Winter 2014

• Alan Berger: Trialogue and Terror

    Alan L. Berger, ed., Trialogue and Terror: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam after 9/11 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012), 288 pages, ISBN 9781608995462. Trialogue and Terror: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam after 9/11accomplishes several significant tasks for today’s critical interreligious discussion context. First, it points beyond general interreligious dialogue to the need for ... Read More

• Cleophus LaRue: I Believe I’ll Testify

  Cleophus J. LaRue, I Believe I’ll Testify: The Art of African American Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 160 pages, ISBN 9780664236779. In American black churches the most important qualification for the pastor is the ability to preach, according to author Cleophus J. LaRue (p. 57). This skill, he says, has remained ... Read More

• Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Approach and Methodology

  Introduction Defining an ultimate Pentecostal hermeneutic is not an easy thing. This is because Pentecostalism by itself is a diverse phenomenon consisting of different types of groups. There is no homogeneity in Pentecostal grouping because different Pentecostal factions are established within different traditions, even though the underlying theological formation is the same. This ... Read More

• Justification: Five Views

  James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, eds., Justification: Five Views (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2011), 308 pages, ISBN 9780830839445. The concept of justification carries eternity on its shoulders as many endeavor to understand, explain and experience the nature of salvation and how we need it. Justification is a term one would assume ... Read More

• Gordon Smith: Transforming Conversion

  Gordon T. Smith, Transforming Conversion: Rethinking the Language and Contours of Christian Initiation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 208 pages, ISBN 9780801032479. Gordon Smith’s book deals with a central piece of Pentecostal life: conversion. Thoughtfully read, it can deepen understanding and expectations of conversion, which in turn have evangelistic and pastoral implications. On ... Read More

• Ben Witherington: A Week in the Life of Corinth

  Ben Witherington III, A Week in the Life of Corinth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 158 pages, 9780830839629 Thirty years ago, I read James Michener’s novel, The Covenant. Like so many of his historical novels, it is marked by well-researched and detailed historical background. Many twists and turns of the inter-generational plot ... Read More

• John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, Reviewed by R. Loren Sandford

  This is a pre-publication review of John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Thomas Nelson, Nov 12, 2013) 9781400205172. Strange Fire by John MacArthur is basically an attack on anything and everything related to the Charismatic Movement and the various movements descended from it, as if ... Read More

• John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, A Brief Biblical Response by Jon Ruthven

  John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2013), 333 pages, ISBN 9781400206414. As we shall see, John MacArthur’s abhorrence of “further revelation” via prophecy and related spiritual gifts derives, not from scripture, but from the frustration of Calvinists under Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) ... Read More

• John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, Reviewed by Eddie L. Hyatt

  This is a pre-publication review of John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Thomas Nelson, Nov 12, 2013) 9781400205172. As a life-long Pentecostal-Charismatic, I recommend that every Pentecostal-Charismatic leader read Strange Fire by John MacArthur. I say this because we need to see how the bizarre ... Read More

• John MacArthur’s Strange Fire as Parody of Jonathan Edwards’ Theology, by William De Arteaga

  Introduction The thesis of John MacArthur’s new book, Strange Fire is that Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement, are heretical movements that must be rebuked and eliminated from the church. 1 Everything to do with these movements is fraudulent, inauthentic or a misrepresentation of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Strange Fire continues his ... Read More

• William Menzies’ lecture on the Christian and Missionary Alliance, reviewed by Paul King

  William W. Menzies, “Non-Wesleyan Pentecostalism: A Tradition: The Christian and Missionary Alliance and The Assemblies of God,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 14:2 (July 2011), pages 226-238. In his lectures on non-Wesleyan Pentecostalism, presented at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in 2000, William W. Menzies ably surveyed the impact of non-Wesleyan traditions upon ... Read More

• John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, reviewed by Craig S. Keener

  John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Thomas Nelson, Nov 12, 2013) 9781400205172. While offering some very needed points, John MacArthur’s Strange Fire unfortunately extrapolates from those points to an entire “movement.” As I note below, I also believe that MacArthur suppresses some biblical truth on ... Read More

• Winter 2014: Other Significant Articles

    Dale M. Coulter, “The Demons of African Pentecostalism” First Things (Jan 19 2014). http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/pentecostals-and-the-demonic   Dale M. Coulter, “Evangelicals, Pop Culture, and Mass Culture” First Things (Feb 2014). Monte Lee Rice pointed out this quotation: “by emphasizing the Spirit’s role in creation and redemption evangelical revivalism and its offshoot of the Pentecostal and charismatic movement have ... Read More

• James Robinson: Divine Healing

    James Robinson, Divine Healing: The Holiness-Pentecostal Transition Years, 1890-1906: Theological Transposition in the Transatlantic World (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 238 pages, ISBN 9781620324080. James Robinson’s second volume in his Divine Healing series is a major contribution to the study of Pentecostal origins in the Anglo-American world. An interesting and highly researched work, ... Read More

• John Levison: Filled with the Spirit

  John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Eerdmans, 2009), 490 pages, ISBN 9780802863720. As Pentecostals and Charismatics, we are people who have been confronted by an intense experience of the Holy Spirit. This has led us to reappraise the importance we attach to the Holy Spirit within our Systematic Theologies, as well as ... Read More

• A Time of Weakness, A Time of Strength: AD 315-450

  Constantine’s Edict of Milan brought an end to the persecution of Christians, but that did not mean the Church was granted favor throughout the Roman Empire. What are the lessons for us today?   The impression is often left that with the Edict of Milan that Constantine issued in A.D. 313-314 which brought an ... Read More

• Pneuma Review Winter 2014

  The first exclusively digital edition of The Pneuma Review, Winter 2014 (17:1). In this issue: Are Pentecostals offering Strange Fire? In this issue, Pneuma Review begins its response to John MacArthur’s new book, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Thomas Nelson, 2013). Find all of these articles individually in ... Read More

• In Conversation with Andrew Schmutzer, Part 3

    An interview with Andrew Schmutzer about The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, and part 1 of the chapter, “A Charge for Church Leadership: Speaking Out Against Sexual Abuse and Ministering to Survivors” as appearing in Pneuma Review Winter 2014.               Note from the Editors: Beginning a conversation about sexual abuse ... Read More

• A Charge for Church Leadership: Speaking Out Against Sexual Abuse and Ministering to Survivors, Part 1

  Timid at first, tentative as it were, he began the long journey down the aisle toward the altar rail. I, too, began to walk, slowly, watching each step as I descended the stairs that led from the chancel to the nave and down the aisle. He was large-framed, older, with a look ... Read More

• Ralph Martin: Will Many Be Saved? reviewed by Amos Yong

  Ralph Martin, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), xvi + 316 pages, ISBN 9780802868879. Ralph Martin should be no stranger to those with some historical experience in or perspective on the ... Read More

• Cecilia González-Andrieu: Bridge to Wonder

  Cecilia González-Andrieu, Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012) vii + 242, ISBN 9781602583511. In Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty Cuban-American theologian Cecilia González-Andrieu seeks to span the gulf between art and Christian theology through the image of the “revelatory and ... Read More

• Michael Brown’s Authentic Fire, reviewed by William De Arteaga

  Michael L. Brown, Authentic Fire: A Response to John MacArthur’s Strange Fire (Excel Publishers, Dec 12, 2013), 418 pages. Authentic Fire, by Dr. Michael L. Brown, is a masterful answer to the intemperate and angry attack on Charismatic movement and Pentecostalism by John MacArthur in his work, Strange Fire. In the public launch ... Read More

• Cessationist Misuse of Ephesians 2:20, by Sam Storms

  In the on-going dialogue between cessationists and continuationists there is a passage that the former almost always mention. It is, in many instances, their go-to text, their trump card, so to speak. But a close look at Ephesians 2:20 will demonstrate that it fails to accomplish what the cessationist desires. Paul writes: “So ... Read More

• Are Pentecostals offering Strange Fire?

    Did tongues and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit cease in the early church? John MacArthur says they did and that practicing them today is false worship—an abomination before God. Pneuma Review invites you to respond to these criticisms and to renew the biblical command to “desire spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 14:1). We’ve ... Read More