Corporate Experiences

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What is a corporate experience?

A corporate experience is an experience which happens to a large number of people simultaneously in the same location.

These can sometimes be caused by mass hysteria.

A secular corporate experience is the feeling of togetherness at a festival or football match. To be a religious corporate experience, people have to change their ways.

Corporate religious experiences are often direct experiences of the presence of God or the divine, whereas all other types of religious experience remain to be private and impossible to verify.

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The Toronto Blessing

The Toronto Blessing, a term coined by British newspapers, describes the revival and associated phenomena that began in January 1994 at the Toronto Airport Vineyard church, known as the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) until 2010.

The Toronto blessing began at the Airport church, now called Catch the Fire, when pastors John and Carol Arnott were inspired by revivals in Argentina led by Claudio Freidzon, and in South Africa.

They invited Randy Clark of St. Louis, Missouri to minister at the church in January 1994.

In that first revival service, there were about 120 people in attendance who, once influenced by the Holy Spirit were said to be laughing, rolling on the floor, making animal noises and uncontrollably weeping.

After Clark's sermon, the congregation also began to leap, dance, cry and roar.

Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P5B5Brz_lc (Einbetten)

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Evaluation of Corporate Experience

Strengths of corporate experiences:

More impressive as a number of people have experienced it together

More verifiable – more eye witness testimonies

Experiences are usually private so are impossible to verify but this is not

Skepticism of corporate experiences:

Sceptics suggest that it was more likely to be mass hysteria - some people may say that they can see and hear something and others might want to join in to be part of something

Many have suggested that in the case of the Toronto Blessings it may have been caused by a whipped-up hysteria in a heightened emotional atmosphere, rather than by the Holy Spirit

Some critics suggest that these experience do not match with sacred texts and what is revealed about God i.e. it contradicts the idea that the Holy Spirit does not bring disorder to public worship

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. - 1 Corinthians 14:33

Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. - 1 Corinthians 14:40

Religious experiences should be life-changing in a positive way - does the Toronto Blessing seem to do this?

Critics must ask whether corporate religious experiences fit with the Bible's teaching on God's nature.

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Hajj Islamic Pilgrimage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29439590

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24566691

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