I think the short answer to that question is that we fear the supernatural. We fear having to confront the possibility that God actually does something. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a church prayer meeting where people pray for someone who is sick or in the hospital, etc. We all pray that God would “heal” them. We all pray that God would guide the hands of the doctors, etc. We are comfortable with those kinds of prayers. And we are comfortable to attribute to God the success of the surgery: He answered our prayers–He guided that surgeon’s hands! The problem with the gifts of the Spirit, or anything else that is supernatural, is that it removes a comfortable, ambiguous faith in God. For example, when surgery is successful, some attribute the success to the doctor, but we “believers” attribute it to God. Those who believe in God see the situation differently than those who don’t. Yet, nothing circumstantially can be attributed as a miracle. The surgery was anticipated by doctors to be successful. The matter is convoluted more, however, when the surgery has 50/50 chance of success. If the person comes through, we say it’s because of a miracle of God! Was it? For a believer, yes. For a non-believer, no. After all, things turn out favorably 50% of the time. If they don’t pull through, however, we believers still affirm God was working there just the same. In other words, with all of these things, it’s all very muddy. To what extent was God actively involved in the process? It is very hard to tell, and we are comfortable in such ambiguity. Whether God was working in the situation is a matter of personal interpretation. It makes us believers comfortable to believe God was involved when He couldn’t be seen. But what about believing God to do something more demonstrative? Many Christians believe that praying for such things is inappropriate. God should remain in the shadows. He should be a matter of interpretation. The idea of God revealing specific information to someone, or healing someone instantaneously, or causing someone to speak in a language they do not understand…now we get nervous. “God doesn’t work...