Single Mention Doctrine

[JohnH]

Having lived in the Plain Anabaptist world all of my life, it is usual for conversations to quickly go to this when talking about girls or women who decide to follow Jesus.

"Is she wearing a covering?"

I have never once heard it asked, "Has he started lifting his hands?"

In Charismatic circles it is quite common, and is indeed a way people critique each other's spirituality on a weekly basis. "I saw so and so lifting his hands again last Sunday."

[Ernie]

Some people aren't sure if Paul was teaching a literal headcovering. If in doubt, they can look at the practice of the early church.

Or the practice of the global church for 2,000 years. It's only in the last 150 years this has been abandoned.

Something similar happened with lifting hands in prayer, although this likely began phasing out among Anabaptists sometime after the Reformation.

[Soloist]

Some people aren't sure if Paul was teaching a literal headcovering. If in doubt, they can look at the practice of the early church.

Or the practice of the global church for 2,000 years. It's only in the last 150 years this has been abandoned.

Something similar happened with lifting hands in prayer, although this likely began phasing out among Anabaptists sometime after the Reformation.

I feel like it’s connected with the heavy stoicism

[Neto]

[Raising hands was] mentioned in the Old Testament too.... That’s not only mentioned in the New Testament. It’s also mentioned in the Old Testament, the lifting of hands.

I confess that I do not do this as much publicly as I used to. When you are told to do it by someone up front, it feels rather weird to do it, like you're being pressured to do it, rather than as a genuine expression. Maybe I shouldn't feel that way, but no one ever expects that people kneel or bow down when the songs says that. Why not? (I have at times knelt during singing, but we - my wife and I, and many of those in our age group - don't stand to sing any more. The stage people want everyone to stand for the entire 20 minutes or so, and that's just too much. Makes for back pain.)

What about the person up front saying let's all stand for prayer?

I put commands such as head-covering, lifting holy hands, holy kiss, hospitality, anointing with oil, foot washing, etc. in the same general category.

If someone up front announces that it is time to do each of the above, do you feel the same way? Should the practice of these things be only self-determined or is it ok for churches to have general practices for each of these things, while allowing for them to also be practiced personally at times outside of the general church practice?

FWIW
Women are instructed to cover their heads when they pray and men are instructed to lift their hands.
Some people aren't sure if Paul was teaching a literal headcovering. If in doubt, they can look at the practice of the early church.
Some people aren't sure if Paul was teaching a literal lifting of hands in prayer. If in doubt, they can look at the practice of the early church.

Yes, the pastor often asks everyone to stand for prayer, and we always do so. But that's not standing for 20 minutes in one place (as is the case with the 'worship team' asking for everyone to stand for that period of time). Standing for a prayer and then a hymn or a couple of choruses doesn’t create the back pain that standing for long periods does.

I think that the Scriptural command to 'lift holy hands in prayer' is a different matter. There is more to it than just the physical act, and the Scripture doesn't specify that it be done publicly. In fact, Jesus told a parable that implies that it can be done as a show, a prideful act, when standing with down-case eyes is what is called for. The Scripture also implies that 'dancing before Yahweh' is a fitting activity, yet we don't do it publicly. It is the attitude behind the act of lifting one's hands that is the important thing, just as it was really the attitude toward God that was behind all of the Law of God, as given to Moses, through the ministry of God's angels.

In short, no, I do not think that all of the things in the list you gave as in the same category should be regarded that way. Some are general commands of Scripture, and yes, all with an implied internal spiritual attitude behind them, but some are to be constantly practiced, and others are not. How long can you hold your hands up? How long do you kiss or embrace your brother at one time? Should someone up front really be telling you when to do these things?

[Neto]

Having lived in the Plain Anabaptist world all of my life, it is usual for conversations to quickly go to this when talking about girls or women who decide to follow Jesus.

"Is she wearing a covering?"

I have never once heard it asked, "Has he started lifting his hands?"

In Charismatic circles it is quite common, and is indeed a way people critique each other's spirituality on a weekly basis. "I saw so and so lifting his hands again last Sunday."

I could have started this comment by quoting several different posts, but I'll use this one.

After I received the gift of speaking in tongues I started attending an Assembly of God congregation on Wednesday nights. There was a small group of us who did that. (The Bible institute where we were students forbade all involvement in anything related to 'charismatic gifts', and most of us were not allowed to return the following semester.) We usually got there early enough to all sit down front (and we did very little sitting, actually). Well, we were so late one night that we had to sit up in the balcony. It was a sobering experience, one I really needed to have, because it made me realize how much I was responding to the type of 'activity' or expressions of those around me. It was pretty 'cool' (spiritually) up there. Maybe it was mostly young people who had grown up in that congregation, or another like it. It was humbling, because I was forced to admit how much of a fake I was. (Sure, we are instructed to "incite one another to good works", but not only were those around me not 'inciting me to active worship', I also wasn't 'inciting them'.)

Someone else comments about the 'stoic expressions' of the average Mennonite. True that. But I will again refer to what happened in the beginning years of the Mennonite Brethren movement in the colonies in New Russia (now Ukraine). Some were so overcome with the emotion of the spiritual renewal - freedom - they had experienced, that they jumped and shouted, danced in the Spirit, and brought their pots and pans along to church meetings, to beat on with joy. They became known as the 'Joyful Ones', while the calmer ones were referred to as the 'Serious Minded'. It came to a head when both groups began insisting that 'any genuinely redeemed brother or sister will express their salvation in a manner like the one I'm comfortable with'. The Serious Minded won out in the end, and the joyful expressions stopped. (I personally wish there had been more of a compromise, and I wish the same for our congregations today.)

I realize that I have been a part of wrenching the topic here in a rather different direction. So here's a bit more clarification which I should have incorporated into my first post, when I asked the question there.

Since the author of the book I've been reading is in the main stream of the Protestant Evangelical American 'culture', I was particularly interested in hearing about 'accepted doctrines that are based on a single passage', since that idea is what he used against the veiling, to discredit it. An initial on-line search I did before that first post brought up mention of the inspiration of Scripture (and pointed to the Timothy passage). But I would say that there are many other passages that either pretty clearly state the veracity of the Word of God, or obviously assume it, without specifically stating it. (I doubt if I can find a way to communicate directly with this author, but If I could, what doctrine that he himself probably believes and defends would 'incite' him to reconsider his attitude toward the veiling? This was my line of thinking when I decided to post the question here.)

And THANKS to all who have responded so far.

[JayP]

My I ask, when you re if Ed the gift of tongues….what language did you now learn to speak and understand….I mean as opposed to gibberish?

[Neto]

My I ask, when you re if Ed the gift of tongues….what language did you now learn to speak and understand….I mean as opposed to gibberish?

I no longer speak in tongues (in the New Testament sense). I had picked up a very strong anti-tongues attitude growing up. (Not from our MB congregation, but from experiences in a Bible study group at the public HS where I attended.) I believed that it was a deception of the devil. I suspect now that God gave it to me for a time in order to teach me not to judge. If I had continued to hold to that earlier belief, I see no way in which I could have worked alongside the Brazilian missionaries who also worked in the same Amazonian language group as my wife & I did. (I was, however, always a stickler for following the instructions as given through Paul, in the letter to the Christians at Corinth. So after that initial period of several months, I never again attended a congregation where it was practiced publicly, because every time I went to a service where they did it, there was always some infraction of that passage of Scripture. Always. I never once spoke in tongues publicly, not knowing if there were any present who had the gift of interpretation.)

As for commonly spoken languages, I speak 'proper' Brazilian Portuguese, Riberinho Portuguese of the Medio-Purus area, and Banawa (part of the Arawan language family). (I can also converse at a basic level with speakers of two other Arawan languages, Jamamadi & Jarawara, the two which are closest to Banawa. I was once asked by the Brazilian Indian Agency to come to the Indian House in Porto Velho, where I managed to have a very rudimentary conversation with a Deni man who was there for TB treatment. Deni is also Arawan.) Also speak a bit of Datsch, but not enough to carry on a lengthy conversation.

[Ernie]

When you are told to do it by someone up front, it feels rather weird to do it, like you're being pressured to do it, rather than as a genuine expression.

What about the person up front saying let's all stand for prayer?

Yes, the pastor often asks everyone to stand for prayer, and we always do so.[/quote]
I'm wondering why this does not feel weird to do so. How does this feel like a genuine expression to you?

The Scripture also implies that 'dancing before Yahweh' is a fitting activity, yet we don't do it publicly.

This is where some of us make a distinction between the Old and the New. Unless the New reiterates the Old, we don't see it as being obligatory in the New.

It is the attitude behind the act of lifting one's hands that is the important thing,

I agree, but I don't think that this makes the physical act optional. This same argument is used for not practicing communion, baptism, head veiling for women, footwashing, hospitality, etc. But just because the attitude is what is most important does not mean we can then skip the practice.

[Ernie]

Having lived in the Plain Anabaptist world all of my life, it is usual for conversations to quickly go to this when talking about girls or women who decide to follow Jesus.

"Is she wearing a covering?"

I have never once heard it asked, "Has he started lifting his hands?"

In Charismatic circles it is quite common, and is indeed a way people critique each other's spirituality on a weekly basis. "I saw so and so lifting his hands again last Sunday."

Interesting. I had no idea. Goes to show I guess how much our fragmented Christian landscape has coalesced into silos.

[Valerie]

My I ask, when you re if Ed the gift of tongues….what language did you now learn to speak and understand….I mean as opposed to gibberish?

Those I know who have the gift (including an Eastern Orthodox priest) would not refer to it as gibberish- as apostle Paul Todd if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, so it would be more of an angelic one if not a foreign language- we do have one friend that must’ve been a foreign language because when he used it in the hospital, praying over someone a woman came up to him and said she understood he was speaking in her language. So there’s both.