When I read the big news on Tuesday, I planned to keep mum. I didn’t think the failure needed any commentary. But now that the editor of Charisma magazine, Lee Grady, has spoken, I think I need to say a few words.
My first words will be that anyone can pile on the individual discussed in Grady’s piece; I’m not going to. I’m not even going to mention his name. I wrote “Dropping Our Stones” the other day, and I meant what I shared. There’s not a person reading this who is not capable of falling down the same well—or worse.
What I cannot understand is the shock, the awful “Was it all just a trick?” feeling, the taste of ashes in the mouth that so many people will be left with in the aftermath.
When Grady asks the gullibility question, it just sticks in my craw. Why? Because Discernment 101 could have warned ANYONE willing to step back for a second and think. In many ways, this didn’t even require the gift of the discerning of spirits. Yet so few insiders said, “Ya know, there’s something not right here.” Instead, they fell for the “Look over there! There He is!” trick so quickly they got prayer rug burns.
That charismatic civil war? With this latest revelation, the last volley may already have been fired.
Honestly, if I were a leader of a charismatic church or parachurch ministry and I jumped on board this latest “move” with a whoop and a holler, I’d humbly resign, appoint a successor and go out at an opportune time, or take a l-o-n-g sabbatical.
In fact, I think the strongest proponents of this debacle need to suck it up, fall on their swords, and do just that. Time to get out. At least until they can do some deep soul-searching and come out the other side. In other words, if you were Blue in the civil war, time to think Gray. You were in the wrong army, man.
Honestly, if Charisma has even a dozen ads they can rub together for their next issue, they should be ashamed of themselves. And so should the advertisers.
Barking like dogs, laughing hysterically even as the world is dying to hear the Gospel, showing off our gold teeth while we dance around in showers of gold dust and press angel feathers into our Bibles, kicking the dying in the guts in the name of the Lord and calling that healing…is that the legacy? Man, we can be truly proud of that title CHARISMATIC now, can’t we?
In the end, it doesn’t matter that some of us didn’t walk the primrose path, that very wide, follow-the-leader road. The aftermath of this is going to hurt us, too.
Look, I’m not out for blood here. But the legacy of the present charismatic leadership, the current crop of faces on Christian TV and behind the podiums at the Mega-Healing conferences, the oracles in the traveling “prophetic” carnivals, the people pushing the New Apostolic whatever down all of our throats…you rushed in where angels fear to tread, so maybe it’s time for you to exit stage left. The children’s sermon is over. Time to let the adults lead. You know, the people who graduated from Discernment 101 with at least a “D” average.
Then, at some appointed time in the future when you get your heads on straight, come back. We’re willing to forgive because the Lord we serve is greater than your foolishness and mine.