Moltmann and the Charismatics
Adrian has posted the second installment in his story about his journey of faith, in particular about his experience with charismatic gifts. Although we have theological disagreements on some issues, we both are part of a church movement that maintains that charismatic gifts operate today just as they did in the New Testament church. There are of course those who maintain that this particular ministry of the Spirit died out with the last Apostles. I think that exegetically, experientially and historically it's a very difficult case to make, but that's not the issue in this post.My favourite modern theologian is Jürgen Moltmann. He's a rarity amongst modern theologians in that he has engaged widely with the charismatic movement and is sympathetic to it. He also brings with him a well developed systematic theology that is well connected to historical doctrine and across the ecumenical spectrum, though he himself is Lutheran. The only (British) charismatic I've ever come across who seems to have interacted with Moltmann is Greg Haslam in one of his recent articles. The Charismatic Life
Anyway, I've almost finished reading Moltmann's systematic theology which has taken me 12 months (6 volumes though) and most of the though in this post comes from The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, on the sheer breadth of the charismatic gifts, and how the 'charismatic' operation of the Spirit is infinitely wider that the lists the New Testament gives us - though these are of course to be embraced.
Moltmann cites Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:17 - "Everyone as the Lord has called him, each as the Lord has assigned him." There is an inseparable unity between klesis and charisma, between calling and gifting:
"This means that every Christian is a charismatic, even if many people never live out their gifts. The gifts which the one or the other person brings or receives are at the service of their calling; for God who calls, takes people at the point where he reaches them and as they are. He accepts people quite specifically, as man or woman, Jew or Gentile, poor or rich, and puts their whole life at the service of his coming kingdom, which renews the world. So if we ask about the charismata of the Holy Spirit; we mustn't look for things we do not have. We must first of all discern who we are, what we are and how we are, at the point where we feel the touch of God on our lives. What is given to all believers in common and equally, is the gift of the Holy Spirit: '"The charisma of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 6:23, Eph 5:18ff.).What is given to each person individually and uniquely is different and full of diversity: to each his or her own!" (pp180-181)
The traditional charismatic gifts (healing, prophecy, tongues and so on and so forth) only find their place within the broader setting of charismatic gifts, which are inseparably linked to one's own calling. God calls you to teach (for example), and gives you an empowering charis so that your gift is now active and functioning in the service of God's Kingdom, and ushering in the age to come. Indeed,
"when a person is called, whatever he is and brings with him becomes a charisma through his calling, since it is accepted by the Spirit and put at the service of the Kingdom of God." (p182)
Being truly a charismatic Christian (and all Christians are, for no one can be a Christian without the Spirit) is to have one's divinely given abilities, place and calling brought to life and animated and empowered by the Holy Spirit in the service of the Kingdom of God. This means that charismatic gifting operates across the full spectrum of one's life, not simply in prayer or in fellowship with other believers in a church service. God's Spirit is active in the entire person, and a person called by God and walking in the Spirit can live a fully charismatic life in service to God's Kingdom. Whatever God has made us, he calls us to serve him and the Christian community with:
"A Christian Jew should remain a Jew...A Christian Gentile brings his Gentile existence into the community. Being a woman is a charisma and must not be surrendered in favour of patriarchal and male ways of thinking and behaving.
If you're a musician, the Spirit empowers you to serve God's kingdom with music. You can be a receptionist and yet in the hands of God, your klesis (calling) as a receptionist becomes a charisma (gift or endowment) used to serve God, to glorify him and to renew the world. A truly charismatic Christian radiates the Spirit in every area of their person and relationships.
Charismatic gifting does not operate exclusively behind the closed doors of the church or in private piety, because the mission of God cuts into the secularisation of the world and seeks to supersede it with the Kingdom of God. Christian charismatic gifting is then not intended for use merely behind closed doors, it is to affect our lives in their entirety so that God's Kingdom is mediated to the world through us in the power of the Spirit. No area of life is excluded:
"Whatever can be put at the service of Christ's liberating lordship is a charisma, a gift that then becomes a charge. [As Ernst Kasemann remarked]: 'Now everything can become for me a charisma. It would not only be foolish but a slight to the honour of Christ, who wills to fill all things, if I were to take the realms of the natural, the sexual, the private, and the social out of his sphere of power.' That is why Paul says: 'I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.' (Rom 14:14) So the whole of life and death is gathered into the charismatic experience." (p182)
The receiving of God's Spirit does not transport to an alien realm with no connections to our former selves, rather the gift of the Spirit makes alive and useful to God that which was dead, and there are elements of continuity between our old lives and our lives according to the Spirit. Life in the Spirit is an eschatological experience, because by it we have a foretaste of the promised Kingdom to come, and in our holistic charismatic gifting we mediate this kingdom to an imprisoned world. All of our life is to be affected by the Spirit:
"Every Christian is a charismatic in his or her own particular way. It is not only the few chosen or specially endowed people who have the right to the name. The whole of life, and every life in faith is charismatic, for the Spirit is 'poured out on all flesh' to quicken it. (p182)
These gifts are given to the church for the purpose of living out the life of service God has called them to. Romans 12 describes the charismatic life just as much as 1 Corinthians 12-14 does.
Tongues, Prophecy, and Healing
In the power of the Spirit "every individual potentiality and power is charismatically quickened at put at the service of the liberating Kingdom God" (p183) though there are of course the 'special' charismata that have been specifically associated with the Charismatic renewal movement and Pentecostalism. Moltmann identifies several areas of charismatic gifting:
1) Kerygmatic charismata - apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists and exhorters, but also other phenomena such as inspiration, ecstasy, speaking in tongues, and other ways of expressing faith.
2) Diaconal charismata - the church deacons, the people who nurse the sick, people who give alms, the healing of sick bodies, exorcism, the healing of memories, and other kinds of help.
3) Kybernetic charismata - the 'first' in faith, the shepherds and bishops for building up the community.
These are however not 'supernatural' gifts as opposed to 'natural' charismatic gifts, for they are all gifts from God at put at the service of the church for exercising at all times:
"...the gifts put at the service of the congregation, and the gifts practised in family, profession and society, must not be separated. They are not subject to different laws. Being a Christian is indivisible. The yardstick is the same everywhere: the discipleship of Jesus." (pp183-4)
We are to follow Jesus in everything, our salvation and mission to the world are holistic. Being a charismatic Christian involves the totality of one's being without relegating the power of the Spirit to a private pietistic practice or a self-serving members' only ecclesiastical gathering.
i) Tongues
The Church was born with the speaking of tongues, and Christian revival movements have often been accompanied by the same phenomenon. Moltmann describes his impressions of speaking in tongues:
"It would seem to me to be an inward possession of the Spirit which is so strong that it can no longer find adequate expression in comprehensible languages, so that it utters itself in glossolalia - just as intense pain is expressed by unrestrained weeping, or extreme joy by jumping and dancing." (p185)
Moltmann laments the lack of tongues in more mainline churches. Whilst he concedes they are rich in ideas and sermons, they are "often poverty-stricken' in their forms of expression, and offer no opportunity at all for spontaneity." (p185)
He asks:
"[The older churches] are disciplined and disciplinary assemblies for talking and listening. But does the body of Christ really consist simply of one big mouth and lots of little ears?...Paul encourages the church to 'strive for' the charismata (1 Cor 14:1), but most of all 'that you may prophesy'. By this he means personal, comprehensible witness in preaching and pastoral care. In his view, therefore, speaking with tongues can be interpreted in the Holy Spirit, and he believes it is God-given.
2) Prophecy
This is to be the most earnestly desired of all spiritual gifts (as Adrian testifies to in his story), because it is most edifying for the believer and the church itself. In prophetic speech:
"Prophetic speech is a special charisma, for in a particular personal or public kairos it discovers the appropriate, binding and liberating word, and says specifically and at the right time what sin is, and what grace...one can develop sensibility for the congruity of the appropriate word and the proper time, and can become open for it, so that it can happen." (p186)
Moltmann laments the lack of space devoted to the prophetic in most churches, which he considers strange given that the Body of Christ is supposed to be a 'temple of the Holy Spirit' (1 Cor 6:19)
In keeping with the idea that the charismata are for every area of life, Moltmann challenges the lack of prophetic activity outside of the church, and he says that the everyday charismatic life is neglected, and so the world is not liberated from sin or made new, and the advance of the Kingdom is stifled. He asks:
"Where are the charismata of the 'charismatics' in the everyday world, in the peace movement, in the movements for liberation, or in the ecology movement? If charismata are not given us so that we can flee from this world into a world of religious dreams, but if they are intended to witness to the liberating lordship of Christ in this world's conflicts, then the charismatic movement must not become a non-political religion, let alone a de-politicized one." (p186)
I have to agree with Moltmann here. I think that too often we charismatics have retreated to a world of Holy Spirit fairy stories and stopped engaging with the world outside. In my own church, the war on Iraq and the Tsunami passed us by completely without so much as a prophetic eyelid being batted, so I'm all with Moltmann here.
3) Healing
Alongside the proclamation of the Gospel, the healing of the sick is the most important sign of the coming Kingdom of God. The disciples were commanded to heal the sick, and so the church should continue this task. We heal by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and the same Spirit that is a deposit pointing towards what is to come. All healings should then be seen as pointing towards the kingdom where life reigns over death and where there is no longer suffering or sickness. All incidences of healing are then eschatological signs connected to eternal life:
"Jesus' miracles...are 'miracles of the kingdom'. In the dawn of the new creation of all things, they are really not 'miracles' at all. They are completely natural and just what we have to expect. It is only if this eschatological hope is lost that these 'wonders' appear to be miracles in an unchanged world." (p190)
How do Jesus' wounds bring healing? Jesus heals us by bringing us closer to God, where we can be healed physically, emotionally, spiritually - or in all of these ways. But how do Jesus' wounds heal us? Because God takes our sicknesses and makes them his in Christ. The afflicted and suffering can recognise the crucified Jesus:
"The crucified God embraces every sick life and makes it his life, so that he can communicate his own eternal life. And for that reason the crucified One is both the source of healing and consolation in suffering." (pp191-2)
Healing is not a special kind of trick, and neither is suffering to be dismissed. The Spirit draws us into fellowship with Jesus, and so by this Spirit we are not only united with a God who suffered and was crucified, but also the God who heals us. However, the significance of healing miracles can only be understood not as an end in themselves, but as signs and promises pointing towards what is to come.
Here endeth the lesson.
It is one of my sincerest wishes that the Charismatic movement beign to tkae the task of theology seriously, and thinkers like Moltmann offer a helpful way forward. Likewise, I also wish that many 'non-charismatic' churches being to realise to full potential of life in the Spirit and that they embrace it in all its liberating life and power. Any thoughts?