Neil Babcox was the pastor of Word of Life Church, Carbondale, Illinois, U.S.A. for eight years. In his fascinating autobiography A Search for Charismatic Reality (Multnomah Press, Portland, OR 97266, 91pp., 1985) he tells of how he came to believe that certain of his experiences related to spiritual gifts — for example, speaking in tongues and prophesying — were not authentic, and how he presented these changes to his charismatic congregation.

The conversion experience of Neil Babcox had been a long struggle during his years in South Illinois University:

When I finally realized that I was a sinner, that I was undeserving of God's grace, and that salvation was a free gift based upon the merits of Jesus Christ, the assurance came. But first I had to take my eyes off my own experience and focus them long and hard upon the Son of God. (p 19)

Then there was the pressure upon him to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. 'Don't stop short of salvation', folk said, 'Be filled with the Holy Spirit and then you will be able to live the victorious life. God will give you a new language which you can use to praise him'. There followed another struggle, and attendance at meetings where friends prayed for him to receive this baptism. He often tried, but to no avail until one day he managed to choke out a few incomprehensible syllables.

At first I was somewhat uneasy about this experience. But as I walked home and tried to speak in tongues again, I found that I could do so much more fluently. As I lay in bed that night I began to thank God. I spoke to Him for a long while in my new-found language. Soon it almost seemed to be second nature. My heart was overjoyed. 'At last', I thought, 'God has answered my prayers'. Speaking in tongues was a very rewarding experience for me. Every day I spent a large portion of my prayer time speaking in tongues. (p 22)

Similarly, speaking in tongues seemed to enrich public meetings too as the congregation felt that God was speaking to them. They thought this meant that God cared about them in particular and had given this gift to encourage them.

At that time Babcox met certain Christians who had a different opinion of his tongues. They told him they considered that it was gibberish, and so Neil Babcox searched the Scriptures and read as many books as he could on the gifts, especially studying the arguments of those that said revelatory gifts and miraculous sign gifts had ceased with the end of the apostolic period. He outlined the arguments carefully, but was quite unpersuaded.

My belief in tongues emerged basically unscathed from this time of testing.(p 42)

It was the alleged gift of prophecy that proved the stumbling block to the author. He describes graphically and movingly the manner he and his congregation used to prophesy — the dread, the fear, the excitement, the physical sensations, the call of duty whispering in your ear, 'Now or never', until he rose and spoke. Then the growing glow of satisfaction, namely, the incomparable honour of speaking on behalf of God:

There you are, standing in succession to the prophets of the Bible. Samuel and Elijah saw your day coming and were glad. (p 52)

Yet a growing concern developed:

The prophecies I heard, including my own, were hardly worthy of the name. The idea that they were the words of the living God was beginning to seem painfully ludicrous ... In my case there were four simple words that played a decisive role in changing my heart: "Thus saith the Lord". To me, these were most unsettling words. And the more I comprehended their meaning, the more I understood what the prophets meant when they spoke them and what the Holy Spirit meant when He inspired them, the more unsettling they became.(p 53)

What evidence was there that any of our prophecies had their origin in a revelation given by God's Spirit? Ezekiel protested, "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!" (Ezekiel 13:3). In the final analysis, isn't that what we were — prophets who had seen nothing? What evidence was there that we were not just following our own spirits instead of the Spirit of God? I could find no evidence in the Bible that prophecies were communicated by mere intuition or subjective impressions. And yet in nearly all cases this is how ours were received. And these impressions and intuitions could not be authenticated in any kind of objective sense. (p 55)

Thus saith the Lord. How I struggled with those words! As Jacob wrestled with the angel in the dark of the night, so I wrestled with those words. As the angel wounded Jacob, so those words wounded me. And as Jacob's defeat became his victory, I thank God those words — so right and unfathomable in their significance — defeated me. (p 58)

Neil Babcox then returned to examining his gift of tongues in the light of these convictions and found that it was increasingly unedifying.

I have always felt there is an aura of mystery surrounding prayer. At no time are we more aware of our weakness and inadequacy than when we kneel to pray. As Paul said, 'we do not know how to pray as we should' (Romans 8:26 NASB). In the face of such spiritual helplessness, tongues can become a crutch. For example, when I found myself mute and dumb in His presence, I could far too quickly remedy the situation by praying in tongues. Again, when I was oppressed with a sense of guilt and felt alienation from God, it was far more easy to pray in tongues than to search my heart for the cause of the guilt. But what was all of this if it was not an evasion? Whereas previously I could avoid the difficulties in­herent in prayer by resorting to tongues, now I found myself praying, 'Lord, teach me to pray'. (pp 65 & 66)

So the painful conclusion that he came to was this:

Formerly I studied this issue and had concluded that tongues and prophecy should be practised in the church today. Now with eight years of experience under my belt — experience which I am con­vinced is typical of the charismatic movement as a whole — I had reversed my position. It wasn't that I discovered any new doctrines. It was just a better application of truths which I had already believed. My beliefs may have evolved doctrinally, but in the final analysis, it was integrity, not theology, that led me to abandon those gifts. (p 73)

What now was Neil Babcox to do as the pastor of a charismatic church? He had spoken with tongues daily for ten years, and was conscious of his debt to those who had not come to these conclusions:

Many people, myself included, owe their eternal salvation to the evangelistic fervour of the charismatics, and I recognized there was much to be salvaged from my charismatic past. In the early seventies, when I and other young people were discovering the reality of Jesus Christ, many of the insti­tutional churches spurned us because of our life-styles; yet humble charismatic saints were eager to extend to us the right hand of fellowship. (p 77)

He did not relish the prospect of inaugurating a controversy. As Phillips Brooks said, 'The man who thinks to make much of the fuller truth to which he has come, by upbraiding the partial truth by which he has come to it, is a poor creature'.

One mistake he made was to speak of his new convictions with his closest friends rather than with some of the leaders of the church. This resulted in opportunity for rumours to spread in the congregation. He finally mustered courage and shared his views with his church leaders. They asked him to tell them of his pilgrimage, and as the weeks of meetings with them and their long discussions went by, his own expo­sition of the nature of divine prophecy seemed to have a powerful impact.

I could see my colleagues were starting to question the authenticity of prophetic gifts in the church. (p 80)

Finally, through a tense time, he preached four sermons in the church, and many in the congregation believed what he said to them. A man named Roy, for example, said,

I had been led to believe there was more power in praying in tongues than there was in English. I was puzzled, though, because the Scriptures exhort us to make our requests known to God with thanksgiving. Often, after I had spent a season praying in tongues I still felt heavy-hearted. I did not have the feeling that I had cast all my cares upon the Lord. However, when I prayed in English, there was a sense of relief. (p 85)

A girl named Laurie was acknowledged by everyone to possess the gift of prophecy, and she moved from the church shortly before the spiritual gifts crisis emerged. After a friend sent her a copy of the four sermons she wrote a letter to Neil Babcox asking him, 'Do you believe that my prophecies were of God?' He wrote back to say that at one time he did, but lovingly and firmly he was now persuaded that none of us had the gift of prophecy.

Laurie wrote back to him, 'Neil, you said what I have been waiting to hear for seven long years. I cried with relief and regret. It was as if my soul were saying, "It's over — it's finally over. You don't have to prophesy any more". I cried too because of how foolish I had been. I had a long tearful time in prayer' (p 84).

Many other people expressed relief because, for them, tongues had ceased. In this, too, as with prophecy there had been gnawing doubts. Some felt that their tongues were repetitious and unlike a real language. Many felt guilty because they were so often exhorted from the pulpit to use their 'prayer language'. The trouble was that tongues seemed to be a meaningless experience, and so instead of questioning the authenticity of their gift, they had concluded they were sinful or unspiritual.

Of course not everyone agreed with Babcox. Some remained charis­matic but accepted the change with sadness and love for the sake of unity. He speaks of his great admiration for those good Christians.

Still others decided to leave on the grounds they could no longer in good conscience affiliate themselves with the church. I admired these people, too, and they left with my blessing. But there were a few who left the church under the most disappointing and unpleasant circumstances. This was grievous for all to bear.(p 85)

They were difficult days for all in the Word of Life Church. Some members saw this transition as a tragic move away from a work established by the Holy Spirit. But for many of them it was the beginning of a new life in the Spirit, and of a more profound understanding of the meaning of spirituality. They placed their trust in Him who said, 'Behold, I will do something new'.

For some time disillusionment hung over Neil Babcox's head like a dark cloud. So much he had believed in and cherished, and so much of his past spiritual history had been shattered. The discovery that what he thought to be substantial was a mere mirage was devastating. However, he came to recognize it as all part of a healthy process. The thing to do was not to be swept away by emotional self-indulgence and pity, but rather to rebuild one's life on a more solid foundation. Isaiah speaks of Israel's future and says, 'The mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water' (Isaiah 35:7). Similar moments come in our lives as well. Since Neil Babcox has made that journey from the mirage to the pool, the words of this hymn have taken on a new significance for him:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

So Neil Babcox ends his fascinating and enriching testimony with these words:

There you have the pool that can never disappoint — his excellent Word. There are no floods so mighty, no winds so strong, that they can shake the house that is built on that firm foundation. What more can He say? What more do we need? (p 91)