We have looked at the origins of the TB,
the claims that are being made for it, and the experiences that
people have when they receive it. We have seen good reason to
believe that it is not the Holy Spirit Who is at work in this
movement, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, whereas
the TB was born in Christ-denying heresy in the so-called Faith
Movement. Now we are going to try to see what is really happening
to people when they experience the TB.
1. TB experiences in other religions.
The first thing we need to think about is
the fact that the experiences people have when they receive the
blessing or the anointing from men like Rodney Howard-Browne -
these experiences are not distinctively Christian in nature. By
that, I mean that it is perfectly possible to have exactly the
same emotional and physical experiences outside of Christianity,
in other religions or other faiths. Let us take the emotional
experience of feeling overwhelmingly loved. Rodney Howard-Browne
lays hands on you and zaps you with this tremendous feeling of
love. Is that a distinctively Christian experience? Well before
we decide, let's first of all listen to a testimony of someone
who had this wonderful experience:
He extended his arms, and
I suddenly saw Benjamin Creme's face disappear, and in the frame
of what had been his face was a completely different face which
didn't look anything like him. It was a face that was a sort of
golden-bronze sort of colour, with very large dark eyes that were
very luminous. and very high cheek bones, and a longish face.
And He also had a beard, this extraordinary Being who was looking
at me. I actually saw Him for the full twenty minutes that this
blessing lasted, so I had a very good chance to have a very good
look at it, at this face. And when His eyes came directly into
my line of vision, I felt these tremendous waves of energy radiating
from this Being and striking me in the heart. And I was really
moved? to the every depths of my being, because what I actually
experienced was a tremendous, powerful and very pure love. It
was something entirely remarkable, to experience a love like that.
3
That testimony by Patricia Pitchell could
fairly easily have come from a TB meeting. She has a vision of
a Jesus-like face: not uncommon in those who receive the TB. She
is overwhelmed by a feeling of "a tremendously powerful and
very pure love" which moves her to the very depths of her
being. Again, very common m the TB. It changes her life, makes
her into a committed disciple of Benjamin Creme, the "anointed
man" who transmitted this blessing to her. And the blessing
is transmitted by Benjamin Creme in a physical way - he extends
his arms and calls down the blessing. So it all has an uncanny
similarity to the TB. But of course, as you will have surmised,
it wasn't a TB meeting at all. It was a New Age meeting. Benjamin
Creme is a leading figure in the New Age movement in Britain.
He claims to be in constant telepathic communication with a spirit-guide
whom he calls "the Master," and he (Benjamin Creme)
says his mission in life is to prepare people for the coming of
the New Age Christ. He has a supernatural healing ministry and
runs a New Age magazine called Share International
. So Benjamin Creme, the New Age guru, is quite capable of transmitting
this experience to people, whereby these beautiful feelings of
love are channelled into their souls, accompanied perhaps by visions
of a Jesus-like face. So I go back to my original statement: There
is nothing distinctively Christian about the TB. It is perfectly
possible to have exactly the same experiences outside of Christianity,
in other religions or other faiths.
Just to emphasise the close connection between
the TB and these other non-Christian religious experiences, Benjamin
Creme was recently asked what he thought of the TB. His response
was that he thought the TB was a good thing; it is, according
to him, the method being used by his spiritual Masters to soften
up Christian Fundamentalists to accept the New Age Christ when
He appears.
Let's also think about the physical experiences
that occur in the TB. Take the experience of being "slain
in the Spirit," where people fall over after being touched,
usually on the forehead, by an anointed leader like Rodney Howard-Browne.
We have to say again that there is nothing distinctively Christian
about this experience. It happens in other religions and other
forms of spirituality. Listen to the following testimony from
an Indian man by the name of Kumar Swami, a Christian working
with Operation Mobilisation in India:
His father was some kind of
witch-doctor in a village. One day a few years ago Kumar's elder
brother announced that he had now received 'the power'. To prove
his point he stretched out his hand and touched, first his mother,
and then Kumar - both of them fell to the ground as though stunned.
immediately his brother received the veneration of all the villagers
and set off to demonstrate his power in other places.
4
So an Indian witch-doctor can slay people
in the Spirit by touching them. The question is, which spirit?
The other physical phenomena, such as hysterical laughter and
animal manifestations, are also found in other religions. The
great Hindu guru, Swami Baba Muktananda (died 1982), transmitted
these experiences to his followers by touching them on the forehead:
Manifestations included uncontrollable
laughing, roaring, barking, hissing, crying, shaking, etc. Some
devotees became mute or unconscious. Many felt themselves being
infused with feelings of great joy and peace and love.
5
Muktananda was simply channeling into his
disciples experiences he himself had undergone. "Roaring
like a lion" was one of his favourites.
My identification with a lion
had become stronger still. I roared so much that the cows nearby
broke their ropes and ran helter-skelter, dogs barked madly, and
people rushed to my hut. Sometimes I would zigzag along the ground
like a snake, sometimes hop like a frog, sometimes roar like a
tiger. My mind was held spellbound watching the extraordinary
inner moods of the Goddess Chiti.
6
The same kind of experiences are well-documented
in the activity of other influential 20th century Eastern gurus
like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Yan Xin, and among various pagan
and mystical cults such as "Subud."
It is naive and foolish to think, just because
a person claims to be a Christian and can channel these strange
experiences into people, that it must therefore be the Holy Spirit
at work. As we have seen, there are plenty of examples of this
power at work in non-Christian religions. But nowhere in the Bible
did the OT prophets or the NT apostles go around touching people
on the forehead or making them fall over, laughing hysterically
or behave like animals. People in the Bible did sometimes have
spiritual experiences which caused them to fall over, but never
as the result of someone touching them on the forehead. It wasn't
a power or a force transmitted from one person to another; it
was a response of humble worship to God as He revealed His glory.
That is totally different to what is going on in the TB, where
the power that makes someone fall over is physically transmitted
from one man to another, often without any accompanying religious
feelings at all. And in the Bible when people fell over, they
always fell forwards on their faces in worship, not backwards
in mindless shock or ecstasy as in the TB and these other pagan
equivalents of the TB.
2. The distinctive features of true Christian experience
Now at this point, let us ask ourselves
what is the difference between the kind of experiences we have
been thinking about, and a genuine Christian experience? Let's
think particularly about great and overwhelming experiences of
God's love. Christians can and do have such experiences. It would
be wrong and tragic for us to react against the TB by becoming
suspicious or hostile towards all experiences of God's love. What
we need to do is see the difference between the false TB experience
of God's love, and the genuine Christian experience. So let us
try to distinguish between the two. Look at ROMANS 5:5: "The
love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
Who was given to us." What is the difference between that
and the TB? We can pinpoint two important differences:
(i) A true Christian experience of God's
love is not transmitted physically by touch, or by a man "calling
down" the Holy Spirit on people. Human beings, however godly
they may be, have no power to unleash the Holy Spirit into the
souls of other believers. The Spirit is not some sort of force
at man's disposal to be thrown at people or blown onto people.
There is nothing in Scripture to support such an idea. Yet this
is how people like Benny Hinn and Rodney Howard-Browne behave,
as if the Holy Spirit were some kind of liquid they can dispense
to people by physical means, like alcohol. Indeed the Holy Spirit
is often compared to alcohol in the TB. "The bar is open."
TB leaders proclaim. "Come and take a deep drink of the Holy
Spirit." And when people do come and drink and then exhibit
the various bizarre forms of physical response, they are often
said to be "drunk on the new wine." Rodney Howard-Browne
has brought this approach to dispensing the Holy Spirit to its
most extreme form; one often hears him commanding the Lord Jesus
Christ to zap people with the Holy Spirit. "Go get 'em, Jesus,"
you hear him saying. "Go get all those stuffed religious
faces and make 'em laugh. Fill 'em up, Jesus!" It seems quite
clear that Rodney Howard-Browne thinks he has Christ and the Holy
Spirit at his disposal.
By contrast with all this, Scripture does
not teach any idea, or give any example, of people being able
to (as it were) transplant the Holy Spirit by physical means into
the soul of a Christian. The nearest we get to anything even remotely
resembling this notion is that on two occasions in ACTS, the apostles
laid hands on people that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
These two occasions are found in ACTS 8, where Peter and John
lay hands on the Samaritan believers, and ACTS 19 where Paul lays
hands on the Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist. But in both
these cases, these were people had who had not yet received the
Holy Spirit at all; neither the Samaritans, nor the Ephesian followers
of John had in any sense been made partakers of the gift of the
Holy Spirit, until the apostles laid hands on them. This was the
very first giving of the Spirit to these people to indwell them
as believers in Christ. So it is a totally different situation
from the TB, because in the TB the people to whom Rodney Howard-Browne
and others allegedly transmit the Holy Spirit are already professing
Christians - indeed, they are charismatic and Pentecostal Christians
who would claim to have already received the Holy Spirit in a
special fashion anyway. Yet apparently Rodney Howard-Browne is
able to give the Holy Spirit to them all over again by tapping
them on the forehead.
So even on the two occasions where Scripture
does show us the Holy Spirit being imparted by the laying on of
hands (which is not the same as tapping someone on the forehead),
it is very different to the TB, because in Scripture it refers
to the first ever reception of the Holy Spirit into the life of
believers to indwell them, rather than some subsequent so-called
blessing. And of course, in Scripture, it was the apostles alone
through whom God worked in this way. See ACTS 8:18-19. The apostles
were unique; no-one today can claim the status and power they
exercised. (In ACTS 8, if Rodney Howard-Browne rather than Philip
had been evangelising the Samaritans, he would not have waited
for the apostles to come from Jerusalem to lay hands on the new
converts. He would have "zapped" the Samaritans himself.)
7
To sum up: there is no Scriptural evidence
that anyone can impart or transfer the Holy Spirit by physical
methods into the soul of a believer who is already indwelt by
the Spirit. Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Browne and their imitators
have embraced an unScriptural practice which has degraded the
Holy Spirit from being the sovereign and almighty God into a mere
electrical force or power that they can automatically channel
into people.
(ii) Remember, we are looking at the difference
between TB and a true Christian experience of God's love. The
first difference is that in a true Christian experience, the Holy
Spirit is not channelled into our souls like some spiritual force
by physical means such as touch. The second difference is that
a true Christian experience of God's love comes by means of the
truth. The Holy Spirit works in and through and by means of the
truth. Let's go back to ROMANS 5:5, and also read the next 3 verses.
Notice how after Paul says that God's love is poured into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit, he immediately goes on to say that
God's love has been demonstrated or made known to us by the death
of Christ. God commends His love to us in this, that while we
were sinners Christ died for us. So when the Holy Spirit fills
our hearts with this wonderful sense of God's love, it is not
some instant zap experience that bypasses the mind. What the Holy
Spirit does is to bring home to our minds this great truth, that
Christ died for us; He takes that truth and impresses it upon
our minds, giving us a clear and vivid spiritual understanding
of it; and by that means He fills us with a wonderful sense and
feeling of how much God loves us. Our experience of God's love
is a response to the revealed truth of God's love. The Spirit
of God works through the Word of God; true spiritual emotions
and experiences arise out of God's Word, as our minds are opened
up by the Holy Spirit to see and grasp and understand that Word.
Let's consider some verses that show the
centrality and importance of the mind, the truth and the Word
of God in imparting life, blessing and sanctification to the believer:
The law of the LORD is perfect,
converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making
wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing
the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the
eyes (PSALM 1 9:7-8).
It is the spirit Who gives
life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you, they
are spirit and they are life (JOHN 6:63).
You shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free (JOHN 8:32).
Sanctify them by the truth;
Your Word is truth (JOHN 17:17)
Since you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth in sincere love of the brethren, love
one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again,
not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of
God which lives and abides for ever (1 PETER 1:22-3).
But you have an anointing
from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written
to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know
it, and that no lie is of the truth.... The anointing, which you
have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that
anyone should teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you
concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just
as it has taught you, you will abide in Him (1 JOHN 2:20-21 &
27).
These verses show that the Holy Spirit does
not bypass the truth or short-circuit our understandings when
He works in us, sanctifies us, awakens holy emotions, or brings
us into fellowship with God. The Spirit works through the truth,
through the Word, teaches us, enlightens our minds with true understanding,
and in that way kindles and awakens genuine spiritual feelings
and experiences.
Jonathan Edwards makes this point with great
force in his Treatise Concerning Religious Affections:
Holy affections are not heat
without light; but evermore arise from some information of the
understanding, some spiritual instruction that the mind receives,
some light or actual knowledge. The child of God is graciously
affected, because he sees and understands something more of divine
things than he did before, more of God or Christ, and of the glorious
things exhibited in the gospel. He has a clearer and better view
than he had before, when he was not affected: either he receives
some new understanding of divine things, or has his former knowledge
renewed after his view was decayed. [Edwards then quotes 1 JOHN
7, PHILIPPIANS 1:9, ROMANS 10:2, COLOSSIANS 3:10, PSALM 43:3-4,
and JOHN 6:45 to prove his point. ] Knowledge is the key that
first opens the hard heart, enlarges the affections, and opens
the way for men into the kingdom of heaven; Luke xi.52, "Ye
have taken away the key of knowledge." Now there are many
affections which do not arise from any, light in the understanding:
which is a sure evidence that these affections are not spiritual.
Let them be ever so high. 8
What Edwards warns against here is what
we see going on in the TB. Here, the Holy, Spirit supposedly works
without truth as His instrument. He directly zaps people into
a state of joy or peace or feeling loved. But there is no truth
involved; there is no enlightenment of the mind to understand
truth. Truth is bypassed in favour of this instant zap experience.
So the emotions and experiences that arise are not a response
to truth, but a mindless explosion of feeling that has no basis
in truth, or in the mind being enlightened to understand the truth.
This is not the way the Holy Spirit works; this mindless spirituality
is not Biblical. The mark of true Biblical spirituality is that
it flows out of the truth and is based on a proper understanding
of truth. Our Christian feelings and experiences come to us in
response to the truth, as that truth is found in God's Word, and
as the Holy Spirit applies it to us with sanctifying power. That
is why preaching and teaching are so important in the life of
the Church. And that is why preaching and teaching have so little
place in the TB. Truth to them is not important. The all-important
thing is the instant zap experience. That is why it does not bother
most of them that the TB originated in the dreadful heresies of
the Faith Movement. That doesn't matter, because truth is not
what is important to them; what matters is the feelings, the joy,
the mindless experience. This is directly opposed to genuine Christian
spirituality.
These facts sap the credibility of all the
claims we hear of Christians being spiritually renewed by the
TB to a deeper holiness. The kind of experiences we have been
examining could not renew anyone to true holiness. They might
(for a time) make someone more aggressive and confident in whatever
beliefs he already held, whether Christian or not. And therefore
it might lead to more religious activity - more praying, more
Bible studying, more evangelising. But these things are not convincing
proof of authentic growth in holiness. Where is the increased
reverence for God? The chaotic clowning of the TB is calculated
to destroy, not promote reverence. Where is the submission to
Scripture? Studying the Bible is not the same as submitting to
it. Jehovah's Witnesses study it. But where has any TB advocate
shown a willingness to submit his experiences to Scripture? I
would also have to add, from personal encounters and conversations,
that the claims to spiritual renewal made by the TB seem grossly
hyped-up to the point of fantasy, if not deception. None of my
friends who have been zapped display the slightest notable increase
in holiness. And I have heard too many stories of people's moral
behaviour and spiritual experience actually suffering sharp reverses
after receiving the TB. The only fruit of the TB in a friend of
mine in Kent was that she started to hear inner voices telling
her to kill herself. (She has now renounced the TB and joined
a non-TB church.) So let us not be taken in by these overblown
TB claims to spiritual renewal. Like claims to instantaneous and
perfect miraculous healing, few if any of them will stand up to
careful Scriptural scrutiny.
At this point it is worth saying that many
defend TB experiences, even the most bizarre and degrading ones,
by appealing to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in LUKE 11:11-3:
Which of you fathers, if a
son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks
for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If you then, though you
are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more will your Father in heaven give the Holy spirit to those
who ask Him.
The argument is that TB experiences must
come from God, because He would not allow His children to receive
false experiences when they ask Him for the Holy Spirit. But this
argument really cuts no ice. What exactly are people
desiring or asking for or expecting in a TB meeting? The answer
is, a certain experience. In their own minds they have identified
the Holy Spirit with certain types of experience, usually involving
physical manifestations. So when an anointed leader "calls
down the Holy Spirit," what he means is that he wants certain
experiences and manifestations now to take place in the meeting.
This is what people are "asking God for." The very asking,
in other words, takes it for granted that the various emotional
and physical experiences of the TB are the Holy
Spirit at work. But we have seen many reasons to think otherwise.
This kind of "asking the Father for the Spirit" is therefore
a religious delusion from the very outset. It is therefore not
very surprising that those who open themselves up to "the
Spirit," on the false understanding that He will manifest
His power through a certain experience, then undergo that false
experience. Why did God not protect His child from the counterfeit
experience? Because the child was already deceived. Why did God
not protect him from the deception? Well, we ourselves have the
personal responsibility to test the spirits (1 JOHN 4:1). If we
do not carry out that responsibility by searching the Scriptures
carefully and submissively, and testing everything against what
Scripture clearly teaches, we cannot blame God if we then fall
into deception and bogus experiences. That would be like blaming
God for not protecting us against electrocution if we fooled about
trying to fix a generator, without carefully studying the technical
manual.
3. Hypnotic forces
We've seen, then, that in the TB we are
dealing with a non-Christian form of spirituality which leads
people into feelings and experiences which they could equally
well have had in the New Age movement, or indeed in Hinduism,
Zen Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, or a dozen other varieties
of Eastern mysticism. Now let's ask ourselves what it is that
causes these mindless experiences of joy, peace and love, and
the physical manifestations that go along with them, the falling
over, hysterical laughter, etc. The first thing that can undoubtedly
cause many of these experiences is the power of hypnotism - hypnotic
influence. In the magazine The Briefing, Tony Payne
lists the following experiences undergone by people who receive
the TB:
Feelings of weightlessness
Feelings of heaviness
A feeling of being stretched
Catalepsy
Shaking
Repetitive movement of body parts
Rapid eye movement
Changes in breathing
Tinglings
Alleviation of pain and diseases
A feeling that body parts are changing in size or swelling
A feeling of being detached from your body
A powerful feeling of energy or electricity coursing through the body
Hearing a buzzing noise
Changes in hearing
Smelling a sweet aroma, like flowers
Seeing a bright light
Being aware of hot and cold areas on the body
Feeling drunk
Feeling washed clean
A distortion in the awareness of time passing, age regression (vividly recalling and even acting out childhood incidents)
Uncontrollable laughter
Tony Payne then comments: "all of these
phenomena are also well-documented as being the common results
of hypnosis. Subjects undergoing mass hypnosis regularly exhibit
precisely these manifestations, sometimes by auto-suggestion and
sometimes spontaneously."9 So here
we have what seems to be one possible source of many of these
experiences - hypnotic power and influence. It has been known
for centuries that hypnotism can generate these experiences. Hypnotism
is sometimes called Mesmerism, after Franz Mesmer, an Austrian
doctor and faith-healer who flourished in France in the 1780's.
He was in many ways the founder of modern Western hypnotism. Here
is a description of one of Mesmer's meetings:
Mesmer marched about majestically
in a pale lilac robe, passing his hands over the patients' bodies
or touching them with a long iron wand. The results varied. Some
patients felt nothing at all, some felt as if insects were crawling
over them, others were seized with hysterical laughter, convulsions
or fits of hiccups. Some went into raving delirium, which was
called 'The Crisis' and was considered extremely healthful.
10
A royal commission was appointed to investigate
Mesmer's activities; the commission was composed of member of
the Royal Society of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine of the
Academy of Sciences. In their report, the commission concluded
that "man can act upon man at any time, and almost at will
by striking his imagination; that the simplest gestures and signs
can have the most powerful effects; and that the actions of man
upon the imagination may be reduced to an art, and conducted with
method, upon subjects who have faith."11
The most effective of the "anointed
men" like Benny Hinn and Rodney Howard-Browne are arguably
nothing more than Christianised hypnotists, who have reduced their
Mesmeric practices to an art, and conduct it with method, upon
subjects who have faith. As a result, their simplest gestures
and signs can haw the most powerful effects, and they can act
on others almost at will by striking their imaginations. We can
see this hypnotic element at work through the various "warm-up"
techniques used by Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Browne and others
in their meetings, to soften people into the right emotional frame
of mind: lots of repetitive chorus singing, emotionally seductive
music, getting people to hold their hands up in the air for a
long time or to stare into each other's eyes, all geared to breaking
down people's inhibitions and rational self-control. Then there
is the all-important psychological climate of expectancy; people
expect something to happen - they expect the Spirit to work, they
expect to fall over and so on when Benny or Rodney touch them.
So we can account for much that goes on simply through the psychological
forces of hypnotism and mesmerism.
4. Physical power points
Another source of these experiences is found
in Eastern religions and New Age spirituality, and that is the
concept that there are various points in the human body where
a mysterious energy is concentrated. This energy can be unleashed
by those who know how to, simply by touching the power points
on the body. I was in a New Age bookshop in London recently where
they were selling a beautiful coloured diagram of the human body
showing the power points. The main one is the middle of the forehead,
known in Eastern religion as "the third eye." A Hindu
master or guru will often transmit a Hindu spiritual blessing
to his disciples by touching them on the third eye, with the result
that the disciple will fall over. Interestingly, this is often
where TB gurus touch their disciples, with the same result. Other
power points are the top of the head, the top of the chest, the
belly and the base of the spine. Again it is interesting that
when Rodney Howard-Browne can't get someone to fall over by touching
their forehead, he will sometimes touch their belly and the base
of their spine at the same time. It looks as if he is hugging
them, but in reality he is touching these two power points. Leigh
Belcham tells how this touching of power points happened to him
in Toronto:
[H]ands were placed briefly
on my forehead, and then my abdomen and chest were massaged
while the one praying repeated "More, more!" and "Drink,
drink!'' 12
The question, of course, is, what is really
happening here? Does the human body really have these power points
which some people can tap into or activate by some sort of natural
ability? Or is this ultimately a supernatural demonic power? Whichever
way we take it, there is certainly no basis in Scripture for the
idea that true spiritual blessing can be received by tapping into
cosmic power points on the human body. This may be good Eastern
mysticism and New Age spirituality, but it is not Biblical Christianity.
5. Demonic influences
Finally, let us look at some aspects of
the TB which it is difficult to explain in terms of hypnotic power.
I want us to consider two testimonies by people who received the
TB. The first is a man called Mick Brown. He went to Toronto and
attended a meeting led by John Arnott, pastor of the Toronto Airport
Vineyard. Here is Mick Brown's testimony:
A body came falling towards
me. I rested it on the ground and moved on. I found myself beside
John Arnott, who was moving through the crowd, blessing people,
who fell like ninepins. I didn't even see his hand coming as it
arced through the air and touched me gently - hardly at all -
on the forehead. "And bless this one, Lord...." I could
feel a palpable shock running through me, then I was falling backwards,
as if my legs had been kicked away from underneath me. I hit the
floor - I swear this is the truth - laughing like a drain.
13
The interesting thing about that testimony
is that Mick Brown is not a Christian. He is an unconverted Daily
Telegraph journalist who went to Toronto to write a report on
the TB for the Daily Telegraph magazine, from which the above
quotation is taken. Yet when John Arnott touches him, Mick Brown
experiences exactly the same phenomena as all the professing believers.
He is slain in the Spirit and laughs hysterically. Later he told
a Christian newspaper that for 3 days after this Toronto zap,
he felt in a state of euphoria, on cloud nine, but without it
making any difference to his unbelief. He was and still is an
unbeliever. So we have the same physical and emotional experience,
the same TB, but the person undergoing it is not a Christian.
This prompts us to ask two questions. First, how can this be the
Holy Spirit at work? Does He bestow the same emotional and physical
experience on believer and unbeliever alike - slaying in the Spirit,
uncontrollable laughter, a state of euphoria? If these things
had no spiritual meaning or significance in the life of the non-Christian
Mick Brown, how can precisely the same things have any authentic
spiritual meaning or significance in the lives of professing Christians?
Clearly we are dealing with an experience which is not truly spiritual
in nature, but can be happily shared by believers and unbelievers
alike.
Second question: What is this power that
John Arnott has to induce this experience in a non-Christian who
has absolutely no belief that the TB is a work of God, since he
does not even believe in God? It is difficult to believe that
this can be hypnotism working on a suggestible mind. Mick Brown
had not participated in any of the warm-up techniques of the worship,
and had no expectation that anything would happen to him. Yet
John Arnott touches him, quite by accident, and down he goes.
This seems to point us in the direction of John Arnott and others
like him actually possessing a real supernatural power. And if
it is not the power of the Holy Spirit, it must be the power of
an evil spirit.
The second testimony I want us to consider
is that of Glenda Waddell, a member of staff at Holy Trinity Brompton,
the Anglican church in London which acts as the headquarters of
the TB. Here is Ms Waddell's testimony of how she first received
the TB:
[T]o my absolute horror I
just knew beyond any shadow of a doubt my hands were doing strange
things and I was going to roar. I said, "Oh Lord, Ill do
anything but please, please, don't make me roar. Only the men
roar and women don't roar." But it came and I did roar quite
loudly and I made a lot of awful noise and I was crawling around
the floor doing terrible things and half of me was thinking, "This
cannot be me." But another part of me knew that it was.
14
The disturbing thing about Ms Waddell's
testimony is that it presents us with a picture of the Holy Spirit
supposedly at work which makes it painfully clear that it was
not the Holy Spirit at work. By her own account, Ms Waddell was
invaded and possessed by a power which reduced her to bestial
behaviour, crawling about and roaring. Half of her did not even
recognise herself in what was happening. There was no use of the
mind involved in Ms Waddell's experience whatsoever. She was simply
taken over, physically and spiritually, by a controlling force.
That is not how the Holy Spirit works in a believer's life. He
does not sanctify us by possessing us like a demon and forcing
us to do weird, sub-human things. He works through the Word of
God, bringing truth to bear on our minds, enlightening our understanding
and persuading us to obey. But in Ms Waddell's case, the thing
she calls the Holy Spirit came at her like a predatory beast,
seized her, possessed her, and forced her to roar and crawl about
like a lion. Surely anyone with any spiritual discernment must
see that this dark force was not the Holy Spirit. So what was
it? Hypnotic influence? Possibly; but to me it sounds more like
some real objective spiritual power that temporarily took over
this unfortunate lady. Her experience is a chilling reminder of
Swami Baba Muktananda's "roaring like a lion" under
the influence of the demon-goddess Chiti (see p.8). 1 do not believe
that true Christians can be permanently possessed by demons; but
if demons can deceive us into thinking that they are the Holy
Spirit, and on that basis can get us to open up to their influence,
we can be seized upon and influenced by demonic power, at least
temporarily. It is quite possible that this is going on alongside
the hypnotic forces that are at work in the TB.
6. Summary and conclusion
I would suggest that we can account for
the TB by a combination of hypnotic power and influence, and supernatural
demonic power. To keep ourselves safe against such deceptive movements,
we need a true understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in the
believer; and Scripture leads us to the conclusion that He works
through the Word of God, through the truth, and that the first
point of contact that the Spirit uses in us is our minds, our
understandings. We must therefore reject all so-called spiritual
experiences that by-pass or short-circuit the mind, or are not
produced by the spiritual application of truth to the mind and
heart. We must make sure that we have a spirituality that gives
a prominent place to our minds, to understanding the truth, and
we must make sure that Scripture is central in our relationship
with God, and also in our worship of God, through the preaching
and teaching of God's Word. ISAIAH 8:20: "To the law and
to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word,
it is because there is no light in them."
