AS A lifelong Anglican, I first experienced the Renewal movement at New Wine in 1994, aged 11. I attended the Soul Survivor festivals during my teens and early twenties, and my faith has been deeply and profoundly shaped by this in ways that I continue to be grateful for.
The vibrancy and confidence in the gospel, the fellowship and sense of intimacy, the intentionality of, and vision for, transformation were all attractive and inspiring to me.
Understandably and necessarily, there is now much soul-searching happening among people similarly formed by this tradition, owing to the extensive and substantiated abuse allegations made against the Soul Survivor founder, Mike Pilavachi.
This soul-searching will be unique to each person, but some of the questions that I have been asking myself include: how much of what I experienced at Soul Survivor was God at work? How many of my Charismatic practices are intricately tied up with the perpetuation of abuse? Is anything left of my Charismatic faith if I manage to extract the bad bits?
THE term “Charismatic” derives from St Paul’s use of the word charismata, which means God’s gifts of grace, given to those who confess that Jesus is Lord, to manifest the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12.3-7). Therefore, to be a Charismatic Christian is to celebrate the Spirit’s gifts given to the body of Christ for the glory of God: to be a Spirit-filled, Christ-following child of God.
What makes Charismatics recognisable — as with all Christian traditions — is the parts of the rich Christian heritage that they tend to emphasise over others. (You could have fun playing “name that tradition” with this list of associated emphases: sacraments, social justice, liberation, scripture, union with Christ, atonement, believers’ baptism, and sanctification.)
Charismatics, as I explain in my recent publication Charismatic Christianity: Identifying its theology through the gifts of the Spirit, tend to emphasise seven distinctive characteristics, which I label as: expectancy, enchantment, encounter, expression, equality, empowerment, and enjoyment. I locate them within the Pentecost story, and show how they are variously performed through the gifts of the Spirit. Interdependent and mutually reinforcing, they give shape and meaning to the Charismatic Christian life, its identities and purpose.
The danger with emphasis, however, is always over-emphasis. Responding to a perceived deficit somewhere else, Christians often place extra emphasis on an aspect of the tradition which they consider to be important. It is this emphasising/over-emphasising dynamic that is where, I think, much of the soul-searching over Soul Survivor needs to take place. Three of the seven characteristics listed above provide examples.
FIRST, Charismatics are expectant people, and they delight to emphasise the ways in which they can expect God to “do stuff” in their midst. In the spirit of the apostles’ expectant waiting for Jesus’s promise of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Charismatics continue to await God’s activity in their lives in discernible, tangible ways.
At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, who had previously worked only through particular individuals, was poured out on all flesh. This was a cataclysmic, world-changing, new event in God’s dealings with humanity, and it frames contemporary Charismatic expectancy.
Prophecy is one of the key ways in which Charismatics perform this expectation of something new. Yes, there are the scriptures, creeds, and traditions in the Church, but Charismatics expect the living and active God to speak to them afresh, as individuals or as the Church, whenever they gather — because God is ever at work, here and now, bringing revelation.
Unfortunately, this emphasis on expecting the new, mediated through prophecy, can cause Charismatics to chase the latest fad or fashion, always looking for the new high or the novel ministry to deepen their spiritual experience.
I have been no stranger to these Charismatic fashions: falling over in the power of the Spirit, holy laughter, fire tunnels, prophetic treasure-hunting, stronghold prayers, and making pilgrimage to the latest site of “new” renewal in the hope of bringing back the fire. I have engaged in a version of each of these at different times in my life, very much with a sense that they were a new work of God.
What Charismatics have often forgotten, however, is that expectancy isn’t just about God doing the new thing. To expect is to look for God to do in our day what we know God has always done in the past. The contexts, personalities, issues, and outcomes might be novel, but the work of God among us is always predictable and familiar, and as old as humanity: forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, transformation, hope, conviction, guidance, empowerment, comfort, revelation, liberation, judgement, and renewal.
To be genuinely Charismatic (a Spirit-filled, Christ-following child of God) means to expect new manifestations in the present of God’s “old” and eternal mission, which is to be the God who is for us in Christ, by the Spirit. It is an expectancy that is new and old, because it is centred on the one who was, and who is, and who is to come.
My teenage Charismatic formation taught me well to look for the new works of the Spirit, but was perhaps less proficient in teaching me to love the old ones. Likewise, Mike Pilavachi was perhaps given such freedom and unchecked autonomy because he was seen as bringing the exciting “new” work of God. The Charismatic Church under-emphasised that the test of the new thing of the Spirit is always its unity with the old works of God.
SECOND, Charismatics are those who emphasise encounter with the Holy Spirit. God, in whose image we are made, longs to be known, and has given us a capacity to respond by the Spirit. As at Pentecost, when the experience of the Spirit inspired enthusiastic praise and drew others in, Charismatics expect to know God through their emotions and in their bodies as well as through their minds. It is not enough to agree to a set of doctrinal statements or to perform certain devotional rituals. For Charismatics, to know God is to love God, and to love God is to feel alive in the grace of encounter.
The gift of healing is one of the central ways in which Charismatics live out this commitment to encounter. Whenever they gather for worship, Charismatics expect God to show up and do stuff in their midst. They pray for physical, emotional, and psychological healing for themselves and others, because God delights to give good gifts to God’s children.
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In the individualised, and psychologically attuned context of Western contemporary culture, however, this emphasis on encounter can easily become primarily about personal therapeutic intimacy. I have participated in various such ministries in my life, including personal inner healings, freedom from past hurts, soaking in the Spirit, individual words and pictures, the healing of bad backs, and the removal of knee pain.
Even as I have benefited from these forms of therapeutic encounter, I am aware that Charismatics have often unfortunately overlooked the corporate dimensions of God’s working.
God’s work is never just about individuals. It is always about humans interconnected in families and communities, so that true healing is primarily corporate: it’s about “us” before it’s about “me”. So, to be truly Charismatic is to focus more on how we are formed into the body of Christ as we know God together rather than on “Did I get something out of that worship?” Your healing should build my faith rather than leave me asking “Why not me?” Someone else’s divine encounter should be a cause for my rejoicing rather than inspiration for comparison and competition.
My Soul Survivor formation, perhaps unwittingly, tended to sensitise me much more towards my individualised encounter with God than it shaped me to think about how we, together, as a local manifestation of Christ’s intergenerational body, might love and serve one another in practical ways, experiencing the healing love of God through our shared fellowship.
This could be a consequence of the Soul Survivor format — bringing together primarily young and emotional people, taking them away from home and replicating many of the features of a secular music festival. It too easily channels an individualised spirituality disconnected from the struggles of ordinary life and the challenges of living in community.
Perhaps, also, a focus on God’s gracious fulfilment of personal needs and the intimacy associated with that can become distorted and damaging when wedded to power. Perhaps it is harder to see, from a place of power, how one’s needs for encounter conflict with the needs of those who have less power?
Maybe, when caught up in the intensity of the personal therapeutic encounters with God, Charismatics forgot that a crowd is not an ecclesial body of Christ through which the Spirit ordinarily works.
THE third example of how emphasis can become over-emphasis relates to the theme of empowerment. Charismatics celebrate the ways in which the Spirit empowers followers of Jesus to live God’s Kingdom here on earth. As at Pentecost, in the Acts of the Apostles, when the Spirit empowered the believers to speak in other languages, and then empowered Peter to explain the events to the gathered crowd, so Charismatics regularly seek the empowerment of the Spirit.
The gift of faith is a particular way in which Charismatics emphasise empowerment. An emboldening gift of faith helps them to overcome feelings of fear or ridicule; and so they can give a prophetic word in worship, or offer to pray for a stranger, or speak in tongues in public.
The problem with empowerment is its association with force and strength. People with an empowered faith can find it hard to accept doubts or uncertainties; they can overlook the significance of weakness and vulnerability; and they can railroad others into actions with which they are uncomfortable.
It is true that Christians, like the first Christians in Acts, need to have the boldness of the Spirit and be empowered to face persecutions, or to stand up to injustice, or risk ridicule for the sake of the gospel. Mostly, though, empowerment works as a lower level — giving people the strength to get through each day, the hope to persevere in difficulty, the grace to forgive harm done to them. These are each a manifestation of Spirit-empowered faith in ordinary life.
Again, through Soul Survivor and other Charismatic gatherings, I was encouraged to place more value in the sort of empowerment that looked like a public and often counter-cultural display of zeal, courage, and strength — far removed from the quiet, humble works of faithfulness and service to others.
Inevitably, a tradition that emphasises power is going to struggle to differentiate Holy Spirit Charismatic power from the sociological and cultural concepts of charisma. In our Western context, the latter often looks more like the alpha-male leader of business and politics — authoritative, charming, decisive, masterful — than it looks like the cruciform ministry of Jesus.
With these three examples, it is clear how the particular emphases of Charismatic Christianity can become over-emphases that lead to a distorted approach to the gospel: expectancy can become a constant chasing after the new, encounter can morph into an individualised pursuit of meeting felt needs, and empowerment can be corrupted into a performance of strength and certainty.
SO, WHAT are we to do? Do we abandon the Charismatic emphases to pursue less easily corruptible ones? The answer is no, I think: all emphases in all church traditions can become over-emphasised and distort the Christian message and do damage to vulnerable people.
I think we can continue to emphasise expectancy (and prophecy as its performance), as long as we keep in view that expectancy means to expect the new work of God to occur in the midst of the old — where, together, they form one continuous work of God.
I think we can continue to emphasise encounter (and healing as its performance) as long as we remember that encounter is primarily about how communities become the body of Christ in a given context, and find healing and wholeness together.
I think we can keep emphasising empowerment (and its performance in faith) as long as we know how to value and recognise the hidden, quiet, and everyday forms of courageous belief, and let this be the wider context for the less frequent displays of (corporate) strength.
It is also worth remembering that the emphases and associated gifts of the Spirit are lived out alongside the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits of Galatians 5.22-23 are a means of checking the tendency towards over-emphasis. If expectancy is orientated to God, it should be practised with patience, and prompt more self-control in the waiting. If encounters are with Jesus, they should grow a sense of corporate joy and love for others, as we are formed into his body. If empowerment is from the Spirit, it should lead to kindness and faithfulness in the ones empowered.
Charismatics have often taken “fruit” to mean the numerical size of the membership, or the miraculous nature of the healings, or the extent of the global reach, or the significance of the ministry’s revenue. Christian fruit is always most reliably measured by those things that only the Spirit can grow. Where are we seeing peace, goodness, and gentleness in our ministries, and how are we championing these things above all else?
I CONTINUE to believe that much of what I experienced through Soul Survivor was the work of God: the joy that I found in Christ, the hope in the gospel, a courage to step out in faith. But plenty perhaps wasn’t: an elevation of the “in-crowd”, an excessive emotional individualism, an over-focus on power.
Rather than this let this be a source of despair, I think, instead, that we should take the messy, confusing, and wheat-and-tares-together world in which we find ourselves and see it as renewed inspiration to value the importance of ongoing theological education. A broader exposure to what we mean by “the work of God” — grounded in scripture, creeds, and tradition — is vital for the health of the Charismatic Church into the future.
Tragically, several of my cherished Charismatic practices can, indeed, become enmeshed with the perpetuation of harm and abuse. This is true, I think, of all traditions, in different ways, depending on their particular emphases. To respond to the over-emphases in my own tradition, however, I think we are to engage in a careful discussion with those who emphasise different aspects of the tradition from us. That way, we can be helped to see the planks in our own eyes.
I remain convinced that there will still much left of the Charismatic faith standing after its necessary deconstruction — but not because of our ability to salvage a pure, true expression of Christianity which is untainted and incorruptible (this is not possible this side of the new creation). It will be because the precious thing within these emphases is God.
God delights to manifest grace and goodness through broken pots, just as the Spirit groans along with a suffering creation, while we await the revelation of the children of God.
The Revd Dr Helen Collins is Vice Principal (Academic) of Trinity College, Bristol. Charismatic Christianity: Identifying its theology through the gifts of the Spirit is published by Baker Academic (Books, 24 May).