Questions and Answers.
Why do you believe that the Charismatics are in error?
To answer this in a simple fashion: most well known charismatic preacher and tele-evangelists are guilty of majoring on the minors; and minoring on the majors. In other words, they do not know or even care for given a robust understanding of what it means to be a Christian; and nor do they care to explain what takes place in the case of individual Christian when they become a Christian. Al they care for is promoting false hope and false ideology of the modern false teachers that made the Charismatic understanding so prevalent.
But to give you a more thorough understanding of the issues at hand-- I offer three important realities which will give us some basis of understanding. These teacher are:
(1) Self-centred. One example of this comes from one of the teachers of what I call soft- charismatic or the prosperity gospel. He claim is that "he knows that the tips that he offers will help those who follow them2 and here is how he knows "because they worked for me, and my family and friends." As if he were the judge of whether something is biblically sound or biblical false. what takes place when these things do not work for some one-- and it is guaranteed to fail. Will he do what others of this movement have done and blame them for the failure of these tips by saying "you must have had enough faith." No. the reality is that Christianity is not self-help manual to fix one life; the truth is that it is God's remedy to the deeper issue of why people are not able to do what is truly right: sin. Let us be sure to understand this point. Christ came to deal with sin; and set us liberty from its rule and reign.
(2) Emotional manipulation. Here is perhaps one of the most glaringly obvious realities of this whole movement-- and it comes in various different forms; but the most common one is what is called "sowing a seed" rather than allowing the bible to speak on what this is-- they will speak for the bible. The bible is clear that this is simply the proclamation of the gospel to all men (Matthew 13; Mark 4); that however, does not stop these hucksters; these spiritual terrorists form falsely claiming it to be a donation of money. But it is how they seek to do this: "if you sow a seed (a fixed amount: 30 pound) to this course; then you will be blessed with 100 times the amount-- think of the 30, 60, 100 fold principle." Not only is this a grievous man-handling of scriptures; but it is a wicked act to fleece your listeners.
(3) Twisting scriptures. now even though the last two point were very despicable; they're nothing compared to the final thing that all of these charismatic leaders do-- and that is makes claims of the scripture that they in no sense teach. One of the most perplexing examples is the fact that they claim that the gifts of speaking in tongues; healing and prophecy are being continually exercised in their midst. And yet every example has turned out to a gross violation of scriptural standards: speaking babble is not speak a language with no human aid or prior training; pretending heal a person of a fatal condition is not working a miracle especially when that person dies later the same day; and making wild claims about certain thing which turns out to be false is not prophecy. All of these things can be witnessed from the Charismatic circles.
Now some one may be wondering: does this mean that anyone who holds to this view are not Christian? The answer to that is simple: even in the Charismatic congregation-- you will find the unregenerate person, the elect who needs to hear the gospel to be saved, those who were saved prior to going who need the truth. But this is true of every church.
