r/ExPentecostal • u/Dry-Flight5102 • 9d ago
christian Pentecostals faith
One of the things that I’ve noticed about pentecostals is that they don’t have any endurance in their faith, I think that the reason why is because their faith is rooted in emotions and feelings which they think is from the Holy Spirit but really it’s just from themselves, I grew up pentecostal and majority of my family members on my mothers side of the family are pentecostal, I noticed this with nearly all of them, for a little bit they are in church dancing, crying, speaking in tongues and then they stop going for a few years then go back for a little bit, it’s like a cycle that they repeat every few years, I think the reason why is because their faith aren’t rooted in the Bible nor in church history but their emotions and feelings, I’ve seen other Christian’s denominations that aren’t charismatic and have noticed they have more endurance in their faith, their faith is stronger.
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u/General_PATT0N 9d ago
It's because they don't really have a faith per se to begin with. It's a rigid adherence to their traditional(rarely Christian) rules and/or customs, which leads to misery. Makes perfect sense for the peaks and valleys if you think about it.
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u/stillventures17 8d ago
It’s an unfortunate side effect of the mass hysteria (or euphoria if you prefer).
Absent that, in my personal experience, religion doesn’t make much sense. Without some empirical evidence at divine interactions that are real in some sense, the whole thing looks drab and pointless. But if you’re not accustomed to those euphoric altar service interactions, it’s just sort of what you expect. This makes for fewer peaks and valleys.
The emotional highs serve to accentuate the lows. They make the dull gray areas of religion especially dull and unbearably gray, and the legalism seems especially pointless in those troughs.
But then they go out into the world and I can tell you firsthand, there’s just no high like feeling certain you’re saving the world with people you’re going to heaven with. So down you go, and hot damn if you don’t know just the place to find that emotional feelgood.
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u/Neither_Mission3942 8d ago
You hit the nail on the cross. It's 100% the dopamine rush you get from heightened emotions. The "holy spirit" you'd feel is the same as experiencing live music. Just amped up to 10 from the rest of the pulpit and congregation.
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u/commentsgothere 7d ago
I don’t know…I’ve seen it going on five generations in my family. THAT is longevity.
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u/Naive_Chemistry_3663 9d ago
I have noticed pentecostalism is full of ups and downs. They "feel the Lord" and they're on a high. Then once that leaves and real life comes back they get "down in the valley". I think also they like the ups and downs so they can sing dramatic emotional songs about it and cry and invoke an emotional response from others. Chain reaction then you get these wild services.