Conflicted Feelings About Charismatics

                            "LAUGHING JESUS" by June "Moon" Hanson,  <junemoon.com>

                  As a teenager, I was groomed at a Charismatic Clinic for televangelism. I was stationed in a Bible seminary for Teen Challenge. Not only was I sent to this amazing institution of Pentecostal learning, but they also sent me off on Christian yacht parties and overnight stays in the homes of influential contributors. For those of you not acquainted with the "Gift of Tongues," "The Invocation of the Holy Spirit" or "The Comforter," the Pentecostalists sometimes called it "TALKING IN TONGUES." The "Holy Ghost" was supposed to be a kind of universal translator from the First Century A.D.

                  Most Holy Rollers spout very liberating gibberish when they go into this kind of spiritually induced rapture. Non the less, they are practicing very real spiritual technologies. Those hymns, prophesies and religious ecstasies are very real for the worshipers, and are loosely described as communications from God, to be interpreted by the pastor or a designated lay person. I do owe an immense credit to Charismatics for teaching me about the strengths, falsehoods and traps of Charm and Charisma. I have a burden of responsibility that follows me everywhere today. (Even at 58, I feel very sensitive to the inevitable sexual tensions that results from me taking the initiative to express myself as a real Entertainment Medium.)

                  The only reason I was given such access at that age, was because at that time I was the only teenager in Teen Challenge and I had never been a hard drug user or felon. Convicts and criminals could spend one year in Teen Challenge for every four years that they would have otherwise had to spend in prison. One year of sitting on a pew in prayer, for four years in prison might seem like a deal, but many prisoners did just turn around and go straight back to prison. That much forced religion is a kind of cruel punishment for most people. I loved my time in Teen Challenge, but I had been dumped there by a corrupt foster parent Evangelist. (Pentecostalist) And the fact that most of the church leaders were all ex convicts themselves, did add to the criminal appeal of these charismatic leaders. I was already much too acutely aware of the spiritual abuses of religious hypocrisy. Knowing that "my" God would not want me to be just another blind spiritual leader, I chose to abandon the pretense of spiritual authority and privilege. Instead of pursuing a career in the ministries, I escaped to Oregon and got a job in an industrial nut dehydrator plant. Otherwise I would have been forced back into a group home institution for unwanted teen foster boys. And I knew I could do a better job caring for myself than the state was doing. But I do believe there is something positive about practicing ritual expressions of rapture, I just don't believe in exploiting other people's faith. I do believe that when Christians speak of Charismatics, they are talking literally about a kind of very persuasive universal language.