Inanna, you know that I'm an academic. But I also have a Pentecostal background and have experienced most of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of the wisest sayings ever spoken in my presence is this gem: In life theology is the booby prize; it gives you just enough spirituality to inoculate you against the real thing. The real thing is powerful mystical experience--mind-bending oneness with God, wave after wave of liquid love surging through your being, useful paranormally imparted knowledge, and, of course, healings and other miracles. Typically, the people who experience and impart such gifts are limited in the profundity of their theological, philosophical reflection. But only the rich experiential dimension of the Christian life is truly compelling.
So I'd seek a church or fellowship that revels in God presence, not God ideation. And that leads me to a second crucial principle: second hand spirituality is a pathetic substitute for the real thing. But the real thing will normally only be found in unsophisticated circles of people who live for ,mystical experiences and whose social engagement flows out of the joy and energy of those experiences.
Smith Wigglesworth was probably the most gifted Christian faith healer who ever lived. Yet he was by trade a plumber, a very crude and blunt man who actually punched women in the stomach to heal their stomach cancer. The offended women stalked away in a huff, only to return a few days later, asking for forgiveness and testifying the healing power of that faith-based punch! There are well documented cases of Wigglesworth even rasing the dead! Yet the Bible is the only book this uneducated man ever read. But I'll take his charisma and spiritual power over correct thinking spiritual intellectuals any time. Friends have witnessed his charisma, but unfortunately he died well before I was born.
I'd rate it as a "4 hanky weeper."
