Featured Is this a heresy?

I checked "No, it is not heresy."

Differences on the nature of tongues and their application to the life of a believer are difference in doctrine, not foundational belief.

I apply the term "heresy" in a strict way. Given that ecstatic experiences existed throughout the early church (including the apostolic age) I do not generally believe that teachings on the use and application of a doctrine of miraculous gifts is (within reason) close to heretical teaching. It is a doctrinal difference. We must do doctrinal triage, supporting the foundational, doctrinal, and preferential. Not everything is foundational.

 

As a linguist and a scholar of church history myself, I am quire certain that what I wrote is true. And a minority opinion may or may not be divisive.

 

That is quite untrue. I can name at least two denominations which do not hold to that. One, the Vineyard Church movement; two, the Full Gospel Baptist Fellowship.

 

I tend to agree with you.

 

A note about "heretics": Often in the history of the church, who was a heretic depended on who was in power and making the charge; for example, when the Arians were in the ascendancy and in power in the Empire, Trinitarianism was the heresy. Athanasius, defender of Trinitarianism, was banished and driven into exile five times because of his beliefs.

About Titus 3:10 -- In probably the most literal translation ever produced, Rotherham's Emphasized Bible, the word used is "party-man". Interesting, right?

 

Yep, but not in Rotherham's day.

The use and definition of the words "heretic" and "heresy" as most understand it today is due to the Roman Catholic Church redefining early on what the words originally meant.

 

That isn't my definition of heresy. If you do reductio absurdum on your definition the color of carpet one suggests could be viewed in terms of heresy. That isn't tenable imho.

Well I'm not a fan of quoting Dr MacArthur on this issue. His stance is too extreme. However, I don't see how honest differences over a doctrinal view should be riled up to charges of heresy. Tongues can be as contentious as one makes them out to be. Just because an issue divides a church doesn't make it rise to the level of heresy.

Recently a friend of mine (honestly this is a friend) had a group of more established members of his church come to him and state that if he didn't stop preaching from the NIV (he uses 1984) and go back to using hymns only in the services they were going to leave the church. This group represented about 100 of his members. Now the church was growing like crazy and he had no desire to change his methodology to go backwards and chase off the new members and new Christians that were in the church. That said, even in this case this isn't heresy.

I don't understand how Baptists can make such a big deal about an issue the NT clearly teaches on and shows evidence of its employment. While I do not speak in tongues nor have a private prayer language, it isn't my place to accuse and speak down to someone who does. So long as it isn't a test for salvation (that is a different issue) I think we can share common ground in our common faith.

Tongues isn't an issue for heresy.

Well clearly it was being used at Pentecost and beyond according to the NT. All of those books were written in the first century.

Well I think we need to be a bit more careful about dismissing the Montanists. They were a pretty influential group that only deviated from other orthodox churches in the North Africa over the nature of ecstatic experience (well there were a couple of other issues.) They also got Tertullian to be a member of their group. That should say something.

However I think you can find plenty of examples of ecstatic experiences in the early church. Ignatius of Antioch points out a number of instances in his ministry where early Christians were experiencing these gifts. The Didache makes note of Agabus who spoke in tongues (or some kind of holy ecstatic language.) There are a number of other citations in other aprocyphal texts from the second and third centuries. In fact I believe, if I'm correct, you can find evidences of people speaking in tongues or prophesying in miraculous gifts across all the major patristic authors through the fourth century.

So I don't think we can automatically declare someone who is teaching on this subject as being a heretic. If for no other reason than the NT clearly shows us there are experiences of this in the apostolic age and has doctrinal content on the use of and interpretation of tongues.

 

I think you are wrong about the Vineyard Movement. They are part of the Third Wave Movement and one of the most extreme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Vineyard_Churches

The barking like dogs and hissing like snakes and such other "manifestations of the Spirit" were common with them, and became a kind of trademark of theirs.

 

I was talking about the issue of baptism of the Holy Spirit with initial evidence of tongues and how they differ with traditional Pentecostals and Charismatics on that.

 

The Charismatic movement grew out of the Pentecostal movement, and the Vineyard (or Third Wave) grew out of the Charismatic Movement (the Charismatics being the Second Wave). The "barking like a dog" etc., are still manifestations of the Spirit and are considered a subsequent blessing. Thus it is not substantially different from those who believe that tongues is a result from being baptized by the Spirit.

 

But it is different in that one aspect.