Actually, this whole issue goes back to the Great Schism of 1054.
For those who may not know, that is when the Eastern Churches (Orthodox) and Western Church (Roman Catholic) seperated. There were different issues involved by the primary issue was that of the 'filioque'. Filioque is the latin phrase for 'and the Son', which was added to the Nicene Creed by the Roman Church. This caused the Creed to now read "The Holy Spirit... who proceeds from the Father
and the Son"
While this may sound like a small thing, the way it played out in theology was actually a major development. In the Western church a heirarchy developed in the thinking of theologians.
1. God the Father at the top,
2. Jesus next in line, and
3. the Holy Spirit at the bottom.
The next logical step was that if you have access to someone higher in the heirarchy then you didn't 'need' someone lower down as much. You may have heard taught in churches something to the effect that 'the Holy Spirit will always lift up Jesus'. (Well, if the Holy Spirit is just as much God as Jesus, then couldn't He lift Himself up? or maybe just the Father? )
Over time the theology progressed... if the Church is the Body of Christ, then the heirarchy would look like this:
1. God the Father
2. Jesus-- and His Body the Church
3. The Holy Spirit
If you present it to someone this way, they immediately would say, NO, the Holy Spirit is above the Church, but if you study their theology this is the way it unfolds in a practical manner-- With the Holy Spirit subservient to the Church. It reached a point that it was said that the three great truths of the Bible are the Father, the Son, and the Church.
In the East, however, they held it was more of a triangle than an heirarchy, with the Father at the top point, and the Son and the Spirit each 'equal' .
....Father
..../ `````\
Son ===Spirit
In this way the Son and the Spirit were interdependent upon each other-- the Son did nothing until He was anointed by the Spirit and the Spirit did not come until He was 'poured out' by the Son.
With this view, if you see the Church as the Body of Christ, then the Church can do nothing without the Holy Spirit's empowering and the Spirit operates through the Church.
Because of holding this view, the Western Church accused the Eastern Church of being too 'mystical' because of their emphasis of the role of the Spirit in the church, including experiences such as visions, dreams, prophecy, etc.
Unfortunately, many Pentecostals/Charismatics come from a theological background that still holds to the 'filioque'. This is often the cause of many of the theological issues that arise, as they are trying to reconcile one part of their theology which places an emphasis on the Holy Spirit with another part of their theology that shoves the Spirit aside.
I hope this helps a little!
