Note: This article originally appeared in the December 1983 issue of Charisma magazine.
In the pulpit, he lashed out at audiences, believing his fury was of God. But alone, he wept, praying for freedom. When his deliverance came, he was transformed.
The rumors about James Robison first began about 18 months ago. Some say he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and has become a charismatic. Others have heard a layman prayed for him and he received deliverance. Still others say a layman was healed when Robison prayed for him.
But one thing everyone agrees upon: whatever the cause, James Robison has changed. The fiery Texas evangelist who was often referred to as “the Southern Baptists’ angry young man,” no longer sounds so furious. In fact, now he is telling people that one of the chief sins of the Church today is its failure to practice love:
The staunch fundamentalist who was taught to fear association with charismatics is now freely preaching to everyone and says “I’ve always believed all spiritual gifts are functional and for the church today.'” Even more startling, he is preaching on deliverance and casting demons out of people in mainline denominational churches. There, he says, he is seeing people overjoyed to be set free.
Although Robison has always been a dynamic speaker, he is reporting that the power of God is so great in his meetings that he has to pray for the safety of people rushing forward in services in their eagerness to get to the altar. He says that the Lord has shown him that he must be willing to take the Word to all circles of Christianity.
“I must take God’ s message and love to everyone—not just Baptists,” he says. And if all this weren’t enough, he is being seen in some strange places for a Baptist evangelist—Methodist churches, Christ For The Nations Institute, Ken Copeland meetings and Assemblies of God churches.
It is obvious that something happened in his life, but what was it? Robison built his reputation as a hard-hitting Baptist. His best friends are men like Jerry Falwell, Bailey Smith; Jimmy Draper (his own pastor and current president of the Southern Baptist Convention) and W.A. Criswell. If Robison has had some sort of charismatic experience, does he try to play it down?
“I don’ t play anything down,” he says. “I know God has anointed me and filled me with His Spirit and gifted me to preach with authority and power. I believe in the free exercise of all spiritual gifts and am teaching people not to fear any gifts. I personally have not spoken in tongues, but I have not resisted it.”
He says that extreme emphasis concerning gifts—both pro and con—has caused unnecessary dissension and division in the body.
“The church today doesn’t look or sound much like Jesus,” he says. “In many ways we sound more like the devil. We need to repent of our attitudes towards one another. We need to develop love for one another, diligently seeking to preserve the unity of faith in the spirit of peace. When we do that, the gifts are unctioned and when the gifts are unctioned, we mature in faith.
“I don’t believe the gifts are unctioned when you sit over here and say ‘I am a Pentecostal’ or ‘I am a Baptist ‘ It’s carnality. The Body’s not edified, we’re not equipped and there’s no revival.
“When we become an answer to the prayer of Jesus that we be one, when we quit following movements and denominations and follow Jesus only, then there will be a release of the Spirit unlike anything we’ve ever seen before and miracles will be commonplace.”
What has happened to James Robison?
“A person can only walk in the light that he has, the truth that has been imparted to him,” Robison says “Tragically , we sometimes preach against things we don’ t understand. We not only lean on our own understanding, we build on it.
“I often found myself building on the precepts of men, knowing how to ‘play the gallery'”—that is, telling the audience what he knew it would like to hear. “So, over the years I walked in the light that I had. But the light I had was, quite frankly, greatly affected by the opinions of men.”
Robison developed one of the most successful ministries in the country, overcoming great obstacles to do so. His was a spectacular rise. Robison began life under less than ideal circumstances.
His mother seriously considered aborting him.
Pregnant at age 41, deserted by her alcoholic husband, she was talked out of the abortion by a doctor with high moral principles. Shortly after little James was born, she put an ad in a Houston newspaper asking for someone who would love and care for her child.
The Rev. and Mrs. H.D. Hale of Pasadena, Texas, answered the ad and took James into their home. They reared him until the age of 5, then his mother took him back.
During the next 10 years, she married and divorced several times. Finally, when James was a teenager, she remarried his real father, who was still an alcoholic. The drunken quarrels he and James’ mother got into constantly left a permanent impression on the boy.
At age 15, he returned to live with the Hales and it was under their influence that he was saved. On the day he walked the aisle, Mrs. Hale had mobilized the entire church to pray for his salvation. So confident was she that she had thrown a change of clothes into the car so Robison could be baptized the same night—which he was.
Called to preach at age 18 and attending East Texas Baptist College, Robison began conducting citywide crusades. He witnessed everywhere he went—even approaching people in restaurants. Within two years of preaching his first revival, Robison had received more than 1,000 invitations from 27 states. Since then he has preached—by his own count—to more than 12 million people. He has seen 1 million accept Jesus as their Savior through his ministry. His weekly telecast, James Robison, Man with a Message, is syndicated nationally on more than 120 stations. Two of his TV specials, “Wake Up America—We Are All Hostages,” and “Attack on the Family” received awards for excellence in religious broadcasting. He has authored a number of books, including Save America to Save the World, In Search of a Father, The Right Mate, New Growth and Sex Is Not Love.
But in spite of his success, Robison was distressed over the lack of permanent, life-changing results he saw coming from his ministry.
“The problem I kept observing was that people were not becoming like Jesus. I would see thousands of people make professions of faith in Christ and be very genuine. But they went away captive of the adversary,” he says. “I found that going into churches was like going into ditches. The blind were leading the blind. They might be air-conditioned ditches or ditches that would seat thousands. They had gymnasiums and lots of activities, but they were still ditches of defeat, depression, division and diseases.
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