There are two types of “tongues” mentioned in the Bible. The first, described in Acts, are “known tongues.” This is where the Apostles proclaimed the Gospel in their own language, but many in the diverse crowd heard it in their own language. The only reason that people figured out that a miracle was taking place was because they saw that these diverse people all seemed to understand what was being said. But not everyone was able to understand.
It is not uncommon that miracles accompany new revelation but not continue. This sign “undid” what happened at Babel.
Then there are “unknown tongues” which is described in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. This was a liturgical abuse, and Paul chastised them for it. There is not one verse in Scripture that is favorable to speaking in unknown tongues.
At any rate, neither known nor unknown tongues were practiced by any Christian community since the very early days. The Church Fathers tell us that the practice ceased:
No Christian practiced tongues until Agnes Ozman claimed to do so on Jan 1, 1901.
Ozman was the student of Charles Fox Parham, a Holiness minister. He set up Bethel Bible College in Topeka KS and came up with the novel idea that water Baptism and “spirit Baptism” are not bound together, but are separate actions. He asked his students to figure out what was the “sign” of Spirit Baptism, and they came up with the idea that speaking in (unknown) tongues was this sign. The school closed in 1902.
In 1905, Parham established another college in Houston, TX, and this school became the center of the Pentecostal “movement” (such as it was). In 1907, Parham’s ministry was discredited owing to sex scandals and his espousal of British Israelism. He lived out the rest of his life as head of a rather small group of Apostolic Faith churches headquartered in Baxter Springs, KS.
In 1906, in Los Angeles, William Joseph Seymour (1870-1922) held a revival at 312 Azusa Street, where the worldwide Pentecostal movement was launched. Seymour, an African-American Holiness preacher, was trained by Parham at his school in Houston. As in Topeka, the activity of this revival sparked considerable attention, but was short lived. By 1913, the Pentecostal movement was widely scattered, incohesive, and on the brink of extinction.
The Assemblies of God churches (the “home” of Charismatic Christianity) were established by a committee. A man named Eudorus N. Bell published a periodical from Malverm, Arkansas called the
Word and Witness. Bell and four other men (Howard Goss, Daniel Opperman, Archibald Collins, and Mack Pinson) had become concerned with the future of the Pentecostal movement, and they decided to organize a general-invitation convention in Hot Springs, AK in April 1914. This convention attracted about 300 persons (about 120 of whom were delegates of various scattered Pentecostal movements). The Assemblies of God grew out of the resolutions of this convention, and was first headquartered in Findlay, OH, but moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1915, where it is still housed today.
In 1960, an Episcopal pastor, Dennis Bennett of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California started a charismatic movement within his parish, and for the first time, Pentecostalism transcended its traditional denominational definitions and became a form of spirituality integrated into an otherwise “mainline” Christian framework. From there, it infiltrated other faiths, including Catholicism (by way of Notre Dame University -
surprise!).
As Catholics, we have a Faith that is nearly 2,000 years old. We call ourselves “Catholic” because our Faith is universal (that’s what “catholic” means) – for all people, in all places, at all times. Yet this “Catholic Charismatic” movement is scarcely 50 years old!
I have a vacuum cleaner that’s older than “Charismatic Catholicism!”
Occasionally, great Doctors of the Church reveal to us deeper insight into Catholic spirituality. But the whole Charismatic movement did not begin with any Catholic Doctor or Saint – it started with the students of a disenfranchised Holiness preacher with a lot of wacky ideas and who had a hard time keeping his pants buttoned, and who could not even muster credibility within the movement that he started. Not surprisingly, the movement found its way into Catholicism by way of the Episcopal Church, the very same church that was the first mainline Christian denomination to endorse birth control.
So, to me, the Charismatic movement has three fatal flaws:
- Its origins are not Biblical (not one passage of Scripture encourages or promotes this form of worship)
- It is not historical (no Catholic in almost 2,000 years had ever practiced it)
- Its origins are not Catholic (it has never been promoted by any Pope or Saint, nor by the Church Magisterium).
Charismatic spirituality is a very recent invention of fringe protestants. It has no Biblical, historical, or theological precedence or merit. I do not believe this form of spirituality has ANY legitimate place in Catholic worship.
