Logan Gentry

3 responses to “Cognitively Charismatic”

1. 

   Jonno Warmington

   January 25, 2012 at 3:22 pm

   Do you perhaps think that one of the problems that faces today’s Reformed movement in it’s treatment of this particular doctrine is a fear of association on one hand, and a fear of what new problems we may have to deal with on the other?

   Almost every movement, denomination or style of church has it’s bad examples and, in an attempt to disassociate ourselves from ‘the crazies’ who take any number of strange mystical approaches to the practice of the Spiritual gifts, we take a safe road that takes a mere academic view of, at most, studying and appreciating any doctrine that might cause one to ‘act out’ in a way that might bear association with a movement or a style that has a bad reputation. It’s so easy to distance ourselves from practice or language that might put us in an unfavourable association and in doing so we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

   I think that, if we allowed ourselves to be taught by scripture in this area, we’d see more of the life and growth that we see in the story of the early church. Sure, we’d potentially see a lot of new problems with it too, which is all too evident in areas of the charismatic movement and, in fact, the early church was full of them. Corinthians was written to help bring some order and good structure to the exercise of these gifts in a church that evidently had “gone too far” with it’s practice. Colossians was written to a church that was starting to supplement worship of Jesus with a syncretistic mesh of mystical philosophies into their practice. But that’s where good leadership needs to come in. Like Timothy who was encouraged to “preach the word; … reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” and like Paul was doing with the Corinthian church in his letters and in person, church leaders need to guide teach and guide the local church in it’s biblical practice of the Spiritual gifts for the common good and for Jesus to be glorified in and through the church.

   I’d like to think that in our strive for truth we can allow scripture to dictate our doctrine, language and practice regardless of how our perceived reputations may suffer or what new problems we may open the door to.

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   1. 

      Logan

      January 25, 2012 at 3:59 pm

      I think the issue is primarily one of a pendulum swing. The charismatic movement went far one way, so the typically conservative reformed movement reacted swinging the pendulum the other way.

      In Paul’s letters you see a call back to the gospel as the primary motivation of all things. I agree that if we let the scriptures guide and govern this, we would see greater evidences of spiritual gifts.

      This gets more complex with the consideration of the consumeristic nature of many churches. In the consumer church, the gifts lie strictly with the pastor and full-time paid staff which typically limits the spiritual gifts. The response is to remember the gospel by repenting of sin in the neglect of the trinitarian God, to embrace the Holy Spirit given to regenerate and empower, and begin to practice the spiritual gifts as a whole church body.

      I just think of what gifts may lie dormant and what good the church and our cities may be missing out on as a result of the neglect of spiritual gifts used for magnifying Jesus.

      Reply
2. 

   Jonno Warmington

   January 25, 2012 at 5:47 pm

   Yeah. Good stuff Logan.

   Reply