Charismatic culture
In the comments from one of my GAFCON posts, Sam asks this interesting question:
While reading the material on the GAFCON website during the conference I couldn't help notice the charismatic flavour of many of the comments, particularly those of the African Bishops. Do you have any thoughts on how you see this impacting the wider Anglican community in the future?
I'm not sure exactly which comments Sam means, but in the conference generally there was certainly a bit of mild charismaticism here and there. It was more a matter of flavour than real substance—a few arms in the air, the way the singing was done, some ‘praise the Lord’-style language, but not much more than that. It seems to be part of the unique recipe that is African Anglicanism: a splash of high church colour and movement, a few dollops of charismatic vibrancy, and several cups of good old-fashioned evangelicalism. Charismatic theology or practice wasn't prominent, nor particularly significant in its influence as far as I could see. And whether it will have a wider impact via the growing influence of African Anglicanism, I'm not entirely sure. I suspect not, but I don't feel particularly qualified to make a prophecy.
However, what I would like to do (and hence to the point of this post) is to share a personal observation and a wild hunch, and see if anyone else is as crazy as I am.
I have always thought that something about the charismatic vibe grates with Australian culture. When I was involved in the charismatic movement (nearly 30 years ago), I remember standing there, hands raised, eyes closed in ecstasy, body swaying to the music, calling out “Thank you, Jesus”, or stringing syllables together tongues-style, and feeling ... well, like a bit of goose. A sincere goose, and glad to be a fool for Jesus of course, but a goose all the same.
Now I'm not commenting at all on the genuineness of my devotion at that time, or of those around me, nor on the theology that lay behind it (let's leave that for another time). Nor am I talking about the offence of the gospel, or the way in which living for Jesus means being different from those around us. I'm talking about the style, the little rituals, the patterns of language, the way we arranged our gatherings, how we expressed and enacted our deepest feelings and thoughts—the ‘culture’, in other words. And I never shook the feeling that culturally, Pentecostalism was an odd fit. It felt weird and imposed, like a big Aussie boofhead wearing a grass skirt.
And what has all this to do with GAFCON? Well, as I stood (and sang) shoulder to shoulder with charismatically inclined Anglicans from many different parts of the world, I couldn't help noticing how naturally the African bishop next to me wore the ‘charismatic vibe’. He swayed and waved and sang with a huge smile on his face, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Then there was the white charismatic guy in the row in front of me. He still looked like a goose.
The obvious but somewhat politically incorrect thought struck me: is it possible that classic ‘charismatic’ culture really is African culture? That the late 19th-century black holiness churches which gave birth to pentecostalism passed on to the 20th-century charismatic movement some of its cultural flavour? And that one of the reasons it all feels so strange to Aussies, and maybe less so to Americans, and probably even more so to Brits, is that it is just not us? We have our own ways of rejoicing and celebrating and expressing sincere gratitude. They are no less real or heartfelt or sincere. But they don't usually involve repetitive singing, swaying, dancing and waving.
Maybe this is what we should learn from our joyous, uninhibited African brothers. Maybe we should feel free to be ourselves. And love it.
