derkrash-at-yahoo-dot-com
I heard many preachers through the years say that they used to dance with the Devil and now they dance with the Lord. This is the most telling thing about them. Church is their dope. I do not know about most people's opinions, but this does not sound like God to me. People probably fall for the emotional trap Pentecostals set often, trying to hype God up into some kind of Rock Star. Traditional Christianity teaches emotional restraint and self-control, not acting wild and crazy. For some reason, Pentecost inverts Christianity on its head. Instead of controlling ourselves, we are encouraged to have an emotional explosion.
I think that Pentecost -for the most part can be described in two words: Emotional Self-Indulgence. (Three words?) Most people do not realize that emotional self-indulgence drains the soul of energy. To wallow in emotions endlessly just for the high of it consumes huge amounts of energy. I like to think of it as the difference between setting a gallon of gasoline on fire and an internal combustion engine. To strike a match at a gas can is to waste energy in a large explosion whereas to put it inside a fuel tank of a car can push the car at least 20 miles. I see these wild displays of emotion as wastes of good energy. We could funnel this energy into our families and into our careers. I assert that when we quit emotional self-indulgence, we release so much energy into our lives that the difference is blatantly noticeable, because after every high is a crash.
I think that this "high" is the most dangerous thing about Pentecost. Personally, I was into the high with music. I was a Pentecostal musician for 16 years. I lived for the sound. I liked to feel the music. I knew all the right chords to drive the crowd into a "spiritual" frenzy. I knew the right licks on the guitar to play and people would get their musical high, as would I. I lived and breathed music. After I quit playing music, I was much more emotionally stable. I had lots of energy to focus on my personal studies. I could read books and understand much more because my emotions were not so frazzled from musical highs. Through hard lessons, I learned that music should cultivate the passions and not inflame them. I see church experiences the same way. I do not think that church should be exciting. I think that it should cultivate our passions to higher things and NOT inflame them like an exploding can of gasoline. So when I see preachers in front of an audience trying to get people to shout and scream and run the aisles, I think: exploding can of gasoline! Up in smoke! Destruction! It is like driving a car: we can go 100 MPH, but we drive slower because we have an optimal level we can safely sustain without killing ourselves.
JP Istre
