If you needed proof that Christian infighting can sometimes be at least as vicious as that found in politics, with accusations of sleaze thick in the air, check this story out: Mark D Smith in his book “Testing the Fire”, a closely argued analysis of the mid nineties Toronto blessing, reports the words of Mark Stibbe, a Christian leader who favoured the “Carpet Blessing” (so-called because the blessing involved lying around on the carpet making strange noises). Stibbe, it seems, was displeased with anything less than an enthusiastic acceptance of the blessing and felt urged to make his own accusation of sleaze toward Christians who were critical of it. So what did he accuse his fellow believers of? Handling Slush money? Initiating smear campaigns? Visiting dodgy addresses under cover of darkness? Lying under oath? No, it was none of these sins, common in politics, which after all can be dealt with and forgiven. Instead he warned fellow Christians “To be very careful not to commit the unforgivable sin – namely blaspheming against the Holy Spirit”. Now that's serious sin; a lot of Stibbe’s fellow believers were critical of the “blessing” and therefore he effectively accused them of committing the dreaded unforgivable sin of Matthew 12:31! Accusations of sleaze don’t come worse than that!
(The above article was published in the first VNP of April 2001)
(The above article was published in the first VNP of April 2001)
4 comments:
if accurate, then MS should have just stayed quiet. The old blessing has become pretty divisive. Some of those who were "blessed" should have just accepted it and realised that some people may not have seen the light as it were. Much good and renewal seems to have come of it particularly out of the Stibbe church. But those people who still rely on the effects need to move on. In contrast, HTB who were also affected by the early 90s renewal (I think they got their dose of blessing via fax) are very humble about the impact it made on them.
Re Stibbe himself, I quite like his preaching style and he has written a very good book on prayer and come up with some good stuff on Da Vinci code (not difficult I know). Is interesting re Da Vinci, there are some inconsistencies with his views on that book and his church's take on Harry Potter. He loves the Da Vinci book and enthused about its good read qualities although completely misguided about the gospel. In contrast, he wanted Harry Potter banned for the evil content. The main issue I would take is that the DVC is hardly something I would describe as a good read.
On the "carpet blessing" the jury's still out for me on this from a personal perspective. I was encouraged by a an excellent and very very funny Pentacostal speaker at Living Water this year. Basically he was saying if you're blessed in this way then great and if not dont get hung up about it. He was very proud to be a member of club of people who had gone to Toronto and not keeled over. (I must get a copy of that talk - it had me in stitches)
The MS quote can be checked out in Mark D Smith’s book – a book that generally impressed me. Mark Smith identifies himself as “Charismatic”, so he wasn’t writing from an a-priori anti-charismatic position.
Quite apart from many of the valid detailed questions raised against the carpet blessing by Mark Smith, the big issue I had with it was its riding on the back of a “one size fits all” fideist doctrine; “Accept it, don’t analyse it” was its effective slogan. For example, I think you will find that your perfectly reasonable requirement that the Jury needs to deliberate and return a verdict conflicts with the very nature of the carpet blessing – for to deliberate is to deny the blessing, whereas to accept it in its fullness, one must sacrifice pretensions to reason and analysis. It’s so “Star Wars”: “Don’t think it, feel it” exhorts a Jedi to his disciple. I am very glad to hear that a speaker at Living Waters effectively challenged the universalism of the carpet blessing and thereby disrupted the whole covert squalid logic of the blessing.
Let me stress that I am the last person to reject without qualification deeply intuitive mystical experiences of God that can not be easily articulated – it’s just that once such experiences assume the inflated proportions of gnostic enlightenment status I know things have taken a bad turn. The letter of 1 John, it is thought, was written against a background of recrudescent Gnosticism, so let me repeat my belief that all, repeat all, Christains have the anointing of 1 John 2:20&23 and not just some “charismatic” elite who have “moved into the holy spirit” via gnostic initiation.
In My letter to Christianity the squabbles caused by the carpet blessing and the other forms of gnostic elitism were at the back of my mind. However, very much in the foreground of my mind was that the message of Grace is such it generates communities very “fault tolerant” of the sometimes-laughable foibles and habits of Christains, foibles and habits that are often promoted as the last word in religious in seriousness. That any success can be attributed to Mark Stibbe’s church could equally well be put down to the efficacy of the Gospel of Grace and it resilience in the face of arbitrary Christian foibles. As for Stibbe, like the rest of us he is going to be a mix of good and bad, and like the rest of us he must be prepared to be criticized, tested and to give account of himself.
Harry Potter and DaVinci: I don’t know much about HP, although I have done a little work on the DVC. I suspect that Stibbe’s position is influenced by a dualistic outlook consistent with what is probably a preference for spiritual mysticism. There is nothing wrong with a mystical religious temperament, but if a Christian culture places a premium on such temperaments imbalances can result, and dualism is a symptom of imbalance. Dualism tends to make a sharp distinction between the so-called spiritual and the material worlds. I don’t want comment on Dualism vs. Monism here, but my guess is that for Stibbe the DVC, with its strong historical component, is very much “this worldly” and its issues would rank of much less importance than the overtly “other worldly” feel of HP. As a consequence, Stibbe is likely to form much sharper opinions about HP. Stibbe, who does not seem the sort of chap who holds his views by halves, is going to take up a black and white view of it and to Hell (perhaps literally!) with all the Christains who read and enjoy HP! Don’t quote me on this, as it’s a speculative theory at the moment. But I like to speculate a bit and then see how far I am right! And I’m betting I’m right.
erratum: 1 John 2:20&23 should read as 1 John 2:20&27
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