John Wimber

[carebear]

I think this is a great video:

[carebear]

I also wrote more on John Wimber in the thread "understanding the truth because we have the spirit"

[Josh]

It hadn't dawned on me how much Dispensationalism tends to poo-poo the more miraculous spiritual gifts.

I wonder if that mean that Partial-Preterists are more likely to be open to all the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

[Michael]

I have tremendous respect for John Wimber. And while I might come to slightly different conclusions than he did, I have always respected his desire for balance of doctrine and experience. He certainly was a voice of reason in the TB movement.

I agree that "systematic theology," while not necessarily wrong or improper in and of itself, can have a tendency to distance one's relationship with a very relational God. Some (admittedly myself included*) can lean toward being too "theological" and others too "experiential", but I believe the Bible incorporates both (if you'll indulge me in calling them extremes) into Christian practice.

It hadn't dawned on me how much Dispensationalism tends to poo-poo the more miraculous spiritual gifts. I wonder if that mean that Partial-Preterists are more likely to be open to all the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

I'm a bit perplexed by Wimber's comment and Josh's response, however, when it comes to the relationship between Dispensationalism and the spiritual gifts. Though I used to be, I no longer am a Dispensationalist (too many holes in the doctrine for me to accept it any longer, but that's for another discussion). It seems to me that you can find varying degrees of cessationists as well as varying degrees of charismatics in every major branch of Christianity, including Catholicism.** In my experience, most of the Charismatics I know (and I know a lot of 'em) are Dispensationalists.

I'm not trying to defend or reject any one view here ***. But I am curious if the relationship between dispensationalism and cessationism can be defended. I agree that the vast majority of Christians today adhere to Dispensationalism, so it would follow that most cessationists would be as well. But I don't think either can be pigeonholed quite that easily.



* I can be more "experiential" in private, but I tend to be more reserved in public. A personal fault, I confess.

** en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Charismatic_Renewal

*** For the record, I am NOT a cessationist. I don't think it can be "theologically" supported.

[christopher]

I didn't watch the video, but I agree with Mike that cessationsism and dispensationalism are independent of each other (unless there is a flavor of dispensationalism that puts the early church as a separate dispensation from the church of today). My experience with dispensationalists agrees with Mike's as well.

What did Wimber say that made it sound like dispy's are cessationists? I wonder if maybe there's some residual tension with Chuck Smith in there somewhere.

Also, I thought Vineyards were dispy. Are they not?

[Josh]

I dunno. I grew up dispensational and cessionist (though our church would never have used those terms). I was just thinking that the reason might be that they viewed such gifts as only for past dispensations, but now that I"m thinking about it the church age is just one big dispensation, right?

I wonder what connection between the two he was making?

[carebear]

Forgot to add the 2nd and 3rd parts of this video

[Michael]

Nov 27, 2010 19:24:16 GMT -8 Josh said:

I wonder what connection between the two he was making?

Yeah, he said it again in the second video segment as well. Still not sure what his particular beef was.

Again, I appreciate Wimber's humility and honesty in saying that his views were not set in stone, that through more study and more experience his theological positions had changed, and would likely continue to develop. I remember my Bible college days, when my theological positions were SO set in stone. I had it all figured out. I think that if the Mike of the late 1980's would peer twenty years into the future to the current Mike, he would almost certainly consider himself apostate! Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But not much.

One thing that stuck out to me was that experience affects theology. The experiences we have directly impact our doctrinal beliefs. I think anyone who denies that is lying to himself. But 1 Thessalonians 5 says, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good." Maybe I'm expanding the application of that verse beyond what Paul intended, but I do think we should test "experience" by what we know to be true. Just because someone claims something is of God, doesn't mean it is. It must be tested. I think it was Wimber's sincere desire to allow the Spirit to move and work, while testing it in light of what he believed to be true. I draw the line in a different place than he did (maybe due to my own experiences? ), but I certainly respect him.

By the way, thanks for posting these, Carrie. I enjoyed listening to them. Like Josh and Chris said in another post, I appreciate your and Vio's heart for desiring God's presence, and you challenge me to bring balance to my relationship with Him. That's one thing I love about Aletheia, that it's not monolithic in its "doctrines" and we can sharpen and encourage each other in "unity" without all believing exactly the same way about everything.

[Josh]

I think that if the Mike of the late 1980's would peer twenty years into the future to the current Mike, he would almost certainly consider himself apostate! Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But not much.

The same is true for me. And someone once cited this as a rebuke to me

[carebear]

Some of the highlights for me from these videos were:

John spoke about his experience with speaking in tongues as he was walking on the road. He told his wife who was concerned and they spoke with their pastor. Their pastor told him that the problem was that John didn't have sound doctrine.....if he had more sound doctrine, he wouldn't stray into these trespasses (tongues). Then John decided to go to bible college....and he said he got sound. In the process, he said he lost the romance that he had known in the early days of his Christian experience. He said he got sounder and sounder and more desperate, and more desperate (not because getting knowledge is bad, but because it snuffed out all intimacy in the process). John said that he didn't know that his refocus on theology had in the process caused him to lose his romance: enjoying his presence, the unction, or listening to God and moving on it. John said he knew very little about the first hand leading of the Spirit of God. The basic way he was lead by God was by burden, highlighting of scripture, or the counsel of elders and friends.... “these are all valid criteria for being led, but on the empirical side of life. If I had a vision, a dream, a prophecy....I would have been sure I was psychotic, mental, or gone off the deep end.....but keep in mind that some biblical norms would have allowed for all of these kinds of 'direction'.”

He went on to say his family at one point in his life was praying for healings and seeing them come to pass. But then once they heard God “wasn't doing healings anymore in this age”, they didn't pursue them anymore. (This made me think about how what we believe is what we will see to a certain extent....once he was told God doesn't heal anymore, he stopped seeking or believing it....and therefore he didn't see it anymore).

John went on to say, “Some weird things would happen outside of the theological, intellectual, and worldview I was holding.” He explained a story about leading a Hispanic man to the Lord in an unusual way (the man appeared to be shining in the classroom and this was God pointing him out to John). John said this situation showed him that some things we can't learn through theology only.

And finally, I found this statement to be interesting, “I agree with the notion that without spiritual gifts functioning, I am indeed an incomplete and secularized Christian and as a result in a very real sense, I couldn't operate in the power we've seen here the last few days (in the conference) and I believe we need to operate in the realm of the Spirit with the Spirit's umption, etc.”

What does it mean to operate in the realm of the Spirit?

[carebear]

any thoughts in response to my last post?