Hildegard of Bingen and Her New Language

The myth or reality of Hildegard of Bingen speaking in tongues.

Hildegard of Bingen was a remarkable twelfth-century German abbess–a rock star in her time. She even invented a primitive language for her convent. Was it glossolalia, speaking in tongues, singing in tongues, or jubilation?

She is a figure whom some academic Pentecostal whisper support. They allude that Hildegard was part of a tradition passed to them.

An examination reveals that her speaking or singing in tongues or similar rites is a myth. It has nothing to do with ecstasy and everything about her intellectual creativity. She did invent a primitive language, but it was not glossolalia.

Of course, readers of the Gift of Tongues Project won’t accept such a brief explanation. A more detailed description follows.

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Why the Evangelical Church is Declining

Candy bar with Jesus name

Outlining how the superficiality and the anti-intellectualism of the Evangelical movement are causing a significant decline in membership and the remedy for it.

Churches from numerous types of backgrounds see that their numbers are dropping and are quickly upgrading their style of worship. Other solutions are renovating the church foyer into coffee shops, pressing people into the small weekly groups, producing appealing dramas, or spending on new personnel and equipment to better communicate through the web, apps, video and other burgeoning technologies. These approaches help, but there is something far more profound going on.

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