How to make a humble, biblical case for the charismata and allow the Holy Spirit to do the convincing.

In one sense, charismatics have finally achieved a certain level of respectability within the Evangelical movement. Today, we have academic societies and publications¹ dedicated to the study of charismatic and Pentecostal issues in which even non-charismatics participate. Our books can now be published outside of denominationally-based publishing houses.² One could reasonably argue that the movement has finally found a seat at the Evangelical table.

While it is gratifying that much of the overt and bitter opposition to charismatic theology has diminished in recent years³, charismatics still confront pockets of theological opposition. In the spirit of having answers for those that question (1 Pet 3:15) and rebuttals for those that doubt (Tit 1:9), I have several tips to help defend and propagate charismatic beliefs.

Before delving into the tips, I must lay a little ground work. First, this article deals with apologetics within the Christian community. Although elements of the following tips may be helpful for responding to non-believers that purpose is secondary to the goals in this article. Second, apologetics is a dangerous game not just because of the important theological and spiritual issues at stake, but also due to the emotions and pride that can accompany debates. Certain personalities are drawn to the challenge of ideological conflicts. If this trait characterizes you, I want to caution you to avoid the error of being more concerned about winning the argument than helping a brother understand the truth. Spiritual maturity is a critical element in responsible apologetics. We must always remember that our debates with fellow believers should have a different tone and spirit than our work with non-believers. Furthermore, one must employ wisdom when selecting among the following tips. Just as a golfer chooses different clubs for different situations, so apologists must select the right tip for the particular situation.

Tip #1. Ask the anti-charismatic to tell his/her testimony and experience in Christ. It may sound strange but I believe that many anti-charismatics took this position because of a bad experience. In other words, their bias against charismatic theology stems from experience not exegesis. Whether their negative experience was legitimate, or simply a misunderstanding on their part, is ultimately irrelevant. The point is that their negative experience with charismatic theology or behavior has colored their understanding and view of charismatics. I discovered this truth during a conversation with a non-charismatic minister. He recounted a sad story of how his charismatic mentor ultimately failed him. I could sense that his emotional pain still lingered even though many years had passed. I can only wonder how this brother’s theology would have developed if his charismatic mentor had treated him differently.

Harriet A. Harris, Fundamentalism and Evangelicals (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [2008 in paperback]), 400 pages, ISBN 9780199532537.

Fundamentalism and Evangelicals is a revealing and fascinating book. Harris gives a close and objective reading of the evidence that modern evangelicalism is ruled by a fundamentalist mindset, which, as Harris defines it, primarily has to do with an insistence on the factual content of Scripture. This book is not so much about naming two separate streams (evangelicalism and fundamentalism), but rather about the fundamentalist side of evangelicalism. This book is largely a (mostly friendly) response to James Barr’s critique of fundamentalism (found in Fundamentalism [1977] and Beyond Fundamentalism [1984], along with various articles). It is therefore worth noting that Barr largely agreed with Harris’s response, which is strong testimony to its worth: “[W]here she differs from my own past judgements, I generally accept her correction” (review of Harris, in Journal of Theological Studies 51 [2000] 408-11). Although Harris is aware that the terms “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism” should not be used interchangeably, she pointedly allows a good deal of the overlap to remain in the reader’s mind throughout this book. This inevitably will annoy some readers (as no one really wants to be called a “fundamentalist”), but I found it challenging and refreshingly honest. I say this even though I count myself an “evangelical” (in the broader sense of the word).

Harris is the chaplain of Wadham College (Oxford University), and, as such, her treatment of evangelicalism is somewhat stronger from the English side than from the American side. I should also note that her discussion of Pentecostals is not always accurate. For example, Harris mistakenly refers to the Journal of Pentecostal Theology as a “British counterpart” to the journal Pneuma (p. 82 n. 12). Undoubtedly she was confused by the (then) location of the imprint (Sheffield, England). In terms of editorship and the balance of contributions, both journals are American.

Harris obviously does not care for the fundamentalist insistence that the truth of Scripture lies in its factual content. Like so many before her, she tries to connect the propositionalist focus of modern evangelical hermeneutics with the Common Sense Realism of the Scottish Enlightenment. Her attempt falls flat, as it fails to consider propositionalism on its own. Harris falls victim to the idea that you can debunk a view simply by deconstructing its history. In this case, the error is double, in that propositionalism is a notion going back way earlier than Common Sense Realism. Harris’s alternative to propositionalism represents the weakest point of the book. Her rather dismissive attitude to the notion that Scripture is primarily propositional (and to the question of how factualness relates to truth) is disappointing, as she shows little regard for the historical genre of much of Scripture, nor does she trace out the “fundamentally” factual content of the gospel message lying at the center of the New Testament. In this regard, I have to say that James Barr’s books on fundamentalism still hold the edge, as he never loses sight of the creedal shape of Christian belief.

David A. Livermore, Cultural Intelligence: Improving your CQ to Engage our Multicultural World (Baker Academic, 2009), 288 pages, ISBN 9780801035890.

What is ‘cultural intelligence’ and why is it important? In today’s multicultural and multilingual world, it is more necessary than ever for church leaders and lay believers to learn how to express “love and respect for people who look, think, believe, act and see differently than we do” (11). This becomes all the more pressing when we realise that several different generations or even nationalities may be present in the churches and communities in which we live and worship. This is the driving force behind David A. Livermore’s excellent introduction to cross-cultural work and ministry. This guide is suitable for all leaders who have a heart to “reach across the chasm of cultural difference” (11) and, in this reviewer’s opinion, is destined to become a classic in its field and the benchmark against which future works will be based.

The book is split into four parts, covering the four areas of cultural intelligence (shortened to CQ), a new model for cross-cultural work and reflection. In the first part, “Love CQ,” Dr Livermore argues that the basis of all successful cross-cultural work must be genuine love for others and not simply “politically correct tolerance” (20). Only once we are sure that this is our foundation can we move on to actually learning about other cultures.

The second part, “Knowledge CQ,” maps out the contours of culture as a concept and gives examples of its different representations in everyday life. In chapter 4, for example, the author summarises the typical values of the prevailing socioethnic culture of the USA, while in chapter 5 he wrestles with the complicated task of defining culture. The last three chapters of this part cover the nature of different cultural domains, from socioethnic to organisational culture (chapter 6), the relationship between language and culture (chapter 7) and a general overview of a variety of cultural values, overlaid on a series of sliding scales (chapter 8).

The second deficiency is that in chapter 5, where he sets out to define culture, no settled definition is actually presented. Instead, we are offered a handful of “useful” definitions and a tour around common metaphors used in discussions of cultures (80-81). While it may indeed be true that the very nature of culture makes it difficult to define, and while previous definitions may not have been too helpful (80), the lack of a settled working definition here is disappointing.

Some reviews to look for in the Spring 2010 issue:

John Poirier reviews William Tabbernee, Prophets and Gravestones: An Imaginative History of Montanists and Other Early Christians (Hendrickson, 2009).

Religion writer Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Baker, 2008) is reviewed by Pentecostal scholar Wolfgang Vondey.

Professor Mara Crabtree reviews an article by Jennifer Cisney, “Healing From the Pain of Sexual Assault” that appeared in Enrichment (Spring 2009).

Also coming soon: “How should we lead the church?”

The Pneuma Review editorial committee asks New Testament scholars, experienced pastors and ministry leaders about the doctrine of the church. How should we lead the church?

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Jack Hayford preached a sermon at Church on the Way in 1982. He chose Ephesians 6 for his scripture from which he described the armor of God, and how we were to embrace and wear that armor to ward off attacks of the enemy of our souls. I was 51, single, lonely and living in Los Angeles at that time. I owned a major part of a successful construction consulting engineering firm that was growing nicely. I had become a Christian in 1961.

Toward the end of the sermon, Pastor Jack advised there were times when the devil was out to steal our future and when that was the case, we had to more than put on the armor; we had to declare war on the devil, and refuse to surrender our future.

I played golf later that Sunday. I got to the club late in the afternoon and played alone. I got to the fourth hole and hit the ball well. I drove down the cart path and stopped where the cart path to the eighth tee intersected the path I was using.

I got out of the cart and looked around. No one was close by or about to come my way, so I took that moment to declare war on the devil. By then, I had decided that he was not going to steal any more of my future, and I challenged him at the top of my voice. No one heard me and when I was done, I got back in the cart and played on.

I got home that evening and instead of going across the street to my customary restaurant for supper, I got busy and never bothered to eat. I got up the next morning and felt checked about breakfast, settling for a cup of coffee.

I did not know much about spiritual warfare at that point in my life. Oh, I had heard about it, but somehow it was beyond my level of experience or interest. My two skipped meals lead to a third, a fourth and soon I knew I was fasting. My recollection is that I sort of fell into this fast; at least, I have no recollection of making a decision not to eat.

I went over to my friend’s home on Thursday. His name was Chuck Shoemake, and at that time he pastored the Canoga Park Foursquare church. His wife Ruby joined us, and we sat around their living room talking. Our custom to close one of my visits was to kneel around their coffee table and have a prayer.

Michael Wilkinson, ed., Canadian Pentecostalism: Transition and Transformation (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 308 pages, ISBN 978077355.

Canada is probably not the first place that comes to mind when we speak of Pentecostalism. One of the most significant transformations in twentieth-century Christianity, the emergence and development of Pentecostalism is typically more closely related to the history of the United States. Even in its global proportions, Africa, Asia, and Latin America may come to mind before one thinks of Pentecostalism in Canada. Michael Wilkinson’s book shows us that we have been misinformed. Canadian Pentecostalism provides the first comprehensive overview of Pentecostalism in Canada.

The book is a collection of essays from thirteen scholars, most of them Canadian, and all of them intimately familiar with the subject matter. The collection begins with the editor’s introduction, properly entitled “Pentecostalism in Canada.” The reader learns about the official history of Pentecostals in Canada since 1911 and the variety of denominations that characterize the Pentecostal landscape in the northern part of the North American continent. Wilkinson introduces the reader to the fundamental questions to which the book attends: How did Pentecostals emerge and develop in Canada? What are the particularities of Pentecostalism in Canada? And how did the Pentecostal movement become institutionalized and globalized? The book is organized around these questions into three areas: the origins and development of Pentecostalism in Canada, aspects of the Canadian experience of Pentecostalism, and the institutionalization and globalization of Pentecostalism.

In the first part, Michael Di Giacomo, Thomas A. Robinson, Peter Althouse, and Randall Holm seek to uncover the origins of Pentecostalism in Canada as well as to overcome the historiographical bias that has shifted too much attention to the United States. Giacomo addresses the early British influences on Pentecostals in Canada, Robinson examines Oneness Pentecostalism, Althouse explores the social dimension of Pentecostal eschatology, and Holm looks at the peculiarities of Canadian Pentecostal spirituality.

The second part deals with the development of Pentecostalism in education, theology, mission, and gender relations. Bruce Guenther explores the distinctive beliefs of Pentecostals and its pedagogical influences in Canada. Martin Mittelstadt looks at the distinctive Pentecostal reading of the Bible from the perspective of Luke-Acts. Robert Burkinshaw describes the early developments of mission work by Pentecostals in British Columbia, and Pamela Holmes considers the interactions of gender, institutions, and Pentecostal spirituality.

Michael Wilkinson

Jeffrey J. Niehaus (PhD, Harvard University) is professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. His previous publications include God at Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East (Zondervan, 1995) as well as commentaries on Amos and Obadiah (Baker, 1992-93) and numerous journal articles. In the text now under discussion, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology, Niehaus draws on research into ancient Near Eastern contexts to compare numerous parallels in (especially) the Old Testament (OT) and the Bible as a whole. Carefully researched and yet written in quite readable language, it is well organized and has a short but good bibliography and Scripture and subject indexes. This work should be an excellent resource for students, teachers, pastors, and Bible readers interested in understanding more deeply the cultural and spiritual background of the Holy Scriptures.

The Preface and first chapter identify Niehaus’ guiding principles. He writes reverently. He is convinced of God’s sovereignty over history and human cultures, and therefore contends that God has “allowed a variety of parallels to arise between theological concepts and practices in the ancient Near East and their counterparts in the Bible.” However, he thinks “there is not only a parallelism between certain themes in the Bible and its world, but there is also a structure of thought that is common to them both and that forms the theological backbone of the Bible.” Niehaus defends a strong doctrine of truth rooted in the biblical revelation. Yet he also defends the idea that ancient myths can contain elements of truth more plainly manifested in the Bible itself. Some try to account for this strange fact by positing some universal aspect of human nature and others simply see the Bible as dependant on pagan literature; but Niehaus looks at pagan literature through the lens of the Bible rather than the converse. In a word, Niehaus parts company with much of contemporary ancient Near Eastern and OT scholarship. He plainly does not see the Bible as dependant on pagan literature. Rather, he thinks the biblical revelation draws on preexisting and widespread cultural thought constructs to communicate divinely revealed eternal truth.

Niehaus argues, first, that the OT preserves true and accurate accounts of major events (e.g., Creation, the Flood), but that extra biblical sources may also “preserve the memory of such events”, albeit in distorted forms. Second, he argues that the OT uses literary and legal forms current in surrounding cultures as vehicles of special revelation. Third, he argues that the parallels between these appear “because God allowed concepts that are true of him and his ways to appear in the realm of common grace.” Accordingly, the Old and New Testaments complete and fulfill “the shared theological structure of ideas” that already existed in the ancient Near East. He goes farther, however, insisting that this shared theological structure provides “the theological backbone of the whole Bible.” He readily admits that in the ancient Near East the shared structure eventually became “blurred” and that in modern western cultures it has been “abandoned”; it is only “kept alive” in the Church, “God’s people, who continue to be his temple and to advance his kingdom, until he returns to establish it once and for all, for all time, and for all who believe in him.”

We know nothing about those who died that day, the condition of their souls, or why God chose to call them to judgment at the moment Whitefield proclaimed the word. But you and I do know that a holy terror gripped the people standing before him. This man was no ordinary preacher. The congregation knew that in a paralyzing way the Holy Spirit was “confirming the word with signs following.” Mark 16:20.

Dwight L. Moody’s Encounter With The Holy Spirit

A century ago, the ministry of Dwight L. Moody shook the nation in a way that continues to vibrate mankind to this day. What changed an ordinary man into one of the great voices in Christian history? Moody himself gives the explanation:

I began to cry as never before for a greater blessing from God. The hunger increased; I really felt that I did not want to live any longer. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day in the city of New York—oh!, what a day, I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed Himself to me and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

Herbert W. Bateman IV, ed., Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 480 pages, ISBN 9780825421327.

Probably every Christian has read one of the warning passages in Hebrews and wondered whether they have rejected God’s grace to the point of no return. The confusion that results partly explains the wide variety of views held by theologians on these Scriptures.

In response to the dual concerns of theological and pastoral praxis, the authors wrote this volume. The preface explains its formal origin, “This book is a collection of papers initially presented to the Hebrews Study Group during the fifty-sixth annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (November 17-19, 2004).” Each of the four authors is a recognized scholar on the Book of Hebrews. Two are Arminians and two are Calvinists.

This work is another in a spate of books on a range of subjects looked at from three to four different points of views. Various publishers have ventured into this area of publishing.¹ Of course, these books are all co-authored by respected scholars in their fields. For the average reader who is theologically untrained, however, they may be left in a state of confusion. Even for scholars, it is sometimes difficult to reach a conclusion on these matters. One difference in this book, as a friend pointed out to me, is its narrow focus. Most of the books that constitute this genre address major subjects like predestination, the Lord’s Supper, or the relationship of the Old Testament law to the New Testament believer, etc. This manuscript specifically examines a few debated passages from the Book of Hebrews.

Herbert W. Bateman IV, the general editor, opens with a lengthy introduction to these warning passages. In his essay, he claims that all the presenters in the book believe those warned in Hebrews were genuine Christians.² To this reviewer, his chapter seems superfluous. For example while filled with information including copious footnotes, it contains little the actual authors do not cover themselves in their respective chapters.

Grant R. Osborne (representing the classical Arminian view) believes the warning passages teach that apostasy can occur and when it does it is unpardonable.³ Calvinists view the threatened discipline as the loss of rewards (or loss of fellowship with God according to others of their camp), but not in any case the loss of salvation. While Arminians view the threatened discipline as the lost of salvation, most of them believe Christians who backslide can still repent in this life and renew their salvation by the grace of God. Other Arminians believe Christians cannot only backslide but apostatize to the point of not being able (or desirous) ever to repent. Osborne adopts this latter position. He does not believe one can repent if he or she commits apostasy.

Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), ISBN 9780801031786.

Daniel J. Treier, associate professor of theology at Wheaton College, has written a timely and definitive introduction to the latest theological craze among evangelical theologians and scholars—the so-called “theological interpretation of scripture” movement. Although the writing is clear throughout, the book’s unrelenting polemic against historical criticism is a serious drawback. I say that in spite of the fact that it scarcely could have been written any other way: the theological interpretation movement is all about hostility towards historical criticism.

Treier refers to the approach of the theological interpretation movement as a “new, yet old, way of engaging the Bible” (p. 11). This understanding of the movement’s approach as something “new, yet old” seems to underlie much of the movement’s justifying rhetoric. For Treier, as for others, theological interpretation is both forward-looking (in that it seeks an escape from a certain malaise) and backward-looking (in that it seeks to reconnect with exegetical practices of the past). Implicit in this bifocal approach is a distrust of the historical-critical view of Scripture, a view that theological interpretation proponents associate with Enlightenment ways of thinking. Treier inscribes the forward-looking aspect of the approach in the title to the volume’s introductory chapter (which refers to postmodernism), and he inscribes the backward-looking aspect in the title of chapter one (“Recovering the Past: Imitating Precritical Interpretation”).

Treier outlines some broad hermeneutical rules for what he considers “theological” reading, mostly having to do with maintaining connections with how the church, at one point or another, has read Scripture. In this context, “church” does not seem to signify the whole church, but rather a select set of practitioners of figural reading strategies, reading Scripture through a heavy-handed appeal to the rule of faith.¹ In other words, Treier uses the term “church” mostly to signify alternatives to the historical method. This is problematic, of course, given the fact that the historical method, in contradistinction to figural reading, embodies the propositionalist understanding of truth that grounds the gospel message. Treier justifies this “churchly” hermeneutic by calling the church the “community of the Spirit”, as if the Spirit’s role within the church has been to guide its reading practices.

Given what I have just written, it is difficult to judge this book. On some levels, it works as an introduction—for example, the writing is always accessible. On other levels, however, it is a real letdown—for example, its rhetoric against historical criticism can hardly be considered fair. I therefore recommend it as an introduction to the theological interpretation movement, but not as a general guide for reading Scripture.

Reviewed by John Poirier

Notes

¹ I call this appeal to the rule of faith “heavy-handed”, because it marks a distinct departure from the intended use of the rule of faith. In place of using the rule to ensure that one’s overall interpretation of the central aspects of the faith is on target [viz. doctrinally orthodox], Treier and others use it in a special way—as a guide for how one reads up front, viz. as a warrant for reading figurally.