Mike McLoughlin's Blog

Canadian Christianity Consumed by the Holy Spirit?

Mike McLoughlin — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:01:00 -0700

Watch for the book mentioned in this article. There is such a thing as a text for Pentecostal Theology after all!

The StarPhoenix
10 Mar 2007

Ecstatic spirit of Pentecostalism gaining strength in Canada
CanWest News Service

OTTAWA — The first time Michael Wilkinson saw Pentecostals at worship, he was a teenager, dragged along by his parents. “These people are all crazy,” he came away thinking. “I’m not ever going back.”

But then the kids in the youth group asked him to some concerts. The music was terrific and the teens were fun, not losers or hopeless squares. “You can be cool and go to church,” he thought.

Now 41, he is both Pentecostal and associate professor of sociology specializing in Pentecostalism at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C.

He maintains the Canadian Pentecostal Research Network and is compiling a study of Canadian Pentecostals, one of the first books of its kind. His colleagues are pressing him to finish so their graduate students can use it to undertake studies of their own.

Canada has about 4.4 million renewalists — some 500,000 classical Pentecostals, members of churches developed in the early 1900s; 2.5 million charismatics, people who are “spirit filled” but stay within their denomination; and about 1.3 million neocharismatics, or neo-Pentecostals, a movement that began 10 to 20 years ago among people who want to steer clear of some of the strictures of traditional churches.

Renewalists don’t all share the same beliefs or worship practices, but they are united by their experience of God — “an intense, direct and overwhelming spiritual experience centred in the Holy Spirit,” says Wilkinson, quoting from Frank Macchia’s Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology, one of several new books coming out on the subject.

The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements says Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is characterized by “exuberant worship; an emphasis on subjective religious experience and spiritual gifts; claims of supernatural miracles, signs and wonders — including a language of spirituality (as it is experienced), rather than a theology; and a mystical ‘life in the Spirit’ by which they daily live out the will of God.”

Psychology might describe it as magical thinking. Political science or sociology might see it as “enchantment,” a worldview that embraces wonder, belittled in western civilization but very much alive in other countries.

Renewal resides at the mystical end of the religious spectrum and much of it is an outright mystery, which is just fine with its adherents. For them, reason has its limits.

As one renewalist minister describes it, “When philosophers and theologians get to do enough thinking or talking, they eventually run themselves in a circle. . . . They’ve bumped their brains on the ceiling of a mystery, but don’t want to admit it, so they keep talking.”

Probably the most mysterious are the “gifts” of speaking in tongues, prophecy, deliverance and healing, and the signs and wonders, or modern-day miracles, “a foretaste of the coming kingdom of God,” according to Wilkinson.

Evangelicals are also turbo-charged in their worship but they believe the miracles in the Bible were intended simply to help the Apostles get the church started. Most don’t believe they are available to believers today. Pentecostals do.

Since Pentecostals take their name from a passage in the Bible in which the Holy Spirit imbues the apostles with special gifts and powers, their outlook is hardly surprising.

Tags: Pentecostalism, worship, Pentecostal, sociology, Canadian, renewal, charismatic, spirit+filled, Holy+Spirit, Christianity, supernatural, miracles, signs, wonders, tongues, healing, kingdom, God, Evangelicals

Defining Reality & Dealing in Hope - Facts, Feelings & Faith

Mike McLoughlin — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:56:00 -0700

Max Depree in his bestselling book, Leadership Is an Art, says that the first job of a leader is to define reality. The last job is to say thank you. In between they serve their people.

Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying that “leaders are dealers in hope.”

Last night’s address on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 , President Bush gave us an excellent demonstration in these two leadership principles.

First, he defined reality. “This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. And we're fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom and tolerance and personal dignity.”

Second, he offered hope. “We look to the day when moms and dads throughout the Middle East see a future of hope and opportunity for their children. And when that good day comes, the clouds of war will part, the appeal of radicalism will decline, and we will leave our children with a better and safer world.”

Reality and hope go hand in hand. There is the present reality. There is a future hope that things will get better. This is the stuff of leadership.

Yet, many people will disagree with President Bush’s version of reality and the hope he offers. In Canada, a recent poll found that a majority of Canadians think the United States is to blame for the attacks. One out of five Canadians think the attacks were actually carried out covertly by the US government in order to provide an excuse to go to war with Iraq for access to oil resources.

A Canadian viewer commenting on the documentary “Loose Change” broadcast on CBC News: last Sunday states,

“How any rational person looking at the physical evidence and having at least a fundamental knowledge of physics can still believe the governments version is quite clearly incapable of seeing reality. I believe completely and without any reservation whatsoever that the US government murdered all those who died in the crimes committed on 9/11.”

9/11 Conspiracy theories are so prevalent on the internet that the magazine Popular Mechanics has published a book. Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts: The Editors of Popular Mechanics, John McCain, David Dunbar, Brad Reagan

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary many people continue to believe the conspiracy theories. Why?

People prefer a version of reality that provides a better hope. Branislaw Malinowski, an anthropologist and professional skeptic stated in Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. "Science is founded on the conviction that experience, effort, and reason are valid; magic on the belief that hope cannot fail nor desire deceive."

The facts of 9/11 tell a dreadful story. Islamic terrorists hijack airplanes and murder thousands of innocent people. There is little hope in that story.

Bush oversees a secret plot to precipitate a war against Iraq starting with the World Trade Centre demolition. It is still a gloomy story but at least we know that in the US democracy Bush’s term of office comes to an end in 2008. There is hope a new President will not act so rashly.

Writer Gore Vidal once said, “It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true” However, in today’s Postmodern world, facts are not what they used to be. Feelings are the dominant criteria for judging the believability of assertions. If facts do not fit your version of the story then they get jettisoned. If somebody 'feels' an alternative version based on a different set of facts is more hopeful, their spin on the story becomes more believable. Especially if their spin supposedly unmasks the hidden agenda behind the official version of the story. This is what the conspiracy theorist are so good at exploiting – the general cultural suspicions of truth claims.

As Tom Wright states in his audio series Christian Hope in a Postmodern World,

Facts are not important, spin is everything. And every country of every locality can produce examples of this. Reality is no longer divided into facts and values, or truths of reason and truths of science; it’s whatever you make it. You invent it as you go along, choose your value, choose your spin and the story will follow. Too bad if unenlightened readers think you’re simply telling them the facts. So this is one of the main features of post modernity, that reality seems to be in a state of collapse, we don’t know about the world out there, we only know about the inside of our own heads.

So if reality is what ever you make it to be and you want to manipulate people with the hope for a better reality than you can do that in today's world through political spin.

The problem is that people are also suspicious of people who make truth claims. As Wright observes, “All truth claims are made by someone or some group, and all persons and groups have agendas.” These agendas are smoked out by the postmodern skeptics. They are in it for the money, or for the sex or for the power.

As the conspiracy theorist argument goes, George Bush is a person with an agenda. He seeks power to dominate the world. Therefore his assertions about reality and his statements on a future hope are suspect.

The critical eye that is cast towards President Bush is also cast towards the Church. The Church makes assertions about its version of reality. It has a claim to knowing the truth. It has an agenda for converting people. It seeks influence and control in society. Therefore, in the postmodern culture, its claims are suspect until proven.

As my pastor once said, “The Church must hold ...

It’s a Bird! No! It’s a Plane! No! It’s The Christian Carnival CXXXII!

Mike McLoughlin — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:43:00 -0700

This week the Christian Carnival is HOT! Lots of HOT Topics to match the summer HEAT with a little humor thrown in!

Thank you to Donald Bosch at the The Evangelical Ecologist for helping me as a rookie host for the Christian Carnival and for John Howell at Brain Cramps for God for forwarding all those great entries and for the much esteemed Dory at Wittenberg Gate for giving us the opportunity to host.

Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian discovers two “tin woodmen" in his short snippet of a story - Only Natural.

Polly at Life is a Buffet (as opposed to a box of chocolates J? ) does a review of her Book of the Month: - The Holy Bible!. “Synopsis: God creates the universe and a man and a woman and then the story blasts off from there with an ending that is out of this world.”

The Deputy Headmistress shares an inspiring story of the authenticity of the Bible in her post: The Common Room: Ancient Manuscripts.

Sprittibee has some practical insight about God's Smoke Alarms from her reading of Bruce Wilkerson’s The Secrets of the Vine.

Dave Lorenzo at Career Intensity promotes The Power of Prayer at Work. My question is, does prayer serve business success or does business success serve God’s purposes in the marketplace? Perhaps Carnival readers would care to comment on the role of prayer for prosperity’s sake or the power of prayer for God’s glory through our work?

Trivium Pursuit posts an article by Mike Evans on Spiritual Depression, Rest, and ASSISTANCE Buttons.

Prince of Thrift discusses debt, specifically, becoming and staying debt free in Understanding The Great Misunderstanding.

Diane at CrossRoads in commenting on the Emergent church “thinks the children of the Baby Boomers have learned their parents' teachings quite well” which perhaps is not such a good thing. Check out her concerns at Where Faith and Inquiry Meet: Emerging into Emergent.

Martin LaBar at Sun and Shield looks at What's really important. And that is showing Christ’s love!

Jeremy Pierce at Parableman discuses Mark Roberts’ argument against doubting the traditional authorship of Mark & Luke. His post is entitled Mark, Luke, and Pseudonymity.

Mandi at Praising Fool in a quest for a church asks “Am I being too harsh since I don't want to go back based on the fact that not a single person welcomed me into their church?”

Jim Nutt at A Nutt’s View asks the question, God has not given us a spirit of fear, so what are we all so scared of?

Andre Yee at Every Square Inch exhorts fellow believers to See God in the Monotony. He offers a quote from G K Chesterton, “But perhaps, God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.”

Brandi at LongStarAcademy shares an incredible story of Words of Affirmation from the Lord.

Father David Jennings at Left of Calvary takes issue with the city of Las Vegas for stopping the service of mobile soup kitchens for homeless people in his post Does Vegas share in Sodom’s real sin?

Katy McKenna at Fallible.com discusses how blogging started for her “as a way to relieve my poor husband from a small measure of his listening duties” at The Beauty Of Budding Bloggers

Mary Yerkes of Releasing the Artist Within discusses her experience with the return of a prodigal son, specifically her 23 year old son returning home to live. Her jumping off point is Henri Nouwen’s Encounter with a Painting. Read it at http://maryyerkes.com/blog/?p=418

Rev Bill makes the point that we all need to Cross the road to see (and understand) what's on the other side! He quotes Henri Nouwen on neighborliness.

Nerd Mom from the Nerd Family explores the trend of Denominations and Colleges Breaking Ties. She thinks denominations are a good idea and wonders why people who disagree ought to still stick together. I can think of some pretty good reasons from Scripture, but perhaps Carnival reader could take up her challenge.

Lennie Jarratt at CrossBlogging discusses the important issue of Stem Cell research at Stem Cell Treatment Allows Girl To Walk.

Anthony at Fides et Veritas responds to Christians proclaiming the imminent return of Christ at Keep on keeping on.

A Penitent Blogger reflects on the attitude that should be maintained by ministers and indeed all the faithful at Ministry with an attitude.

Eric Williams in Ales Rarus asks the question "Must Christians always support Israel?" in his comments about the recent conflict in the Middle East at http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/archives/2414/

Leslie Carbone takes issue with Senator Ron Wyden’s Tax Reform initiative but agrees the tax code needs reform because it is unwise, unjust and immoral in Is the Tax Reform Man Coming?

Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath discusses arguments against eugenics from a purely utilitarian viewpoint http://www.pseudopolymath.com/?p=1642.

Barbara Sanders of Alabama at Tidbits And Treasures comments on the ministry of Bill & Gloria Gaithers, some of the best, if not the best, Christian artists of our time God's "Interruption" of the Gaithers

Rey from the Bible Archive looks at his lawn and thinks "Man, there's a lot of work to do in the Church." The Bible Archive - Why Lawn (and Church) Work Doesn't End

And last but not least Mike (that’s me) of the Faith at Work posts his solution to “The Clergy Conspiracy – Decode this Post to Uncover An Explosive Truth!” in his short article commemorating the passing of Kenneth Lay - So Dark the Con of Lay Man.

Thank you everyone for participating. Don’t forget to check ...

Richard Mouw on our Calling to Holy Worldliness

Mike McLoughlin — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 08:32:00 -0700

I am attending the 14th Annual International Consultation on Ministry in Daily Life sponsored by the Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life. Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, opened the Consultation with a lively presentation on faith in daily life.

He had four main points:

1. God cares about the daily work of God’s people because God cares deeply about the world. The Bible uses ...

Is Heaven Really our Home? Advent Hope is for New Creation not Heaven

Mike McLoughlin — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:52:00 -0800

Advent is the season of hope, that time to celebrate the birth of Jesus and look forward to his coming again. No surprise then that Barbara Walters has done a special on Heaven. (ABC News: Heaven — Where Is It? How Do We Get There?).

Pastor Ted Haggard, President of The National Association of Evangelicals and listed by Time Magazine as one of The 25 Most Influential ...

Bearing the Wrath of a Heresy Hunter

Mike McLoughlin — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:19:00 -0700

Now I know what it feels like to bear the wrath of a heresy hunter. You can read the charges against me here at Emergent No. It all started when I posted a comment at Steve Camp's Blog under the article Resurrection, The Key to Everything.

I stated that the resurrection affirms the cultural mandate. God created human beings in his image and gave them the mandate to ...

Steve Camp gives me a piece of his Mind!

Mike McLoughlin — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:08:00 -0700

I received an e mail from Steve Camp expressing his disappointment in my presentation of his perspectives on cultural engagement. He stated he felt I was misrepresenting him in my article Steve Camp thinks I am Misreading his Mind.

This is my response.

Okay, Steve!

I have links to your articles in the blog so my readers can read your material and judge for themselves whether or not ...

What Would Jesus Do At Work? Cultural Engagement through Serving Others in Love

Mike McLoughlin — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 12:28:00 -0700

or Christians to be successful in living truly integrated lives in their workplace or business, they must be challenged by a holistic world view that unifies their thinking and goes beyond a set of rules, ethical guidelines, Scriptural principles, etc. An example of an integrative question that challenges all our behavior is – What would Jesus do? WWJD is a popular trend with Christian youth, but it is ...

Steve Camp thinks I am Misreading his Mind

Mike McLoughlin — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:19:00 -0700

I sent a copy of my article The Scandal of Steve Camp's Mind to Steve for his comments. He replied that I had misread his thinking and that he is very much in favor of the redemptive value of cultural engagement. Yet, in CampOnThis: Where in the World is the Church?...is Evangelical Co-Belligerence the Answer? he agrees with a quote from John MacArthur which states:

“You see, the church has ...

Global Declaration of Interdependence

Mike McLoughlin — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 16:10:00 -0700

In Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, actor Will Smith called the Live 8 festivities a worldwide “declaration of interdependence.” He was borrowing a phrase from CivWorld Citizens Campaign for Democracy that was launched in response to the September 11th disaster. Here is their statement of interdependence.

The Declaration of Interdependence

We the people of the world do herewith declare our interdependence as individuals and members of distinct communities and ....