Why I Consider Myself Post-Charismatic

We all have the tendency to attach labels to ourselves. We call ourselves certain things based on physical attributes, health issues, age, national heritage, marital status, profession, etc. Therefore I might call myself a slightly overweight, diabetic, early senior, Scandinavian, married minister.  Now I will surely modify some of those tags in the future based on changes in me within those categories.  I intend to lose more weight, so at some point I might be able to drop the slightly overweight. I will move from early senior citizen to just plain old-timer soon enough. I’ll always be Scandinavian. You get the picture. Some things are constants and some things change.

The definitions of many things are changing in our culture. Sometimes the meanings of categories change based on certain criteria. What our government considers the poverty level changes as adjustments are made for inflation. The definition of marriage has radically changed and will probably continue to change as new criteria is added to the definition. As long as the union of one man and one woman is still in the mix, I’ll still consider myself married. Sometimes it’s the addition of criteria to the definition and sometimes it’s the subtraction of criteria.

Of course, I always have the option of keeping a tag based on my own criteria for that tag, regardless of how others may change it around me. If the union of one man and one woman is dropped from the definition of marriage, I can still be married by my definition which includes that criterion, although legally it may not be so. But that would require a lot of explanation as the new definition is accepted into common use. Remember gay used to mean happy.

In other cases, although the official definition of a label does not change, the actions of people using that label change to the point that it represents something outside its definition. If the political party you belong to began to support candidates and issues that were way outside the official party platform, and the party was beginning to be known by these extremes, would you want to continue to be associated with that party?  At some point one has to decide whether to keep the label or discard it. The options at that point are go label-less or creation a new label.  

I recently created a new label for myself in the category of Christian practice. I now consider myself post-charismatic.  Why did I ditch the old and adapt the new? For me, it was a combination of me changing internally along with the fact of disliking what the charismatic label has come to represent in the hands of those who have driven it outside its original definition. In case you’re wondering, I have not forsaken the charismata. I believe in the gifts and function in the gifts. It’s the Charismatic Movement, in its current form, that I feel compelled to distance myself from, both in word (label) and deed.  The original charismatic platform has not changed, but extremes in doctrines and practice by some wearing the label has created a new perception of what charismatic is and who charismatics are.

Do I need the label of charismatic to function in the gifts? I do not, although I’m sure there are those that do. Do I need the label post-charismatic to distance myself from false doctrine and extremes of practice? No, I don’t. Of course, what we are talking about here are not actual labels, but ways of thinking. A renewing of the mind, a paradigm shift comes by the Spirit through the word, or is that by the word through the Spirit? Oh my! Something else I will have to unravel. Some days my mind just works too hard.