — both personally and historically — to institutionalize the Holy Spirit ultimately fail. For this we should thank God. How much better to move day by day in joyful surrender to the leading of the Spirit, in which “the soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every movement of grace like a floating balloon.”55
Second, it offers a constant rebuke to our anemic practice. How easily we become satisfied with mere religious talk. How quickly we accommodate ourselves to “business as usual.” How soon we forget that we are to “abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13b). The Charismatic Tradition constantly reminds us that “the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power” (1 Cor. 4:20).
Third, it offers a continuing challenge toward spiritual growth and development. The Christian virtues are, after all, the fruit of the Spirit. It is by the Spirit that we defeat the “works of the flesh,” and it is by the Spirit that we develop the holy habits of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and generosity and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:19-23). The nurturing fruit of the Spirit makes the empowering gifts of the Spirit a blessing and not a curse.
Fourth, it offers a life of gifting and empowering for witness and service. Signs and wonders, miracles and healings, revelations and visions — these are all part of our walk in the Spirit. They become a witness to nonbelievers and an affirmation of hope to believers. The Spirit calls forth evangelistic fervor and accompanies it with signs and wonders. The Spirit bestows gifts of discernment and prophecy to guide the life of the community. The Spirit anoints pastors and teachers for the equipping of the people of God. These (and many other) giftings make manifest the structure of love for building up the body of Christ so that we may “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love” (Eph. 4:15b-16).
UNDERSTANDING THE POTENTIAL PERILS
Perils there are aplenty. As with the strengths, I will confine myself to discussing four — you, no doubt, can think of others.
The first peril is the danger of trivialization. It is so easy for us to be titillated by various phenomena. We can quickly turn signs and wonders into superstition and “magic religion.” Without thinking, we often focus on the gift rather than the Giver. This problem is dealt with by effective pastoral care and teaching. Such care demands loving oversight and patience, however. At times we must bear with certain excesses for the greater good. At other times firm guidance is necessary. Throughout, a clear teaching must emerge that the gifts are not an end in themselves, but are for the greater good of the Christian fellowship and for our ongoing formation in the way of Christ.
The second peril is the danger of rejecting the rational and the intellectual. This can easily happen, because the charismatic emphasis is so focused upon the emotive side of our faith. And it should be. But it must never reject reason or the mind as a consequence. Emotion and reason are not opposites that we must choose between. The language of Christian conviction here is “both/and” rather than “either/or.” The charisms of the Spirit do not offend our rational facilities even though they are not confined to them. We love God with both mind and heart.
The third peril is the danger of divorcing the gifts of the Spirit from the fruit of the Spirit. This was the problem of the Christian community at Corinth, and Paul dealt with it forthrightly. So should we. To be sure, it is possible to move in the realm of spiritual gifts without the maturing that the fruit of the Spirit brings, but to do so will almost always get us in trouble. How much better to see that both proceed from the same Spirit, and that when both are working together, they give balance and wholeness to our lives.
The fourth peril is the danger of linking our walk in the Spirit to highly speculative end-time scenarios that lack theological foundation. Why this tends to be a problem for charismatically oriented groups, I do not fully understand. There have been exceptions — notably the Franciscan movement in the thirteenth century and the Quaker movement in the seventeenth century — but the more common partern has been for groups stressing the charismata to tie themselves to decidedly unorthodox views of eschatology. Perhaps this has something to do with an overreliance upon visions and prophecy. Most certainly it is tied to the isolation of many of these groups from the other great streams of teaching — most particularly the Social Justice Tradition. But whatever the reason, we need to watch for this pitfall and avoid it at every turn.
PRACTICING THE CHARISMATIC TRADITION
We experience the Charismatic Stream in many different ways and through many different venues. Who can confine the Spirit? Here are a few commonsense suggestions to foster charismatic living.
Draw near to those who have some history and experience in this area of life and learn from them. My own movement in this direction came first from a friend whom I trusted for his wisdom and discernment. Maybe you will experience one of the “shout circles” that are common in African-American Pentecostal groups. In this tradition people gather in a worship circle, and when God rests upon a given person in the group, the rest urge on what God is doing by shouting out their encouragement. Or perhaps you will feel drawn to invite someone to lay hands upon you and pray for you to enter more of the life and joy of the Spirit. Or maybe you will deepen your experience of charismatic worship by attending services known for their strength in this area.
Another suggestion: rest easy with your fears that some aspect of what you are doing is in the flesh. I can guarantee you there will be flesh in it! We will not be totally free from that problem until heaven. But God can still use us in our fumbling, bumbling ways. To be sure, we never want to manipulate others or be manipulated by others. But we should not be afraid to step out and exercise the gifts that we feel God has given us. God will receive us, flesh and all, and teach us how to walk more and more in the power of the Spirit.
A further suggestion: follow your leadings without fear of being misled. If your spirit is teachable, God will show you the way. Press in where you feel the need for more, especially in the area of spiritual gifts. Have a kind of dissatisfied satisfaction — glad for all the good God has given you and yet longing for more. More love. More power. More grace. More gifting. Paul himself urges us to “strive for the greater gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31a).
Perhaps you feel drawings to pray for someone. Or to prophesy, or to bring a healing touch. If so, step out confidently knowing that God is with you and will be your strength.
A final suggestion: regularly test your leadings and experiences in the Spirit with those you trust. Allow their spiritual discernment to encourage, correct, and refine you. And you them. In this way we will fulfill the words of the great Apostle of the Spirit: “Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12).
THE CALL TO SPIRIT-EMPOWERED LIVING
QUESTION:
What is the Charismatic Tradition?
ANSWER:
A life immersed in, empowered by, and under the direction of the Spirit of God.
QUESTION:
Why should we explore it?
ANSWER:
Because through it we are empowered by God to do his work and to evidence his life upon the earth.
While the particular manifestations will be tailored to our individual needs and personalities, we are all to enter into life in the Spirit. In 1907 C. H. Mason, founder of the African-American Church of God in Christ, gave us this witness of his own experience at the Azusa Street Mission: “The Spirit came upon the saints and upon me. … Then I gave up for the Lord to have His way within me. So there came a wave of Glory into me and all of my being was filled with the Glory of the Lord. So when He had gotten me straight on my feet, there came a light which enveloped my entire being above the brightness of the sun. When I opened my mouth to say ‘Glory,’ a flame touched my tongue which ran down to me. My language changed and no word could I speak in my own tongue. Oh! I was filled with the Glory of the Lord. My soul was then satisfied.”56
May we too know such movements of the Spirit upon our lives that we are enabled to say, “My soul was then satisfied.”
* These developments underscore how from a historical perspective the Charismatic Tradition grew out of the Holiness Tradition, and they illustrate some of the conflicts this relationship has engendered.
* The backless pews, which represented a long-traditional preference in African-American Christianity, allowed “room to pray.”