Chronicles of Faith: Religious trend’s appeal - Direct signs from above

Stacy J. Willis

Sunday, Jan. 31, 1999 | 9:44 a.m.

He lay flat on his back. The Rev. Michael Blackburn, a Catholic priest at St. James the Apostle in Las Vegas, had dropped to the floor like a rag doll and stayed there 15 minutes -- "slain by the Holy Spirit."

"It's like you've passed out. My body was all relaxed, and I was having this vision that I was climbing a mountain -- it was so peaceful," Blackburn said.

"When I started getting closer and closer to the top of the mountain, I woke up ...

"Some people are just hungry for a different experience of God rather than just sitting in church," he said.

Some want divine signs -- Virgin Mary statues that cry real tears, chrome bumpers that reflect the face of Jesus. They want evidence of God's work in their lives -- miracles -- babies who are spared from death against medical odds and grown men who are plucked from near-fatal accidents without a scratch.

And when these Christians worship, they want the Holy Spirit to move through them, make them speak in a language they don't understand, cause their bodies to act without their control.

For a growing number of Las Vegans, the Bible is opened less as a text and more as a doorway to Virtual Heaven -- something to be stepped into, felt, worn -- experienced. It sends worshippers into a separate reality -- one in which visions, voices and illogical occurrences are taken as signs of a higher power.

"We're a touchy-feely society right now -- people get in and experience things, like interactive video games," the Rev. Scott Walberg of Trinity Life Center said.

He teaches a class on "holy gifts" such as speaking in tongues or healing. "We are drawn to this style of worship. It is experiential."

The religious movement based on charismatic behavior is partially rooted in Pentecostal sanctuaries.

Charisma, the Greek word for gift, refers to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed in 1 Corinthians 7-10: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy and the ability to distinguish between spirits, speak in tongues and interpret tongues.

Pentecostalism is a 20th-century movement that takes its name from the Holy Spirit's work on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), which resulted in the bestowing of supernatural gifts. (The Holy Spirit is defined variously by pastors as "the spirit of God," "the breath of God," "the love relationship between the Father and the Son" and "the comforter.")

Although charismatic worship styles were sprinkled throughout Christianity before the turn of the century, formal Pentecostalism started in 1901 when a member of a Topeka, Kan., Christian group began speaking in tongues and others followed.

A century later, Pentecostalism is the backbone for a number of churches -- such as the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God in Christ, the Apostolic Faith, the United Holy Church, the Assemblies of God and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Pastors suggest that just as it began at the turn of one century, its recent flourishing is partially attributable to the turn of the next century -- a time when Christians collectively are perhaps more attentive to the possibility of apocalyptic, or at least supernatural, occurrences.

The Pentecostal experience has not been limited to churches that define themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic. An emphasis on the holy gifts has spread throughout the Protestant ranks and even into Catholicism.

Hosts of the formerly staid are filing into churches where, within a couple of hours, they are thrusting their open palms toward the rafters and leaving tears on the sanctuary floor.

Catholic charismatics, criticized by mainstream Catholics as "charis-maniacs," have been thriving for 30 years.

In 1967, Vatican II told Catholics that "the charisms or gifts of the Holy Spirit should play a more important part in Christian life." Four students in Pittsburgh took the statement to heart -- and began the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement.

In Las Vegas, Blackburn leads the Southern Nevada Renewal Center, which caters specifically to charismatic Catholics. Although they do not have their own parish, there are seven prayer groups in the diocese, Blackburn said. They meet at different churches around town to celebrate a charismatic Mass that includes both the traditional Eucharist and elements of charismatic worship, such as speaking in tongues.

'Our own prayer language'

"It is not doctrinally different from other Catholicism," Blackburn said. "But as charismatics, we have our own prayer language. We don't know what we're saying. The Holy Spirit is speaking through us."

Every Sunday, thousands of Las Vegans speak in tongues. The rising hum of glossolalia fills more than 50 Christian sanctuaries from Summerlin to Henderson -- starting with a single person and growing among the congregation until the incomprehensible buzz becomes louder than the coin-clanking slot machines on the Strip.

"It's a wonderful experience because when you give your life to the Lord, that's salvation -- but sometimes that's it, and there's no feeling that accompanies it. But suddenly when you speak words you didn't know, it's a very precious feeling," said the Rev. Billy Cook of Faith Chapel Fellowship, a Pentecostal Church of God.

"It gives you more power than you have -- power to be a witness for him."

There are several mentions of speaking in tongues in the Bible, but scholars and believers disagree on what the exact meaning or purpose of it is.

Acts 2:4 says that the apostles "were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them." And 1 Corinthians 14-22 says, "Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers."

Among those who speak in tongues, it is generally regarded as a gift intended to increase one's faith -- evidence of the Holy Spirit's arrival in one's body. "For me, I'll just be praying in English, and then all of the sudden I'll shift into tongues," Walberg said. "It's like a heavenly prayer language. It's given to build faith."

While many in the Pentecostal-influenced churches speak in tongues, few claim the gift of interpretation -- the ability to understand what sounds like gibberish.

"Two or three times a month in our services, there's a message in the tongues and then there's an interpretation given," Walberg said.

"Sometimes it's a pastor, sometimes it's a layperson -- whoever the Holy Spirit chooses to give that gift of interpretation."

Once, Walberg was given the gift of interpretation while someone else was speaking in tongues, he said.

"My chest was pounding a little bit. I just sensed that I was speaking for God," he said. "I just sensed that God wanted me to interpret, that he wanted to say 'Draw closer to me, move toward God.' "

For those who don't believe in speaking in tongues, Cook says: "I believe they're missing out on something that is wonderful -- glossolalia -- I believe it opens doors to these very special gifts mentioned in Corinthians."

The faithful are rich with stories of the powers of the gifts:

Faye Crunk's brain aneurysm dissolved. Thomas Bryant's lungless unborn daughter was given lungs. Billy Cook's terminal heart condition was miraculously cured. Paul Goulet was snatched from a cliff-bound snowmobile. One believer was pulled by the ankle back into a flipping vehicle. Another had chronic foot arthritis quickly relieved.

Allegedly, the lame walk. The deaf hear. The blind see.

"I've seen the Lord do things," Cook said. "I've been healed. I've seen people healed. I've witnessed miracles. We've seen God answer prayers."

"The greatest desire of Americans today is to be healthy -- so based on that, I'd say there is a rise in interest for praying for health," Cook said.

"Many churches now have healing services, not just the Pentecostals. Catholics and Baptists and Charismatics -- many."

In healing or "impartation" services, congregants pray for one another, walk to the altar and experience the pastor's "laying on of hands" -- through which the Holy Spirit allegedly moves.

In some cases, participants say they have been miraculously -- even instantaneously -- healed. Others attest to the power of prayer working outside of services -- as in Faye Crunk's case.

Six years ago Crunk, now 66, was in a Las Vegas hospital with a brain aneurysm, she said.

"I was in a comatose state. I would have died," she said.

Crunk said that doctors' prognoses were grim, and her family resorted to prayer. Shortly thereafter her granddaughter was told about a local physician who might be able to help, setting up a chain of events that led to emergency surgery and saved Crunk's life.

"Up until that point we really weren't church-going," she said.

"But I'm sure it was a miracle. The doctor said he had someone larger than him working for me," Crunk said. "Very few people survive brain aneurysms."

At West Valley Assembly of God, the Sunday night impartation service literally packs the house. More than 100 worshippers fill the sanctuary, courting the power of the Holy Spirit -- sometimes for specific physical ailments, many times for a general healing of the spirit.

"They want to see substance," Goulet, senior pastor at West Valley, said.

"They say, 'Show me God. I want to see God. I want to feel God. Don't tell me about him -- I want something I can feel, see, hear and taste.'

"People are really open to this type of faith that is experienced."

Sometimes, it is experienced through wailing, waving arms, speaking in tongues and falling to the ground.

"That's resting in the Spirit," Goulet said. "It's when all the power of God just hits you -- you close your eyes and lift your hands and it hits you -- you can feel it and sometimes you just fall to the ground."

"It just takes surrender and faith," he said. "It's faith. You've got to believe that, somehow, God can do something."

Heavenly signs?

It appears that she is weeping.

Adjacent to a central Las Vegas 7-Eleven, behind the padlocked iron gates in Pablo Covarrubias' back yard, stands a statue of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. In front of her, a tattered easy chair. To her right, an immobile Ford van -- robin's-egg blue trimmed with rust. For blocks around her, laundry hangs on wires strung across carports, and curbs are a melange of crushed beer cans and bottle shards.

To believers, her apparent tears represent a miracle -- a sign of hope in the midst of daily struggles.

To Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Las Vegas Diocese, the Virgin Mary's alleged tears are "not helpful to (Catholics') relationship with God."

Covarubbias reportedly has collected the tears on cotton balls and distributed them to the faithful, accepting no donations in exchange for sharing the miracle.

"There is a great probability that the statue is genuine," said Carole Ashley, a Las Vegan who reported that healings have occurred "due to the tears."

Blackburn said he doesn't know whether this Virgin Mary is miraculous, but in most cases it doesn't harm people to believe in miracles.

"I have seen the statue, and I believe things like that do happen," Blackburn said. "But sometimes it's just that people want to believe in something so much that they get carried away.

"If the statue of Mary wept tears, it would be God making it happen. It would just strengthen people's faith in God because they take it as a sign from God. But you do have to proceed with caution because when people start vigiling en masse, it can be trouble."

Last week, a Roman Catholic church panel declared that blood-stained communion wafers and oil-oozing religious statues in Worcester, Mass., were not miracles, but mysteries.

The unexplained phenomena are occurring in the home of a 15-year-old comatose girl, Audrey Marie Santo. Many believe that miracles occur through the girl -- more than 15,000 people from throughout the United States have flocked to see her.

The local bishop discouraged believers from seeking evidence of the divine on earth. Nevertheless, the church does give its stamp of approval to certain apparent miracles.

In May, the Vatican will beatify Padro Pio, a mystic monk who died in 1968 after a life of charitable service. A prerequisite for beatification is recognition of an attributed miracle -- Padro Pio had mysterious bleeding scars on his hands similar to Christ's alleged wounds. His bleeding scars never healed.

'Positives and negatives'

"There are positives and negatives to this type of thing," Blackburn said.

"It may strengthen one's faith to go looking for God in the extraordinary, but you shouldn't forget that God is present in the ordinary. Instead of looking for God in Mary's tears, we need to look for God in the person next to us."

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