The Pentecostal Movement, at the beginning of the 20th century, was mystical, prophetic, inclusive, progressive, and fully integrated as far as race and gender. The movement was about direct experience of the holy; not doctrine or narrow theology. My family's roots go back to the early days of this movement. We are quite comfortable with, and we are very honoring of, the origins of this movement. However, we are not at all comfortable with where it wound up and have not been associated with it since the eighties. Here's what happened:
- By 1910 the movement had started to segregate racially.
- By 1915 the movement was starting to institutionalize.
- By 1920 women, who had been a major part of the movement's leadership, were now being held at a lower level.
- By 1925 they were dropping their more mystical and open theology and now replacing it with a very narrow, dispensational, and fundamentalist doctrine.
- In the 1980's the movement totally co-opted itself and forfeited what it was meant to be by getting in bed with the extreme political right and the Roman Catholic right.
What was designed by the spirit to bring freshness, newness, and liberty was now oppressing, limiting, binding minorities, women, divorced people, gays and lesbians. This movement may now dress in blue jeans on Sundays, play rock and roll music to Jesus lyrics at church, have contemporary stages, lights, and video screens - but beware, underneath that modern facade is a Christianity that is not refreshed and expanded, but one that is even more narrow, judgmental, and controlling. It's a movement ready to damn you to Hell if you don't meet the standard of their doctrine and moral codes. A movement that is driven to control women's bodies and determined to police your bedroom. Forgive me for being so blunt but, to me, it is down right blasphemous what the leaders of this movement have done to this authentic renewal movement. The have failed Protestant Christianity and the world.
In the early 1960's, the Second Vatican Council was a spirit-breathed movement to bring new life into the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII initiated this movement by saying it was time to, "throw open the windows of the church and let fresh air of the spirit to blow through". There were many positive reforms as a result of Vatican II. However, by the time of Pope John Paul II, the freshness and freedom started to decay into bondage and here's what happened:
- John Paul II along with Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) using the office of Inquisition, now called the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith, moved away from theology and replaced it with ideology by spreading fear among theologians. The expulsion from the priesthood of three prominent theologians on three continents in the 1990's sent fear into the ranks of theological thinkers. Those three theologians are Leonardo Boff from Latin America; Eugene Dreuermann from Germany; and Matthew Fox in North America.
- The canonization of the card-carrying fascist priest who founded the Opus Dei movement, even though this man actually praised Adolf Hitler, and also denounced women.
- The taking of Opus Dei under the hand of the papacy granting it legitimacy and power within and without the Catholic structure.
- The conscious destruction and systemic dismantling of the Liberation Theology movement and the very vital base communities it spawned in Latin America in particular. John Paul II (with the encouragement and support of the CIA) destroyed liberation theology and replaced it with opus dei bishops and cardinals.
- A preoccupation with morality as sexual issues even when this morality is deeply flawed.
- The forbidding of one billion Catholics world-wide to practice birth control even while the human population explodes at the seams.
- The forbidding of the use of condoms even in a time when AIDS is killing individuals and whole populations the world over.
- The headlong pursuit of Augustine's theology of sexuality (all sex must be legitimized by having children).
- Ugly attacks in the pope's name against homosexuals and the complete ignoring of what science and professional psychological associations have learned about homosexuality.
- The rigid sticking to celibacy as a requisite for being a priest (as well as the requisite of having exclusively male genitals) means fewer and fewer Catholics have access to the sacraments and fewer and fewer persons are drawn to study for the priesthood. The average priest world wide is over 60 years of age.
- John Paul II granted a "man of conscience" award to Rupert Murdoch.
- Other attacks include documents against yoga, against Buddhism (calling it "atheism"), against Thich Naht Hahn (calling him the "Antichrist"); against feminist philosophers, and against women (women can't be priests).
Let us not forget the history, size, influence,and the universality of the entire human family which includes every man, woman, girl, and boy regardless of race, nationality, gender, age, religion, or sexual orientation - we are family. Unfortunately, the leaders that inherited the two major renewal movement of the 20th century squandered the opportunity for new life and healing to come to our planet. They shut the window tight, they have have failed the church and the world.
Oh God make speed to save us. Oh Lord make haste to help. Please open the window again and allow your fresh spirit to free us from our oppressors.
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