Beth Snodderly and A. Scott Moreau, eds., Evangelical and Frontier Mission: Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 312 pages, ISBN 9781870345989.

To the Pentecostal/charismatic readers of The Pneuma Review this work’s title may not seem all that relevant. However, here are some reasons why this collection of twenty articles grouped in six topics is an important work for any evangelical/pentecostal person interested in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. In particular, the book puts the focus on the progress of mission organizations in evangelizing the frontier “unreached” people-groups that can be found in every nation, including ones in the West.

First, the work is comprehensive in surveying the past one hundred years of Protestant missions. The first essay by A. Scott Moreau focuses on this historical survey of evangelical missionary efforts. The impetus for such a review came from the World Council of Churches 2010 Edinburgh conference as well as the evangelical Lausanne conferences of 1974, 1989, and the recent the 2010 Cape Town and 2010 Tokyo gatherings.

Second, while not the major focus, this volume does not neglect Pentecostal missions. Assemblies of God (AG) missionary to Thailand, Alan R. Anderson contributed a balanced critique of his own mission agency that has seen tremendous growth in Africa, Latin America, and Korea. Today there are over twenty fraternal Assemblies of God organizations with which American AG missionaries work. Such success can also stir up conflicted aims and purposes between the parent mission agency and these national churches. Also, success in parts of the world create questions as to why other areas have not seen similar growth in Christian converts and churches (e.g. South Asia and the Islamic world). Anderson suggests that a “theology of the hard work” is needed. Another renewal-influenced contributor is pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd whose article is on spiritual warfare, a theme that resonates with Pentecostals worldwide.

A third helpful aspect of this book is the representative profile of contributors both in terms of roles (academics, pastors, missionaries, and mission directors) and perspectives (gender, geography, and ideas). Some like Ralph D. Winter and Renè Padilla are well known while others such as Yalin Xin are not. Both Winter and Padilla argue for a wider purpose of the gospel of the kingdom that includes a holistic approach to Christianity. Xin contributed a biographical essay on Deborah Xu who has been instrumental in the Chinese house church movement.

Lastly, the net result in reading this work will be to expand one’s understanding of key concepts at the center of mission work today. Most notably is the “missional church” model that should apply to all Christian churches and mission agencies. This emphasis is often summarized in the maxim, “From everywhere to everywhere.” Unimaginable to those who gathered at Edinburg in 1910, the secular societies of Western culture by 2010 have become as missions-needy as those many in the Majority World. Missions is no longer defined by political geography but by cultural ethnicity. Padilla’s article states this emphasis in four statements and serves as a final word and challenge: (1) all churches send and all churches receive, (2) the whole world is a mission field, and every human need is an opportunity for missionary service, (3) every Christian is called to follow Jesus Christ and to be committed to God’s mission in the world, and (4) mission is life both on the individual and communal levels.

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Brubaker

Gary Tyra, The Holy Spirit in Mission: Prophetic Speech and Action in Christian Witness (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 206 pages, ISBN 9780830839490.

Tyra, an experienced Assemblies of God pastor and Christian college teacher, has written a biblically based, academically conversant, and culturally informed appeal for Western evangelicals to seek for and exercise a Spirit-empowered Christianity. While not breaking new ground the book is an accessible synthesis of leading scholars with a view of how individual believers, local churches, and denominational leaders can implement such a revitalized and robust New Testament faith. The footnotes of The Holy Spirit and Mission reveal the author’s familiarity with current scholarly discussion. Missional church movement writers such as Darrell Gruder, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Alan Hirsch have exposed the weakness of Western Christianity due to an increasing secular culture. Leading renewal theologians such as Clark Pinnock, Gordon Fee, Amos Yong, Frank Macchia, and Robert Menzies have argued that Luke-Acts is more than a historical record but a “missional pneumatology” that should be a template for us today.

We will briefly review the content of this work. In the opening two chapters Tyra sets out the biblical foundation for a Spirit-empowered Christianity. The Old Testament is not ignored as he mines the Scripture for the actions and words of Spirit-empowered saints: Moses and the 70 elders in Numbers 11, Gideon and Samson in the book of Judges, and Saul’s prophesying in 1 Samuel 10:10 are some of examples associating the Holy Spirit with either speaking or acts of miraculous power. The New Testament evidence is centered on Luke-Acts which Tyra defends as giving a prescriptive and theological model for believers to emulate today. Thus the ministry of Christ and the stories of Stephen, Peter, Philip, and Paul provide windows into how the Spirit works in doing the will of God.

In his third chapter Tyra suggests that the explosive growth of pentecostal-styled Christianity in the “majority world” is due to the reliance of believers there on the powerful demonstration of the Spirit’s work. Other factors are mentioned but Tyra argues that the key to this numerical increase is the missional faithfulness of such Christians to speak and act under the spontaneous direction of the Spirit. It is what he calls a “theological realism” of being Bible-based, eschatologically driven, and obedient to the “call” of the Spirit to engage in personal and corporate evangelism. Anecdotal stories from Pentecostal missionaries such as Loren Cunningham’s Youth With A Mission and the Church of God provide illustrations of this thesis.

Chapter four returns to missional church literature to boldly underscore the book’s main idea that a new way of “doing church” in the West is imperative. Relying heavily upon Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church, Tyra envisions the contemporary church focusing on community, service, and proclamation to represent God’s kingdom to the world. In the last chapter, Tyra returns to the biblical story of Ananias as a spiritually-obedient servant of God. The latter provides a model of missional faithfulness for local church leaders, denominational officials, and also academic faculty.

Over twenty years ago Gary B. McGee wrote a comprehensive survey of Assemblies of God (AG) missions, “This Gospel Shall Be Preached.” In it he called for others to follow with regional histories of the various AG fields of missionary service. That call is beginning to be answered. In 1997 Lawrence R. Larson wrote a history of AG work in Fiji that runs over 500 pages. In 2004 A. C. George published his study of the AG in India that runs to nearly 400 pages. Dave Johnson, missionary to the Philippines since 1997, has now given us a detailed history for AG work in the Philippines. We will address three questions about this work.

First, is this history told from the perspective of the “white” missionary to the neglect of the national ministers and church leaders? By focusing on the roles of western missionaries such work as we are reviewing here goes against the grain of current studies of world Christianity. Noted authors like Allan Anderson have stressed the need to tell the stories of gifted and anointed national workers who did much of the “heavy lifting” in establishing missions work; sadly most of their names are lost but much is being done to present “history from below.” But it is also true that the stories of western Pentecostal missionaries are also disappearing at an alarming rate as early generations of pioneer missionaries are gone and records of their life ministry disappear. So it is without shame to say that Dave Johnson has done a great service in preserving the 84-year history of AG missionaries going from the United States to the islands of the Philippines. Johnson’s work does in fact describe the roles and contribution of many Philippine pastors, evangelists, and church leaders.

Second, has Johnson “sanitized” the accounts of these missionaries without mention of their problems and failures? No, Johnson does not hesitate to narrate some of those defeats and failings as my personal knowledge of a few of those missionaries can verify: independent-spirited types, moral failures, and church splits are not glossed over. In any mission field where successful work has produced a national church there will be tension of personnel, administrative control, and mission strategy. For example in chapter nine this work narrates such a moment of tension between the AG Missionary Fellowship and the Philippines General Council of the AG that arose in the 1960s-1970s, reached a peak, and finally resolution.

Third, what resources have been used by the author of this history? Johnson has drawn on a comprehensive variety of sources: Pentecostal Evangel articles, AG missions publications, academic studies, minutes of American and Philippines national committees and councils, taped interviews, missionary newsletters, and emails from current and past AG missionaries.

The nature of Pentecostalism is the taking the message of Jesus to the nations. We can be grateful to Dave Johnson for preserving an important part of that story in the Pacific islands of the Philippines.

Find the book at: daveanddebbiejohnson.com

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Brubaker

Editor’s note: The full text of Led by the Spirit is now available at: https://www.academia.edu/34297392/LED_BY_THE_SPIRIT.pdf

Looking for a historical, biblical, theological, and even philosophical discussion about Pentecostal Charismatic (PC) women in ministry? This collection of twelve essays that resulted from a series of colloquia in 2006-2007 at Regent University is your book. It has a consistent theme from the opening survey by co-editor Alexander and running through the six historical essays and six biblical and theological essays: Pentecostalism has a dialectic or paradox or tension point between its understanding of Spirit empowerment and its application to the callings of women. Does the prophecy of Joel, repeated by Peter in Acts 2, give women equal authority in the Church? Are there sociological and pragmatic barriers that have limited women’s role and status as ministers? Have PC churches lost their original vision of a gender-equal empowerment? Where did early Pentecostals get their ideas about gender equality? What is the history of women in ministry in the three largest Pentecostal bodies in the USA Assemblies of God (AG), the Church of God (COG), and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC)? What about Canadian Pentecostals? Or Hispanic Pentecostalism? Or Asian Pentecostals? These and many other questions are taken up by the writers who represent a broad spectrum of classical Pentecostal and charismatic academicians. Here are a few highlights.

Janet Everts Powers’ “Pentecostalism 101: Your Daughters Shall Prophesy” is a prophetic call to the PC world to recapture the prophetic empowerment of Spirit baptism for ministry and not simply for an emotional experience. Men and women receive a divine unction that qualifies them to speak for God to His people. Powers credits the 19^th century Methodist Phoebe Palmer for bequeathing this understanding of the Spirit to 20^th century Pentecostals. She offers a challenging rebuttal to the evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem’s definition of prophetic gifts.

Cheryl Bridges Johns’ “Spirited Vestments: Or Why the Anointing Is Not Enough” critiques the limitations for full ministerial authority to women among PC denominations. Her essay probes classical understanding of theology proper in her description of God’s character and person and its implications for women in ministry. Johns’ solution is to rethink this understanding in terms of a relational model of equality rather than a hierarchical one of subordinationalism.

Gastón Espinosa’s “‘Third Class Soldiers’: A History of Hispanic Pentecostal Clergywomen in the Assemblies of God” surveys a history of both the impact of women among Hispanic ministries as well as the gender barriers they faced. He quotes one married woman ministry, “We’ve got a voice, but we also know our place” (p. 109).

Frederick L. Ware’s title summaries well his contribution and that of many of the writers in this book, “Spiritual Egalitarianism, Ecclesial Pragmatism, and the Status of Women in Ordained Ministry.”  He is optimistic that more doors are opening today for full recognition of women in PC ministry.

Michael Bergunder, The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth Century, Studies in the History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 392 pages, ISBN 9780802827340.

There will be several groups who will thank Michael Bergunder, professor of history of religions and mission studies at Heidelberg, for writing this book. First, historians of the Pentecostal/charismatic movements will find this work a treasure trove of the major persons and places of South Indian Pentecostalism. The introductory chapter lays out the global/non-Western perspective that marks so much of contemporary historiography of Pentecostal/charismatic history. The first section of the book in six chapters covers the origins and development of Pentecostal churches in South India. It covers both western missionary efforts (such as the Assemblies of God and Church of God) as well as indigenous churches (such as the Indian Pentecostal Church and the Ceylon Pentecostal Mission).

Second, Bergunder’s book will be important to Pentecostal/charismatic pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. In his section, “Beliefs and Practices,” he draws on an extensive reservoir of personal interviews to portray a vibrant if often complex Indian Pentecostal spirituality and ecclesiology. Though there is a definite Asian sub-continent flavor to how Pentecostalism adapted to India, there is a core of theological and practical measures that will resonate with any Pentecostal/charismatic minister and believer anywhere in the world. In the twenty-first century, western Pentecostal/charismatics will need to turn to global Pentecostal/charismatic movements in order to define of who they are.

Third, students of Pentecostal/charismatic movements will find this book a model of careful research, clear presuppositions, and honest assessments. The book has three appendices: (1) Seventy-nine brief biographical sketches of both foreign missionaries and national leaders; (2) lists of the leaderships of the Indian Pentecostal Church, Ceylon Pentecostal Mission, Church of God, and Assemblies of God; and (3) six pages of church statistics from 1930 to 2000. There are fourteen photos inserted between the two main sections of the book. Before a thorough index, there is a ten-page list of people that Bergunder interviewed and a valuable thirty-five page bibliography.

As we progress through a second century of the Pentecostal/charismatic movements, the need for an accurate and unbiased history calls for many others to follow Bergunder’s lead.

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Brubaker

Preview The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth Century: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_South_Indian_Pentecostal_Movement_in.html?id=XGiv3riaunQC

Publisher’s page: http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/2734/the-south-indian-pentecostal-movement-in-the-twentieth-century.aspx

Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos, Making Wise the Simple: The Torah in Christian Faith and Practice (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), 353 pages.

Why should Pentecostal preachers read a book written by a Presbyterian scholar whose passion is a study of the “Law” which many Christians often regard as the dullest part of the Old Testament? Dr. Van Wijk-Bos, Dora Pierce Professor of the Bible and Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, has given us many reasons in her compelling look at the relationship of the Pentateuch to Christian faith. Central to these reasons are Van Wijk-Bos’ definitions of covenant and torah (Hebrew word for “law”). Covenant provided ancient Israel their identity as the people of God while torah provided their instructions for living out that life as God’s people (p. 281). These concerns relate to Christians as well. We want to know who we are as the people of God’s new covenant and what are we to do in light of that relationship.

Van Wijk-Bos divides her study into five parts. Part I introduces her topic of how the idea of torah has been treated and mistreated by Christian hands. Her personal story of being raised in post-WWII Netherlands instilled in her an obligatory sensitivity to Jewish people and their story of faith. Thus she seeks to show the relevance of the covenant and torah for Christians while not despising the historical people who gave us the Pentateuch. She uses the theme of the “stranger” (Hebrew gēr) as a running motif throughout not just the Old Testament but the New as well.

Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos is the Dora Pierce Professor of Bible and Professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Part V provides a theological summary of key aspects of the character of God and the relationship of Jesus and Paul to torah. Her presentation of the God Who Regrets, Appears, Accompanies, Is Prejudiced, and Passionate should awaken any reader to the value of Van Wijk-Bos’ book for Christians. She challenges many ideas in both Reformed and non-Reformed theological camps alike. Her discussion of the “new perspective” on Paul will bring the reader up-to-date on a contemporary scholarly issue regarding Paul’s view and use of the law.

Bill Jackson, The Quest for the Radical Middle: A History of the Vineyard (Cape Town, South Africa: Vineyard International Publishing, 1999), 419 pages.

New movements need their stories told and Bill Jackson, pastor of Black Mountain Vineyard Church in San Diego, has told the story of the Association of Vineyard Churches. This is an “insider” perspective because Jackson has been a part of the Vineyard movement since early in its history. Jackson’s book serves as an official history in that it is published by and sanctioned by the Vineyard leadership.

The title is the main theme in Jackson’s portrayal of John Wimber and the Vineyard movement. The middle ground is the attempt to retain the biblical foundation of Evangelicalism and the openness to the Spirit of Pentecostalism. Bill Jackson’s Vineyard history documents the ebb and flow of this challenge to balance the “Word and the Spirit” (p. 39). This “quest” is a difficult one as the history of any revivalistic and renewal movement will attest.

Jackson drew upon personal contacts, letters, interviews, audio and video-tapes, specialized web-sites, religious magazine articles and a few published works. The result is a sympathetic but sufficiently objective look into Wimber’s rich and complex life and ministry and the church renewal movement that he helped to launch.

Bill “Jax” Jackson

How this book struck me as a classical Pentecostal reviewer was to see a series of parallels between Vineyard history and Pentecostal history (and in particular the Assemblies of God of which I am a member). Let me enumerate a few similarities. First, revivalistic/renewal movements fear organizational loss of fervor. Jackson cites Max Weber’s theory of the routinization of charisma of religious movements (pp. 18, 349). As Vineyard moves into a new generation of leadership “who knew not Joseph [John Wimber]” will it sustain its growth and vitality? Second, both Vineyard and Pentecostals are “Jesus” people. For Vineyard it was Wimber’s reliance upon George E. Ladd’s theology of the kingdom as a springboard for doing the works of Jesus today. For Pentecostals it was the adoption of A. B. Simpson’s four-fold gospel of Jesus as Savior, Baptizer, Healer, and Coming King. Third, the educational thrust of both Vineyard and early Pentecostals was upon the training of pastors and church leaders. Vineyard, to this reviewer’s knowledge, has not founded a liberal arts college or seminary but has developed regional training programs for its leadership. Early Pentecostals founded Bible institutes to train its gospel workers. Fourth, God uses flawed people for His glory. For the Vineyard movement it was people like Lonnie Frisbee and Paul Cain. For Pentecostals it was Charles Parham and Aimee Semple McPherson. Fifth, crises that occur early in a movement’s story help to define its subsequent history and mission. For Vineyard it was the prophetic restoration ministries in Kansas City and the unusual spiritual phenomena in Toronto that shaped their middle-ground position of spirituality. For Pentecostals it was the role of glossolalia and the nature of the Godhead.