Feathers and All

by R. Scott Clark on May 17, 2010 | 30 Comments

(HT: Alex W.)

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30 comments

  4. Scott
    I sent this awhile back to Carl Trueman and asked him if in fact the darkhaired fellow in the back was him incognito and he fessed up and admitted that it was.

  6. I wonder if the following is an accurate way to describe how we got to the debale of this video:

    German Pietism hits the shores of Calvinistic America…
    this morphs into an unhealthy focus on inward evidences of conversion…
    which morphs into New Light methodology and theology…
    which morphs into emotionalism and the need for outward manifestions of salvation…
    which morphs into the abandonment of Reformation theology…
    which morphs into the manipulations of Pelagian theology…
    which morphs into revivalism…
    which morphs into the loss of ecclesiology…
    which morphs, in the final analysis, into the video I just watched.

    Is “That’s what it’s all about?”

  8. It’s funny. I was visiting a local abbey the other day with my parents, and Mum commented that when she visits old churches, she finds it difficult to connect things like high altars and choirstalls and rood screens and what have you with Christianity. Understandably. (It made an interesting comparison with Geneva’s main church.)

    But high altars seem considerably closer to Christianity to this stuff.

  9. Wow. The end was particularly frightening. Just wondering… is Galatians 5:22-23 an adequate negative argument for such behavior (ie. egkrateia;
    “self-control”) or does this just pertain to sensual desires?

  11. This is so very sad, and it’s all done in Jesus’ name too. I wish I could meet up with those people again a week after it was filmed to see how they’re doing.

  12. Philip: The English Reformation removed many rood screens (“rood” is an old word that means “cross”, pointing to the carvings on those screens.) The 1662 Prayerbook, if I remember correctly, uses “Table” or “Holy Table” instead of “Altar”.
    In the Church of England, many old Churches have a table, not an altar.

    The title, of course, reflects Luther’s comment that the enthusiasts “had swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all.”

    • I know. My point, which maybe was obscured by a typo, was simply that in a choice between high Anglicanism and this sort of Pentecostalism-gone-to-seed, it seems clear to me which of the two is closer to Christianity. That is not an endorsement of the one, but a condemnation of the other.

  16. And I was being questioned about radical anabaptist influence in American ‘evangelicalism’? What most people don’t seem to get is that this kind of thing is typical – and viewed as proper – in the extreme ‘prophetic’ sects of the contemporary ‘Spirit-led’ scene. There are numerous charismatics who equally would deplore this, but here it is, expected and unsurprising.

    • Hello again, Pastor Cassidy!

      I’ve been internetless for awhile, but my husband has been monitoring things for me. Maybe I’m presumptuous, but I guess you’re referring to my comment regarding your Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference lecture on Pastor White’s blog. I objected to your broadbrush portrayal of all anabaptists and their successors as uniformly weird heretics and your implication that 19th century evangelism on the frontier was just as uniformly crazy. That was the strawman you set up and then burned. And, yes, I know that strawmen are set up and then knocked down and not burned, but I was trying to evoke the response once gets from some non-calvinists who shout “Servetus” with their fingers in their ears at the mention of John Calvin. Sauce, goose, gander.

      On the robes thing, I’m indifferent, although I’m tempted to say white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day, otherwise black. White is also acceptable on Easter Sunday, or as I prefer to call it, Resurrection Sunday. I think Uri Brito might have some further thoughts on the topic. My formerly Catholic husband tells me that the only inviolable robe rule is that Joseph always wears brown and Mary always wears blue. Seriously, if your session is OK with your robe, so am I. Feel better now? Glad you have a place to hang it.

  17. I don’t even know what to say other than… I watched this whole debacle just to see feathers, only to be disappointed when there weren’t any. Or I missed them because I was so utterly horrified by what I was observing. I wonder how many dollars are wasted on this sort of blasphemy!!! Buttttt~ that’s just my opinion 🙂

  18. How embarrasing. When I left the calvary chapels in so cal 20 years ago, they weren’t a rocks throw away from this sort of nonsense. At the time, they managed to keep their pentecostal impulses under some sense of control, but you could “feel” these undercurrents in their worship and orientation. Surprise, surprise they even do prophecy conferences. Chuck Missler anyone?

  20. This has nothing to do with the pietism that was found at the Assembly of God church that I was part of before going to a more independent Charismatic church and even there we were protected from the craziness going on in florida and toronto. I don’t believe that classic Pentecostals are successors of the Anabaptist though. In America it rose from the Wesleyan Holiness movement I believe, and classic Pentecostalism retained much of the practices. So Dr. Clark, get your historic information labeling correct.

  22. kenbrec,
    I’m not sure I understand your point to Dr. Clark.
    I, too, was a part of charismatic churches which employed some form of protection against the type of extreme, tragic silliness displayed in the video at hand. But I eventually began to understand the hermaneutical & theological error of this strand of christianity which elevates extra-biblical & ongoing revelation and miracles as an expected norm. Viewed in light of the historical, biblical and confessional standards held by the reformed churches the pentecostal emphasis always obscures the real story of redemption and the gospel comfort and motivation for godliness.
    I honestly don’t know if the classic Pentecostals are direct successors of the Anabaptist. However, the point is not whether or not you can find an unbroken line from Thomas Muntzer through the Assemblies of God (one of the more “sane” branches of pentecostalism) to Rick Joyner. If the error is the same and the video illustrates the logical outcome of the fallacy, the label “Feathers and All” is an appropriate connecting device.

  23. Dan, I agree, but put the right name on the fallacy, because Anabaptist most likely isn’t correct. Fruit loops would probably be better!

  25. Nauseating, simply astonishingly and horrifyingly nauseating. Although I would love to believe that this is satire, it shows that a stake has not been driven through the heart of Toronto, Brownsville, and Lakeland.

    What is it about the sufficiency of scripture that charismatics and pentecostals don’t understand? In fairness to them, however, I don’t think that this degree of diabolical insanity is typical of charismatic churches as a whole (my grandmother was Pentecostal.) But once you abandon the authority and sufficiency of scripture you have left the moorings that prevent a drift toward this and all other abominations in the “church.”

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