A few years ago, I was having lunch with a good friend, the editor-in-chief of a flagship evangelical magazine. I knew him well enough to raise a question: “Tell me something: Why do your articles regularly refer to ‘evangelicals and Pentecostals,’ as if they were two separate breeds? You wouldn’t print ‘evangelicals and Baptists’ or ‘evangelicals and Arminians.’ I’m a Pentecostal—and I wholeheartedly uphold the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the necessity of personal salvation, the call to spread the gospel … what else do I have to do to be considered a legitimate ‘evangelical’?”

He smiled as he granted that I had half a point. He made no commitment, however, to change his publication’s verbiage.

Granted, he had no time for speaking in tongues, which began blossoming at the Azusa Street Mission just few years before Torrey headed west in 1912 to lead the nearby Bible Institute of Los Angeles (B.I.O.L.A.). The first chapter of Menzies’ book explains why. But Torrey consistently resisted all efforts to submerge Spirit baptism into something purely internal or transactional. Three years after Torrey’s death, when Moody Bible Institute wanted to alter a section of his correspondence course on the baptism with the Holy Spirit, Menzies reports that his daughter Edith was “horrified” and said absolutely not.

In subsequent chapters Menzies draws heavily on the witness of Luke’s writings to establish Pentecostalism’s bona fides as Evangelicals (the author capitalizes the term throughout his book). He affirms that in Luke-Acts, “we find the central and distinctive message of the Pentecostal movement…. For far too long Protestant theology has highlighted Paul’s important insights into the work of the Spirit, but largely ignored Luke’s contribution.” From Jesus’ promise that his Father would “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk. 11:13) to his final instruction to “stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Lk. 24:49) … to the abundant fulfillments throughout Acts over at least a 20-year span, Luke’s works are not to be sidelined. (Most Christians don’t realize that Luke actually wrote more of the New Testament—37,932 words in Greek—than did Paul, who gave us just 32,408).

Paul’s counsel in 1 Corinthians 12-14 (and elsewhere), however, is not ignored. Menzies spends a whole chapter on the Pauline perspective, unpacking the value and place of inspired speech in the gathered assembly. His treatments of what it means to “pray in the Spirit” and even “sing in the Spirit” are thorough and clarifying.

It’s hard to find any bone to pick with this book. Perhaps, with hindsight, the author’s chapter on “Signs and Wonders” might not have criticized some translations (particularly the NIV 1984) for their renderings of Luke 17:21 (“the kingdom of God is within you,” as if to imply that the kingdom is solely inside the believer, out of sight). He apparently did not notice the NIV 2011’s update, which says instead, “the kingdom of God is in your midst”—something widely visible in the praxis of the early church.

Meanwhile (to extrapolate from 1 Corinthians 14:39), let us “forbid not” to include tongues-speaking Pentecostals as legitimate participants in the Evangelical community of faith. The book’s conclusion says it well: “This notion—that a great gulf of different worldviews separates Evangelicals and Pentecostals—rests on a caricature of both movements…. Pentecostals have a unique contribution to make to the larger Evangelical family; but, if we abandon our Evangelical values, we will lose our way and God will raise up others to make this contribution.”

Reviewed by Dean Merrill

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725267824/christ-centered/

Pneuma Review speaks with Dean Merrill about his book, 50 Pentecostal and Charismatic Leaders Every Christian Should Know (Chosen, 2021).

PneumaReview.com: Please tell us about your own involvement in the Pentecostal Movement.

Dean Merrill: My parents—good Midwestern Quakers—were drawn toward a fuller experience of the Holy Spirit about the time I was born. My personal infilling came while I was still a boy, a year after my conversion. Sensing a call to ministry, I trained at a Pentecostal school (Chicago Bible College) and was ordained thereafter by Philadelphia Church, Chicago. My convictions have remained the same throughout my life, even though much of my editing and publishing work has been in generically evangelical circles.

PneumaReview.com: Where did the idea for this book come from?

Dean Merrill: Actually, it was the idea of the publisher (Chosen Books, part of the Baker Publishing Group). They had published two similar volumes: 50 People Every Christian Should Know (2009) and 50 Women Every Christian Should Know (2014). They approached me to keep the series going.

PneumaReview.com: Were there specific criteria that were used to determine which Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders would be included in this volume?

PneumaReview.com: In the book you mention that you and at least one other family member received ministry from a couple of the people whose stories are in the book. Please tell our readers a little bit about those encounters.

Dean Merrill: I was about ten years old when, at an Oral Roberts campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, my father guided me into the healing line to receive prayer for my enlarged adenoids. It was the last night of the campaign, so Roberts was moving us through quickly, trying to touch everyone who hadn’t been able to come up previously. He laid his hand on my head and prayed a short prayer. My problem went away thereafter, never requiring surgery.

PneumaReview.com: As you have studied the lives of the leaders who are included in the book, what would you say are some of the key factors that caused them to be so effective?

Dean Merrill:

• They were incredibly bold, courageous, “gutsy.” Think about Maria Woodworth-Etter facing down a half-drunken mob intent on burning down her tent. Or David Wilkerson reaching out to hostile New York City gangbangers.
• They paid very public, no-apologies attention to the ministry of healing. They were confident that the God who saves us is the God who heals as well.
• If they felt God had told them to do something or had promised to provide, they didn’t flinch. No second-guessing.
• They had a laser focus on Spirit empowerment, not just human flash and flair.
• They prayed like crazy, all the time.

Is there one person in the book that you found to be particularly interesting?

Dean Merrill: Oh, my—that’s like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I’m intrigued with them all!

PneumaReview.com: How can the stories in this book challenge Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They show us that Book-of-Acts Christianity is not just a historical relic. They tell us that it’s not all that important whether we keep our membership in what I call “the evangelical club.” In the book I quote Donald Gee (the British writer/editor), who wrote back in the 1950s, “Revivals are never launched without someone going to an extreme…. There has to be an extremism to move things…. Miracles of healing occur when faith refuses to be logical, and blinds itself to arguments, based on plenty of contrary experience.”

PneumaReview.com: How can the accounts in this book encourage Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They assure us that the wind of the Spirit still blows in our time, if we will only take notice. The Holy Spirit has not gone off, like a grizzly bear, into a long hibernation. He is alive and active wherever given a welcome. Those who listen to him can do remarkable things for God’s cause.

PR

Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/50-pentecostal-and-charismatic-leaders-every-christian-should-know/404900

Read an excerpt from Dean Merrill’s, Miracle Invasion: Amazing true stories of the Holy Spirit’s gifts at work today.

David Killingsworth may have been the honored guest speaker that Sunday night at a multicultural church in Phoenix, but this didn’t stop a humble Navajo lady from approaching him at the end of the service to prophesy. “The Lord is going to give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people,” she announced. “You will not get this from a book or a tape, but you will get it by revelation, because the Lord is going to use you to help redeem the culture and bring deliverance.”

Miracle Invasion: Amazing true stories of the Holy Spirit’s gifts at work today (2018).

Pastor Killingsworth welcomed this message in light of his ongoing interest in reaching Native Americans. His church, Green Forest Christian Center¹ back in northwest Arkansas, had already sent several work and outreach teams to the small reservation town of Jeddito, Arizona, a Navajo enclave within the Hopi tribe’s larger territory. The town had a small log cabin church building where various groups had tried over the years to start a congregation without success.

The pastor flew home that Monday. When he showed up at his office the next day, a staff member reported, “There was a missionary on sabbatical who stopped by the Sunday night prayer meeting; after we had all prayed for a while, he said, ‘I have a word from the Lord for the father of this house.’ We told him, ‘Well, he’s not here; he’s in Arizona.’”

The visitor was not dissuaded. He asked if they might tape his message, to be played when the senior pastor returned. They accommodated him by bringing out a cassette recorder.

Now at his desk, Pastor Killingsworth sat down to listen. He punched the Play button and began to hear the following words: “The Lord says, ‘I will give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people. You will not get this by book or by tape, but you will get it by revelation. And I will use you to redeem the culture and bring deliverance.’” It was virtually the identical message he had been given 1,200 miles west at essentially the same hour back on Sunday night.

In response, “Our church began to pray ever more seriously about this over the next period of time,” says the pastor. “We kept up our connections to Navajo people we’d already met and tried to extend our network. We came to believe God wanted us to try again to plant a church in Jeddito.”

And so it was that in August 2001, a team of some fifteen Green Forest people, including committed intercessors, came to the town once again to pray for a spiritual awakening. Several Navajo believers from Phoenix joined them, asking God to break through the dark superstitions of the culture with the light of the gospel. During one prayer meeting, a woman in her sixties, named Judy Magner, began to bear down in urgent entreaty, interceding in a flow of tongues.
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PneumaReview.com speaks with Dean Merrill, the author or co-author of almost 50 books, about his latest book that investigates amazing and true stories of the work of the Holy Spirit today.

PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers about any ways in which the Pentecostal or Charismatic movements have touched your life.

Dean Merrill: My parents, originally Quakers, were edging into a fuller life in the Spirit about the time I was born. So I was plunged from the beginning into the notion of taking Scripture, especially Acts and the Epistles, at face value; this was “normal Christianity” as far as I was concerned. My salvation occurred during my grade-school years, and my initial infilling with the Spirit on a Sunday night in an Assembly of God church took place a year or so later. I’ve never relinquished my trust in the empowering Holy Spirit to do what only he can do, regardless of contrary opinions. Despite my decades of work in the wider Christian publishing field, I’m as Pentecostal today as I’ve always been.

PneumaReview.com: Where did the idea for the book Miracle Invasion originate?

Dean Merrill: It started with my good friend Jeff Farmer, president of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA), who envisioned a collection of true, authentic, credible stories of spiritual gifts in OUR time (not 80 or 100 years ago) on OUR continent (U.S., Canada, Mexico). I quickly signed on to do the research and writing. The book came onto the market in February 2018.

PneumaReview.com: How were the testimonies that were included in the book gathered?

Following this, I began doing dozens of phone interviews with the actual people or their pastors. From these, I wrote drafts for sending back to get their approval and adjustments before proceeding to publication.

PneumaReview.com: The stories you shared in the book all come from North America. Why do you think that many believe that the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is more common in the Global South?

I love what the brilliant missionary scholar Del Tarr (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) wrote in one of his books about “the dangers of any attempt to make God’s dealing with humanity through the cross of Christ or His baptism of fire a ‘reasonable’ one. Pentecostals are not meant to be ‘mainstream,’ and God help us if we get there.” (The Foolishness of God: A Linguist Looks at the Mystery of Tongues, p. xvi. [Editor’s note: Read the review by Jon Ruthven.])