THE HOLY SPIRIT
CHANNELED
How the Holy Spirit
is to be expressed constitutes a perennial problem. At one extreme are those
who look to a spontaneous expression untrammelled by rules and regulations of
clergy or congregation. The exponents of this view consider the Holy Spirit to
be above human consideration and control. At the other extreme are those who
see the Holy Spirit as a spiritual presence operating through orderly,
well-established, officially controlled channels. The first view has the merit
of freshness and spontaneity. It has the dangers of radicalism and fanaticism.
It removes the manifestations from validation through reason and experience.
Anything to removed can be quite unsafe. The second view has the merit of
safety from excess and from disorder. On the other side, it can play a
dampening role on zeal and originality. It elevates custom and inherited
Scripture, creed and practice. It shuts off channels of communion with God.
Every generation
faces questions about the nature and the function of the Holy Spirit. A sound
decision should not go to either extreme. It should preserve merits and
services of both. It should avoid the dangers of both. During the second
century and after, Christianity veered toward the second pole. Radical
movements had something to do with this trend. Leaders became apprehensive of
Spirit-led reformers. Leaders came to stress regular procedures under clergy
administration. The expression of the Holy Spirit came to be channeled in
ecclesiastical office. The office itself came to be looked upon as guaranteeing
the expression of the Spirit the office holder ought to have. (Roy A. Cheville,
Did the Light Go Out? A Study in the Process of Apostasy [Independence,
Miss.: Herald Publishing House/Department of Religious Education Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1962], 99)