As Pentecostals and Charismatics, we are people who have been confronted by an intense experience of the Holy Spirit. This has led us to reappraise the importance we attach to the Holy Spirit within our Systematic Theologies, as well as reviewing our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s ministry. But this can lead us into territories of exciting and worrying discoveries. Does the Holy Spirit really do that? Can that person really have the Holy Spirit too, as they claim?

Fundamental to Levison’s thesis is his discovery that the Spirit is not only the bearer of charismatic endowment, but the very spirit of life that brings our life into being and on which we, as living beings, are contingent. From the Genesis narratives onwards, Levison traces life itself as contingent on the presence and empowering of the Spirit: the breath of God or wind of God are synonymous with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is there in Creation and giving birth to all life of all kind.

The challenge arises in that, in this reviewer’s perspective, Levison does not appear to engage with the challenge of discussing where the real experience and engagement with the Spirit of God ends and that of counterfeit and demonic spirits begins.

This insight is found by Levison in the writing of Luke. The Pentecostal experience is seen to combine both comprehension and incomprehension, not either or: “To opt for either ecstatic tongues or comprehensible foreign languages in the interpretation of the Pentecost experience, not to mention subsequent moments of inspiration in Acts, is to diminish the fulness of the spirit and to deplete the levels of resonance that Luke, like Philo and the author of 4 Ezra, preserves. Pentecost encapsulates not merely the ecstatic or the intellectual but a rare, inspired blend of both” (p 345).

James Robinson, Divine Healing: The Holiness-Pentecostal Transition Years, 1890-1906: Theological Transposition in the Transatlantic World (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 238 pages, ISBN 9781620324080.

James Robinson’s second volume in his Divine Healing series is a major contribution to the study of Pentecostal origins in the Anglo-American world. An interesting and highly researched work, Divine Healing: The Holiness-Pentecostal Transition Years, includes enough anecdotes and testimonies from primary sources to engage the lay reader and a tempered, even-handed review of the secondary literature and historical critiques others have had concerning the divine healing movement of the late 19^th century and early 20^th.

The author, (PhD Queen’s University, Belfast, 2001), is a relative newcomer to the field, having retired from a lifelong vocation as a grammar school teacher in Northern Ireland prior to his contributions to Pentecostal studies. His volumes include forewords by such noted Pentecostal scholars as Candy Gunther Brown (Indiana University) and William K. Kay (University of Chester). As a Presbyterian elder with Pentecostal roots, Robinson is conservative in regards to his work on divine healing: “A more subliminal, and possibly ethereal, aspiration is that some within the church of our day will find something in the book pertinent to the safeguard and furtherance of the historic ministry of healing” (Robinson 2011: Kindle Location 145). This hopeful conservatism underwrites both volumes and shines brilliantly through Robinson’s careful attention to detail and objectivity.

Transition focuses on the years between 1890-1906. His prior volume covers 1830-1890, and a planned volume will investigate 1906-1930. However, these dates are not tight restrictions, but, rather, a permeable focus on people and highlights of the proto-Pentecostal era building up to Azusa.

Transition begins with a brief overview of the preceding volume and establishes the parameters of the rest of the work. In the introduction, Robinson outlines three distinctive features of the radical healing apologetic that underwrote the flowering of the movement. These features were: 1) Redemption extended to “both the spirit and the body.” 2) “As salvation is through faith, so is healing,” and 3) “Medical intervention was considered the sign of a deficient faith and brought less glory to God” (Kindle locations 214-224). These features resurface time and time again in Robinson’s narrative and analysis. The rest of the Introduction links the Holiness-Pentecostal transition to earlier historical precedents and highlights divine healing teaching and practice in a variety of contexts.

Chapter 1 looks closely at the Holiness-Pentecostal transition in America. This transition occurred in the post-Bellum era and primarily among splinter groups off of the Methodist church. These splinter groups comprised the Wesleyan Holiness counter movement from which and in which radical divine healing advocates flourished. Again, Robinson underscores the connection between Holiness teaching and divine healing rooted in the extent of redemption. Following the trajectory from Methodism, through the Wesleyan Holiness counter movement, the author finishes out the chapter with how the Holiness movement with its divine healing overtones were linked to early Pentecostal movements and leaders such as Frank Sandford, the Shiloh Movement, Daniel Warner, and Alma White. These links, as elsewhere in the volume, are developed through extensive biography and narrative along with contemporaneous accounts from those outside the movement.

An interview with Andrew Schmutzer about The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, and part 1 of the chapter, “A Charge for Church Leadership: Speaking Out Against Sexual Abuse and Ministering to Survivors” as appearing in Pneuma Review Winter 2014.

 
A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse—Part 1 A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse—Part 2

 
 
A Charge for Church Leadership—Part 1 A Charge for Church Leadership—Part 2

Interview 1 Interview 2

Note from the Editors: Beginning a conversation about sexual abuse is uncomfortable, but we feel strongly that this topic is something the church needs to address. We believe the testimonies of authentic recovery can help us embrace the pain of the hurting and make openings for God to bring healing.

Pneuma Review: Do you appreciate how Nason-Clark and McMullin invite church leaders to speak out against sexual abuse as an opportunity and not as an obligation?

Andrew J. Schmutzer discussing The Long Journey Home in 2011, by Lulu Hé. Courtesy of Moody Bible Institute.

Andrew Schmutzer: To their credit, I think they were trying to cast a positive vision for making change, rather than framing the needs negatively or sternly. When there’s so much education to do to train church leaders, adopt appropriate policies for survivors, and then actively address their needs in church services—I think they put these tasks in a more positive light.

The reality is that “opportunity” sounds socially welcoming to pastoral leaders and those interested in social justice, whereas “obligation” sounds impersonal today, adding to the “deadweight” of unachievable tasks. That said, the role church leaders have—as first-responders—is an ethical and ecclesiastical responsibility to speak for those who’ve been denied a voice. I see their message being an opportunity to have an impact of a dynamic relational and spiritual kind…obligations per se, belong on check lists. Opportunities exist for those willing to be relationally vulnerable.

PR: Please share with us a testimony of speaking out against sexual abuse.

Andrew Schmutzer: It’s understood when working with abuse survivors, your story is your story and their story is their own. So while I’m aware of many abuse stories, and have a growing army of friends learning to live on the other side of abuse, I’m not comfortable speaking of others’ personal stories.

What I can say is that I’ve conducted some very meaningful chapels at Moody, where I teach. Several weeks out, I have students submit their personal abuse stories to me by email. They know their story will be used anonymously. Having collected around 20 individual stories, I have two students volunteer to read portions of these stories, which the survivors knew would be done. With mics located in the back of the auditorium, the male student reads the other male stories submitted, and he alternates with a female reader reading portions of women’s stories. This testimony part is one of the most powerful parts of these chapels, as students hear some very painful stories from their own peers! Written prayers of lament, responsive readings, prayer circles, candles, oil, and other meaningful rituals can be woven into these student chapels. Would you believe, they can’t wait for the next one the following semester!

Introduction

Defining an ultimate Pentecostal hermeneutic is not an easy thing. This is because Pentecostalism by itself is a diverse phenomenon consisting of different types of groups. There is no homogeneity in Pentecostal grouping because different Pentecostal factions are established within different traditions,[1] even though the underlying theological formation is the same. This diversity in traditions brings with it varied theological approaches and thinking when establishing Pentecostal hermeneutics. But as Kenneth Archer observes “it is this diversity along with Pentecostalism’s ability to adapt without losing its essential beliefs and practices that has aided its growth.”[2]Pentecostal movements in different parts of the world have different factors behind their origins, but most of them have similar social-political and religious grounding. The early American Pentecostal movements, as Archer observes, have their basis on the post civil war era, which comprised of industrialization, urbanization and mass migrations. As the American society sought to discover a new identity, most spiritual movements, and especially Protestants, saw the possibility of moral reform through spiritual revival built on private action and personal responsibility.[3] It was out of these revivalist movements and social chaos that characterized post civil war America that American Pentecostalism was born. Similarly, as Ogbu Kalu argues, African Pentecostalism was born out of the African postcolonial identity crisis.[4] As Africans sought their true identity and responded to the white missionary ecclesiological structures and hermeneutics, a new approach to worship that was pneumatic in nature was born. It should however be observed, even in light of Kalu’s assertion that African Pentecostalism is not an extension of American Pentecostalism,[5] African Pentecostalism has been and continues to be highly influenced by American Pentecostalism. In both cases, Pentecostalism emerged as movements protesting the increasing evils in their immediate societies and the presumed “coldness” of the then mainline churches.[6]

Central to the Pentecostal belief and theology is the conversion experience and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals see holy living as an essential duty of the Christian. This holy life can only be obtained through the individual’s submission to the authority of Jesus Christ. Conversion is a personal choice and calls the individual Christian to personal responsibility. Every believer needs to maintain a life of holiness. This holiness cannot be attained through mere abstinence to sin, but through the guidance of the Holy Spirit hence the need for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, an experience that assures the indwelling of the Spirit of God in the believer. The Spirit gives the believer power over sin and enables them to proclaim the Gospel with power, testifying the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. Speaking in other tongues is the main evidence of one’s baptism in the Spirit. These similarities in origin and doctrine become the common denominator in which Pentecostal hermeneutics can be discussed. This paper attempts to explore the general hermeneutical approach, methodology and theological direction that the whole of Pentecostalism embraces.

Pentecostal Theology and Interpretation

Hermeneutics has been defined as both the science and the art of interpretation.[7] “As a science, it enunciates principles, investigates the laws of thought and language, and classifies its facts and results. As an art, it teaches what application these principles should have, and establishes their soundness by showing their practical value in elucidation of the more difficult scriptures.”[8] Hermeneutics involves drawing meaning from the immediate context of the literature and at the same time it “is the search for the meaning of the text here and now.”[9] Thus we can clearly observe that biblical interpretation has two main dimensions. The first one seeks to find out the original meaning of the text; the one that the author intended for the first readers. The second one looks at the meaning that the readers of the Bible might attach to it. This second dimension shows that the environment and the experiences of the interpreter largely influence the meaning he/she attaches to Scriptures.

Dale M. Coulter and PneumaReview.com editor Raul Mock at the Society for Pentecostal Studies convention March 8, 2014.

Dale M. Coulter, “The Demons of African Pentecostalism” First Things (Jan 19 2014).

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/pentecostals-and-the-demonic

Dale M. Coulter, “Evangelicals, Pop Culture, and Mass Culture” First Things (Feb 2014).

Monte Lee Rice pointed out this quotation: “by emphasizing the Spirit’s role in creation and redemption evangelical revivalism and its offshoot of the Pentecostal and charismatic movement have advanced a program that both democratizes Christianity and inculturates it in a way that preserves and fosters folk culture.”

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/02/evangelicals-pop-culture-and-mass-culture

Gary Gutting, “Is Atheism Irrational?: Skeptics may not have the evidence (or the arguments) on their side” New York Times (Feb 9, 2014).

William L. De Arteaga writes: “This is a wonderful interview article with America’s greatest Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga. It is from the New York Times – do not be surprised to see more articles like this out of the Times, as the new owner is a Christian. Share and email this link to your agnostic and atheist friends.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/is-atheism-irrational/

Jason Margolis, “This African church hopes to spread across America ‘like Starbucks': European and American missionaries have gone to Africa for centuries to spread the word of Christ. That trend is now working in reverse.” PRI’s The World (February 12, 2014).

In the Pentecostal Theology Worldwide Facebook group, BF wrote: “A great story about Pentecostal Nigerian missionaries to the USA.”

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-12/african-church-hopes-spread-across-america-starbucks

Tony Richie speaking at the Society for Pentecostal Studies convention March 7, 2014.

Tony Richie, “Pentecostalism’s Wesleyan Roots & Fruit” Seedbed.com (March 14, 2014).

http://seedbed.com/feed/pentecostalisms-wesleyan-roots-fruit

In American black churches the most important qualification for the pastor is the ability to preach, according to author Cleophus J. LaRue (p. 57). This skill, he says, has remained important to black church attendees since the days of slavery and, therefore, its art and practice have not suffered neglect nor lost appeal over the years.

After several years in the pastorate, the author now teaches homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary. Twice in the preface, he refers to the chapters of this book as essays, several of which were previously published in other venues. He reports blacks still possess a healthy sense that God is for them and believe black preaching should bolster that opinion. Black preachers, consequently, take God’s Word seriously given that it serves as a primary source of their spirituality.

In contrast to white preaching, LaRue quotes an Indian scholar who contents, “American homileticians (i.e., white) [have] tended to focus too much on the how-tos of preaching and not enough on the whys and wherefores” (p. 37).

The volume begins with a brief history of the author’s childhood in the black church, his call to preach, his choice to leave the pastorate to attend seminary, and his professorship at Princeton. He notes the differences between black and white preaching and the irrelevance of Craddock’s inductive approach for black congregations. LaRue describes for his readers the various levels of expectations black congregations have of the sermon. He maintains blacks learn to preach more from listening to respected black preachers than professors who lecture on the subject. He asserts that black preaching tends to address five domains of experience: personal piety, spiritual disciplines, social injustice, cooperate concerns (for blacks only), and church maintenance (p. 65). Also in the book, he explains his own personal sequence of sermon preparation.

LaRue quotes several prominent black homileticians who list the major characteristics of black preaching as a whole. Interaction frequently occurs with various other authors and includes bibliographical information for those homileticians who would like to consult these resources at their own leisure. After making the observation, “Christianity is turning brown and moving south” (p. 47), he cites a prediction that the majority of Christians in the foreseeable future will be located in southeast Asia, Latin American, and Africa. This forecast serves as the background for his reference to ‘colored’ preaching, in addition to black preaching.

This reviewer has no objections to any of the contents in this volume. The author takes a balanced approach to his subject and is fair in his appraisal of white preaching. He rightfully believes both blacks and whites can learn from each other and helpfully lists seven ways to improve one’s preaching: 1) by listening to good preachers, 2) by studying preaching, 3) by desiring to improve, 4) by absorbing the Scriptures, 5) by focusing on the needs of people, 6) by understanding the different ways people listen, and 7) by improving one’s insight into human nature (pp. 124-33).

Pentecostals will appreciate the black emphasis on the belief in and contact with the spiritual world, including miracles and healings. This book explains why blacks flocked to Baptist and Methodist churches after the Revolutionary War—these churches allowed blacks to participate in them—and how the black church has a huge influence over black culture with its preachers in the lead—it is the one organization blacks fully control. Members of black churches rightfully take the position, “The person who stands to preach is not there because it is his or her turn. Rather, preachers stand to preach because it is their time—a time that has been set and ordered by God” (emphasis his, p. 64).

The first exclusively digital edition of The Pneuma Review, Winter 2014 (17:1).

In this issue:

Are Pentecostals offering Strange Fire? In this issue, Pneuma Review begins its response to John MacArthur’s new book, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Thomas Nelson, 2013).

Find all of these articles individually in an easy-to-read format on the archive page: http://PneumaReview.com/winter-2014/

Gordon Smith’s book deals with a central piece of Pentecostal life: conversion. Thoughtfully read, it can deepen understanding and expectations of conversion, which in turn have evangelistic and pastoral implications. On the other hand, it will challenge much that is taken as unquestioned fact regarding conversion. Because of this challenge, some may bypass it altogether. But it would be better to read it and take away as much as presently possible.

The occasion of writing is Smith’s observation that nineteenth century revivalism has set our understanding and language of conversion. It is assumed that conversion is entirely a point action, that the focus of conversion is religious activity, and that the goal of conversion is life in heaven. The problem is that Bible teachers have much more to say on the subject. The concept of conversion has a history that is largely ignored, and that other streams of Christianity have been dealing with this subject for a much longer time. Beyond this, evangelicalism as a whole is undergoing changes. No longer can an Anglo-American perspective be considered the norm. Evangelicalism is a world-wide phenomenon with the majority consisting of Pentecostals and the pentecostalized.

Gordon T. Smith is the president of Ambrose University College and Seminary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The language of conversion is important. Many evangelicals feel alienated from their churches when their genuine experience does not match the patterns of conversion either preached or broadly assumed. Additionally, if language about conversion does not reflect how people actually come to Christ, evangelism methods will be skewed. Though nineteenth century revivalism rightly emphasized the necessity, possibility and current invitation of conversion, it never addressed some major difficulties. Conversion and salvation are made out to be synonymous when in fact, they are not. Salvation becomes something that “happened” when a commitment was made. As true as that is, NT language of salvation “happening” and “will happen” must receive equal weight. Salvation is the work of God; conversion is the human response to God’s initiative. Again, conversion is seen as simple and without struggle. Without implying that there is a minimum threshold of difficulty, conversion counts the cost and leads one to become a “disciple,” one that actually is in the game. Revivalist inspired language leaves us with the notion that one gets converted (saved), and then we must make every effort to get him or her “discipled.” We have gone from a necessary noun to a hopeful verb. Furthermore, the place of children of believers is left ambiguous. Do they need conversion? Does a child’s conversion look like that of an adult? If a child is converted at age five, is there any place for further conversion at, say, sixteen after profound personal development? For Pentecostals especially, how is the NT connection between conversion, baptism and the gift of the Spirit fostered?

Prior to revivalism, there was the evangelicalism represented by Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. Though of differing theological commitments, both shared an engagement with the beginning and progress of the life of God in the soul. They understood the integration of the affections, the intellect and the will in both conversion and salvation. They understood the place of both process and crisis as the grace of God was encountered. Knowing that mere talk of conversion was cheap, they looked for change in a person’s life. It was a different era. Unlike his predecessors, Edwards found a way to bring the gospel invitation into a person’s grasp. And unlike his successors, Wesley was no revivalist in the later sense of the term. This leads to Smith’s reminder, needing broad proclamation, that how conversion is understood has a long history, and that there are others who have experience with conversion, long preceding our own, from which we might learn.

The concept of justification carries eternity on its shoulders as many endeavor to understand, explain and experience the nature of salvation and how we need it. Justification is a term one would assume that scholars and theologians would strive to agree upon for the good of the global community. However, in spite of ecumenical efforts that include The Joint Declaration, the concept of justification remains unsettled in scholarship. In an attempt to examine justification, James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, editors of Justification: Five Views, serve the Christian community by wisely drawing on six scholars to present and analyze the five primary justification views. The list of scholars and views includes Michael F. Bird, the Progressive Reformed View; James D.G. Dunn, the New Perspective View; Michael S. Horton, the Traditional Reformed View; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, the Deification View; and Gerald O’Collins and Oliver Rafferty, the Roman Catholic View. Each scholar offers their position on justification and provides summary responses to each of the other views. While ecumenical resolution on justification may not have been the end goal, this book can serve as another conversation piece in the grand ecumenical dialogue. A well-organized text featuring a scholarly and respectful tone, Justification offers thought-provoking debate to an issue that is made possible by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ so that we may discuss the nature and need for salvation.

Setting the context for a debate to understand what is at stake and how this debate came about can either intensify or diminish the reader’s interest in the topic. Thankfully, Beilby and Eddy heighten the reader’s awareness of not only the history and contemporary components of the justification debate but also their significance. The first two chapters set the tone for the weighty conversation that is to come. Some of the topics discussed include justification and imputation, the teaching of final judgment in light of justification, pistis Christou (i.e. faith in Christ vs. faith/faithfulness of Christ), and the forensic nature of justification. For The Pneuma Review reader, it is noteworthy that while the role of the Spirit is initially highlighted by Beilby and Eddy, the significance of the Holy Spirit in the justification conversation warranted more attention.

As I read the text, a few thoughts consistently came to mind that may have enriched Justification. The first thought asks, what do these five views actually agree upon in the grand understanding of justification? A final, concluding chapter that brings the five authors together to produce the three or four tenets and/or terms that each of the five agree upon might have assisted in the ecumenical component for the reader. The extensive debate causes one to wonder whether a resolution is possible, and Horton quotes N.T. Wright stating, “If Christians could only get this [doctrine of justification] right, they would find that not only would they be believing the gospel, they would be practicing it; and this is the best basis for proclaiming it” (p. 106). Being able to read a final chapter that indicates there are some components the five views agree are “right” could have been beneficial. Speaking of N.T. Wright, the second thought involves the ghost-like involvement of this prominent scholar. His presence seems to permeate the text and direct contribution by Wright might have enhanced the conversation. The concluding thought asks whether an agreed upon definition of justification could have occurred. For the pastoral side of me, it is very difficult to walk away from an important text like this without having a definition for justification that all five authors could agree on.

Spiritual shepherds have the potential to enhance the healing journey of a man or a woman of faith whose life has been impacted by the *trauma of *sexual abuse (SA). Often, however, pastors, priests, and other religious leaders have neither ears to hear the cries for help nor eyes to see their suffering. As a result, they become an obstacle, rather than a resource, on the road to recovery. Clerical silence is taken as complicity with the acts of terror; their dismissal of the pain and despair perceived as one more indicator of rejection. God’s rejection.

An excerpt from The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, edited by Andrew J. Schmutzer.

Several terms, prompted by an asterisk (*), have been defined by pastors, therapists, and theologians that contributed to the book and are included in a select glossary. Please also continue the conversation with Andrew Schmutzer as he answers questions throughout this series.

In this chapter, we consider the powerful opportunity that clergy have to speak out against sexual abuse and to minister with compassion and *best practices to those who have been impacted by it. Drawing on our joint experiences, Nancy’s extensive research program on abuse in families of faith and Steve’s years of pastoral ministry, we weave together what we believe is an evidence-based charge to church leaders. Offering God’s care to those who are hurting—a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus—should be natural to the followers of Christ. Sometimes, though, we need to be reminded that our actions and our words bring forth God’s healing power in the lives of others. As church leaders, we need to learn to pair the practical act (i.e., cold water) with our mission (i.e., in the name of Jesus).