The Spirit of God works by inspiration upon and within the humanity that has been bestowed upon us. Such inspiration embraces the conscious and unconscious realms of the human person and produces effects. In the unconscious or psychic realm these effects may take unusual and dramatic forms as energies are unlocked. Because these are essentially human experiences, they are always potentially to be induced or evoked by other forms of inspiration, supremely by other human beings or groups. There is no particular need to resort to the category of the demonic at this point (although I would not want absolutely to exclude it) and it is usually unhelpful and high-blown to do so, just as it is to assess all unusual phenomena as being necessarily inspired by God. There is something much more human going on. However, humanly to induce such phenomena, intentionally or otherwise, is spiritually unhelpful, since it pushes people into their own subjectivity rather than into God and ultimately leads to spiritual emptiness.
[Nigel Wright, 'Does Revival Quicken or Deaden the Church?' in Walker and Aune (eds.), On Revival: A Critical Examination (Paternoster 2003), p130]
I think we should go further than Wright. Surely it is dangerous and harmful to humanly induce human phenmona while giving the impression that it is the Spirit who is causing such manifestations?
2 Responses
I suppose you might even be warranted in saying that it is demonic to humanly induce such phenomena while giving the impression that the Holy Spirit is their author, but you would not be able to mean it in the same sort of way that most people do when they suggest that such phenomena are demonic.
On the other hand, I’m inclined to say that jumping to the idea that those phenomena are demonic is every bit as dangerous and harmful as it is to humanly induce them in the first place.
Yes, I think I agree.
I like Jonathan Edwards’ approach: we can neither accept nor dismiss a work of God due to the presence of physical manifestations without Scriptural warrant - no matter what those manifestations are. And, as you are no doubt are aware, Scripture provides almost no basis for evaluating a work of the Spirit based on the physical manifestations.
So, this leads to difficult questions like: are we happy with people “barking” in our services so long as the fruit of the Spirit is evident in increasing measure?