I Chose Not to Be a Charismatic
By Raymond J. Storms (part 1)
APRIL 2, 1977. Tomorrow I will read my resignation to the members of
Calvary Assembly of God - a church which welcomed me over ten years ago
on my first Sunday in this Glens Falls, New York, pulpit with 28 men,
women, and children in the congregation. In these ten years, we have
remodeled and doubled our facilities, purchased a parsonage and 17 acres
of land, started a school which has tripled in its second year, increased
our income 20 times and reached an attendance of around 1,000.
Yesterday I wrote my brother, who is an executive of the "PTL CLUB",
to cancel my second appearance on Jim Bakker's "Praise the Lord Club".
A couple of years ago, I turned down a stepping-stone denomination job.
I've been a fair-haired kid in charismatic or pentecostal circles. All of
that when the charismatics are riding a big wave of popularity on a
transdenominational level.
An ominous voice says, "You are a fool," and I feel frightened; but an
assuring voice says, "This is the way, walk ye in it," and I am comforted.
Come with me as I trace my search for the full power of the Comforter
promised by Jesus. As you do, I hope that you will understand why, though
I have seen more than one side of the issue, I chose not to be a
charismatic.
My aim is not to fight or to hurt brothers amongst charismatics. My
aim is to help God's people keep from being fooled into accepting a
cheap 20th Century imitation of the New Testament reality - fullness
of power.
Raymond J. Storms
GARBAGE ON THE DOORSTEPS
My father was quiet again as he picked up the garbage on the doorsteps
of the church that morning. Even though we had experienced this before,
as a little boy of three or four, I couldn't understand the explanations
given for such occurrences. We came to expect dirty words written on
our door, name calling...and the garbage at our doorsteps. We would
simply gather at the table and pray for our persecutors.
Rome, New York, was hardly a hospitable place for a pentecostal church
to spring up. Most of our neighbors were Italian Catholics who looked
upon us with suspicion as the old paint factory on Spring Street
experienced a metamorphosis into a house of worship.
I was born in that old paint factory in the plain, but comfortable,
quarters that were home to Levi and Alma Storms. Raymond J. was born
at home, so I was told, because we were too poor to afford a hospital
bed. We were even too poor to afford a middle name for the second son
of the tribe of Levi, so the letter J. had to do.
Dad had sold his delivery truck with which he had delivered bread
for a local bakery in Carthage, New York, and had gladly sold the
family home by the Black River when he felt the call of God to found
an Assembly of God church in the needy area of Rome, New York. The
money was put into the church to get the work started.
There were a lot of things I did not understand in those trying, but
happy days. I could not grasp why my Free Methodist grandfather had,
I was told, disinherited my parents when they were "filled with the
Spirit" at the "Old Glory Barn" in Carthage. I could not understand
why the rats didn't move out when we took over the old paint factory
for a home and a church. It was quite a frightening evening the night
dad was bitten on the toe by a rat while sleeping.
I didn't always understand how food found its way to our table. Dad
had left a good job as a paper chemist at the Crown Zellerbeck Paper
Company to come to Rome to start the church. We lived on the income
from a little religious periodical that dad published entitled, "The
Lighted Cross". The name was taken from the lighted cross on the front
of the church. Many times we'd set the table for supper without a
morsel of food in the house. We would sit at the table thanking God
for the food and a knock on the door would bring fresh bread wrapped
in an old Italian lady's apron or a kettle of spaghetti from some
kind-hearted neighbor who noted our poverty and persecution. Those
were happy meals. It was like manna from heaven! We often proved
God faithful in daily provisions. One neighbor came by with a
large roast and pounds of hamburg almost every Friday.
I did not understand the blackouts necessitated by our proximity
to the Rome air base. When we had a blackout, I was even afraid that
the light on the radio dial might attract some enemy's bomber plane.
We should sit in the dark with mom's knitting needles making the
loudest noise. We kids didn't want any loud talking to attract the
enemy...and mom and dad enjoyed the quiet. Dad had a thing for dark
stain. The doors, the woodwork and the homemade furniture were all
stained dark. Our blackouts were the blackest.
I did not understand the strange language Jasper Compania and some
of the others spoke when they gathered around the altar for prayer
after the services. Oh, it wasn't frightening; I had cut my teeth
on church pews and that kind of service was all I knew. I did not
see much difference between their speaking in tongues with their
hands raised to Heaven and the Italian neighbors talking excitedly
and gesturing as they struck a bargain with the vegetable man who
made the rounds with his horse and wagon.
If little Raymond J. found some of these things hard to understand,
there was one thing that I knew for certain: my mother was a holy angel
and my father was a holy saint! My brother, Don, and I almost worshiped
Dad, and we thought it was a big treat to help him as he labored
patiently to turn a paint factory into a church.
If ever two boys wanted to be like daddy, we did! We would follow
him anywhere, even where we were not supposed to. I wonder if the
visit of two pajama clad youngsters to the Rome Assembly of God
Official Board Meeting in the pastor's living room was ever entered
in the official minutes. Although Dad did not seem to mind too much,
he did mind the time that my big four-year-old brother Don climbed a
20-foot ladder to watch dad shingle the porch roof.
Once the little Rome congregation was on its feet, dad felt the
call to Cortland, New York, the scene of my conversion. At 23 Port
Watson Street, next door to a junk yard and across from a bar, a
two-story imitation brick building housed the Cortland Assembly of
God church on the first floor and the parsonage on the second floor.
It was at this location that I first remember my own response to the
Gospel. I recall the crippled Emogene Stanton's playing the Gospel hymns
on
the piano and organ-like attachment we had proudly affixed to the piano in
place of a real organ. I remember the meetings with bald evangelist H. B.
Kelchner when I accepted Christ into my life at seven years of age and
I asked God for a double portion of Brother Kelchner's spirit.
I remember my embarrassment at the school when I filled out
questionnaires that asked for my dad's occupation. I couldn't remember
if minister was spelled with an "i" or an "e" in the middle. Deep down
inside I envied the boys whose dads worked at something easy to spell -
like plumber or salesman.
I felt a little guilty because I wasn't sure if the embarrassment
was from the mental block over that middle "i" or "e" or because the
kids always asked the embarrassing question: "What church does you
dad pastor?" My reluctant reply, "Assembly of God," always met this
query, "What kind of church is that?" Is that one of those holy
roller churches?"
More than once hot tears moistened my pillow after tasting my
classmates' ridicule for "that holy roller church." Why couldn't
we be Methodist or Baptist or something...anything but holy rollers
or catholics! As a second generation pentecostal, I can well
understand the consuming drive of modern pentecostals to be accepted
and respected in the religious community.
Poverty and ridicule are not easy to grow up with. One or the other
might be bearable; but combined, they make one ache for a change.
Perhaps it was that ache that drove my brother Don. He once told me,
"Ray, I am going to be a millionaire. My kids are not going to go
through what we faced." He was well on his way, too, until his oldest
daughter nearly drowned in their swimming pool, and he crashed his
private plane.
BEAN TOWN
The folks in Boston had heard of the preaching and miracles of the
small-town preacher from New York. I remember the excitement and
anticipation, as well as the sadness, as our 1949 Nash Ambassador
pulled away from the farewell banquet at the Grange Hall in Cortland
as we headed off to Dad's new charge, First Pentecostal Church in the
Boston suburb of Chelsea.
All of a sudden we weren't poor any more. We didn't live above or
behind the church. We had a parsonage in a nice neighborhood on top of
Reservoir Hill. You had a blacktop driveway, a dining room, two
bathrooms, and a back yard that was fenced in with a chain link fence.
There were grape vines, peach trees, and an underground garbage can
with a flip top.
We were treated like kings. All three barbers in the church wanted to
cut our hair, so they took turns coming to the house to give us free
haircuts. Dad received a salary large enough so that he didn't have to
hold a second job. We weren't poor any more . . . but we were still
despised. All of our neighbors were Catholics or Jews and, though they
didn't leave garbage on our steps, we still knew that we were outsiders.
Joey Ruzzo, the boy next door, made that clear when he and his gang
dragged me into their club house, tied me up, and used me for target
practice with their BB guns. Holding a glowing cigarette menacingly
close to my face, he warned me what would happen if I squealed. For
years, until Christ cleansed me of the desire, I used to savor the
sweet but evil feeling of revenge that I enjoyed one afternoon when
I caught Joey in a vacant lot on the way home from school.
The Catholic hierarchy of Boston also made it clear that we were
unwelcome outsiders when dad started getting the attention of the
greater Boston area. The community couldn't ignore the dramatic
healing of a cripple in our church services. I will never forget
that Thursday night. A steel worker, Brother Joseph Pottle, whom
we all knew and who had been injured on the job, dragged himself to
the front of the church for prayer. In answer to prayer, as he was
anointed with oil, his twisted body was straightened out before our
eyes as we heard bones and ligaments pop and snap.
One day, as a man of the church was working out of sight in the
ticket booth of a theater dad had rented for some healing meetings,
he overheard two priests who had stopped to read the billboards. "We'll
close this thing down before they ever open," they agreed. And the
next day fire marshals descended and a theater fit for the motion
picture crowd was pronounced a fire trap for pentecostal meetings.
Only heroic effort fire-proofed the place in time for the overflow
crowds that flocked to hear Evangelist Richard Vineyard and to
see the sick healed.
It was the early 1950's. I was 12 or 13 and the healing evangelists
were starting to crisscross the country with their tents. I saw with my
own eyes what I am convinced were genuine miracles of healing. I wanted
the power of God in my life so badly that I told God I'd do anything!
I was always serious minded when it came to religion. Once, when I was
younger, when the other kids were attending children's meeting at Bible
Camp, I begged my folks to allow me to listen to the morning adult Bible
teacher. From then on, I would sit and listen with tears of joy running
down my face as I savored the sweetness of God's Word. One day a gusty
breeze rattled the tent flap, making it hard to hear. I wrapped the rope
around my arm to quiet the noise. A gust of wind hit the flap and yanked
me off the rough plank bench onto the sawdust on the ground. I picked
myself up, brushed off the sawdust and sat back down and listened to
God's Word.
I SPOKE WITH TONGUES
A chill went through me as both adult and teenage prayer supporters of
both sexes laid hands on me as I knelt on the platform with tears running
down my face. I remember wondering how many were praying over me. I did
not open my eyes. I figured there must have been several. After all, my
dad was Pastor.
I wondered, "Should I fall over or continue kneeling?" I thought I'd
have no choice. Others seemed swept over, or as we called it, "slain in
the Spirit." Oh how I wanted the ecstasy and joy of the others described!
I was trying so hard and God knows that I was earnest. At that moment,
I wanted nothing more than to be "baptized with the Spirit."
One from the chorus of voices all around me, praying for me and praising
God with upraised hands, spoke next to my ear, "Just praise Him in English
until you run out of words and God will give you a Heavenly language." A
chorus of "Amen" and "Hallelujah" encouraged me to press on.
I had lost track of time but it was nearly 10:30 p.m. at First
Pentecostal Church of Chelsea, Massachusetts. I must have been 11 or
12 years old at the time. And though I was small for my age, I was a
serious Christian and I knew I wanted what others were enjoying. We
were in the middle of a religious revival. Most of the 100-150 teens of
the church had "received." I was not about to be denied. It wouldn't
be a good example. I wanted to set the right example. I had learned
that by sitting next to my mother in church. If I got out of line, she
would reach down and twist my ear or pinch the tender flesh on the inside
of my leg. I learned my lesson well.
When early arrivals left no room in the Storms' pew and one of the little
Stormses didn't have room to sit with mother, I got the nod even though I
was next to the youngest. My folks knew I'd hardly take my eye off the
preacher after I had finished playing my saxophone in the church orchestra
and found my way back into the congregation.
I still had not spoken in tongues. It must have been nearly 11:00 p.m.
The prayer supporters drifted away from me to pray with someone else. I
began to feel desperate. Was I going to be left out? Why couldn't I
speak with tongues?
"That's it; you've got it!" It was my Dad's voice. I looked across to
where he had been praying with someone else who was now laying on her back
with arms upraised towards Heaven and a torrent of "other tongues" pouring
from her lips. With joy all over his face, dad motioned for the girl's
mother to come over from the pew where she was sitting to listen to her
daughter's "Heavenly language." Everyone looked so pleased and radiant
with joy.
"Oh, God, me too!" I heard myself saying, "Let me speak in tongues,
too." With that, the altar workers took heart knowing that I hadn't
given up. As they came toward me, one of them said, "Just say whatever
comes into your mind. God will give you the utterance." Soon I was
speaking in tongues just like I had heard so many other do.
I was so grateful to God for baptizing me in the Holy Ghost. I thought,
"Oh, how good God is! Thank you, Jesus. I'm not worthy." I must have
spoken in that "Heavenly language" for 10-15 minutes. The thought passed
through my mind, "This is better than the baby talk I have heard others
speaking." My new tongue was not just a few syllables but several words.
Over and over again, wave after wave of ecstasy swept over me. After 20
minutes of "speaking in tongues", all I wanted to do was praise the Lord.
On the way home in the car, we sang a praised the Lord. Oh, it was like
being drunk or like what junkies call being high. They told me to pray in
tongues often so I wouldn't lose this gift. Paul was held up as an
example. I was told that he said, "I speak with tongues more than ye
all."
The exhortation continued, "Speak to God in tongues for 'he that
speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto me but unto God.' You
have a prayer language: 'If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit
prayeth but my understanding is unfruitful.' You can pray in tongues
any time you want to, for Paul said, 'I will pray with the Spirit,'
which is praying in tongues, 'and I will pray with my understanding
also."
I was told that speaking in tongues would edify or build me up. "He that
speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself."
Years later, as an Assembly of God minister, I remembered and passed on
these same instructions many times. I remembered on one occasion
instructing ten "candidates" for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They
were sitting on the front pew of a church where I was holding an
evangelistic service for a week. I told them that when I laid my hand
on their heads, they would be filled with the Spirit and speak with
tongues. All ten believed and one right after another as I went down
the line and laid hands on them, all spoke with tongues. I remember
Acts 8:17, "Then laid their hands on them and they received the Holy
Ghost." How exciting to share apostolic unction!
CACKLE LIKE A HEN
A good-sized crowd had come to the front of our church where the
evangelist said he would pray for those who wanted to be baptized with the
Holy Ghost. One of them was Milt Nevens. Milt had not been saved for very
long.
I remember the day I went to the Nevens' mobile home. Mrs. Nevens had
visited Calvary Assembly of God and she had rededicated her life to Christ.
She had been saved in a Baptist Church in Georgia but she had grown cold.
When I arrived that afternoon, she was packing her things in tears. She
was leaving Milt. She had had all she could take of his worldly ways.
Lil poured out her hurts and unburdened her heart. We prayed for Milt to
be saved. She decided not to leave him but to apply a few suggestions
I gave her and to believe for his salvation. Shortly thereafter Milt
was gloriously converted, assured of his salvation, and delivered from
drinking and smoking.
Now he was standing in front of a pentecostal evangelist as earnest
about being baptized in the Holy Ghost as I was as a boy of 11 years
old. Each of the candidates had been instructed that he should expect
an Acts 2:4 experience and then the evangelist and I laid our hands
on each of them a prayed.
After prayer and encouragement from various Christian, Milt
quietly began to praise the Lord. The evangelist leaned over to
listen to Milt's words, and suddenly he exuberantly announced, "That's
it! You've got it! Say it again." Turning to me, he said, "He's got
it, Brother; he's speaking in tongues." I was pleased; but I noticed
a faint look of bewilderment on Milt's face, which dulled my pleasure.
We went around praying for others and the evangelist came back to Milt
a few times, encouraging him not to stop speaking in his Heavenly language.
In a few days, the meetings closed and Milt mentioned that he wanted to
speak with me. The negative feeling I experienced when I saw the
bewildered look on Milt's face at the altar, crept into the corner of my
mind again. I sensed that something was wrong. Milt laid it out before
me this way, "Pastor, I don't want to be negative, but the evangelist said
I got it, but there was no change. All I did was say some words that had
come to mind and he said, 'You've got it!' Pastor, what did I get? I don't
want to doubt a man of God...but I didn't get anything."
It's not easy to see a sincere and intelligent man's faith shaken like
his was shaken. God had done so much in Milt's life and he wanted God to
do whatever else was His will, but Milt wasn't going to be bamboozled
either. He wanted the real thing, not some cheap 20th Century imitation
of the 1st Century reality. It occurred to me that there might be more
like Milt that weren't satisfied and were honest enough to say so.
I was speaking with some Assembly of God ministers in a restaurant. The
subject of pentecostal shenanigans came up at the meal. One pastor told
about a technique he had observed where the altar worker told the person
seeking to be filled with the Spirit to say "la la la" over and over
rapidly. At first the candidate would be speaking in "Heavenly baby
talk" but soon he would speak a "mature tongue". Another technique used
in bringing someone through to the "fullness of the Spirit" was to have
the seeker breathe deeply over and over again until he had "breathed
in the Holy Spirit". This technique might be responsible for a large
number of folks being "slain in the Spirit".
The topper of the evening was the unique method one pastor had observed
to be employed by and evangelist's wife. He said he had observed the
woman circulating among people praying at the altar for the "fullness
of the Spirit". He noticed that several of seekers broke into a grin
after she had spoken to them. This pastor's curiosity then caused him
to maneuver closer to the evangelist's wife so that he could share her
message of cheer: "Just cackle like a hen, honey; cackle like a hen and
soon you will be speaking in tongues."
I just can't feature Peter going around the Upper Room and telling folks
after ten days of praying, "Brother, we have almost prayed through. Now
if we all just start to cackle like a hen, before long we will be filled
with the Spirit." I do not mean to imply that all charismatics or
pentecostals rely on gimmicks. I know many earnest folks who seek
Gods power in fervent prayer and wouldn't knowingly use any gimmick
to counterfeit the fullness of the Spirit.
The Biblical pattern is a striking contrast to much of what I have
observed in pentecostal and charismatic circles. "Now when the apostles
which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down,
prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet
he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus.) Then they laid their hands on them, and they
received the Holy Ghost." Acts 8:14-17.
THE HOLY SPIRIT JUST CONTRADICTED HIMSELF
One night a well-known pentecostal leader told me a few stories from his
large pentecostal church. It seems that there was one man in his
congregation who used to interrupt the service at the most inappropriate
times with his little "message in tongues". The man would rise and say,
"Huck-shinney-aye," several times rapidly and then be seated and wait
for the interpretation. As I understand the story, this preacher
was a bit tired of these antics; and when the man stood with the "glow
of inspiration on his brow," about to exercise his "gift of utterance,"
the pastor rebuked him with, "Huck-shinney-aye" sit down!"
Most messages in tongues that I've heard were exhortation to live closer
to the Lord, to worship Jesus, or to get ready for the Rapture...though one
message in tongues of which I was told had this interpretation: "Yepper,
buster, better pay your tithes."
I always tried to listen to such utterances with a discerning but
uncritical spirit. I had read, "Believe not evey spirit for not every
spirit is of God." But I wanted to believe that God had something to
say to me in a message in tongues.
I also knew that the Holy Spirit would not contradict Himself. It
can be rather unsettling for one who was taught to believe that messages
in tongues and interpretations are inspired of God to hear two messages
that directly contradict each other. That is exactly what I heard at
the New York District Council of the Assemblies of God in May of 1973.
I had just spoken for 45 minutes against Assembly of God involvement in
the ecumenical evangelism of "Key '73". There was debate and rebuttal and
the two messages on tongues with interpretation. The first interpretation
went something like this: "Thou hast deliberated long enough it is time
to vote. God will show His will in the ballot."
The second interpretation went like this: "Thou are not ready to vote;
Thou shouldst go to prayer to find the mind of God."
I remember thinking, "If this is of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy
Spirit just contradicted Himself." I waited for the District
Superintendent to clear up the confusion, but not one word of censure
or instruction relative to the two messages was forthcoming from the four
District Officers nor the ten sectional presbyters who were seated on the
platform. Surely this august body of mature pentecostals would know
what to do!
Why was this confusion not cleared up? "Let the trumpet give a certain
sound," I thought. And there was not any more clarity when the vote was
taken on the "Key '73" issue. These pastors and delegates voted to warn
our people of the dangers of a "Key '73" type of involvement but they
voted not to pull out of it.
2,000 VERSES MANY FULL GOSPEL PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE
I don't know how many times I have heard statements like this, "We
believe the whole Bible; we don't have to cut out parts of Acts or 1
Corinthians." I was proud to be full Gospel and I even preached sermons
on being "full Gospel" because I was convinced that those who did not
speak with tongues were second-rate Christians.
One of the most beautiful saints and Bible teachers I've known
was my Old Testament and Theology teacher at North Central Bible
College in Minneapolis, the late T.J. Jones. Brother Jones was a
real man of God. I caught from him a real love for God's Word.
Brother Jones was from England and he told this story of his passage to
America. It seems that Rev. Jones had only enough money to purchase his
steamship ticket to America; and, not knowing that the price of the ticket
included the meals during the crossing, he packed crackers and cheese to
sustain him on the voyage.
After some days, the captain noted that passenger Jones was not seen
taking meals with the other travelers. The captain's inquiry led to the
discovery of the reason. With the misunderstanding cleared up, Brother
Jones was invited to dine that evening at the captain's table, and for
the rest of the trip, the English Bible teacher enjoyed the finest fare.
Both Brother Jones and I used to delight in using that as an
illustration of the difference between being a Christian and being
a tongues-talking pentecostal. I was told that the other Christians
live on crackers and cheese; we tongues-talking pentecostal dine at
the Captain's table.
I felt like "we've got it all; they don't have much," until one day
I met some powerful soul-winning Christians who had a whole lot more
than I had. And as I looked around the auditorium where these
Christians worship, I noticed hundreds of other pentecostal preachers
who had also come to see what they had at-of all places-First Baptist
Church of Hammond, Indiana. I thought, after I had looked around and
had seen some Assembly of God District Officials who had recommended
that I attend Jack Hyles' Pastor's School, "If we are full Gospel and
they are part Gospel, what are we doing here learning from them? They
should be learning from us."
So I concluded, "If they have something you don't, Storms, you'd better
put aside denominational bigotry and learn, not to criticize." I have since
learned that there are some parts of the Bible we either didn't believe or
we didn't practice. Here are some examples.
SEPARATION
There are 1897 verses in the Bible on separation from worldliness. When
I was a kid, we heard red-hot sermons on the subject, "Come out from among
them and be ye separate," and "Touch not the unclean thing." The new
charismatics' message seems to be "Go ye in among them and be one with them
and don't be stuffy." I am grieved when Assembly of God deacon's kids tell
my kids about Hollywood movies and school dances to which their parents
have taken them. I cringe at the braless, hip hugger, mini-skirted,
bare-bellied girls and long-haired hippie-looking boys that gather at
"Full Gospel" youth gatherings representing the "cream of our Spirit-filled
youth."
It is wrong for a pastor to use real wine in the Lord's Supper just to
please the new charismatics! It is wrong for a pastor to take his Sunday
School teachers out for dinner and then serve the booze. It is wrong for
the "Spirit-filled" show business people to earn their money in strip
joints and gambling casinos and hell holes serving the devil's crowd
rather than rebuking them. God wants us to be in the world, but not
like the world.
Jesus was separated from sinners, as we see in Hebrews 7:26. We should
be, too. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15-
16.
"And every man that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as he is
pure." 1 John 3:3 "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure,
having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one
that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." 2 Timothy 2:19.
Jesus set the right example for us in the matter of separation. "For
such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." Hebrews 7:26.
