Paul Elbert is a physicist-theologian and New Testament scholar.

We may think of God as the leader of a cosmic community.¹ But God is not encountered only in spectacular and physically improbable or counter-intuitive historical events; he is also detected in his manifestation of human experience. One of the distinctive features of the NT documents is the description afforded the interaction of the God, the heavenly Jesus, and the Holy Spirit with Christians.² Global Pentecostalism³ and the international charismatic renewal⁴ are familiar with Christian experience that is evidently interventionist and that thereby would add energy to the universe.⁵ While pneumatological action can have a hidden character, such activity is perhaps more consistent with the God’s decision to be invisible than with an intrinsic reticence of the nature of the Holy Spirit’s presence. The creative activity of the Spirit in personal reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit, in the sharing of interpersonal spiritual gifts, or in interior giftedness via the Johannine chrisma demonstrates an evident experiential or observable manifestation. For this reason, Pentecostals should not feel constrained to conform to theories that God will not and does not interact with physical reality and that there is no room for the Holy Spirit in the continuing dialogue between religion and science. Rather, they might contribute to the picture of spectacular non-natural actions of the Spirit and to the probability of creative work of the Spirit in past Earth history and terrestrial life.⁶

In this dialogue,⁷ Polkinghorne suggests that “the most grievous absence from this conversation is that of the theologians.”⁸ Exceptions, for example, like Moltman’s conclusion that theology and science share a common wisdom,⁹ Marcum’s observation that “Christian theology without the input of the natural sciences may become imaginary,”¹⁰ and Yong’s recognition of the possibility of a new theological paradigm that grants to the book of nature and to science an authentic role in a pneumatological theology wherein a diversity, distinctiveness and integrity of voices may be “as heard originally at Pentecost to be divinely ordained for the glory of God,”¹¹ are all encouraging developments. Nevertheless, Polkinghorne is no doubt correct that twentieth-century theology has been, for the most part, “conducted from within ghettoes walled off from scientific culture.”¹²

I see no good reason why Pentecostals need be “walled off” from or unaware of science and technology. The way forward is to fully understand that it can be God’s calling and a blessing to be a Christian within a scientific career.¹³ Pentecostal-based educational institutions need to move rapidly beyond the idea of simply offering science courses as a means to get students into medical school or just to meet some minimum mandated requirement of accrediting agencies. In this regard, the chemistry department here at Lee University has made a great deal of progress with undergraduate research so as to offer a good major. While science is expensive to teach, Pentecostal education needs to step up to the plate and attempt to boldly enter the main stream of American scientific education with more faculty, much more emphasis on academic production than on the acquisition of academic history, and vigorous participation in research. In my view, this is more important for Pentecostals and their potential place of influence in the thinking community than their current effort to educate the masses. The fact that the Church of God Theological Seminary offers a course in theology and science–which, in my opinion, given the urgency for Pentecostal ministers to be at least acquainted with the experimental discoveries of modern science, might either be made mandatory or offered as a part of the theological requirement–is also a positive sign. Pentecostals will also find that the experimental discoveries of modern science are both eminently preachable and not at all biblically threatening. In fact, I have found these two categories, the book of nature and written revelation, to be quite harmonious.¹⁴

Murray W. Dempster, Byron D. Klaus, and Douglas Peterson (eds.), The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel (Irvine, CA: Regnum International, 1999), ISBN 9781870345293.

This guest review essay originally appeared in Trinity Journal and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

This work[1] is the result of a conference in Costa Rica (1996) devoted to a selection of issues emerging from the ongoing globalization of what Presbyterian theologian J. Rodman Williams identifies as the Pentecostal Reformation,[2] a movement which represents more than one third of the world’s practicing Christians, more than all of Protestantism combined.  In Williams’ case, for example, his many writings,[3] especially his trilogy, Renewal Theology,[4] have been of some assistance to the global Pentecostal and Charismatic renewal movements as have the biblical contributions, for example, of Arrington, Ervin, Horton, Palma and Rea[5] from within the Pentecostal sector.  These movements[6] continue to attempt to reach out to Christians in various denominations through conferences and symposia around the world, as is the case with the current effort of Dempster et al.  The estimate that the Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal movements now numerically dwarf all Protestantism combined is probably a conservative numerical estimate by Baptist statistician David Barrett’s latest tabulation[7] and accords with the belief of travelling observers that there are over a million Pentecostal churches in villages, towns and cities across the world.  Given the contributions of the Reformed/Evangelical and Catholic tradition to the Charismatic Renewal, joining Pentecostalism’s renewed emphasis on Scripture and experience in theological reflection and hermeneutics,[8] and to various former and ongoing dialogues with Pentecostals,[9] perhaps the fruits and outreach of this conference in Costa Rica, along with associated theological ramifications, may be of interest to readers of the Trinity Journal.

Dempster, Klaus, and Peterson have put together a collection of essays built around three pre-selected themes, somewhat similar in style to the earlier Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture.[10]  Here, the editors and conference organizers come from the disciplines of social ethics (Dempster) and missiology (Klaus and Peterson).  The immensity and diversity of the Pentecostal movement and its burgeoning offspring, the international charismatic renewal (not considered in this volume), afford a wide possibility for scholarly consideration.  Those topics chosen here reflect the concerns and interests of the conveners and are grouped into three categories: Changing Paradigms in Pentecostal Scholarly Reflection, Pentecostalism as a Global Culture, and Issues Facing Pentecostalism in a Postmodern World.

As a brief assessment cannot give due consideration to all the contributions, perhaps it is appropriate to focus on some of the highlights and lowlights, as well as some backgrounds, in an effort to provide an overall perspective of the volume.  In the first category, Changing Paradigms, Wonsuk Ma, writes on “Biblical Studies in the Pentecostal Tradition: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” (52-69).  Noting that two thirds of the world’s people in the Third World are more open to the supernatural world enunciated in Scripture than in Western cultures, Ma points out that “The Pentecostal movement has long treasured Scripture.  These ‘people of the Book’ have never questioned the authority of the written word” (54), citing some of the scholarly books and journals produced in the tradition.  Use of biblical narrative is widespread and Ma seems to side with the critical interpretative methods that emphasize the legitimacy of employing narrative for doctrine and practice, “Though the use of narrative for constructive theological work and doctrinal formulation has been criticized from both within and without, narratives are still viewed by Pentecostals, not only as an effective, but also as an authentic means of communicating traditions and truths” (62).