Southern Baptists Split on Glossolalia
A vote in November among the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention's international missionary branch to "ban the private practice of speaking in tongues" (glossolalia) has generated controversy among Baptist ministers and missionaries and made the front page of The Tennessean this weekend. While most Southern Baptists believe that speaking in tongues was a phenomenon unique to the first century (prior to written Scripture), some Baptist pastors feel strongly about the place of glossolalia in their personal prayers.I am somewhat of a cynic when it comes to tongues. I understand that God sometimes communicates in ways that cannot be expressed through traditional language, but I see no benefit in speaking such messages aloud, using sounds that any listener would mistake for gibberish. If glossolalia does not effectively communicate God's truth to others, is it not just a means of boasting—a way for the speaker to show off his or her strong faith and closeness to God? To quote Paul in 1 Corinthians:
If I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you in some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? . . . If in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air. . . . If then I do not know the meaning of a sound, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves; since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church. (14:6, 9, 11-12)
And I must confess that, when I am in the presence of people who are speaking in tongues, I automatically question whether they are communicating with God or babbling to impress others to fit in. Forgive my cynicism; I don't want to accuse people of being insincere.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I understand banning tongues as a private prayer practice. That the Southern Baptist Convention would want to curb the use of glossolalia in evangelism makes sense: Frankly, tongues freak people out. (I am, however, speaking as a Westerner; people of other cultures may experience speaking in tongues much differently.) I'm just surprised that a denomination that professes biblical inerrancy would so distance itself from a practice that has a clear Scriptural precedent. I guess this demonstrates that everyone reads the Bible through some sort of interpretive lens.
posted by Tinley | 3:36 AM
2 Comments:
Ha! At first I thought that said "Spit on Glossolalia"
Having been raised Southern Baptist, then having our family move to a charismatic "tongue-speaking and dancing-in-the-aisles" Holy Ghost church across the street was quite an experience for me as a young teenager. The music was a lot better, for sure, but the craziness was alienating for me. I wanted to speak in tongues really badly, to validate my spirituality in some way - otherwise how could one be sure that you'd indeed been "filled with the Holy Spirit" on top of your basic entry-level salvation? It never happened for me, and a lot of the "tongues" I heard really did sound like gibberish. I will say, however, that I witnessed a few healings that could only be considered miraculous - people I knew personally, and not some televangelical stunt. As a child, my Grandma Ruby was crippled with Polio, and was able to get up and walk for the first time at an old-time tent-revival in East St. Louis. So, I'm open to the mysteries, miracles, or what you might call "paranormal."
Now as an adult, and having studied world religions, primitive cultures, psychology, etc. I think I could safely place most of the glossolalia I've witnessed into the category of "ecstatic religious experience." In other religions, such as Haitian Voudoun, folks go into trances and dance wildly, uttering strange things - of course in Voudoun, the goal is to be possessed by one of the Voudoun deities. Is it heretical for me to draw a parallel here? I'm not judging the usefulness of the "ecstatic state," I'm just saying that perhaps there's a psychological aspect of the Holy Ghost experience that charismatics don't want to admit to. To describe it in psychological terms does tend to put a damper on the mystic aspect, but does it really matter?
There are those like Texe Marrs (whose film "The Blind And The Dead," dealing with Tongue-babbling, healing televangelist scam-artists is a must-see) who might ascribe something sinister to the phenomenon - some go so far as to say that glossolalia and other strange "spirit-filled" phenomena such as the hysterical laughing of the "Toronto Blessing" is evidence of demon possession.
I'm pragmatic - if it works for you, go for it. I've never been able to speak in tongues. I've never been struck by lightning and had the voice of God boom at me from the heavens. I used to yearn for some kind of supernatural sign that what I believed was real. I never got one. What I do have, many years later, is a stronger faith. That's right - the lack of earth-shattering, mind-blowing affirmation has meant that I've had to develop stronger faith to compensate - it's made me stronger than if I'd been given some kind of "quick fix."
My family is Charismatic, and regularly speaks in tongues in worship and in personal prayer. Is it for me to say that they're experiencing a psychological phenomenon, not a filling with the Holy Spirit? I don't think so. I'm not sure I need to differentiate between the two, really. Is there an "intelligent design" kind of theory that might apply to Holy Ghost experiences? Couldn't the Lord use ecstatic psychological states to further his work? Could the Lord use these states to trigger some power of the mind that brings about actual physical healing in the human body? I'm open to the possibility.
Denominationally speaking, I am unaffiliated these days. The kind of conflict I'm reading in this article is part of why I've become turned-off to organized religion. If the Southern Baptist Convention draws restrictions that individual churches disagree with, they should withdraw and go independent. If Phillips, Camp and White are so alienated from the Southern Baptist Convention that they won't even use "Baptist" in their church name, why do they stay affiliated? I have to add, however, that their chosen name "People's Church" reminds me so much of Jim Jones' "Peoples Temple" that it gives me the willies. So, I guess the bigger issue here is, why would you, as a church, allow some outside organization dictate policy to you? If the Southern Baptist Convention wants to be the Vatican, let them – but you don’t have to play along.
I'm very disappointed that the SBC would flatly contradict the teachings of Scripture in this manner. What on earth motivated this desire to eliminate speaking in tongues?
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