The Charismatic movement

1. Since the emergence of the Charismatic movement among protestant groups in the United States in the 60s, the understanding of the purpose of a church service (to exalt the Lord), the style of service (which used to be with reverence and thanksgiving) and in particular the style of worship (which used to be focused on pleasing the Lord) in Protestant (Traditional and Pentecostal) churches, this understanding has been changing at a fast pace. The origins of these changes can be in part traced back to conversions that took place during the “Jesus Movement”.

In the 60s, many young people who lived a hippie lifestyle came to faith. However, instead of having their whole life changed by the Spirit, they largely kept certain parts of their old behavior, and their highly informal communication and dressing habits, which affected the form they adopted to worship the Lord.

They also brought the worldly styles of music they were used to and, above all, the “show-like” style of performing. They – and not the Holy Spirit – were responsible for the extreme informality conducive to lack of reverence in dressing and behavior in the services and particularly in the style of worshiping adopted in the last decades by the majority of Charismatic churches. This style of worship has already reached Pentecostal and even Evangelical churches, which use them in an attempt to attract young people. They should have been helped by pastors with wisdom, but in many cases this did not happen.

2. Individualistic approach to worship.

There was, among them, an individualistic approach to service and, in particular, to worship. There was an emphasis to freedom in the way people desired to worship, which meant, in practice, liberty to the flesh. They would mistake freedom for the Spirit to perform what He wanted with liberty for them to express their feelings in the way they found suitable. They tended to think, for example, that any sudden desire to clap hands, jump, dance or fall to the ground “to adore the Lord” was necessarily a result of an impulse from the Holy Spirit.

Thereafter, jumping, dancing and clapping hands started to be used as means of moving the “worshippers” into a blessed mood. Instead of being visited by the Spirit and, as a consequence, to manifest these ways of worshipping, they started to practice those physical movements to induce the Holy Spirit to visit them – the opposite of the original intention.

They also understood that criticizing their way of worshiping would amount to criticism of the Holy Spirit. This understanding contributed to prevent any kind of judgment about any novel way of worshipping. One interpretation of an isolated verse of the Old Testament was enough to justify a new practice, a new way of worshipping.

Things evolved and even if there was no biblical justification the new practice, they would still adopt it. In the end, they started to change the 1950 years of theology of the Church in order to justify their new ways: the general attitude was that one should not look for a biblical basis for new practices, because the Bible gives us just “general guidelines”.

So experience started to be favored at the expense of the clear teachings of the Word of God. As a result, a pattern of tolerance concerning new worship practices and behavior in church services started to be established in the Charismatic churches.

3. Lack of reverence and order.

Later, all sorts of attitudes to express reverence and order in church services started to be considered ritualistic and empty. Instead, was complete freedom for each believer to behave as he/she “felt touched by the Holy Spirit”, as if they were all Spirit-filled and able to hear from the Lord and discern His voice; as if they were mature enough to check what kind of behavior was acceptable and pleasant to the Lord.

Consequently, an atmosphere of informal behavior, an excessive familiarity with the Lord and His Holy Spirit started to replace the necessary reverence, the fear and trembling before the Lord, which are clear teachings from the Old and the New Testaments.

In some Churches, the desirable fear and reverence before the Lord tended to be replaced by a complete informality even in referring to the Lord and in worshiping Him. In many Charismatic circles, fear was replaced by a lack of reverence and a shocking intimacy with the Lord. Jesus started to be treated by the worshipers as their equal, as a pal. Others started to address the Holy Spirit with an excessive familiarity.

4. Unprepared and insecure pastors.

At that time there were no pastors duly prepared to shepherd the flocks with the weapons of the Holy Spirit, with understanding and wisdom. Those pastors had been trained in seminaries where there were no teachings on how to manage the spiritual gifts in a local church with order nor on how to distinguish a manifestation of the Spirit from an expression of human emotions (human thoughts and feelings).

Most of those pastors did not even have a Pentecostal background; they had come from traditional, historical Protestant churches. Their professors at the seminaries did not belong to churches where there were regular manifestations of spiritual gifts. Besides, they were not even used in spiritual gifts, which made them fully unable to teach about this subject with authority. Those professors had no knowledge about how to judge prophecies or how to test if they came from the Holy Spirit or from man.

Those pastors were also afraid of displeasing their congregations. This was in part the result of the democratic way of choosing pastors: by democratic election and not by a choice of the Holy Spirit. These pastors had to satisfy their congregations – even at the expense of the Lord’s will – in order to keep their jobs.

On the other hand, they did not duly lead their churches because of a wrong notion about the “anointing” of the Holy Spirit: the anointing given to a pastor was considered to be the same anointing the Lord gave to other Christians to perform other functions in the church. They could not understand that they had received authority to rule over the Church and more understanding and wisdom than regular members of the congregation as part of the anointing. Pastors became, therefore, insecure about functioning as shepherds of the flock.

5. Lack of understanding.

At that time, a great concern prevailed in those churches: not to get in the way of what the Holy Spirit was doing. As pastors did not have understanding about what was promoting the edification of the churches, and could not distinguish between a genuine work of the Spirit and human emotional reactions to the work of the Spirit, everything became admissible. No limits or principles to establish order and decency (1 Cor. 14.40) in church service or worship were taught. In practice, those who were being converted became “sheep without shepherds”.

In the 80s a pastor from Indiana sent a group of elders to another city to examine a certain spiritual movement and to bring a report about the spiritual manifestations that took place. The report was the following: “there are manifestations that are from the Spirit and others that are not.” But they did not dare say which ones were from the Spirit and which ones were not. The reason was that they had no understanding and were, therefore, afraid to make a mistake and so to displease the Lord.

6. Dressing habits.

As the Lord started to save many young people from the hippie movement, pastors were so happy to have them saved that they became afraid of somehow displeasing them by teaching them how to dress and behave properly in a Church service. For this reason, and for lack of understanding, they opted for not instructing those new converts by teaching them about the transformation of the whole lives of those who accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior, about Jesus’ desire to reveal himself to the world through us or about the need for us to live for the Lord’s glory.

Hippies converted in California beaches – and not in the Holy Spirit – were responsible for wearing Bermuda shorts, t-shirts and beach sandals to Church, and the practice of drinking refreshments and eating fries or popcorn during the services (during worship time or preaching) which spread among many Charismatic churches. They went from one extreme to the other: instead of traditional dress codes, they opted for informality without reasonable limits and without understanding. Of course they were never reminded that all things are lawful, but not everything is helpful because many things do not promote edification of the Church.

7. Freedom. Show-like worship.

In the area of worship, there was not only complete freedom for any believer to adore the Lord as he or she pleased, but also there was freedom to change the service into a kind of show-like meeting. The traditional choir gave way to a group of praise that was unnecessarily placed in front of the congregation on a stand, singing and acting as pop stars on stage, as if they were presenting themselves before the congregation. Later, in a few congregations, groups that danced and waved flags during the service were placed on the stage. Becauses their activity had the purpose of praising the Lord, it became difficult to justify the fact that they sang, danced and played instruments facing the congregation.

The churches started to react to them exactly as an audience reacts after shows of popular music artists: they applauded them. Furthermore, they started to thank them for performing, as if they were on stage to entertain the congregations and therefore expected an acknowledgement from the audience. They forgot that, at least in theory, they were singing together with the congregation in order to worship the Lord and to please Him, expecting recognition from the Lord Himself.

8. Influencing other countries.

American Charismatic missionaries and evangelists that went to work abroad started to spread this kind of “emotional praise” and “praise on the stage” to other countries. The new churches they started adopted this kind of worship as if it were the one that “gave freedom to the Spirit” and as if it had been revealed by the Lord to the Church of our days.

This influence went even beyond the new churches started by these missionaries and evangelists, to reach Pentecostal churches that were formed in the nineties and even traditional Pentecostal congregations in different parts of the world, including in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union.