As a former charismatic, the type of religious experience shown in this video is very familiar to me. In this kind of heady, charged atmosphere, it is very easy to suppress one’s “sin” issues and live on a “victorious” spiritual plane – that is until the trappings of revivalist, Pentecostal worship aren’t there or just don’t work any more, and the subject is brought down to earth with a bump.
In this video from IHOP (International House of Prayer, not to be confused with the restaurant chain International House of Pancakes), a young man claims to have been delivered from homosexual attractions he has experienced since childhood. The odd behaviour and spasmodic movements (as well as the wailing, sobbing, shouting and laughter from the congregation) have been especially common in Pentecostal and charismatic churches since the mid-1990s, and are usually attributed directly to the Holy Spirit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q8RRDJRqEw
HT: Truth Wins Out
This is hard to watch. I’m from a charismatic background, also, and the twitching and laughter remind me of what I saw and experienced within the ‘Toronto Blessing ‘and related hyper-charismatic ministries. The background music and the group-emotion support something that is very seductive for people wanting to be ‘delivered’ from their sexual orientation. I know folks associated with this very group, and I thought it was interesting how the young man spoke of ‘lies’ and ‘deception’, the same words those folks have used repeatedly with me. I’m guessing his deliverance won’t be long-lasting, and he’ll have to figure out what that means. He will have to find a new support system, or else keep trying harder to be delivered. It’s an awful cycle for those who can’t see truth outside of their narrow religious framework.
In this case I think IHOP is the International House of Phruitcakes.
Dave,
I responded to this post as well as one from TWO here: https://voiceofrevolution.askdrbrown.org/2010/02/06/responding-to-the-critics-ihop-testimony-on-deliverance-from-same-sex-attraction
Marcus French
Editor: Voice of Revolution
Moderator: I have made the unusual move of posting the rebuttal from Marcus here to preserve the continuity of this thread (as explained in my comment below). The original video (shown above) and quotes from this post and the one at TWO are omitted as redundant. The full rebuttal is maintained.
In this video from IHOP (International House of Prayer, not to be confused with the restaurant chain International House of Pancakes), a young man claims to have been delivered from homosexual attractions he has experienced since childhood. The odd behaviour and spasmodic movements (as well as the wailing, sobbing, shouting and laughter from the congregation) have been especially common in Pentecostal and charismatic churches since the mid-1990s, and are usually attributed directly to the Holy Spirit.
To sum up the gay activist response to this video:
1. No one can be set free from addictions to drugs (or, by implication, same-sex attraction) via a spiritual experience.
2. Once the “trappings of revivalist, Pentecostal worship” have worn off, this young man will find himself in the same state he was in previously.
3. The spiritual experiences this young man claims to have had are not genuine, but instead faked by the IHOP leaders to gain profit from him.
4. The IHOP leaders are only using this young man to “get rich” and are “predators.”
Let’s look at these arguments one by one:
1. No one can be set free from addictions to drugs (or, by implication, same-sex attraction) via a spiritual experience.
This all depends on the starting point. If we come to the table believing God exists (and is more than an intellectual concept), then why would this not be entirely within the realm of possibility? If we already “know” that either there is no God or that He has nothing to do with humanity, then we will end up dismissing this out of hand. It is not clear which of these starting points the gay activist authors mentioned are coming from, but suffice it to say that if there is indeed no God, then we all have much more to worry about than this young man’s story, IHOP, or indeed the whole subject of morality and truth altogether!
If we do come with the presupposition that it is indeed possible that God exists, then is it not entirely possible that what this young man said is true? It is true that there are plenty of reports of people who claimed to have changed but really did not, but then there are plenty of reports of people who really did change. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
2. Once the “trappings of revivalist, Pentecostal worship” have worn off, this young man will find himself in the same state he was in previously.
It is true that one can become “hyped” up in an emotional experience that fades quickly and has no bearing on reality, but if someone genuinely has an encounter with the living God, why would we dismiss out of hand the possibility of someone really changing? (Whether it be from addictions to drugs, same-sex attraction, or whatever.) Again this comes down to the presuppositions one has. Did the blind man not walk away from Jesus truly able to see [John 9]? Did Cornelius and his house not have a genuine spiritual experience when the Spirit fell on them[Acts 10]? It is no different today.
As to whether this young man’s experience was genuine and what it will mean long-term for him, I cannot say (though I have no reason to doubt what he had to say), and we ought not judge the whole of IHOP or the charismatic movement by the way any one person’s life ends up (or in the case of John Paulk, one night of falling to temptation), but there is absolutely no reason to dismiss out of hand the possibility that someone can be changed from the inside out in a moment, if we do indeed believe that God exists and interacts with people.
3. The spiritual experiences this young man claims to have had are not genuine, but instead faked by the IHOP leaders to gain profit from him.
What Mr. Rattigan dismisses as a new fad in religious circles from the mid-1990’s, “odd behaviour, … spasmodic movements, … wailing, sobbing, shouting and laughter,” actually have been present with followers of Jesus since the birth of the church. Who have “proffered” these “faux-spiritual experiences” through the centuries? Only the likes of Jonathan Edwards (called “America’s most important and original philosophical theologian”) who so despised emotionalism that he was known to speak in complete monotone so as not to arouse one’s emotions while he preached, while his puritanical congregations swooned, cried, and convulsed under the power of the Holy Spirit. More examples could be added here such as John Wesley, George Whitfield, Charles Finney, etc… but the point is clearly made that while these manifestations are not proof of God moving in someone’s life, there is no reason to be afraid of or dismiss the possibility of these types of things happening when someone has an experience with the living God.
Must one believe that this young man was really having an experience with God? Not necessarily. But to dismiss these as “faux-spiritual experiences” is unfounded and presumptuous.
4. The IHOP leaders are only using this young man to “get rich” and are “predators.”
This accusation would be laughable if people did not really believe it. Are there some people that really get rich off unsuspecting Christians? Yes. Do they distort the gospel of Jesus for their own monetary gain? Yes. (Points which we at this ministry decry continuously). But why does this mean that everyone that’s preaching the gospel is in it to get rich? What’s the reality of the situation at IHOP (a multi-million dollar ministry)? The following was published in 2001 by News World Communications concerning the head and founder of IHOP, Mike Bickle:
Does this sound like someone getting rich of this young man? The idea is laughable! And I have personal knowledge that Mr. Bickle lives the same kind of lifestyle today, even with the ministry growing exponentially since 2001 (I wonder if Wayne Besen, head of Truth Wins Out, draws this kind of salary?). This same example could be multiplied throughout the IHOP leadership team, and well into most of the charismatic movement today (again, with a few exceptions).
Rather than IHOP using this young man, they’ve simply set up an environment where people like him can come and experience the power of the living God through the gospel of Jesus Christ 24 hours a day (they have facilities open to the public around the clock with people praying continuously for America and the world). I pray that this young man builds on this experience in prayer and devotion to Jesus, yielding a life that is full of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Moderator: I’ve copied Dave Rattigan’s reply from the VOR site to here to maintain continuity.
You’ve erected a bit of a straw man as far as my comments are concerned, Marcus.
I didn’t say that (1) no one can be set free from addictions to drugs (or, by implication, same-sex attraction) via a spiritual experience. I don’t doubt that sometimes “spiritual experiences” (making no judgment on whether it is really “God”) can have positive effects on people. Personally, I doubt it in this case, but I’ve never stated that it doesn’t happen.
I did generalize on (2) regarding whether the effects on this guy would eventually wear off. Frankly, when the exotic effects of this kind of atmosphere are easily explained by psychology, why turn to a supernatural explanation?
On (3), I made no accusation that anything was faked by IHOP leaders or anyone. Nor did I say the young man was being manipulated so that IHOP leaders could profit from him in any way, and certainly not financially, as you claim in (4).
Also in (3), you say I “dismissed” this kind of phenomenon as a “new fad.” I actually said the phenomena were “especially common in Pentecostal and charismatic churches since the mid-1990s,” not that they were unheard of before. I was myself a Pentecostal at that time, and can attest that these things became very common. I’m more than familiar with the historical evidence (Edwards etc) you mention.
All told, you rebutted things I never actually said.
Marcus,
As we have discussed before, we prefer that you respond here to articles posted here. Responding solely on your own site and simply linking to it from here disrupts the continuity of the thread, diverting parts of it to your site. As in this case, it also allows you to re-frame the original post to create arguments to which you wish to respond, rather than those actually put forward. This further confuses the discussion and dilutes the facts. Finally, you have created a single response to both the post here and the one at TWO, which are very much different in content, and that further muddies the issue.
As I said, we have had this discussion before, and I would appreciate your compliance in the future. Your civil comments are welcome, but please make them here if you want them represented here.
I have taken the liberty of posting the text of your rebuttal here in line with the discussion.
His spasmodic movements might be related to Pentecostal practices, but to me, they look neurologic in nature. It would be interesting to see outside of this little video, if this young man has an underlying movement disorder or not.
It strikes me as sad. There is no convincing evidence that anyone can or has changed their sexual orientation despite so many specious claims by professional ex-gays and unscrupulous right wing groups. There is no reason to believe that this man’s sexual orientation is any different today than it was one year ago.
John, I have spent a lot of time in this very type of Pentecostal/charismatic service, and this exact (ie not merely similar) type of behaviour is not unusual at all.
Dave,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Regarding your points 1 and 3, I was generalizing and combining the arguments from you and Evan.
Regarding your second point, I can certainly understand taking the stance that an event should be assumed to be from natural causes before jumping to a supernatural one, but having been in those very meetings at IHOP (I was there for a week in mid-January), and hearing of some tremendous testimonies both one-on-one and from the stage that one would have to go to tremendous lengths to explain by natural means, I don’t find it a stretch at all to consider this young man’s story to be birthed from an authentic supernatural experience. My exhortation to you is to not assume God’s not at work when someone shares a testimony like this, but rather to weigh all things and hold onto that which is true.
Regarding your last point, what was the purpose of stating that these phenomona were “especially common in Pentecostal and charismatic churches since the mid-1990s”? I interpreted it as a slight at the roots of these types of manifestations, as if it’s a new fad. Was this not your point?
Far from it. I was putting the content of the video in some context, partly to forestall precisely the conclusions that someone made on the XGW thread, namely that it was some unusual neurological thing going on, rather than a standard feature of Pentecostal and charismatic worship. Most people who’ve never been to a service of that type wouldn’t realize that it’s fairly commonplace.
David,
While I certainly respect your right as owner of this blog to have the rules you want to have for commenting, I’m not sure how posting a link to a response where I generalize and combine two different posts into one is harmful to the discussion. Wouldn’t it be more confusing to provide a response to two different posts in only one post?
Regarding my post “mudd[ying] the issue,” I felt that combining and summarizing the arguments from gay activists on the issue would be a benefit to our readers, and enable a concise answer for the sake of those that may otherwise only have heard one side of the issue.
Is it a rule of this blog not to link to your own blog via comments, even when it provides further discussion on the topic in question?
too bad he wasn’t healed from tourets
John, look at this video from the same IHOP site. It features the girl who spoke just before the young man in the video above. Starting about a minute in and at various other points in the video, the camera pans a bit and you can see the guy waiting in line and not really jerking at all — almost looks bored. To those who haven’t been around this type of activity (and even to some of us who have), this can look like some sort of neurological condition. I would be curious to see some research on how the nervous system may be involved in what appears to me to be a sort of hysterical reaction (those who aren’t just faking to do what is expected of them).
If you also notice in this second video, the girl does her own version of the convulsions. Her extremities are less involved, but towards the end she makes noises. I suspect one might see some of these people at this or similar events on a regular basis — clearly there is some sort of emotional high or other gratification going on. I’ve learned to discard the sporadic claims of healing as I’ve never seen a single one properly verified. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I will start considering that after a valid one comes along.
I’m not sure I can think of a proper way to express my contempt for the guy on the microphone.
I’m not sure if the guy looks bored or not. The way he hunches with his arms folded almost seemed to be part of the “tic,” like an attempt to contain it.
Marcus French said:
It is the basic rule here, and probably simple etiquette, that you not use a link in place of commenting. When you first started your site you had a habit of dropping links in place of comments. I asked you to stop and told you that if you wanted to comment here that was fine. If you want to write your own post on the matter, that is obviously your business. But please don’t leave a link to it as though that were a comment on the post here. I’ve already given multiple reasons for not doing so.
I considered that as well, however I believe you will find points where he does some rather casual things with his arms, brushes his hair away or something similar. It just seems unlikely that he has neurological disorder. If so, he has it well under control when he wants to, which one would think would be while on mic and not while waiting in the wings.
Looking at the pan of the audience, some of them also seem bored to me, like they are very used to this sort of thing.
Now he’s just copy/pasting entire previous articles in his own comments section in order to deflect attention from the issue at hand.
Also, I do recall the manifestations being more intense sometimes during a public testimony. Often it was justified theologically, with the suggestion that looking so undignified or uncontrolled was a humbling thing, akin to St Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” In the video, Jacob alludes to that sort of understanding when he says that God had been “humiliating” him.
He says something to the effect of no longer caring about things being said publicly after all the previous humiliation. That was one of the lines that most bothered me about what he said. It really begs the question of just how he was previously humilated.
Evan, I’m dismayed that you are even bothering over there, Brown eats that stuff up, and French seems well studied, too. Brown could do the same job with any topic, it’s a skill. You will end up saying a lot, chasing him down tangents and, in the end, nothing will be said that matters. At best it is debate by attrition, don’t waste your time.
Oh I’m through.
I don’t even know why I let myself get sucked into that.
I’m not nice enough to deal with people like that.
Been there, done that, etc.
I ran into a Pentacostal fellow on the Website who was a missionary in Latin America who claimed that the Toronto Blessing had delivered him from homosexuality. He was married with children. There was also a person there from an evangelical background who had claimed some homosexual orientation possibly as a result of being abused as a child. He too was married with children.
But what was odd about these two was that they were like night and day. The evangelical fellow was almost chummy towards the two of us on the site who were gay. While the pentacostal fellow seemed to have this need to bring out every homophobic Narth, Paul Cameron, LaBarbera, FRC, AFA FotF, etc. lie about gay people that he could find. So every time he did so all I did was ask him if the lie fit his life of 14 years as gay man. Seems like every answer I got was, ‘no.’ The last lie he came up with was every gay man was a pedophile who abused hundreds of young male children. So I flat out asked him how many boys did he abuse during his claimed 14 years as a gay man. I never got an answer.
Well, he might have been an abuser, but I doubt it. I wondered for a while if he had to convince himself of the evil of being gay to get over it and thus immersed himself in self-loathing homophobia. But I tended to think the whole time that he had no conception of what it meant to be gay – and never was. Because it seems that compared to our evangelical website companion our pentacostal one had no real/true feelings of humanity towards us.
So every time I see a Pentacostal item like this I wonder if the person truly has that human connection with his homosexual orientation. Maybe… maybe not…
To me, this is like every other so-called “healing revival” meeting, ala Benny Hinn.
The Amazing Randi got a McArthur Genius Award for exposing the fraud and the lies spewed by these hucksters, and this sad case with the young man is no exception.
No one is truly healed, endorphins and the limbic system can do amazing things once stimulated enough, but the underlying cause is still there.
There’s NO such thing as a “cured” homosexual! All that’s done is a change of *behaviour* — give me enough time and electricity and I can have the hardiest heterosexual man go looking for glory holes! But it still doesn’t mean he’s gay. There are far, far more ex-ex-gays telling horror stories of these so-called “cures”.
Read my testimony:
Raised as a Pentecostal in Germany.
“Normal” family. Several kids. Felt gay ever since.
Was told it has something to do with a missing man image of my distanced father. So I believed that my realationship to Dad suppose to be even more close. But how close or far can it be?! At least the same “fact” happened to my brothers and sister as well as to so many friends in my church who weren’t gay, sexual abused or raised in a anti-social family.
I went through it all:
Self condemnation for more than two decades. Praying my heart out.
Ex-gay “therapy”.
And still today at the mid age, some christians think they could talk to me as to an three year old. They really think I just spiritually sleeping for my entire life …
They always know better, because they seem to made it all through in their own life (concerning homosexuality).
Things like Toronto blessing and Pensacola revival never made sense to me. I thought God is able to talk to me the way he created me, more realistic, down to earth. He never did. Just because I was not the way I suppose to be in his eyes? My God is definitely all-mighty in order to be able to deal with ME (his creation).
I guess, to be able to believe that, men with a strong conservative christian background definitely need a full breakdown in their life. Otherwise they always mix up the God of men (image) with the God Almighty (of love, sovereignty, righteousness) which is and ever will be beyond human understanding.
Why would believers want God to be so “small” (human)?!
Their inner condition might give them an answer.
Even when things do not work out the way we (or others) would wish they will – could God really be irritated at all?!
Does a God really need tools like fear, control, oppression?
I always thought he created men to have fellowship with them, no matter what. And he even installed us a free will and a common sense?
Who would be interested to keep us as a three year old?
Believe it or not, I feel so free with in myself concerning my homosexuality (which has nothing to do with a narrow minded red-light milieu thinking)
I can breathe for the first time in body, soul, mind and spirit. I like the expression of the biblical sign of an rainbow in Genesis 9:12-13: And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come.
Unfortunately this is a miracle that does not happen over night, nor through spritiual activities and services, if we believe in longterm testimonies.
The truth will set us free, whether we like or not.
Some Christians might have a certain desire to “negotiate” with their being.
I, myself found real peace, love and happiness.
Thank you God for the gift of my (homo) sexuality.
@ Dave Rattigan: I hear you on the atmosphere, practices, etc., though I’d go so far as to say that IHOP and associated “ministries” are actually highly cultic. (I can’t watch the video – too triggering for me.)
IHOP, Toronto, et. al. are highly suspect on multiple counts (theologically), anyway… That people are actually believing that they’re somehow orthodox is deeply troubling.
as for these kinds of miraculous “conversion/healing” accounts, I’ve heard a few. The people who tend to claim “complete healing/deliverance” from homosexuality at a prayer service also say – 30+ years down the road – that they still feel powerful “same-sex attractions.” The dissonance between the two claims is quite striking (the self-deception involved even more so), and yet… as someone who was in the orbit of similar churches (far less crazy, though!), I’ve lived with my own internal contradictions (though they’re not the same ones, as I’m a straight-identified woman).
Can’t help thinking of Robert Burns’ line: Oh would some power the giftie gie us / to see ourselves as others see us.
I hear you, e2c. My own experience of Pentecostalism revealed a lot of cultishness, too. I can understand why this kind of video would be a trigger for you. I’ve never had that response myself, but my mother was very scarred by her experiences, and I often underestimate the ability of videos like this to trigger very distressing memories.
I also agree with you about even the most impressive testimonies of ex-gay “healing.” What many ex-gays seem to have achieved is the ability to manage their homosexual attractions, without necessarily changing the fundamental orientation.
Dave — Their attractions are *never* changed — just their *behaviour*!
It’s not unlike those days when children were forcibly “changed” from using our “unnatural” left hand into using our “natural” right hand. Still the same theological excuse, and just as destructive.
@ Dave: thanks so much for the link to Leaving Fundamentalism. Have just read your chapter of the book and I think we’ve had very similar experience, albeit at something of a remove. (I became a professing Christian in the early 70s, via the Catholic charismatic movement – though I am Protestant – and lived through the ravages of the “discipleship movement” and associated abusive “teachings” and actions, finally getting booted from a church in the early 00s for supposedly lying about something I hadn’t even done.)
The connections you’ve made to people from the UK *really* hits home, as the “leader” of the church that ousted me is English and had literally grown up with some of the people who are both directly and indirectly responsible for some of the stranger, more disturbing things that seem to be circulating from Western Europe to the US, Canad and back again. (YWAM DTS, the whole Third Wave/Transformations thing – i.e., Dominionism in a charismatic guise, etc.)
I truly believe that a great many charismatics – especially those involved in so-called “strategic level spiritual warfare” – have actually switched to a religion that is highly dualistic (like Zoroastrianism) – very different than historic Christianity, for the most part. (Though some of the language is retained, many of the beliefs aren’t – to my m ind, the big one that’s jettisoned is human responsibility for actions that are good, not-so-good and on down the line.)
To some extent, it seems that the “warfare” folks are in a real-life roleplaying game. The feeling that they can drive out the devil and “reclaim territory” for God gives them a sense of meaning and purpose – and it’s a huge distraction from dealing with the mundaneness of everyday life.
The thing is, those people, albeit well-intentioned, are involved in some truly frightening things that (as I’m sure you already know) go far beyond the ex-gay movement.
(As a sort of P.S., I’m still Christian, albeit of a rather different kind than I was for many years. ;-))
Googling “IHOP cult” will get you some interesting results, btw…
Here are a few:
https://gospelmasquerade.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-i-believe-ihop-is-cult.html
https://www.fellowshipofthemartyrs.com/mike_bickle_responses.htm
https://www.pitch.com/2002-10-10/news/return-of-the-prophets/
https://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/09/international_house_of_prayer_founder_denies_claims_of_cult_dom_kansas_city_grandview_missouri.php
Since David already answered Marcus French on his straw man arguments, I would like to respond to the underlying assumptions that Marcus makes, notably his use of the term “gay activist.”
Both French and his buddy Michael Brown like to draw a false distinction between openly gay individuals and “gay activists.” They claim to “love GLBT people” but “resist gay activism” as if the two are separate entities. They’re not.
1. They use the term “gay activist” as if it’s a bad thing. Activists are simply people who have been motivated to action in support or defense of a particular issue, position or group of individuals. French and Brown are far more committed “activists” than most average GLBT people, who simply want to be left alone to live their lives. French and Brown think nothing of attempting to disrupt a Pride celebration in the name of “love,” but if GLBT people attempted to disrupt their church services by gathering en masse in front of the church doors and pontificating for hours non-stop through a bullhorn, those inside the church would consider it “anti-Christian persecution.” But it’s not offensive at all for them to do it to us.
2. French and Brown consider any GLBT person who argues their right to live openly and honestly, free from discrimination, as an “activist.” You don’t need to be a member of a gay rights organization or worked in a marriage equality campaign. All you have to do is disagree with their point of view and voila–you are a “gay activist.” Which means they can now “resist” you. In love, of course. (And you don’t even need to be gay!)
3. Finally, I have a question for French: Yes or no… Do you believe that stripping health benefits from same-sex partners demonstrates the love of Jesus?
Christopher —
re #3: Let’s take it further! Do “christian activists” believe that stripping ALL of the civil rights of TLBG Americans under the *secular* Constitution (right to sue in court, right to be free of discrimination, etc.) demonstrates the love of your Jesus?