Worse Than a Tongue Twister

The summer after my high school graduation I had a girlfriend who, shall we say, had some very conservative religious beliefs. She attended a holy roller church and somehow convinced me to attend it with her one Sunday. Besides the fact that people kept standing up during the service to offer "Amens" and "Hallelujahs" (my girlfriend wanted me to stand up to say something, but I convinced her that no one in her church wanted to know what I REALLY thought about the whole ridiculous affair!), near the end of my torture the sermon, some individual got up, approached the pulpit and then fell to the ground "speaking in tongues".

Needless to say, I wanted out of this three-ring circus and, despite protestations by my girl, I left post haste. Once out in the parking lot, she wanted to know why I had to leave. I think my only response to her was "Better we not go there." We broke up later in the summer when she discovered she was pregnant; because of my Klinfelter's Syndrome, I can't impregnate anyone!!

Speaking in tongues has got to be one of the most idiotic Christian practices that I can think of. Why anyone would think that such bizarre behavior could deepen their religious experience is beyond me! Why a bunch of people suddenly speaking gibberish could inform someone that there is a God out there defies credulity.

Of course, when I have discussed this issue with fundamentalist Christians, they always ask me -- What other explanation could there be except for God and the Holy Spirit descending upon a person?

I can readily think of two very acceptable explanations: a) Peer Pressure and b) Being overcome with a supposed epiphany. If you're attending a church service and other people are babbling incoherently, there's a certain amount of peer pressure for you to do likewise. Since adherents believe that this is a special gift from their God, you certainly don't want to appear as if you don't warrant this special gift too.

It's always struck me as odd that "speaking in tongues" only seems to pop up in crowds. I've never heard of a case in which a person is sitting home alone with their cat and, all of a sudden, the special language of the heavenly big guy descends upon them. No, such occurrences always seem to happen when others are around and you can be watched as you act like a mentally unstable epileptic. [Note: The previous comment is not intended to impugn anyone with epilepsy.]

A second reasonable explanation for this perverse phenomena is being struck, so to speak, with a revelation of thought. All at once the straws you've been grasping in vainly at appear as a whole. In your excitement to announce to others your new found truth, you become a bit tongue-tied. But you, of course, must embellish and exaggerate this situation in order for it to fall in line with what you already believe in. The peer pressure element also comes to bear on the situation.

Oh, I already know what you believers will say in protest -- Speaking in tongues is in the Bible. Yes, there is certainly language to that affect, but have you ever considered that you may simply be misinterpreting what they're talking about?

Anytime a person moves to a different level of consciousness, explaining to others your new understanding or interpretation can be difficult, particularly if they are still languishing at a lower level of consciousness. You may still be speaking in your mother tongue, but it almost feels like you're speaking a different language.

This is a common problem for scientists and philosophers. As each develops a new theory, they must employ words and concepts in unfamiliar ways. For example, though Nietzsche and much of his audience spoke German, his new conceptualizations may well have sounded like a different language than his readers were used to.

So, all the biblical writers may have been referring to in the act of "speaking in tongues" was as a metaphor for speaking from the foundation of a new consciousness.

For me, that makes far more sense than a bunch of people flailing on the floor speaking gaga talk.