25 July 2004

Slain in the Spirit: What was really happening? The first time I was "slain in the Spirit" was a definitive point in my career as a charismatic. Being slain was not essential in the same way tongues was, but you did feel a bit of an outsider as long as these sorts of things didn't happen to you. Typically you were seen as resistant or a bit stubborn if nothing tangible happened when you responded to the altar call and were given the laying-on of hands. Being slain in the Spirit was something I had almost given up on. It never seemed to be happening for me. The first time I was actually slain was during that period of renewal I talked about known as the Toronto Blessing. I honestly didn't expect to fall. I was convinced I would be resistant as I always was. People around me were falling like dominoes, and the prayer team were gradually working their way over to where I was standing. I was already trying to think up excuses why I wasn't reacting the way I should. But you know when some joker comes up behind you and pokes you in the legs, right behind your knees, and you hardly feel a thing, but your legs just give way automatically? That's exactly how it felt when, either before or just as the preacher's hand touched my head, I swooned backwards onto the floor. And I just lay there, wondering how on earth I had ended up in this position, but basking in a kind of warm glow, not least because I could now get the badge and the t-shirt and announce to the world that I had been slain in the Spirit. Throughout the course of that day I was slain about three or four times. It happened regularly, almost every time I was prayed for, over the ensuing few months. I became a dab-hand at being slain. I was one of God's best slainees. I crumpled to the floor more than once with no one even touching me or praying for me. (One of these times is on tape somewhere, because the cameraman had to swoop his video-camera out of the way lickety-split to prevent me crashing into it.) On one occasion I fell directly forward. I can't remember if anyone caught me, or if I just landed myself. On none of those occasions did I hurt myself, and I weigh in excess of 300lbs. Usually my legs wouldn't even bend. I'd just fall straight back like a dummy. I saw my brother-in-law get slain onto a wooden floor, landing on his elbows with a piercing crack and not batting an eyelid, later saying he didn't even remember, although everyone else certainly did. (*Ouch!*) Things weren't always that way, however. After a while, I lost the knack. I really didn't know what happened, but it worried me. I'd stand there thinking, Am I falling or not? Am I resisting? And I'd end up falling, but it wasn't the same. One time I fell, and there was no one to catch me, and I just kind of staggered backwards about ten feet and fell on top of the overhead projector. (I'm about pissing myself laughing as I remember this.) I remember hearing a few gasps from concerned spectators, but I'd started the ball rolling, and I knew I couldn't just drop the act there and then, so I lay there half on the projector, half sprawled across the front row of seats (luckily the row was empty, otherwise there'd have been casualties that night), and my body heaving occasionally as I tried to stifle my embarrassed laughter. So what was really going on? Well, the first few times it was definitely more than simply faking it. As far as I was consciously aware it was involuntary and unexpected (on that first occasion, at least). Something out of the ordinary had to be happening that I would fall straight back, with unbent legs, and not be aware of any discomfort or injury. But that doesn't equate to supernatural. I think it was simply psychological. Like many charismatic apologists, I would fight tooth-and-nail at one time against the possibility that it was the power of suggestion, some sort of hypnosis or a psychological reaction. The realization that it was all in the mind when I watched this guy, the mental magician Derren Brown. Have a look how he manipulates an entire shopping mall full of unsuspecting people through the power of suggestion [RAM file], or better still, watch any of his television shows, and tell me how what's going on in a charismatic meeting is fundamentally all that different. The mind is a crazy thing with far greater depths than we generally give it credit for. The remaining question, then, is whether God was doing anything in all that time I spent on the carpet. And my honest answer would be that of course God wasn't absent from my life just because I was a charismatic, but certainly I think that whatever good things God did, he did despite rather than because of all the charismatic high-jinx. Being slain in itself was not helpful in the long-term; in fact, for all the great feelings it gave me at the time, it only fuelled my need to keep on getting more comparably intense experiences to sustain my spiritual walk, and that kind of thinking only led to a constant cycle of euphoria, anti-climax and guilt. I'm not saying God could never knock a person down, but I'd be dishonest if I said I didn't think the charismatic thing was, on the whole, in the mind. Dave 4:39:02 PM    Join the conversation [] A retrospective glance at my career as a tongues-talker Not a few people have asked, having read the account of my journey through the charismatic movement, how I now interpret everything that happened to me back then. I spoke in tongues. I fell over, "slain in the Spirit". I prophesied. Was it all just hype? Let me start with the phenomenon that at least at one time was the most distinctive feature of the Pentecostal and charismatic movement: Tongues. It is perhaps odd that tongues didn't get more of a mention in my story, but I suppose the reason for that is that being "slain in the Spirit" was a far greater defining moment for me, spiritually, and speaking in tongues was something I gradually got into. Or at least I can't remember a specific moment when I first spoke in tongues. I tried for a hell of a long time to speak in tongues, and felt awfully inadequate that I couldn't. It just seemed fake to me when I tried to do it. There was a lot of pressure on me, however. On several occasions, my pastor would lay his hands on me and encourage me to speak in tongues: "Just let it come... Don't resist... Just speak out." I just couldn't do it. I tried it laying awake on my bed at night, and managed to utter a few syllables, but I couldn't convince myself it was real. I think I just decided that this was the best it was going to get, and I may as well just go with it, and that way the pressure would be off -- I'd be over the hurdle, and I wouldn't feel awkward when someone asked me whether I was baptized in the Spirit and how I knew. So I became a tongues-speaker. To be devastatingly frank, I think for the most part I was kidding myself. As is usually the case with tongues, it was exactly the same phrases every time, and there was nothing about it that required some sort of supernatural anointing, for I had the whole thing memorized to be repeated whenever I was praying. I could have recited my pastor's tongue if I wanted to. In fact, I could probably have recited the tongue of just about anyone in the congregation who prayed in tongues regularly enough, because they all said the same phrases week after week. Were I to pluck for an explanation, I would say I was pressured into speaking in tongues by a subculture where you were a bit of a freak if tongues wasn't a sustained feature of your prayer-life, I did what I was told to do -- spoke out whatever first came into my mind -- and then after the first few times it just became a routine that I could rattle my way through with or without God's help. I knew what it was supposed to sound like, because I had heard everyone else doing it. So I'd put it down pretty much to a learned behaviour. There were a handful of occasions when it was different. One was when I was away at college and my home church was going through a particularly rough patch. I began praying for the situation, and all of a sudden I was singing loudly and boisterously in a tongue I had never spoken before, and my emotions were changing as if deep down I understood the words I was singing. That obviously belongs in a different category to the week-in-week-out tongues. Purely psychological? The Spirit genuinely doing something? It was the one time I thought Paul's words about "the Spirit interceding in groans that cannot be uttered" might be of relevance. I don't know, but I am less inclined to be skeptical of that occasion. The other few times were moments of wild abandon, and all took place in the shower, funnily enough. Next I'll talk about being "slain in the Spirit". Boy, that was fun. Dave 2:05:49 PM    Join the conversation []

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