Tongues

One of my classmate asked me why Baptists don’t believe in tongues. (She belongs to a charismatic church that practiced glossolalia or speaking in tongues.) I declined to answer her question because I don’t want to offend her. But she was insistent on hearing my (a Baptist) view.

I told her that I and most Baptist believe in tongues but that it had to have a purpose, that it must be authentic and not induced by subtle or sometimes forced suggestion or by emotionalism, and that the tongue spoken must be a real language and not just noises. Baptists do not practice it because we believe that it became unnecessary with the completion of the Scripture. But it does not mean that we don’t believe in it. We believe in tongues i.e. in authentic ones.

I had never seen or heard actual speaking in tongues but I read a few books that described it. The Pentecostals believed that Christians who do not practice this gift are underprivileged for they are not enjoying the fullness of the Spirit. These hullabaloos about tongues made me recall an experience that neighbors on the phenomenal and…err….forgive me for saying this biblical.

I used to be a dipsomaniac, okay, alcoholic. I love to drink especially after work. I call it decompressing. I had lots of drinking buddies and because of this I accumulated a barangay of godsons, which to my last count numbered twenty something. I can’t remember all of them and I don’t even personally know some of them. (I don’t know what it is with Filipinos but if someone likes you or if they want to return a favor their first instinct is to make you a godfather of their son or daughter. It’s taboo to decline this honor. And there is even an instance of someone telling me that he will make a new baby so that I can be his kumpare. It happened. My Kumpareng Larry, as of the last count, had nine children and the current youngest is my goddaughter. He loved sealing friendships with kumpare-hood. He had lots of friends, and he is well liked. But to keep up with his growing number of friends, he has to make more and more babies. In order to keep up with his accumulation of friends this kumpare of mine even manufactured children with other women. Come to think of it, I think what the catholic church should do is limit the number of infant baptism to just three infants per couple. If the couple refuse to obey the priest would just refuse to perform the rite. This will discourage...err….overpopulation, I think .)

It was during one of these infant baptism receptions that I actually saw my first speaking in tongues. There were times that I get easily drunk, when I’m tired or not in the mood, but there were also times when I’m in the mood and when I’m in the alcoholic mood, Oh boy, I’m alcoholically immortal--this is dangerous for you can’t tell if you are on the verge of alcohol poisoning. This reception was one of those “in the mood” days. The drinking session lasted till the evenings. I am still standing and rational while most of the people are drunk. It was then that I noticed two of my new kumpares talking and drooling or rather drooling and talking...err….more accurately they were drooling and talking at the same time.

“Paye, peww fret jing kee kitt rew anshfdzzns jung, sssssshhhp” one said to the other.

“SSShhhhhhppp…Shuklashi griejng hingerstuff gdhhuisssh pewee,” the other replied.

What was amazing was that they perfectly understood each other. I mean, the people who witnessed the Pentecost have a point in concluding that the apostles were drunk. I don’t know, but I think there are also circumstances like these that happened with me being the drunk, speaking in some alien language to another drunk, but in my recollection, I always understood what the other drunk was talking about. Maybe the sober people observing will think that we couldn’t understand each other but we did! It’s hard to explain but it must be the spirit of the high octane aircraft fuel in the gin.

Anyway, my classmate is one of those speaking in tongues phenomenon—her tongue can speak the language of angels yet her eyes can’t stay on her test paper.