In Defense Of The Spirit Of Pentecost​

Numbers follow, algorithms reward.

The sound bites are sharp, the tone is confident, and the certainty is intoxicating.

But confidence and reach are not the same thing as spiritual authority, and popularity is not the same thing as formation.

Having a large following and speaking often about God doesn't make someone a theologian.

It doesn't make them a trustworthy guide to all things Christological and pneumatological.

It simply means they've found a way to touch a nerve in a deeply wounded generation.

When the people listening have never been catechized, never been grounded in the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition, they naturally assume that the most passionate voice know what they're talking about.

Catechesis, in the historic sense, is the long, patient process by which the Church forms disciples in the faith, teaching them the scriptures, the creeds, the sacraments, the moral life, shaping their imaginations and affections over time so that they begin to think, feel, and choose in a way that accords with Christ.

It's a slow work.

It rarely goes viral.

But without it, we're left vulnerable to every wind of doctrine that blows through our timelines.

In that vacuum, what often steps in is not theology, but sophistry.

It sounds intelligent.

It sounds bold.

It quotes scripture.

It flatters our disillusionment and explains our pain back to us in theological language.

But sophistry is not wisdom in the sense of the Great Tradition with a capital T when it speaks of wisdom.

I'm not talking of the traditions of men.

I'm talking of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the genuine doctrine of the apostles received from Jesus directly.

It's more often than not pseudo scholarship, selective reading, shallow study, even if they think they're talking deep, confident conclusions drawn from a handful of verses a few secondary sources, and really poor methodology all wrapped up in the rhetoric of finally doing theology well.

Anyone who has been genuinely trained and formed in theology can feel the difference almost immediately, and I for one am deeply concerned for the emerging generation that is rightly tired of what Eugene Peterson once called trinket show religion but are now being moved by social media influencers who parade as theologians but again are just sophists.

Many of you have watched compromises in Pentecostal and charismatic circles.

You've seen the sensationalism, the manipulations, the celebrity-driven ministries, the empty prophecies, the duplicity behind the platform.

You've also seen through the veneer of those who parade themselves as spiritual authority while lacking the theological substance and gravitas to carry that mantle.

Your disenchantment is not baseless.