Major Baptist seminary rejects practice of speaking in tongues

Kansas City Star ^ | Oct. 17, 2006 | Brett Hoffman

[split]

FORT WORTH, Texas - After a Baptist pastor said in a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary that he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays, seminary trustees adopted a resolution Tuesday that states the institution will not tolerate the promotion of the practice of speaking in tongues.

The resolution: "Southwestern will not knowingly endorse in any way, advertise, or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic movement including private prayer language. Neither will Southwestern knowingly employ professors or administrators who promote such practices."

Speaking in tongues is described in the Bible as a spiritual gift from God that empowers humans to speak in other languages. But many contemporary theologians teach that the practice was distinctly for first-century Christians. However, in the past century, Pentecostal and charismatic Christians have contended that speaking in tongues should be practiced in today's churches.

Patterson said he has consistently maintained a different view.

"I have opposed (speaking in tongues) for all of these years because I think it's an erroneous interpretation of the Bible," he said. "Southern Baptists traditionally have stood against what we feel like are the excesses of the charismatic movement. All we're doing is restating where we've always been."

Baptists are "the most intense advocates of religious liberty," Patterson said, defending the right of other Christians to believe in speaking in tongues. "But don't wear a Yankee uniform when you play for the Mets."

"We interpret the Scriptures in such a way that we do not see room for a private prayer language and we're saying we will not waver on that," Redmond said.

[MP5SD]

The Pastor said he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays and the statement says they don't endorse "private prayer language"

I know some folks babel when they pray in private because rather than concentrating on the words they just spoke, or about to speak, etc. It frees their mind for spontaneous expression of worship.

Some call it tongues for lack of a better word. What's occurring in their private prayer is not what most of us would consider the biblical definition of speaking in tongues.

Perhaps that is what this is all about.

[unspun]

This is not about someone's belief whether glossolalia is necessary.

It is about Baptists, who otherwise profess believing in the Bible, expelling someone for behaving according to I Corinthians 12-14.

[unspun]

(Correction: not expelling, all-but condemning.)

[Salvation]

**Major Baptist seminary rejects practice of speaking in tongues**

One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit -- does the Baptist Church NOT believe in the Holy Spirit?

[Aliska]

There was a man who laid hands on me at a prayer meeting, and I started speaking "something". He was John Wesley Fletcher. He is the man who introduced Jessica Hahn to Jim Bakker. I could write a book about what I was involved in. Most of them are dead now. One woman I knew who later died of a heart attack had prayed across the table from a man for protection against his wanting to have sex with her once they got to her home. He dropped dead in front of her at the restaurant of a heart attack. It was eerie all the things that happened in those days.

Catholics didn't speak in tongues until they imported it from a Protestant prayer group somewhere out east.

I think the original tongues among the early Christians was understood as a real language, although there is some confusion about it in Corinthians. Corinth was heavily saturated with pagans who spoke glossallia which is not the same as the genuine tongues. St. Paul said "tongues will cease". Some of the early fathers of the church a couple of centuries later said the gift had disappeared. Some of the source info is not on the net any more that I can find.

I think it is evil for these people to intimidate people into babbling or telling them they are not saved if they don't speak in tongues.

Also, I would warn anyone to be careful who you allow to lay hands on you and pray over you. I told everyone in my family to say away from it. So far they have.

[norge]

I suspect Southwestern Baptist Seminary may be on shaky ground.

Having said that, I am not a charismatic nor a Pentacostal, but I firmly believe there is a proper place for speaking in tongues, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in accordance with scripture.

I have never heard it (although I have heard gibberish by the likes of Jimmy Swaggert and his ilk), and I suppose I may never hear it.

But to ban the encouragement of it seems unscriptural to me.

[caseinpoint]

"but I firmly believe there is a proper place for speaking in tongues, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in accordance with scripture."

I'm with you. I never understood the gift of tongues to be a sign of being saved. I thought it was a specific gift given to a person who had a gospel message to give to another whose language he or she did not normally speak. In other words, it was a means of bringing the Lord's message to those who might not otherwise hear it unless someone was blessed with the ability to speak it in their language.

What happened on the Day of Pentacost is that the Apostles were able to testify to the myriad of people around them who spoke different languages. They didn't speak gibberish; they spoke real languages of the people around them and were understood by at least one of the crowd who were there and who would have missed the message had the miracle not occurred. Where there is the gift of tongues, there is another person who understands exactly what was said and that person is one intended to receive a message from the Lord.

By my understanding, speaking gibberish or having private prayer language may be some sign from the Lord but it isn't the gift of tongues. The most definitive sign of the gift of tongues today is a little more mundane. It is when missionaries of the gospel find it relatively easy to learn the obscure languages of the people to whom they are called to preach. Yet if the need arose, I would expect to see the same Day of Pentacost miracles happening today. The Lord expected his apostles and their disciples to preach the gospel to the entire world and the gift of tongues was a blessing to help accomplish that assignment.

[alnick]

Why does it only happen in certain churches?

I think it's merely because the people who attend those churches are more open to it than the people in other denominations.

This very article we're discussing is about a Baptist speaking in tongues, so it can happen in other churches.

I used to dismiss it as gibberish too and judge people who practice it as being attention seekers. I'm a bit older now and realize that it's between the person and God. I now take people who speak in tongues, even the ones who seem to be loud and taking center stage, at face value and leave the judgment to God. When you get right down to it, it's really none of my business.

[Quix]

I think that

THE BEST STRAIGHT TALK ON TONGUES FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH AND THE CHURCH AGE . . . WAS ST PAUL WRITING EXHORTING CHRISTIANS ON VARIOUS THINGS . . . TONGUES AMONGST THEM:

1 Corinthians 14:5
I would that you ALL spake with tongues but rather that you prophesied: for greater is he that prophesies than he that speaks with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.

Of course, typically, congregations, denominations and inviduals that prefer to disobey Paul's exhortation in the Scripture above about tongues, also do it about prophecying. Kind of a mind-set stuck on naysaying, it seems, to me.

[Quix]

INDEED.

FORBID NOT is Scripture . . .

the pontifications of man otherwise is not Scripture.

[Quix]

but don't pretend you've been the recipient of some miraculous knowledge from God.

= = = =

I don't have to pretend anything.

GOD HIMSELF

HAS GIVEN ME MANY supernatural insights and bits of information while I was praying in tongues. Such have been priceless in counseling and have saved my life at least 3 times.

[Quix]

Much wisdom in your post. Thanks.

[Quix]

Today it is a big show for self gratification.
= = = =

STRAW DOG.

I've seen BIG SHOWS FOR SELF GRATIFICATION

of virtually every "Christian" kind in all kinds of denominations from Roman to Charismatic including Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian etc.

The variety amongst those hostile to Holy Spirit's doing the same thing in this era He's always done are merely different from those in some Charismatic groups.

Straw dogs are not Biblical nor full of logical consistency.

[Quix]

Holy Spirit tends to flow freest

where folks give HIM

the freest invitational liberty to move in their lives and through them and their lives.

Where folks have narrow, rigid, tidy little boxed restrictions He'd have to abide by to move much . . . He tends to avoid doing anything very unusual.

Kind of akin to Christ saying He couldn't do miracles in Nazareth due to their unbelief.

Same principle.

[Quix]

All that post is no justification for avoiding tongues or prophecy!

Praying in tongues direct to God requires no interpretation.

Prophecy is a lot more scary to a lot more people who genuinely want to avoid hearing amiss or speaking amiss.

[Quix]

CHRIST DECLARED

HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS GIFTS WERE FOR BELIEVERS.

I believe Christ. Not doctrines of men or worse.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Check the Book of Acts, to understand what speaking in tongues really is. On the day of Pentecost there were people of many tongues there and once the Holy Ghost arrived, each person spoke in his own tongue and yet was understood by all. Clarity of communication not babble.

[Quix]

Counterfeits and fakery abound in Christianity of every stripe and denomination.

Probably people in every congregation are faking that they are earnest, confessed up, repented up, loving God wholly, neighbors as selves, doing unto others types of Christians

when they clearly are not.

Charismatic groups have no monopoly on counterfeits or fakery at all to any degree.

I think it's cheeky to pretend that they do.

[Quix]

PLEASE--Show me the research that proves

MOST OF

US.

[WKB]

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