by Dr. U » October 8th, 2007, 3:11 am
Hi Sehoy:
Can I offer some constructive counsel on this statement? I think your brush is too broad. The Vineyard Churches, the Alpha Course and the Toronto Blessing and "holy laughter" are not all lumped together. The Vineyard Churches painfully ultimately asked the Toronto Airport Vineyard to leave their association of churches b/c of concern that they were focusing too much attention on phenomena, such as "holy laughter", and neglecting basics. That occurred in the mid to late 1990s. The Alpha Course, as noted above, came out of Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church that was visited by John Wimber - the Vineyard Churches founding and still most famous teacher - and a team in the very early 1980s, around 1981. There were some notable miracles that occurred, and the church was positively affected - to this day.
Not claiming in any way to be a professional historian, just a Christian who tries to read as widely as I can in church history, I think that whenever God is working powerfully in people's hearts and minds, sometimes strange things happen. For example, in the great revival movements at the time of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, or later in the 1800s with the Wesley's and others, sometimes people under great spiritual conviction were reported to shake or laugh or cry or pass out. The problem, IMO, only comes when that alone becomes the focus.
I grew up in an ethnic Baptist church in an industrial neighborhood in Chicago. They would never, ever have called themselves Pentecostal, and many members might have denied that God still does miracles as in the Bible. However, they were acquainted, too, with "things happening" when God was working in someone's spirit. I remember a man from a rough life who had a miraculous conversion that was still talked about years later. I don't know how he ended up at their evening service, but he came under such spiritual conviction from God that night that he was crying and then shaking so hard that an entire, long hardwood pew was shaking with him. (And this was not a church that practiced emotional services or long appeals.) Whatever God was doing deep inside him that night that caused those outer phenomena, it was real and the change stuck! I have vivid memories of him from when I was a child as a man with a kind, radiant and joyful face, so eager to tell everyone he could meet about Jesus Christ. When I learned, years later, that he had once been a very rough man people were afraid of, it seemed hard to believe.
Since you've joined the Roman Catholic Church, I'll mention this, too. I'm not sure how to take all the medieval saints stories, but, if they are even partly accurate historically, then there were some similar things happening with folks such as the renewal friars like St. Francis or St. Anthony of Padova. (In fact, as a teacher, I would love some day to witness God work the way it is said happened on occasion with St. Anthony of Padova, that as he was teaching the Bible, some people listening who had illnesses were miraculously and suddenly healed!)
Based on a number of years observation, I'd give the Vineyards very good scores for sound Christian doctrine, and sound practice rooted in God's authority: "Let's obey the Bible, teach about Jesus, and pray for people and see what God does".
So...hope this is useful, and I hope it doesn't sound negative. Please be careful to look for whether, in the long run, Jesus is lifted up and people are changed for life - or not. I do appreciate your root concern, there are spiritual counterfeits out there.