Who's redefining what?

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-gift-of-parbar.html

So look, here's my modest proposal: If we aren't going to start with sound exegesis of the Bible and be content with that…

Well, when is Dan actually going to start with sound exegesis? We keep getting his token reverence for the sufficiency of Scripture, absent the exegesis to back up his claims. Less genuflecting and more spadework would be appreciated. 

Same thing for all their other redefinitions. If they wanted some holy status for their errant feelings and hunches and "leadings," they should never have assaulted the well-known and well-defined Biblical phenomenon of prophecy, and embarrassed themselves by trying to redefine it to suit their experiences. 

i) First of all, notice that Dan doesn't tell us what the definition of the this "well-defined" phenomenon is. This is yet another example of Dan's routinely perfunctory performance. Make pious gestures towards the authority of Scripture, but don't follow that up with the goods. 

ii) Also, let's compare his claim to David Aune's conclusion in his standard scholarly monograph on prophecy:

Prophetic sayings and speeches preserved in early Christian sources exhibit a wide variety of forms and styles. Even though we have somewhat overconfidently proposed a typology of six types of basic forms of prophetic speech and three kinds of complex forms, it is apparent that only the presence of formal framing devices betrays the possible presence of Christian prophetic speech…There is therefore no such thing as a distinctively characteristic form of Christian prophetic discourse that is recognizable apart from the presence of formal framing devices. The only real exception to this generalization is the apocalyptic vision report, a literary form which we have not considered in any detail and which requires careful study in its own right. D. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Eerdmans 1991), 337-338.

Hmm. Seems like the phenomenon is far less monolithic than Dan purports to be the case. 

See, that's where the modern inventors of Charismaticism/"continuationism" went wrong. Parham and his poor dupes were originally seeking the Biblical gift of tongues. That is, they expected to be able to speak in unlearned human languages supernaturally. And when they started babbling and gobbling, they were convinced it had to be that, that Biblical gift, that falsifiable gift with defined contours and edges. So they went off to mission fields, expecting to be understood by the Chinese... but, yeah, you know how that went. Natives shrugged and, in effect, made little circular gestures by their temples. Incomprehensible babble.
So here's where the first-gen errorists went afield. They were sure their experience was valid (Charismaticism 101), so then took some large hammers and saws to the Bible, and eventually changed the interpretation of what "tongues" meant from, well, what it meant, to what they were doing. They took a well-understood gift and invented something that gave cover to their experience.

As with prophecy, Dan dictates a received definition of glossolalia–which he equates with xenoglossy. He then accuses Pentecostals of redefining the phenomenon to retrofit their actual practice. Let's compare Dan's claim with some standard scholarship on the issue:

The ambiguous evidence regarding the exact nature of tongues raises the question of whether even Paul himself or the other earliest Christians knew the exact nature of the phenomenon. R. Ciampa & B. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2010), 586. 

From the way Paul speaks of this phenomenon [tongues] in the rest of this chap. [12] and in chap. 14, however, it seems best to recognize it as some form of noncommunicative utterance or incoherent babbling.
The phenomenon cannot mean speaking in foreign tongues…it denotes here [14:2] some sort of utterance beyond the patterns of normal human speech. J. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians (Yale U. Press 2008), 470, 510. 

Second, Paul understands these utterances to be addressed to God (14:2,14,28) and not to humans (14:2,6,9). It is not a language of normal human discourse, but something mysterious and "other," which may give it its appeal. It consists of "mysteries in the Spirit" that are unintelligible to humans (14:2 ) and that benefit only the speaker (14:4). It communicates with God through prayer and praise (14:15) in ways that analytical speech do not…This rules out the view that tongues refer to the miraculous ability to speak in unlearned languages or to speak in one's native language. D. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Baker 2003), 584. 

Edwards declares: "It is evident that the Corinthians did not use their gift of tongues to evangelize the heathen world. They spoke with tongues in their Church assemblies, and not once does the Apostle urge them to apply the power to the purpose for which it would be so eminently serviceable." 
If there were any hint of this use, Paul could not have said "the person who speaks in a tongue speaks not to people but to God" (14:2), let alone, "the person who speaks in a tongue builds up only himself (14:4). But we saw that insofar as Chrysostom, Cyril, Thomas, and most especially  Theodoret and Calvin were concerned, the whole point of using foreign languages was strictly to serve the proclamation of the gospel as part of the mission to the world. But if we decontextualize the gift from mission (as Paul clearly does in 1 Cor 14), the basis for the gift has disappeared. 
Tongues may then be viewed as "the language of the unconscious" because it is unintelligible (unless it is "interpreted") not only to others but also to the speaker, A. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2000), 977, 988. 

The weight of the textual evidence, however, does not support this understanding of tongues as real human languages. The Pentecost story does emphasize the intelligibility of the tongues spoken, but a careful reading indicates that the miracle occurred in the hearing rather than in the mode of speaking. The bystanders do not ask, "How can they all be speaking our native languages?" but rather, "Since all who are speaking are Galileans, how is it that we hear them in our own native languages" (Acts 2:8).
As for Paul,he could hardly emphasize more strongly that in his view–and he was a speaker in tongues himself (14:18)–glossolalia is an intrinsically noncommunicative form of utterance (1 Cor 13:1; 14:2,4,7-9,16-17,23).
In summary, the convergence of evidence suggests that glossolalia is a verbal expression of a powerful emotional state. It is not a real language but a kind of structured or ordered babbling, "Glossolalia and the Embarrassments of Experience," L. T. Johnson, The Princeton Seminary Bulletin (1997), 117-118, 121.

Now, it's not the purpose of this post to give my own definition of glossolalia. I don't quote these scholars to endorse their interpretation. Rather, I quote them to document the patent falsity of Dan's assertions.

i) To my knowledge, not one of the scholars I quoted is Pentecostal or charismatic. Therefore, Dan can't say they were motivated to reject the foreign language interpretation to ex post validate their personal commitment to contemporary Pentecostal practice.

ii) In addition, their analysis gives the lie to Dan's claim that there's a received definition of tongues, such that anyone who rejects the foreign language definition is "redefining" the NT phenomenon. 

And frankly, it's examples like these which raise questions about Dan's integrity. He makes willfully ignorant public claims. For some reason, he feels no duty to make a good faith effort to inform himself before he sallies forth about the Bible or people who disagree with him. As a pastor, he ought to have more sense of responsibility. Don't tell your people what the situation is before you've done some basic fact-checking. 

Every time we're trying to talk God's Word, someone is sure to ask, "So, what about when X happens? or when Y happened in 1843? How do you explain that, huh?" As if this is what really should consume the Christian, because we already have so well mastered all that actually-in-the-Bible stuff.

Questions like that are quite germane when Dan and other MacArthurites deny that things like that ever happen. Does Dan really think his sweeping historical claims should be immune to empirical falsification? If he said something never happens, his denial invites potential counterexamples. Why does Dan imagine that he's entitled to operate with a double standard which allows him to issue blanket denials, but exempts him from ever having to consider any evidence to the contrary? What does that say about his character? 

But then again, really, since the whole point is that we've got this imperative (we must validate the Charismatic's experience and his special powers)…

I agree with Dan that that's a problem in Pentecostalism. Problem is, Dan has the same methodology. Dan is the mirror image of what he faults in Pentecostalism. Dan also begins with experience. He's a disguntled former Pentecostal. He had a bad experience. And because his experience with Pentecostalism left him emotionally damaged, he automatically rejects charismatic claims, as well as "contiuationist" interpretations. In Dan's case, you can take the Pentecostal out of Pentecostalism, but you can't take the Pentecostalism out of the Pentecostal. Because Dan burned his fingers playing with strange fire, he's now a crusader against matches. 

Finally, a word about the commenters at Pyromaniacs. They are very quick to recognize cult personality psychology on the part of folks who hang onto every word of some TBN televangelist, but oblivious to their own personality cult psychology when their MacArthurite heroes come under scrutiny.