Many of you may not know this, but from September 1993 to November 1994, I attended an extremely charismatic Christian church in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. While attending this church, I saw all kinds of crazy things happen during the Sunday services. Some of these occurrences were labeled "manifestations of the Spirit", some of them were the antics that naturally occur when your congregation opens its arms to drunks, druggies, and "street people", and some of these occurrences can apparently get you sued.
It was not unusual for many members of our congregation to get "slain in the Spirit", which more or less involves falling over backward during times of intense worship or prayer, and laying (or sometimes convulsing) on the floor for several hours at a time. I never understood why people always fell over backward. I guess that if people were falling forward, it could be awkward for the (predominantly male) "catchers" to properly catch women without running the risk of accidentally touching a breast and opening the door for lawsuits. Like the one that recently ended in Michigan.
No, there was no breast-touching in this lawsuit. What there was, however, was one disgruntled woman by the name of Judith Dadd, who was "slain in the Spirit" at a church rally in 2002, fell without a catcher, and cracked her head on the floor, causing lasting physical injury and a payout of $314,000 in court-rewarded cash. This congregation is going to have to do some major tithing to get back on track financially, and while they're at it, they might want to reconsider if they're on track theologically too.
The full story of what happened can be found in this article from the Lansing State Journal.
Despite the fact that there is no mention in the Bible of this sort of "slaying in the Spirit" going on, no mention of "catchers", and no mention of God causing people to convulse uncontrollably on the floor, thousands of people still seem to dive right into churches who promote this stuff. I seem to remember Jesus spending a lot of time telling people to get up off the ground ("take up your mat and walk"), while I don't remember him ever knocking anyone out – backwards, forwards, or sideways.
But what do I know? The only catchers in my current congregation are the ones who play on the church baseball team.
