Welcome to Weirdville

Last night I had the chance to catch up with an old friend, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. She's been reading my blog, so that came up more than once in our conversation, and she asked if I would write about our conversation in the blog. I told her I wouldn't. LOL. And I won't. At least not much. Haha. I didn't lie on purpose. :) However, I will say a big hello to Joanna and tell her it's great to be able to share with her and find a place of grace. :)

Without getting into too much of the personal stuff, I want to touch on something that came up briefly because it's been on my mind several times lately. As we talked, the subject of charismatics and their fondness for dreams and the prophetic came up. OY.

As a former charismatic, I've seen just about everything (and was told about some pretty crazy stuff I didn't ever see). And I want to be careful in dealing with this subject matter because I'm very mindful of the fact that God sometimes chooses to work in very mysterious ways or speak to us outside the realm of the comfortable. Also, despite some of what I have to say, I do believe that God speaks through the prophetic and through dreams, and I do believe that He does stuff sometimes that looks pretty crazy to us humans. The Bible's full of examples, and there's no reason, in my mind at least, to think that all of that was meant just for the folks who lived in Bible times. But that having been said, I saw and heard a lot of things in my charismatic days that didn't sit right with me then, so it's not surprising that in my near-heathen state (not really) now I would find a lot to eye with a more-than-healthy dose of skepticism.

Even when I was "walking the straight and narrow" with the rest of the Fundies, I remember thinking that a lot of the crazy stuff I witnessed was more about someone getting carried away and overly emotional than about God doing something that looked quite nutty for some ambiguous reason of His own. That's one of the ugly facts in the charismatic church. I know a lot of really wonderful, sincere people who saw or felt things primarily because they worked themselves up so much they were able to convince themselves they saw something or God was throwing them around the room. And I'm not saying that all that stuff is fake or the fruit of too much emotion mixed with too much expectation. Some of it really does happen. But I tend to think now (as I privately thought then) that most of it was the result of someone wanting to connect with God so badly that they fell off the deep end.

There's another side to some of this stuff - particularly the prophetic - that's truly ugly and not simply pitiful. Far too often, the prophetic is used to manipulate. As a rule, I don't think this is done with sinister intentions. I think it happens because people begin to believe that their opinions and convictions are spoken to them by God, and as a result they try to force those things on others. They may sincerely believe that a person needs to see or do or experience something, and the next thing you know they're having prophecies and dreams about that person and passing them on as a "thus saith the Lord unto you." And if that person doesn't see it or agree or embrace it quickly, the "prophet" declares him or her to be stubborn or deceived or rebellious against God's clearly revealed will. It's pretty scary stuff, and it has done a lot of damage to well-meaning people. I don't want to share some of the really personal examples in my life out of a desire to protect those involved, but I can give you an example of this that still rankles, even after seven or eight years have passed.

Quite awhile back, a "prophetic" friend (acquaintance - Haha. Get it, Joanna? LOL) told me that God wanted me to go to a conference that was being hosted by a prominent charismatic minister, who shall remain nameless. I didn't really have the money and didn't really feel led that way in my heart, but I trusted my "prophetic" friend and plunked down my credit card for a plane ticket, hotel room and conference registration. (I'm still paying these off, by the way.) I hate to say it, but I have never seen so much "flesh" (as the Fundies call it) running rampant amongst a group of "Godly" people as I did that week. It was ugly. But that's beside the point. As the week went on, it appeared that the conference speaker's overpriced books, CDs and T-shirts weren't selling so well because she suddenly received a prophetic word that God was commanding every attendee to purchase one of each of these items and He would pour out His anointing on them. Yes, you read that right. And even at that time, I saw right through that prophetic word like I could see through Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. "Um... sorry Ms. Prophet, but I think you had a bad connection with heaven when you heard that." But you know what, the women I had traveled to the conference with all felt that God spoke through this woman and that we would be rebellious if we didn't obey the "revealed will of God." So despite knowing I was giving in to someone's self-benefitting, pocket-lining prophecy, I ponied up more money I didn't have because I didn't want to look ungodly and unspiritual to my friends. What a foolish waste. I'm ashamed of my cowardice now.

How's this for another example? I had a dream several years ago that I shared with the same prophetic friend who sent me to the conference. (Not slamming this person, by the way. She just figures in these stories of mine rather often.) After discussing the dream and what it might mean, she interpreted it to say that I was supposed to join the women's ministry at our church as the right hand assistant to the new leader. Though I felt no enthsiasm for this project or call toward that ministry, I went forward with it... and spent the next year feeling miserable and resenting the fact that my Monday evenings were tied up with a leadership position in a ministry I had no real heart for. In fact, the "assistant" position I was supposed to occupy was shifted fairly early on into the hands of another woman who had both the heart and the gifting for it. She was clearly "called" to be there; I was clearly not. And had I listened to my own heart and not allowed myself to be talked into doing something I didn't want to because my prophetic friend was convinced that God was trying to say that to me in my dream... well, I would have been a happier person all around.

I'm not blaming my prophetic friend, mind you. She wasn't malicious in the things she said to me. She sincerely believed she was hearing from God and passing on His will to me. But she was wrong. And like so many in the charismatic circles, she at times used her "ability to hear from God" as a means to manipulate me - "for your own good" - into doing things that were more her idea for me than God's.

This is the kind of stuff that most non-Christ Followers never see, thank God. They see enough charismatic weirdness on TBN and movies like "Saved" to drive them away from God and not toward Him. Let's just be real. Some of the things Christ Followers do in the name of the Holy Spirit are pretty damn strange and scary, and even with the perspective of a former insider, I'm mainly inclined to say, "Pass." I know the Bible talks about us being fools for Christ, but I don't think that means Christ is asking us to make Him look like a fool with our oddball behavior. And if you must hear my honest opinion (since it's MY blog, I get to control what I write, which means you "must" hear my honest opinion. LOL), the people who acted the strangest were generally the most emotionally unstable people in the church. Or the most fleshly. Not always, mind you, but as a general rule. And yet because they were "sensitive to the Holy Spirit" they were more Godly than the rest of us.

Yeah, I don't buy into that so much anymore. Thanks anyway. I'm saying all of this to make a point... which I've failed to get to yet. LOL. My point is that, while I believe that God does some of the things that happen in these meetings, my heart tells me that His real interest lies outside the doors where people need a hug more than a dusting of gold flakes on their sleeves, and a listening ear more than a wild dance around the room. My heart tells me that when the church puts out its "Welcome to Weirdville" sign it frightens away the majority of rational thinking people who already have doubts about the validity of the Christian faith. And finally, my experience (as well as the experiences of more than one dear friend) tell me that sometimes this "Holy Spirit inspired" behavior leaves deep wounds on the souls of those who become the unintentional victims of its ugly side.