“Can Josh Harris Kiss His Book Goodbye?: Twenty years after his dating bestseller, he reconsiders its controversial arguments” Quick To Listen (July 10, 2017).

In this 41 minute podcast, the former megachurch pastor associated with the charismatic Calvinist fellowship Sovereign Grace discusses how he is reconsidering some of his book’s arguments and perspectives. Harris says, “In certain ways, I Kissed Dating Goodbye was the equivalent of relational health and wealth.”

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Catholic but Not Roman: To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the ‘Reforming Catholic Confession’ calls Protestants to unity” Christianity Today (October 2017), pages 64-65.

Kevin Vanhoozer introduces “The Reforming Catholic Confession: A ‘Mere Protestant’ Statement of Faith to mark the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.’” A summary of the confession appears in the October issue of Christianity Today, and an invitation: “To read the full text of the confession with a historical and theological explanation, or to add your name to the list of signatures, visit reformingcatholicconfession.com.”

Roger E. Olson, “The Legacy of the Reformation in Contemporary Evangelicalism” Patheos (September 17, 2017).

“Evangelical historian and theologian Donald W. Dayton, a Free Methodist, rebelled against this evangelical self-narrative in the 1980s and 1990s, publicly criticizing it in the pages of Christian Scholar’s Review, an evangelical scholarly journal jointly published by about fifty Christian liberal arts colleges and universities. Dayton labeled the Marsden-Noll-Ramm majority evangelical narration of evangelical history the ‘Puritan Paradigm’ and argued for an alternative narration he labeled the ‘Pentecostal Paradigm.’ This was at a time when the largest denomination in the NAE was the Assemblies of God and the second largest was the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee). Dayton argued quite cogently that evangelical history and theology was being unfairly dominated by Reformed historians and theologians and Calvinism was central to that one-sided narrative of evangelical history and theology. He also argued cogently that evangelical history, theology and spirituality have been just as much influenced by Pietism, revivalism and Pentecostalism and that the Wesleyan contribution to evangelicalism was being ignored or at least neglected by the likes of Marsden, Noll and Ramm.”

Costi Hinn, “Benny Hinn Is My Uncle, but Prosperity Preaching Isn’t for Me: As part of the family empire, I lived a life of luxury. Then doubts began to surface” Christianity Today (October 2017).

J. Lee Grady, “Watch Out for the Virus of Spiritual Pride” Fire In My Bones (September 6, 2017).

Rachel Gilson, “I Never Became Straight. Perhaps That Was Never God’s Goal: Why I embraced the Bible’s sexual ethic before I understood it” Christianity Today (October 2017).

William De Arteaga says, “This is the best piece I have seen on the Christian and same sex attraction.”

Rick Wadholm Jr. gives a short review of the 2017 sessions of the Society for Pentecostal Studies during the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

I was privileged to attend three of the Society for Pentecostal Studies sessions during the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Boston, Massachusetts on November 18-20, 2017. The three sessions were excellent examples of ways that Pentecostal scholarship continues to advance Pentecostal concerns and to engage the wider scholarly community as such. The sessions were all engaging and well attended (with the rooms either filled to capacity or very nearly). The attendees were not only Pentecostal scholars, but also those who had interest in the paper presentations and themselves engaged (sometimes for a first time) with the Pentecostal/Renewalist scholars presenting. SPS provides a wonderful opportunity for Pentecostal scholars and scholars of Pentecostalism/s to participate in conversations within the academy and to further research in a multitude of avenues (as evidenced by the presentations laid out all too briefly below).

From left to right: Van Johnson; David Hymes; Meghan Musy.

Roger E. Olson, “Response to ‘the Benedict Option’” Patheos (June 3, 2017).

See also the commentary by Michael Brown: https://stream.org/mixed-feelings-rod-drehers-benedict-option/

Jayson Capser, “Forgiveness: Muslims Moved as Coptic Christians Do the Unimaginable” Christianity Today (April 20, 2017).

The subtitle reads, “Amid ISIS attacks, faithful response inspires Egyptian society.” What is God doing in the world? Using martyrs to reveal his love and forgiveness.

Samuel Ogles, “What Pastors Need to Know About Mental Health, Ministry, and Liability: How both legal experts and ministry leaders approach mental health issues in the church” Church Law & Tax (May 2017).

“Mental health is a complicated field, one that is foreign to much of the general population. And it’s seldom talked about publicly, even in churches: places meant for depth and healing. But mental health professionals have said that churches’ avoidance of these issues has recently started to change.”

“Attorneys say there may be real liability in offering counseling services to those suffering from mental illness. Churches may still decide that the pastoral need outweighs the legal risks and offer some counseling services, but that decision should be carefully considered.”

Griffin Paul Jackson, “US Prepares to Deport Hundreds of Iraqi Christians: American veteran faces forced return to dangerous homeland that two-thirds of his fellow believers have fled” Christianity Today (June 12, 2017).

Eddie Hyatt, “Why We Must Write God’s Women Back into Revival History” CharismaOnline (June 19, 2017).

Kate Shellnutt, “Gender Inclusivity Isn’t Liberal. It’s Biblical: Why conservative theologians are defending changing certain Bible verses to include women” Christianity Today (June 2017).

Although specifically in reference to the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), this article covers recent developments and discussion about how the Bible is translated and communication issues regarding gender-neutral language. Rick Mansfield says, “[T]here is a lot of misunderstanding about the Bible translation process, and it’s very easy to get churchgoers worked up over the issue if you tell them someone’s trying to water down the Bible or make it politically correct.”

Philip Yancey, “The death of reading is threatening the soul” The Washington Post (July 21, 2017).

Philip Yancey contributed “Unwrapping Jesus” to the premier issue of The Pneuma Review. Other PneumaReview.com authors have this to say about him and this “Acts of Faith” column appearing in The Washington Post:  William De Arteaga: “Philip Yancey was an editor of Christianity Today, and now writing for The Washington Post. This is a major piece.” John Ballard comments: “He makes a good point. I especially liked the poetry reference. ‘I find that poetry helps. You can’t zoom through poetry; it forces you to slow down, think, concentrate, relish words and phrases.’ We do live at a time when an avalanche of previously unavailable content is coming at us all the time, so we need different skills than previous generations.”

Eddie L. Hyatt, “Understanding the New Testament Gift of Prophecy” God’s Word to Women (July 25, 2017).

John Lathrop writes, “Here is a good article about the New Testament gift of prophecy. It is still with us today!”

Michael Brown, “Old Testament vs. New Testament Prophets” Ask Dr. Brown (August 7, 2017).

This 3 minute YouTube video seeks to answer: “How are they different? What are their similarities?”

Victoria Arnold, “Russia: One year of ‘anti-missionary’ punishments” Forum 18 (August 8, 2017).

“More than 180 individuals and communities have been brought to court in the year since ‘anti-missionary’ punishments came into force on 20 July 2016. Forum 18’s list of known cases documents the wide range of people and communities across Russia subjected to such punishments.”

D. L. Mayfield, “Facing Our Legacy of Lynching: How a memorial could help lead America—and Christians—to repentance from a dark history” Christianity Today (September 2017).

“More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and the rise of the civil rights movement in the early 1950s. Lynching was a brutal public tactic for maintaining white supremacy, frequently used with the tacit blessing of government authorities.”

J.D. King, “Early Christians Were Healed While Taking Communion” AuthorJDKing.com (August 29, 2017).

William De Arteaga comments: “This is usable knowledge.”

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “1 in 3 American Evangelicals Is a Person of Color” Christianity Today (September 2017).

“‘The American religious landscape has undergone dramatic changes in the last decade, and is more diverse today than at any time since modern sociological measurements began,’ reported PRRI on its 2016 American Values Atlas, based on more than 101,000 bilingual surveys between January 2016 and January 2017.

“In fact, the number of nonwhite Protestants has grown so large that the group has surpassed white mainline Protestants, and has nearly caught up with white evangelical Protestants.”

Jeff Christopherson, “The Fallacy of Spiritual Gifts: God uses weak people” The Exchange (September 12, 2017).

Rachel Marszalek is Vicar of All Saints Church in London, England. In this report from the New Wine United 2017 convention, she primarily shares insights and perspective about what is happening within the Anglican Church. For more about the New Wine movement and the United 2017 convention, see her other report, “Elephants Explored.”

Whether we meet God in the silence or the stadium gathering; whether we speak in tongues or sing the liturgy, whether we raise our hands or lie prostrate on the floor, Anglicans share a heritage. Philip North, the Bishop of Burnley, wrote recently about this magnanimous Church of England of which New Wine is a part. He was fascinated by the anthropology and spirituality of its various constituencies taking time out from the mother-ship, to meet, usually in a field somewhere, with its own. Keswick is home for a week for the evangelical, Walsingham – the Anglo-Catholic and Somerset – the New Wine Charismatic. There is also Spring Harvest for the gently charismatic evangelical and Greenbelt for those, well, I am hard pushed to say, those who are deconstructing and reconfiguring faith in various ways.

At New Wine, Bishop Philip said ‘the gospel is a very jolly thing … there is a powerful sense of the immanence of God … proclamation … is relevant to the immediate needs and aspirations of the culture … the festival has a powerful energy focused on a passionate belief in the local church as the hope of the world, and a real sense that we can go back home to make a difference.'[1]

Since I last reviewed New Wine for PneumaReview.com, there has been a change of leadership. Paul and Becky Harcourt are at the helm and bringing with them a new charism. This charism is encouraging a movement of God into the ordinary. There is, these days, more of an emphasis on the fifty weeks than the two spent together in worship. Paul’s opening challenge to us was to take New Wine home. This is where God will make the real difference. During ministry time, the expectant crowds are also prepared to ‘not expect.’ In other words, there is more room for the God who might not show up in experiential ways despite our sung worship, prepared hearts and open hands; the God who is also mystery and catches us by surprise. Don’t worry if He is not so tangible right now, wait … God knows … God knows you. He has His timing.

There is more humility.

In some ways, there has had to be!

In the Church of England’s July General Synod a Private Member’s Motion[2] was put forward by a change advocate, to ban conversion therapy. Its author is one of a very wide contingent strategising for doctrinal change on marriage.

Conversion therapy was denounced, passionately, at July’s synod.

Expected.

What is interesting, is that an amendment to that motion, ironing out some of the subtleties for those of us who believe in ‘conversion’ and who have heard the testimonies of people with broken sexualities, heterosexual and homosexual, made new, was not really ‘heard.’ Sean Doherty encouraged the Synod to appreciate that ‘all sexuality is equally affected by the Fall’ asking the House of Bishops to ‘discourage inappropriate … practices, and to encourage good ones’ when it comes to prayer and pastoralia.[3]

This year’s New Wine Summer Gathering was called ‘Uniting Thousands to Worship One.’ Committing itself to inspiring Bible teaching; seminars; passionate worship; fun for all the family and ministry in the Holy Spirit, it met across two weeks from the 23rd July to the 6th August, 2017. My family and I joined New Wine for Week One.

The conference is attended by Christians from all walks of life and from all over the UK. A large contingent worship in Church of England churches. Bishop David Pytches, its founder, was present this year. Bishop Philip North, one of our relatively new Bishops and from a different tradition within the Church of England, addressed the conference and described the event afterwards as one where ‘there is a powerful sense of the immanence of God … the festival has a powerful energy focused on a passionate belief in the local church as the hope of the world, and a real sense that we can go back home to make a difference.'[1]

Just the opposite, today Christians of all different types of faiths and persuasions make up to 2.4 billion of the world’s population, and recent research indicates that up to 760 million may be of the Pentecostal or Charismatic persuasion. The clear majority of all Christians in Asia, in which up to two-thirds of the world’s population lives, are Pentecostal in belief.

Many churches in Asia are some of the largest in the world and the growth is far beyond that of population growth. For example, in 1995 Christians in Taiwan were only 2.9% of the population. But twenty years later in 2015, it had grown to 6.3%, a growth of 3.4%. However, during those 20 years the population of Taiwan only grew from 21 to 23 million, a growth of only 0.9%.

Yet it is significant to note that in many Western nations in Europe and North America, the church is in great decline. I personally believe the reason is the backsliding from preaching the Pentecostal message to motivational preaching and the prosperity Gospel. We see the warning of this backsliding in Hebrews 2:1-4.

Empowered 21 is a world-wide movement in which Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians gather together at various major capitals in different parts of the world to reaffirm the truths of the Pentecostal revival, and to pass the vision, message and mantle to the younger generation.

The official publication of Empowered 21 Asia Congress 2017 states, “Empowered 21 is a global movement, dedicated to the move of the Holy Spirit amongst new generations in the 21^st century. Birthed in 2008, Empowered 21 was quickly seen as a natural kingdom-wide follow-up to the 2006 Azusa Street Centennial.”

The Vision is: “That every person on Earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit by Pentecost 2033.” The Mission is: “Empowered 21 will help shape the future of the global Spirit-empowered movement throughout the world by focusing on crucial issues facing the movement and connecting generations for inter-generational blessing and impartation.”

Craig Keener, “Who Comes to Steal, Kill, and Destroy?: The ‘thief‘ may not be who you think it is” Christianity Today (April 2017).

Andrea Lathrop, “Going Deeper with God for All the Right Reasons: Why leaders should invest in their spiritual growth and how,” Influence (Feb/Mar 2017).

Roger E. Olson, “What Should Contemporary Evangelical Christians Think about the Reformation?” Patheos (March 28, 2017).

Caryn Rivadeneira, “How to Escape America’s Anger Problem” Christianity Today (March 2017).

The subtitle of this article urging that Jesus followers find Christian disciplines says: “In this rancorous post-election season, some women are turning to tried-and-true solutions.”

J. Lee Grady, “4 Ways People Misuse the Bible” Fire in My Bones (April 5, 2017).

Dan Van Veen, “Holy Spirit Confirms God’s Love for Teen” PE News (April 7, 2017).

A story of salvation and the Holy Spirit using xenoglossolalia to encourage a young immigrant. Thanks to John Lathrop for sharing this article.

“WCC and Pentecostals discuss discipleship and formation in California” (April 11, 2017).

PneumaReview.com writers Mel Robeck and Amos Yong participated in the six-day Joint Consultative Group between Pentecostals and the World Council of Churches.

Ryan Lambert, “Is Jesus the Jewish Messiah?: A summary of an important recent debate” First Fruits of Zion (April 18, 2017).

A torah observant Messianic Jew reflects on the recent debate in Atlanta between Rabbi Freitag and Dr. Michael Brown.

Jerry Root, “Cease Squirming and Know That I Am God: Why Don’t We Share the Gospel?: We share the gospel because men and women need to know they are loved by God” The Exchange (April 22, 2017).

Timothy George, “Fosdick’s Reformation” First Things (May 1, 2017).

William De Arteaga says, “Excellent summary and analysis of one of America’s premier liberal theologians.”

Matthew Bell, “The biggest megachurch on Earth and South Korea’s ‘crisis of evangelism’” PRI’s The World (May 1, 2017).

Cindy Wooden, “Pope plans Pentecost celebrations with charismatics and Pentecostals” CruxNow.com/Catholic News Service (May 2, 2017).

The subtitle reads, “Pope Francis, in a show of openness, invited Catholic charismatics and members of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches to Rome to join him in celebration of Pentecost and the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Catholic charismatic movement.”

The byline of this blog by Karl Vaters reads, “Long-term pastorates are almost always good for the church and the pastor. But when these things happen, it’s time to go.”

Eddie Hyatt, “Learning to ‘Think Critically’ Without Quenching the Spirit” Global Christian Awakening (December 31, 2016)

PneumaReview.com writer Eddie Hyatt talks about gifts and manifestations of the Spirit, personal prophecy, and a warning about how being careless about how we approach these things can create life-arresting problems. “When it comes to the supernatural, we should have an attitude of being open without being naïve and being critical without being judgmental. This will allow us to enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings and at the same time be protected from the many deceiving spirits at work in the world today.”

Karl Vaters, “5 Problems With Top-Down Vision-Casting – And a New Testament Alternative: Acts 2 does not give us a picture of Peter hearing from God in private, then coming to the disciples with the vision” Pivot (December 19, 2016).

In this blog from Karl Vaters, hosted by ChristianityTodayOnline, we are asked, “Have we been doing vision-casting wrong?”

George Thomas, “Radical Revival Falls on China’s State-Controlled Churches” CBN News (January 5, 2017).

Pastor John Lathrop invites us to watch this encouraging testimony and read this introductory article about what God is doing, “an unprecedented Christian revival happening in parts of China. What is unique about this story is how God is moving among communist-controlled government churches.”

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “The Favorite Bible Verses of 88 Nations” Christianity Today (January 10, 2017).

PneumaReview.com editor Raul Mock says: “In this short article and the Country-Verse table that follows you will find interesting, current, relevant, and biblically-centered ideas for sermon starters and anecdotes.”

Roger E. Olson, “Who Were the First Protestants? Reflections on the ‘500th Anniversary’” Patheos (January 16, 2017).

I always enjoy the opportunity to listen to what world-class Pentecostal scholars are producing and it is a real pleasure to reconnect with PneumaReview.com writers. This year’s convention provided many memorable meetings.

I experienced a spirit of unity during the powerful worship service that opened the 2017 convention. There is nothing like celebrating God’s goodness together with Pentecostal scholars from all over the world. You would not know from my pictures how involved this crowd of academics and professors was in dancing before the Lord, raising their hands in praise, singing, or praying in the Spirit—but it was wonderful.

I love books and was glad to browse the many offerings from the numerous publishers present for the conference. Standing at the Eerdmans table, I was able to personally thank Craig Keener for doing an interview with us about his recent book Spirit Hermeneutics. I also learned that it is Harrison House’s new imprint, Empowered Life, that is publishing Robert Graves‘ expanded and revised Praying in the Spirit (the earlier edition was reprinted in full in The Pneuma Review).

To see a list of papers and panels presented during the convention, see the SPS website. As always, there were many presentations I missed because I could not be in more than one place at a time.

I will be adding more pictures to the Pneuma Review Facebook page if you would like to connect with me there. Update: I’ve been able to add a direct link to the Facebook album on the third page of this article.

From left to right: Tony Richie, Mike Dies, Raul Mock, and Martin Mittelstadt. Lee Roy Martin.

From left to right: Craig S. Keener and Raul Mock. Raul Mock and Antipas Harris.

The School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary invites you to the 2017 Missiology Lectures.

RACE, THEOLOGY, AND MISSION

November 1–3, 2017 in Pasadena, California

Speakers include: Akintunde E. Akinade, Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Daniel Jeyaraj, Willie Jennings, Angel Santiago-Vendrell, Andrea Smith, and Jonathan Tran.

Conference organizers include:  Love Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, and PneumaReview.com writer Amos Yong.