Charismatic culture

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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.

5 thoughts on “Charismatic culture”

  1. Nice observation. I quite like being a tight, buttoned up kind of Sino-Swedish guy.

  2. Dear Panelists, I am a Westerner who has lived and worked in South Africa all my life. Specifically I have worked with African Students over the last 6 years. I’d like to make two observations about your reflections above. These don’t have anything to do with GAFCON, as much as observations I have made about African culture and the Charismatic movement:
    1. Firstly, I agree that African culture generally seems to fit with Charismatic culture: There are a number of overlaps: warmth, relational, community focussed [i.e. anthropocentric], etc. There is actually an African word for it that has nothing to do with Christianity: ‘Ubuntu’. Desmond Tutu has even written a book on it – which also has nothing to do with Christianity[!] It is an difficult word to translate, but carries the notion of ‘Humanity’: That is, amongst other things,  Ubuntu is an attitude of considerateness and pleasantness towards others. Superficially, it sounds quite Christian. The dark side however is that Ubuntu values relationship above truth. It doesn’t take much to see how that can quickly become wickedness. If, for example, a colleague is stealing from the office, I won’t tell due to being more committed to not disrupting our relationship than to righteousness or morality.

    2. A much more sinister and serious consideration is that one of the reasons the Charismatic movement now dominates the Churchscape in SA and beyond is Charismatic pneumatology: African Traditional Religion is essentially omenistic. That is, the deceased ancestors guide and communicate through good and bad omens. Compare this view of guidance to the Charismatic view – which is virtually identical. When Africans are called upon by Charismatics to become Christians, they find it easier, because when it comes to guidance and God speaking, THEY DO NOT NEED TO REPENT OF THEIR PAGANISM! That is, they simply replace the ancestors with the Holy Spirit in their thinking and practice. The HS becomes an Ancestor. This has a devastating trajectory and effects almost everything – most obviously the doctrine of Scripture.

    I’d value your thoughts.

  3. Hi Grant

    Thanks for those insights. Very interesting and (from what little I know) accurate.

    I think we Westerners have a tendency to romanticise African Christianity, in the same way as some of us romanticse non-Western cultures generally—as if they are somehow closer to a more authentic, natural way of being. (It’s part of the increasingly popular anti-Darwinian, anti-progress stream of Western thinking, expressed most clearly in the Greens.)

    But all cultures have their dark side. A robust doctrine of sin should tell us that. All cultures are expressions not only of the goodness of creation, but of the sinful rebelliousness of humanity. One of the strange things about Western culture at present, it seems to me, is that we are very prepared to criticise everything that is wrong with our own culture and its history (including some things that aren’t really wrong!), but reluctant to name the abuses and problems of other cultures.

    Perhaps this is better than its opposite (imperialist superiority), but it is still misleading and confusing at times.

    Thanks again for the thoughts, Grant.

  4. Very interesting thoughts guys.

    If you are right in saying that the charismatic culture is really african culture, this a reverse of cultural imperialism’s effect on some Christian missionary work in the past 200 years.

    So where it was sometimes communicated (explicitly or implicitly) that being Christian meant behaving like a white westerner, perhaps in western charismatic circles the reverse happens. That is, that being a Christian means behaving like African Christians.

    Not sure I buy all that yet but it is interesting to consider.

    Two things I know for sure are: (1) I think the way African Christians worship during a church meeting is wonderful and inspiring. (2) I feel like a goose when I try to do the same.

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