Speaking in Tongues--Believers Relish the Experience

Like a ripe peach, you can’t know its deliciousness until you taste it. That’s one description given of that strange religious phenomenon--speaking in tongues.

It has spread extensively among Christians these days, but it remains a bafflement to those who do not do it. It is also a mystery to those who do. But they say it is great.

Now that the practice has broken out of its Pentecostal confines and spawned charismatics in mainline denominations, curiosity about it pricks the uninvolved, in churches and out.

Just how does it feel and function in a person? Several participants recently were questioned about it at an Assemblies of God convention in Oklahoma City. Among their descriptions:

‘Warmth of God’s Presence’

“It’s exhilarating, wonderful.” “It brings the warmth of God’s presence.” “It’s a divinely inspired language of prayer.” “It’s being carried beyond yourself.”

With all the inner beneficence ascribed to tongues-speaking, the participants say they do not understand the stream of syllables they utter, but God does, binding them with him in adoration.

“It involves you with someone you’re deeply in love with and devoted to,” said the Rev. Bill L. Williams of San Jose. “We don’t understand the verbiage, but we know we’re in communication.”

That awareness is “beyond emotion, beyond intellect,” he said. “It transcends human understanding. It is the heart of man speaking to the heart of God. It is deep, inner heart understanding.

“It comes as supernatural utterances, bringing an intimacy with God.”

Tongues-speaking is regarded a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit, paralleling the first Pentecost recounted in Acts 2, when the spirit-filled Apostles were understood by people of many languages.

Until recently, most historic churches held that the phenomenon, also called glossolalia, ceased after the Apostolic Age, but it emerged anew in Pentecostalism about the turn of this century.

In the late 1960s, it began appearing in mainline denominations and now involves charismatic groups in Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Methodist and other bodies.

About 40,000 of them met in New Orleans in July, an ecumenical jamboree of tongue-singing praises to God and evangelistic fervor. Church statistician David Barrett said the growing movement totals 256 million worldwide.

‘Builds Up the Church’

“It’s not just a novelty, but it builds up the church,” said the Rev. James Walter of Shawnee, Okla., among those questioned at the Assemblies of God meeting. “It’s just a great exuberant feeling. The only way to understand it is to experience it.”

The Rev. Billy Martin, of Farmington, N.M., said that in tongues-speaking, the Holy Spirit “takes the most unruly member of the body and controls it. You don’t do it. The spirit does.

“The spirit gives the power, using something physical to express it. It’s a joyous, glorious wonderful experience.”

The Rev. Darlene Miller of Knoxville, Tenn., said, “It’s like the sweetness of peaches that you can’t know until you taste it itself. There nothing ever to compare with that taste.

“It’s a beautiful, peaceful, comforting feeling. You know the presence of God, the power of God. It is sweet, beautiful, a rushing sensation, a power of God throughout the body.

“It has to come forth in the audible voice of tongues. The body cannot control it. But out comes the beautiful phrases of love and praise of God. It’s a totally heavenly language.”

The Rev. David P. Strickland of Memphis, said, “It’s an intensely personal, internal communion with God. You speak mysteries unto God.

“Since I don’t understand the words, it has to be the Lord.”