Related
Translate
Previous entry: Foundation seeks to wake nation to danger of cults
Next entry: Iraq’s Mandaeans face extinction
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Gaddafi preaches Islam to Rome beauties
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Techie Holy water and geeky bishops
- Muslim terrorists smuggle fatwas promoting Jihad out of secure UK prisons
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
Feel the love
More articles on this topic: Toronto BlessingIn a nondescript suburban church, an edgy spirit lets loose among thousands. Is it for real? Depends what you mean by ‘real’
They call it the Toronto Blessing, but it can look like anything but as worshippers thrash, roar, erupt in strangely mirthless laughter, and even pray for God to replace their dental fillings with gold.
The phenomenon of Holy Laughter is one of the most extreme in the revival movement, yet one of the best examples of how the “Holy Spirit” can be literally contagious among worshippers — and how divisive such dramatic effects can be.
Tyndale seminary professor James Beverley quoted one woman in his book Holy Laughter and the Toronto Blessing: “We burst into uncontrollable laughter.
No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t stop — it was totally out of our control … My girlfriend was lying across the seats and crawling along them like a worm, laughing hysterically and trying to get away from me … To us it seemed that there was a wall of silence around us; we could see someone speaking but we couldn’t hear him. It was as if we were at our very own little party.”
The Holy Spirit? Demonic possession? Mass hysteria? Today, more than 10 years after the Blessing began at the nondescript Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, near Pearson Airport, Pentecostals and outsiders alike are still arguing about it.
On the evening of Jan. 20, 1994, church founder John Arnott invited an American preacher to address the crowd of 120, a Missourian who had come under the influence of a South African evangelist who was able to spark “holy laughter.”
After his sermon, people began to laugh hysterically, cry, leap, dance and even roar like lions. This sort of behaviour, known as being “slain in the (Holy) Spirit,” is commonplace among Pentecostals. But this was unique in its strength and contagious effects: If one person in the crowd touched another who was laughing and twitching, soon he would be twitching, too. People claimed God was speaking to them directly and giving them miracle cures.
More astonishing, worshippers brought the phenomena to their home congregations. The gold fillings, the healings and the rockin’ good times in church started to spring up in Finland, Denmark, Britain, Korea, even Australia.
The Toronto fellowship still holds several international conferences a year that attract tens of thousands from all over the world. Some are free, others cost as much as $99 for the weekend.
Its facility looks more like a spiffy new community centre than a church; indeed, the word “church” is nowhere to be found.
At the front of the main hall is a stage vaguely reminiscent of a band set for Saturday Night Live: a backdrop of an urban skyline behind a wealth of electric guitars, keyboards and drums. Several full-size television cameras, one on a five-metre boom, are scattered throughout the audience.
The only cross in sight is about a metre high, far off in the upper reaches of the set.
On a recent Saturday, about two thousand streamed into the fellowship’s Signs and Wonders conference, many with blankets and pillows, and banners to wave as they danced. It was like Woodstock — indoors perhaps, and the people were no longer young — but they sure could feel the love.
The worshippers, with the exception of a handful of profoundly bored-looking children, danced and clapped as the band belted out inspirational music. A few hundred wore headsets for simultaneous translation: So many overseas guests pour in that the fellowship can offer translations in up to 10 languages, the most popular being Korean, French, German and Spanish.
They even have block discounts on Air Canada.
Arnott took the stage and spoke in the rich, soothing tones of a born preacher, with no lectures, not even much scripture. He invited everyone to just feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Within a few minutes, one nicely dressed middle-aged woman lay outstretched on the carpet, twitching. In any other circumstances, everyone would have rushed to call 911. But then her cellphone rang, and she sat up and chatted for a few minutes.
Some time later, Arnott invited Koreans in the audience to come to the foot of the stage. As he spoke to them, they fell backward into the arms of a team of assistants, moaning and laughing. Mi Jin Wang, from Pasan, Korea, twitched extensively, and a prayer team assistant made a pulling motion over the 25-year-old girl’s stomach as if yanking something out. When Arnott indicated the session was over, most of the Koreans got to their feet and staggered back. Wang had to be supported as she was led away.
When Arnott summoned a Norwegian pastor and his wife to the stage, the woman collapsed to the ground almost as soon as she stepped forward. “Look at your wife!” said Arnott, with a flourish. Clearly she had hit a spiritual jackpot. Back home in Norway, the minister’s congregation was also reporting gold fillings. “You hear that!” Arnott said to the congregation. “Does anyone need a dental miracle here? Stand up! Heck, even if you just want one.”
People leapt up and reached heavenward, then put their hands now “smeared with blessing” to their cheeks and jaws.
Members of the prayer team circulated, peering into the worshippers’ gaping mouths, looking for evidence that God had delivered on gold fillings. On this Saturday, at least, He didn’t come through.
So is all this for real? It depends on what “real” means. “The present reality is diminished as the spiritual reality is increased,” says Arnott.
Margaret Poloma, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Akron in Ohio, and the author of Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism, writes that “It is a world view that tends to be ‘transrational.’” She describes herself as “spirit-filled” and has attended services at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship as part of her personal worship.
In general, revivalists base their faith more on personal experience of God, and less on church teachings. Above all, they feel euphoric in their sense of God’s love, and carry that into their everyday life.
Poloma could only describe it as “getting a new pair of glasses. Everything looks different.”
“(My family) thought I was crazy,” says Arnott’s wife, Carol. “I was so childlike and excited. I prayed for things — I asked Jesus to heal my car, I prayed for stuff on sale because I had no money. I was a single mom. God would put stuff on sale, something that would fit, sort of hidden in a corner.
“I couldn’t get my jars open. I have thin wrists and I’d say, ‘Jesus can you help me open my jars?’ and I would turn it and the jar would just open. … (Some time after) I married John, I said ‘Jesus would you open my jar?’ and He said, ‘I’ve given you a husband now.’”
Not everyone was euphoric about the rise of the airport fellowship. A few years after the Toronto Blessing began, its parent body, the Association of Vineyard Churches, booted it out, saying the noises and other phenomena had no basis in the Bible, and therefore were suspect at best.
“The churches must focus on the main and plain things in scripture,” said association head Jon Wimber.
It’s a question of balance, says Mark Scarr, pastor at Woodvale Pentecostal Church on Greenbank Road in Ottawa. Woodvale is a member of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, also known as classical, or more mainstream, Pentecostalism.
The Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship considers itself charismatic evangelical, meaning adherents play down structure and strict theology, stressing they are promoting “a relationship (with God), not a religion.”
Scarr says: “A church with too much theology is likely to dry up and one with too much spirit is likely to blow up.”
A few hours later, the Korean girl who was so overcome earlier in the day, seemed fully recovered. “The first day I was afraid of touching anyone, of getting close. But this is my third day,” she said. “When I fell down, it felt like electricity. I knew Jesus loved me, He really loved me.”
Wang attended church as a child, but hasn’t gone in years. Now she might go back when she returns home.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Foundation seeks to wake nation to danger of cults Next entry: Iraq’s Mandaeans face extinction
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
