The Pneuma Review » Geir Lie

Missionary Tongues, T. B. Barratt, and the Soon Coming King

Geir Lie — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 23:25:13 +0000

Thomas Ball Barratt in 1878 (age 16).

An expert in European Pentecostal history, Geir Lie, introduces readers to his in-depth look at Pentecostal pioneer T. B. Barratt and the early emphasis of Pentecostals that has often been forgotten.

The history of Thomas Ball Barratt (1862-1940) and his role in the origins of not only the Pentecostal movement in Norway, but in most countries within Western Europe, is fairly well known among Pentecostal scholars. The purpose of this article is partly to challenge a previous claim that Norwegian Pentecostalism in its initial stage did not reflect the missionary tongues concept. What is implied by that claim is that speaking in tongues was not the most characteristic feature of the early Pentecostal movement, contrary to what many tend to believe. In fact, tongues speech was generally understood to be secondary to and arising out of what could be characterized as a millenarian belief system.

Early Pentecostals believed Christ’s imminent return would be preceded by a world-wide revival, and the gift of missionary tongues would function as a tremendous evangelistic tool.

It is common knowledge among Pentecostal scholars that Charles F. Parham, who gave notoriety to the initial-evidence Spirit baptism teaching in the USA, preached a millenarian message. Christ’s imminent return would be preceded by a world-wide revival, and the gift of speaking in tongues (not understood as glossolalia but instead as xenolalia) would function as a tremendous evangelistic tool, as it implied speaking existing human languages. Tongues speech was actually the very key to spreading the Gospel effectively to all corners of the world, which, in turn, would usher in the return of Christ. The understanding of tongues as an eschatological sign and as a legitimization of the missionaries’ end-time message, however, only lasted through 1908-9 as several returned to their home country in disappointment and failure, although Parham never abdicated from this doctrine. From about 1909, tongues were redefined as a ‘heavenly language’ (now understood as glossolalia), although God, exceptionally, might give somebody a human language they had never learned naturally (xenolalia), as was the case with the 120 believers on the Day of Pentecost. This redefinition of the purpose of tongues speech was not published from the rooftops, though, and gradually people seemed to forget that the concept of missionary tongues was no minority position, but rather, the accepted belief by all the early Pentecostals.

In addition to strongly suggesting that the missionary tongues concept was also taught by Barratt during the first stage of his Pentecostal experience, this article will challenge the identification of the millennial thesis to have originated with Robert Mapes Anderson in his first edition of Vision of the Disinherited in 1979. This is a serious challenge since Anderson’s thesis was considered groundbreaking among American academicians. This same claim was set forth as early as 1928 in a Norwegian book entitled Dommedagsventing by author Thorstein Gunnarson. As the originator of Anderson’s millenarian thesis, Gunnarson should be duly credited.

Read the full article:

Geir Lie, “The Origin of T.B. Barratt’s Concept of ‘Missionary Tongues” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research #26 (November 2018).

New Spanish Pentecostal Scholarly Journal: Hechos

Geir Lie — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 14:25:11 +0000

Pentecostal theologians Miguel Álvarez and Geir Lie are launching a new scholarly journal in Spanish. http://www.akademiaforlag.no/hechos/

Table of Contents from the first issue:

“Editorial”, 1.

Miguel Álvarez, “Contextualización en la hermenéutica latina”, 3-16.

Bernardo Campos, “Aspectos fundamentales en la teología pentecostal”, 17-29.

Geir Lie, “T.B. Barratt y el origen de su concepto de ‘lenguas misioneras’”, 31-45.

Daniel Orlando Álvarez, “Integridad de las Escrituras: Transformando las futuras generaciones”, 47-64.

Darío López Rodríguez, “Pentecostalismo y espacio público: Vida en el Espíritu. Política, Ciudanía e Incidencia Pública”, 65-80.

Carmelo E. Álvarez, “Ecumenismo del Espíritu: Voces pentecostales latinoamericanas y caribeñas”, 81-97.

The premiere issue is available at: http://www.akademiaforlag.no/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/01/Hechos-1-1-2019.pdf

For those that need a physical copy, the premiere issue is now available for sale from Amazon.

Highlights from European Pentecostal Theological Association 2002

Geir Lie — Thu, 26 Sep 2002 01:38:06 +0000

The 24th annual EPTA (European Pentecostal Theological Association) conference was held on the campus of Continental Theological Seminary, located in Sint-Pieters Leeuw, Belgium – just a few miles outside the city of Brussels. More than 60 individuals attended the conference.

The EPTA meeting in 2014.

The conference theme, “Pentecostal Education in the 21st. century: Promises and Challenges”, was initiated by special guest speaker Dr. Allan H. Anderson from Birmingham University. His paper, on “Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality and Theological Education in Europe from a Global Perspective”, was, as he himself noted, “an extensively modified version of his keynote paper given at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 2001, and published as “The Fury and Wonder ? Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality in Theological Education”, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 23:2, Fall 2001, 287-302. Two quotations from Dr. Anderson’s excellent paper follows:

A serious and extensive revision of Pentecostal history needs to be done, in which the enormous contributions of the as yet unnamed indigenous pioneers is properly recognized, so that US American classical Pentecostals in particular shed their often-heard assumption that Pentecostalism is a made-in-the-USA product that has been exported to the world.Western theological educators should themselves be given thorough exposure to the contexts in which they work, in which the agenda is set by local people. They should first and foremost be learners, where they can listen to local concerns before presuming to teach. This probably means that before educators or missionaries from North America and Europe in other continents begin their work, they should first be apprenticed to local ministers and be thoroughly exposed to the local context. Through serving people in humility over an extended period of time, intercultural workers will learn many vital lessons that several years in theological seminaries back home did not teach, and this will be much more effective.

The next paper, on “Would Jesus have sent his disciples to Bible College today?” was presented by JEPTA (the Journal of the Evangelical Pentecostal Theological Association) editor Dr. Keith Warrington of Regents Theological College, UK. Additional papers included:

“Decentralised, practical training vs. centralised, traditional Bible College” by Dr. Neil Hudson
“Do we need a distinct Pentecostal approach to education in Europe” by Dr. Matthias Wenk
“The early Church and the axis of history in Pentecostalism facing the 21st. century: Some Reflections” by Marc Turnage
“Training for Missions – Anthropological Insights” by Dr. Jan-‘ke Alvarsson
“Training national Leaders with English Text books” by Tanja Petrova

The European Pentecostal Theological Association is an inter-denominational academic and theological society. For more information about the EPTA, visit the EPTA website at: www.eptaonline.com/.