Worship: Against Glossolalia

In 2,500 measured, courteous and utterly lucid words. Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike last week denounced the excesses of glossolalia, the prayer practice in which the worshiper's tongue wags on and on in what seems like gibberish to skeptics. Once chiefly confined to members of pentecostal denominations, glossolalia has lately gained hundreds of adherents among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and even Yale students (TIME. March 29). To practitioners, "speaking in tongues" is good for ending alcoholism, repairing broken marriages and furthering the work of Christ. To California's Bishop Pike, it is "heresy in embryo" when there is an overemphasis on one form of worship. In a pastoral letter read to 125 congregations, he directed the clergy not to propagate glossolalia and cautioned laymen to avoid its practice. "This particular phenomenon," Pike argued, "has reached a point where it is dangerous to the peace and unity of the church and a threat to sound doctrine and policy." He warned that not enough is known about glossolalia's psychological causes and effects, added ominously that "in more extreme forms it is associated with schizophrenia." Yet he conceded that his warning came only "after considerable wrestling of the spirit." Last year while he was confirming new members at the Holy Innocents' parish in Corte Madera, the clergy and congregation burst into spontaneous singsong. "Dyoso ki-i-yeno mayashi yekatona masi yano ma yenda ya kotani masiki." Pike was perturbed, but he waited to consult a diocesan commission—including a theologian, two psychiatrists, and a parish priest who practices glossolalia—which is preparing a scholarly report on the subject. Then he held his tongue no more.