In his book Streams of Living Water: Essential Practices from the Six Great Traditions of Christian Faith, Richard Foster reviews six traditional ways Christians have historically approached their faith. These six traditions are Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Incarnational. Foster states, “In reality, these different Traditions describe various dimensions of the spiritual life. We find their emphasis throughout the teaching of Scripture.”[1] I have been impacted by several of these streams throughout my Christian walk. However, the Evangelical and the Charismatic streams have had an especially profound impact.
I was not raised in a Christian household. My parents were not devout believers and saw church as another social outlet to meet people. The message preached was not vital to them as long as it felt good and was somewhat entertaining – and brief. We attended a very liberally progressive Reformed Church for a few years. What was interesting was that my sister and I were sent to a private Christian school that a fundamentalist Baptist church ran. After moving from that area, my family stopped attending church, and I went to public school.
At age fifteen, I became a follower of Jesus. My family continued to be ambivalent towards church.[2] So, I had little influence from my family on what kind of church I attended. I had many Christian friends, and I attended their different churches. However, they were all basically in the Evangelical stream. All these churches had the three themes Foster identifies as Evangelical: the proclamation of the Gospel, the centrality of Scripture, and creedal affirmation that the early Church laid out.[3]
Through these churches, I developed a love for and a passion for studying Scripture and telling people about Jesus. The downfall was that I presumed that this was how all Christians operated.
In 1984, I met a young lady, and we started dating.[4] At first, I assumed that she was Evangelical like me, but I quickly learned that she was Roman Catholic and Charismatic. I was exposed to both the Incarnational and the Charismatic paradigms. While the Incarnational side of her faith greatly influenced me (I was a Roman Catholic for a few years), the charismatic end affected me the most. Through attending prayer meetings, I was baptized with the Holy Spirit, received the gift of tongues, and have operated in the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The Evangelical and the Charismatic paradigms are a vital part of my Christian faith to this day. I am attracted to teachers such as Dr. Craig Keener, John Wimber, and N. T. Wright, who mix both the Evangelical and the Charismatic paradigms into their teaching and ministry. The Charismatic end of my faith sometimes puts me at odds with my Evangelical friends, but most of my tension with these two paradigms comes from my Charismatic friends. Because there is a strong wave of anti-intellectualism within Charismatic circles, I find it hard sometimes to bring my passion for Scripture exegesis into that world. However, God has been good in directing me to a church that embraces both.
[1] Foster, Richard J., Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1989), Location 103.
[2] My father came to faith many years later, and my mother started going back to church with him, but my sister is an ardent humanistic atheist
[3] Ibid, 224-225.
[4] I tell folks that I have been dating Karry for 40 years and have been married to her for 36 years.
The Wandering Wesleyan 