On Speaking in Tongues

In this catechesis lecture, Fr. Tyler Holley explains the common texts used to support the modern practice of "speaking in tongues". Arguing for the historic interpretation that St. Paul and St. Luke are speaking of xenoglossia rather than glossolalia (gibberish speech), he also addresses the change in "plausibility structure" that occurred in the 19th century that allowed for this new interpretation to seem plausible. The preference for unmediated, personal religious experience was the inevitable fruition of the Enlightenment, which place unquestionable trust in the truth of our own experiences. In the end, he argues that to accept the modern idea of "gibberish speech" as a valid religious experience would be to accept a host of presuppositions that are biblically unjustified, historically unknown, and spiritually damaging. He leaves us with a charitable way of considering the phenomenon using the psychological category of "learned emotional response".