Speaking in Tongues according to Fr. Ripperger

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There is absolutely nothing that “tongues-speakers” are producing that cannot easily be explained in natural and/or linguistic terms.

Conversely, when it comes to something spoken, there are absolutely no Biblical references to “tongues” that do not refer to, and cannot be explained in light of, real rational language(s).

Modern tongues is just another tool , like chanting, deep prayer, or meditation, etc.; a way by which one may establish a closer relationship with the divine and strengthen one’s spiritual path. In this respect (i.e. as the tool it is), it can be quite powerful one to accomplish these goals, as attested by many of those who use it.

Most people who use ‘tongues’ are very keen on describing the ‘experience’. Indeed, for those that use it, it is very psychologically fulfilling. It’s almost like primal screaming. When people practice ‘tongues’, they feel a sense of sweet release in that all stress can be gone after the experience.

People can describe the experience, but in examining the “mechanics” behind it…not so much. When a person has experienced tongues, s/he is absolutely convinced as to the ‘scripturalness’ of his/her experience and the correctness of his/her doctrinal beliefs – this, despite the overwhelming scriptural absence of anything remotely akin to it.

Mind you, I’m not doubting or questioning the ‘experience’; as mentioned, glossolalia as the tool that it is, can be very powerful. It is important to note however that this same statement can be made for virtually any other culture that practices glossolalia.

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“Tongues” is to some Christian believers a very real and spiritually meaningful experience but consisting of emotional release via non-linguistic ‘free vocalizations’ at best – the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. In some cases, I would argue that it is clearly a self/mass delusion prompted by such a strong desire to “experience God” that one creates that experience.

Modern tongues, by the way, are not ‘gibberish’. Gibberish does not intend to mimic real language; glossolalia (free-vocalization) does.

There are also numerous reports of people speaking in tongues which come out as real, rational language(s). Unfortunately, all such reports are anecdotal at best. Things along the lines of “ it happened a while ago to a friend’s third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side; a guy from West Bubbatania happened to be visiting and recognized the language. This visitor, of course, went back home and there’s no way to verify that the anecdote actually took place; nor is there a way to ascertain any pertinent details.” All joking aside, this is sort of the norm with such anecdotes. Was it really language X, or did it just sound like language X. My Arabic is very minimal, but I can ‘fake it’ to the point where if a person who doesn’t speak it, or is minimally familiar with it, hears me, they’d swear I was fluent. There are just no provable cases of xenoglossy – anywhere.

“Interpretation of tongues”, frequently going hand-in-hand with ‘speaking in tongues’, may also be said to be a self-created phenomenon. Interpretation is a ‘spiritual improv’ of sorts, inspired by one’s deep faith and beliefs.

Interpretations are typically characterized by being inordinately longer than the actual glossic utterance, rather generic and non-specific in nature, and perhaps not surprisingly, open to multiple non-related ‘interpretations’. In other words, have ten interpreters listen to a glossic string and you’ll get ten different (typically unrelated) “interpretations”. In tongues, ‘The big brown dog is slow’, can also be ‘The small white cat is quick’. These characteristics do not suggest anything that is divinely inspired. It fails even the most basic tests and criteria that define the concept of ‘communication’ itself.

The common come-back to the multiple interpretation issue is that God/the Holy Spirit gives different interpretations to different people. As someone once put it, Pentecostal Darwinism does not exist – there’s no mutation or transformation of one message into several for the sake of justifying an obvious discrepancy. If this were the case, it would completely eradicate the need for ‘tongues’ in the first place.

Apparently not allowed more than three posts in a row, so final post will need to wait.
 
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I’ve often wondered about the gift of speaking in tongues. At least with regards to the often referred to ability to speak using sounds and groanings that aren’t really words themselves.

A very good friend of mine is a member of a Oneness Pentecostal church and they teach that once you are baptized in Jesus’ name, you’ll receive this gift. However, they are very strict with their interpretation of being baptized in Jesus name only, as they do not believe in the Trinity.

This made me wonder if their ability to speak in tongues was truly valid. Because other Pentecostal churches also claim this gift and these churches are Trinitarian. So with two different Churches each professing a radically different understanding of the Trinity, is the gift of tongues more or less authentic in either faith?
 
I think this is why many Catholics are skeptical. This kind of thing was not a Catholic practice–or a practice of even the separated Churches with Apostolic origins or even the mainline Protestants. Then it became a popular thing in modern times with fringe Protestant sects and only then was imported into the Catholic Church at a time when there was a lot of disorientation, confusion, and harmful experimentation (especially with trying to adapt non-Catholic stuff).
 
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Having been raised around charismatic and Pentecostal Protestants in the Deep South, I have always been skeptical of “speaking in tongues”. It seems to be nothing more than group mindless babble coming from an emotional high. In sociology, this behavior is called “collective effervescence”.

It also seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what the gift of tongues actually was due to the spooky sounding language of the KJV and personal interpretation of scripture.

Anecdotally, my mother was a member of one of these churches when she was younger. At her baptism (in the name of Jesus only) since she didn’t speak in tongues as a sign of receiving the Holy Ghost, the minister told her to fake it until it came. She quit going after that.
 
Final post (4 of 4) - continued from further above…

As far as whether or not ‘tongues’ are Biblical, I think there are two answers to the question. If one subscribes to the fact that “tongues” are nothing more than real, rational languages, then yes, obviously they’re “biblical”, but frankly, taken in the light of real language(s), it’s a total non-issue. The NC-NLU’s (glossolalia) produced by tongues-speakers simply does not occur in the Bible; thus, it may be termed “unbiblical”, but that term, to me, has a rather negative connotation/stigma attached to it. Though modern tongue-speech is not evidenced in the Bible, as the tool that it is, it doesn’t make its practice wrong. It’s not Satanic, demonic, or whatever other negative moniker you wish to use - to describe it in those terms is religio-centrism in the extreme. I think it’s important however, that those who practice it know what it really is.

Known by many different names, “tongues”, or more accurately “glossolalia”, is practiced by many cultures and religious beliefs from all over the world; it is relatively new to Christianity and certainly not unique to it.

As mentioned, I’m a Linguist, not a theologian, and let me also add here that I am neither a so-called ‘cessationist’ nor a ‘continuationist’ – I do not identify with either term; in fact, I had never heard the two terms until just late in 2016. Cessationist vs, non-cessationist is a bit of a false dichotomy; gifts ceasing is mentioned only once in one short sentence and the remainder of the Bible is totally silent on the matter. The one place it is mentioned is rarely taken into context of the entire passage. As far as I’m concerned, quite frankly, since the Biblical reference of “tongues” is to real, rational languages, obviously “tongues” haven’t “ceased”; people still speak.
 
nightshade said:
Anecdotally, my mother was a member of one of these churches when she was younger. At her baptism (in the name of Jesus only) since she didn’t speak in tongues as a sign of receiving the Holy Ghost, the minister told her to fake it until it came. She quit going after that.
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There’s a lot of controversy on this - I have heard of quite a few cases as you describe above with respect to pastors telling the ‘tongues aspirant’ to simply “fake it, we all do”.

Oftentimes the initial scenario where this happens is in a church setting - hypnotic music, surrounded by people ‘encouraging’ you to say something, anything, so long as it isn’t your native language. Many people describe it as an extreme pressure to ‘perform’’. This happens with younger kids as well as adults - It’s essentially peer pressure in the most extreme manner, and some would go so far as to call it, to put it nicely, ‘forced soft conditioning’.
 
Medawlinno said:
There’s a lot of controversy on this - I have heard of quite a few cases as you describe above with respect to pastors telling the ‘tongues aspirant’ to simply “fake it, we all do”.
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I have never seen this in any charismatic group, and if I found a group that condoned it I would leave. Quickly.
 
All reports I have seen of this type come from the Pentecostal church.
 
The whole “speaking in tongues” thing is more than a little suspect. There have been studies done (mainly on Protestants, not sure if one has ever concentrated on Catholics) that have shown evidence that speaking in “tongues” was little more than people stringing together common syllables in their native language and self-inducing a trance like state, that although not devoid of psychological or spiritual benefits, was not actually speaking in tongues, but more akin to baby talk. This is one of the links that I could find for an older study:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002383097301600108

The Charismatic Movement was born out of Pentecostal practices in the 1960s. I have no doubt that many members of the movement are great Catholics, probably many of them are better Catholics than I am. Do I doubt that they speak in tongues? Yes, I greatly doubt that. While there is the possibility that there are some authentic instances of people truly speaking in tongues (and not necessarily within the Charismatic Movement) probably the vast majority of the time these gatherings where Charismatics meet and claim to speak in tongues, it is not happening for real. And if they claim it is real, then the burden of proof lies on them to prove that it is authentic, or show strong evidence that it is authentic, not to simply be taken at their word.
 
The Charistmatic Renewal concerns me.
The entire Pentecostal thing started in the early 20th century in San Francisco. It didn’t start out as Catholic. It spread into the Church in the late 60s.
I have no issue with it in general but more so I feel like it leads to relativism and I know a couple Catholics who are just Pentecostal now and that all started when they got involved in this.
It is a legitimate concern.
 
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It’s good to have a civil exchange of views.
Thank you for your response 🙂

Again I speak from my own experience. For me, prayer in the Spirit is not an emotional experience. I don’t enter any trance states and I don’t receive a ‘high’ from my prayers.

I have seen many other people pray in the Spirit, and I have not seen anything I would call a trance state. Some people pray in the spirit because they are already happy/joyful. Some become joyful when they pray. But I don’t see people being overcome by emotion, nor do I see anyone losing control of themselves.

As for demonic possession–Satan counterfeits what God does. It is quite possible to be deceived.
God sends prophets. Satan sends false prophets. But God’s prophets are still genuine.
So with the gift of prayer in the Spirit. Satan will try to deceive us with counterfeits of God’s gifts. But God’s gift is still real.

God’s blessing to you, ✝️
 
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Zaccheus said:
t was they, the Twelve and those with them in the upper room at Pentecost, who first began to speak in tongues.
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This gift was to enable them to spread the Good News - so they could speak other languages and be understood by those to whom they were preaching.
Acts 2:4-11

Now with that said, about a decade ago I did go to two CCR Masses. Not having experienced this before, it was eye opening and unsettled me, though I went back a second time as I was trying to keep an open mind. I made the assumption it was legit due to the fact there was (I think) a retired priest. The praying in tongues over people was difficult to accept.

From memory for the most part I think the Mass was valid and licit. Though there were two things I think that weren’t right, only one of which I can recall now. This ws at the exchange of the sign of peace, everyone not only greeted their closest neighbors, but (to my shame) we all trouped around so as to exchange the sign of peace with everyone else.

So due to my own personal experience - no thank you.
 
CRV said:
This ws at the exchange of the sign of peace, everyone not only greeted their closest neighbors, but (to my shame) we all trouped around so as to exchange the sign of peace with everyone else.

So due to my own personal experience - no thank you.
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Your choice is yours to make CRV, and I won’t criticize. I have a query though.; how large was the congregation?
I think it makes a difference (to the “trouping around”) whether there were a few dozen people or a few hundred.
 
I didn’t do a head count back then, but the impression I have from memory was about 75 people at least, though possibly more.

Thank you for being respectful.
 
With that many I think it would have been best to stay in your seats.

And you’re welcome. 😄
 
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