The Toronto Blessing - from Christianity Today
Pumped and Scooped?
by George Byron Koch
(also see
Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water)
As a church pastor, I am often challenged by questions for
which I have no ready answer. Earlier this year, members of my church began
talking about the Toronto Blessing and asking my counsel about its legitimacy.
I had read strong opinions on both sides but had no direct experience, so before
long, I was on a plane to Toronto.
The next day, I sat among many hundreds in a vast room at
the Airport Vineyard church. After a time of praise and worship choruses,
announcements, and preaching, an invitation to receive prayer and the Blessing
was given, and authorized prayer ministers moved through the crowd, using
trademark gestures.
One minister stood behind a couple who wanted prayer for
their struggle with infertility. He held his hands above their heads, palms
downward, and began pumping vigorously up and down, as if pushing something into
them.
Another minister stood in front of a man desiring prayer,
resting his left hand on the man while scooping the air in a sideways motion
with his right hand, as if pulling something out of the air and into the man’s
body.
Eventually, this man and others fell to the floor to “rest
in the Spirit.” As the minister moved on, he occasionally looked back at those
on the floor and scooped his hand through the air again, lightly throwing
“something” toward them.
Other ministers blew on those being prayed for with a
series of quick breaths.
As both an evangelical and a charismatic, I accept
phenomenal gifts of the Holy Spirit, but I believe that they must be wholly
consistent with Scripture. What I found at the airport Vineyard is an apparent
theology of the Holy Spirit, on the part of some ministers and others involved
in the worship, that is both unorthodox and potentially much more serious than
the phenomena on the fringe of the worship.
The prayer techniques I saw have spread worldwide with
apparently little serious questioning as to what they signify, but there are
eerie echoes here of the common practices of Hindu gurus.
For example, Rajneesh, the infamous Indian, would touch his
followers, who would then convulse in uncontrollable shaking or laughter, or
simply pass out. Da Free John, an American guru, would sit with large crowds of
his devotees and wave his hand toward groups of them, who would then collapse in
ecstatic laughter. These disciples described the after-effects of the phenomena
as intense joy and peace.
These parallels, of course, do not demonstrate that the
Toronto phenomena are not from the Holy Spirit. However, they do show that the
phenomena themselves are not proof that the Holy Spirit is at work—even if
people feel peaceful or joyful afterwards.
We all may be tempted to cite joyful experience as proof of
God’s working in us (something we charismatics do pretty easily), but we always
need to be watchful and certain our experience is supported by Scripture and is
consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine.
The orthodox Christian view is that the Holy Spirit is a
person, is God, and has a sovereign will. He is not an impersonal power
transmitted or controlled by any one of us.
Even when we speak of the “power” of the Holy Spirit, this
is not some energy he leaves behind, like pixie dust from Tinkerbell, that we
can then manage as we please, irrespective of his conscious intent and
presence.
I am certain that many of those who have engaged in these
techniques do not believe they are manipulating the Holy Spirit and would be
horrified if they realized what their gestures might imply. I am also certain
these folks will want to begin to give clear teaching on the person of the Holy
Spirit.
Yet there are others involved in the Toronto Blessing who
believe they are able to transmit the Holy Spirit into other people as they
choose. They think the Holy Spirit is a power that they can pump, scoop, blow,
and press into others, and there may even be such a power present. But it is
not the Holy Spirit, and it should be rebuked. And those who may have used it
should repent.
The Vineyard, as well as Rodney Howard-Browne and the
churches to which the Blessing has spread, should move quickly to give clear,
regular, and thorough teaching on the person of the Holy Spirit to ministers and
congregations. It may even be that some of the more bizarre phenomena will flee
when those involved acknowledge the person and sovereignty of the Holy Spirit,
invite him in, and rebuke and renounce any other “power” that any individual
might personally control. Then we can move from taking sides about the Toronto
Blessing to celebrating and encouraging true renewal.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to be
clear that I am not opposed to the Toronto Blessing and similar moves of God
around the world, but about both the poor theology of the Holy Spirit that
sometimes accompanies these occurrences, and the failure of teaching by leaders
to the body of Christ. To read further (and with a more positive slant), please
see my other article on this:
Out of the
believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.
Copyright 1995 by George Byron Koch. Reprinted from
Christianity Today, September 11, 1995, p. 25. Adapted from a longer article by
the author in Spiritual Counterfeits Project Newsletter, Berkeley, California,
Spring 1995.
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