I was attracted to the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement since my conversion to the faith in the early seventies. My hometown contained one of the bigger charismatic preachers, Lester Sumrall, who was preaching at seventeen and turned world missionary at 20. I was attracted to the idea of working miracles and excercising spiritual gifts, like tongues. I spent 3 years in a leading charismatic church in San Jose, CA in the eighties, spoke in tongues, and even slain in the spirit one time. That experience was interesting. Even though I went down, I was fully conscience. My body had all this electrical energy going thru it and I did not want to get up.
Even though the experience was real and interesting, it was not 'life-changing' at all. Even back then I was kind of a freethinker and did not completely fit in the mold of charismatic or christian. Then watching the shennanagins of Jim and Tammy Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, and a few others, I lost interest in the movement and started looking elsewhere for truth. When I see a 'real' miracle, maybe I'll be convinced. Miracles are interestingly missing from most charismatic churches. No resurrections that I know of are being performed by anyone. Which, according to their own teaching, should be taking place. O, well.
Tags:
© 2018 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes.
Powered by