Abstract
The Charismatic Movement in Taiwan that started in the early 1970s differed from the Charismatic Movement that began in the early 1960s in the United States in a number of aspects. This chapter thus compares and contrasts the two from historical, theological, and cultural perspectives, so as to demonstrate the distinctive features of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan from 1970 to 1995. A reoccurring theme of this chapter, which also contributes to the distinctive features of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan, is the “many-spirits” cosmology of the Taiwanese cultural context. This “many-spirits” cosmology enables Taiwanese Christians to readily recognize the spiritual and demonic realm as depicted in Scripture in a literal sense, and this preconceived worldview has historically prepared them to receive the charismatic teachings of the late twentieth century with a ready ear. Taiwanese Christians have tended to look to Western Protestant or Evangelical circles for “pure doctrines,” which had traditionally failed to take the “middle” world seriously. As a result, this chapter concludes by questioning whether the imported theologies, at times, may have been employed by the natives to repress the inherent charismatic sensibilities that may have otherwise flourished in different forms or expressions at an earlier time.
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Notes
- 1.
David Edwin Harrell, All Things are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), 150. Harrell’s argument is valid, as the founding of the FGBMFI was closely tied to Oral Roberts who was born out of the healing revival in the 1940s. While Kilian McDonnell recognizes that the Charismatic Movement and healing revival were closely related through key people, he does not attribute the Charismatic Movement to healing revival as Harrell does. “The healing revival survived the Montgomery articles and through the efforts of persons such as Gordon Lindsay the healing ministry entered the charismatic renewal in the historic churches.” McDonnell, preface to “American Lutheran Church, USA, 1965,” in Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal, vol. 1, ed. Kilian McDonnell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1980), 112.
- 2.
Richard Riss, “The Latter Rain Movement of 1948.”
- 3.
Richard Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics II (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), 40, 56.
- 4.
Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics II, 194.
- 5.
Tan Su-chhong 陳士藏, “Zhang banaba mihuoren” 張巴拿巴迷惑人 [Barnaba Chang deceives people], Taiwan Church News , no. 513, December 1927, 12–13, quoted in Wu Hsueh-ming 吳學明, Congyilai daozili: Zhongzhanqian Taiwan nanbu Jiduzhanglaojiaohui yanjiu 從依賴到自立: 終戰前台灣南部基督長老教會研究 [From dependence to independence: The study of the Presbyterian Church in southern Taiwan before the Second World War] (Tainen: Ren Guang, 2003), 117–8.
- 6.
Wu, From Dependence to Independence, 190.
- 7.
Pastors Chow Shen-chu and Yang Ning-ya revealed in an interview that non-charismatic churches were afraid of, and thus kept a distance from, the pentecostal Taipei Truth Church 台北真道教會. Nathaniel Chow, interview (August 24, 2016). According to Samuel Peng 彭懷冰 in 1986, a staff member at Campus Evangelical Fellowship, most churches maintained a rather conservative view in regard to the Holy Spirit probably because they had been frightened by Pentecostal churches that advocated for unsound theological doctrines. Chou Hui-fang 周慧芳 and Samuel Peng, “Dialogue and Response: Assessing James I. Packer’s Keep in Step with the Spirit,” Campus Magazine , February 1986, 14.
- 8.
Anglican Church, Great Britain, 1977, “Gospel and Spirit: A Joint Statement,” in Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal, vol. 2, ed. Kilian McDonnell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1980), 305.
- 9.
Vinson Synan, “Pentecostalism: Varieties and Contributions,” 36.
- 10.
Leonard I. Sweet, New Life in the Spirit (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1982), 55.
- 11.
See discussion in Lin, “A Newfound Friend or a Good Old Companion? Charismatic Sensitivities in Protestant Churches in Taiwan.”
- 12.
Bishop Francis Bloy of the Los Angeles diocese of the Episcopal Church, USA, appointed a committee to study glossolalia as it relates to the church in April 1960—shortly after the Dennis Bennett incident. The committee expressed doubts regarding the normality of the phenomena in the present day. Episcopal Church, USA, 1960, “The Speaking in Tongues and the Church,” in Presence, Power, Praise, vol. 1, 8.
- 13.
The 1964 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States appointed a committee to study the matter of glossolalia. The committee decided that it could not declare the experiences of contemporary Christians “to be either valid or invalid reproductions of New Testament glossolalia,” and that the urgent need of the church was not for speaking in tongues but “for a relevant language in church it can communicate with the world.” Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1965, “Glossolalia,” in Presence, Power, Praise, vol. 1, 137.
- 14.
The American Lutheran Church, USA, issued a report in 1964 to state that while the church does not forbid speaking in tongues, the phenomena have caused confusion and division with the church. Thus, it asks its pastors and congregations not to promote or practice speaking in tongues at meetings of the congregation, or to instruct in the technique of speaking in tongues. According to the church, the gift is to be reserved for use in private devotional life. American Lutheran Church, USA, 1964, “A Statement with Regard to Speaking in Tongues,” in Presence, Power, Praise, vol. 1, 111.
- 15.
See Lin, “A Newfound Friend or a Good Old Companion? Charismatic Sensitivities in Protestant Churches in Taiwan,” 325.
- 16.
Ralph Jennings, “Taiwan Votes Against Same-Sex Marriage in Referendum,” Time, November 25, 2018. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Taiwan in May 2019.
- 17.
Howard Brant, “Shuling de zheng zhan” 屬靈的爭戰 [Power encounter: Toward an SIM position], trans. Campus Magazine, Campus Magazine , October 1994, 6–17. Brant’s paper was published in International Journal of Frontier Missions 10, no. 4 (October 1993): 185–92. Soudan Interior Mission was the predecessor of today’s Society for International Ministries.
- 18.
“A Trip to the Miaoli Chinese Prayer Mountain,” 7.
- 19.
Brad Long, Jesus Christ Defeating Demons.
- 20.
See for example, Taipei Truth Church 台北真理堂 ed., Qi ge shifang daogao 七個釋放禱告 [Seven deliverance prayers] (Taipei: Zhenli shufang, 1998).
- 21.
David Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 160–2. Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 99–105; and Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the 21st Century (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994), 213–41; For opposing views, see Allan Anderson, “The Contextual Pentecostal Theology of David Yonggi Cho,” in David Yonggi Cho: A Close Look at His Theology and Ministry, ed. Wonsuk Ma, William W. Menzies, and Hyeon-sung Bae (Baguio City, Philippines: APTS Press, 2004), 133–159; and Paul Gifford, “The Complex Provenance of Some Elements of African Pentecostal Theology,” in Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America, ed. André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 62–79.
- 22.
Wonsuk Ma, “Asian (Classical) Pentecostal Theology in Context,” in Asian and Pentecostal: The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia, ed. Allan Anderson and Edmond Tang (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 60, 57; Hwa Yung, “The Missiological Challenge of David Yonggi Cho’s Theology,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 7 (January 2004): 75–6.
- 23.
Yoo Boo-Woong, “Response to Korean Shamanism by the Pentecostal Church,” International Review of Mission 75: 297 (January 1986): 73–4.
- 24.
Jang Nam Hyuck, Shamanism in Korean Christianity (Edison, NJ: Jimoondang International, 2004), 151.
- 25.
Andrew Eungi Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea: Shamanism and the Reshaping of Korean Christianity,” in Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Asia, ed. Paul L. Swanson (Nagoya, Japan: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture Nanzan University, 2013), 9; Kim Sung-gun, “The Resurgence of Neo-Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Contemporary Korea,” in Global Pentecostalism: Encounters with Other Religious Traditions, ed. David Westerlund (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 137–56.
- 26.
Lin, “A Newfound Friend or a Good Old Companion? Charismatic Sensitivities in Protestant Churches in Taiwan,” 321–3.
- 27.
The only known suggestion comes from Murray Rubinstein, who likens True Jesus Church Christians to tang-ki (shaman) when they speak in tongues. Rubinstein, The Protestant Community on Taiwan, 137–9. However, the suggestion is questionable.
- 28.
Lee Young-hoon, “The Korean Holy Spirit Movement in Relation to Pentecostalism,” in Asian and Pentecostal, 422.
- 29.
Hyeon Sung Bae, “Full Gospel Theology and a Korean Pentecostal Identity,” in Asian and Pentecostal, 432–3.
- 30.
Andrew Eungi Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea,” 4.
- 31.
Andrew Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea,” 16.
- 32.
Andrew Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea,” 15.
- 33.
Andrew Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea,” 18.
- 34.
Andrew Kim, “Pentecostalism in Korea,” 13.
- 35.
Li Yih-yuan, “Shamanism in Taiwan: An Anthropological Inquiry,” in Culture-Bound Syndromes, Ethnopsychiatry, and Alternate Therapies, ed. William P. Lebra (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976), 180.
- 36.
David K. Jordan, Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 69, 73. Justus Freytag’s fieldwork in Taiwanese villages shows that if parents do not resort to religious means when harm befalls a child, the neighbors and relatives would often blame the parents for not caring enough. When a household has no direct relationship with a church, they would often resort to tang-ki for guidance. Justus Freytag, The Church in Villages of Taiwan: The Impact of Modern Society and Folk-Religion on Rural Churches (Tainan: Tainan Theological College, 1969), 69.
- 37.
Gary Seaman, “In the Presence of Authority: Hierarchical Roles in Chinese Spirit Medium Cults,” in Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture, ed. Arthur Kleinman and Lin Tsung-yi (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981), 73.
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Lin, J.C.P. (2020). The Distinctive Features of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan, 1970–1995. In: The Charismatic Movement in Taiwan from 1945 to 1995 . Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48084-4_7
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