Soul Survivor: Why I Won't Be Going

Soul Survivor is an organisation which 'Soul Survivor runs events to help people get to know and follow Jesus better.' It is one of the annual events of the church I attend to embark on one of these trips, camping in a muddy field worshipping God and listening to powerful sermons. Many of my friends find a renewed sense of vibrancy and trust in their relationship with Jesus after such events, and find the Christian community there wonderful. For a number of weeks now, people have persistently asked why I have decided not to attend such an event. In this article, I shall argue that the lax approach to spiritual gifts this charismatic movement has shall provide a dangerous precedence among Christians, leaning towards a purely existential approach to the Gospel without intellectual engagement, and thus my refusal to go is justified.

Firstly, I want to emphasise that Soul Survivor does a lot of good work for young Christians. Whilst it may share its name with a Rolling Stones song about worshipping the devil, the events held by Soul Survivor do encourage re-dedication to Christ. They help the relationships people have with God to be renewed, embrace vibrant, enthusiastic living for Jesus and really enliven people's faith. In a way, they are like going to the petrol station: if you faith is waning in its practical application, Soul Survivor will fill your tank up and you will be re-energised to follow Jesus. The existential side of the events is fantastic, encapsulating what it means to build faith, hope and love with the Lord in our personal lives. As Martin Luther believed, justification unites the sinner to Christ, and Soul Survivor brings that out wonderfully.

However, these existential concerns seem to overpower the need for intellectual rigour in the Church. The leaders and founders of Soul Survivor, in particular Mike Pilavachi, are charismatics, and as such are heavily devoted to the persuasion of others that the 'Charismata', better known as the spiritual gifts, should be more readily sought out by Christians in pursuit of God. Whilst I am not a Cessationist, that is, someone who believes the spiritual gifts were no longer needed after the Bible was put together, I do think a degree of investigation and intellectual scrutiny should be used when someone claims to be using a spiritual gift, which Mike Pilavachi and others do not.

Spiritual Gifts are defined by the Oxford Dictionary of the Bible in the following passage: 'Endowments given by the Spirit. All Christians should show the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22-3) but the gifts bestowed by the spirit are adapted to each individual, and are listed by Paul in Romans 12: 6-8 and in 1 Corinthians 12: 8-10, 28-30. They comprise gifts of speech, both coherent utterance and also the unintelligible speaking in tongues (though some present might have the complementary gift of interpretation); gifts of service and administration; and gifts of healing. A further gift mentioned by Paul is apostleship, which builds up the Church by leadership and pastoral care. In later epistles (Ephesians 4: 11 and 1 Peter 4: 10-11) the gift of speaking in tongues is omitted, possibly because experience taught the Church that words understood by all were preferable to sounds intelligible only to God (1 Corinthians 14: 1-5).

Now at this point, I want to introduce the idea of revelation. This is defined as:
(S) M reveals A to N by means of K
 An example might be:
(S) God reveals something about Himself to Fred by means of Tongues
So we can see, spiritual gifts are a means of revelation for God.

Unlike most religions, revelation is the corner stone of Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam. As such, all three recognise that it is vital to establish the which revelations are genuine and which are not, for how we follow God, and thus ultimately are salvation, could depend upon it. Whilst the initial revelations to ancient people are fascinating, and are essential to establishing the truth of each religion, for the purposes of this article I will just focus on the credentials of modern revelation, and how the Christian religion assesses the truth claims of purported religious experiences.

William Alston, a famous Christian philosopher of the 20th Century and the father of reformed epistemology, noted that the way we provide justification for trusting experiences is not via arguments and experiments but by what is called a 'doxastic practice', a belief forming mechanism. What it does is it takes inputs (such as sense data) and turns them into outputs (beliefs about the external world). Each practise has its own set of criteria for what is a valid input. For example, the doxastic practises for sensory experience would determine that valid inputs are those which are logically coherent and consistent with are other sensory beliefs. If a belief is formed of valid inputs, the practise bestows prima facie justification on the belief. That is, we are justified in holding that belief until proven otherwise. Alston's point is that both are normal experiences and religious ones use this process, and so both types of belief's are valid until proven otherwise. To deny religious experience the same status as sensory experience is a double standard, for they both use the doxastic practise for epistemic justification. Therefore, as the Christian doxastic practise has the same status as an equal status to sensory practise (which we all trust) if we can establish which claims of revelation are true, we are initially justified in believing them, which could greatly effect the decisions we make and the lives we lead.

Thus, trusting a modern revelation, via the spiritual gifts, requires us to use the Christian doxastic practise in assessing whether it is a valid input. This means that when someone claims to have a spiritual gift, the evidence or experience put forward must be subjected to the criteria of a valid input. If it does not meet the expected norm, the Christian religion rejects this instance as a true example of the gift. For an illustration, lets look at the gift of prophecy.

Someone who has the gift of prophecy is by definition a prophet. A prophet is neither a soothsayer, nor a fortune teller. Rather, a prophet is someone who 'shows us the face of God, and in so doing he shows us the path we must take' (Pope Benedict XVI). This distinguishes a prophet from society, religion and institutions: he represents the word of God alone. There are a number of criteria the Bible states for determining who is a prophet, although they are not applicable in all cases. They are:

*Being inspired to fortell future events (Deuteronomy 18:18, 22 and Jeremiah 28:1-17)
*Miracles, signs and wonders wrought by the prophet are further authentication (Deuteronomy 34: 9-12)
*The prophecy (A) corresponds with God's word (1 Kings 22:17 and 1 John 4: 1-3)
*The prophet lives a God-fearing life (Jeremiah 23:9-18 and 2 Peter 2:1-2, 13-18)

St. Thomas Aquinas also provided further criteria, which distinguish between the person who has had a potential revelation and those who have the gift of prophecy:

*A prophet must reveal information which 'transcends human knowledge.' If this was not the case, we could just work out using our cognitive faculties the truth of what the prophet says, and thus God would not be required for us to learn this truth. As prophecy is the revelation of unknown information (such as future events), it cannot just be that which we could work out via reason.
*Second, the prophet must have an understanding of what he or she has received. He gives the example of pagan rulers in the Bible (Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar) who received revelation in dreams and visions but who were not prophets because they did not grasp the revelation.
*Third, the prophet must not mistake the symbol for the symbolised. If he did, we would not know what is real or false, metaphor and literal in God's revelation.
*Fourth, the prophet must perceive the revelation as though through demonstration.
*Fifth, the prophet must be able to communicate the revelation in an expressible way.
*Sixth, and most importantly, nothing false can come under prophecy.

These criteria have long been accepted by major theologians and philosophers for centuries, including titans such as John Locke, Wolfhart Pannenberg and John Paul II. As such, I think it is reasonable to take them as the doxastic practise within Christianity which validates whether an act of prophecy is an input, and confirm who has the gift of prophecy.

My problem with Soul Survivor is that they abandon the criteria for revelation, thus allowing nearly anything to count as a spiritual gift, religious experience or miracle. Take prophecy. Mike Pilavachi of Soul Survivor tells a story of practising prophecy. He was very nervous and felt very nonspiritual. He decided he would be more holy before the day so he could hear from God clearly. In fact, he forgot about the day which came around suddenly. On the day, in the room, in front of a couple, he listened as his friend who had a gift of prophecy gave words to the couple. Then came Mike's turn. However, the only thing he could hear or see in his head was Abba singing 'Dancing Queen'. He hoped the ground would swallow him up or that Jesus would return. Neither happened so he duly gave his 'word'. 'In the words of Abba, you can dance, you can dance, having the time of your lives.' There was a silence and then giggles from the couple. 'Do you want to know why we're laughing?' asked the woman. Mike, nervously agreed. 'Well, I started running a dance class at church a couple of weeks ago and I was wondering whether I should carry on with it' came the reply.

When we apply the criteria for prophecy, it does not seem like a valid input. We can't test the verifiable nature of this case, as Mike neither offers a prediction nor a miraculous sign. We cannot tell whether it is in God's interest for the dance group to continue, and it does not evidently correspond to God's word. What Mike said neither transcends human knowledge nor was understood by him, and as far as we can tell he did not perceive the revelation as though through demonstration. It seems like this claim of prophecy is weak. Now I do not disagree that God may have inspired this man to say these words at a certain time to help this couple make a decision. What I do dispute is the epistemic justification for holding such a belief. And this is not just limited to prophecy. All the miraculous gifts are opened up by the Soul Survivor brand, so that if it vaguely seems to meet with the conceptions of revelation then that passes for a genuine experience of God. This is unbiblical to the highest degree.

The Early Church Fathers recognised that Christianity is a religion which is based on its truth, and that this truth could be demonstrated by argument and reason. If our love is not grounded in truth, what use is it? Abandoning intellectual engagement with religious experience and revelation allows almost anything, from a flickering eye to the effects of drugs, as reliable guides to our interaction with God. This is dangerous, for it allows false prophets and demonic revelations to cloud human judgement and distracts us from the path to God. Only by imposing criteria which are founded in prior revelation can we be sure prima facie what we have is revealed truth, and not some demonic deception. I cannot stress the importance of this enough: if we start accepting false revelations, spiritual gifts and religious experiences, ultimately are relationship with God will suffer through our false preconceptions, beliefs and ideas, no matter how good the intentions are. It is this which divides miracle from hoax, interaction with the divine from imagination and spiritual gift from mental phenomena. It is only by this that the early church was able to decide clear, absolute doctrine and not ambiguous, clouded views, which would be the dangerous result of the views Soul Survivor endorses. Indeed, it is these sorts of anti-rational views which allowed gnostics, arians and other sects to develop. Due to the prevailing danger such a position holds, I feel my stand against this by not attending is justified, despite the existential benefits of going.

In conclusion, I won't go to Soul Survivor as it sacrifices the intellectual integrity of Christianity for existential concerns. I can see why: if you allow almost anything to be a revelatory instance, then everyone can feel included and a developed relationship with Jesus. However, the danger this poses is that we allow ourselves, group hysteria and false experiences to shape our Christian beliefs, and in doing so jeopardise our conception, and thus relationship, with God. Never forget that if you are a Christian, it is not because you feel existentially good about it, but because you think it is true. Truth is of the utmost importance. For Jesus himself is the eternal Logos, word and reason. He is the Truth, and to allow false experiences to taint our faith is to abandon him. Therefore, as one who realises that the foundations of what I believe were created by men like St. Irenaeus, St Athanasius and St Augustine, pioneers of sound doctrine and an uncompromising value of the truth, I cannot attend Soul Survivor. For those who do go, I hope your faith is renewed and you walk with Jesus, in the truth. Just be wary of the falsities one may be led into by the dominating rejection of the Christian doxastic practise at such an event.

'Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.' 1 John 3:18

P.S. I recently wrote a blog post essentially rejecting the whole premise of this one, which you can read here
http://ratio-et-fide.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/speaking-in-tongues-how-i-went-from.html