Well I am one of those people. I am glad I have finally got an expert in pro-signs of Holy Spirit (especially tongues) to answer my questions.
Personal side to it all - before surgery I had all the feelings of God's presence in Charismatic services AND personal prayer, speaking in tongues and so on. Afterwards I lost all feelings and felt flat and empty in those *same* services/situations. It actually contributed to a lot of my falling away. (Backsliding into sin is what kept me there for a long period of time though.) That started the whole "how much is biological, how much is emotional, how much is genuinely spiritual (whether from God or deceptive spirits) ....." questioning.
I identify with some of this. I have had occasional episodes of depersonalization/derealization ("dp/dr," not to be read as a Differential Calculus expression) with a hint of "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" since adolescence. (Google them, or if you wish, I can provide some links.) By "occasional," I mean once every few years I would have an episode lasting maybe 15 minutes. I went about 20 years with none, then several years ago had a significant one that partially persisted for several months. While it persisted, it really adversely impacted my "sense" (for lack of any good term) of the presence of God, and made any sort of praying feel unbearably weird. My sleep-wake cycle has always been a bit off, and this has increased as I've gotten older. I'm very hesitant to try to "force" it to be normal, as I've found that can cause problems, including at least "mini" bouts of dp/dr.
When I pretty well re-converted after briefly hearing Gospel preached on sidewalk I returned to the local Assembly of God church in Viewbank Melbourne. There I saw everyone appearing to experience God still, probably the talented musicians contributed a lot to the service's atmosphere. I still felt nothing but I concentrated on the preaching instead. I often felt dissatisfied.
I got involved in a women's bible study group and everyone of them told me when I questioned how they knew it was God speaking to them, they were really speaking in tongues and/or miracles were really happening in their healing ministry - they just "knew" via feelings.
I resist calling it "feelings," since it is not what most people mean when they use that term. It is not a physical sensation, it is not an emotion, and it is not a mood. It is a perception of some other sort. It is a conviction, but one not derived from logic and reasoning.
It left me very disillusioned with it all. The ones who believed in continuation of spiritual gifts often were the ones who didn't know much about the bible. I found out afterwards (I had moved away to another town very far away in WA) that several had left the church or healing ministry (one no longer believed in Hell, one separated from husband) - and they were the ones who claimed to feel (and appeared genuine in this belief) the Holy Spirit's presence the most.
There are a few factors in play here. For one thing, at a "grass roots" level, there is still some mutual distrust and animosity between Pentecostals and traditional "mainline" denominations. The early Pentecostals read the Bible, believed it, and couldn't see any reason why the same experiences should not be occurring now. In their view, the traditionalists were better at "explaining away" Scripture than believing and doing it, so their "education" was of dubious value. Meanwhile, the traditionalists looked at the Pentecostals as irreverent and disorderly, and considered them too uneducated to possibly understand Scripture properly. Some of that thinking persists, though as has been noted, Pentecostalism now has its share of astute scholars.
Another factor is that many Pentecostals and Charismatics know Scripture very well in terms of "content" and "chapter and verse," but are shaky in terms of exegesis. Instead of considering text within context, they too often either "proof text" or else the polar opposite, search for spooky hidden esoteric messages "behind" the text.
A third problem is a "zap" mentality. Since they know by experience that God does often show up and miraculously "zap" problems away, they don't know how to handle the times when He does NOT do that.
In the very remote town I wasn't able to attend church so I had to rely on sermons online. There I came across a radio show (Fighting for the Faith) that is completely focused on discernment, apologetics and comparing what "people are saying about God in the name of God". Consistently the very worst news stories/ sermons reviewed are the ones fixated on signs and wonders and feeling the Holy Spirit/speaking in tongues including the Australian C3 Church and Hillsong Church.
That may reflect selection bias on the part of the people running the radio show. Pentecostals and Charismatics certainly have plenty of problems. But I don't think it would take me much time or effort to find a big list of Baptist preachers who dived headfirst into the muck. And just recently, a Lutheran preschool or daycare center had to close because during "nap time," the STAFF, not just the kids, were napping, and while they were asleep, some of the little kids were engaging in sex play!
Surely if the preachers/denominations that testify they are touched by the Holy Spirit/signs and wonders should be the best and holiest preachers and Christians of all? That is a very sincere question.
The Corinthians were engaged in some egregious sexual misconduct, among other issues, and yet had copious supernatural activity of the Spirit. Paul disciplined their misconduct and gave them instructions for better order in regard to using the Spirit's gifts, but never denied the manifestations really WERE the Spirit.
The most fervent "living out their faith" Christians - the ones who voluntarily do unpaid missionary work etc. I have known are non-Charismatics. Why is that so?
When I was at Penn State back in the '80s, my impression was that the most "evangelistic" groups were Baptists (not Charismatic), AG (Pentecostal), and my CMA (Christian and Missionary Alliance). The local CMA campus fellowship was "lightly" Charismatic; the denomination as a whole is sort of ambivalent to the gifts, even though it still officially affirms divine healing, and its founder A.B. Simpson was pretty close to radical in terms of his teaching on "faith healing."
Here at home, I'm in a smallish (about 8000 people) town in western PA. It's a very churchy area. Without breaking a sweat, I can think of one large Catholic church, an Eastern Orthodox church, two Lutheran churches, three Presbyterian churches, a Methodist church, a Free Methodist church, two Baptist churches, a CMA church, a Christian Church, a Church of Christ, a Church of God, a Lilyville Church of God, and at least six Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. I'm not sure of the situation now, but back in the late '80s, most of the active evangelism was done by two of the Pentecostal churches and one of the Baptist churches.
