William,God bless you, thanks for sharing your thoughts, hope you will continue to do so.Some of the members can be quite militant towards Charismatic movements. I agree with most of their views but personally I do not feel as strongly and neither do I lean to that extent. Because of that I kind of feel out of place at times and I assumed for the longest time that I wasn't welcomed here. I realized this is an open community and no one has intentionally done anything to make me feel unwelcomed here so it's all in my head.I can see what you mean and have found that through some of the links to other sites there is a tendency towards militancy with some of the aforementioned movements. Not to sound wishy washy, but having come through a lot of that (the heretical aspects of it) I also found myself leaning into a 'either or' mentality, being carried to extremes. Some of it (most?) is so bad that I don't think it could be critized enough for what it is doing to the Body. Yet, just as well there are many that are still solid in Biblical absolutes, I guess we just don't hear enough about them.One of the links, I believe in reference to Finney's works had a particular article on the Torronto movement from some one who had been there and something he said really stuck with me: (http://truthinheart.com/Vineyard.html)"a typical sermon. A form of godliness which denies the power of God. I mean a message that should have lead to a different conclusion and result than what they resulted in. I mean further that they would preach a form of holiness and freedom form sin and deny it on the other hand. The Gospel saves from sin but we are all sinners and no one is perfect. We are to be holy but no one really can in this world. This theology works itself out in saying that either we gradually give up our sins, or that when the Heavenly Father looks at us He only sees Christ and none of our PRESENT sins. This is rank antinomian heresy. This is in fact the worst problem with this and most ‘Evangelical’ movements. Mind you many people disguise their antinomianism so that it theoretically does not sound so objectionable. But practically speaking it is all the same and people are still left in their sins. So what I said years ago I still say. There is almost no need to concern ourselves with any other weird or diabolical behavior in these meetings when this is their gospel."The rest of the article goes on about the demonic delusions that occured there, it's enough to make one sick.And yet after perusing through the site, there also seems to be some almost paranoid, conspiracy minded aspects....what am I getting at?Balance. Sometimes it does seem like one giant bicycle wreck, some leaning to hard one way, others leaning the opposite way and boom!, tangled handlebars, bent rims and bruised knees.For myself it has been a path backwards, since I came from a Catholic background, got saved, went through a lot of bad teaching (prosperity/WOF) and eventualy realized that the truth had to be back down the path somewhere, I turned around to try and find some perspective...and I have to keep going, not to develop my own 'theology' but to find the true heart of God...I hope I can hold on to my 'dogma' loosely enough to always be teachable and discerning enough not to be led into error....So much to learn.I hope you will continue to share whatever is on your heart so that we all can be edified, we all can learn and grow into the conformity of Him who saved us, Jesus our Lord. I hope we all can speak the truth in love and lastly I will pray Ephesians 1: 15-21 for all of us: "Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to mention you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come."(P.S. That is one long sentence! What an awesome prayer this is!)_/crsschk\\_
