At the back end of last year I offered a brief response to an article in Evangelical Times called “Why I escaped the so called Calvinistic charismatics”. The article seemed primarily to be focused on New Frontiers, the family of churches which our church is part of. I wrote to the newspaper asking for permission to write a response for their readers so that they were given a fairer picture from which to make a judgement. I also asked for full sight of the article to enable me to do so fully. When the reply came, I was told buy a subscription in order to see the whole article and that if I wanted I could write a letter to the editor or comment below the article. I don’t consider those to be fair or reasonable means in which to engage seriously. It doesn’t look like there will be an opportunity for someone from a “Reformed Charismatic” background to respond but I’m hoping that some of the readers of ET will find this article.[1]
Of course, one problem is that I was only able to see the introduction to the article and so I do not know what all the issues raised by the author were. As I noted in my initial response, the issues highlighted were not unique to disagreements between charismatics and non-charismatics. There would be differences of opinion among non-charismatic reformed Christians over the role of the Law in the life of the believer and between charismatics over the nature of the Toronto Blessing. In fact, some of the strongest criticism of the Toronto Blessing came from charismatics.
However, in the absence of the full article, I am aware of the kinds of questions and concerns that those from outside of the Charismatic movement might have of charismatics and of the New Church movement, including New Frontiers. This comes because if the author started out as a child in a New Frontiers church my journey might to some extent appear to have gone the other way.
Growing up I was part of a lively Evangelical Church which would have been seen as non-Charismatic but where people prayed for healing and tongues were spoken but those kinds of things tended to happen away from the main gathering. There were overtly charismatic churches in our city and there were people who were part of our church who would consider themselves to be charismatic. I was a student at the time of the Toronto Blessing and our University CU was very positive to such things. At the time I would say that I was sceptical about a lot of what I was seeing and hearing about. I leaned towards cessationiism although didn’t fully embrace it. I was a member of an FIEC church for 10 years following University and the leadership would have been consistent cessationists on the gifts of the Spirit (I will explain some terms later). However, I came to a continuationalist position without embracing the charismatic label.
My first pastorate was at a church with Brethren roots and like the church I grew up in would have had a mix of people from charismatic and non charismatic backgrounds, things like tongues, prophecy/words of knowledge and prayer for healing happened but as with in Bradford was not prominent in our gatherings. I think that as much as anything that reflected the character of the Black Country temperament, an unshowy people, rather than theological convictions. After Bearwood, we found ourselves here in a New Frontiers Church and in many respects we felt as soon as we joined the church that we had arrived home, a place where our theology, our theory and the practice and culture of the church matched up.
That’s a bit of my background, it would be helpful to know a bit of the background of Reformed Charismatics too. A good starting point would be the beginning of the 20th Century and Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism arose out of churches with a holiness movement background. That history goes back to the Wesleys and believes that it is possible to persue full holiness in this life, often through a second experience of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals believed that this was the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, necessary for all believers and accompanied by speaking in tongues as on the Day of Pentecost.
Around the middle of the 20th Century a number of evangelical Anglicans and others experienced something similar to the Pentecostal Awakening Many would have considered this to be their baptism in the Holy Spirit, although there was less of an expectation that it must be accompanied by speaking in tongues.
Some charismatics were becoming frustrated with traditional church contexts and some were arguing that there needed to be a full restoration of the New Testament style of church. There also seems to have been a Brethren influence in some cases. For a number this included the need for a return to apostolic ministry. It is fair to say that the language of some, but not all, seemed to suggest a form of end times expectation and an equivalence between the new apostles and the foundational 12.
Some of these charismatics and new church leaders, either prior to or after their charismatic experience were significantly influenced by Reformed theology and key historical as well as contemporary figures. Indeed, it id fair to say that you can trace back the influences in the mid 20th century to either Martyn Lloyd Jones or John Stott. If the former you may also detect a love for the Puritans and an emphasis on Baptism of the Spirit as a subsequent experience to conversion, if to John Stott then the expectation would be that baptism of the Spirit came with your conversion.
Earlier I mentioned cessationism and continuationalism. These terms represent two responses to the charismatic movement. Some evangelicals are convinced that the gifts of prophecy and tongues were limited to the early church and ceased with the completion of the canon of Scripture. Continuationalists on the other hand are happy with the notion that the gifts continued though many would acknowledge that their churches may be theoretically open to the continuation of the gifts but in practice function as cessationists.
I would suggest that there tend to be two main concerns, fears or objections to Charismatics and specifically to the New Church or Restoration movement. The first concerns the use of gifts and particularly prophecy. This arises out of a good concern to honour the sufficiency of Scripture. The fear is that contemporary prophetic words might add to, replace, contradict or distract from Scripture.
The concern is a good one and a right one. It may be helpful to know that those of us, especially from a reformed perspective on the charismatic side would have the same concern holding to the infallibility, inerrancy, clarity and sufficiency of Scripture. I also think it is fair to say that simply claiming that prophecy is under the authority of Scripture and doesn’t contradict it is not enough. We are looking for more. However, I also want to note, having spent many years pursing the arguments and studying Scripture that I’ve simply not found a convincing Biblical case for the cessation of the gifts. If I want to honour Scripture’s place then I wan tto obey what it does say and not add to that.
Secondly what I have found helpful is to think carefully about how revelation works. We distinguish between special revelation and general revelation. It is special revelation that is contained in Scripture, that is infallible and so marked out as sufficient. This helps us to think too about what we mean by “sufficient”, sufficient for what? A lot of prophets existed during Bible times whose words were not contained in Scripture, not because they were false prophets but because those words were not considered special revelation. Yet, they were still speaking from God. So, I would suggest what we see in terms of contemporary prophecy counts as a form of general revelation. It does not conflict with Scripture because it belongs in a different category.
The other issue is around the question of apostles. As I acknowledge above, the concept has not always been helpfully handled. However, it is fair to say that today, most who talk in terms of apostolic ministry are not talking about people as equivalents of the Twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Rather, these are what we might refer to as “small ‘a’ apostles of the church.” These are people who have often been involved in planting churches and so have a relationship to them. They are friends from outside who are invited in to advise but perhaps distinct from some other networks, the expectation is that they are invited in with a degree of authority. It isn’t “take it or leave it” advise, they are trusted and listened to in the same way that the elders within the church would be. In that respect, the role is akin to that of Timothy and Titus in the New Testament rather than Paul or Peter.
I recognise that there will be plenty of reformed Evangelicals who will disagree on those matters and I don’t expect to change your mind with one short article. However, hopefully this article will help to give a little insight into who your brothers and sisters in Christ are and to encourage you that whilst there may be some differences on secondary issues, we remain united with you in the Gospel.
Postscript
After writing this article but before I had posted it, someone shared a link with me of an interview that the ET editor, Mike Judge did with the article author. I don’t know whether or not the video covers the same material as the article. If so, it is worth noting that Tom doesn’t seem to engage with the two issues I deal with above. This is surprising because these are the kinds of issues I would expect to come up as the crunch distinctions between charismatic and non-charismatic.
I will respond in more detail to the video, especially as it seems to rely on one persons narrow, childhood experience. I note here that it lacks evidence and certainly doesn’t justify the weighty title about escaping from something dangerous. I guess “Some things I didn’t like about the church I grew up in” doesn’t have the same impact as a headline.
As the two issues I’ve dealt with tend to be the main differences of substance I decided to keep this current article as is and hope it will be helpful to any non-charismatic brothers and sisters reading.
[1] Whilst the author talked about “so called Calvinistic Charismatics” I think that most charismatics who hold to the Doctrines of Grace associated with the reformation and people such as Calvin would p3fer the term “Reformed” with its lesser emphasis on one personality just as other Reformed Evangelicals would.
Faithroots 
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