My Charismatic forray

I would just like to share my foray into the Charismatic scene.

I was born into and attended a traditional Presbyterian church. As a child, I was infant baptized and attended church with my entire family. However, I didn't know much of who God is. When I was still relatively young, in 1994, there was a church split and half of the congregation left. Being young at that time, I didn't know what was going on, only knowing later that a senior church elder and his wife had objected to my then Senior Pastor's introduction of Vineyard Music into the church. My then Senior Pastor, Rev. Keith Lai, was defiant and insisted that he was right in doing so, causing a split in the church.

Over time, my former church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, has transited from a traditional conservative church to one that uses slightly more contemporary songs, although not as contemporary as what some of the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches were using. In 1997, there was a church camp organized in June in which I was forced to go against my will, and it was during that camp in which the Holy Spirit regenerated me. That camp, however, was a Charismatic one, in that the theme was on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, with an emphasis on the ‘exotic’ gifts of tongues etc, with people being ‘slain in the Spirit’ etc. After that camp, I started to get serious about my Christian walk and desired to know and grow in Christ. However, there was nobody to help me, and I was basically stunted in my growth.

In 1998, I was invited to go for the Festival of Praise (FOP), which is the most Charismatic mass non-denominational event in Singapore (and still is). Being used to dead worship in my former church, it was a refreshing experience to experience lively worship for once (by Hillsongs Australia), and as such I was ‘hooked’. From my viewpoint then, this brand of Christianity is authentic, unlike the dead worship that was going on in my former church. From then on, I bought the music CDs, and immersed myself into that ‘Christian’ subculture. In my former church also, changes were coming. The other youths from my church were soon going to the FOP as well, and basically no youths like the dead worship which they can’t connect to. Being involved in the youth music ministry at that time, we used some of the ‘less staid’ music at that time as compared to those used in the main adult service. It was only a matter of time before someone would decide to introduce the ultimate ‘happening’ worship music – Hillsongs, into the worship service; first the youth, and then the adult services.

Being in a, in all but name only, Charismatic church which places heavy emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I was intrigued by these gifts, especially the sign gifts. They seem to me to enable one to be spiritual and mature, and I as such I desire those gifts, although I did not receive any of them. All these manifestations of spirituality seemed to me that those people somehow ‘got it’ spiritually. At that time also, I was somehow introduced to the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (NAR), with the ‘apostles’ C. Peter Wagner, ‘prophet’ Cindy Jacobs etc, especially when my then church participated in the 40 days of prayer and fasting before National Day, which I participated heavily in also. I also subscribed to news from Joel News International, a Neo-Apostolic, Dominionist website which features lots of accounts of miracles of various kinds (i.e. healing of the sick, raising the dead etc.), and even passed on their news to my youth group then.

However, there was still a serious problem. Obviously, I did not receive any of these gifts of the Spirit, and I didn’t get ‘slain in the Spirit’ either, no matter how receptive I thought I was to the Holy Spirit. My walk with God was in a shambles, as I struggled to continue to do my Quiet Time (QT) and reading of the Bible which I had started off well with after my conversion in 1997. I felt empty and hollow inside. The hollower I felt, the more I seek those gifts, but they were not forthcoming. I was reading Christian books on various topics also, and taking my mind off to other matters like Apologetics helped to ease my emptiness. With such a situation, I entered National Service (NS) in the year 2000, and the circumstances there obviously do not help matters. Soon, I decided to read books like Tommy Tenney’s The God Catchers, which doesn’t help either.

One day in early 2003, out of curiosity, while I was in SKS bookstore, I saw a book by Robert Reymond entitled A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Being inquisitive, I bought the book and decided to read it. Suffice it is to say that this was my introduction to Reformed Theology and I was offended by the explicit Calvinism found in that book, which I could easily see even though I did not understand nearly 80% of the book then. Having no way of countering the author’s views supported from the Scriptures, I consulted my then young adult pastor but he was no help (although he was supposed to be a Presbyterian pastor). However, God slowly opened my mind to the Scriptures regarding this topic. Slowly by slowly, I started to embrace this doctrinal system which I was initially very hostile to, having accepted it finally by the end of 2003 after I have entered university.

As I have stated in my autobiography, this acceptance of the doctrines of grace transformed my life and my entire outlook. Slowly, I started to be free. As I begin to read the Scripture for myself again, I slowly rejected most of the Charismatic things I had embraced before as what they truly are: heresy and utter nonsense. Slowly, I am liberated from the bondages imposed by Charismatism and free to follow Christ in the proper way prescribed by Scripture, not the chasing after mirages of ‘sign gifts’, ‘miracles’ and ‘tongues’.