1. The world was created in 144 hours, evolution didn’t happen, and if you don’t believe that, you are stepping in deep spiritual doo-doo.

2. The world is billions of years old, evolution did happen, and if you don’t agree you must be ignorant, foolish or intellectually dishonest.

Although these two positions seem like polar opposites, their proponents did agree on one thing: the Bible and Science are at odds. If you believe one, you must discredit the other.

By the late 80’s and 90’s, I began to notice a third camp of young people who said, “It doesn’t really matter.” Perhaps they truly believed that the debate was not central to their Christian faith. (If it were, why isn’t it mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed? Why were many church fathers, including St. Augustine, willing to allow that the days in Genesis 1 might be longer than 24 hours?) Or perhaps they were just tired of anything that smelled like the conservative-versus-liberal battles that for too long had dominated politics, culture and theology, and they simply wanted to call for a time-out.

I myself joined that third camp. I didn’t want to take sides. If someone were to lock me in a bathroom and refuse to let me out until I voiced an opinion, this is what I probably would have said: “I believe that the universe and the earth are very old. I think that the creation events described in Genesis chapter 1 did not take place within six 24-hour periods. But I do not necessarily believe all the claims of evolutionary biology; theories of macroevolution are problematic, both from scientific and biblical standpoints.” However, I never needed to say that, because no one ever locked me in the bathroom.

Plenty of good people are hanging around this third camp. People who are popular and highly regarded in the evangelical world. For example, Tim Keller seems to be here. He is willing to allow that the world is very old, and he leaves the door open for some limited, theistic evolution. But his bottom line is that he really doesn’t know much about the creation process and would rather not adopt a strong stance. For this, he has received some mild criticism, especially from the young-earth creationism (YEC) crowd. But he is a without a doubt a very thoughtful, winsome, influential and devout Christian, and everyone whose opinion I respect also respects him.

More recently, I sense the emergence of a fourth camp of evangelicals who, with those in Camp 3, agree that the creation-versus-evolution thing is not one of the central issues of the Christian faith. But they have become more vocal in their opposition to YEC. They openly endorse theistic evolution and are even willing to drop the belief in Adam and Eve as historical individuals. (They do believe that humankind is in a fallen state and needs redemption; they just aren’t sure how it got to be that way.)

Members of this fourth camp include Francis Collins, Peter Enns (whom I blogged about last year) and the rest of the Biologos Foundation, along with many readers of Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog.

For these people, the argument is not really about creation versus evolution. They frame it within a larger question of how we approach and understand the Bible. These people are sincere, devout Christians who really want to take the scripture seriously and uphold its authority as the word of God. At the same time, they want to take full account of scientific evidence (e.g., the fossil record) and reconcile it with scripture in an intellectually  honest way.

These people believe that the initial chapters of Genesis teach genuine spiritual truth, but they should not be read in the same way that one would read a modern science or history textbook; to do so would actually be a misuse of the Scripture, because these chapters are part of an ancient literary genre addressed to ancient readers who make very different scientific and cultural assumptions than we do today.

By adopting this stance, members of Camp 4 have picked a fight with large segments of the evangelical world which still describe the Bible as the “inerrant and infallible” word of God, and regard any erosion of these in- words as a dangerous trend that would undermine the foundations of historic Christianity. In response, the Camp 4 people would say that the creedal statements using the in- words were a 20th century overreaction to the spread of liberal theology which began to deny the historicity of the gospel accounts and even cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They maintain that it is possible to drop the in- words while still maintaining a high view of the Bible and upholding all the key tenets of the Christian creeds.

For the record, I am not yet ready to pull up my stakes and move my tent all the way over to Camp 4. But I do like and admire these guys. I have met Pete Enns and, as far as I can tell, he is the real deal, a man of solid Christian faith. And Francis Collins seems like a jolly good fellow as well. I admire their intellectual prowess and willingness to raise the tough questions that many in Camp 3 seem afraid to voice. Perhaps I can pitch my tent somewhere in between. Maybe I can hang out at Camp 3.14159.

What about you? Do you identify yourself with any of these camps? Does it even matter to you? If you count yourself as a believer in Christ and a member of one of these camps, what do you really think of Christians who pitch their tents elsewhere?

Steve is a full-time campus minister for CCO at Penn State who specializes in reaching out to students who are culturally distant from Christianity.  Steve has been successful in forming relationships with these students and engaging them in Bible study in interesting ways and nontraditional places. He maintains a blogsite called the SENTintel where he posts articles and materials on missional campus ministry. He is also the founder of Commontary, a free online Bible commentary with user-contributed content.

Steve’s message runs about 45 minutes. We have broken up the video into five segments of about nine minutes each. Here is the first segment:

Additional segments continue below.

On Sunday, June 13, Michelle McCotter spoke at University Bible Fellowship  and gave a brief update about IV at Penn State. After her report, Ruthie — our current Seed President — offered a prayer for Christian unity on campus.

But what about those people who do not believe? Why don’t they accept what we have accepted? What’s wrong with them?

Perhaps nothing is wrong with them. A relativist would say that, although their frame of mind is different from mine, it is no better or worse, no closer to or farther from reality. If so, then I should just them alone.

Perhaps they have never heard anyone present the gospel. (In the United States, this is possible but unlikely.) If so, then I should try to evangelize them and present the gospel to them.

Perhaps they have not been given enough evidence to convince them that the gospel accounts are true, that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. If so, then I should give them a book by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell.

Perhaps they were abused by unloving, judgmental or hypocritical Christians who misrepresented Christ to them. If so, then I should love them and show them that not all Christians are bad, and that Jesus is far better than the church.

Perhaps they are fools. That is a distinct possibility. After all, the fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:10). If so, then I am not sure what to do, because the Bible gives conflicting advice. Proverbs 26:4 says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly…” And the next verse, Proverbs 26:5, says, “Answer a fool according to his folly…”

Perhaps they are simply rebelling against God, refusing to accept his Lordship because they want to glorify themselves, enjoy sinful human freedom, whatever. If so, then I should do whatever I can to expose their sinfulness and awake their consciences.

Or perhaps, for some mysterious reason known only to God, they have not yet been gifted as I have. At the end of Angels and Demons (which, by the way, is not such a bad movie), the character played by Tom Hanks says, “Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive.”

That last answer raises all sorts of difficult theological questions that in this present life we may never be able to resolve. Yet in many cases, this is the only answer that seems to make sense. There are plenty of good people who are better, more sincere, and smarter than I, who have grown up in the presence of Christians and do not hate what they have seen, who have read plenty of books by C.S. Lewis, who see the goodness and beauty of Christianity, and still have not put their faith in Jesus. Not because they don’t want to, but because they feel that they cannot, and if they did it would be a false conversion.

It’s a strange thing to be evangelizing people and encouraging them to believe if we don’t really know what faith is. And the Bible does not tell us. The closest thing to a definition of faith appears in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is inherently paradoxical. A kind of certainty in the midst of uncertainty. A knowledge of something that is otherwise unknowable. It is an ex nihilo creation, making something out of nothing, which God can do but we cannot.

For those who believe, faith is a sixth sense. It picks up things that we cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste. A reality may be detected by multiple senses, or by just one, or not at all. If my house is on fire, I might not be aware of it. Or I might smell the smoke before I feel the heat, see the flames, etc.  Each of our five senses is a wonderful gift. If there is a spiritual/heavenly realm beyond the material/earthly, then there must be realities that cannot be picked up by any of our five senses. We would need another sensory system to detect those realities, and that too would be an unmerited gift.

Last night, my wife stumbled upon this Youtube video on “How to convert an atheist.” The maker of this video, a man who calls himself “the Fighting Atheist,” is obviously familiar with Christian apologetics in the Josh McDowell/Lee Strobel vein and remains thoroughly unconvinced. In this video, he explains to Christians the kind of historical and experiential evidence that he would need to accept a religion as true, and he says that is he were presented with this evidence, he would convert on the spot.

I think that the whole premise of this video is wrong. Yet this premise could be as widespread among modern Christians as it is among atheists.

Suppose that Mr. Fighting Atheist is telling the truth. Suppose that he really would convert and self-identify as Christian if presented with the right evidence. If so, would he then have faith? Would he be a child of God?

I don’t think so. The kind of knowledge that he would have — evidentiary knowledge accumulated through the material senses – is not faith at all. Changing one’s mind about whether a particular religion is correct is not the same thing as coming to faith. Biblical faith is a knowledge of reality that goes beyond what can be seen. It’s as if the Fighting Atheist were saying, “I will accept that blue is different from yellow when I can clearly taste the difference with my own ears.” 

One of my sons is colorblind. If his vision had never been tested by a professional, we would never have known it. And even though we know it, it doesn’t make any difference; he still cannot distinguish certain colors.

Certainly there are many nonbelievers who are ignorant, misinformed, rebellious, foolish, abused, unloved, desiring to sin, etc. (Plenty of Christians fall into those categories as well.) Are those things ”the reasons” why they do not believe? Or are they simply handicapped, lacking the God-given ability to discern spiritual reality?

Meeting a handicapped person evokes a wide range of conflicting emotions among those of us who are supposedly “normal.” We experience discomfort. Curiosity. Pity. Respect. Awe. We desire to help them without being condescending. We want to put aside the disability and recognize them “for who they truly are,” yet the disability is a large part of who they truly are. We want to put a positive spin on the situation and see the handicap as a gift. Indeed, a disability in one area of life does often bring out good things in other areas of life. But that does not mean that the disability is good.

The Bible doesn’t just claim that nonbelievers are handicapped. It claims that they are dead. More accurately, it claims that they are not yet born. This is the key idea in John chapter 3 where Jesus talks to Nicodemus. Nicodemus is not a bad guy. He is not proud, ignorant, morally deficient, insincere, or holding on to any false doctrines. In fact, Nicodemus is exemplary in every way. His “spirtual problem” is that he cannot see the kingdom of God. He has no God-given ability to perceive spiritual reality because his soul has not yet come alive. And there is nothing that he can do to come alive, because regeneration (new birth) is the work of the Holy Spirit.

If you could have a five-minute conversation with the Fighting Atheist, what would you say to him? I have a rough idea of what I would say. But I would like to hear from you.

Just today, thinking about all of this,  I found an article by Tim Keller, “Preaching in a Post Modern City.” He gives an interesting perspective on how we live and fail to live gospel centered lives. He talks about how we become the  changed people that we desire to be and are supposed to be. Speaking about virtue he says,” it particularly grows by a faith-sight of the glory of Christ and his salvation.” I believe that to be true, that seeing Jesus is powerful and causes us to move. He also says, “Is [the gospel] basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done?”

But maybe you are not convinced. Perhaps you are wondering, “What’s all this fuss about the Holy Spirit?” We do, after all, identify ourselves as Christians or followers of Christ. Shouldn’t our attention be focused on Christ – to trust in him, know him, follow him and imitate him?

The Bible tells us a whole lot about Jesus. The story of his life is told four times in four gospels from different points of view, and then the events of the gospels are interpreted and explained in the Epistles.

By comparison, the Bible says much less about the Holy Spirit, and he is difficult to pin down. The Spirit is mysterious. Unpredictable.  Beyond our human understanding.

If we call ourselves Christians, then shouldn’t we just concentrate on Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do what he wants? Shouldn’t we mainly focus on the gospels and work on our “personal relationship with Christ”?

In certain respects, that’s not a bad idea. The kingdom of God is centered on Jesus. We (the Church) are his bride, and he is our true husband, the subject of our love and desire and worship.

On the other hand, we are not living in the age of the four gospels. We live in the biblical period between Jesus’ ascension and second coming. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he relinquished control of his earthly ministry to the Holy Spirit. In effect, Jesus looked to the Holy Spirit and said, “Hey bro, it’s your turn now. Take care of things until I come back.” Okay, Jesus probably didn’t call him bro. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that the biblical age in which we are now living in the age of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the major fact of this period that defines who we are and how we relate to God.

One reason why some Christians are hesitant to say much about the Holy Spirit is this: Some of what people claim to be the Spirit’s guidance and work is not genuine and really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.  For example, consider the practice of publicly speaking in tongues where the speech (which is a string of nonsense syllables – and I don’t mean to be pejorative here) is regarded as a divinely inspired message, and then one or more “interpreters” translate what is being said. If this message-from-God claim were true, then shouldn’t different interpreters come up with the same translation? Experiments have been performed where audio recordings of glossolalia (the technical term for speaking in tongues) are independently presented to multiple interpreters, and the translations they offer are not even close.

J.I. Packer, in his excellent book Keep in Step With the Spirit, describes an Ethiopian priest who went to a multicultural prayer meeting and heard people speaking in tongues. He assumed that these people were praying in their own native languages. Deciding to join in, he stood up and recited Psalm 23 in an archaic Coptic language of his native church. Interpreters immediately translated what he said, and he walked away in bewilderment, saying, “It was all wrong.”

Please do not misunderstand. I am not claiming that glossolalia and all other charismatic phenomena are inauthentic. Personally, I have never prayed in tongues and have not desired to do so.  From what I have heard, it is rarely an experience in which people are seized by an external force and made to do something that is completely outside of their control. In most cases, it is more like a technique of “letting go” that can be learned and practiced, and the person who is doing so will start and stop at will. People who do this claim that it heightens their awareness of God and helps them to pray in a deeper way for longer periods of time. In that sense, it is not entirely different from other practices of meditation and divine contemplation that have appeared in Christian communities in various forms down through the ages. I believe that whenever and wherever Christians draw near to God and pray in the name of Jesus Christ, then the Holy Spirit is working among them. So in that sense, I would say that most charismatic prayer and tongue-speaking does represent the authentic work of the Holy Spirit. But this Spirit-work among charismatics is not unusually miraculous or fundamentally different from what happens among non-charismatic Christians when they worship and pray. (This is what I think: Prayer is extremely hard. Whenever a Christian is able to deeply and effectively pray, then that in itself is a great miracle.)

So although I think that many charismatic phenomena do represent genuine work of the Holy Spirit, I also think that they are often misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who participate in them and those who observe them.

When evidence or claims about the Holy Spirit are being presented, we should not respond in a way that is dismissive or overly skeptical or critical. The Holy Spirit is real and works among Christians in surprising and sometime miraculous ways. The Body of Christ is diverse, and the Spirit’s work in some parts of the Body may look very strange to other parts of the Body. But we also need to test these claims and separate the wheat from the chaff. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22:

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

So how can we test an activity to see whether it is the genuine work of the Spirit?  The criteria that some Christians apply are rooted in sectarianism, prejudice and competition. We may be quick to assume that the Holy Spirit is with us in everything we do simply because our church is “biblically correct.” At the same time, we may dismiss what is happening in other communities because it doesn’t jibe with our own experiences and violates our assumptions about what the work of the Holy Spirit should look like.

Here is a criterion that some have offered: The Holy Spirit will never do anything that is contrary to Scripture. I do believe that this is true. But notions of what constitutes “scriptural” and “unscriptural” activity vary widely from one community to another. The disputes over glossolalia are a good example of this; Christians have differing positions on speaking in tongues, and they all support their positions with Bible verses. Although Christians widely agree on the big issues regarding the Holy Spirit  (he is a person; he is God), there is plenty of disagreement about when he comes, how he works, etc., and part of Scripture that speak to these issues are truly difficult to understand.

In Keep in Step with the Spirit, J.I. Packer notes that evangelical Christians have many good and biblically supportable ideas about the Holy Spirit, but we seem to lack the big picture, the overarching theme of his ministry that clearly states what he came to do. So Packer offers a solution. Focusing in what Jesus said John 16:13-15, he states that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is centered on Jesus Christ. The Spirit never promotes himself or draws people to himself. His purpose is to further the Father’s pleasure by glorifying the Son. While the ascended Jesus is enthroned in heaven, the Spirit will work to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, to draw people to faith in Jesus, to help us to obey Jesus, to promote the knowledge, adoration and love of Jesus  – in short, to make it possible for us to have a vital relationship with Jesus until he returns in power and glory. Wherever Jesus Christ is being followed, worshiped and glorified, the Holy Spirit is present to actively direct and support that work.

If what Packer says is correct, then the major test that we should apply is this: In this particular gathering or activity, is the reputation, purpose, and love of Jesus Christ being promoted? If so, then it is an authentic work of the Holy Spirit.

1. How does the Holy Spirit bring about personal holiness?  Does he usually (a) take away our inclination to sin and make us want to obey God, or (b) expect us to struggle against the sinful nature, perhaps helping us out from time to time, until we overcome temptation and experience victory?

If you instinctively answer (a), you might develop a casual or passive attitude toward sin, waiting around until you are “healed” instead of gritting your teeth and waging war against the enemy within. On the other hand, if your answer is (b), you might end up trying to depend on yourself and live out your faith by your own effort, which is in general a losing proposition. And you might interpret others’ weaknesses as signs of spiritual failure due to lack of effort without really knowing how hard they are trying. I don’t think there is a correct answer here. It is easy to find Bible verses to “prove” either one.  Sometimes the Spirit does (a) and sometimes he does (b). But how often does he do (a) or (b)?  It seems to me that, whichever position you gravitate toward, there will be long-term implications for how you interact with God on a daily basis and how you view yourself and others.

2. How does the Holy Spirit work in evangelism? Does he usually (a) seek people and draw them into encounters with believers who can present the gospel message to them, or (b) commission disciples and send them out to vigorously declare the gospel message to an unbelieving world?

Once again, I believe that the Spirit does both. But which one does he do more often? If you tend to think (a), then your participation in evangelism (if you participate at all) might be halfhearted and passive. If you ascribe to (b), then you might look and act like a gung-ho soldier of Christ, but to what effect? In the evangelical world, there are many self-styled evangelists whose efforts prove unfruitful and even counterproductive because they preach Christ at inappropriate times and in inappropriate ways with little understanding or sensitivity.

3. How does the Holy Spirit act within the organizational structure of a church? Does he primarily (a) direct the body though its leaders and elders, whom we can safely assume are being led by the Holy Spirit by virtue of their seniority and their elected or appointed offices? Or does he (b) offer no special consideration to elders and leaders and frequently bypass them to accomplish his purposes?

The answers to this question could vary enormously across denominations and cultures. In my opinion, the most correct and healthy response is to say that the Holy Spirit does both on a regular basis. For this reason, leaders and members need real discernment to understand how the Spirit is working among them at any given time. And whether you or your church leans toward (a) or (b), I hope that you maintain an open mind and humbly allow the Holy Spirit to continually challenge your view .

4. Do the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to individual people for service in the church usually (a) coincide with their natural talents, abilities and desires or (b) represent an out-of-the-ordinary or even supernatural display, allowing them to perform in ways that they would never otherwise want to do or be able to do?

By now, you probably know what I am going to say. I think that the Holy Spirit does both. And whether you lean toward (a) or (b), there can be positive and negative implications either way.

5. What is the Holy Spirit’s relationship to Scripture? Did he (a) inspire the human authors to write down God’s word in the original Hebrew and Greek languages and then essentially stop working?  Or did he (b) continue to work down through the ages through the entire process by which the teachings in the Bible were spoken, written down, collected, canonized, preserved, translated and retranslated, studied and restudied, interpreted and reinterpreted?

In the past, I would have probably answered (a), but I hadn’t seriously thought about it. There are many who claim to hold a “high view” of Scripture who tend toward (a) because they don’t know much about the process by which the canon was established, or because they do know something about that process and it looks embarrassingly messy, controversial, and downright human. Some would like to imagine that the Bible was simply handed down to us from heaven as God handed the stone tablets to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Any hint of difficulty in the process by which the Bible came to exist would open a huge can of worms and appear to undermine biblical authority. But even if we ignore that process and just look at the text itself, we find that the Bible is a messy thing.   For example, some events are described multiple times from different points of view, and the details of these accounts do not perfectly agree. If the Bible is a perfect and infallible text, then it can only be so by definitions of perfection and infallibility that are very different from what we mean when we use those terms in ordinary language. (For example, the Bible contains a fair amount of poetry. What does it mean for a poem to be infallible?)

If you answer (a), then your main goal in Bible study will be to get back to the “original intent” and understand it from the author’s point of view. There is a lot of merit to that approach. Understanding the author’s intent is part of any serious study of Scripture. But original intent can only take us so far, and Christians do need to go beyond that, especially when we look at the Old Testament. The Old Testament is full of events, commandments, ceremonies, and imagery that we believe were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. When Christians study Old Testament passages, we find ourselves departing substantially from the author’s original intent; if we do not, then it becomes difficult or impossible to make the passages relevant to what we now believe and do. Reinterpreting the Old Testament in light of the gospel is what Jesus and the apostles did on a regular basis.

Now when we come to the New Testament, can we continue to apply that same approach? Are we free to depart from the author’s original intent and apply the scriptures in new ways to modern-day situations that the apostles never envisioned?  Once again, I think that we must do so, but with greater caution. If we refuse to try, we may find ourselves attempting to “get back to the first century” and live just like those early Christians did, which in the present world is truly impossible. Even if it were possible, it would be unwise, because the Holy Spirit is not stuck in the first century; he continues to move on and work in new ways in every generation. Yet if we do this carelessly, we might begin to tolerate beliefs and practices that depart from God’s will and are truly unorthodox. The present debate in mainline churches about homosexuality is a good example. There are many sincere (and, I think, wrongheaded) Christians of a liberal bent who believe that the Holy Spirit is truly leading the Church to embrace and bless same-sex relationships.

There are real dangers that should not be ignored if we take position (b). But if we lean too heavily toward (a), we may stifle real work of the Holy Spirit and make ourselves and our churches irrelevant.

Whatever you think about the questions raised – and I do not claim to know the answers – you have to admit that they are important. Our assumptions about the Holy Spirit shape what we think the authentic work of God looks like, how we think a church should operate, how we pray, how we worship, how we speak of our faith and how we evangelize.  The facts of Jesus’ earthly life are nailed down in the four gospels. But the work of the Holy Spirit which began in Acts is still going on today, and new chapters are continually being written.

Does what we know about the Holy Spirit matter? Yes it does. A healthy relationship to the Holy Spirit — and we cannot have a meaningful relationship with someone whom we know nothing about — enables Christians to grow and be useful instruments of God in this world. But ideas about him that are sloppy, off-balance or wrong will prevent individuals and churches from growing to maturity and stifle the work of the Spirit among them. Make no mistake: the Holy Spirit can be quenched (1Th 5:19). The Spirit can be lied to, sinned against, and blasphemed, and the consequences of doing so can be dire (Ac 5:3; Mk 3:29; Lk 12:10).

If you are a Christian, then you ought to call the Holy Spirit “he” rather than “it.” The Spirit is not  an invisible power or force, but a person who thinks, communicates and decides. And you ought to agree that the Holy Spirit is God. On that point, Scripture is very clear. For example, Acts 5:3, Peter said, “Ananias,… you have lied to the Holy Spirit.” One verse later, Peter adds, “You have not lied to men but to God.”

Many sincere and devout believers talk about “the secret of living a Spirit-filled life.” We want to experience the Spirit’s power. We want our pastors to deliver Spirit-filled messages. We want to have Spirit-filled worship, Spirit-filled Bible studies, Spirit-filled prayer, and so on. All of this is well and good. But overuse of this language can depersonalize and disrespect the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is not a quality or condiment that enhances our efforts and activities. The Holy Spirit is God himself. Instead of looking for that secret ingredient, we ought to be asking, “Where is the Holy Spirit moving, and how can I walk in step with him? How can I relinquish control of my activities and life to him?”

How we speak of the Holy Spirit really does matter. John Wesley was an eminent preacher and theologian of the 18^th century, a man who was greatly used by God during the first Great Awakening. He developed a teaching of “scriptural holiness” that was not well received during his lifetime. A century later, a small group of Christian preachers and writers latched on to this teaching and vigorously promoted it as “the secret” of the victorious Christian life. Wesley occasionally spoke of a “second blessing” that comes upon some believers. One of his successors, John Fletcher, developed this idea further and equated it with baptism by the Holy Spirit. Fletcher began to speak of conversion as a two-step process. In the first step, the person believes in Jesus Christ and receives from God the full remission of sin. In the second step – which may happen some time later or perhaps not at all – the person receives the second blessing of the Holy Spirit which brings him to a fuller and more perfect state of purity. This thinking contributed to a number of movements in Britain and the United States –the Keswick “Higher Life” movement, the Holiness movement, and Pentecostalism – and God used the men and women involved to bring about genuine spiritual growth and revival.

But the modern-day legacy and fruit of the Wesleyan/Fletcher teaching on the Holy Spirit seems to be mixed. Many scholars of the Reformed tradition have criticized this thinking as imprecise, sloppy and unscriptural, and it seems to me that these criticisms are valid. It is true that the apostles experienced the blessing of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which came some time after they believed in the risen Christ. A temporal separation between faith in Jesus and the arrival of the Holy Spirit is also mentioned in the “Samaritan Pentecost” of Acts 8:17. But these appear to be unique events that are not repeated later, and the two-stage view of conversion is not supported in the Epistles. In Paul’s presentation of the gospel, the state of belonging to Christ is equivalent to being indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Ro 8:9).

I know that God sometimes pours out the Holy Spirit on disciples of Christ. He can fill them with the Holy Spirit anytime he chooses (Ac 4:31). He can send a second blessing, a third blessing, a fourth blessing and so on, but he doesn’t have to. On the other hand, Scripture is quite clear that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a general promise given to everyone who follows Jesus (Jn 7:37-39; Ac 2:39). Understanding this does have implications for your personal walk of faith. If you think of conversion as a two-stage process, then you may hunger for that “second blessing” and wonder why it doesn’t come. Two-stage thinking will inevitably set up a two-tiered hierarchy within a church in which some believers are considered to be Level-1 Christians, inferior to their brothers and sisters who have achieved the coveted Level-2 status. I find no support for this anywhere in Scripture, and the potentially harmful effects seem obvious.

Basically, this is what I think happened. John Wesley witnessed authentic outpourings of the Holy Spirit at various times and places. But he and his followers did not accurately reconcile those experiences with the teachings of Scripture; they misunderstood what was happening and generalized from those experiences in inappropriate ways.

At one time or another, I think we have all been guilty of that. Someone experiences God’s life-changing work (e.g., a healing) in a certain way in his life or in his church. Because that experience is so genuine and powerful, he begins to think that this experience is normative – what “should happen” in other times and places – and wants this experience to be reproduced elsewhere. But that generalization is often inaccurate. The paths and circumstances by which people come to faith in Christ and grow in Christ are truly varied. The Holy Spirit works differently in different people and in any given person at different times. He works differently across churches, cultures and generations. The Holy Spirit is truly unpredictable. Whenever we try to put him in a box and say “this is how he always works,” he seems to go out of his way to prove us wrong. We ought to recognize, welcome and applaud the genuine work of the Holy Spirit whenever and wherever we see it. But we should also be extra careful before we claim that any particular work of the Spirit is “how it’s supposed to be.”

In the next article, I will describe some other ways that our beliefs and assumptions about the Holy Spirit will profoundly impact our lives of faith. Stay tuned…

One defining moment in Christian history came in 1054 A.D. in an event known as the Great Schism, when the Church split into Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) branches. The tension between these camps had been building for some time. It was exacerbated by poor communication between leaders from the East who spoke Greek and those from the West who spoke Latin. But the immediate issue that caused these tensions to flare was a seemingly obscure argument about the Holy Spirit known as the filioque controversy. Filioque is a Latin word meaning “and the Son.” The Nicene Creed, which was written in 325 and expanded in 381, declared:

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified…

Two centuries later, the Latin-speaking churches of western Europe began to recite:

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son…

Eastern leaders objected to this addition, calling it a heresy. (Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church later agreed that the implications of this small addition would be heretical in the Greek language version of the Creed, but insists that it is acceptable in the Latin version. But I digress.) The East also objected to the process by which filioque was inserted, saying that the Western bishops broke communion with the East by acted unilaterally in this matter. In 1054, leaders from Rome and Constantinople excommunicated each other. The dispute erupted into grotesque violence in 1182 when Latin residents of Constantinople were ethnically cleansed. The Roman church returned the favor in 1204 by sacking Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

Some of you are probably thinking, “That is so stupid. Why would Christians kill each other over a single word about the Holy Spirit?” Of course, there were many social and political factors that contributed to these terrible events. But there were also sincere believers who were defendjng what they considered to be essential truths of the Christian faith. In hindsight, it seems so ridiculous and horrible. But before jumping to conclusions, isn’t it worth asking why an issue that seems so trivial to us would be so important to them? Is it possible for us to reject their violence but still learn something from them about the seriousness of how we understand and think about God?

Now let’s jump ahead to the present time. What has been the single most important development in Christianity over the last century? Many would say that it is the Pentecostal/charismatic movement. For the most part, Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals are not killing each other. We generally respect and recognize one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. But the differences in how we talk about and practice our faith are quite profound. Charismatic Christians give prominence to supernatural signs and displays, prophetic utterings, miraculous healings, and spiritual warfare (fighting demons) that to skeptical outsiders seem off-balance and out of control. And non-charismatics may be seen by their charismatic counterparts as dull, repressed, spiritually asleep, or even hostile and disobedient to the Holy Spirit.

My purpose in bringing up these two developments in the history of the Church – the Great Schism and the growth of Pentecostalism – is not to take sides in these disputes. I mention them only to provide evidence that what we think about the Holy Spirit actually matters.

In the next article — which will appear today at 4pm — I will try to get very practical and start to give examples of how our view of the Holy Spirit impacts our spiritual lives.