Quotes on Tongues

“Over a period of five years I have taken part in meetings in Italy, Holland, Jamaica, Canada, and the United States. I have observed old-fashioned Pentecostals and Neo-Pentecostals. I have been in small meetings in private homes as well as in mammoth public meetings. I have seen such different cultural settings as are found among Puerto Ricans of the Bronx, the snake handlers of the Appalachians, and the Russian Molakans of Los Angeles. . . . I have interviewed tongue speakers, and tape recorded and analyzed countless samples of Tongues. In every case, glossolalia turns out to be linguistic nonsense.”—Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism, William Samarin, professor of Linguistics at Toronto University

“From the second century to the nineteenth century, there is not historical evidence that godly, orthodox believers spoke in tongues. We do have instances of tongues speaking in these centuries, but in every case the people speaking in tongues belonged to heretical groups. Also, we should note that these “heretics” who spoke in tongues were speaking some kind of emotional, nonsense gibberish and not real languages as was the case in Acts chapter two.”—The Charismatic Movement: 35 Doctrinal Issues, George Zeller

“Because tongues were a form of revelation, they ceased when the Scriptural canon was closed.”