Christian Dopers: Question about praying in tongues

This isn’t really intended as a debate, but since it concerns religion, I thought this the proper forum. If I was mistaken, could a mod kindly move it for me, please?

I caught a little bit of some religious (Christian) program on TV this morning, and the hostess of the show was expounding on the importance of praying in tongues every day. Now, I was raised Catholic (although I realize that some don’t recognize Catholocism as being Christianity), and have heard of some of the more fundamentalist or Pentacostal Christians “speaking in tongues”. It was my understanding that these people believe this to be the language that was universally spoken before some Biblical sin or the other separated us all and gave us many languages. However, I was under the impression that this only happens rarely, and that some never experience it at all. The program I was listening to seemed to contradict that. The woman was clearly saying that praying in tongues, every day is essential to “recharging the spirit”.

Can any of you Christian Dopers (or those more knowlegeable about Christianity than myself) shed some light on this for me?

Also, FWIW, I know that a number of Dopers are atheists, and, while you’re certainly free to express your opinions, I don’t see how dropping in just to say it’s all a bunch of BS will clarify.

Thanks.

There is a lot of debate about this in the fundamentalist community (of which I used to be a member). Some say it’s essential for you to speak in tongues, while others say that it’s the devil’s work (literally). The Biblical justification is from the book of Acts, when the Apostles received the Holy Ghost during Pentacost and began speaking in foreign languages. All the foreigners present could understand what was being said. That’s the original “speaking in tongues.” It involved the Apostles speaking the gospel in foreign languages (it should be noted they had no knowledge of these languages before, so their speaking was miraculous).

Of course, that’s different from today’s “speaking in tongues,” where people speak in gibberish in a sort of spiritual trance. Some say that’s the way their souls communicate directly with God. Personally, I’ve been in churches where they do this, and I’m skeptical. This practice is, at most, quasi-Biblical. It certainly is not necessary to live a full Christian life, and the vast majority of Christians have either never heard of it, don’t practice it, or ridicule it. Of course, if someone thinks it makes his or her spiritual life better, then he or she can babble away until the End of Days for all I care. That person just should not think that since I don’t do it, I’m somehow less of a Christian.

There’s also a reference in 1 Cor., ch. 12-14. The interpretation there seems to be that Speaking in Tongues is a Spiritual Gift not given to all; and that a corresponding gifit of Interpretation of Tongues is given to others.

Implication being that the speaker does not necessarily know what he’s saying until the intrepreter tells them.

Paul seems to consider tongues slightly less useful to the community than other gifts - specifically, prophesy.

That said, I’ve never seen it, and I’ve always equated it with the holy-roller, snake-handling, faith-healing branch of the faith.

I kinda always thought so, too, but listening to the lady on TV made me curious to find out if perhaps my perceptions were just off-base. After all, I’ve never been evangelical Christian, and I admit that there’s a lot about the faith that I don’t know.

Let me assure you that most evangelical Christians have nothing to do with speaking in tongues (no cite, but I’d be willing to put money on it). Speaking in tongues is generally limited to the Charismatic or Pentecostal movements within Protestantism, though there are supposedly some Charismatic Catholics. Of course, not all Charismatics or Pentecostals speak in tongues, but almost all tongue-speakers are Charismatics or Pentecostals.

Chiming in as a person who’s actually seen the Charismatic Catholics. There’s a Catholic Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan (where I lived until last May) that actually makes a point of having a “tounge-speaking” portion of its Mass. It’s a little creepy, and the diocese hasn’t done anything to inhibit it.

Which is not to say it’s a BAD thing…per se. The Bible and the Catholic Church both recognize this phenomenon, so, IMO, it’s legitimate. However, it’s also trendy, and its low-key popularity does raise questions about how many people are actually channelling something, how many are channelling something demonic, and how many are just going along for the ride.

I’ve also wondered how many are faking it. Seems to me that if I was a Pentacostal Christian, surrounded by people speaking in tongues at Worship, that I might be tempted to fake it so that the folks around me wouldn’t think that I was sub-par or some such.

Could it be power of suggestion?

I mean, okay-you’re sitting with all these people who are twitching and muttering and rolling around, and let’s just say, your knee starts to get stiff, so you move it just slightly, and then all of a sudden, you just start feeling twitchy in general (uncomfortable, cramped, itchy, fidgety-I’m rather fidgety myself).

Well, then all of a sudden, you might interpret that as a sign, and there you go.

So maybe people ARE faking it-but not doing so consciously?

My folks go to a Charismatic Catholic church in Mount Vernon, New York (I don’t, and I hate it when I have to go). Lots of tambourines and waving of hands and stuff, more like the stereotypical AME (African Methodist Episcopal) churches than we Catholics usually are. Of course, about a third of the congregation IS African-American.

Occasionally, at the beginning of the mass, some people babble in tongues. My folks don’t, although Mom says it happened to her once but she knew she was just caught up and it meant nothing. It was never mentioned in Catholic school and I would suppose most Catholics look at it as dubiously as we do creationism and handling of snakes, and so do most Christians. But it’s not considered nice to actively make fun of it either, no more than you would rib a Jewish friend about how yum yummy your bacon sandwich with cheddar was at breakfast. </hungry now>

I never really thought of that, but I suppose it’s completely possible.

Totally agreed. I would never make fun of anyone who put stock in speaking in tongues, and my OP was not meant to be derisive or critical. I am quite willing to be respectful of anyone’s beliefs, so long as their beliefs don’t include doing harm to me or mine. In fact, it is my own considered opinion that God is so vast that there’s room for a lot of different beliefs to be right. But that’s just me.

I used to have friends who used to a church called “Assembly of God” and what little I can remember of it is that they made a big deal of speaking in tounges. I’m not sure because I never went back. The church didn’t do much for me and the whole needing to speak in tounges thing just felt a little creepy to me.

I have been an evangelical Christian - and we didn’t speak in tongues. We were open to the possibility, as it is a spiritual gift (as rimshotgdansk mentioned), but most people had never seen it or done it.

What I was taught was that speaking in tongues was speaking in a language you didn’t know (hadn’t studied, had no earthly way of knowing) in order to spread the gospel or sort of a universal translator - speaking in your language, but everyone who heard your words would be able to understand it as though you spoke to them in their language. Either way (or if it is speaking in an angelic/spiritual language), it wasn’t considered something that you had to do, or even were necessarily supposed to do.

Story I’ve heard about a particular Orthodox priest:

At one point before he became Orthodox, he was invited to a Pentecostal prayer meeting, during which various people got up and began to speak in tongues. Others were interpreting the tongues. This priest decided to perform a little test: he made an expression like he was stricken by the spirit, stood up, and began reciting, “Pater imon, o en tis oranis, agiasthito to onoma sou…”*. The individuals who were interpreting the tongues immediately started giving their standard interpretation, which of course had absolutely nothing to do with what he had said. He proceeded to depart from the meeting, convinced that Pentecostalism’s claims of divinely-inspired tongues were false.

  • “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name…”

There are several Charismatics in my Byzantine Catholic congregation- they attend charismatic prayer meetings at a local Catholic church on Thursday nights.

They’re all really nice people but it seems that a fairly high percentage of them are a bit, ah, off…

One of them is prone to the same sort of Biblical literalism and selective scripture quoting that the Fund-ist Protestants are notorious for. He does this to the point that he is incapable of carrying on an intelligent conversation. He cuts people off in midsentence to quote a Scripture that is not quite relevant, or to make some statement to the effect that “all the answers are in the Word” in situations where it is not appropriate to do so. Our pastor has taken him to task for selective quoting of Scripture, but it didn’t sink in.
One of the charismatics, I am still trying to forgive for some very severe spiritual damage he did to me back when I first came home to the Church. In a tear-filled session with my pastor, he told me that a lot of the problem I was having was that I hadn’t asked the First Question yet (he wouldn’t tell me what that question was, he wanted me to come to it on my own). After a period of intense prayer, I realized that the Question was, “Who is Christ?”- not the biographical data, but who He is in relationship to me. Then I had to come to the answer. Well, I was talking to “Bob” once about the difficulty I was having, and about the Question, and that I needed to find the answer. “Bob” said, “I know the answer.” I told him, very explicitly, “Well, don’t tell me, because if you do, then I’ll know the answer intellectually, but I won’t know it in my heart.” “Bob” then proceeded to tell me, “He’s your Lord and Savior”. I felt like I had been punched. I was angry. I told him (now repeating myself), “Thanks, now I know it on an intellectual level,but I won’t know it in my heart” and he said, “Well, take it to heart.” As though that were something an overly cerebral person such as myself could do in an instant. Six years later, I still know it intellectually… I allowed this guy to pray over me even though I had this fresh wound. He prayed in English, then said, “Now I’m going to pray in the Spirit… tedeumtedeumtedumtedeumtedeumtedeumtedeumtedeum”. I really think he was faking it. I can’t believe someone could just turn the Holy Spirit on like a switch. From all that I’ve heard from charimatics of both the Catholic and Protestant varieties, the Spirit just comes over you… I’ve also witnessed glossalalia, and his inflection wasn’t anything like what I’d heard before. It just sounded like the guy was saying “tediumtedeumtedeum” (Te Deum?) over and over again, and he didn’t seem to have gone into any kind of trance as the other “tounge speakers” I’ve encountered had. He was “speaking in tongues” in his own, normal vocal inflection. I also think that if “Bob” were truly in tune with the HS, the Spirit would have prompted him that he should keep his mouth shut rather than tell me information that I had seconds earlier specifically asked him not to tell me because I needed to come to the realization on my own. That’s assuming that basic common sense wouldn’t have taken care of the issue. I think I would be a much better Christian than I am now if he had done as I asked an left me to learn on my own rather than tell me. I’m more of an “intellectual Catholic”, I believe the teachings of the Church on an intellectual level, but I have a hard time feeling the workings of God in my life in a spiritual way, because I never really learned in my heart that Christ is my Lord and Savior. The intellectual knowledge blocked, in some way, the knowledge getting deep into my spirit. I’m still very uncomfortable around “Bob” for this reason.

I’ve also seen instances of speaking in tongues which I’m fairly certain were demonically inspired. Back in Indiana, I used to watch the local Christian channel, which was owned by the lagest Charismatic church in town. The pastor was greedy beyond belief. Once, during a fundraising telethon, he berated, on the air, someone who had made a 10 pledge. “God won’t bless you if you only give ten dollars. Get back on the phone and pledge more,” he demanded in a very hash tone of voice. Apparently he hadn’t read the bit in the Bible where Jesus saw a poor widow giving two mites to the temple’s charity box and declared that she had given more than all of the wealthy folks who had laid expensive gifts at the altar… this guy had taken on a twisted, gargoyle-like appearance (he had actually been quite handsome as a young man). His oldest son who inherited the whole ministry when he died, was similarly twisted. I was convinced, even then, not being a Christian, that this man had a demon in him.

I’m not saying that all charismatics are somehow mentally deficient or even evil. The majority of them have all their marbles in one bag, but it seems like an uncomfortably large minority of charismatics, at least of the Catholic variety, are missing a few pieces of very important mental equipment.

See, this is kind of what I was wondering about. I mean, I’ve had, for want of a better word, a few revelations, spiritually. But I can’t simply conjure them. They come whenever they come. I can open myself to the voice of the Creator, I can be still and listen, I can do all (well, alright, most) of the things my Holy Book tells me to do. But I can’t just call in the Spirit and expect it to come. God works in His own time, no?

As a person who experienced a congregation speaking in tongues for the first time as an 8 year old child, I can say it was frightening and damaging. I had never been to this Church before (in fact I had never really been to many Church services). I was really frightened and all of the people falling and jerking about and “being filled” and speaking in Gibberish was about the weirdest and most traumatic experince I’d had in my young life. I didn’t have a clue what was happening and thought the end of the world had come. The experience was not holy, I cried in terror. If I were to characterize it today- demonic comes to mind.
Strangely enough, foreign tongues became my passion when I was about 14 …I was a German major in college and have studied a few other languages and am still interested in linguistics in general.

It occurs to me that the promotion of speaking in tongues is a church agenda and would serve in promoting their particular brand of faith. I might give creedence to a person experiencing tongues if it was spontaneous, but in most of these churches it is ritualized and has become part of the “service”. It is scheduled and there is usually a part of the service when it is acceptable…it is a convention-not supernatural.

I know that interpretation is either always, or never a factor, depending on who is reading the Bible.

But, it seems to me that any fair reading of the miracle of tongues doesn’t fit at all well with someone speaking in an incomprehensible manner in a crowd of others. Even if taped evidence shows that that person really was speaking Coptic, or Urdu with no prior exposure to the language. That is possibly a miracle, but it is definitely not what happened on the Pentecost.

The miracle of tongues happens like this. I stand up, and witness to the Lord, in English, my native language. All the Ebo speakers present, here me speaking Ebo, their native language. The Hebrews hear me speaking Hebrew, and the Germans hear me speaking German. That’s pretty different from everyone speaking, and no one understanding. And it doesn’t take a linguist to notice that a miracle has occurred. It isn’t a gift of translation, because you don’t suddenly know how to translate English to Hindi, and neither do I. I just speak English, and you hear Hindi, if you speak Hindi.

It’s also a lot harder to fake, in a crowd of honest people.

Tris

This is something that is diffrent in each church you go too. There are some Chrisitian churches that do not believe in it all all. Some believe it to be willed, some believe it to be a gift (rare and not often). it is first spoken of in the bible as the tower of babel.

You guys have pretty much backed up what I had thought about the subject before hearing the woman on TV. I certainly appreciate all the input.
devilsknew, I never thought about this phenomenon from a child’s point of view, but I don’t guess it’s surprising that you would be traumatized by this.