At present, the Chinese church can be simply divided into two kinds: one advocates Pentecostalism while the other against it. Both sides have difficulty understanding the other. The church advocating pentecostalism believes that the church cannot benefit people if it lacks spiritual gifts. The church against it contends that many confusions regarding the church are caused by measuring the spirituality of a church through the manifestation of spiritual gifts in it. Their conflict has become so tense that it is difficult to reconcile one with the other.
Pentecostalism emphasizes the importance of spiritual gifts in the church. The Bible has mentioned many gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are intended to build up the church. In the eyes of many pastors against Pentecostalism whom I have visited, they agreed unanimously that the church should be filled with the spiritual gifts; but, it should not be filled with Pentecostalism.
The question is whether the spiritual gifts working in the church. Are those mentioned in the Bible?
I will talk about my experience and opinion on Pentecostalism, and whether the church should guard against it by sharing my own experience with it.
My first experience:
After the speaker of the gathering announced that he would use his gifts to heal people, he did not order seriously-ill people to stand up and walk as Jesus did. He could only do one thing and that is asking people to raise their hands up to the level of their shoulders. After people did what he asked, he said that many sicknesses today are caused by our bad habits when using our body and if we can heal their effects, our body will become healthy. After everyone raised their hands, the speaker began to pray, murmuring "long, long, long..." in his mouth. Then a magical scene appeared. A man's relatively short arm began to grow longer until it became as long as the other.
My comment:
This "miracle" was likely man-made. We know that a person's arms and legs differ slightly and with the slight movement of the body or the change of camera's angle, the difference will be visible. Though this miracle is not typical at all, it is tempting to people. On that evening, many people were being tempted by the confusing miracle and rushed to the pastor with "spiritual gifts". However, he did not heal any other illnesses and repeated the same miracle again and again.
My second experience:
This time, I saw how people were knocked down by the Holy Spirit. Many people came to the gathering, among which are a large number of sick people. They longed for the Holy Spirit to knock them down so that they might live in Him forever. After a series of preparations, the knocking down assembly finally began with the host slowly walking to the middle of the table. He asked the people: "Do you want to be led by the Holy Spirit? If so, please stretch out your hand, empty your mind, and focus on your desire for the Holy Spirit to enter into your body." I saw many people become so eager that they began to fall down by themselves before the host prayed the opening prayer. The host said, "No matter what happens to the people beside you, leave them alone for they have been filled with the Holy Spirit." Then, he began to pray and people started to fall down one by one. Some began to roll back and forth on the ground, some fell to the ground as if they were dead and others were foaming in their mouth as if they had been hypnotized.
My comment:
The host constantly stressed that we need to lay down our own consciousness and resistance, which is similar to hypnotism and witchcraft in society in principle. Because I was alert all the time and did not empty my mind because of the desire to be knocked down by the Holy Spirit, I did not feel anything at all at the gathering. At the end, I noticed that another brother was not knocked down either.
My third experience:
After a Pentecostal event ended, the organizers said that they would like to give participants a baptism of the Holy Spirit like fire. Standing in a row, we prayed silently with our eyes closed. After our prayers, a pastor came to us intending to give us one after another a push so that we may fall down. At his slight push, many fell onto the cushion on the back. Soon I realized that someone was giving me a push so I opened my eyes and found the pastor was looking into my eyes and feeling embarrassed because I did not fall down. Then, he gave me a stronger push but I did not fall down either. When we looked into each others' eyes, he felt more embarrassed.
After the end of the "push down session", another big trick struck three of my Christian views. I saw a large group of people like she-males coming out and jumping up and down and shaking their hips, which made me feel disgusted because I could clearly recognize that they were men; but, the organizers told us that they were Christ's bride.
After these three experiences with Pentecostalism, which lacked holiness of faith, I truly felt that they were fooling people. I did not oppose the spiritual gifts because the Bible says that they are beneficial to the church in many ways. I also desire to receive these gifts; but, I do not think that their work will produce such ridiculous behaviors.
To tell the truth, what is the point of such "spiritual gifts" apart from bringing chaos to the church?
Translated by Alvin Zhou
