S’funny… I’m supposed to be the Pentecostal with the experience-based theology, and yet I find I quote the scriptures a lot more often than the non-Pentecostal yutzes I’ve been emailing.
…Well, I have to. Contrary to their prejudices, Pentecostalism isn’t experience-based; it’s holistic. Experience is confirmed by scripture, which after all is a record of other people’s experiences. I notice a huge disconnect between these folks’ experiences and scripture. It’s why dispensationalism has become so popular. Haven’t experienced any miracles? So create a theology that explains why they regularly took place in the scriptures, but not in your personal life. That way, you can feel good about yourself, and not feel like you’re lacking faith or anything.
(The weird bit is when dispensationalists write about miracles—if you’ve ever read those godawful Left Behind novels, you know what I mean. Those guys have no clue about what a miracle looks like; their so-called miracles look like a Hollywood version of a miracle. Maybe that’s because Tim LaHaye was hoping Hollywood might take an interest in his books; instead, the only people he could get interested was Paul Crouch, the man responsible for the suckiest Jesus movie ever. Honestly; the Mormons did a better job.)
Okay, so much for the dispensationalists. The Calvinists are a lot nicer—frequently as intolerant of Pentecostals, but certainly more civil about it. Their problem is that they too often limit God to scripture. It’s not enough that Pentecostals believe God will not act inconsistently with scripture; they say God won’t act in any way that isn’t in scripture (of course, following their interpretation of it). Not only that, their attitudes suggest that the entire Old Testament is apocryphal and I shouldn’t be basing any theology on it because Jesus apparently nullified it. Marcion would love these guys.
Worst of all is the lack of love among all of them. Criticism is one thing; I’ve been criticizing them throughout this rant. I have not, however, threatened them with hell or excommunication, as they have me. They are sons and daughters of God, and though I believe them to be wrong, their salvation is based on God’s grace, not works—including the work of having all the “right” beliefs. There is much of the clanging cymbal in their arguments. They are not so concerned about me and my salvation as they are about being right, and with that attitude I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with their Jesus. (So it’s no wonder to me that Pentecostalism is growing while their sects stagnate.)