Today’s post is inspired by an Atlantic piece on the fastest growing Christian group in America: Pentecostals, or charismatics, sometimes called Holy Rollers (I’m going to use the terms more or less interchangeably). It is an enlightening exercise to compare reports of charismatic services with the average LDS congregation. At first glance, the two are at way opposite ends of the spectrum. But wait, not so fast! (A glance at the article would help you follow the discussion.) Let’s compare.
We’re both new, or new-ish. The Mormons hit the scene in the mid-19th century. Pentecostals got rolling right around the turn of the 20th century. So we had maybe a seventy-year head start, but to a Catholic or a Lutheran we are both new kids on the block.
Growing membership: they got it, we want it. The Mormons are well past the glory days of rampant missionary success in the 60s and 70s. But Pentecostals seem to be growing and growing, as reported in the article. It’s not clear to me whether that is due to their lively services or God pouring His Spirit out on their congregations. Pentecostals don’t send out missionaries, at least in America. Funny how the most rapidly growing outfit doesn’t send out missionaries, while the Mormons flood the market with young proselyting missionaries but get very little return for all that investment (of free labor, of institutional attention, and a little bit of institutional capital — it’s largely members who fund the mission effort outside of official channels).
Our services could not be more different. Now I say this as someone who has never attended a Pentecostal service, so maybe a reader or two could correct me, but it’s pretty clear they are a-rockin’ and a-rollin’ on Sunday, sort of a holy irreverent approach (also maybe wholly irreverent by Mormon standards). Pastors wander around, up and down the aisle, personifying the message as much as preaching it, in contrast to the LDS approach of standing at the pulpit and that’s where you stay. Those attending a charismatic congregation are part of the action, not a quietly passive audience (or maybe a quietly inattentive audience tuned in to their cell phones, not the speaker).
But … gifts of the Spirit? What’s odd is that Mormons claim and talk about “gifts of the Spirit” all the time, just like Pentecostals do. In the early days, there was speaking in tongues (glossolalia, for you purists) in the LDS Church, but that slowly went out of fashion over the course of the 19th century and was basically gone by the time it erupted into mainstream Christianity as Pentecostalism. So you would think the current LDS position on gifts of the Spirit would be, “nah, we don’t do that anymore, now we’re into correlation and reverence.”
Surprise! “Speaking in tongues” is now learning a new language at an MTC. Mormons give a lot of healing blessings, so almost universally assume that healings therefore occur (statistical studies don’t support any effect for healing prayers, so I doubt a well-controlled statistical study would show any effect for LDS priesthood blessings). Mormons likewise assume that miracles and prophecy, another set of gifts of the Spirit, happen all the time.
And then there are the more pedestrian gifts, such as leadership and administration. Yes, the LDS Church excels at these more bureaucratic gifts, but it’s hard to give the Spirit a lot of credit here. Professional education seems to deserve more credit: the Church loves lawyers and CPAs in its local leadership structure.
The prevalence of Spirit-talk in the LDS Church is a little puzzling. When Pentecostals do Spirit-talk, at least they walk the walk. When they are “moved by the Spirit,” they are really moving. It’s like Mormons talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. The Spirit is an exceedingly gentle force in LDS practice. In the big picture, from present to distant past, all kinds of deities, from Xenu to Zeus, were relentlessly petitioned for divine favors and were given credit for all kinds of outcomes. We should think a little harder about God’s action in the world. Maybe we ought to give a little more attention to Deist and Epicurean (the philosophers, not the foodies) views.
What’s your experience?
- Have you ever attended a Pentecostal service? Were one or two readers perhaps practicing Pentecostals at some point? Please share your experience.
- Has anyone ever seen a Mormon service with even a “Hallelujah!” or a “Praise the Lord!” exclamation?
- Is there an introvert/extrovert thing going on here? All churches except maybe the Quakers are designed for and cater to extroverts, including the LDS Church, but at least introverts can fly under the radar in LDS services and classes.
- Big picture question: what does Pentecostal growth and LDS stagnation say about the LDS missionary program or the LDS approach to not-very-lively Sunday services? Suggestions, anyone?
Wheat & Tares 
I’ve attended but not for a long time. The prophecies are generic wisdom. The speaking in tongues is not translated. The pastors I heard were well educated. The people are friendly.
Mormonism’s roots are in the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801, a reaction against rigidly structured Universalism and Calvinism. They were Holy Rollers, speaking in tongues and prophesying, bringing back the Book of Acts for a latter day. Mormonism’s unquestioning acceptance of Smith’s prophecies fits the Holy Roller anti-theology. Pentecostalism’s roots are closer to Methodism, and stem from the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906.
Early Mormons were Pentacostal-like. Lots of tongues, casting out devils, etc. My grandfather recalled having seen it in testimony meetings in the 19th century. But I think it was considered lower class and not respectable, so it died out.
There were a lot of Pentecostals on my mission in the D.R. 25 years ago. You could hear them from a mile away. Sounded like a good time. Seemed like they were very locally run. It would be interesting to find out if there are any family memories of Pentecostal-like stuff happening in Mormon church meetings. I don’t recall my grandparents (who were all born in the 1910s) ever talking about it. If you believe the correlated material, tongues, prophesying, visions etc. were all stamped out in the 1830s. If it wasn’t authorized by JS, it was “of the Devil.” Like most early attempts at boundary maintenance (word of wisdom, polygamy) I’m sure members held onto the holy roller stuff for a few more generations. Just look at how long Church leaders have been trying to regulate testimony meetings – maybe decades now?- yet the travelogues and “thankamonies” continue. Maybe next F&T meeting I’ll get up and start working in tongues, just to see what happens.
Rick Bennett has some fascinating interviews with Chris Thomas, a pentacostal. John Dehlin also interviewed him as well. Chris is just so good. I can’t help but feel the love he has for God and the people whom he serves and leads. Honestly, just listening to Chris talk about the gospel and how it works in his life and that of his congregation causes some major holy envy for me. It is just refreshing to listen to a branch of christianity that lives and experiences God rather than myopically focusing so much on dogmatic truth claims.
The closest I’ve come to seeing exclamations in church were from a Samoan brother who’d yell out “talofa!” as he was walking up to bear his testimony. And he’s keep saying it until the congregation responded with “talofa”.
My one experience with a Pentecostal service was in my youth at a father and sons campout. While hanging out around the campfire, somebody noticed that things were getting lively at the neighboring campground, and a few of us snuck over to take a peek. It seems we were next door to a Pentecostal version of a father and sons campout, and their campfire program involved speaking in tongues and rolling on the ground. I had never seen anything quite like it before or since.
I think you raise a good point about introversion/extroversion. Maybe it would be different if I’d been raised with it, but as an introvert the whole notion of Pentecostal worship makes me uncomfortable. Being an introvert in the LDS church has its downsides (you tend to get pigeonholed into certain categories of callings), but compared to churches with more exhuberant worship styles, boring LDS worship services seem more appealing to me.
As far as family memories go, one of my ancestors was well-regarded in the church for his gift of speaking in tongues. But this was in Kirtland, and I don’t know if that practice even carried over into the Nauvoo era (he sadly died in Missouri before the saints gathered in Nauvoo). But it was definitely seen as a positive spiritual gift in the very early church.
Pentecostals do have missionaries – both service and proselytizing, but the model is different and I think a significant factor in their growth and success.
1. Planting a congregation – franchise model for growth. pastors trained and supported by donations move to a new area to establish a church. They are adults trained in Bible college usually and stay in an area to build a congregation. Local members may also do door to door evangelizing. I used to run into them when I was a missionary in Nicaragua from time to time.
2. Service missions or mission trips. More short term vacation like service and evangelizing trips. More youth and Bible college students. Less commitment than Mormon mission and less time and usually service oriented in controlled setting.
3. TV and internet – televangelists are not all but many are Pentecostal and get in a lot more doors than Mormon missionaries tracting.
4. Bible college – not great institutions for scholarship but great for building committed members. They aren’t expensive or hard to get in but train new pastors, missionaries, committed members.
5. Printing and distribution network – Christian book stores – think deseret book but everywhere, bibles – so many bibles, pamphlets – from silly comics about how you are going to hell if you don’t accept Jesus that volunteers hand out at bars to anti Mormon or Muslim tracts, and a whole industry for Christian content that is on all of the internets as well as every book store like Barnes and Noble.
If you see all the ways they are investing for growth it makes sense why they are growing and we aren’t.
I also served my mission among Pentecostals in Latin America about 20-odd years ago. And look, I get that the whole M.O. of this blog is take LDS self-assurance down a peg; but if you’re looking for alternate models for worship, the Pentecostals ain’t it. Just take all of the arrogance, conservatism, patronizing condescension, bullying, sanctimonious self-righteousness, pettiness, purity-policing, guilt-shaming, willful ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and cruelty that so many of you associate with LDS culture, and crank it up on steroids to 11, and you’ll have a fair approximation of the Pentecostal mindset. Many, many things needs to be changed about LDS culture, but swinging even more in the direction of the Pentecostals and other evangelicals is emphatically not one of them.
Agreed – Pentecostal culture and church vibe not being an improvement from Mormonism. It is a pretty toxic culture and on top of that the leadership has serious issues. LDS leaders from president to seventy do get some compensation, but it is really so moderate and reasonable compared to evangelical televangelists or super church pastors with giant homes, private planes, fraud and exorbitant salaries.
John Oliver has a hilarious review of televangelist excesses that are rampant in Pentecostal media. Give me the LDS finance drama any day where they saved too much money.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Martin, nice historical detail. Expanded, that could be a whole new post.
chrisdrobison, yes I heard Chris Thomas speak at an LDS philosophy conference a few years ago. He was a lot of fun, friendly and informative. He was really into the Book of Mormon from a Pentecostal perspective. He’s got a great book out on that.
Brian and JB, in the post I wasn’t really offering the Pentecostal model and style and details as a template for the LDS Church to copy. Just noting their successful growth and asking whether there is anything we (or “the Church”) could learn from looking at their operation. LDS leadership has been willing to make changes, many minor but some significant, to various programs and practices in recent years. So it’s not a wild proposition to suggest we/they might learn something by looking at the apparent popularity of Pentecostal practices with churchgoers.
Here’s a link to Chris Thomas’s book.
Having had some experience in Assemblies of God in the late 1960’s I saw two disturbing things. The first was racism. My Japanese American Pentecostal friend was forbidden from dating a white girl. The second was iron-fisted control of churches by leading families, who would hire and fire pastors as they saw fit, one of whom was a family friend.
I attended a Pentecostal church service as a missionary (I don’t recall which denomination/sect it was). During the service it was announced they they would now exercise the gift of speaking in tongues. Someone a few rows ahead of us started talking in “tongues”. After they finished, someone else started “translating”. The translation was (from memory) something like “look to me, my children” repeated a few times (and some other stuff that I don’t remember). Then someone else did it and the process repeated. And then the service went on with other things.
It was an odd experience. The whole point of the “speaking in tongues” part was a scheduled event as part of the larger service. It was almost like doing for the sake of doing it. They exercised the gift and then moved on with other things. There was no inspiration in the message/translation.
I don’t know under what influence the speaker or translator were operating. I didn’t feel the spirit in any way during it. It was kind of funny as a young(ish) missionary, although more perplexing than anything. I spend a while pondering it but couldn’t see any reason why God would bestow such a gift onto anyone, or for what purpose. The people at the church were nice and seemed sincere. Afterwards the pastor offered to show us how the Bible was true via numerology.
Just so we understand what we’re talking about here…check it out:
I have never spoken in tongues nor have I witnessed it in real life. My understanding of it is that it is a way of experiencing the divine. I also haven’t attended an African church which may use drums to express love for God and for the church. Loud drums, we are taught, are not appropriate for our meetings. But there they are, bearing witness in other Christian traditions. These forms of worship are outside of my experience as a white male Utah-born member of our church.
However, I think that we should show respect and even admiration for such things. I had a (non-member) friend in high school accompany me to a youth fireside. She noted all the crying. Rather than seeing it as an expression of spiritual joy, she thought it was odd and even off-putting. Sorta the way we may see speaking in tongues.
If we fail to see value in speaking in tongues, I think it condemns us, not them.
I’ve attended Pentecostal services on a few occasions. I don’t recall any speaking in tongues, but they definitely have a more physical, whole-body style of worship. It made me a bit uncomfortable, likely because it wasn’t my native language. People were friendly and welcoming, but I also felt a bit of sales pressure too.
In other ways, I was a little envious. The pastors were well-educated and even insightful on basic Christianity in ways that were refreshing to me. They had paid ministry, paid office staff and paid musicians, and it showed in quality and organization. They had many, many well-organized social activities and service opportunities to choose from (in contrast to the default lameness and reluctant attendance at Mormon activities).
On other occasions, I’ve heard some of my Pentecostal/evangelical co-workers talking about switching between different congregations because they like a certain pastor’s preaching style better than others. I wish Mormons were allowed to do that.
On the minus side, Pentecostals and similar conservative traditions seem to be the biggest promoters of prosperity gospel. Granted, Mormons have a version of it too, but are much less obvious about it (better at hiding it I guess?) but that’s another topic entirely.
The gifts of the spirit are very much present in the church today. And the primary way to detect whether or not they’re coming from above is in how the edify those who are present–as per Section 50 of the Doctrine & Covenants.
@Jack, the OP discussed speaking in tongues and healing as two “gifts of the Spirit” (and they are mentioned in scripture as well). Can you describe how these 2 gifts of the Spirit “are very much present in the Church today?”
The OP noted that speaking in tongues has been downgraded to LDS missionaries’ ability to learn new languages, an ability that they almost certainly gain just as fast as any other group of people would given similar language training and exposure. And quite honestly, when Church members claim the LDS missionaries’ ability to learn new languages is the “gift of tongues” spoken of in the scriptures, it’s really quite a differently thing than what we read about in the scriptures. Anything less than people speaking in “angelic tongues” unintelligible to everyone else (except people with the gift to interpret) isn’t speaking in tongues. In other words, there doesn’t seem to be any speaking in tongues in the Church today whatsoever.
Likewise, the OP also noted that if a study were done to determine whether people who receive LDS priesthood blessings of healing actually have more positive health outcomes than those who don’t receive blessings of healing that the result would almost certainly be that priesthood blessings have little to no positive effect (and, if there were a positive effect, my guess is that it would be of the same magnitude achieved by any other religious practice performed on sick people–nothing would be special about LDS priesthood healing power). Again, the “gift of the Spirit” to heal doesn’t appear to exist in the Church today.
Those 2 particular gifts are pretty hard to argue for in today’s Church, so that’s why I’m focusing on them. Again, how are these 2 gifts of the Spirit “very much present in the Church today?”
mountainclimber479,
I’ve personally experienced miraculous healings–and so have many of my loved ones and close associates. And I’ve heard countless stories of healings–some more reliable than others, of course.
Re: the gift of tongues: the only personal experience I’ve had is losing my Spanish after my mission–and I mean almost immediately. I could hardly string a sentence together. Thankfully I was able to get it back by working with Hispanic folks for much of my career.
That said, I’ve heard some interesting stories–from pretty reliable sources–where the gift of tongues has been manifested in different settings–anywhere from sacrament meetings to the temple. I believe it happens–that is, in the classic biblical sense–but that it’s more rare than healings.
Even so, I don’t think we should negate the church’s global outreach through the missionaries and other mediums. It really is quite astonishing what the church has been able to accomplish vis-a-vis the translation and interpretation of so many languages. And if nothing it else–it is in very deed a fulfillment of prophecy.
@Jack, I’ve heard stories of healing, too. They’re happy stories, and I’m glad people recover from their health problems. That said, sometimes people unexpectedly get better–whether they had a priesthood blessing or not. What I’m saying is that if a scientific study were to be done–one that doesn’t require relying on people’s personal anecdotes–where the health outcomes over a sufficient population size (to be able to apply statistical analysis) of people who received LDS priesthood blessings are compared against those who didn’t, you would find no difference. Even if you only compared LDS blessings given by GAs or the Q15, I believe you would find no difference. If that study were to be done, I’m quite confident that it would be found that there is no healing power manifested in the Church. Sure, there’s room for a one in a million miracle to happen–that wouldn’t be detected by such a study–but many LDS members believe the healing power is much more widespread than that. They each have their stories, and if all those stories were true manifestations of the gift of healing, it would be a large enough effect to be statistically detectable, but it’s simply not.
More stories again with the “gift of tongues”. I generally try very hard not to discount other people’s stories, certainly not to their faces, but I’ve heard so many stories of supernatural miracles as a lifelong Church member, yet somehow strangely I have never, ever personally witnessed one myself (and I was very TBM earlier in my life, so more “worthy” to receive one than I might be now?). I mean, as a missionary, I believed some of the stories that were spread by fellow missionaries that I now know to be just folklore (they exist in many other missions with slight variations). All religions are good at spreading these types of stories. I’ve noticed that even members who are generally very honest and reliable and would normally be “good sources” spread them. For many, such stories are faith promoting, but it doesn’t mean they’re true. For skeptics like me, these stories are pretty annoying. Why should I believe other people’s stories–especially in a religion whose apostles and prophets were dishonest about its most important stories (First Vision, BoM translation, Book of Abraham, etc.) for generations?
Your story of “losing” your Spanish ability shortly after your mission isn’t convincing. It’s a common phenomenon. You only spoke Spanish for 2 years. It’s common for people to become uncomfortable with their mission language after coming home and not using it for a short amount of time. Like you said, your Spanish “came back” to you after working with Spanish speaking people for a bit. This is also normal.
It really isn’t astonishing what the church has been able to accomplish with languages. Other organizations have accomplished similar language translation feats with similar levels of effort. No miracles or gifts of the Spirit required.
I’ve heard countless stories of miraculous healings in church settings. But as a doctor treating thousands of patients every year I don’t see cases I would consider miracles. Some patients do better than average, some worse. I believe God pours out blessings on us all but they don’t seem to be along the lines of miracles in my experience.
mountainclimber479,
“Sure, there’s room for a one in a million miracle to happen–that wouldn’t be detected by such a study–but many LDS members believe the healing power is much more widespread than that.”
Ironically, I think this “one in a million” phenomenon has happened to millions of members in the church. That said, I agree that there’s a lot of urban legend in the church–and I too can find it off-putting. Even so, if we were to catalogue all of the miracles that have happened in the church over the last year–and I mean as reported by the person(s) who actually experienced them–they would fill a tome the size of a telephone book–IMO. Now one may argue that even that particular catalogue would look no different from those of any other faith or cultural tradition. And here’s the rub: I’m not sure that a controlled study will ever be able to determine the frequency of miraculous healings as compared to mundane healings. It’s not unlike trying to determine the hand of Deity in who stays and who goes in the timing of human expiration. There are some things we have to take on good old fashioned faith. All of that said, I know what my personal experiences are with regard to miracles. But even so I’m inclined to agree with you vis-a-vis the probable lack of evidence as per a controlled study–though I’m doubtful that any study to date–and I mean related specifically to latter-day saints–has been comprehensive enough to capture my confidence.
“Why should I believe other people’s stories–especially in a religion whose apostles and prophets were dishonest about its most important stories (First Vision, BoM translation, Book of Abraham, etc.) for generations?”
I suppose this topic should be held in reserve for another time and place–but I think you already know that I have an optimistic view of the church–with all of its imperfect people–from which I cannot be dissuaded.
Jack, a telephone book serving Coalville, UT (pop. 2500)? Or a telephone book serving New York City, Los Angeles, or Miami?
@Jack, a controlled study wouldn’t require researchers to make the call on mundane versus miraculous (gift of the Spirit) healings. The LDS Church claims it has access to healing powers that other religions do not have. It is the only Church on the face of the earth with priesthood power after all. Therefore, the study would only have to detect whether LDS people who had received healing blessings did better than the rest of the population. If LDS people who received blessings had better health outcomes, then it could be assumed that LDS priesthood blessings actually have some effectiveness, but it isn’t necessary to know exactly which blessings worked. The fact that the overall results for LDS people receiving blessings is good enough.
I’m not a statitician, so I’m probably missing some very important things, but it honestly doesn’t seem to me at first glance like it would be very hard to do such a study. The hardest part might be getting Mormons to fully and honestly report when blessings had occurred. It might be especially hard to get Mormons to actually acknowledge that a blessing had been given when the end result was bad and/or acknowledge that a blessing had not been given when the end result was good. If you truly know when blessings were given, and you know the end results, and you can compare against the rest of the population while controlling for other factors, then it seems like the study could be done.
I’m sure the Church could easily fund a very extensive study like this if it wanted to. We know the Church very much likes to publicize positive things about itself. Hmm…I wonder why the Church doesn’t want to sponsor such a study. Could it be that it already knows what the end result is likely to be? Could it be that the Q15 themselves know that they don’t have healing powers since they’ve seen the dismal results of the blessings they’ve given, and if they can’t heal people, why would the expect any other members of the Church be able to do so? I think that’s the real reason the Church doesn’t want to publicize this sort of thing, but the stated reason will always be “such experiences are too sacred to share.” Churhc leaders give the “too sacred to share” excuse out of one side of their mouth while they continue to share faith promoting, yet unverifiable, miraculous stories, like the ones you mentioned earlier, out of the other side of their mouth.