Being Slain in the Spirit Can Be Dangerous and Financially Rewarding
- Posted on April 14, 2010
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A woman in Michigan has won a sizable monetary judgement against her church.. Here's the deal. Mount Hope Church held a service in which Judith Dadd got a little too much of the Spirt and fell, injuring herself...
Sounds like a Benny Hinn push gone bad.
But anyway... in her lawsuit, Ms. Dadd claimed her pastor defamed her when he accused her of insurance fraud, faking her injuries, and renouncing her faith. A previous jury had awarded Dadd $317 in damages for her injuries as well as slander, libel, and false light.
The most recent court decision affirmed Dadd's negligence claim (worth $40k), but reversed the damages for libel, slander, and false light.
You can read the article here.
Hmm... lots of questions here.
1. Would God allow you to hurt yourself while worshipping him? I'm not sure that I've ever heard of this kind of worship-related injury before.
2. What responsibility does a church have in this kind of instance?
3. Can we agree that it probably would have been good for the pastor not to accuse of insurance fraud and faking injuries?
4. But what if she really was faking injuries and committing insurance fraud? Should the pastor have been justified in calling her out if that's what she was doing?
5. Maybe we should change the terminology from 'slain in the spirit' to 'impaired in the spirit'. If she would have actually been 'slain', there would have been a lot more damages.
Ok. Time to turn off my mind. It's getting me nowhere.
What do YOU think?
Todd
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CS on Thu, April 15, 2010
Leonard:
“CS you are the heretic! grin”
Uh oh. I’ve been finally found out.
Yes, sadly, it’s true. In my spare time, I heal people by knocking them to the ground, and redefine any and all possible words in Scripture, including the word, “is.”
I try to find new and innovative way of combining all of the past heresies of old, including modalism, antinomianism, docetism, arianism, and semipelagianism, into one core doctrine called, “semi-modal-anti-docetist-arianism.” (I was just going to call it, “Purpose-Driven,” for short, but found that that name was already taken.)
I make outlandish claims about the Bible, such as my innovation of, “tasselism,” based off the belief that God only loves you if you follow the doctrine of Deuteronomy 22:12.
I believe that Creflo Dollar did not go far enough in having a name that expresses his true desire for lucre, so I legally changed my name to Apostle Jim Givemetwenties.
I don’t believe in the methodologies of seeker-sensitive churches, I go one step further by drugging people, dragging them to stadiums, and surprising them by putting them on loosely-Christian game shows such as, “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Christ-Follower?”
I write worship songs that explicitly go out of the way of never mentioning God, including vulgar and crude lyrics, but get them played on K-Love.
And, worst of all, I go onto Christian pastor forums and try to pass myself off as a strict, pedantic, defender of doctrine and theology.
Yep, I’m a bad, bad heretic.
—
CS
Leonard on Thu, April 15, 2010
that was funny… who knew you had that in you CS?
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
Jesus said to them, �I am He.� And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Then when He said to them. �I am He,� � they drew back and fell to the ground.�
And as he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, �Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?�
Not biblical? Well, maybe the push on the head with catchers behind them version can be called into question, I’ll give you that. But don’t use it as an excuse to dismiss the true power of God active today, like the event I witnessed. Only cessationalists with their arguments that limit the power of God up to the time the final sentence was written in the book of Revelation will do that. What a shame! They rightfully divide the word of truth in so many areas, but fail miserably in this one.
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
CS,
It was you who said that Todd Bentley and those around them are heretics. So I guess the simple question is, if one holds to a non-cessationalist viewpoint is that heresy?
CS on Thu, April 15, 2010
Leonard:
“that was funny… who knew you had that in you CS?”
Once upon a time I was a humor columnist in a nationally-read newspaper, believe it or not.
JOB:
“It was you who said that Todd Bentley and those around them are heretics. So I guess the simple question is, if one holds to a non-cessationalist viewpoint is that heresy?”
No. I believe that non-cessationalist viewpoints are a second-level matter of conviction and not a primary-level matter of salvation. So, if someone believes that the spiritual gifts of things like tongues and healing are still in effect, but has a firm theology of salvation, I would not call that person a heretic; I would call him a brother. I would just believe that that person’s perspective may be wrong, and we probably would not choose to worship together, but I would not pronounce heresy upon him.
Now, if that person said that a person must have the gift of tongues as a part of the demonstration of their salvation, that bumps a second-level matter up into the area of a primary-level doctrine, and I would call that heretical. And there are plenty of churches out there who ignore the interpretation portion of 1 Corinthians 14, so I might call those sort of actions false teaching or perhaps blasphemous, because it ignores straightforward biblical instruction and could shame the name of God.
In the case of Bentley, despite all of his hooting, hollering, and other schenanigans in his revival meetings, it was his teaching, doctrine, and behavior off the stage that led me to call him heretical. The man changed baptism from an outward sign of inward faith to the means of dispensing spiritual gifts to others, baptizing in the name of, “The Father, Son, and Sheekahboombah,” for instance. And he is an unrepentant adulterer who used alcohol to the point of drunkenness during his revivals, so I cannot regard him as a brother at all.
—
CS
Brian Hutchinson on Thu, April 15, 2010
I have seen people being prayed for and a person fell before the Minister got to him, and nothing was wrong with him. If the Holy Spirit is moving on you & you fall my opinion is you won’t get hurt.
I have seen people so excited & moved in a service that they started running and in the same service one guy ran face first into a carpeted wall…he was fine, another ran right into a camera, split head & stiches were a result.
I dont know for a fact if the Holy Spirit was moving on only one or the other but I seen the results. But I do know both of them were touched that night!
People react to the presence of God in different ways. I personally love it when the minister doesn’t even touch a person & you see God moving on them.
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 15, 2010
The only arguments for being “slain in the spirit” I’m reading here are either totally experiential (such as Brian’s above) or quoting Scriptures out of context wherein something totally different than being “slain in the spirit” is being discussed, as in JOB’s (can’t be the same JOB, can it?) above.
I am actually charismatic in my theology, but this particular practice is, as far as I can tell, not scripturally defensible, and those of you who are arguing it is are accidentally proving it’s not…
And… Todd Bentley? Gimme a break. CS, you’re right on on that one, big time…
Although, I think it’s more common that some pentecostals believe that speaking in tongues is a necessary sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, not as a necessary sign of salvation.
I have to say that if anybody actually argues that you have to speak in tongues to be saved, I’m with CS on that one. Who does that?
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
“quoting Scriptures out of context wherein something totally different than being �slain in the spirit� is being discussed, as in JOB�s (can�t be the same JOB, can it?) above”
Ok, I’ll take a page form Dr. Walter Martin’s book and refuse to enter these discussions unless terms are defined and agreed upon. So, for the record, if “slain in the Spirit” is being defined as a preacher pushing someone over into a catchers arms, I can stand, YES STAND, and question the practice.
But if being “slain in the spirit” is being defined as what I have witnessed and the instances I pointed to Scripture, then I will support it. And for the record no one other then Brian can even muster enough courage to admit it may be legitimate experience. And I didn’t take Scripture out of context, nice try Peter (who refuses to ever chat with me personally, why?, but takes shots at me in this forum). But of course people can read for themselves. Oh how I would love to debate some of you guys.
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 15, 2010
JOB,
Your contention that the instances you pointed to in Scripture are the same as what is practiced today in Charismatic circles as “slain in the spirit” is very bad exegesis, at best, and reading into the Bible what you want to see at worst.
Being “slain in the spirit” is something that supposedly happens to somebody who is a believer who has God’s Spirit living in them, and what happened to Saul (who wasn’t a believer yet) and those who antagonized and arrested Jesus (who most certainly were not) was not that.
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
Peter,
Do you ever actually read what I write?
” So, for the record, if �slain in the Spirit� is being defined as a preacher pushing someone over into a catchers arms, I can stand, YES STAND, and question the practice.”
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 15, 2010
JOB,
I read every word…
You wrote [But if being �slain in the spirit� is being defined as what I have witnessed and the instances I pointed to Scripture, then I will support it.] The examples from Scripture are not the same as what is meant by “slain in the spirit” for the obvious reasons I brought up.
But I rejoice that you do show some discernment here in some fashion.
Leonard on Thu, April 15, 2010
JOB,
Are you saying that what happened in John 18 to the mob and soldiers who came to arrest Jesus and with Saul on the Road to Damascus is what being slain in the Spirit actually is? Just trying to clarify.
Are these really the texts you want to use to back this activity up from scripture?
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
Leonard,
What I’m saying is that people can fall when encountered by the presence of God. Like the Scriptures I mentioned. I’m not trying to formulate some doctrine here. But then again, who am I discussing this with? Do you believe speaking in tongues is a legitimate experience today?
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 15, 2010
JOB,
You’re hedging, because you actually implied strongly 6 posts above this one that you believed that those two instances in Scripture you mentioned were indeed legitimate “slain in the spirit” experiences. They were not. No way.
And for the record, speaking for myself, I absolutely believe that speaking in tongues is for today. No question about it.
The two issues are very very different, as there is overwhelming scriptural evidence with regards to tongues… not so with being “slain in the spirit” (not to mention a host of other very questionable practices associated with it in many circles.
JOB on Thu, April 15, 2010
Peter,
These are difficult discussions and like I said If we can’t agree on a definition there is no need to go any futher. So if you want to offer a definition for being “slain in the Spirit” let me hear it and maybe I can agree to it and we can come to some type of understanding. That is what I hope for in this discussion.
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