The Anointing
By R.T. Kendall
Hodder and Stoughton. 212 pages. £5.99
This book is written on two levels, which are so interwoven that it is often difficult to keep track of what is going on.
On one level, it is simply about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Its heart is that there are particular times when one's gifts are used by God with great effectiveness (sometimes called 'unction'). As a call to keep oneself spiritually sharp, one could find this thesis useful, although some of his exegesis and arguments from experience are less convincing. He writes perceptively and winningly on the personal cost of ministry.
I find Kendall much surer on the NT than OT material, and there are two crucial examples in this book. The framework is provided by an exegesis of 1 Samuel 16.1 (where Samuel secretly anoints David,) from which flows the structure of 'Yesterday's anointing' (i.e. modelled on King Saul, showing how one can lose one's anointing).
'Today's anointing' (i.e. modelled on Samuel, and how one can discern that God is doing a new thing in our time), plus 'Tomorrow's anointing' (i.e. modelled on the future King David, and how we need men of the Word and the Spirit who will reunite charismatics and evangelicals, thus bringing about 'the long-awaited combination, prophesied by Smith-Wigglesworth in 1947, of the word and Spirit' (p.5)).
I have several problems with this. I don't believe that is a rigorous exegesis of 1 Samuel 16 - David's reaction to Saul's Amalekite assassin is that Saul was still the Lord's anointed at his death.
Manifestly daft
Then, more profoundly, I don't find such character studies plausible as a way of handling narrative. The points made might well be generally true, but there is no way of ascertaining them from the text. Biblical theology provides a much more satisfactory tool for exegeting biblical history. I prefer Graeme Goldsworthy to Kendall. I also think an approach to the Bible which applies it in such a way that so closely links Smith-Wigglesworth from 2 Samuel is manifestly daft. Kendall is not hesitantly applying universal truths from the passage, remember, but saying that this is God's pattern for the end of our century. It seemed obvious to this reader, though I trust not to the author, that conclusions about today have been reached, and the text analysed, in a way that seems to resonate with them.
Another undergirding exegesis assumes it is legitimate to take the story of how Ishmael was supplanted by Isaac - Kendall has an 'impression' this means that the charismatic movement is not the promised revival but will be supplanted by 'the greatest work of the Spirit this century' (p.98). I simply don't know how to respond to such an exegesis - is it just me or is it transparently implausible to others too?
Of course, it is unverifiable be-cause Kendall's impression is a private one, and he is modest enough to admit its potential fallibility. But frankly, if Genesis 16 can mean that, I bet more Christians will be more excited about falling over backwards than about the privilege of covenant sonship - which is what Paul says it means. Experiential cuckoos always kick out exegetical eggs. 'Isaac is coming. This means a movement of the Holy Spirit will be so vast and powerful, surpassing anything this century has seen, even in proportion to the promise and significance of Isaac when compared to Ishmael' (p.2).
Second level
The reason for that eisegesis is the book's second level, which is a theological and anecdotal apologia for Rodney Howard-Browne, Paul Cain and the Toronto Blessing. Broadly speaking, Kendall argues that we have divorced God's Word from his Spirit, and just as we need both Word and Spirit, evangelicals and charismatics, so we need both the careful exposition of men such as Kendall and the supernatural giftedness of Howard-Browne and Cain. I don't think I'm personalising this too much, by the way, for Kendall himself reports how he said: 'Paul, you need my theology - I need your power' (p.183), and reinforces that with numerous personal stories of a similar flavour. The autobiographical element is engaging and lightens the book, but it is hard not to read it as a major PR exercise for Cain and Howard-Browne with an element of self-justification.
The thesis is that seriously big revival is just around the corner and that those who remain either 'charismatics' or 'evangelicals' will be yesterday's men, as surely as King Saul. The spiritually alert will, like Samuel, discern 'Today's anointing', the new thing that God is doing in our day, and will attend the 'remarriage' of word and Spirit that will usher in 'Tomorrow's anointing', through the kind of conferences that Kendall and Cain jointly arrange and speak at. In the context of their 1992 Word and Spirit conference at Wembley, Kendall says: 'We both began to feel we had a destiny together' (p.183).
I don't want to be cheap and cynical nor to wound unnecessarily. As we all acknowledge, far too much evangelical preaching approaches the Bible as what God said rather than what he is vibrantly saying, and too much charismaticism seeks novelty and experience without thought and study. Kendall is right on that score, but the critique has often been made before, and without his diplomatic even-handedness; is it true that both groups are equally at fault?
Confessional distance
However, in my opinion, and I say this having read the book carefully several times, the proposed solution is exegetically unconvincing and theologically superficial, and in terms of its contemporary analysis, naive and undiscerning. Kendall himself admits that Cain and Lloyd-Jones are 'poles apart theologically' but argues that their openness to the Spirit overrides their confessional distance. The Holy Spirit then, must unite us by giving us common experiences not by bringing us together in truth. An evangelical must respond that the proposed remarriage topples over into a divorce between Word and Spirit and a preference for the (supposed) latter over the former, the (so-called) direct over the (so-called) indirect.
That quick analysis shows the kind of questions this book fails to answer: can one have a genuine experience of God's Word without experience of his breath/Spirit by which he speaks? Is it possible to be an evangelical who humbly submits to God in all of Scripture and yet to miss out on what God is doing today?
Kendall's meditation on 1 Samuel 16 began on the day it occurred in McCheyne's calendar of daily readings. The day I began work on this review, that same calendar gave me serious warnings on false prophets. I don't give any spiritual weight to that coincidence, other than to think we need to treat a book like this with great caution.
Chris Green
Tolworth, Surrey
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