Holy Laughter

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The Holy Laughter movement began in 1993 at Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland, Florida when South African evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne led services marked by uncontrollable laughter from members of the congregation.  Around the same time Kenneth Hagin began holding what he called “Holy Ghost Meetings”, where the power of the Spirit was seen in manifestations of laughter, dancing, and falling under the power. Brother Hagin said that God told him that there was a move of the Spirit that would be lost to the present generation without this movement.  In fact, God had spoken to him about this two years earlier but he resisted until he began having heart symptoms and realized that his disobedience was responsible.

When I attended an Assembly of God church as a young man in my late teens and early twenties, I saw similar manifestations there.  A lady who taught my Sunday School class told us about a service she attended when she was young where she and others were drunk in the Spirit.  (This would have occurred in the 1930s or 1940s.  Old time Pentecostal people have known about these things for years.)  This was nearly twenty years before the Holy Laughter movement began, so it wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me when I saw what was happening.

Naturally the movement was greeted with criticism and condemnation.  Every revival is.  They said that it was demonic, or that false doctrine was being taught, or that these meetings presented Christianity in a bad light.  Despite the criticism, the movement grew and spread to other countries.  Airport Christian Fellowship, a small Vineyard church in Toronto, began experiencing the same manifestations in what became known as the Toronto Blessing.  Tens of thousands of people came from overseas to attend these services, and took the experience with them to their homelands.  The Holy Trinity Anglican Church in London was impacted, as were churches in Russia, Argentina, India, Brazil, and Africa.

This is nothing new.  Laughter was common in the revivals of George Whitfield in the 1730s, and John Wesley in the 1740s and 1750s.  In the early 1800s Charles Finney saw the same thing happen in his meetings.   In 1897 A. B. Simpson from the Christian and Missionary Alliance wrote about holy laughter.  In the early 20th century holy laughter was reported in the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles.

The most striking example however, is the one from the second chapter of the book of Acts.

 ¹²So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” ¹³ Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”

¹⁴ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. ¹⁵ For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. ¹⁶ But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;

People were saying that they were drunk, which suggests that there was more going on there than merely speaking languages that they had never learned.  Peter’s response was that it was the outpouring of the Spirit.  Ephesians 5:18 makes an analogy between wine and the Holy Spirit.

 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit …

And then in Acts 13:52 we read:

⁵² And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

It might make some Christians uncomfortable, but the fact of the matter is the Bible does support these manifestations.  Certainly there have been extremes and error in these movements, but the biblical thing to do is allow the Holy Spirit to move, and then deal with the mess left behind by the imperfect vessels.