Seeing may not be believing, charismatics told

Member Wanda Hart of Portland, Tenn., prays at an evening service at Living to Go Church in Goodlettsville on Wednesday.

Magazine editor says Florida scandal is sign of gullibility

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By BOB SMIETANA • Staff Writer • August 29, 2008

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Clay Baggett doesn't yell "sheeka boomba," when he stands up to preach at Living to Go Church in Goodlettsville. He doesn't kick parishioners who come to him for healing prayer, or smack them in the head, proclaiming them healed.

Some preachers do that, and when that happens their followers should take a serious look at the showmanship to determine if the miracles really are legitimate, says the editor of a leading magazine for charismatics.

The ministry of Todd Bentley, a tattooed, charismatic preacher from Lakeland, Fla., garnered nationwide attention with claims of raising the dead and curing the terminally ill. He was scheduled to come to Tennessee in September, but his ministry ground to a halt amid revelations of marital infidelity.

Bentley's meteoric rise and fall sent shockwaves through Pentecostal and charismatic Christian circles. J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma, a leading magazine for charismatics, said the Bentley scandal is a sign that believers are gullible and immature.

But local pastors say that they work hard to teach their followers how to recognize the real thing.
But that's not always easy, Baggett admitted.

"One of the hard things about the Pentecostal–charismatic movements is that we've become caricatures," he said. "We've allowed that to happen. We've created that in many forms and fashions."

'We believe in miracles'

Pentecostals and charismatic groups, also known as renewal movements, focus on the Holy Spirit more than most Christian groups. They trace their roots to the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, and practice speaking in tongues. They often stress signs and wonders, such as miraculous faith healings, and believe they receive direct messages from the spirit.

An estimated 600 million people worldwide make up the renewal movement, said David G. Roebuck, director of the Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center in Cleveland, Tenn.
"We believe in miracles. We teach that," Baggett said about his Pentecostal congregation. "We teach that God is the same yesterday, today and forever."

Pentecostal and charismatic services can be very emotional and include prolonged prayer. At times, worshippers can be so overwhelmed that they faint, a practice known as being slain in the spirit. Those manifestations of the spirit, Baggett said, make people nervous.

"I've had people ask me to pray for them, but they say, 'I don't want to fall over,' " Baggett said. "So I tell them, 'Don't fall over.' "

Baggett, who believes God does speak to people, says he still is wary when people claim that God is speaking to them. He says that any message from God has to be tested, first by reading the Bible.

"That's where you have to have a knowledge of the word of God," he said. "It has to line up with that.''

Grady, the magazine editor, fears that many renewal movement believers are too immature to follow that advice.

"Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study," Grady wrote in a column after Bentley resigned from the ministry. "Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It's way past time for us to grow up."

Despite extensive reporting, Grady said, he has seen no proof of the Lakeland revival's miraculous claims. Charisma's latest issue includes a notice, asking readers to send in accounts of alleged miracles from Lakeland.

"We are asking for a doctor's verification," Grady said.

One of the father figures of the charismatic movement is the Rev. Don Finto, former pastor of Nashville's Belmont Church. A former Church of Christ missionary, Finto left that denomination after saying he was filled with the Holy Spirit in the 1970s, during what was known as the Jesus movement.

Finto believes that many in the charismatic movement mistake spiritual gifts for spiritual maturity. "There are people who are extremely gifted of God," he said. "But their character does not match their giftedness. And they get ex posed because of their character."

The Rev. Dan Scott, pastor of Nashville's Christ Church, a charismatic-leaning congregation, said that a lone-wolf approach to ministry almost always ends badly. He tells his parishioners to test any spiritual messages against the scriptures, and to talk them out with other believers.

Scott, who grew up Pentecostal, says he draws on other Christian traditions. He says the rhythm of the church year, which balances high points like Easter and Pentecost with ordinary time, reminds him that not every day is filled with spectacular miracles.

He thinks the Eastern Orthodox Church has the best way to deal with miracle workers.

"In the Orthodox Church, if you've got gifts of miracles and healing and you are a monk, they assign you to shovel crap," he said, "because you need to be grounded."

Contact Bob Smietana at bsmietana@tennessean.com.

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