Loneliness of the soul in charismania…
I’m sitting, drinking tea at work… and thinking: I’ll write down my thoughts about a common state many people experience in charismatic or super-trendy evangelical churches. Listen and either add something or disagree.
One of these states (harmful ones, and there are many), often not even recognized, is loneliness. And it’s loneliness in the midst of many people and an abundance of varied, sometimes exhausting church activity. A sea of people, small groups, services, trips, seminars, meetings, discos, chatter, parties, etc., yet the soul is often lonely…
Lonely, firstly, because it was not so much brought into communion with Jesus Christ and God as given the hope that everything will be okay for the believer! Something was promised that the soul was seeking: love, acceptance, joy, friends, etc. But these needs, if you can call them that, are essentially a derivative of alienation from God, and therefore they do not by themselves satisfy the soul — it remains lonely. It needs God, the Son of God Jesus Christ, but it’s given seminars on how to be successful in business, in the world, how to be successful in material or social or other spheres. It needs Christ — the Truth and the Life, but it’s given rhythmic music with cool guys, raucous shows supposedly glorifying God, and a sea of shouts, calls, promises, amens, hallelujahs, clapping, and assurances that everything is fine with you…
The soul needs cleansing tears, repenting of its sinful nature, of its evil heart and stubborn God-opposing will, but they try to convince it that everything is great, the main thing is to believe this, to believe that Christ has taken everything upon Himself and there’s nothing to worry about… But you can’t fool the soul… periodically, when there are no shouts from pastors, no crowd around, the soul languishes in loneliness — there is no Christ, no God, nothing real to truly warm the soul and give steadfastness without ‘adrenaline’ and euphoria. Everything is a phantom and fog…
Lonely, secondly, because the charismatic church, and any neo-Pentecostal church, does not introduce a person to the Church of Christ, which has been living on earth for 2000 years (its experience). In the charismatic movement, a person is alone with their EXPERIENCES (EXPERIENCE) and the PASTOR’S TEACHING. In other words, the soul has no friend outside of itself except for the pastor’s teaching or its perpetually young (constantly changing membership) church. EXPERIENCES, emotions, feelings that the soul felt at one time or another in its acquaintance with a charismatic church remain its own, and they cannot be a friend to it. Every person needs someone to be friends with, so as not to be alone in their struggle, on their path, in sufferings or victories. Someone is needed. This is just an illustration. The soul also needs someone.
If you say: God — that’s not what I mean. Right now I’m not talking about theology but about our human experience. We come to know God through mind and experience. Through mind by means of Scripture, through experience by means of the spirit and mind. To know God, you need someone to introduce you to the Word, to experience, and a correct one at that. In a charismatic church, the soul is first given a false experience of knowing God, and its mind is also not trained to turn to the True Experience and True Knowledge — SCRIPTURE (the Holy Bible). And so, apart from the pastor’s teaching, the person’s soul remains ALONE with its own experience (feelings) and tries somehow to know God. And the PASTOR’S TEACHING is also derivative of the PASTOR’S EXPERIENCES. Thus, the soul of a charismatic church parishioner remains LONELY ONLY with the EXPERIENCES of his or someone else’s soul. And experiences are an unreliable friend, and you can’t call them a friend, because they again spring from the soul itself and cannot be its helper.
What should happen and how, normally? The human soul should find friends: a firm and unshakable foundation in the Holy Scriptures, the historical teaching of the Christian Church on the foundational questions of man, sin, God, the Son of God, eternal life, and this True Teaching will help it gain a sound, that is, HEALTHY spiritual experience. An experience that does not destroy the soul, but builds it up and purifies it.
Thus, the soul of a charismatic Christian suffers from loneliness in isolation from the HISTORICAL and HEALTHY TEACHING OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST (which is already at least 2000 years old), from loneliness in isolation from the EXPERIENCE OF THE CHURCH, and from loneliness in isolation from all true saints and ascetics of the church, who by their blood and life proved the presence of correct spiritual experience and God’s guidance (…considering the outcome of their way of life, imitate their faith… the Epistle to the Hebrews).
Thirdly, the soul is lonely because in charismatic churches people become not closer to each other, but more distant. Where there is no true teaching of Christ, there cannot be true love for one another. Where prosperity is preached, there is no place for those who are not prosperous, for the weak, for the infirm. Just as in Nazism the old, elderly, and sick were despised, so in the charismatic movement as a whole weaknesses, illnesses, difficulties, and lack of success are not welcomed….
Oh, and how often and how many failures we have, how often difficulties, how often weaknesses… and what should the soul feel at such a time in a charismatic church???? Condemnation, ignoring, rejection, indifference, lack of interest, etc.
In any case, not support and certainly not sympathy. The charismatic teaching itself works against ‘non-charismatic’ people. There is no place there for ‘non-charismatic personalities,’ and they find out about it sooner or later. There are many quotes on this topic from famous charismatic leaders, but I don’t have time right now to search for them and write them here. You can search and find them yourselves.
I will add that it would not be an exaggeration to say that people who came into the charismatic movement actually ended up having FEWER friends and FEWER healthy relationships than BEFORE coming into the charismatic movement. Even in the world, people often have more REAL friends than in charismatic churches.
UNDERSTAND — this is not a reproach, these are just observations… my observations and reflections. I blame no one for this except the FALSE TEACHING and FALSE TEACHERS.
I could write more, but I’ll stop here for now. This is not an article, not a review, but a post with thoughts aloud. If it’s completely different in your church, then that’s good. Perhaps it is. And if you feel the same in your soul, then write about it in a response.
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