Maybe Even Spock Would Laugh
I am going to tell you a story; it is one that I think is pretty funny. But to get the humor you have understand something of my nature. It is no accident that my pseudonym for this blogsite is the fictional Kwai Chang Caine. My heroes when I was growing up were Star Trek’s Mr. Spock and Kung Fu’s Kwai Chang Caine. (In fact, they may be the same character as on a recent TVLand special, David Carradine said he patterned the character of Caine on Nimoy’s Spock.) I perhaps inherited a Stoic streak from my Mother’s German ancestry.
Yet this is not the pattern God had intended for the Biblical man. According to James B. Jordan in his article series on “The Case Against Western Civilization:”
Self-control rather than God-control becomes the ideal. We can set Biblical religion and the older pagans on one side of the divide, and Greco-Roman philosophy and much of Christendom on the other. The God-controlled man is active, doing what God says to do. The self-controlled man is passive, contemplating timeless ideals or seeking mystical union with “God” in private. The God-controlled man is enthusiastic and joyful, singing and dancing, clashing his cymbals, guzzling wine in moderation, celebrating 80 feast days in a year (as in the Bible), revelling in marital pleasure (as in the Song of Solomon). The self-controlled man is sober and never lets himself go, never claps hands, rejects musical instruments, multiplies fast days, celebrates celibacy and virginity, etc.(Emphasis added.)
Though I remain partial to “marital pleasure,” the “enthusiastic and joyful, singing and dancing” part is viscerally rejected by my temperament. In fact, I am emotionally on the wrong side of Jordan’s divide. I tend to be, at least in church, Jordan’s stoic. I really do have a hard time letting myself go, clapping my hands.
In any case, this is not characteristic of the way I am used to worshipping with church. N. T. Wright notes that in Africa, “a black’s definition of a white person is someone who can sing without moving!”
By that standard, I am the whitest person who ever lived.
Yet despite the nature of my character, I have been attending a Vineyard church for a few months now. The Vineyard Churches as a rule are “neo-charasmatic” or as they like to call it, “the Third Wave.” As such, the Vineyard Churches are related but not identifiable with Pentecostalism and the Charasmatic Movement from the 60’s.
Those associated with the third wave will tend to identify “baptism with the Spirit” with conversion, and not refer to a second crisis-like experience of receiving the Spirit. They would prefer to emphasise(sic) the ongoing nature of the experience of the Spirit. Tongues may not be emphasised (sic) at all, and will usually not feature in public meetings. Some third wave leaders would themselves not speak in tongues.
Though I have seen none of the abuses that the writer here notes as existing in Vineyard Churches, the rather enthusiastic worship one associates with the Charasmatic Movement is present. People clap, sing loudly, raise their hands, and may even occasionally dance in front of the band. Yet, at least in my experience much of the same happens within the normal “mega-church” though the percentages of participants may be greater in the Vineyard.
In any case, the Vineyard Churches, at least in this respect, are on the right side of Jordan’s divide. No matter how you break it down, they can definitely “let themselves go, clap their hands, and be enthusiastic.” In spades.
So now the story.
I was walking through an airport during one of my consulting trips. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a man with his arms out-stretched, his legs spread out, and his eyes toward heaven. His visage was much like the figure in the image below.
My first thought was, “Hey, someone is praising Jesus in the middle of the Airport.” It brought a swelling of joy in my own heart.
Then I saw the man with the hand held security scanner moving under the mans armpits and between his legs. He was a Homeland Security employee checking the man with the outstretched limbs for metal and weapons. I was passing a security entrance point for the departure gates.
Yet, my first thought really was that someone was praising Jesus. And for the few moments I thought that, I was reacting very positively.
There may be hope for me yet. The Spock in me says that would be “most logical.”
Nice. And by the way, “sic” is a Latin word, not an acronym — no need to use periods.
—William TanksleyThanks for the correction, William. Funny, I always thought sic was an acronym for “spelling in context.” Never to old to learn!
—Caine