So Who Exactly IS the Mainstream of the Charismatic Movement?

The fall out from the Strange Fire conference shows a general truth about critiquing the craziness of the charismatic movement. It seems that whenever a pastor points out the flagrant error and false worship associated with the charismatic movement,  charismatics respond by saying that we always grab the “low hanging fruit” on the fringe of the movement and try to pass it off as some sort of accurate representation of the movement as a whole. We’re told that the level-headed, reformed charismatic folks are the obvious mainstream representatives of charismatics, and the entranced glossolalaholics and Fletch-clone healers are the outlandish fringe. Thus, since most charismatics are even-keeled, level headed, and have books in our book store, we should leave the charismatic craziness alone–after all, it is so isolated.

This argument has always made me puzzled since it’s so horribly obvious to me that the theologically absurd charismatic church of 20,000 obviously has far more influence in the movement and “on the street” than the theologically cautious charismatic church of 2,000 (and that’s being generous since the theologically absurd churches aren’t just bigger, but far more numerous).    Continue at Lyndon Unger