Pentecost and Puzzles

As the Church celebrates Pentecost, I’d like to offer some observations on a short essay by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., that appeared in The Catholic Thing last October. His conclusions support the practice of “power evangelism” as popularized by John Wimber. Weinandy asserts that some of the “most effective Christian evangelists” are those whose preaching “is accompanied by miracles, healings, and exorcisms,” and offers an interpretation of Acts 8 that furnishes a theological foundation for his assertion. I argue that Weinandy misunderstands what the Acts of the Apostles is saying about the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that his conclusions about the Church’s mission of evangelization are incorrect.

Weinandy opens by professing himself puzzled by the events recounted in Acts 8:5-17. Some Samaritans were baptized by the evangelist Philip, but did not receive the Holy Spirit until the apostles Peter and James came and laid hands on them. Why were they said to receive the Holy Spirit only when the apostles laid hands on them, since one receives the Holy Spirit when one is baptized? Weinandy’s solution:

[W]ithin this Pentecost event there resides both the institution of the sacrament of Baptism as well as what came to be called the charismatic or spiritual gifts of the Spirit, such as the ability to heal, perform exorcisms, work miracles, and speak in tongues. In Acts, the apostles not only speak in tongues, but they also healed the sick and cast out demons. The apostles implemented the fullness of their Pentecost experience both by way of baptizing and by way of exercising the charismatic gifts. When Peter and John, therefore, came to Samaria and laid hands upon those who were already baptized, they did so that they might receive their share of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit – that their full apostolic Pentecostal experience might be the same apostolic experience of the Samaritans as well.

In other words, there is a distinction between the sacrament of Baptism, which confers the Holy Spirit, and a subsequent pentecostal experience, distinct from the sacrament of Confirmation, that confers the “charismatic…gifts of the Spirit.” The Apostles received the whole package on the day of Pentecost, but other Christians receive it in two stages. This is one way to resolve the puzzle, but not the only possible or plausible explanation for what is written in Acts.

When we read the Acts of the Apostles, that last word matters. As the Church grew to include persons previously considered outsiders, such as gentiles, Samaritans, and even an Ethiopian eunuch, the question arose: who had the responsibility and authority to determine whether members of these groups could be accepted as full members of the Church, on equal standing with the members of the original Jerusalem community? The book of Acts gives a clear answer: the Apostles. This principle holds throughout Acts, including Chapter 8, which opens with a persecution that disperses the Church, so that the evangelist Philip ends up in Samaria without any apostles present. He baptizes the Samaritans without the prior knowledge of the apostles. Scripture scholar Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer explains:

[Philip’s] missionary effort is not regarded by Luke as a fully authorized endeavor. This is why the early institutional Church sends Peter and John, who by the imposition of hands confer the Spirit and incorporate the immature Christian community of Samaria into the fold. Luke makes it clear that the Spirit is given only in conjunction with the authorized college of the Twelve.¹

Another question may be posed. If Chapter 8 of Acts is puzzling, what about chapter 10? There, we read how a puzzled Peter preached the Gospel to some gentiles, and “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” They received the Holy Spirit, even before being baptized. Then Peter asked, “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And they were baptized. While the sequence of events in chapter 10 is the reverse of that in chapter 8, the lesson is identical, as scripture scholar Fr. Dennis Hamm explains:

[T]he rest of Luke-Acts makes it clear that the language [about “baptizing in the Spirit”] normally refers to the Christian conversion-initiation experience of people receiving the Holy Spirit on the occasion of their baptism. The apparent exceptions can be accounted for by Luke's purposes. In the case of Peter and John laying hands on the Samaritans [chapter 8], the point is that the Samaritan mission (the first mission beyond Judaism) receives apostolic approval. And in the case of Peter with the Cornelius household [chapter 10], the point is that the movement of the Christian mission to the Gentiles has been divinely initiated. In the biblical sense of getting baptized in the Spirit, then, every baptized Christian is baptized in the Spirit.

Acts 8 and Acts 10 both demonstrate the transition to a new level of Christian understanding, enabled and made binding by the action of the apostles, who had the authority and responsibility to take decisions that would establish norms for the Church to observe in both the present and the future. Weinandy’s explanation disregards this unique role of the apostles, as he concludes. “Luke’s original baffling declaration is now clarified. What took place in Jerusalem on Pentecost now has taken place in a town in Samaria.”

This explanation is falsified, not only by Acts 10, but by Luke’s consistent presentation of the apostles’ unique responsibility and authority. Yet Weinandy goes even further, moving on to the Church of today:

Within the charismatic context, Christians who have been baptized and confirmed, and so who received the Holy Spirit, are now prayed over and hands are laid upon them so that the Holy Spirit might “fall upon” them.

That’s puzzling. Today, Weinandy claims, a Christian who has already received the Holy Spirit in baptism, and subsequently been confirmed, either by a successor to the apostles or a priest with apostolic authority, can have an additional pneumatic experience if he is prayed over (by whom?) and hands are laid upon him (by whom?). And why is this additional laying on of hands needed, if one receives the Holy Spirit when one is baptized?

Weinandy believes this additional pentecostal experience enhances one’s effectiveness as an evangelist, affirming that those who have received this additional gift “have become some of the most effective Christian evangelists. For often...their preaching ... is accompanied by miracles, healings, and exorcisms. ...[A]s well, throughout the Church’s history, most of the saints, if not all of them, manifested the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, performing miracles, healings, and exorcisms.”

This claim would puzzle many, if not most, popes. Since Pope St. John XXIII spoke of a “new Pentecost” in 1959, his successors have written extensively on evangelization. While they acknowledge that the action of the Holy Spirit makes evangelization possible, none has tied the success of evangelization to the activity of those who have had hands laid on them after Confirmation and claim, as a consequence, to demonstrate extraordinary spiritual gifts through miracles, healings, or exorcisms.²

Finally, regarding the claim that "most of the saints, if not all of them, manifested the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, performing miracles, healings, and exorcisms," the words of a single saint are sufficient response:

If we wish to achieve the same results as the Apostles and the first followers of the Gospel, we must use the same means as they, and this all the more because we do not have the power to perform miracles and so we must bring back those who have gone astray by the splendor of our virtues. — St. Eugène de Mazenod

1. 1 Brown, Raymond Edward; Fitzmyer, Joseph A.; Murphy, Roland E., eds. The Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall (1968) 185.l.

2. See, for example, Benedict XVI’s remarks on “full conviction” in his homily delivered at a Mass “For the New Evangelization.”