Talking in Tongues

The controversial practice of speaking in tongues—glossolalia—is a puzzle to me. Not just that I don’t do it. But I also wonder how on earth others do. My preferred way of praying is to sit silently on the New York subway in the morning, my eyes closed. I remember walking by a storefront church once with a friend and hearing what sounded like cacophony. “They’re praying in tongues,” my friend told me. Really?

I can accept talking in tongues in its historical context. Back in the first century, the disciples gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus’ resurrection and the Holy Spirit descended on them—veritable “flames of fire.” The apostles began to speak in different in the languages they spoke.