We’re still following the ORU story. The other day, it took an amazing and wonderful turn, when the family who owns Hobby Lobby pledged $60 million to bail out the beleaguered university. The Tulsa World did an interview with Mart Green, the family spokesman, which you can read here.
Buried in the “comments” section (found below the story) was an anonymous observation which I found to be very astute:
One subtext of Assemblies of God Mart Green coming on the scene to rescue ORU is the unresolvable tensions within the broadest notion of the charismatic family: The Word of Faith substream antagonizes many in the classic Pentecostal and charismatic streams, who share WOFers’ belief in the contemporary charismatic work of the Holy Spirit but NOT its formulaic presumption about health and wealth. Big differences lie beneath the superficial unity that outside observers may see; and classicals, who have survived a century of ostracism from their fundamentalist/evangelical siblings hate to openly criticize WOFers who (1) have the media limelight and big followings and (2) remain brothers in arms on many points, theologically.
Let’s see how this plays out as Mr. Green tells the WOFers that their problem is spiritual, not financial.
This anonymous poster points out an important distinction that we’ve encountered as we’ve managed this site. Some folks have automatically assumed that we were criticizing EVERYBODY who believes that the “gifts of the Spirit” (like speaking in tongues) are for today.
Sometimes it’s been difficult to explain what makes a teaching or a ministry distinctly “Charismaniac” (in serious biblical error). We made our own tongue-in-cheek list of what characterizes “Charismaniacs,” but we’ve never actually articulated (like the commenter did) that there IS a tension between ministries that believe in a biblical continuation of the gifts and those that add things like the “Prosperity Gospel” to their teachings. I think this commenter is correct in that it’s hard to take a stand against many of the ministries who are in error, because they DO happen to be the ones who are on TV and garner all the attention.
Also, it can look like ALL critics of “Charismania” are throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Point out the errors of the “Word/Faith” and “Prosperity Gospel” teachings, and people think you’re also trashing anyone who believes in things like the miraculous or speaking in tongues.
But there really ARE ministries who have maintained a classical Pentecostal “continuist” point of view while at the same time rejected unbiblical “Word of Faith” doctrines.
What do you think?
As near as I can tell, the Assemblies of God has done a fairly good job of keeping a lot of the WOF teachings out of their churches. In my own experience, I’ve found a lot of Assemblies of God churches that allowed the gifts of the Holy Spirit to operate in services, but they did their best to keep those manifestations in line with the biblical template we’ve been given. I can think of two great examples off the top of my head, one of which I attended for four years.
For me, recognizing that there was a difference between Pentecostals and Charismatics was huge. Of course the two groups were confused in my mind for a long time because Charismatics incorrectly use the terms interchangeably. One I figured that out, it made it way easier to leave a charismatic church because I knew that by doing so I wasn’t implicitly rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit.
I would agree with the quoted comment as well as the analysis in that it is extremely difficult to argue against the word of faith theology from a continuist perspective. I find that it can be done if very specific ideas and concepts are addressed, but to people who are unaware of the differences between Pentecostalism and Charismania, such attempts to clarify doctrine may just add further confusion.
Tongues are biblical if they are used following the mandate of Scripture. For example, from 1 Corinthians 14 it can well be assumed that women, who are the majority of church tongue speakers, were not permitted to use tongues in church having to be silent. Also without an interpeter present tongues were not to be used in church. That isn’t the case in Charismatic churches today. Tongues are often used without an interpeter. Good post.
A few questions about this?
1. Green came to this decision after a 40 day juice fast. The new testament does not have an example of giving to a ministry only giving to the poor.?
2. The money problems at ORU would suggest that the give and you will get message doesn’t work?
3. In the business world when someone offers to buy a portion of a company in exchange for 2 seats on the board, it is called “Green Mail”?
4. Does Green plan to market his products thru ORU’s mailing list?
5. One of Green’s demands for his money was the removal of Richard Roberts. Does he have an axe to grind? Why would someone, who claims to have not had any contact with ORU, put this demand on his chartiable gift?
boydmiller,
You raise some interesting points. Point #2 would be great for ORU’s Board of Regents to address sometime in the future…although I’m personally not holding my breath!
As to #5, I can think of a great many reasons why a person wouldn’t want to invest his charitable dollars in a school where the president had Richard Roberts’ track record. Remember, Green’s local paper is The Oklahoman, which has run a great many stories about the ORU lawsuit and scandal. It wouldn’t take insider knowledge or an axe to grind to come to the opinion that Roberts’ only outstanding qualification for the job was his last name.
Your first point is interesting in that there is also no New Testament precedent for much of what we 21st-century Christians do. For instance, there’s no New Testament record of anyone putting up a blog to discuss doctrine. Or, for a better example, running a club where children memorize Bible verses. Yet our kids attend such a club, and I’d be hard-pressed to say that God doesn’t approve of it.
It’s good that you’re looking to the Bible as your standard for evaluating ministries (and behaviors like giving money to them), but doesn’t it seem like we can take that line of thinking to ridiculous extremes? Would you honestly say that in order for a ministry to serve the Lord’s purposes, we must be able to point to a similar ministry in the Bible? Or that it’s wrong to support such a ministry financially?
While ORU may have been birthed out of and supported by Oral Roberts’ faulty Prosperity Gospel, it’s still gone on to become a place that has brought God glory. From the “comments” sections beneath the plethora of articles run by the Tulsa World newspaper, so many commenters talked about what a great blessing the school had been to them over the years.
After following the story for the past couple of months, I’ve come away with the impression that the university is worth saving. I’m glad Mart Green is there to do it. I hope it all works out.
I don’t think I m taking the bible to extremes, however I suppose that someone could come to that conclusion. In regard to new tech. or methods we all use in our lives, I don’t have a problem with any of it. The bible is very clear if you read it honestly, particularly the new testament, about money. I won’t bore you with the many scriptures or examples, however if you look at the problems you and your site have identified in your past church experience, money is at the core of most of them. I am sure that most people who attended ORU benefited from the experience, as I did from the secular university that I attended, however the doctrinal error they have promoted and their participation in the WOF pyramid scheme has not honored God. 70 million dollars would provide 70 thousand poor families with a 1 thousand dollar gift and would honor the Lord Jesus and fulfill his command to love one another. The most important ministry in all our lives is the example of how we treat others.
One thing further, I appreciate your ministry and enjoy reading your discussions. The opportunity to enterchange and learn with fellow christian who are working out their salvation (Phil 2:12) is a blessing from God.
It looks like we’ll have to agree to disagree…
I think you’re setting up a false dilemma here. Who’s to say that a $1,000 gift would have benefitted a poor family any more than it benefitted poor students who attended ORU?
Often, poor people are poor because they’ve made poor choices. That’s the flat truth. Who’s to say that the choices made by poor families with that $1,000 gift would have been any better or more God-honoring than the choices Richard Roberts made with the donations he took in?
Believe me, I’m not defending Richard Roberts! But to say that it’s an either/or thing, to the effect of, “Either we give money to the poor, or we use it for a Christian university,” is a distinction that the Bible doesn’t call us to make. In fact, if you look for a similar line of reasoning, the person who thought this way was…Judas, Christ’s betrayer (see John 12:3-8).
I agree with you that money is at the root of much of what is wrong with Charismania. But – and this is rather a change of subject, perhaps better dealt with in its own article – I believe the root cause is NOT the fact that formal church organizations and ministries exist, with salaried people. Rather, it’s these ministries’ eschatology (their views of how the end times will play out).
If you believe, as many Word of Faith folks do, that God is going to work out His end-times purposes and bring about the return of Christ through HUMAN, earthly efforts and an ever-more-powerful CHURCH, then you’ll believe that the church is going to get richer and richer, with more and more money to bring about, through human means, the great end-times revival.
If, on the other hand, you favor a more direct, literal reading of Scripture and believe that the return of Christ will be instead preceded by the great “falling away,” to where only a remnant of the church will still hold to correct doctrine, then a church’s wealth won’t be your main focus.
But again, Charismaniac eschatology is another subject for another day.
We still hold that it’s NOT unscriptural for a ministry to use money. The problems result when money becomes a key focus rather than a tool to use.
So we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Thanks, Boyd…
We appreciate your comments, too!
Boyd,
In response to your comment:
The Green Family has given generously to many organizations in the past and continue to do so today – many of which provide Bibles to the poor. While they choose to remain a private family, this circumstance has not allowed them to do so.
The Green Family will not market their products to any ORU mailing list. That is NOT their intention.
Finally, it is true. The Green’s did not know Richard Roberts, nor anyone on the Board at ORU. Green only stepped forward AFTER Roberts resigned as President. He did not demand his resignation.