Elitism and classism

An attitude that grieves the spirit

You ask spiritual questions about rank?

Spiritual "Haves"?
Power Elites within some Churches
equal in Christ
Or go back to the letters index, where there's lots more interesting stuff.

Have, or Have Not?

A reader says :

> I find that so much of church life breaks
> down into spiritual 'haves' and 'have nots'. Charismatics, too.
> So many of the "haves" I ran into didn't have the
> godly, mature character (fruit of the Spirit) growing in them that
> I thought went along with living a life pleasing to the Lord.
> I don't pursue experience anymore...but I do pursue the Lord.
> The signs and wonders would follow us as we grow closer and
> closer to Him; the more we know the real thing -- Him -- the
> less we are deceived by glitz and gloss."

The problem of having 'haves' and 'have-nots' is one that's common to just about everything we do. It goes with being humans. And Christians, including charismatics, are all humans. Christians are, strangely enough, called to be strangers (that is, 'aliens') in this world. But we're not strange enough. Each of us likes to believe we're better than the rest, and we'll find reasons to believe it, even if we have to create reasons.

Charismatics treasure a spiritual happening which turns them toward God and marks the start of their personal spiritual relationship with God. There's nothing wrong with that : all good things have to start somewhere. But they don't have to start at the same place. The spiritual life can start the way it usually grows : slowly, with the pieces falling gradually into place. Those whose start is more explosive often find this fact hard to understand. They know what happened to themselves, and it's not easy to picture there being another way of getting there. Even so, I think it's not accurate to say that Pentecostalists and Charismatics set up a have/have-not split just by emphasizing their experience. To stop it, all they have to do is understand that God really does work in other ways. And from what I've seen over the years, many of them understand that.

However, it becomes much more difficult among those Pentecostalists who insist there is only one definitive sign (namely, speaking in tongues and/or being slain in the Spirit) which is the universal marker of the indwelling of the Spirit into a person. By that definition, if you didn't lose control or speak in tongues, the Spirit's not in you, which (whether they like to say it or not) makes you a spiritual inferior. If you did go through it, you're part of the 'better than' group -- the elite. By that definition, I am a spiritual inferior, since the only babbling I ever did clearly had nothing at all to do with the entry of the Holy Spirit into my life. Their attitude flies in the face of what Jesus and Paul were talking about. It puts them in the same league as those among the Pharisees whom Jesus criticized as being hypocrites. And it assumes that the experience teaches them all they need to know for living life as God would have them live it. Such an attitude may be 'religious', but it's not the Gospel.
more on physical signs and wonders
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Elitism

A reader writes :

<< you criticize the modern Pentecostal apostles rather harshly for the crime of "elitism". I see your point about how we treat HTRs [[hard-to-receives]]. But when I look around me, I don't see much classism or elitism among ourselves. Aren't you just against having an authority? >>

I don't know about your church, because I've never been there. But your family of churches has a real problem with this. Does this sound like your church:

Do they talk about "overcomers", "mighty men of God", "the remnant", "manifest sons of God", "Elijah's Company", "the purified", or such similar terms? If they are, they're saying that some are more divine than others, some are more saved than others, some are or will be perfected on earth. They are saying that those someones are beyond questioning by oafs like you and me. Isn't that elitism? Jesus deserved such an honor, but for the most part refused it. The "overcomers", however, are apparently too good to follow that example.
Do they speak of those who have a 'religious spirit', who are 'negative thinkers' and 'naysayers', 'accusers', and 'rebels', especially when someone is challenging them? If they are, they're talking about those who have the nerve to carry out the biblical call to test all things. They're talking about those who raise questions, who don't follow in lockstep, who live in the freedom in Christ that Paul wrote about, who won't accept their assigned roles as peons.
Do they talk about attaining "levels" or "planes" of the Spirit's power, climbing "the steps on Jacob's ladder" to god-like-ness, or other such things? If they are, they're importing into Christianity the very same ideas that were so crucial to helping Hindi leaders create what was (and still is) the world's tightest caste system. Those above you are, in practice, free to step on you. They'll draw on any idea it takes if it will get you to obey.

The Bible speaks very harshly of the evils of Ba'al worship. Yahweh sent prophet after prophet to fight it off. The word ba'al means 'master' or 'the One in control'. The god Ba'al was seen as the source of all sexual, social, agricultural, religious, and economic potency -- a god for the winners of the world and the power elites. But the God of Abraham is different. God is eliter than any human elite, but it's in God's character to be bound in covenant to those who, at least humanly speaking, are 'lesser'. Yahweh went into a covenant relationship with Israel that gave its people levels of freedom and equality that were unprecedented in their time. This same Yahweh sent Jesus to be God-with-us, an act not only of love but also of solidarity with us. This Jesus was God taking on the punishment that was justice for the wrongs we humans have done. Then the Spirit was sent to each and all who believe, not just a select few. Time after time, God chose to be one who loves, not masters; one who shares with us instead of zapping us into line. By asserting the right of a few to have mastery over the many, elitism is a modern analog to Ba'alism, and you know what God thought of that!