Review #1

First some comments. I guess it has been difficult to sit down and write a book review this summer, but I was inspired by my friend’s brother’s blog. He writes a ton of book reviews. So alas I finished a tiny book that I am going to give away. I had finished another book earlier and I began writing but never finished the review but due to the fact that I won’t have this book for much longer, I figure this would be my first book review.

“My Search for Charismatic Reality” is a short book by Neil Babcox. I decided to read it recently although it had been on sale here at SWBTS since Seminary President, Dr. Paige Patterson endorsed it after one of his chapel messages. He preached a series on the Holy Spirit this past spring semester. Last month I had had a conversation with someone who had become enamored with a charismatic church, or rather with the gifts of the Holy Spirit as practiced in this church. For the uninitiated, gifts like speaking in tongues (glossolalia).

The one thing I felt he was saying was that many churches are so dry and that people were not living the transformed life that life in Christ should bring. These people seemed to have a passion perhaps that we don’t really see in most churches. And that is the thing I felt that his heart wanted to see. I think that many people are aware of the great contributions that “charismatic christians” have brought to the table. Neil Babcox says as much in his ’search’. Babcox was once a Charismatic preacher who having wrestled with scripture realized that perhaps his church was in error. Part of his book documents his epiphany and the subsequent trials, concerns, and mistakes that were made after he realized that he could no longer practice glossolalia. He writes that the gift of tongues is most likely learned and bought on more by peer pressure than the actual working of the Holy Spirit.

I think he does a good job explaining that God still works today but we should examine our practice of speaking in tongues and prophesy. He mentions that today we have the canon of scripture, the whole canon from which to draw from in our lives. In contrast many New Testament Christ followers did not have the completed canon but God used tongues and prophesy to help edify them. Babcox is not writing a theological textbook on the subject but his testimony.

In my conversation with my friend, I repeated something from Patterson’s sermon, that these gifts can be easily imitated. We promised to continue talking about this but so far I and my friend have not lived up to those promises. Perhaps this book sums it up succinctly that with Christ alone we have all the revelation from God that is needed. “Christ came, the mystery was revealed,..it was confirmed and recorded in the New Testament. So then, what can present day manifestations of tongues and prophesy add to the mystery of Christ? (p. 69)”

Babcox steers clear of the dark side of these gifts, and only briefly touches on some of the human frailties, esp. in the practice of prophesy. Even the speaker of these prophesies wonder if what they are saying are true revelations from God…and the pressure to continue producing. Well he hinted that there was a dark side…

But I can’t help but think that we don’t read our bibles enough. We don’t practice what we read, and our churches are effected by this. I believe the largest revival in the world comes out of the “Charismatic” church and these people are so passionate for God, which we should be. But Babcox pointed out that for many centuries the church has not practiced these gifts till recently. I wonder if this is a fitting closing. We saw the gifts of tongues in the beginning of the church age, and perhaps these gifts will return in these ‘latter’ days. Just a thought.

Babcox, Neil. My Search for Charismatic Reality. (The Wakeman Trust, London, 1992). 91 pages.