Jade taught me how pentecostals listen to and wait on God. She spoke of a repeated mystical experience that transpired over an extended period during the Sunday evening worship service of her pentecostal church in which she saw herself as a little girl of approximately five years of age. In this repeated experience, Jesus approached the little girl and said, “I want to take you to meet my Father,” to which she responded, “Okay.” However, after they had taken three or four steps, the little girl announced, “Oh, I’ve changed my mind. I want to go play in the park,” to which he replied, “OK. Let’s go play in the park.” Over and over again, Jade envisioned the two of them going to the park and swinging in the swings together instead of going to the Father. After several months of this repeated scenario, on one particular Sunday evening, the little girl did not ask to play in the park, but she accompanied Jesus to meet the Father. Jade believed this change in her response signaled her having experienced sufficient relational healing regarding fathers, affording her a readiness to encounter Jesus’s Father.

This is an excerpt from: Pamela F. Engelbert, See My Body, See Me: A Pentecostal Perspective on Healing from Sexual Violence (Pickwick Publications, 2024)

As Jesus and Jade continued walking along a pathway, they came to a doorway, and Jesus said, “This is as far as I can go. You can go in, and the Father is sitting in there on a chair.” When Jade went through the doorway, she entered into a brightly lit room in which she saw God the Father without clearly seeing the Father’s face. As she walked over to the Father, the Father picked her up and placed her on his lap. The Father then lifted her high above his head, moving her around a little while simultaneously tickling her so that the two of them laughed together. After the Father put the little girl down, they began to play hide-and-seek in which she peeked around the Father’s chair and looked at the Father, generating laughter first from the Father and then from her. When she returned to the front of the chair, the Father picked her up and again placed her on his lap and said, “I’m your dad, you know.” The shock of this realization caused her to cry as this was quite exciting for the five-year-old-emotional part of her heart. Amidst her excitement, she went to the far corner of the room and pulled on a huge angel’s robe, saying, “He’s my dad, you know,” and the angel nodded. She then walked over to Jesus, pulled on Jesus’s garment, and said, “He’s my dad, you know,” and Jesus replied, “I’ve been trying to tell you that for a long time.”

It was not until after she had repeatedly experienced this mystical encounter that she realized its significance. When she was almost six years of age, she learned that her stepfather was not her biological father. Her older sister informed her that what Jade believed to be her surname was not actually hers. Her sister warned her: “If you’re bad, my dad is gonna send you to your dad, and your dad doesn’t want you.” Such news shattered Jade’s world as she no longer knew where she belonged. The five-year-old Jade realized in that moment: “Everyone else belongs in this family but me.” But God saw and heard and continued to be aware of her need for healing even when she remained unaware as an adult. As she stood in a worship service, being open and listening during these divine-initiated encounters, Jade’s unknown needs for identity and belonging were being healed.

PR

Image: Pham Manh

Further Reading

More about See My Body, See Me: A Pentecostal Perspective on Healing from Sexual Violence: An interview with Pamela F. Engelbert

Introduction from the Publisher: #MeToo. #ChurchToo. #pentecostalsisterstoo. Since 2018, hashtags and stories of sexual violence have appeared in all sectors of life from Hollywood to the Olympics; from politics to religion; from universities to seminaries; and among pentecostals. But amid all these stories of sexual abuse and assaults, one may wonder if any stories of healing from sexual violence exist. If so, what does healing look like, particularly among pentecostals who believe in divine healing? Is it a single prayer of faith or a conglomeration of healing factors? In true pentecostal form, See My Body, See Me systematically examines the healing stories of eight pentecostal survivors and the experiences of five pentecostal licensed counselors. It then combines these experiences of both males and females with Scripture, theology, psychology, and culture to provide a pentecostal perspective on healing from sexual violence. As a practical theological approach, See My Body, See Me also offers acts of ministry to provide healing spaces by way of three embodied praxes that are historically and theologically pentecostal: listening, waiting, and learning. See My Body, See Me is an invitation to participate in Christ’s healing ministry to see, hear, and believe survivors as God sees, hears, and believes them.

Interview with Dr. Pamela F. Engelbert

What is a short synopsis of the book?

Pamela F. Engelbert, See My Body, See Me: A Pentecostal Perspective on Healing from Sexual Violence (Pickwick Publications, 2024)

This book is divided into two parts: a) a description of how pentecostals heal from sexual violence, and b) an invitation to the church to provide a safe place for survivors. The first part recounts the healing journeys of survivor-participants while the second part offers specific pentecostal praxes to cultivate safe environments for survivors. This book draws from real stories of pentecostal survivors and licensed counselors. It then looks at those stories through the lens of psychology, culture, theology, and Scripture to form a fuller theological understanding of the healing journey from sexual violence.

What type of book is it?

Why did you write this book?

For a number of years, I had wondered how other pentecostals experienced healing from sexual violence because of my own healing journey. While walking and praying in 2018 or 2019, I sensed a distinct call in which I knew that I knew that this was the topic I was to research. Yet, I also questioned that call since I am a survivor of sexual violence. However, when a colleague said to me, “God gives us questions through our experiences,” I became more confident in pursuing this topic.

What is the meaning of the title See My Body, See Me?

For whom is the book intended?

This book is geared toward those who are pursuing higher education, particularly a master’s degree or a PhD. It is also for those in the academy because they are challenging pentecostals to be places of healing for survivors of sexual violence, and this is a response to that challenge. Yet, it is also for ministers and counselors from whom survivors request help. Finally, and maybe most importantly, it is for pentecostals who desire to nurture healing in the life of the one who says to them, “I was sexually violated.”

What do you hope people will take away from this book?

a) Since a survivor may be the person sitting next to you in the pew or leading on the platform, what are we doing about it?

b) Healing from sexual violence is not instantaneous but a long, unpredictable journey. How are we prepared for the long haul to walk alongside survivors?

c) Pentecostals are in a unique place to be safe places of healing for survivors because of our belief in healing. How are we participating in the ongoing healing ministry of the Spirit in a survivor’s life?

PR

Further Reading

The Long Journey Home An interview with Andrew Schmutzer about The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused.

Bradford McCall reviews Andrew J. Schmutzer’s article, “A Theology of Sexual Abuse: A Reflection on Creation and Devastation” that appeared in JETS 51:4 (Dec 2008).

Mara Lief Crabtree reviews Jennifer Cisney’s article, “Healing From the Pain of Sexual Assault” Enrichment (Spring 2009).

A Charge for Church Leadership: Speaking Out Against Sexual Abuse and Ministering to Survivors: Part 1 and Part 2. Excerpts from The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused.

Churches Bring #MeToo To The Pulpit

Andrew J. Schmutzer, “Sexual Abuse, by Any Other Name?”

“Women can be ordained and preach, but they are not permitted to teach theology.” These were the instructions I heard in a Pastoral Epistles class during my junior year at an Assemblies of God Bible college. I walked away from it confused and frustrated because I sensed a call to teach. As a female, I had heard that I was empowered by the Holy Spirit to minister. However, in that moment, I simultaneously heard both a message of empowerment and disempowerment. It is this paradox Joseph Dutko addresses in The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: Eschatology and the Search for Equality. In this well-researched, thoroughly Pentecostal publication, Dutko beckons Pentecostals to a live out today an equality as imagined in the eschaton—the time when God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28).

As both a pastor and an academically-trained theologian, Dutko intersects Pentecostal history, eschatology, pneumatology, and biblical texts to form a solid foundation for a praxis of equality. By outward appearances, Dutko’s proposal may seem to some to be strictly theoretical, but it is not. It is a praxis, which, to quote theologian Ray Anderson, is “truth in action.” It is a living out today a biblical theological egalitarianism of the future. While Dutko’s Gender Paradox is academic, church leaders will appreciate how he offers specific ways (praxes) for churches to play with an expression of an eschatological egalitarianism. That is, he puts forth how we as Pentecostals may creatively live out a biblical equality between men and women that is based on our future in the new heaven and the new earth.

Dutko explores the historical pentecostal movement to demonstrate that early Pentecostals (those from 1901-1920s) drew from eschatology to authorize women in ministry. Dutko analyzes women’s stories to see how women and men defended women’s recently discovered liberties. More specifically, he explores how an eschatological approach assisted in formulating early Pentecostals’ rationale concerning gender equality. At the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, early Pentecostal periodicals indicate that men upheld the new liberation of women in ministry, overriding previously held restrictions by drawing from eschatology. Dutko then underscores the stories of Maria Woodworth-Etter, Zelma Argue, and Aimee Semple McPherson in order to determine how they biblically justified their freedom in ministry. He perceives that these women mainly lived out their newfound freedom, but when they were called upon to defend it, they drew from eschatology.

Contrary to the restorative approach’s method of biblical interpretation, whose aim is to return to the New Testament church, Dutko draws from an eschatological lens when interpreting three essential biblical texts. By doing so, he seeks to create a unifying, egalitarian account of Scripture that mirrors early pentecostalism and contemporary Pentecostal scholarship. Dutko uses the following texts to serve as a guide for scriptural interpretation in relation to egalitarianism: Genesis 1—3, Galatians 3:28, and Acts 2:17-18, which are respectively entitled creation, the ministry of Jesus, and Pentecost. For Dutko, these are principal, egalitarian, interconnected, biblical texts that communicate the central narrative of Scripture: “creation, fall, redemption, and restoration” (132). Dutko contends that these texts have priority as they provide a model when confronted with other more culturally bound texts, such as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15, which restrict women. His granting privilege to certain biblical texts over others is not unusual since what is clear in Scripture is frequently used to interpret ambiguous texts. That is to say, not every passage of Scripture is regarded equally in Christianity. Pentecostals normally treat Luke-Acts as more important, turning it into a hermeneutical guide when discussing Pentecostal issues and theology. With this in mind, some texts are declared more significant in relation to egalitarianism because they offer an obvious direction eschatologically—one of equality. For Dutko, these texts beckon Pentecostals to picture how they may take part “in eschatological realities” (142).

Participating in eschatological realities leads to a Pentecostal praxis of egalitarianism, liberating women to minister according to God’s call. Dutko puts forth a pre-enactment praxis model rather than a re-enactment one. The latter centers on copying the events of the past while also assuring that a repeat of said events will be genuine. The former, too, is orientated by the past, but it envisions the future and explores ways to live that out in the present. As such, the pre-enactment praxis model is connected to previous, current, and upcoming events. Dutko writes, “Pre-enactment is an exploratory rather than an explanatory model” (180). An example, offered by Dutko, is Sabbath-keeping. A pre-enactment praxis of Sabbath-keeping contains an open inquiry of conceptualizing and testing how to live out an eschatological rest today (exploratory). Re-enactment of Sabbath-keeping is less open and more rigid as it centers on living out a Jewish ritual of the past (explanatory).

Dutko’s Pentecostal eschatological-egalitarian praxis is different from applying a biblical text, which is a linear approach. According to Dutko, an eschatological-egalitarian praxis is a process that is dialectical (back-forth dialogue of opposing/supporting ideas), experiential, and experimental while being firmly grounded in the authority of Scripture. As a Pentecostal community imagines and participates today in the realities of the eschatological biblical texts, it is both experimenting and experiencing the future hope of the texts. As such, the biblical texts become more alive and real as the community perceives more fully the meaning of the text. In this way, the praxis (truth in action) is a continual exploration as the biblical interpretation of an eschatological text is tested and experienced. The more the community experiments with living out an eschatological-equalitarian biblical text, the more they understand the meaning of the text, which leads to increasingly living it out and understanding more, etc. Pre-enactment praxis is a transformative spiral of experimenting, experiencing, and understanding the realities of the eschatological-egalitarian biblical text.

While The Pentecostal Gender Paradox mainly centers on the USA and Canada, the question remains whether or not Dutko’s proposal transfers to other races, ethnicities, and cultures, a question Dutko also asks. If it does, what characteristics or elements does it embrace that are similar or different to a Western expression? One possible varying factor is the independent revivals around the world that were separate from the Azusa Street revival, such as in India and Korea. In this light, one must inquire if the experiences of early Pentecostals in Asia were similar or different from those in the Azusa Street revival while considering the possible ways to live out eschatological realities in non-Western contexts.

Dutko’s approach is thoroughly Pentecostal in that it mirrors early Pentecostalism; provides strong biblical support; involves reflections on a theology of the Holy Spirit; and stresses a praxis that participates right now with the Holy Spirit in Christ’s ministry in the world. As I reflect today on that undergraduate lecture in Pastoral Epistles, I am greatly encouraged and hopeful by Dutko’s liberating Pentecostal theological praxis of egalitarianism. It departs from a concentration on self-agency by orienting Pentecostals to participate in the movement of the Spirit toward the renewal of all creation. Thus, may it be said of Pentecostals that our beliefs about the eschaton direct our lives today, particularly in relation to egalitarianism.

Reviewed by Pam Engelbert

Publisher’s page: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pentecostal-gender-paradox-9780567713650/

Preview this book: https://books.google.com/books?id=y8DREAAAQBAJ

Presence Is a Verb—a State of Being and an Action

The woman abruptly arose from the Sunday dinner table and accusingly spoke to her husband, “You wouldn’t care if I drowned in the waterhole.” She then turned and walked out the door.

It had been a typical Sunday for the sixteen-year-old girl. The Pentecostal family had dressed in their Sunday best, driven to church, and come home to eat a pot roast that had been cooking in the oven. But the tenor of the day had abruptly changed, and silence now ensued in her mother’s absence. The daughter stared in panic and disbelief while her father paused only momentarily before continuing with his meal. He outwardly appeared unphased by his wife’s startling behavior. Bewildered by his stoic demeanor, her mind whirled, “Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he chase after her?” She learned later that he had not understood his wife’s words. He, too, had been lost amidst the chaos.

The family was aware of the risks of the nearby waterhole. The sudden drop-offs or deep holes underneath the murky water caused it to be potentially perilous. Added to this watery death trap was the reality that her mother could not swim. A brain operation at age twenty had saved the mother’s life but had left her with an inability to walk a straight line on flat terrain, and being in water only exacerbated the unsteadiness. The daughter worried that she had just seen her mother alive for the last time. Like Ebenezer Scrooge facing the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the teenager envisioned a life of darkness and separation brought on by death—her mother’s. At that moment, she desperately longed for her father to protect their family, to keep them safe from the terrors of death.

Concepts of this article are taken from Engelbert’s first book, Who is Present in Absence?: A Pentecostal Theological Praxis of Suffering and Healing (Pickwick Publications, 2019). The book is based on interviews with eight Classical Pentecostals, and their experiences are combined with psychology, culture, and Scripture/theology. In this article, Engelbert builds from some of the book’s principles to demonstrate how Pentecostals are uniquely qualified through our emphasis on the Spirit to be empowered to be present when God is apparently absent.

Amidst this chaos, the phone rang. The daughter answered. On the other end, she heard the voice of another 16-year-old girl who lived 180 miles away. The familiar voice said, “God told me to call you. What’s up?” Through this voice, God ministered to the panicked teen in her darkness. God revealed Godself as a minister to a 16-year-old teen through another 16-year-old in a void without safety and protection. God saw the daughter’s distress and invited her friend to participate in God’s ministry to be with the scared teen before her mother returned later that day.

God is revealed as a minister to a teenager, bringing healing presence to an impossible situation. God invites a long-distance friend to unite with God in another friend’s despair through listening and prayer. It conveys that God is a minister who invites humans to participate with God in God’s healing ministry of presence in the world. In what follows, I seek to demonstrate how presence is an act of healing ministry in which Pentecostals are uniquely equipped to participate in the power and the presence of the Spirit. To accomplish this, I draw from Pentecostal experiences, the field of psychology, and Scripture/theology.

Experiencing God’s Presence

The above supernatural incident and others like it are familiar to Pentecostals. We are a people who seek God’s presence. We call on God for revival, an encounter with God in which the Spirit convicts, heals, and renews God’s people. Our worship creates space in a service, which nurtures an expectation of experiencing God’s presence. We emphasize coming forward to the front (the altar) to a place where people may encounter God, be it for salvation, the baptism of the Spirit, healing, or sanctification. We stress the importance of prayer, which includes requests that God would supernaturally intervene. We highlight testimonies that give reports of our experiences of God, such as divine healing. In short, Pentecostals seek, hope, and/or expect to experience God’s presence.

I draw from our emphasis on God’s presence when I teach a course on Pentecostal pastoral care, in which I stress the importance of being present. At first, students push back on this idea. They desire action, such as learning how to use Scripture to solve people’s problems. For them, learning how to be present to others via empathy is not action. Presence does not fix it, so it is equated in their minds with doing nothing. It is devoid of the action necessary to generate transformation (similar to state of being verbs). As one who was born and raised Pentecostal, I relate. We are a pragmatic people who want a theology that works—an action that culminates in a definitive solution. I learned from my junior high English teacher, Mrs. Folkestad, that a noun is a person, place, or thing, and a verb expresses action or state of being; therefore, presence is a thing, not an action. But later in life (my apologies to Mrs. Folkestad), I came to see how presence is also a verb—it is both an action and a state of being.

Consider this question: What transpires when you experience the presence of God? Pentecostals typically respond with phrases like, “I felt love”; “I experienced a tremendous peace”; “I was no longer alone.” Many admit that although their circumstances did not change, they were strengthened through God’s presence. In that moment, they knew God was with them. This gave them courage to walk through their difficult valley, their impossibility. God’s presence transformed them, and it is this transformation that validates their experience as being a genuine act of ministry. When a sixteen-year-old friend participates in God’s ministry in the Spirit’s power by being present to an overwhelmed teenager through a phone call, God’s healing presence is encountered. This presence is an act of ministry. But Pentecostals are not alone in experiencing presence as being powerful for transformation. Psychology also supports that presence changes a person.

Humans Psychologically Need Healing Presence

At the time John Bowlby introduced attachment theory to the discipline of psychology, Western psychological theories tended to mirror our individualistic culture. Psychoanalysis was the dominating theory, focusing on the internal world of the person (think Freud’s ego, id, and superego). But Bowlby’s observations of children with their parents caused him to focus on relationships, not the inner parts of an individual. As such, he developed his theory of attachment. For Bowlby, humans (from infant to senior) instinctively long for the other’s presence to soothe them.

Image: Samuell Morgenstern

Bowlby believed we have an innate attachment behavioral system. When we are threatened, we seek to be close to someone who is stronger and wiser (an attachment figure) for support. Many of us may recall as children being awakened by a loud clap of thunder, and our fears being heightened by the bright, blinding bursts of lightning during a summer storm. As a two- or three-year-old, I was terrified, which meant my attachment behavioral system was activated. I was alone in the dark, feeling unsafe. Like any small child, I voiced my distress by crying loudly, and my mother responded by coming to be with me. Although my parents were unable to make the thunder and lightning cease, I received their support through their presence. As I curled up between them in the comfort of their bed, I felt safe and secure in their presence. Being with them enabled me to relax, and my attachment behavioral system was deactivated, allowing me to sleep. Their presence changed me without transforming the situation. The thunder was still loud and frightening. The lightning was still bright and scary. But their state of being present to me was an act of ministry—it brought healing comfort to my terrified being.

Scripturally/Theologically God Ministers through Presence

Thus far, we have seen how experiencing God’s presence in our worship services changes us. We have also recognized that psychologically we are created to be near others amidst our distress. The presence of those who are wiser and stronger brings about a sense of safety and security. Scripture and theology, too, reveal that God ministers through God’s being to humanity. Throughout human history, God enters into human chaos, or impossibilities, by joining humans in their powerlessness. For instance, when God enters the impossibility of an elderly couple’s childlessness, Abraham and Sarah have a son. God unites with Hagar and Ismael in their despair in the wilderness, delivering them from death (Gen 21). God joins the Hebrew slaves in their impossible situation by calling Moses, an elderly sheep herder, to participate in God’s ministry of deliverance (Ex 3). God repeatedly enters situations in which people experience separation, helplessness, and hopelessness—places of death. I am not speaking only of a physical death, but I am following Andrew Root by expanding death to include impossibilities, limitations, or a deep need that is beyond our reach. Each time that God comes into human impossibilities, God is revealed as minister through God’s being. God ministers by entering into a couple’s childlessness, a mother and son’s abandonment, a people’s oppression, and a sixteen-year-old’s fear of death.

Image: Vitaly Gariev

Such ministry through God’s being is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ. Humanity is in an impossible situation. We are destined for death. As Paul informs us, the wages of our sin are certain death. All our attempts to escape death fall miserably short. Neither our good works, our praying and fasting, nor our offerings enable us to avoid death’s grip and ultimate separation. It is an impossible situation. And it is in this impossibility where God joins humanity.

John 3 reminds us that God’s love for the world initiates God’s act of sending the Son into the world to be with humanity in death. The Son, who is the very being of God, embodies God’s act of ministry to the world by joining with humanity. We may immediately call to mind that Jesus was present to humanity while he walked on this earth. However, I am referring to a ministry that is deeper than this. It is inward, taking place within the being of Jesus Christ. This ministry is seen more clearly through the theological concept called the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union states that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. Two distinct natures. One divine. One human. Both are in one person without any blending or altering. Since they are in one person, the two natures are united, or in relationship, while remaining distinct in Jesus Christ. The divine is eternally connected with humanity within Jesus. That is, the divine is forever present to humanity in Jesus’s being. Because of the hypostatic union, God is revealed, and humanity is healed (reconciled). Both of these movements are transpiring in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God’s act of ministry.

This ministry that is taking place in Jesus, as seen in the hypostatic union, is both a healing ministry of presence and a healing action. In Jesus, presence becomes a ministry that is both a state of being and an act. The divine nature is present to and in relationship with the human nature in Jesus while healing humanity. In this light, Jesus is the embodiment of God’s ministerial act of healing presence (state of being and action). This is an ongoing healing ministry of the divine ministering healing presence to humanity. Through the power and the presence of the Spirit, we are now caught up in that healing act of presence. We are joined with Jesus’s humanity through the Spirit.

Moreover, we are invited to participate in this ministry of healing presence through the power of the Spirit. When we unite with other persons in the power of the Spirit in their impossibilities through presence, we are joining with God in God’s healing presence to them, which is occurring in the being of Jesus Christ. Therefore, God invites us, such as long-distance friends, to join others, like an overwhelmed sixteen-year-old, in their deaths. Transformation occurs because through the power of the Spirit, we are uniting with God in the ministerial act of God’s presence. This healing presence communicates, “You are not alone. I see you. I am here.” It ministers peace amidst chaos. It brings healing transformation.

A Pentecostal Response

Joining others in their deaths, limitations, or impossibilities calls for us to see God as a minister and to be dependent on the Spirit’s power. Too often we rely on our understanding in response to a hurting individual. We focus on ways to fix the issue or to find reasons why the impossibility exists. These types of responses to hurting people frequently include a form of avoidance, self-agency, or positivity. Avoidance fails to respond to the person who is hurting. Self-agency informs sufferers that their own action or inaction is causing the pain, e.g., You must pray more. Positivity places the onus on the distressed to be optimistic, believing this will change the circumstances, e.g., Trust that God has something for you just around the corner.

Image: Taiki Ishikawa

The emphasis on God being a minister is essential if we are to abstain from unhelpful responses. It expands our perception of God beyond the narrow view of problem solving. When God is perceived as a minister, our perception moves beyond the image of a genie who grants my wishes. It surpasses the restricted depiction of a mechanic who fixes my car or a lifeguard who rescues me from drowning. While the concept of God being a minister may include those aspects in a limited way, it is more. God is a minister who comes close to those experiencing any kind of death. And now God invites us to join God in this healing place.

But more than a change in perception, we need the power of the Spirit to be present to hurting persons and to refrain from avoidance, self-agency, and positivity. We require the Spirit’s power to have courage and strength to sit amidst uncertainty and ambiguity with those in despair rather than fleeing from or fixing them. We need to be empowered by the Spirit so that we are exhibiting the Spirit’s fruit, not blame and shame. We must have the power and presence of the Spirit to be present to those in pain in a similar way that God is present to them. Through our act of ministry of presence, the hurting then may see that God’s healing presence is with them, strengthening and upholding them. And that is ministry, which is both being and action.

Further Reading

Pentecostal Encounters with Suffering: an interview with Pamela F. Engelbert

From the publisher: What transpires when Classical Pentecostals pray for God to intervene amidst their suffering, but God does not? Traditionally, Classical Pentecostals center on encountering God as demonstrated through the relating of testimonies of their experiences with God. In seeking to contribute to a theology of suffering for Pentecostals, Pam Engelbert lifts up the stories of eight Classical Pentecostals to discover how they experienced God and others amidst their extended suffering even when God did not intervene as they had prayed. By valuing each story, this qualitative practical theology work embraces a Pentecostal hermeneutic of experience combined with Scripture, specifically the Gospel of John. As a Pentecostal practical theological project it offers a praxis (theology of action) of suffering and healing during times when we experience the apparent absence of God. It invites the reader to enter into the space of the other’s suffering by way of empathy, thereby participating in God’s act of ministry to humanity through God’s expression of empathy in the very person of Jesus.

Interview with Dr. Pamela F. Engelbert

What is a short synopsis of the book?

Pamela F. Engelbert, Who is Present in Absence?: A Pentecostal Theological Praxis of Suffering and Healing (Pickwick Publications, 2019)

There are two themes that define this book: stories and encounters with God. This book is about real pentecostals who suffered and how they experienced God and others in the midst of their suffering. It tells the stories of how God did not intervene when people had prayed. It, then, looks at those stories through the lens of Scripture and psychology to form a fuller theological understanding of suffering and healing.

What type of book is it?

This is a practical theology book, which is not simply applied theology. I believe that practical theology asserts that acts of ministry reveal theology. This means, we know God by God’s acts of ministry to humanity, which is to say, we know God is love because God ministered to humanity by giving the Son. This practical theological book specifically focuses on how the body of Christ reflects God’s love through the congregational care they offer to each other.

Why did you write this book?

For whom is the book intended?

This book is geared for those who are pursuing higher education, particularly a master’s degree or a PhD. It is also for those in the academy who are challenging pentecostals to strengthen their theology of suffering; this is a response to that call. Yet, it is also for the caregiver who seeks to help others who are suffering and for the carereceiver who wonders, “Where are you God?” Finally, and maybe most importantly, it is for the pentecostal, who has a tendency to speak a triumphal message that presents itself as power over rather than power with the sufferer.

What about those who are not in the academy? Will this book be helpful to them?

I believe so. The book centers on stories of people, and I believe that as humans, we all relate to stories. I want to acknowledge that for some who are not in the academy that the first chapter may not capture their interest. If this is the case, I would recommend that they persevere through it, gleaning what they can, and then delve more deeply into the remainder of the book.

What do you hope people will take away from this book?

God is present in the midst of suffering, and we participate in the ministry of presence by being present with others in their suffering. I think pentecostals have a unique opportunity to minister in this regard because we know the strength and peace that we receive when we experience God. Pentecostals tell me about the love and comfort they feel when they encounter God’s presence even though their situation may not have changed. This book is an invitation to practice that presence with those who are suffering, so sufferers may experience the strength, love, and comfort of God as we are present to them in their suffering. Since God is already present to sufferers even though they may be experiencing God’s apparent absence, we participate in God’s ministry of presence through the power of the Spirit, thereby allowing sufferers to experience God as we are present to them.

Where can we learn more about your books?

I have created videos that introduce the content of Who Is Present in Absence? and See My Body, See Me. Two of the videos may be viewed at:

https://wipfandstock.com/author/pamela-f-engelbert/

Three videos about the books may be viewed at:

https://www.youtube.com/@PamEngelbert-w6m

PR