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The Church - Subtly Deceived?
The Church - Subtly Deceived?
By Alexander Siebel
112 pages. ISBN 1 85 307 108 1
This is a slim popular paperback, written to warn the church against the charismatic movement and many of its practices, which the author sees as occult or involving evil spiritual forces.
The main contention of the work is that real spiritual forces of evil have entered the churches in the charismatic movement. Siebel implies that this taints the entire movement. He makes no real distinction between the various individuals, events or movements which one might call charismatic.
Siebel finds that some of the features of what happens in (some) charismatic circles are paralleled by things that happen in pagan religion. One must agree that some practices - such as claims to out-of-body experiences and 'touch of power' techniques, which Siebel mentions - are sub-Christian. One does not need to find the parallels to prove that. And it does not necessarily follow that demonic forces present in other religions are present wherever one finds similarities to their practices, especially where the parallels are superficial.
Siebel rightly, though without much analysis, condemns doctrines of being 'passive' and accepting whatever enters the mind as from God, or of testing theology by experience. Though he gives a worrying example from the German charismatic theologian Bittlenger, who advocates drawing from other religions those elements which are apparently superior versions of charismatic spirituality, these approaches are disavowed by many charismatics.
Unfortunately, the discussion is not of high enough quality to help us with its subject matter. There are more helpful investigations.
Michael Peat
Oak Hill Theological College
© Evangelicals Now - December 1996
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