Friday, March 18, 2005
"SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT": AUTHENTIC RENEWAL OR PRELEST ?
The phrase turns up in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles as Vinson Synan, historian of the Pentecostal movement, documents:
By 1990, Pentecostals and their charismatic brothers and sisters in the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches were turning their attention toward world evangelization. During the following decade, Pentecostals and charismatics were reinvigorated by new waves of revival that featured such Pentecostal spiritual manifestations as "holy laughter," being "slain n the Spirit," and other "exotic" manifestations. (THE CENTURY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, p. 12)
At a healing service conducted by Fr. Patenaude at the La Salette Shrine, the following took place:
After a lengthy Mass and much clapping and singing, people proceed to the altar to be anointed with holy oil. About a dozen participants fall over at the singing priest’s touch; a phenomenon that people in the Charismatic Renewal refer to as being "Slain in the Spirit".
It is generally assumed that this phenomenon is a sign of the movement of the Holy Spirit—evidence of the approval of God—a second Pentecost. Catholic News reports on Nigerian priest Fr. Anthony Mario Ozele’s healing service which enjoyed the presence of the bishop:
After his talk, Fr Ozele conducted a two-hour long healing service. Many stepped forward to be prayed over and were soon slain in the Spirit. Fr Ozele invited all to touch the ground where they stood as he offered prayers for the nation, Grenada , the Caribbean and its peoples.
The conference began Friday, January 7 with a concelebrated Holy Mass with Archbishop Gilbert being the chief celebrant. After a praise and worship session led by the CCR choir and music ministry, Fr Ozele delivered the opening talk, "A New Pentecost".
Professor David J. Engelsma, of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America defines the theology behind the phenomenon:
According to Pentecostalism, the second work of grace--the BHS--is for all Christians. God wants all to have it. It is available to all, but we must seek it and fulfill certain conditions in order to obtain it.
Only the teaching of a first and second baptism is the 'full gospel." Whatever message omits the BHS as Pentecostalism conceives it is less than a "full gospel." Only Pentecostalism has the "full gospel."
Third. the BHS is a mysterious, wonderful event in one's own experience. Often, there are physical effects and manifestations, such as a feeling of tingling all over the body, or falling down "slain in the Spirit," or laughing uncontrollably (the "holy laughter" of the Toronto blessing), or making noises like an animal.
Fourth, the purpose of the BHS in modern Pentecostalism is three-fold: more wonderful experience of much closer union with God, more desire and ability to praise God, and power for witnessing. Emphasis falls on the feeling of union with God.
Papal Household preacher Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, too, encourages the Charismatic Renewal. From an interview at the Catholic Charismatic New York website:
Baptism in the Spirit makes the Catholic Charismatic Renewal a formidable means willed by God to revitalize Christian life, says the preacher of the Papal Household.
Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa made that point Thursday as a gathering of more than 1,000 delegates of Catholic Charismatic Renewal from 73 countries drew to a close.
The delegates had gathered for a spiritual retreat and to reflect on holiness in light of John Paul II's apostolic letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte." Father Cantalamessa was the retreat master.
One would conclude, then, that this is a purely Christian experience, since the Holy Spirit is intimately connected with Christianity.
Pentecost in the Early Church served the purpose of building up the Church. Pentecostal manifestations, therefore, must be directly associated with this same purpose today if they wish to claim to be of the same nature as the first Pentecostal event. For the Holy Spirit to promote an activity that builds up a non-Christian religion would be evidence of the Third Person of the Trinity acting as a traitor to the Second Person of the Trinity. That is an impossibility because the Trinity is three Persons in One God. All must be about the same purpose for unity in the Trinity to be possible. The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity can hardly be engaging in the promotion of the worship of some other god. To do so would undermine the basic dogma of the Holy Trinity. And if the Trinity falls, can anything else of Christianity remain standing? Every aspect of Christianity is grounded in the Trinity. Christ founded a religion. For the Holy Spirit to work against the religion Christ founded would be to introduce a division in the Trinity that is not a theological possibility.
Yet this phenomenon described as evidence of Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not exclusive to the Christian religion.
Consider the anecdotal evidence presented by Robert Walker, who was born in India and witnessed the invasion of Americans and Europeans into Indian culture in the 1960s, and the similarities between the practices of the Charismatics and the practices of the Hindus:
Many professing Christians are at the forefront of the search for supernatural experience and meaning. Few realise the similarities between practices they are being encouraged to adopt and the practices of mystical Hindu yoga. The practices, methods and manifestations of Siddha Yoga go back a long way in time. I will describe some of them using their Sanskrit names.
The meetings which mystic Hindu gurus hold are called 'Dharshan'. At these meetings devotees go forward to receive spiritual experience from a touch by the open palm of the hand, often to the forehead, by the guru in what is known as the Shakti Pat or divine touch. According to the teaching there are seven spiritually significant places on the body of a person called 'chakras'. Followers are initiated by the direct experience of the spirit of the goddess Shakti who is the consort of the god Shiva.
A fragment of the history of Shakti-Pat reveals something of its nature:
An historically important branch of Tantra which was particularly associated with sexual spirituality (vama marg) as well as the complementary philosophy of physical transformation (Siddhantha) is known as Agamanta Saivism which climaxed during the 11th century around the region of Mantra Kali on the Godavari river. …The initiation empowerment was referred to as shakti pat.
Who is Shakti? According to the Sanatan Society she is
the divine force, manifesting to destroy demonic forces and restore balance. Every God in Hinduism has his Shakti and without that energy they have to power. …Shakti is also called Devil or mahadevi, assuming different roles as Sati, Parvati, Durga and Kali.
Shakti is feminine. The Shakti-Pat is associated with sacred sex or Tantra.
The Shakti-Pat brings signs and wonders like the signs and wonders of the Charismatic movement that follow the laying on of hands and the Baptism in the Spirit. What sort of mysticism is being promoted in Charismatic Renewal? Are we all to be Hindus now? If the signs are the same, is the god the same as well? Obviously there is only one acceptable answer—"no"—but why then are the signs the same? Is the Trinity Shakti? If the Trinity and Shakti are not the same, are there two gods, Shakti and the Holy Spirit, who both manifest their presence in the same way? If both gods are the same, is either one real, since their attributes and the ways we are to worship them are decidedly different? No one in the Church seems to be addressing these difficulties and contradictions. Rather there is just a wholesale embrace of these signs and wonders without theological reflection. And we wonder why so many Catholics don't know their faith? Perhaps our shepherds are among them.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
