Not really. I know I was a bit sarcastic and snarky with that one, and considering there was a time when I was part of the Charismatic movement, perhaps I should have left it alone. I still have some close Christian friends who are in the Charismatic movement and post a lot of articles from Charisma magazine on Facebook.

I was sucked into the movement as a young prodigal having come back home after spending almost 10 years in the wilderness. I was hungry for everything God had for me and I eagerly latched onto anyone and everyone who, claiming to be ministers of the gospel, told me that God had so much more than Bible reading, church attending, praying Christianity.

Well, since I was into reading and studying the Bible I gradually moved away from that which seemed to be more about my ‘experience’ than objective Bible truth.

So when I see something like the ‘prophet’ with his smartphone and the rest of the false prophet crowd all over God TV (and elsewhere) it bugs me. And someone I have known for years advertises ‘Dead Raising’ training at the church where he is a leader, led by a crew from Bethel Church I want to scream, cry or both.

By now I’ve read and studied the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement from it’s birth in 2nd century Gnosticism to the present day. Since I was there I’m not just one of those low information ‘bashers’.

What bothers me even more than the false prophets at the Azusa Now event was the complete lack of the gospel call to repentance of sin and belief in what I listened to from the speakers, and that’s a problem across most of today’s Protestant evangelicalism. C’ H. Spurgeon summed it up well when he said:

“I do believe that we slander Christ when we think that we are to draw the people by something else but the preaching of Christ Crucified.” – From a sermon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, October 6, 1889

I’ll leave you with that thought.