Quote:
Originally Posted by NotforSale
How do we know someone is speaking in Tongues? Who is to judge that what is said is truly of the Spirit?
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The demand that "speaking in tongues" is a requirement of salvation flows directly from Charles Fox Parham's attempts to ingrain his theology into the minds of his students. It never seemed to catch on with any of his students at first. Ironically, it was "some black guy" who was forced to sit on a chair in the hallway during a teaching session in the Houston area that was responsible for Parham even being remembered.
When Agnes Ozman "spoke in tongues" famously (famously
now) at the New Year's Watch Night Service in 1900, another student reported to Parham (who was away at the time) that Agnes had "spoken in the Chinese language for two hours." Other students claimed that it was "just gibberish" and clearly not the Chinese language.
After much discussion and counter claims the whole affair was dropped and the school in Topeka was disbanded just 4 months after the Watch Night Service. Agnes herself renounced the experience until about 1914, when she read about Azusa Street. This was the mission started by the "some black guy" (William Seymour) and the news of the events at Azusa Street went literally around the world.
Upon reading about this, Ms. Ozman came forward and began to publize her experiences and joined the fledgling AoG. In time, she was recognized as "the first" to receive this experience.
It wasn't until G.T. Haywood had joined and really, resurrected the PAW that a theology of "evidence" was promoted widely at all. Parham had in the meantime fallen into the politics of the Utopian community Zion City in Illinois and probably also due to allegations of misbehavior, he fell out of favor and was forgotten for decades while dying in obscurity.
Given the following facts, I have a hard time demanding "speaking in tongues" as a requirement for salvation:
1. It was never a tenet of the original Apostolic Faith movement.
2. There is no standard to evaluate the authenticity of the "sign."
3. Even those who have had this experience have had difficulty ascribing it to "God."
And most importantly...
4. We have no way of authenticating that the experience witnessed today is the same as that which was reported in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts accounts involve speaking in known languages - albeit unknown to the one who is speaking. But the languages are recognized as such by the hearers.
But the subject of the thread involves Calvary - an historic event that is widely attributed and known to have actually happened.
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