I did this on my own, without consulting the other mods. They can smack my hand if I'm out of line, but let me outline my reasoning.
1. The original thread is here: LINK! It is too long for anyone to reasonably be expected to read it all and catch up on it, and recapping after more than 100 pages is only useful if you know where the recap is. The recap will be in this post, with the opportunity for others to recap if their memories differ from mine.
2. The original thread got ugly. Recapping here allows us to remove the ugliness while keeping the many salient points that were made on both sides.
The Recap
The thread started with me confessing that I'd faked SIT all along. In addition, I said I made up interpretations and prophecies on the spot. I referred to it as "reinforced self-deception," where TWI encouraged us to participate in a fundamentally dishonest practice to build community. We all did it.
My choice of language was highly divisive. Folks thought I was accusing everyone of lying. In actuality, my feeling was that we were all deceived and walked out on it, in good faith believing that what we were doing is genuine. But I used the word lie, and I own that. So to clarify: I think we fooled ourselves, were encouraged by others to fake it [in good faith: most of them thought it was real, too], and were told that we weren't faking it as part of the initiation. TWI made a compelling Biblical case, and we wanted what the Bible promised.
As the conversation progressed, people felt a need to defend their faith, practice and integrity. They also disagreed with me on whether everyone was/is faking it.
From there, it became a question of who had the burden of proof. Is it the person claiming to produce something supernatural, or the one claiming it's all a fake?
To this day, I don't think we reached a consensus. But I think there was general agreement about my observation that my thesis, "It's all fake," cannot be proved. To do so, I would have to record every instance of SIT, ever, and prove beyond a doubt that it's not a language. It is not reasonable to expect me to do that. BUT!!!!! Disproving my thesis should be easy. Produce a language. You do that, and I'm wrong, end of story.
As far as me demonstrating my position (not proving it), we got into a lengthy discussion about scholarship on the subject. Many works were cited, but the two that drew the most comments were from linguist William Samarin and another gentleman whose credentials I no longer remember. His name was Vern Poythress. Poythress was fascinating because he is (was?) a believer who never discounted the possibility of genuine SIT.
Samarin's position was secular. Summarizing him is easy: SIT does not produce languages. What it does produce is similar to language in a number of ways, but the similarities are superficial. It's not gibberish (goo-goo-ga-ga, bliggety, bloggety, boo!). It is supposed to simulate language, and as such, it will have a diverse "vocabulary" and pauses similar to what you would encounter while reading and coming across a comma or period. SIT produces not just words, but sentences and paragraphs.
But, he said repeatedly, it doesn't produce language.
There was lots of disagreement, some of it contentious, about what Samarin was and was not saying.
Poythress took Samarin's work a little further and described a typical "first experience" with SIT. What he described was remarkably similar to Session 12 of PFAL. Relax. Speak. Uncomfortable at first, but soon it will be as easy as riding a bicycle. And this was very important: the instructor would tell the speaker not to doubt. "If he says, 'I seem to be doing it myself,' the 'coach' replies, 'That’s the devil trying to make you doubt the gift that God has given you.'"
It was Poythress who coined the term "free vocalization," which I subsequently adopted. I'll let him define it:
Again, it needs to be stressed that Poythress was/is not a doubter. He merely considered SIT a testable claim and found that it didn't produce languages. I'm leaving a LOT out for the sake of brevity (100-page thread, people!). Here's Poythress' article. Go to town.
I don't think it's necessary to go into more than that for the sake of summary, but again I must insist: I have not done Poythress justice. He refers to my position as "unbiblical." I actually disagree with that. Which brings us to the issue of presuppositions and why I did not reveal during the course of this thread that I am no longer a believer.
There are numerous Christian denominations that teach SIT is a thing of the past and not possible today. There is no difference between what those Christians believe about modern SIT and what I believe about it (with the exception that those Christians might believe there's something demonic at work, whereas I most certainly do not). Point is, you do not need to be a non-Christian to conclude modern SIT is a $3 bill. I wanted this issue discussed on the merits. My lack of faith in other areas was not relevant. In fact, I had come to my conclusion about SIT years before I lost my faith in other aspects of Christianity. I chose to save atheism for a later discussion. SIT could be discussed on its own, on the merits, without a loss of faith in those who came to agree with me.
A couple of other brief points before I wrap up this summary:
I cannot prove everyone faked it. I never tried. I only tried to document the claims I was making, and in doing so encountered a mechanism for "faking it" that I think holds up to scrutiny.
I think the mechanism for faking SIT is free vocalization as described by Poythress, which anyone can do.
I think the mechanism for faking interpretation and prophecy is extemporaneous speech, which, again, anyone can do. With a little practice, you can get very good at it. It doesn't mean you plot out every word you're going to say. It just means you know your subject matter and you're able to speak about it without pre-planning. People do this in speech classes all the time.
The reason this was in About the Way and not in doctrinal was outlined in the first post: I believe these "manifestations" were TWI's way of creating group cohesion through a shared experience that appeared to be supernatural but on closer examination was anything but.
Throughout anything I said in the previous thread or here, if I have stated anything as fact when it is merely my opinion, I apologize. I am declaring all of this to be my opinion.
This summary is unintentionally one-sided. Nobody's perfect. I invite any original thread participants who want to elaborate on their opposition to my thesis to please do so.
1. The original thread is here: LINK! It is too long for anyone to reasonably be expected to read it all and catch up on it, and recapping after more than 100 pages is only useful if you know where the recap is. The recap will be in this post, with the opportunity for others to recap if their memories differ from mine.
2. The original thread got ugly. Recapping here allows us to remove the ugliness while keeping the many salient points that were made on both sides.
The Recap
The thread started with me confessing that I'd faked SIT all along. In addition, I said I made up interpretations and prophecies on the spot. I referred to it as "reinforced self-deception," where TWI encouraged us to participate in a fundamentally dishonest practice to build community. We all did it.
My choice of language was highly divisive. Folks thought I was accusing everyone of lying. In actuality, my feeling was that we were all deceived and walked out on it, in good faith believing that what we were doing is genuine. But I used the word lie, and I own that. So to clarify: I think we fooled ourselves, were encouraged by others to fake it [in good faith: most of them thought it was real, too], and were told that we weren't faking it as part of the initiation. TWI made a compelling Biblical case, and we wanted what the Bible promised.
As the conversation progressed, people felt a need to defend their faith, practice and integrity. They also disagreed with me on whether everyone was/is faking it.
From there, it became a question of who had the burden of proof. Is it the person claiming to produce something supernatural, or the one claiming it's all a fake?
To this day, I don't think we reached a consensus. But I think there was general agreement about my observation that my thesis, "It's all fake," cannot be proved. To do so, I would have to record every instance of SIT, ever, and prove beyond a doubt that it's not a language. It is not reasonable to expect me to do that. BUT!!!!! Disproving my thesis should be easy. Produce a language. You do that, and I'm wrong, end of story.
As far as me demonstrating my position (not proving it), we got into a lengthy discussion about scholarship on the subject. Many works were cited, but the two that drew the most comments were from linguist William Samarin and another gentleman whose credentials I no longer remember. His name was Vern Poythress. Poythress was fascinating because he is (was?) a believer who never discounted the possibility of genuine SIT.
Samarin's position was secular. Summarizing him is easy: SIT does not produce languages. What it does produce is similar to language in a number of ways, but the similarities are superficial. It's not gibberish (goo-goo-ga-ga, bliggety, bloggety, boo!). It is supposed to simulate language, and as such, it will have a diverse "vocabulary" and pauses similar to what you would encounter while reading and coming across a comma or period. SIT produces not just words, but sentences and paragraphs.
But, he said repeatedly, it doesn't produce language.
There was lots of disagreement, some of it contentious, about what Samarin was and was not saying.
Poythress took Samarin's work a little further and described a typical "first experience" with SIT. What he described was remarkably similar to Session 12 of PFAL. Relax. Speak. Uncomfortable at first, but soon it will be as easy as riding a bicycle. And this was very important: the instructor would tell the speaker not to doubt. "If he says, 'I seem to be doing it myself,' the 'coach' replies, 'That’s the devil trying to make you doubt the gift that God has given you.'"
It was Poythress who coined the term "free vocalization," which I subsequently adopted. I'll let him define it:
Quote
Free vocalization (glossolalia) occurs when (1) a human being produces a connected sequence of speech sounds, (2) he cannot identify the sound-sequence as belonging to any natural language that he already knows how to speak, (3) he cannot identify and give the meaning of words or morphemes (minimal lexical units), (4) in the case of utterances of more than a few syllables, he typically cannot repeat the same sound-sequence on demand, (5) a naive listener might suppose that it was an unknown language.
Again, it needs to be stressed that Poythress was/is not a doubter. He merely considered SIT a testable claim and found that it didn't produce languages. I'm leaving a LOT out for the sake of brevity (100-page thread, people!). Here's Poythress' article. Go to town.
I don't think it's necessary to go into more than that for the sake of summary, but again I must insist: I have not done Poythress justice. He refers to my position as "unbiblical." I actually disagree with that. Which brings us to the issue of presuppositions and why I did not reveal during the course of this thread that I am no longer a believer.
There are numerous Christian denominations that teach SIT is a thing of the past and not possible today. There is no difference between what those Christians believe about modern SIT and what I believe about it (with the exception that those Christians might believe there's something demonic at work, whereas I most certainly do not). Point is, you do not need to be a non-Christian to conclude modern SIT is a $3 bill. I wanted this issue discussed on the merits. My lack of faith in other areas was not relevant. In fact, I had come to my conclusion about SIT years before I lost my faith in other aspects of Christianity. I chose to save atheism for a later discussion. SIT could be discussed on its own, on the merits, without a loss of faith in those who came to agree with me.
A couple of other brief points before I wrap up this summary:
I cannot prove everyone faked it. I never tried. I only tried to document the claims I was making, and in doing so encountered a mechanism for "faking it" that I think holds up to scrutiny.
I think the mechanism for faking SIT is free vocalization as described by Poythress, which anyone can do.
I think the mechanism for faking interpretation and prophecy is extemporaneous speech, which, again, anyone can do. With a little practice, you can get very good at it. It doesn't mean you plot out every word you're going to say. It just means you know your subject matter and you're able to speak about it without pre-planning. People do this in speech classes all the time.
The reason this was in About the Way and not in doctrinal was outlined in the first post: I believe these "manifestations" were TWI's way of creating group cohesion through a shared experience that appeared to be supernatural but on closer examination was anything but.
Throughout anything I said in the previous thread or here, if I have stated anything as fact when it is merely my opinion, I apologize. I am declaring all of this to be my opinion.
This summary is unintentionally one-sided. Nobody's perfect. I invite any original thread participants who want to elaborate on their opposition to my thesis to please do so.