Stuff People Think Pentecostals Believe

I thought I’d begin the week with a post that’s a little bit more lighthearted than we’re accustomed to here at Fire On Your Head.  I’ve got other things God’s burning on my heart sitting in draft form that I will post in the coming weeks.  I know my sparkling personality tends to shine forth in the majority of the posts I share anyway, but I usually leave my more lighthearted sarcasm for my own personal blog.  This time however, I couldn’t resist a bit of a change of tone, because all joking aside, I think there’s some interesting misconceptions out there people have about charismatics and pentecostals and I think the discussion can be beneficial and possibly edifying for clarifying some things–at least for seekers of the truth.

You’re Not Saved Unless You Speak In Tongues?

I got the idea for such a post after having just watched a video of a guy going on and on (and on and on…) to his church or youth group (I couldn’t tell who) teaching them “if you’re ever around a charismatic who teaches you need to speak in tongues in order to saved, get the heck away from them”, and it made me think of different misconceptions I used to have about charismatics–such as us evangelicals not truly being saved unless one speaks in tongues–that I used to be spoon-fed by various evangelicals in my life with an ‘us versus them’ mentality towards Pentecostals.  Frankly, whenever I hear weird accusations like that I always wonder if these people have ever actually met a charismatic? In fact, recently I found myself visiting an evangelical blog and message board dedicated completely to the charismata, and you guessed it, not a single commenter or poster was actually pentecostal or charistmatic, but ‘knew someone who was’ or ‘used to be a part of a church like that’.  It always led me to wonder where such churches were, since I was learning for the first time just what it was I supposedly believed and practiced.  I would have been more than happy to be consulted about it if they really wanted an objective insight from on the inside.

Lately I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to teach in a weekly chapel service at a seminary here in Lima, Peru (where I’m a missionary for those who don’t know).  Since I’m encouraging the students in their spiritual walk and the practice of speaking in tongues, I found myself preparing for and gathering every and any objection and misconception people have, and it got me a chuckling to come across some things on the internet.

You see, I grew up in an evangelical brethren church.  Don’t ask me what that means, because when I was a part of it I didn’t know either–I just knew we were “us” (whatever that was) and not “them” (charismatic/pentecostal).   This particular fellowship is a lot more open and progressive now as the years have passed, but that doesn’t stop some of the things dear saints have told me over the years.  I also used to work with a lot of pentecostal Bible college students at a drop-in center back home in my hometown in Canada, and many people from the rival brethren Bible college in town taught me “those pentecostals believe you need to speak in tongues in order to be saved“. So what did I do? I asked the pentecostal students myself!  I was only 17 or 18 years old, but I’ve always had a desire to get to the bottom of things.  Usually the pentecostals would tell me “of course you’re still saved even if you don’t speak in tongues.” And, I have never in 13 years of being a believer actually come across ANY charismatic–or someone who’d call themselves one–say or believe that I or anybody else was not saved while I was unable to speak in tongues.  Probably because statistically speaking, such a huge number of charismatics don’t even speak in tongues themselves nowadays–which confuses me as to how they can even call themselves either of those things if there isn’t a distinction to them, but I digress.

So why do so many non-charismatics peddle this untrue misconception?

At first, I was thinking of making a list, like “top ten weird things charismatics believe”, but then decided to open it up to other authors of this site or regular guests of the Fire On Your Head podcast to see if anybody wanted to make a multiple-part series with me, and give more focus to each point, especially since I didn’t think I’d be funny enough to take the list approach.  I got little reaction, because it turns out everybody else got saved fresh into charismatic churches.

So just what are some weird and silly things that you’ve seen come up in interdenominationalism (is that even a word?) between the pentecostals and the evangelicals that gets touted as matter of fact without question or even talking to a charismatic tongue talker?  I’ve received a few nuggets of feedback I think will help start the discussion.

“Tongue-talkers have a box up at the altar with rattlesnakes in it.”

I had never heard of this one before, but I learned it from teacher Brian Parkman from the FIRE School of ministry, and I have subsequently been told apparently there are fringe groups who practice snake handling.  And of course, people who are adverse to the Pentecostal movement who’ve heard of that,  lump all of us into that category–but this is one of the more laughable misconceptions I’d come across.   Not all of us are snake handlers!

When writing the other FOYH guys about if they wanted to participate in a series or an article about this, Joel Crumpton told me:

“I remember when I was a captain on the Holy Spirit Team at Brownsville during the revival. I found out a lot about what people believe about speaking in tongues. As far as MY experience goes, the only group I saw that was taught you HAD TO speak in tongues to be saved were people from the United Pentecostal Church (UPC).
Because of this many of the members of this group sneaked in to the revival and came back to the choir room (where we ministered to candidates for the baptism in the Spirit).  They stood out from the rest, because they always looked so desperate. I would always take them (and everyone else) through Acts 8, where the Samaritans “…believed Philip… and were baptized, both men and women”. Then “… the Apostles… at Jerusalem sent to them Peter and John… to lay hands on them that they might RECEIVE the Holy Spirit”.

It was a rare thing if any of them left without receiving. But they would always be the most exuberant as they were leaving!   Imagine going to a Church, perhaps for years, and TRYING to speak in tongues so that you would know you were finally saved.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least.”

I remember before I went to Pensacola, Florida (where the Brownsville Revival Joel mentions took place) and had people in my life back in Canada “warn me” about going to it because of rumors or opinions they had about what happened in the Toronto Blessing, and automatically assumed the two things were correlated, and warned me with sincere, but yet silly warnings like:

“If you hear anybody speaking in tongues–run the other way–it’s the devil!”

or “don’t let anybody lay hands on you when they pray for you, so they can’t transfer a demon to you!“

The tongues-being-of-the-devil thing always got me confused, because in the Bible they didn’t seem to be getting filled with demons when they spoke in tongues.  I also never once heard of some heathen rebels, standing on a street corner outside a Pentecostal church while all the congregants exited and were speaking in tongues, and one of the heathen said to the other “what is that thing they’re saying“.

The other responds, “oh, they’re speaking in tongues–it’s of the devil.“

Then the other unsaved guy scratches his head, and says to him “well, if it were of the devil, wouldn’t we be doing it, too?”

Some other thoughts I received from others:

I believe in physical healing and pray for the sick, yet I am thrilled to provide wheelchairs and comfort for the sick. I believe the dead can be raised but don’t “go for it” at every funeral or even talk about it to anyone often, except for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I don’t believe for a minute the nonsense of generational curses in the life of a believer, and believe even less in man-made programs to deal with the devil. Yet I will address the darkness when I know there is something real to be addressed. I believe demons fight a person not because of the past, but because they’re afraid of their future. I believe we are more secure in our right standing with God than classical Pentecostal theology permits, etc…

That’s why I think it would be good to stratify pentecostals.

-Gregg Montella (since he was the first to answer me when I put the feeler out there)

Other amusing and scary misconceptions I received from either our podcast fan page or Twitter when I posed the question:

• “There are Pentecostals who don’t believe you are saved until you are baptized specifically “in the name of Jesus”.

• “Another thing most people believe about Pentecostals, probably because of the loudest and most visible it is true, is that we are the most hateful, negative, judgmental, and sin-obsessed group of Christians on the planet. Not true however of the new generation rising that holds to Spirit-filled ideology but refuses to make mistakes of the Azusa-ites.”

• “Definitely worth mentioning is the idea a lot of people have that Pentecostals are ignorant, uneducated people who either prey upon the weak or are preyed upon. Many think of either backwoods religion or inner-city storefront charismata, each complete with their own brands of satan-obsession and superstitious/make believe ways of dealing with “the devil”. A lot of people think Pentecostals take no responsibility for themselves (blaming their woes on either God or Satan), and thrive by keeping their people uneducated (out of “evil” i.e. practical) universities. This stereotype is unfortunately true, as an overwhelming majority of us Pentecostals in America and around the world are without a university education.”

• “We allow ourselves to be guided by emotion alone (which unfortunately some do)”

What are some of the weirdest Pentecostalisms you’ve ever been told or believed?  I started with tongues-related ones since that’s obvious and easy, and probably the most common. 

Steve Bremner is a missionary to Peru, called to raise up disciples who flow in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is general editor of Fire Press, and also produces & co-hosts its podcast called Fire On Your Head. Visit his personal site at http://stevebremner.com