George Müller (1805-1898), at the age of thirty entered the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in his native Germany, having decided to pursue theology, against his father’s wishes. During that same year of 1825, meeting with a small group of believers at a house-church gathering, he experienced his own personal conversion of faith. That experience changed his life and set him on a course away from habitual sin to a calling as a missionary. After receiving his diploma from Halle, Müller was invited to join the ministry work of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (LSPCJ, later the Church Mission to the Jews). Once relocated in England, Müller began his pioneering career in what would become known as para-church ministry.

Characteristically, Müller worked hard at LSPCJ, nearly to exhaustion. After a serious illness and much reflection, he took a sabbatical rest in the sea-side area of Plymouth and Devon, England. There he met Scotsman Henry Craik who had also been converted while at university, and he a met Anthony Norris Groves (see the article, “The ‘simple standard of God’s Word’”). Groves had convinced Craik that Christ was speaking literally when he said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21). These two men along with other ‘faith in mission’ leaders, strongly influenced Müller, leading him further to a personal relationship with his Savior, Jesus Christ and his calling to minister to the poor (see the article, “Delighted in God”).

George Müller, preacher, author, and orphan home founder/director, undertook a unique approach to missionary work, refusing to accept a pre-arranged salary and funding raised by denomination boards. He did not plan budgets; speak to people about how much money he needed or send out letters begging others to supply his needs. Instead, he knelt with his wife and a few close friends and prayed. Those prayers were answered by people who brought money, food, clothes, furniture, and just about everything needed by his orphanage. Müller’s approach to rely exclusively upon prayer for resources and funding became legendary.

The Brethren influence was long-lasting, reaching out to touch such familiar figures as Amy Carmichael (see the article, “For the love of God’s Word”) and Hudson Taylor (see the article, “Thus far the Lord has helped us”) in the nineteenth century as well as F. F. Bruce and Jim Elliot in the twentieth. The Brethren taught the importance of Bible study and following God’s will, the raising of funds by way of prayer and the signs of Jesus’s Second Coming. The Brethren movement reached the world with Bible instruction and missionary work that has reverberated through evangelicalism for almost 200 years.

CH issue #128, contains 10 feature articles and 4 shorter side-bar articles; a chronology time-line; an archive of rare art-work & photos; a ‘letter to the editor’ section and an extensive reading list compiled by the CHM editorial staff. The magazine is available on-line and can be conveniently read on screen at: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org.

Christian History Institute
www.ChristianHistoryInstitute.org
Worcester, PA, December 06, 2018

George Gallup outlines what he feels will be the next true spiritual movement in America. This book is a survey that answers two main questions. First, what is the daily shape of faith behind the public expressions? And secondly, how do people experience God in everyday life? The thrust of his ideology comes from his statistics of the need to experience spiritual growth (27). The church stands in the threshold of this opportunity and must learn how to step forward into its presence (24). Gallup has come to the conclusion that people want practical everyday approaches to spiritual life. They want “the prayers on the run, and spiritual practices squeezed into the crevices of a busy day…” (136). In this they need to be handed down the practices from centuries past that have been tested and proven wise. In this churches face two age group challenges. First, is to understand the first fully post-modern generation, the millennials. The second, is to address the needs of empty nesters who are the fast-growing group of pre-retirement households.

Gallup likens this to “forming souls” which requires diligence and practice (136). The 21^st century congregations will have to place prayer over program, presence over practice, and authenticity over numbers (136). Without this approach the 21^st century church will not be able to minister to a nation that longs for meaningful spirituality. The task for the church will be to ground the desire for meaningful spirituality in the concrete truth of God’s word (128). The problem with training the present church members is that they suffer from Biblical illiteracy. According to Gallup we lack the ability to present the gospel on a basic level that allows people to understand the profound truths of Christian faith (131). This biblical illiteracy usually translated into spiritual blindness. He points out that the church needs simple incremental things that nurture their spiritual journey. These include having a spiritual focus to their activities, prayer without ceasing, and always asking spiritual implications questions about situations they face. As the churches themselves place priority on prayer, presence, and authority they become interwoven with their discipleship and operational methods. This intern roots itself into the daily personal discipleship of the individual members. The goal is to aid the post-modern society in experiencing an authentic spirituality outside on a daily basis. As the church models authenticity the people live authenticity. This modeling of authenticity can only be achieved when the spiritual blindness, or biblical illiteracy, is overcome.

Our churches today have become stuck on providing programs rather than experiences. We have to get ourselves to the point where we are implementing strategies that will help people experience a spiritual growth journey.

Reviewed by David Redden

Preview: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Next_American_Spirituality.html?id=c02nyqbnW20C

Note from the editor: this review originally appeared on the Pneuma Foundation website in January 2004. The Pneuma Foundation is the parent organization of PneumaReview.com.

George M. Flattery, A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, Luke and Acts, James E. Richardson, ed. (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2009), xxxiii + 365 pages.

George M. Flattery, A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spirit, vol. 3, John and Paul, James E. Richardson, ed. (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2009), xxxii + 368 pages.

James E. Richardson, ed., A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spirit, vol. 4, Contemporary Issues in Pneumatology (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2009), xxxiv + 325 pages.

Global University (GU), an online institution of higher education in the pentecostal tradition, has an 80-year history if you count its derivation from the merger of ICI University and Berean University, two schools initiated by the American Assemblies of God (AOG). George Flattery has taught at GU for decades, all the while studying and teaching the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The first three volumes in this set comprise his own conclusions reached in wrestling with the scriptures and the research he has undertaken.

All of the volumes in this series are fairly similarly structured. They each include a Foreword (by L. John Bueno, the executive director of the Assemblies of God World Missions Department), comments by the publisher (Carl Chrisner, the dean of the Graduate School of Theology, within which Flattery has taught for most of his GU tenure) and the editor (Richardson is GU’s professor of education and missions), a general introduction by Flattery that covers the four volumes, and distinct prefaces (respectively for the four volumes: Richard Dresselhaus, executive presbyter of the AOG; William Menzies, the denomination’s leading historian; Gary L. Seevers, Jr., then GU’s Provost and more recently its president; and George W. Flattery, son of the author and lead pastor of Stone Church in Springfield, Missouri). The back-matter for each volume includes appendices, references lists, scripture and other indices. Designed for use in GU’s courses, this handsomely produced set provides an excellent point of entry into the biblical material on the Holy Spirit to students all over the world, many of whom have limited access to scholarly resources and very basic biblical and theological literacy.

Flattery writes pastorally. The structure, method, and organization of this pneumatology are deeply shaped by the Bible school traditions of evangelical and pentecostal theological education over the course of the twentieth century. Many of the sources consulted, cited, and engaged will be familiar to readers of this journal who have a basic theological education. On occasions, Flattery engages with more recent pentecostal scholarship and in some of these instances, nicely and successfully introduces what might otherwise be threatening ideas to GU’s student audience. But by and large, Flattery proceeds methodologically through an inductive and in-some-cases exegetically driven, section-by-section, study of the scriptures. The three volumes thus provide a sort of summa on “what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit,” beginning with the Old Testament (which proceeds according to the canonical ordering), moving through Luke and Acts (amounting to what might be called a pentecostal reading of the Lukan materials), and concluding with John (including the Johannine epistles and the Apocalypse) and Paul (making no distinctions between authentic and inauthentic Pauline epistles divined by modern scholarship). The result is a compendium of biblical insights into the person and work of the Spirit that suitably introduces students from around the world to a pentecostal and charismatic worldview, at least as conceived within the classical North American pentecostal movement.

George Barna and Mark Hatch, Boiling Point: It Only Takes One Degree. Monitoring Cultural Shifts in the 21st Century (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2001), 327 pages.

George Barna is known for his apparent pessimism. The successful author of The Frog in the Kettle and The Second Coming of the Church, Barna sets out in his latest work, Boiling Point, to examine the future of North American life in the first decade of the 21st century. Barna’s research firm is conducting national surveys as well as other types of primary research on a wide range of interests. His books are therefore a natural product of many of the results, surveys and insights gained from this research. Yet in this book, the authors limited the statistical content in favor of providing a more conversational narrative that tells people the story of the likely future of an average American citizen during the first decade of the third millennium. The story of Jill provides to be an interesting yet often startling narrative about what life might be like during this decade.

The book also paints a dim picture of the Church in the 21st century. Haunted by a lasting inability to recognize and adapt to rapid cultural changes, the Church already shows signs of a widespread Biblical illiteracy, a dearth of visionary leadership, outdated ministry models, ignorance of church history, moral relativism, lack of effective discipleship, and fruitless forms of social and cultural engagement. The book supplies a road map of how these challenges affect the life of individual Christians around the country by following the story of Jill and explaining how her life could one day become the typical life of every American.

The authors are convinced that America has reached the boiling point. Rapid social and cultural changes, powerful generational differences, increasing moral relativism, overcrowded schedules, the technological revolution, religious pluralism and globalization are just a few of the factors observed in this book. All of these factors, the authors propose, affect the fictional character, Jill, in a prototypical way. Jill is lonely, angry, disillusioned, unfulfilled and confused. Those who find themselves reflected in this vision of the future will rightfully wonder what to do about this situation.

Yet Boiling Point is more than just a descriptive book; it is also a directing and challenging work. The two constant questions asked in each of the 14 chapters are “Where are we headed?” and “What can you do?” The answers to the first question expand Jill’s story in order to apply it to the general audience. The answers to the second question address the Christian response to the challenges we encounter. It is these answers that make the book a valuable guide in times of political, economic and spiritual uncertainties. The authors’ response to the challenges of our times is summarized in the last chapter with the motto: “Face the Future on your knees.” A praying community of Christians committed to Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of the Bible and the immense resources among believers—can embrace the challenges ahead with confidence and thereby become one of the most powerful agents of influence on society, culture and country.