Show Notes
In this deeply personal episode of Peaceable and Kind, host Derek Vreeland shares why he took a step back from the popular Charismatic subculture—but not from the Spirit-filled life that first drew him in.
Derek shares his spiritual journey from Southern Baptist roots to charismatic renewal, through Pentecostal seminary training, and ultimately into a more theologically grounded and historically rooted faith. While he still embraces the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit, Derek outlines eight specific values within the pop Charismatic movement that led him to walk away—including anti-intellectualism, spiritual elitism, and prosperity-driven faith.
This episode is a heartfelt reflection on what it means to follow the Spirit with wisdom, humility, and discernment. Derek explores how academic theology, the contemplative tradition, and the global church have all enriched his understanding of God the Holy Spirit—and why he now calls himself a “charismatic with a seatbelt.”
If you’ve ever felt torn between being open to the Holy Spirit and staying grounded in theology, this episode is for you. Key Takeaways
✔️ Why intellectual rigor and Spirit-led faith are not at odds ✔️ The danger of measuring spiritual maturity solely by emotion ✔️ How spiritual elitism harms church unity and witness ✔️ Why selective Bible reading weakens discipleship ✔️ The real meaning of blessing, healing, and power of the Holy Spirit
🎧 Listen now and explore what it looks like to follow the Holy Spirit with passion and wisdom.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Galatians 4:13
Hebrews 11:1–40
Genesis 12:1–3
Galatians 5:22–23
Revelation 21:1–4
Preorder Derek’s new book, Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us here: https://amzn.to/42jSZAs
Did you find this episode helpful on your spiritual journey? Consider helping us out!
Leave a review
Share it with your friends
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Get to know the host: https://derekvreeland.com
Interact with Derek on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, or Facebook Episode Website
Transcript
Welcome back.
Welcome to another episode of Peaceable and Kind.
I am your one-man host, Derek Vreeland.
Thank you for joining me for this episode.
We are coming to the end of the summer months.
I hope you have had a great summer.
Hopefully you are able to do some traveling, to have some fun.
I have really been enjoying these podcast episodes recently.
Telling a little bit more about my spiritual journey.
We’re gonna do that on this episode.
But before I jump in, let me invite you to leave a rating or review.
I really appreciate it.
And if you enjoy the kind of Christian content we’re producing here, I would love if you would recommend this podcast to a friend.
Often I’m asked what podcasts I’m listening to, because I know everyone these days has a podcast, and so people will listen to a podcast for a while and then want something something new, something refreshing.
And we are trying to produce episodes that encourage you in your Christian walk, in particular to walk in peace and kindness.
I believe that our world needs a whole lot more kindness.
And so I hope these episodes where
I’m talking about my spiritual journey or the episodes where I do more Bible-y type things.
I hope it’s an encouragement to you
that it encourages you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and to allow the Holy Spirit to continue to form within you peaceableness and kindness
You know, this is the work of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.
And on and on it goes.
So that is my hope for you that through episodes like this, that you’re growing in your Christian walk.
And you’re growing in peaceableness and kindness.
So if you like what we’re doing, share this episode.
Or if you have a friend who’s like, I need a new podcast, you can tell them, peaceable and kind, that’s the podcast for you.
I appreciate that.
So I’ve been talking recently about the Holy Spirit.
So we are in ordinary time on the church calendar.
Ordinary time is also called the season of Pentecost.
Because on the church calendar, we are essentially telling the story of Jesus for six months.
We start with Advent and Preparation.
for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.
And then about six months later, we punctuate half of the church calendar.
With Pentecost Sunday, where we are recognizing that the Spirit of Jesus has been poured out on the church, and so in this ordinary time or season of Pentecost
We are learning to rely on God the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, to empower us, to guide us, to lead us.
And so I’ve been talking about the Holy Spirit, and on today’s episode, I want to tell more of my story.
I’ve told some of my story, some of how I have encountered the Holy Spirit in my Christian journey.
But I wanted to do a bit of a of a deep dive in sharing with you my own story, because I’ve mentioned that for
A number of years I identified with the charismatic movement.
I was a charismatic Christian.
I went to a Pentecostal Charismatic Seminary.
I was was trained in a seminary that had that ethos.
But there was a time, or maybe I would say there was a season in my life where I needed to step away from
the pop charismatic movement.
Now when I say pop charismatic movement, I’m talking about the popular charismatic movement that would be typified by
you know, the the televangelist sort of health and wealth gospel preachers you’ll see on Christian television
Hopefully you’re not watching Christian television.
Uh, I haven’t for years.
I’m sure there is good teaching programs out there.
I’ve just for years encouraged people.
Forget watching TV preachers and find some really good podcasts.
Because nearly every pastor in America has their sermons online, often in podcast form.
And honestly, from my years of paying attention to Christian television, not a lot of fruitfulness there.
But in my spiritual journey, as I explained in a previous episode, I started in the Southern Baptist world.
And I was doing what the Southern Baptist taught me to do, and that was to read the Bible, love the Bible, be devoted to the Bible, which by the way I so appreciate because I’m still
a Bible reader, I’m a Bible nerd, I love doing Bible study.
I led a Bible study last night.
I it’s life-giving for me.
To devote my life to the scriptures, and I’ve enjoyed that so much.
But as a teenager, in doing that, I encountered the Holy Spirit
particularly in the Book of Acts, doing things that my Baptist Church wasn’t comfortable talking about, and I had no problem asking the question, particularly questions around the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And so, as I have explained, I went on a mission trip after high school with a charismatic church.
I spent four hours, one night with a youth pastor.
Every question I had, he answered with more scripture
And so as I entered into the college years, I was a convinced charismatic, started attending a charismatic church, and that was my identity.
And then I went to seminary, as I mentioned before, uh, Orr Roberts University, a Pentecostal Charismatic Seminary.
And something happened there that would then lead to a future change.
But when I wrapped up my seminary work, it was three years.
It was a 90 hour master’s degree.
I was still a convinced charismatic.
One of the areas that I grew to love and appreciate was theology and academic theology, what we would call substantive.
academic theology.
I just loved reading the really big theological books.
And so when I left seminary, I really thought as a pastor
That I would devote my time into producing good Pentecostal and Charismatic scholarship in theology.
I joined the Society for Pentecostal Studies
I delivered, I believe, two different papers in 2000, I think 2002 or 2003, as a member of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, because there is a group of scholars
that have remained uh faithful to the Pentecostal charismatic tradition and are producing really good stuff.
So I thought I was headed that way, uh but I begin to grow weary
of the the values of the more popular charismatic movement, not the academics, but the the more popular charismatic movement, it had a set of
values that defined its subculture.
And these values I began to see as a deficiency
And there came a time and there was a season where I had to step away because I was no longer in alignment with the values of the pop charismatic subculture.
So again, when I talk about stepping away from the charismatic movement, I certainly don’t want to say that all Pentecostal charismatics hold these eight values, which I consider deficiencies.
I know and have good friends that are in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches that would agree with with most of my assessment.
But in my own heart, I just knew I I couldn’t I couldn’t stay anymore.
I felt God, the Holy Spirit
leading me away.
And so I want to talk about these eight values because it is because of these eight things that I was compelled
to leave the pop charismatic movement.
So let me walk you through each of them.
By the way, each of these eight values, I’m going to give a title that’s somewhat
theological in nature, but don’t let that bother you.
I’m going to explain the big words.
When I’m when I’m reading a book or listening to a podcast and they they use big theological words, I’m
sometimes frustrated like just use an easy word make it easy for us but I’m going to use some technical theological jargon but I promise you I’ll explain what all of these
words, all of these phrases mean.
So let me walk you through these eight values that I begin to see as just a thorn in my side.
And I couldn’t stay anymore.
All right, first one is anti-intellectual.
I had to leave the popular charismatic movement because for the most part it was anti-intellectual.
Now again, let me say one more time that there is a group of charismatic and Pentecostal scholars that I love and appreciate.
I’m thinking of like Chris Green, I’m thinking of Cheryl Bridges Johns and others that are not anti-intellectual.
But in the little subculture I was in in the mid-1990s, uh the charismatics that I knew had no interest.
in anything intellectual.
They were not reading big theological books.
They were reading the little bitty, you know, charismatic books, which were essentially sermons that, you know, charismatic pastors would turn into books.
There was no value for systematic theology, biblical theology, or the more intellectual pursuits of Bible study
So, systematic theology is just sort of the taking what the scripture has revealed and laid out for us and putting it together in a kind of structure.
Uh of course there was always Bible study in the charismatic movement, but the Bible study was more what does this verse mean to you?
In seminary at Oral Roberts University, one of the great gifts I received
was the understanding of church history, that there is a 2,000-year history of Christians wrestling with who God is and how God works in the world and and how we’re to read and understand Scripture.
There was this great tradition.
And then I was also given the great tool of biblical languages.
So I spent two years studying Koine Greek.
which was the language that the New Testament writers use.
I didn’t do as much Hebrew to my deficit.
I actually I I took Hebrew as an elective while I was doing an advanced Greek class
And I lasted six weeks in Hebrew because I was I was overloaded.
I wish I would have stuck it out and got more Hebrew.
But I invested my time in seminary in uh the Greek language to understand
the Greek words behind the English words in the New Testament.
So receiving these great gifts of understanding church history and then biblical languages, I wanted more and more of that.
And in the charismatic movement, I just didn’t find anyone interested.
I remember uh reading uh Walter Brugeman, the Old Testament scholar.
And none of my charismatic pastor friends knew who Walter Brugemann was.
Uh Walter Brugemann uh passed away this year.
But he is a renowned Old Testament scholar.
And so I was reading Walter Brugemann books, and I I had no one to talk to
uh God sent a Presbyterian pastor into my life, Alan Pertil.
I had a conversation on a podcast episode with Alan and
Rodney Bradford, who’s a Baptist, uh, but Alan is still in the Presbyterian Church USA, and he was a big Brugeman fan.
So I had to kind of step away from the charismatic movement.
uh to to talk about some of this more intellectual stuff, some of this more deep theological stuff that was outside
of the charismatic bubble.
So first I had to step away because the subculture I was in very anti-intellectual.
Secondly, I had to leave the charismatic movement because there was a
A value on what I would call hyperemotional expression in worship
Now, charismatic worship includes an emotional response, and I would say
Today, in broad evangelical non-denominational churches
The worship style is charismatic in the sense that it is structured in a way to deliver an emotional response.
And I’m not saying that’s all bad.
I’m actually a big fan of contemporary worship music.
And still today I will lift my hands and sing the songs right out loud.
I’ll
clap along with the beat, I’ll sway back and forth, to be moved emotionally is not necessarily a bad thing, but within the charismatic subculture
Emotional reactions in worship became the sign of spiritual maturity
It was assumed that a person’s connection to the Holy Spirit was measured in emotional responses.
And I begin to see that as problematic because in the charismatic subculture, I saw people
Lacking the ability to discern between a true spiritual experience and an emotional experience
Again, we are emotional beings.
We are created with an emotional capacity by God.
And so to feel happiness, to feel joy.
To feel elation and also to feel anger, to feel sadness.
This is all a part of being human.
So I’m not opposed to emotional expression.
I’m just
opposed and again stepped away from the charismatic movement because they put such a value on it that if you weren’t having an emotional expression in worship, well you must not be experiencing the Holy Spirit.
I have to pause this episode for just a moment to tell you that I have written a new book.
Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us.
This eight-week Bible study uses the uniqueness of the message translation to
Explore God’s presence with us.
Link to pre order is in the show notes.
I came to a place as a pastor that I had to reject chaotic sort of
Emotional experiences as the de facto sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence.
What I have learned since is that there is an entire
experiential tradition within the Christian faith that often is not emotional
I think in particular to the contemplative tradition.
The contemplative Christian tradition is built on experiencing
The power and presence of God in silence.
And so now some of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have
is actually in silence and solitude.
But for the charismatic subculture there was no room for silence.
There was no room for that contemplative stream.
Everything was measured in emotional responses.
And so I had to step away.
The third value in the charismatic subculture, again, this is the popular charismatic movement, there was a spiritual elitism
that was formed.
I don’t think it was intentional.
Again, I think most of the charismatics that I knew
They had right motivations and right intentions, but they didn’t know the history of the church.
They didn’t know the great tradition.
They didn’t know about liturgy and sacrament and the sort of historical structure that
allows us to have genuine encounters with God the Holy Spirit.
So I don’t think a lot of charismatics, at least from my experience,
set out to be spiritual elitists, but this is what I saw.
To me, this was the real ugly side
of the charismatic subculture, it was this arrogance that those who are they would call themselves spirit-filled
Those who had received the Holy Spirit, those who had been baptized with the Holy Spirit subsequent to their conversion experience, and particularly those who had the gift of speaking in tongues.
that they were at a higher level, that they were more advanced in their spiritual journey than those who are not charismatics.
And I just grew weary of that.
I remember as a pastor, I think I quoted it may have been Bill Hybels or Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, one of these kind of church-growth evangelicals.
Maybe it was it was Rick Warren.
I quoted Rick Warren and I remember after church someone questioning me.
Yeah, I think it was Rick Warren now.
You know, memory is a funny thing.
It’s coming back to me now.
I remember this conversation because it was a little tense.
Yeah, I had quoted Rick Warren.
And so after I preached the sermon in which I quoted him, a church member came to me and said, Rick Warren, you’re reading Rick Warren?
He he doesn’t even speak in tongues.
Right?
It it is the the ugly underbelly of this subculture that charismatics, because of their charismatic experience,
think that they’re at a deeper level of intimacy with God or they’re they’re at a higher level.
They look down on people who don’t have the same charismatic experience.
And I was learning and growing and beginning to feel a solidarity with Christians who were Anglican or who were Methodist or who were Catholic.
And I didn’t see them at a lower level.
And the spiritual elitism was was a growing irritant for me.
It wasn’t in harmony with the spirit of Jesus
Jesus taught us that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
Don’t seek a place of honor.
And so because of that, I needed to step away
Next value was what I would call a selective hermeneutic.
Now hermeneutic is a fancy word that means how we interpret and apply the scripture.
And I found that for charismatics, like any kind of Christian subculture, they had their favorite scripture verses, right?
So a good charismatic has a Bible.
And verses about the Holy Spirit, about healing, about deliverance, about prophecy and blessings and prosperity.
They have all of those verses underlined
And there’s a whole swath of other verses that they skip right over.
So for example, in Hebrews 11, there is this retelling.
of these great people of faith who did great things by faith.
And I remember in in the Charismatic movement, so many sermons preached about all these characters, right?
About
Abraham and Moses and David, and again, these are the great heroes of the Bible.
But in the second half of Hebrews 11, it talks about those that were sawed in half
Those who didn’t receive the promise that they expected from God.
And those verses were typically not underlined in my Bible when I was in the charismatic movement.
So there would be talks, for example, of healing.
And by the way, I still believe that God heals people today.
I still pray.
for people to be healed.
Um and so all those healing verses would be underlined.
But one verse in Galatians, for example, that I never had underlined is where
Paul says, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.
So I love the scripture, but I loved all of the scripture.
And the selective hermeneutic or the select pet favorite verses within the charismatic movement was too constrictive for me.
The next value that caused me to step away was the very pragmatic spirituality.
So the charismatic subculture that I was in, it had a way of discussing life in the spirit that was very subjective, very personal.
and very consumer-driven.
It was what God can do for me, which is problematic because it is the antithesis to Christian discipleship
Christian discipleship is about dying to yourself so that you can follow Jesus in loving God and loving neighbor.
But I saw this pragmatic spirituality as let’s figure out how we can get God the Holy Spirit to do what we want God to do for us.
particularly around the blessings of God, spiritual blessings, physical blessings, and yes, financial blessings
These were all packaged together in a way to benefit me.
You know, you can you could even order your own blessing through Christian television by simply
Giving them your credit card to any charismatic ministry.
For any size love gift, you can receive all sorts of ministry resources that will bless, of course, your life.
And that consumer-driven impulse to draw near to God, to get something from God, was for me more than I could stomach.
Because if we look at the heroes of the faith, I mentioned Abraham, when Abram, before his name was changed to Abraham, was called by God in Genesis 12.
God said, Abraham, I’m going to bless you.
I’m going to make you great.
You’re going to have a big family.
But then it says in Genesis 12, God’s speaking to Abram.
And through you I will bless all the nations, all the families of the earth.
So from the very beginning, God’s blessings
Which I would say are spiritual, are physical, are financial.
Those blessings aren’t simply for us.
Yes, we receive them.
But we receive them in such a way that we might be the kind of people that give things away, people of generosity
And so the prosperity message was strong in the charismatic subculture I was in.
And I will admit that Oral Roberts
The founder of Oral Roberts University was one of the early voices going all the way back to the late 1950s and the early 1960s.
Oral Roberts was talking about prosperity.
But I don’t think Oral Roberts envisioned the message of prosperity becoming what it did
which was just overgrown with greed and materialism.
In the very beginning stages when Orl Roberts was teaching on prosperity, he defined financial prosperity
as having enough resources for you and your family, and enough to share with others
So in its kind of purest form, I I agree with that.
I think God does bless people financially so that all of their needs are met.
And that they have extra to share with others.
But because of television ministry and all sorts of factors, the prosperity gospel became a false gospel.
It was very pragmatic, very consumer-driven.
So again, another reason why I had to step away.
Two more values.
The next one is cultural disdain
The Pentecostal charismatic movement, and then the pop charismatic movement that I was a part of, grew out of holiness revivals.
Now, the downside to the holiness movement, which predates the Pentecostal Charismatic Movement, is this sort of artificial divide between the secular and the sacred.
there was a true disdain for culture.
So in the charismatic bubble I lived in, the very term secular culture was synonymous with the evils of Satan.
So art, beauty, music, all those type of things had to have a Jesus fish attached to it.
It had to have a Christian label.
uh without which it was just it was just sinful.
So the disdain for culture, quote unquote secular culture, isolates charismatics from the rest of the world.
And that creates a challenge for us in being salt and light in the world, in engaging culture.
So for music, for example, when I was in the charismatic subculture, you could only listen to quote unquote Christian music.
And I remember listening to Sixpence None the Richer.
Now they would go on to have uh some pop hits like Kiss Me and other ones that were played on secular radio, but they started as a Christian band.
And I liked them.
I was listening to one of their albums on cassette tape, because I’m that old.
And it was produced by a Christian record label, and I’m listening to it and I’m enjoying it.
And then I begin to ask myself,
What about the lyrical content of this album makes it Christian?
Because they’re just talking about life and beauty and love.
There’s no Jesus in here.
What makes music secular and what makes it Christian?
For me, that false dichotomy began to dissipate
And I just didn’t see any any difference anymore.
I no longer had a disdain for quote unquote secular culture.
I wanted to not necessarily embrace everything in the world, but I wanted to receive the gifts, particularly of art, film, literature, music.
And this cultural disdain also, if I’m being honest, just makes charismatics look weird.
And when I was stepping away from the charismatic movement, I kept telling my congregation, listen, I believe in the Holy Spirit.
I just don’t want to be weird anymore.
Alright, we’ve come to the the final value here.
And the final value that caused me to leave the charismatic movement.
was a theological one.
And it’s what I would call an overrealized eschatology.
Now I didn’t coin this term.
It’s a very technical theological term.
But remember, eschatology has to do with the end, end things, and the phrase overrealized means
Putting too much emphasis that the future has come now.
Let me explain with an example
So we believe at the end of this age, when Jesus returns, the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no more crying there, there will be no more sorrow, no more death.
Because of that, we believe that in the age to come, in the new heavens and the new earth, that we won’t fight sickness and disease anymore
Now, healing is a value of the charismatic movement, a needed value, by the way.
I think the healing ministry of Jesus is carried on through the church today.
But in the charismatic movement, there was this emphasis that anyone who prays properly in the right way
is automatically going to be fully and forever healed of whatever ailment they have.
So the charismatic movement believed that all of this goodness that comes in that future age in the eschaton, thus eschatology, eschaton meaning the end.
Right, all the benefits of the new heavens and the new earth are available right now.
And what I think Charismatics missed is that we are actually at the overlap of ages.
So that the age to come, the new heavens, the new earth, and all the blessings of that, we do experience some of that now.
But the new coming age overlaps with this present evil age, meaning we still struggle with stuff.
So
With healing in particular, I could no longer remain in the charismatic movement that kept sending the message, if you have enough faith,
If you do the right things, God will absolutely physically heal you by a miracle.
It simply is not true, and it’s hurtful and harmful for people.
Now Orl Roberts was a pioneer in healing evangelism, and Orl Roberts clearly taught that God is our source for healing, but healing can come through miracle, it can also come through medicine.
Meaning, healing can be a process and it can take time.
And so the emphasis on, again, the term is overrealized eschatology
believing all the benefits of the future coming world we can have now, I saw it as an as an untruth.
It’s just simply not true.
We are still gonna suffer and die.
There are times we get sick, there are times we pray for people who are sick
And yes, there are times God chooses to heal them now, but not everybody’s going to be healed in this world, and we’re all going to die, even though death is not the end.
So, in rejecting these values and leaving the charismatic movement doesn’t mean that I’ve lost
All of what I learned in the charismatic movement.
I still pray in the spirit.
I still pray for people’s healing.
I have seen healing, miracles.
I still believe in all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I’m just no longer living in that charismatic subculture.
I begin to recognize that God, the Holy Spirit, has been working in the church for 2,000 years and is currently working in churches that would not identify with the charismatic movement
I begin to see God working broadly through the church, and I begin to love the church in all of its various expressions.
And so because of that great love, I couldn’t identify anymore with the charismatic movement.
And so I have moved on, but I still call myself a charismatic.
I mean these days I would call myself a charismatic with a seatbelt on.
Right?
Because I want the structure that comes from liturgy.
I want to stay close to the scripture, to the whole council of God, not just certain underlined verses.
But I also want to be open to the surprising work of God.
And this is what I’ve learned about the Holy Spirit is you can’t codify
what the Holy Spirit’s gonna do.
You can’t boil the Holy Spirit’s activity down to steps or principles
The Holy Spirit is the living breath of God blowing through the church.
And you the Holy Spirit is mysterious.
And so, because of my background in the charismatic movement,
I always want to be open to the surprising works of the Spirit, and I want the Holy Spirit every day to fill my heart that I might become more like Jesus.
And if we’re going to be people of peace and kindness in this world, we need God the Holy Spirit, not these negative values of a charismatic subculture.
but the true Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
So today, ask the Holy Spirit
to fill your heart and your mind and your imagination and stay open to what the Holy Spirit might do in your life.
Well that’s all we have for today.
Thank you for joining me for this episode.
Go in peace.
And be kind
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.