This is an anthology of primary source documents that examine the contributions of African Americans in the expansion of the modern-day Pentecostal movement. Reflected in their doctrine, songs, and liturgies, the Pentecostal movement has flourished among the races and ethnic peoples of America. In this work, Estrelda Y. Alexander, Associate Professor of Theology at Regent University and Executive Director of the Seymour Pan-African Pentecostal Project, points to the Holy Spirit as the means for cultivating racial consciousness.

This work examines the relationship between African Spirituality and Slave religion (chapter 1), the legacy of the nineteenth century Black Holiness movement (chapter 2), as well as the enduring impact of the Azusa St. Revival and Apostolic Faith Mission (chapter 3). In chapters 4-6 Alexander turns to a discussion of the denominational significance of the movement, underscoring its relationship to African American Trinitarianism, the Oneness churches, and White majority churches. Chapter 7 broaches the topic of women rights and ordination in African American Pentecostalism. Chapter 8 assesses the relationship of the movement to Neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, and chapter 9 examines the theological dimensions of social justice and racial reconciliation.

The unique contribution of this volume is the survey of beliefs, practices, and theology of African American Pentecostals as individuals and leaders speaking first-hand about their faith experiences. These “insider” voices emanate from male and female, the educated and uneducated alike. This work encompasses those from Trinitarian and Oneness backgrounds, pre- and post-Asuza Pentecostals, integrationalists and nationalists, the Word of Faith movement, and those from classical and contemporary perspectives. Each contribution is accompanied by detailed biographical information on the author and featured piece.

The nineteenth century African American spirituals resound with passion, overcoming joy, and holiness fervor. Novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston clung to the anthem of her peers from the choruses of Scripture. She sang as she strove to rise above her circumstances and life as a domestic servant in New York City during the 1920s: “Beloved, beloved, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, but we know, but we know… when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, we shall be like Him” (7).

The African American Oneness Pentecostal perspective is unique in that it is not foremost rooted in arguments of alleged modalism—a topic that pervades popular discussions of the movement. The historical African American Oneness concern centers on their biblical ‘Apostolic’ hermeneutic. In the Victim of the Flaming Sword, G. T. Haywood admits of the “One Person God” and the “Holy Ghost New Birth,” but remains convinced by the Apostolic witness that Jesus is not a subsidiary “Second Person” of the Trinity (101). The Apostles, Haywood explains, knew nothing of Trinitarian doctrine: “The word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation” (102). The Black Oneness perspective is motivated first by their commitment to the faith of the pioneers of early Christianity. James C. Richardson, in From With Water and Spirit sees in Jesus the fulfillment of the God of the Old covenant: “Jehovah-God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ of the New Testament (117).”

Lilian Sparks, a member of Ida Robinson’s Mt. Sinai Holy Church of America, embraced an early egalitarian stance. She sang of her identity in Christ and freedom to preach, “There’s neither Jew nor Gentile, to those who’ve paid the price; ‘Tis neither Male nor Female, But one in Jesus Christ…. Some women have the right to sing, and some the right to teach; but women, called by Jesus Christ, surely have the right to preach” (158).

By drawing us back to the original sources, Alexander paints a vision of freedom, egalitarianism, and yearning for the pristine faith of early Christianity. Black Pentecostalism has left this legacy, ensconced in rare and precious first-hand autobiographical accounts of sermons, hymns, testimonies, and treatises. Ministers, interested lay-persons, and the academic community at large will find in the Black Fire Reader not simply a companion resource on the African American Pentecostal experience, but access into the life, beliefs, and culture of a people who have shaped and re-envisioned contemporary Christianity.

Reviewed by Paul J. Palma

Preview Black Fire Reader: https://books.google.com/books?id=dJlMAwAAQBAJ

Publisher’s page: http://wipfandstock.com/black-fire-reader.html

Read the related review of Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism (IVP Academic, 2011) by Wolfgang Vondey: http://pneumareview.com/ealexander-black-fire/

Molecular biologist Denis Alexander and geophysicist Robert White are committed to both their Christian faith and their scientific fields, which is a characteristic to be emulated by both sides. Since they affirm both, however, this is not a standard ‘apologetic’ work; rather, the authors intend to develop and promote a ‘robust’ theism, all the while defending the verity of science, in a search for meaning and accommodation (perhaps) on both sides. Alexander and White argue that that the natural sciences and Christianity share many attributes with one another, and that any conflict between the two has been due to a priori assumptions, or interpretations of the data that each field presents; there is no real conflict, then, in truth, as the two are congruent. At the same time, however, they do not read too much into the congruencies between the two, as if the consonances reflect beneficially unto theology. In what follows, we will explore individual chapters a little more closely.

The first five chapters constitute part one, and focus – largely – on the relation of science to religion, and vice-versa. They address such issues as whether there are two separate knowledge domains – science and religious – or if the two are interdependent; it seems that they tend more-so toward the latter view than former. In successive chapters, the third and fourth, they show that neither science nor religion are discredited by discoveries in the opposite realm. In the fifth, they argue that science could benefit from the encounter and interaction with religion.

The second part of the book addresses ‘hot issues’ within the science-religion dialogue in the twenty-first century, and comprises four chapters. In the sixth, they address the issue of whether the world – and humans are created or has evolved; notably, they answer with an affirmation of both. Herein they ably discuss the three mechanisms of evolution, consisting of mutation, recombination, and gene flow; they affirm Asa Gray’s intention, directly following the publication of On the Origin of Species, to ‘baptize’ Darwin’s theory of evolution, insomuch as ‘nature is what God does’ (109). Chapter seven considers genetic engineering from a Christian perspective, and the authors advocate that we should not attempt to change the essence or telos of any organism, but that it is permissible to proverbially ‘tinker’ with various organisms (they make particular mention of transgenic plants, with reference to both pesticide and herbicide resistance, on pg. . 117). In chapter eight, the authors assert that we – as Christians – have a responsibility to be decent stewards of God’s creation, and we thus should engage in the environmental debate. The ninth chapter affirms that Christians should be – and need to be! – actively involved in contemporary science as active scientists, and thereby preserving and promoting integrity therein. All in all, the authors argue that that Christianity has much to contribute to the scientific and ethical debates facing today’s world, and we would do well to heed their advice.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher’s page: http://www.hendrickson.com/html/product/560182.trade.html

This review was first published on the In Depth Resources page of the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization to PneumaReview.com) February 22, 2010.

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to reveal the initial development of the teaching on the Holy Spirit in the life of Alexander Campbell, founder of the movement named the Disciples of Christ. Campbell’s pneumatology must be placed within the context of American history in the nineteenth century. Beginning with the influence of Cane Ridge and Millennialism on his theology, his weak pneumatology led to an insipid work of the Spirit through the denomination’s history. However, in the charismatic renewal of the twentieth century, Don Basham stood boldly against the rationalistic atmosphere of his church and became well-known for his teachings on deliverance and casting out demons. Consequently, the initial aspect of the paper contains the early history of Campbell’s pneumatology. The second part is a revelation of the charismatic Spirit’s work in one of Campbell’s followers, Don Basham. Though the two appear theologically different, the thesis of the paper is that the operation of the Holy Spirit is the amputated element of Campbell’s theology which is renewed by the baptism in the Holy Spirit in Don Basham and the mainline churches.

Alexander Campbell (1788 – 1866).

The indigenous growth of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in America has a remarkable background and history. As Alexander Campbell searched for a way to end partisan bickering among Presbyterians in Scotland, his company of Christians became one of the largest church movements in American history. As Kevin Ranaghan wrote in his journalistic description of the movement, “one type of revival movement, called Campbellite stressed the word of God well enough, but the word as understood and interpreted by ‘good common sense.’ From the somewhat more rationalistic revival emerged the Disciples of Christ in the north and the Christian Church in the south.”[1] Because the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had a diluted pneumatology, the Spirit’s presence was submerged in the past 180 years limiting revival and renewal in its members.

Cane Ridge

Interior of the original meeting house at Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Image: Chris Light.

Cane Ridge became known for its unusual manifestations of the Spirit. Though many churches were calm and quiet places of reflection, this experience was diametrically different. Leroy Garrett recorded in the The Stone-Campbell Movement, a graphic description of the “exercises” manifested at Cane Ridge:

They consisted of laughing and singing, the jerks, falling and even screaming and barking. The falling and screaming would sometimes go together, leaving the subject as if he were dead. The jerks were mostly a head movement, which sometimes agitated the whole body. Some people became amazingly acrobatic, for they would stand in one place and jerk backwards and forward with their head almost touching the ground…witnesses would see people on hands and knees in the woods, making the noise with uplifted hands, and would report that ‘they barked up trees like dogs.’[4]

This event was a Pentecost experience before Azusa Street was a reality. C. Dwight Dorough in The Bible Belt Mystique added that “persons were very often favored with visions and heavenly singing.”[5] This early nineteenth century worship was a precursor to what the twentieth century would encounter with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Yet, Alexander Campbell, a rationalist and devout reader of the intellectual philosopher John Locke never incorporated emotional worship into his church.

At a time where books on the first one hundred years of modern-day Pentecostalism are published with frequency, Alexander reminds us of the important heritage of African American Pentecostals. African and African American origins of classical Pentecostalism remain a neglected topic of study, and even African American Pentecostals often know little of their own heritage. Despite the influence of the black preacher William J. Seymour and other African American leaders on the origins and development of Pentecostalism in North America, few scholars have traced the story of African American Pentecostal origins or developed a comprehensive account of the racial landscape of Pentecostals. The recovery of African American contributions was hindered for many decades by the dominance of two competing theories of Pentecostal beginnings that identified either white or black origins. Interracial origins and the diversity of influences within different racial traditions are only recently becoming a topic of study, and the much larger questions of the relationship of particular racial theories of Pentecostal origins to the racial composition of global Pentecostalism are only in their infancy. Black Fire closes this gap with a rich account of the untold story of African American Pentecostalism.

In ten lucid chapters, Alexander recounts Pentecostal retentions from African Spirituality, the legacy of the nineteenth-century Black Holiness Movement, the impact of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street revival, the rise of African American trinitarian Pentecostal denominations, development of Black Oneness Pentecostalism, the presence of Black Pentecostals in predominantly white denominations, women’s leadership in African American churches, African American Neo-Pentecostals and Charismatic Movements, and the theological challenges of African American Pentecostalism. Two bibliographies of historical and contemporary sources complete the work.

While first impression might suggest that Black Fire is a historical work, Alexander’s study blends historical presentation with theological arguments. Never dispassionate in her writings, she has recently produced a number of works on African American Pentecostals, including a focus on Afro-Pentecostalism, in general, and women leaders in African American Pentecostalism, in particular, that confront the lack of attention given to African American Pentecostalism. At the core of Black Fire are the twin concerns of gender and race that characterize North American Pentecostal denominations. Interrogating the racial divide and gender paradox that affected the formation and ongoing development of African American Pentecostalism, Alexander explores the racist attitudes of black and white Pentecostals and attempts to repair the damaged relations. Similarly, the challenges of sexism and the suppression of women in positions of leadership are confronted in various accounts of black, Holiness, women evangelists, women as denominational leaders and organizational innovators woven throughout the historical and theological discussions. The black Pentecostal consciousness Alexander endeavors to instill is egalitarian and ecumenical, not without self-criticism, and always protecting the genuine validity of the variety of voices emerging from Pentecostals.

The book does not offer a continuous story, as one might expect, of one hundred years of African American Pentecostalism. Each chapter stands on its own, with some inevitable connections emerging from the historical and theological voices. This choice has its advantages, since the reader can follow the development selectively and with emphasis on the key themes of the century. Each chapter carries its own inherent argument, connected by the interwoven theme of African spirituality, Africanisms, and African American characteristics that influenced theological, practical, political, organizational, and denominational choices. The disadvantage of this approach is mostly evident on the macro-level historiography and felt most likely by those who look for a standard account of a century of Pentecostal history. Here, the reader will not be able to find quick references to events and figures or other historical markers without engaging the text itself. The name and subject indexes are surprisingly short and offer less direction than most historians desire. Alexander’s strengths are in the thematic presentation and analysis as well as the theological observations throughout the book.

Gavin Wakefield, Alexander Boddy: Pentecostal Anglican Pioneer (London, UK/Colorado Springs, USA: Paternoster, 2007), 245 pages, ISBN 9781842273463.

Wakefield’s text is well placed as part of Paternoster’s Studies in Pentecostal and Charismatic Issues series. For one thing, Boddy was unarguably a most important founder and leader in early Pentecostalism in Great Britain, and he also had vital international significance including the United States. Even more, his life and ministry intersected with and addressed at one point or another most of the main issues that arose during that time, many of which are still relevant—and controversial—in the movement and beyond. Thus, this scholarly and readable historical biography of A. A. Boddy has interesting applications for the present. Its emphasis on Boddy’s personable leadership style, wide travels, mediating theology, and pastoral heart suggest it may be most helpful for church leaders and pastors, but there is also much for scholars and students. As a special point of interest, Boddy, a Church of England clergyman who also interacted with many cultures and traditions, is a Pentecostal model of ecumenism and egalitarianism. Oddly enough, he has been understudied, probably because after the interruption of World War I, younger men began to lead the movement. Yet his influence continued (and continues) to be significant in subtle ways. For example, Boddy’s motto, “unity is not uniformity,” is often quoted without credit. Accordingly, Wakefield’s work is a welcome look at this important figure and leader in early British Pentecostalism and beyond. In a helpful Forward, acclaimed New Testament scholar and Bishop of Durham N. T. Wright said, “Those who pray for a fresh work of the Spirit on our own day will do well to learn from such earlier events.” I agree.

Wakefield does a good job of concisely summarizing the most salient features of Boddy’s characteristics and contributions. He speculates that Boddy’s upbringing in a poor area with heavy immigrant population and mixed religious faiths may have been formative for later years of social concern and ecumenical and inter-religious understanding. He underscores Boddy’s evangelical orientation prior and subsequent to his Pentecostal experience. He suggests wide traveling and wide ranging relations with Christians of many different denominations and even with people of non-Christian religions helped him attain an unusually inclusive outlook that nevertheless did not diminish constant commitment to his own faith or to his sense of the Church’s evangelistic mission. Boddy seems to have been an adventurous spirit who, though perhaps not a great scholar, was a careful observer and learner, and became a prolific speaker and writer.

Alexander Jensen, Theological Hermeneutics (London: SCM, 2007), 237 pages, ISBN 9780334029014.

Alexander Jensen’s Theological Hermeneutics is a historical introduction to theological hermeneutics, which Jensen defines as the way in which the problem of understanding has been addressed (2). The book surveys key theological hermeneuts and movements from antiquity, to the watershed that was the Enlightenment, up to the present postmodern context. Jensen argues that theological hermeneutics must be critical (214).

Beginning with his discussion on “Hermeneutics in Antiquity,” Jensen convincingly argues that criticism has always been present throughout the history of hermeneutics. Indeed, he shows that despite the popular impression of pre-moderns as not being critical interpreters, there have always been critical interpretations from antiquity until the Enlightenment. For example, because a literal interpretation of the text was not always amenable to interpreters, the criticism of allegorical interpretation dominated antiquity. And critical methods were developed to criticize allegorical interpretation.

Perhaps the most pivotal insight into hermeneutical thinking and criticism, however, came about as a result of Augustine’s recognition that language is imperfect and the spoken word does not perfectly convey one’s thought. In other words, the listener or reader will never arrive at the speaker’s or author’s thought, but can only approximate it (47). Jensen appropriately emphasizes that this understanding has guided hermeneutical thinking to the present, that is, except for a notable exception during the Enlightenment era.

Alexander S. Jensen is Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Murdock University in Perth, Western Australia.

Before discussing this exception, however, Jensen’s survey highlights the fact that the discovery of errors in authoritative texts led Medieval and Reformation interpreters back to the sources (ad fontes). So the Bible and the Patristic tradition were used to critique texts. Therefore, Reformation hermeneutics, commonly considered to be based on sola scriptura also had its critical element of the “purified” tradition.

But a notable exception to the need for critical hermeneutics occurred during the Enlightenment. To be sure, the Enlightenment did usher in the Modern era of explicit historical criticism attributable to the development of Baconian scientific method, and Cartesian rationalism that suggested human reason is the ultimate authority. However, the realism of the Scottish Enlightenment and Thomas Reid’s “common sense” philosophy, again, contrary to the prevailing Augustinian understanding of the hermeneutical process, considered the spoken word to be representative of one’s thought. So, critical reflection was not needed for understanding. But, agreeing with the Augustinian tradition, and in light of his thesis, Jensen considers this common sense to be naive and a denial of one’s presuppositions and prejudices in interpretation (85).

Despite Reid’s “common sense,” the post-Enlightenment era, consistent with Augustinian thought, also evidences the continuous presence of critical hermeneutics. For, Friedrich Schleiermacher advocates both a grammatical and psychological critique of texts. William Dilthey’s historicism critiques texts in their historical contexts. The so-called (by Paul Ricoeur) “masters of suspicion,” Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud, prescribes hermeneutical criticism because ideology, the will to power, and the author’s unconscious, respectively, may be the driving force behind texts.

The Pentecostal movement and Pentecostal theology has been known for a ministry of divine healing. Donald Dayton lists four cornerstones doctrines in Pentecostal theology. Among them is the doctrine of divine healing.¹ The practice of divine healing did not enter into the ministry of Pentecostals by some emotional meeting under a canvas tent. Historically, it did not arrive suddenly from heaven as a “new revelation.” Rather, healing by divine agency came from a biblically based theological system. John Alexander Dowie and others spread the doctrine of divine healing throughout the late 19th century and the beginning of the early 20th century. Although he was often known for his flamboyant style and bold presence, his message of divine healing was rooted in such a theological system. Dowie’s theology of divine healing can be expressed in a two-fold scheme: one, the continual ministry of Christ, and two, the evil of sickness.

Historically, Dowie is an important figure in the divine healing movement of the last two centuries. David Harrell, who chronicled the healing revivals in America, calls Dowie “the father of healing revivalism in America.”² This title does not imply that Dowie was the sole originator of the modern healing revival, but rather that his influence was so widespread that he is deserving of the title “father.” Dayton acknowledges that Dowie was a major source of Pentecostal doctrines of healing and that these doctrines grew out of the already existent Holiness teaching yet “being restated in a more distinctly Pentecostal vein.”³ While the Holiness teachings on healing from Charles Cullis, Boardman, A. B. Simpson, Gordon, and Andrew Murray played a role in the Pentecostal ministry of healing, none had quite the same effect as Dowie. Those who were influenced by Dowie include: F. F. Bosworth, John G. Lake, Charles Parham, and Lilian B. Yeomans, as well as various missionaries who went around the world with Dowie’s theological perspective on healing. Bosworth, Lake, and others later joined the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Walter Hollenweger estimates that Dowie “exercised a considerable influence to the early Pentecostal movement.”⁴

First – That ‘Jesus, the Christ, is the same yesterday, to-day [sic] and forever,’ and being so, He is unchanged in power and in will. … Second – That Disease, like Sin, is God’s enemy, and the devil’s work, and can never be God’s will. Peter said in the household of the Centurion Cornelius, Acts 10:38: ‘God anointed Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good and HEALING ALL THAT WERE OPPRESSED OF THE DEVIL, for God was with Him.’ ⁷

These two doctrines are the foundation of Dowie’s theology of divine healing.