Thursday, February 18, 2021

Roy A. Cheville (RLDS) on how the Holy Spirit is to be "Expressed" or "Channeled"

  

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)