Expert: Andrew Foley - 11/4/2006

Question
hi
Why Pentecostal is danger for christianity ?

What is your view about Faith healing ?
are they real ?

Answer
Hello and thanks for writing. Why is Pentecostalism a danger for Christianity? Well, mainly because I think its distinctives are only tangentially Christian. I think the New Age faith has entered into the church (and by extension society) through Pentecostalism. One could take dozens of individual issues in which Pentecostalism has perverted the Gospel, from Word-Faith to the Prosperity Gospel to the Toronto Blessing to tongues to phony signs and wonders to cultish behavior, but I think the main negative characteristic that covers all the errors is the elevation of the emotions and subjective experience over the mind and over legitimate authority. Historical Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, promised man a glorious afterlife if he would have faith in what he couldn't see and live according to God's commandments. Pentecostalism, with its promises of health, wealth, worldly prosperity, miracles and a direct, exciting experience with God Himself, appeals to something very carnal in mankind, which probably explains its incredible growth.

The whole process starts with the method of Pentecostal worship, which emphasizes excitement above all, with loud, emotionally manipulative music and loud, emotionally manipulative preachers combining to agitate the listener into a state of emotional frenzy. In such a state, with the added peer pressure of pastor and fellow believers, it is a short step for the baby Pentecostal's mind to click into neutral and to begin "speaking in tongues", a mental process exactly like that engaged in by ancient pagans (very popular at Corinth), modern day spiritualists, voodoo witch doctors and other practitioners of ecstatic religion. From glossolalia, which undoubtedly makes a person feel good, the individual is compelled, like a drug addict, to seek greater and greater subjective religious "experiences" from Slaying in the Spirit, to trances, visions, divination and other mind-altering, emotional experiences which have their parallels in pagan and New Age practices and which can be explained by the mind's proven ability to convince itself of anything. The culmination of such an escalation would seem to be the Vineyard Revivals, typified by the Toronto Airport Church, in which a whole megachurch congregation were seen rolling around on the floor, screaming, laughing uncontrollably and imitating barnyard animals, and blaming it all on God. I would highly recommend the book "Counterfeit Revival" by Hank Hanegraaf to really understand the hypnotic basis of those kinds of manifestations.

Another problem with such emotional subjectivism is that it makes a person spiritually arrogant and immune to any argument or correction. It is the common belief that once one "receives the Holy Spirit", it is the third Person of the Trinity who is behind every thought, feeling, opinion, prejudice and inclination in the individual's head. It is a common refrain in Pentecostal circles that "God told me" and obviously there is nothing you can say to such a person that will convince them otherwise. This presumption extends so far that the individual's "feeling" trumps even the Bible's authority. I remember asking a Pentecostal pastor how he could justify a service I had attended where he and his church violated every single one of the rules St. Paul laid down for speaking in tongues. (1 Cor 13:22-36) He simply responded that "the Holy Spirit" was guiding them. Obviously, if you haven't had the same "experiences" that they've had, then you're at a lower spiritual level than they are and have no right to question the Holy Spirit's instructions to them. When you're receiving instructions straight from the Holy Spirit, you're your own ultimate authority and have no need for anyone else, let alone the teachers that Jesus left us to ensure we would not be swept away by false doctrines. (Eph 4:11-14) Pentecostalism has little or no time for doctrine or truth. It's all about experience. The low educational and intellectual level of so many, if not most, Pentecostal pastors only exacerbates the problem. In the Pentecostal world, a diploma from a Rhema Bible College correspondence course is enough to set a man up as a "pastor" and "teacher". Often, even that isn't required. This low bar allows too many charlatans, bullies, ignoramuses and heretics into influentia positions of authority.

Another problem is that the belief system makes a person naively credulous about things which are demonstrably false. There has never been a single proven miracle healing or fulfilled prophecy in a Pentecostal church, yet its hundreds of millions of adherents believe that individuals like Benny Hinn or Kim Clement are healing millions of people, predicting the future and even raising the dead. The fact that those two, as well as many other proven charlatans, have not been tarred and feathered and driven from organized religion is a powerful testimony that the Pentecostal belief system requires the abdication of the mind. I can't imagine that Jesus, who abjured us to be as shrewd as serpents (Mt 10:16) really wants that. Since you asked specifically about faith healing, think about what I just said for a moment. In the 100 years that Pentecostalism has been in existence, there has_never_been even one proven miracle healing in a Pentecostal church. All the tales are either unsubstantiated assertions or stories heard from a friend of a friend of a friend. By "proven", I mean that we would have the testimony of an impartial doctor who would show us medical records proving that a certain organic medical condition (i.e. cancer rather than a headache) had suddenly disappeared from a person after the actions of the faith healer. That kind of testimony does not exist, to my knowledge, and I've questioned several self-proclaimed miracle workers. I do believe miracles happen today but only through the work of God-not TBN showmen- and I believe they happen relatively rarely. But the thing to remember is that we are not promised health in this world. We should certainly pray for it, but as Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed to be spared the crucifixion, "Yet not as I will, but as you will."  

Why is this emotionalism and credulity dangerous? First, because it leads to the creation of new gospels (read "A Different Gospel" by D.R. McConnell) which is an offense against God. Secondly, because the system which rises up around it is harmful to people because it is false, and nothing false can ever be good. I would urge you to visit this website of the Association of Former Pentecostals http://ex-pentecostals.org/ and read about the mental and emotional harm which has come to so many people because of the defects of the Pentecostal system. I hope I answered your question. Good night.