MEANING AND ORIGIN OF SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT

 

Being slain in the Spirit is a Pentecostal practice whereby a person falls backward after a minister touches him or her on the forehead. In many Pentecostal churches, falling under the anointing is a session of the service that members eagerly await.

It usually comes after the minister’s sermon. People come forward to be delivered from their life problems. The minister or pastor would then touch them of the fore head and they would fall backward. They would stay in a cataleptic state on the ground for a time ranging from one minute to one hour and sometimes more.

Popular Pentecostal ministers are all involved into this practice. The minister’s power is measured by whether people fall backward and writhe on the ground at his touch.

It is noteworthy at this point to say that Maria woodworth-Etter might have been the first Holiness/Pentecostal minister to exhibit the slaying in the spirit phenomenon. Roberts Liardon in his book “God’s General” says on page 48-49, under the paragraph titled, “Angels came into my room,” that angels came into Maria’s room and took her West, over prairies, lakes, forests and rivers where she saw a long, wide field oh waving golden grain. As the view unfolded, she began to preach and saw the grains begin to fall like sheaves. Then Jesus told that, “Just as the grain fell, so people would fall” as she preached.

Later, Roberts recounted, as Maria stood in front of a crowd in her own community, not knowing what to say, she opened her mouth and the people began to weep and fall to the ground.  It is my humble opinion that the practice of falling under the anointing or being slain in the spirit as it is popularly known began as a result of the vision Maria Woodworth-Etter had. The practice started with her as her ministry would later become known for people falling in trances that lasted for over two hours. She herself went into a trance while preaching and stood in a single spot for three days.

 Ministers after her began experiencing the same manifestations in their ministries. And these have lasted until today.

The question one is once again forced to ask is this. Is this practice biblical? Are there any Bible characters that were involved in this practice? Is it a gift of the spirit?  Where does such a gift come from? Benny Hinn is known to slay people with the wave of the hand. Some do so simply by blowing in the microphone.

This practice has no bearings in the Bible and is never practiced by any Bible characters.

Pentecostals believe that when a minister touches someone on the forehead, the power of God makes the person fall backward. The power of God in this case is the Holy Spirit. But they have no way to prove that since the Bible is totally mute on the practice. There are many listings of the gifts of the Spirit in scriptures. But in none of them is slaying people in the Spirit ever mentioned.

 They try to support the practice by using proof texts from different Bible passages.

They say for example that when the glory of God appeared to people like John Ezekiel and others, they fell on the ground. The thing here is that these people were overwhelmed by the glory of God. We know this because the Bible writers took ample time to describe the apparition of the glory of God. We do not see such manifestations of the glory of God in churches today. Even if we saw anything like that, we have no way of knowing it is from God. Besides, these men were prophets who played a special role in God’s salvation plan. They wrote down the product of their experiences as God commanded. The revelation of God and his salvation plan have been completed. There is no point for God to give someone today the same experiences Ezekiel or Daniel had. Also, there was no minister to either touch them on the forehead or blow over them before they fell.

They also say that the men that came to arrest Jesus fell backward when he said, “I am he.” The truth is that these men were not in a Pentecostal church service. They were soldiers sent to arrest Jesus. They were no seekers of spiritual snacks like those we see everywhere today. They did not come expecting to fall down. Jesus or the apostles with him did not touch them on the forehead nor blew on them. This passage like many others are taken out of context by Pentecostals in an attempt to justify a practice the Bible doesn’t teach at all.

This practice originated from an extra-sensory revelation Maria Woodworth- Etter had. It has no biblical basis whatsoever. It is later Pentecostals that as is their customs tried to twist scriptures so as to fit the practice into the Bible.