I agree. I believe "tongues" as they are practiced today are an emotional phenomenon which has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, nor with any language as has been used by God to communicate his Word.
1) In my experience in various Pentecostal and Charismatic churches beginning in 1984, the percentage of tongues-speaking events involving an agitated emotional state would be in the single digits.
2) Scripture does not present tongues as a means by which God communicates His word, so that part of your quote supports the idea that modern tongues *are* consistent with the Spirit giving the utterance, as in Scripture.
I have perused some of these studies, though they typically have quite a low sampling.
The findings I read were that there were no discernible differences at all, neither phonetically nor physiologically between glossolalia as practiced by Christians and glossolalia as practiced by non-Christians. No difference.
Which begs the question, if ecstatic utterances are not used for the original purposes for which the authentic works of the Holy Spirit were intended, what purpose do they serve?
IMO they are classic examples of the workings of a theology of glory - that which serves to exalt man and his works, rather than the true theology of the Cross by which humility and weakness are authentic expressions of our exalted Lord.
IMO, your view results from an unhealthy theology of abasement that rarely if ever mentions such things as the fact that believers sit enthroned with Christ in heavenly places.
I believe that in the absence of sacramental theology in some Christian traditions there has been an effort to employ ecstatic speech and emotional outbursts as a way to connect with God, or to prove or demonstrate a connection with God. They are means by which some attempt to reach up to God, to get a touch from God, or to experience the working of God in their lives in some extraordinary way. But this is not in accordance with what scripture teaches.
When I pray and praise in tongues, it is typically no more "emotional" than ordinary praying in English. When I do it, I have the sense that it arises from the fact that I *am* connected with and indwelt by God, not that I am making some "attempt" to "reach" Him. I have the sense that "extraordinary" as it may be, it is, or at least should be, something Xians "ordinarily" experience. I find that it is not just "in accord" with Scripture, but that Scripture teaches it is normative.
2 Cor. 12:12 The things that mark an apostle - signs, wonders and miracles - were done among you with great perseverance.
The purpose of these signs, wonders and miracles were to establish the authority of the apostles to believers, and to unbelievers as a validation of the proclamation of the Gospel.
Those did mark apostles. But Scripturally, those were not the *only* things that marked apostles, and they were not restricted to apostles.
They were never meant to be used as means of grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself instituted means of grace- the sacraments of holy baptism and holy communion...
And yet, in line with what MTK said, I have found only two occasions where "charis" or a variant occurs in the same context as baptism or baptize, and neither suggests that baptism is a "means" of charis. I have not found any for charis and the Communion teachings. OTOH, charis or a form thereof occurs regularly in the contexts of the "gifts" -- 1 Cor. 12, Rom. 12, Eph. 4.
- in order to provide us with objective means by which we can each experience God directly.
And yet Paul said it was via the Spirit that we experience the presence of God with unveiled face. 2 Cor. 3:17-18
The Holy Spirit touches us and enters us through the washing of regeneration in baptism.
If you mean water baptism, I can't find evidence in Scripture for baptismal regeneration.
Our Lord gives us the price of our redemption in our bodies for the forgiveness of sins as we receive his true body and blood along with the bread and wine in holy communion.
In his sacraments, God comes to each one of us individually and presents us the opportunity to experience him in a physical, tangible way, regardless of our emotional state, by faith alone.
And yet in Gal. 3, Paul appeals to the *experience* of the *Spirit*.
We have no need of emotional outbursts...
Nor do we need to eschew the occasional joyous leaping and spinning around -- Luke 10:21.
... or dubious ecstatic utterances. In fact, they lead us away from God and deeper into the emotional, fallible, subjective, experience-based religion favored by our flesh as evidenced by the fact that exactly the same phenomena frequently occur in false religions.
Oh, please. What is more fleshly and "experience-based" than churches that embrace rituals, ceremonial garb, soaring architecture, etc.?
