The Charismatic Appetite

[Denise]

THE CULT OF EXPERIENCE
The Charismatic Appetite

November 2008By Heather M. Erb

Heather M. Erb, who has extensive teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels at several major universities, including Fordham, Penn State, the University of Toronto, and St. Francis University, currently teaches graduate philosophy for The Catholic Distance University in Hamilton, Virginia, and is a visiting professor of philosophy at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania.

If wisdom is, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux said, the ability to savor things as they really are, then making an effort to savor the true nature of human worship of the divine is time spent pursuing the highest of spiritual rewards. In an attempt to savor the fullness of the Catholic faith, some homeschooling parents recently expressed interest in attending a charismatic Life in the Spirit Seminar hosted by a Catholic parish in a central Pennsylvania university town. My experience as a professor who has taught scores of philosophy and theology courses at several Catholic colleges and universities has shown me the practical wisdom of reiterating information about various spiritual movements in the Church. Insights on how the charismatic movement impacts on the Roman Catholic faith tradition are neither rare nor novel, but are nonetheless part of the remedy needed for today's theologically hard of hearing.

Enchanted as we are today by the cult of self-expression in all its guises -- new prayer forms and postures, liturgical innovations, exercises in empowerment parading as catechetical programs -- we seem more preoccupied with imaginary wounds to ecclesial communion than we are with the decades of theological bloodletting that continues to alienate the truth that binds us to the good. Like fundamentalism, the charismatic phenomenon often presents itself as a juggernaut that crosses denominational and faith boundaries. Like an appetite, the charismatic impulse goes out toward its fulfillment in a satisfying (and divine) object which it assimilates. The psychological and moral aspects of this appetite reveal a spiritual hunger, or desire, reminiscent of the medieval "concupiscent gaze" repudiated by SS Bernard and Augustine. The concupiscent gaze is a metaphor for the soul whose inner eye, or "eye of the heart" (oculus cordis), actively and aggressively consumes all in its path, instead of contemplating reality silently as a gift from on high.

The charismatic quest for paranormal experiences of God is also a desire for an ecstatic enclosing and enveloping of divine power, the spiritual parallel of St. Bernard's image of a body that has become "all eye" in its consumptive gaze. Instead of approaching the spiritual life as a gourmand attacks a banquet table, however, Catholic mystics traditionally have savored the delights of divine things in the serene light of truth, with the aid of intellect, the in­strument that cleanses the inner eye by raising its gaze upward and beyond the experiential self.

According to St. Bernard, the process of spiritual detachment involves a purging of one's body, will, and even memory, the storehouse of desire and experience, that "stomach," "receptacle," or "cesspit" that needs to be pumped out so that only humility and gratitude remain. This self-emptying of the spiritual ascent stands in sharp contrast to the self-centered metaphors of "filling up," "empowering," and "activating" that one meets in the charismatic vocabulary. Self-denial is also the condition for true communion with God and fellow man -- a noble friendship fostered under the sun of reason, in contrast to the contrived pseudo-communion of ecstatic emotional dissolution.

But to be fair, we should also account for the twin truths that although the charismatic movement in its stricter forms is approved by the Church, the postmodern tendency is to indiscriminately absorb non-Catholic elements into the modern faith, and this propensity permeates most charismatic circles.

The Nature of the Charismatic Movement
Catholics should be aware of the ways in which the charismatic movement can, in many instances, compromise the truth and fullness of the Catholic faith, substituting a Protestant facsimile for the actual doctrine of the faith as presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The movement as we know it today, with its erection of an impermeable Protestant wall between faith and the emotions on the one hand, and reason and doctrine on the other, and its hyper-emphasis on being "slain in the Spirit" and "speaking in tongues" (St. Paul counted glossolalia among the "lesser gifts"), originated in the early 20th century, not in the early Church. (Of course, St. Paul does explain the purpose of the "gifts" of the Spirit, which are essential to the life of the Church -- cf. 1 Cor. 12-14.)

Perhaps because of its irreverence for rational categories, the charismatic movement as presented in the language of the Life in the Spirit Seminar contains many doctrinal and theological errors. To be expected is the characteristic Protestant assumption that religion today should be revitalized or renewed by the engagement of the emotions (here standing as proxy for the "heart"), which are perceived as our liberation from the oppressive, impractical "head" knowledge touted by dry theologians. In this respect, charismatics ironically exhibit the same collective amnesia as modern theologians, whose remedies against reason are in fact symptoms of an ongoing reaction to the 17th-century rupture between spirituality and theology.

If reminded of the powerful role given to the passions in the moral and religious life, so expressively elucidated by classical thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, charis­matics concede the point with regret and embarrassment, rather than with rejoicing. Charismatics are charmed by the passions as naïve pagans are charmed by amulets, considering them the sine qua non of contact with the divine, or as its substitutes, compromising trust in God who is ironically often nearest when perceived as completely absent. Practically speaking, their confusion appears in their language of the "baptism of the Holy Spirit," and the erroneous exchange of the "charismatic gifts" (charismata) for the infinitely more important "sevenfold gifts of the Spirit."

Charismata vs. the 'Seven­fold Gifts of the Spirit'
Charismatics often confuse the "gifts of the Spirit" of Isaiah 11:2-3 with the charismata or "charismatic gifts" of the Spirit found in 1 Corinthians 12. While the charismata are dispensed by God on an "as needed" basis for the good of the community, only the sevenfold gifts in Isaiah represent the full presence of the Holy Spirit that is necessary for salvation. The Church's list of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit (as found in the Catechism, #1831: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord) shows that they are not transitory, ephemeral "experiences," but are rather dispositions or habits that make us docile and obedient in following the promptings of the Spirit.

In his book Christian Perfection and Contemplation According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, the great theologian Père Reginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., explains the interaction between the natural or human virtues, the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity), and the sevenfold gifts by means of a nautical metaphor: God's inspiration in the theological virtues is like a gentle breeze helping the labor of the oarsman (the natural virtues); but the soul's docility to the Spirit through the gifts is like a boat driven by the wind with such force that it advances without any help from the oarsman. While the gifts of "understanding" and "knowledge" perfect the virtue of faith, "fear" perfects hope, "wisdom" perfects charity, "counsel" perfects prudence, "piety" perfects justice, and "fortitude" perfects courage. The sweetness, delight, and intimacy sought by the charismatic appetite are now seen to enjoy their proper affectivity in an organism fit for divine service and aimed at an incalculable, glorious freedom that passes beyond both natural reason and the emotive self.

What charismatics call the "gifts of the Spirit" are actually the charisms listed by St. Paul, which are far less important in the Christian life than the ordinary and infused virtues, the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit, and the twelve fruits of the Spirit (cf. Catechism, #1832). In discussing the charismata, St. Paul admonishes his readers to set their hearts on the "greater gifts" (1 Cor. 12:31). The "lesser" gifts include glossolalia, healing, miracles, and various extraordinary supernatural manifestations. In exercising these gifts, one must be careful that the psychological and Pharisaic weakness of cen­tering attention on oneself is not at play. A true test of holiness in the Catholic tradition is found in the ability to empty oneself of one's ego, experiences, emotional states, and achievements, not in the attempt to mimic or sustain "peak experiences," which can have various sources or causes, including the pathological and demonic.

What is 'Life in the Spirit'?
The life of the Spirit in the soul of the Christian believer is not a time-released vitamin pill kick-started by an emotional high. The Church states clearly that the gifts of the Spirit -- not the charismata -- are infused at the moment of baptism, which, for the Catholic, generally occurs in infancy. While the gifts are "increased" by the Sacrament of Confirmation, they first of all follow from a life of virtue and the life of the mind -- the gifts, many of which inform our intellect, are given to us as aids to the virtues -- and become more apparent gradually over the course of a lifetime of grace. At best misleading is the Life in the Spirit Seminar's language of a candle's light "laying dormant" until it is actualized or "released" by an "empowerment" through a "personal conversion experience":

Through what is called the baptism in the Holy Spirit, a personal conversion experience, the power that is the Holy Spirit is released within us. One illustration that helps some people understand this concept is through the image of a candle. It is designed with a wick that, when lit, creates or releases its light, so to speak; only at that time does the candle completely fulfill the purpose for which it was created.... Until something happens to "empower" that candle, until the wick is lit, it lies "dormant," it does not fully become what it was designed to be. So it is with all of us.... A Life-in-the-Spirit Seminar is designed to help us yield to the action, empowerment and the power of the Holy Spirit in our own lives.... (From "What is a ‘Life-in-the-Spirit' Seminar?" available at the website of the Department of Pastoral Services of the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois, www.dpsrfd.org)

Is the author speaking of the Sacrament of Confirmation? No, despite the Church's insistence on the ontological link between the gifts and that sacrament (Catechism, #1303). Where does this language come from, then? It is derived from modern popular psychology, and it implicitly denies the gradual development of the mind, will, and emotions through one's life, where the emotions are led by the mind and the will; and in doing so, it supplants the Catholic sacraments. The Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation now take a back seat to the "new" pseudo-sacrament of "baptism in the Spirit" through "personal conversion." In a personal "awakening" reminiscent of the self-doubt triggered by the murky theology in Fr. Ron Rolheiser's books, the seminar participant then deduces the mistaken notion that the Catholic sacramental system is impersonal, non-empowering, non-experiential, and downright backwards, in contrast with the intoxicating new spiritual "release" mechanism activated by the seminar "facilitator." The cult of "experience" has combined with that of the "expert" to conjure a belief system based more on gnostic concepts of enlightenment than on Catholic theological anthropology.

Doctrine vs. Experience
The charismatic appetite feeds off a Protestant juxtaposition of "doctrine" and "experience." The assumption here is that the knowledge of revealed truth is not a lived experience, and that the lived experience is the main criterion by which the truth of doctrine is to be judged. This unnecessary, dangerous opposition actually leads the emotion-driven charismatic into error, leaving him prey to fundamentalist Protestant "revisions" of his Catholic faith. One of the more unfortunate examples of this attitude is the self-righteousness one perceives among many who mistakenly scorn non-charismatic Catholics as missing the heart of the Faith.

The Church has the possibility of exercising one of three options with respect to potentially damaging movements within her ranks. The new expression can either be rejected, ignored, or assimilated. In the case of the charismatics, the Church has chosen the least of three evils. To ignore or reject the movement would spell defection on the part of its adherents, as we have seen in the South American exodus toward Protestant fundamentalism. But what we choose to assimilate, and how we do it without damaging the Catholic treasury of truth, is a matter for careful theological analysis.

The Dangers of a Lopsided Emphasis on 'Personal Experience'
The emphasis on emotionally felt "experience" (as opposed to non-emotional experiences such as the tedium of learning, everyday prayer and obedience, and coping with the ordinary sufferings of life) often tricks the new "convert" into seeking affective affirmation in every area of Christian growth -- an immature, impossible, and eventually unsatisfying exercise. It can also manifest itself in contrary exhibitions of over-individualism, where the person insists on distilling his "faith" through his own personal experiences, or the unfortunate herd-mentality. The history of Pentecostalism is full of such instances. The person who fails to exhibit the requisite charismatic gifts is deemed less a Christian.

In a paradoxical similarity to G.K. Chesterton's modern man who has forgotten what he truly is, the charismatic exhibits a new kind of "forgetfulness" of human nature. In his excessive "experientialism," he swallows nature into the supernatural. He has forgotten the surprising beauty of the ordinary, the wonder embedded in the predictable laws of nature, and the ravishing, radiant light of reason redeemed and set free by grace. Before choosing to participate in a charismatic seminar such as Life in the Spirit, the believer should be exhorted to embark on the lively adventure of meditating on the rich roadmap to happiness and salvation found in the pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He will find that Catholic doctrine is neither a graven image set up by human minds, nor a clanging cymbal sounded to silence our humanity and passion, but rather a personal and creative work of art that marks a clear door to Beauty, the true joy of our heart.