The full issue of The Pneuma Review (14:4) Fall 2011.

This chapter is an excerpt from Steven M. Fettke, God’s Empowered People: A Pentecostal Theology of the Laity (Wipf & Stock 2011). Another chapter appears in the Winter 2012 issue of Pneuma Review.

We need to recognize that such a sense of call [as Jeremiah had] in our time is profoundly counter-cultural, because the primary ideological voices of our time are the voices of autonomy: to do one’s own thing, self-actualization, self-assertion, self-fulfillment. The ideology of our time is to propose that one can live “an uncalled life,” one not referred to any purpose beyond one’s self. It can be argued that the disease of autonomy besets us all, simply because we are modern people …

If the ideology of autonomy talks us out of our call as it talked ancient Israel out of its call, we too may settle for idolatries that feel and sound like a call. An idolatrous alternative may take the form of a moral crusade in which we focus on one moral issue to the neglect of everything else. It may take the form of dogmatic crusade, which is often a disguised form of maintaining monopoly, an ecclesiastical passion, or an echo of civil religion. These are all diversionary activities to keep from facing the yielding in obedience that belongs to all who are called by this God.¹

Introduction

Tilly has served God faithfully in the public schools for almost thirty years, most of that time as a guidance counselor in an at-risk middle school. Few would disagree that middle-school age is a very difficult age, especially when so many kids are being reared by guardians or grandparents or are latchkey kids with little love, attention, or supervision from a parental figure. Often, Tilly serves as a surrogate mother to these kids. Daily she deals with reports of parental abuse or neglect, student sexual promiscuity, pregnancy, and gang activity, along with student surliness, loneliness, threats of suicide, and exhausted teachers. In all of this chaos and despair, she prays daily for God’s strength and direction, and often she senses God’s spirit leading her and helping her love even the worst of the worst.

This is not to say that Tilly’s only concern is ministry. She strives to be the very best in her profession. Her supervisors regularly give her the highest possible ratings for job performance. Doing a good job in all aspects of her work, even the dreaded paperwork and committee work, is also a part of her mission and witness. God-called people do not slack off on those work responsibilities that they find tedious.

Tilly’s day might include kids loved, parents counseled and affirmed in caring for their kids, possible suicides stopped, potential fights between gangs mediated, lonely kids given attention, and exhausted teachers encouraged. Because kids, parents, and teachers have learned to trust her—learned that she truly cares about them—she can pray for them and recommend to them the life of faith in a place where normally such activities are forbidden. In a single day she might do more significant ministry than many professional ministers would do during an entire week. What keeps her going in such a setting? Tilly would answer this way: “It is the call of God and my desire to obey that call no matter how difficult the situation.”

Not once in her experience in Pentecostal churches did professional ministers and church leaders suggest a call to the public schools; as a young person she thought only pastors, evangelists, and missionaries were called. After all, only those people were discussed in church as “the called.” As an adult, she understands that God can call people to various places, including the public schools. However, Tilly has not discovered any setting in the local church in which she might share her struggles and prayer concerns related to her calling. She has never experienced a setting in the local church in which her call is acknowledged and where she is held accountable for her call.

Who is Tilly? She is my wife. She represents all kinds of people in Pentecostal churches who are called to work in the factory, medical profession, business or legal profession, and government service. Like Tilly, they also need to have their callings affirmed and their prayer concerns about their workplace ministries heard. These people may well be the only “minister” whom many of their coworkers, clients, students, or customers will ever encounter. Why wouldn’t the local church want to prepare them for the work of ministry in their workplaces (Eph 4:12)?

The Mission of the Church

The official statement on mission of the General Council of the Assemblies of God says this:

The Church is the Body of Christ, the habitation of God through the Spirit, with divine appointments for the fulfillment of her great commission. Each believer, born of the Spirit, is an integral part of the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven. Since God’s purpose concerning man [sic] is to seek and to save that which is lost, to be worshipped by man [sic], to build a body of believers in the image of His Son, and to demonstrate His love and compassion for all the world, the priority reason for being of the Assemblies of God as part of the Church is: (1) To be an agency of God for evangelizing the world. (2) To be a corporate body in which man [sic] may worship God. (3) To be a channel of God’s purpose to build a body of saints being perfected in the image of His Son. (4) To be a people who demonstrate God’s love and compassion for all the world.²

It is my purpose to “flesh out” in this chapter the implications of this notion of mission to the world in regard to the role of the laity and of the local church. Everyone in the community, not just the professional minister, can provide an effective gospel witness. The voices (and professions) of teachers, business people, medical professionals, and blue- and white-collar workers can and must be heard. These believers are also ministers in their workplaces. The local church can be a place where their callings are affirmed, where they are nurtured in their faith, where they are trained to do the work of ministry, and where their testimonies can be expressed. These lay ministers will go to places in North American society where the professional minister cannot go, either by law (the public schools) or by social convention (the secular workplace). In those secular places they might be the only “ministers” their fellow workers or students in public schools might ever meet.³ Often, people will never darken the door of a local church or be willing to talk to the pastor, but they will listen to a fellow worker whom they have learned to trust and respect. In effect, the believer who is their fellow worker becomes their “minister.”

Positively, Pentecostalism at its best is missional, in that it believes that the Spirit empowers all believers to work actively in the world for the growth of the kingdom, in mission and witness, by encountering the cultures of this world in redemptive and prophetic ways. At their best, Pentecostals have been able to inculturate the gospel, creating truly indigenous expressions of biblical faith. The spontaneity of the Spirit so valued in Pentecostal structures creates space for new and innovative cultural expressions of the gospel. Negatively, Pentecostals today have been seduced by the institutional model of the mega-church structure, in which the growth of numbers and trappings of success become the priority of mission. Top down leadership with a professional class of ministers who administer the faith is becoming the norm in many so-called successful Pentecostal churches, but at the cost of a truly missional approach that sustains personal formation and empowers all the people of God to work in the service of the King. The emphasis on performance in these churches, in which “professional” ministers, singers or administrators service the institution, has restricted the participation of the congregation in worship and world engagement.⁴

How should we lead the church?

In this Pneuma Review conversation, Christian counselor, Dr. Eric Scalise answers this question by saying that ministry leaders need to recognize how pastoral ministry causes stress and how they need to develop a plan for self-care.

Pastors and ministry leaders, much like those who work in the caregiving professions, are often thought of as being compassionate people. Indeed, many of us who feel called into the ministry readily identify with the compassion of Christ as He related to those around Him. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the term compassion as a “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress, together with a desire to alleviate it.” It comes from the Latin word, compat, which means to suffer with. Much of the research on this subject underscores the critical importance of the helping relationship and pastors are frequently in close proximity to the emotional suffering and resulting grief of those they minister to. Herein lies both a potential problem (increased stress and burnout), as well as a wonderful opportunity (to function as God’s ambassadors of reconciliation). Some leaders burn out. Some rust out. And some finish out. May God grant us the mindset of Paul when he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7) and, “…nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy…” (Acts 20:24a).

How do you sustain joy along the way? When the unexplainable, the unpredictable, or traumatic event takes place, theological rulebooks are often inadequate when a response of compassion is required. This is because compassion, to be effective, must likewise be visible. The teaching of Scripture is to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Yet, the goal is to remain “salt” and “light” in the face of alcoholism, drug use, grief and loss, depression, marital discord, separation and divorce, child abuse, sexual addiction, parenting struggles, unemployment, financial stress—and the list could go on. These are the day-to-day issues that people bring to us when seeking guidance and help. At times, the impact that accompanies the sheer level of pain we are confronted with can overwhelm even the most capable and mature leaders. A primary challenge for those who live and function in a ministry role, is the simple reality that self-care is something pastors tend to focus on when it pertains to their congregations and not necessarily to themselves. The question then becomes, not only how do I finish the race God has ordained for me, but how do I finish well?

The Lord gave me a wonderful life lesson a few years back while flying overseas to speak with over a thousand pastors at conference on, of all things, stress and burnout. It had been a particularly chaotic and hurried week leading up to my departure. On top of that, making difficult connections in multiple airports due to weather conditions was not what I had in mind. When I finally boarded my last international flight, I managed to grab a newspaper and was ready to slow down and relax. If you travel frequently as I do, you may tend to politely ignore the flight crew as they go over airplane rules, seatbelts, emergency exits, and the like.

This chapter is from Paul L. King’s book Only Believe: Examining the Origins and Development of Classic and Contemporary Word of Faith Theologies.

Several years ago I read St. John of the Cross on mortification of self and at the same time read Robert Schuller on self-esteem. I learned from both, even though the writings of these two authors are poles apart. Both teach elements of truth, but both represent opposite extremes. The dynamic tension of the counter-polarities needs to be kept in balance. If self-esteem is taught without the cross, the believer’s thought and practice are skewed and become egocentric. If death to self is taught without understanding the believer’s exalted position in Christ, the believer’s thought and practice are again skewed and susceptible to self-centered spiritual flagellation. The key to healthy Christian living and faith is to hold these two truths in balance.¹ However, in relation to faith teaching, claiming the believer’s inheritance would seem to be at odds with dying to one’s self. How can the two seemingly contradictory concepts be reconciled?

In reality, healthy faith must maintain a healthy blend of both dying to self and claiming the rights and privileges of the believer. The message of the crucified life is the one element often missing from modern faith teaching and practice, thus breaking down the dynamic tension. Kenneth Hagin does not negate the cross, but believes it has been over-emphasized to the neglect of the abundant life in Christ: “The trouble with us is that we have preached a ‘cross’ religion, and we need a ‘throne’ religion. … The cross is actually a place of defeat, whereas the Resurrection is a place of triumph. When you preach the cross, you are preaching death, and you leave people in death. We died all right, but we’re raised with Christ.”² The classic faith leaders of the Keswick and Higher Life movements would agree that we need a throne religion, but not to the neglect of the cross. Without the cross life the emphasis on obtaining the promised blessings of God is out of balance and susceptible to egocentricism and distortion.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Via Wikimedia Commons.

Martin Luther distinguished a theology of glory (theologia gloria) from a theology of the cross (theologia crucis). The theology of glory “is concerned primarily with God and his glory, whereas the other sees God as hidden in his suffering.”³ According to Luther, man prefers the theology of glory or triumphalism because it exalts man: “He prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and in general, good to evil.”⁴ In contrast, the emphasis of the New Testament exalts the humbling of Christ and denial of self: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8, NASB).

A. B. Simpson (1843-1919), founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Via Wikimedia Commons.

Luther further declared, in contrast to some modern faith thought, that “God can only be found in suffering and the cross. … Therefore the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are dethroned and the old Adam, who is especially edified by works, is crucified. It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but God’s.”⁵ Other mystics likewise emphasized the life of the cross. Fenelon avowed, “We are nothing without the cross.”⁶ Thomas a Kempis likewise observed centuries ago, “The Lord has many lovers of His crown but few lovers of His cross.”⁷

Vinson Synan, historian, professor, and dean emeritus of the School of Divinity at Regent University, skillfully blends his memoirs with Pentecostal Church history, reflecting on his previous books while integrating his first-hand experience of the events. The book is arranged somewhat chronologically, first retelling the Azusa Street story, then following significant events like the 1948 New Order of Latter Rain revival, healing revivals, Catholic charismatics, racial reconciliation, and it offers brief commentary on recent revivals. Synan offers his personal observations in order to color in the growth of the renewal movement. Herein he has personalized his narration of the events by offering a complementary view of his previous historical accounts. Synan, true to the title of this book, gives the reader an eyewitness account of movement of the Holy Spirit in the past three-quarters of the twentieth century.

Undoubtedly, Synan’s book will stand the test of time in a similar manner as Frank Bartleman’s classic eyewitness account of the Azusa Street revival, for from both descriptions we have direct and irreplaceable personal narration of the North American renewal movement in the twentieth century. This book is destined to become a point of reference for future historians and students of church history. Both books place people and events together, by assisting us to grasp the narrative flow of the stories, and by filling in gaps left by other less-personal descriptions. Likewise, both books give us systematic details of the events important to the author and less detail when the narrator is simply connecting events. Synan clearly focuses on the ecumenical attribute of the renewal movement as the necessary ingredient for the long-lasting spiritual vitality.

Perhaps the greatest contribution Synan makes here is found in his reminiscing on his involvement with the Roman Catholic charismatic movement, the 1977 Kansas City conference, and the Memphis miracle. In each of these accounts, he has recorded his personal involvement as a minister, but more importantly his ideological struggle as he observed the Spirit of God working in ways that he did not expect. Likewise, we can appreciate his candid admission of naiveté as he admits his presupposition towards race relationships as a boy raised in Virginia during the first half of the twentieth century. We can appreciate his candor as he reconciles his Protestant-Catholic bias. Moreover, we are grateful that he has shared the process and the enormous effort required to pull together multiple national denominational leaders for the conferences on spiritual renewal.

Synan’s memoir emphasizes the ecumenical and relational attributes of the renewal movement, combining multiple stories of how he and others built consensus on the essentials of Christian faith, while minimizing the non-essentials. If there is a lesson for the historian to teach current church leaders, then it will certainly be found in the humility of Synan’s narration, for it is a story of how the Holy Spirit will use those who have courage to continue taking steps of faith.

Reviewed by John R. Miller

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

Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, dedicates this book¹: “To my father, a Pentecostal minister who admired Muslims, and taught me as a boy that they worship the same God as we do.” Growing up as a Pentecostal PK (pastor’s kid) myself in a Muslim dominated environment (West Malaysia), I can’t say I heard too many similar sentiments. Rather, even if there were not aggressive efforts to evangelize our Muslim neighbors (it was illegal to do so), there was still a sense that they were of a different, inferior, and non-salvific religion and needed the gospel, all the more so since they had been blinded by the darkness of Islamic teachings regarding God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

Well Volf’s new book, written first and foremost to Christians (and only secondarily for Muslims), will challenge Pentecostals to revisit these questions. He is clear about not wanting to take up the issue of eschatological salvation (a strategic decision about which I will further comment on later), choosing to focus instead both on the question of whether or not Christians can affirm that they worship the same God as Muslims, and, given his positive response to that query, what the political, social, and ethical implications of that claim might be. The argument unfolds in four parts.

Part I provides historical perspective on both sides of the two-fold thrust of Volf’s discussion. It begins with the contemporary controversy stirred up by Benedict XVI’s remarks regarding violence being at the root of the Islamic religion, the Muslim response, “A Common Word Between Us and You,” an open letter addressed to Christian leaders but particularly to the Pope, and the “Yale Response” that the latter generated. Chapters 2 and 3 then return to Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa’s (1401-64) fairly sophisticated theological proposal that Islam and Christianity are possibly two versions of the same faith and to Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) ironic insistence on the superiority of Christianity as a religion of grace and divine love, which did not lead to his acting as graciously or charitably toward the Turks as his vision of the gospel demanded.

Part II unpacks the important methodological issues approaching the major theological question of the book. Volf insists that practices are just as important as beliefs in this case. The latter argument turns on the logic of monotheism—that there is only one good Creator God who is radically different than all that is not God and who commands that we love God with all our being and our neighbors as ourselves (these are the twists that Volf brings to the discussion)—while the former delineates the multiple possibilities that can pertain: that on the one hand we can believe in the right God (whose attributes are summarized in the parenthetical statement above) but yet live wrongly or even give our allegiances to false gods, and on the other hand we can believe (in our understanding) in the wrong God but yet through our lives demonstrate loyalty to the true God by being faithful to that God’s values. Volf rightly puts his finger on the double-sided aspect of this question regarding whether Christians and Muslims believe in and worship the same God: that there is no way to respond to this matter without taking into account the many ways in which true belief unfolds and true worship is practiced in each tradition. In the end, what we need is a “sufficient similarity” between what Christians and Muslims refer to as God or Allah, and the rest of the book provides a variety of arguments as to why this is exactly what we have.

N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 279 pages, ISBN 9780830838639.

Justification is N. T. Wright’s response to John Piper’s critique of several of Wright’s earlier writings. If those earlier writings from Wright are installments in a program, Justification is the program’s hub—the point at which it all comes together, and at which the program is presented in a most easily understandable form. (Wright informs us, however, that a more programmatic hub is forthcoming in the form of a “big book” on Paul.)

This book towers in presence and importance over Wright’s other popularizing works. In the context of theological books aimed at a lay readership, it towers above most of the land as well—it is (at least) a sort of “book of the year”. While scholars who write repeatedly for lay readers tend to let their academic guard down, Wright remains rigorous throughout this book, perhaps because he is writing in response to parties who will call him on the carpet for any slip.

Given the book’s popularizing and argumentative bent, it seems, at points, to be more invested in rhetoric than in substance. Wright harps a bit too much (in this reader’s opinion) on how traditional Reformed soteriology is usually couched in terms of “me and my salvation”, rather than in terms of what God is doing on a more cosmic scale. (Wright insists that God’s salvation is so much more than “personal” salvation.) While Wright’s point is not completely invalid, he presses it too far. After all, should we not expect Paul to tailor his message to people asking about “me and my salvation”? Are we to believe that the ancients did not think in those terms, and that Paul would not have reacted accordingly? My point is that Wright tries to make this rhetoric lift more than it can, and he should have made at least some effort to establishing his point exegetically, especially since he makes such a big deal of doing so on all other points. Other aspects of Wright’s rhetoric are measured out more advisedly. His constant insistence on reading Scripture on its own terms rather than through the lens of tradition is fair and especially fitting, all the more so given the context of the debate with Piper. Wright insists on letting Paul speak for himself.

Wright connects “justification” to (just about) all that God did to redeem creation, but the term itself, he claims, refers only to the lawcourt-drama aspect of salvation. The lawcourt image is but a metaphor, and God’s salvation consists of so much more. God’s focus is on redeeming all of creation. Given this supposition, Wright’s attempt to remove the term from a narrow focus on personal salvation (esp. the courtroom drama) is understandable. Wright ties everything back to God’s covenant with Abraham, which, on his account, comprises the center of all God’s redeeming activity. Most parts of his argument, I think, are convincing, and he especially convinces in overturning others’ attempts to treat Abraham’s role in Romans 4 as merely an example of how God’s salvation works. Another strong part of Wright’s overall program is found in his constant reminder that the “we” in Paul’s arguments often refers to the apostles rather than to believers in general. Wright establishes this point conclusively, I think, in a brilliant exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5, showing that the apostles, rather than the Corinthians (or Christians in general), are the “ministers of reconciliation”. Perhaps the weakest point of Wright’s overall program lies in his attempts to find exodus typology under every stone. (He even thinks that water baptism typologically recalls the exodus.)

James K. A. Smith, associate professor of philosophy at Calvin College and executive director of the Society of Christian Philosophers, engages the subject of hermeneutical philosophy and presses the boundaries outward to make room for a distinctly pentecostal perspective. He examines philosophical ideas from Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer, laboring to remind the reader of their foundational concepts on language and communication. In this regard, Smith divides the book in two major sections by first exploring the classical pentecostal worldview and then by exploring communication theory, in order to propose how the phenomena of glossolalia might expand Christian philosophy. The first three chapters will be readable and comprehendible for the college graduate, but the second three chapters wade into deep waters of hermeneutical philosophy, which may disorient many of the uninitiated or novice philosophers. Smith concludes the book in an open-ended manner, inviting conversation on his newly proposed conceptual framework. Herein, we recognize that Smith’s targeted audience is the academic community rather than the average person in the church. It has been said that academics take simple ideas and talk about them in complex ways. Thus, in this review we will attempt to do the opposite, to unpack Smith’s difficult words and restate them in simple ways.

In the first half of this book, Smith offers five ways to define the pentecostal worldview. The first of these is fairly straightforward; pentecostals are open to God doing new things. Pentecostals regularly expect a prophetic word to start with the phrase, “Behold, I am doing a new thing” and pentecostals anticipate that God will not always do things as He has done in the past. Second, pentecostals recognize spiritual realities in every area of the natural world. Angels and demons are active participants in our everyday life. Demonic influences motivate people to do evil. The Holy Spirit guides the believer to do good. Third, pentecostals know that the work of Jesus on the Cross accomplished both the salvation of the soul and the restoration of the body; by his stripes we are healed. Pentecostals read the birth-of-the-church Pentecost story in Acts 2 and the healing of the lame man in Acts 3 as being examples of the normal Christian life. Peter did not lead the lame man to salvation and leave him lame; he healed his body then brought him to salvation. Thus, pentecostals expect both supernatural and natural blessings. Fourth, pentecostals place high value on salvation and miracle testimonies. These stories build faith and validate spiritual reality and blessings from God. They are foundational to faith and they take first place in theological understanding. Theological epistemology may not be clearly written, but the pentecostal worldview includes space for “I know that I know that I know.” Fifth, pentecostal philosophy is oriented toward doing the right thing for the poor, the needy, and those who have never heard the gospel; mission is taken seriously.

In the second half of this book, Smith explores theories of languages and philosophies of interpretation. For the most part, these chapters labor to build a theoretical foundation that the final chapter can build upon. Once Smith has established his philosophical basis, he will finally say what he has wanted to say from the start. Speaking in tongues, be it an exhortation with an interpretation or a private prayer in tongues, is more than simply strange words. Smith’s challenge to pentecostal philosophers is to consider the question “What does this prayer do?” over what do these strange words mean (144). He opens the door for philosophers to consider that “tongues” DO something regardless of whether they make any sense or not. It is here that Smith’s purpose becomes clear and exciting; in the arena of language theory there must be a legitimate place for unknown “tongues” to communicate something beyond the rationality of known words. He presses the practical question (What do tongues do?) to the harm of the theological proposition question (What do tongues mean?). “Tongues” effect and affect God. Likewise, “tongues” open other people to an expectation of the miraculous.

I have a friend named Jack who is wheelchair bound. He broke his neck in a motorcycle accident twelve years ago, and will never walk or work again. I know a woman whose seven year old daughter was run over by a drunk driver. That little seven year old girl is now in her early thirties, and has been unable to function in any sense of that word for almost a quarter of a century. I know a chap who is dying with Aids and a man who has lost his leg to diabetes and others.

I am in regular touch with an inmate at one of our correctional facilities. He became a Christian in prison several years ago; his wife and children need him at home, and he wants to be the man that God wants him to be, but his last petition for parole was turned down. I know a hundred and more other folks who lived through similar tales of hurt, abuse, neglect, sickness, disappointment, betrayal, violation and every type of wound or horror that one can suffer.

If I had time to tell you the experiences of these several hundred, you would find that a common thread, a crimson thread, runs through all their stories. That thread is that they all cried out to God, seeking an answer to the question, “Why me?” and asking for relief from what they faced. A few can tell of instant miraculous deliverance from their dilemmas, but the great majority will tell us that God turned their tragedy into triumph as day followed day.

Scripture tells us to give thanks in all circumstances of our lives; that we are to rejoice in all things for they are the will of God for your life. Does that mean that God wills we experience tragedy and overwhelming losses? No, that is not what is intended here. God so loves us each of us that he allows us to choose our paths through life, to do what we want, and to pass on how our choices affect others. God’s will for each of us is what we will or want to do, and at times, the affect of time and chance, deserved or not, through which we all travel.

At least three aspects reward the reader of Testimony in the Spirit: the book is testimonial, methodological, and interdisciplinary. Cartledge explores the everyday beliefs and practices of a classical Pentecostal church in the United Kingdom. Hockley Pentecostal Church, an established British congregation in the Assemblies of God, forms the context for an attempt to “rescript ordinary Pentecostal theology.” This task aims at the construction of a broader practical-theological account of Pentecostal identity. If successful, the book would offer insights not merely in the lives and thoughts of individuals but in the life-patterns of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity by sophisticated means of engaging everyday Pentecostal discourse.

The heart of the book is—as the title tells—the testimony of Pentecostal/charismatic Christians. Using testimony for the construction of theology is not new, but it is generally not held in high esteem among scholars. For this reason, Cartledge places the research in the context of practical theology, an empirical sub-discipline of theological studies. Here the testimonies become integrated in the larger task of reflection on a number of key themes in the Pentecostal/charismatic life: worship, conversion, baptism in the Spirit, healing, life and witness, world mission and the second coming of Christ. A chapter is dedicated to each of these themes, framed by an introduction, a methodological chapter at the beginning, and a conclusion. Reading through the key themes alone is a rewarding experience that introduces the reader to Pentecostal theology in a manner that seems more genuine to Pentecostal experience than analytic or systematic inquiry. At the same time, the testimonial theology provided in these chapters is not the final goal of the book. Rather, the listening, recording, and reflecting on such testimonies are transformed by a method that seeks to close the gap between Pentecostal spirituality and Pentecostal theological discourse.

The methodological proposal of the book is another significant reward for the reader. Cartledge focuses on the idea of “ordinary theology” proposed by Jeff Astley and develops it further with the help of the concept of “rescripting” proposed by David Martin. What is significant about these two proposals is that each of them emerged from the particular context of Pentecostalism rather than a general methodological framework. Ordinary theology is concerned with the grassroots ideas of Pentecostal theology, the lived, everyday religion that is based on experiences, attitudes, values, commitments, and practices rather than the systematic, academic discourse of doctrine. The task of “rescripting” this ordinary theology suggests a significant step of caution in dealing with Pentecostal theology that is hesitant to move too quickly toward interpretation by means of standard concepts. Instead, the telling of testimony is taken respectfully and authentically as the central expression of the faith among Pentecostal/charismatic Christians. Rescripting moves the testimonies carefully toward deeper theological reflection and provides gradually a larger image of theological discourse as it may be typical among Pentecostals. The result is a critically constructive study of Pentecostal spirituality that advances “ordinary” theological thought and praxis toward integrative ideas and proposals of renewing Christian faith and doctrine.

The rescripting of Pentecostal testimonies proceeds in a decidedly interdisciplinary fashion. The levels of discourse in the book at no point remain purely testimonial. Instead, each chapter proceeds in a parallel fashion from testimonies to rescripting of the testimonies. The process includes placing each key theme in the broader context of British Pentecostalism, offering multi-disciplinary theories to engage the key theme, and providing resources from existing proposals of Pentecostal theology with regard to each theme. Ordinary theology is thus brought into dialogue with discourse in the church, the theological academy, and the social and human sciences.