I just read about some cutting-edge research about speaking in tongues (you may have also seen this referred to as “glossolalia”).
Summary quote:
“We noticed a number of changes that occurred functionally in the brain,” comments Principal Investigator Andrew Newberg, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology, Psychiatry, and Religious Studies, and Director for the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, at Penn. “Our finding of decreased activity in the frontal lobes during the practice of speaking in tongues is fascinating because these subjects truly believe that the spirit of God is moving through them and controlling them to speak. Our brain imaging research shows us that these subjects are not in control of the usual language centers during this activity, which is consistent with their description of a lack of intentional control while speaking in tongues.”
I pass this along because we so often focus on research findings which seem to challenge the faith (or more frequently on research findings which challenge our interpretation of the faith), it’s always interesting to spot those that correspond to exactly what we would expect based upon a straightforward reading of the Bible.
Now that’s pretty slick. Great find as always, Glen.
You happen to have an studies a/b messages in tongues or general glossolalia relating to actual languages? That’d be interesting.
Such studies have been done and are not nearly as encouraging. The tongues-speech observed in the studies matched no known earthly languages and also proved to have non-linguistic properties when scrutinized carefully.
Having said that, three responses come to mind. First, there’s that whole “tongues of angels” thing in Paul’s thinking. Second, the non-linguistic properties involved excessive repetition — which makes me wonder if the researchers were comparing the tongues with everyday speech or worship/prayer — because there’s a TON of repetition in worship and prayer. Third, depending on your theology of tongues there’s the whole “private prayer language” vs public utterance phenomena.
But I think it would be fair to say that this is one of the only truly encouraging tongues studies.
Right. Well, as one who leans towards the gift of tongues Biblically supposed to being actually, Earthly languages, a lot of the “tongues” I hear — to be gut level honest — are little more than two to five syllables repeated over and over again.
I love being Pentecostal, absolutely, and I value praying in tongues myself. I just have to wonder how much of the “tongues” that gets prayed in churches today is an authentic gift of the Spirit.