“The Relatable Zeal of Puritan Women: They were extremely into religion without being extreme” Christianity Today (January 3, 2023).

Catherine Parks interviews Pneuma Review author Jenny-Lyn de Klerk about Puritan spirituality.

Max Lucado, “Help, Wisdom & Strength for You Right Now” Charisma (Jan-Feb 2023).

In this excerpt from Help Is Here: Finding Fresh Strength and Purpose in the Power of the Holy Spirit (Thomas Nelson, 2022), Max Lucado describes his early struggles with burnout and how to move past four common misunderstanding about the gifts of the Spirit and keep growing.

From the archives: Tim Stafford, “The Pentecostal Gold Standard: After 50 years in ministry, Jack Hayford continues to confound stereotypes—all to the good” Christianity Today (July 2005).

John Lathrop suggested this significant article, the cover story from Christianity Today’s July 2005 issue, as another way of marking the passing of Jack Hayford.

Kyle Duncan, “Just Call Me Jack: Pastor Hayford’s heart, humility & authenticity allowed the Holy Spirit to shine through” Charisma (February 20, 2023).

Wolfgang Vondey, “Pentecostal Theology” St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (January 25, 2023).

Thanks to Rick Wadholm Jr for this recommendation by PneumaReview.com author Wolfgang Vondey. This entry includes recommended further reading and works cited.

Image: Jeremy Thomas

Craig Keener, “Opinion: What is Revival—and is it Happening at Asbury?” Roys Report (February 16, 2023).

John K. Jenkins Sr., “The Apostle Paul’s Secret to Preaching” Outreach (March 14, 2023).

“This article is adapted from a talk John K. Jenkins Sr., pastor of First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Maryland, gave at the 2022 Amplify Outreach Conference.”

David Livermore, “Leadership Advice You Should Ignore” DavidLivermore.com (March 16, 2023).

Global pioneer in Cultural Intelligence, PneumaReview.com author David Livermore writes to business leaders, emphasizing principles that also speak to the world our parishioners live in: “So much advice to leaders and entrepreneurs is ill suited to leading in a digital, diverse world. It often includes kernels of truth; but if we’re committed to being an effective global leader, we need to rethink a lot of what passes as essential leadership advice …”

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, “Company that Trademarked ‘Worship Leader’ Makes Others Drop the Term” Christianity Today (March 20, 2023).

Subtitle of the article reads: “Popular meme accounts lose social media pages after being reported by Authentic Media, which says it coined the phrase.”

Stanford E. Linzey, Jr., “Is Speaking in Tongues Just Gibberish?” CharismaNews.com (March 25, 2023).

Does speaking in tongues seem foolish? The late Stanford Linzey wrote: “So when speaking in tongues, if it sounds foolish, silly or like gibberish, and one does not think it is a language, he should remember this: There is nothing one can utter that does not have meaning as far as God is concerned.”

PR

Hadje Cresencio Sadje, a Filipino scholar doing Ph. D. studies at the University of Vienna, contributes to global contextual methodologies through his monograph, Grassroots Asian Theologies: Doing Pentecostal Theology in the Philippine Context. Sadje attempts to integrate Liberation theology and Pentecostal theology in the Philippine context (10), noting that both recognize grounded realities and contextual experiences as loci for theologizing. He agrees with Asian Pentecostal theologian Simon Chan, whose seminal book, Grassroots Asian Theology, argued for the ecclesial experience in theologizing (12). Whereas Chan offered a Pan-Asian approach, Sadje particularizes his study within the Filipino context. He does this by analyzing Filipino theologies, both Pentecostal and Liberationists, to draw out an alternate theological method for developing a holistic grassroots Filipino theology.

In the book, Sadje constructs his alternate theological method by offering an exposition that spans four chapters. In chapter one, he discusses Chan’s methodological propositions for developing Asian grassroots theology. He notes Chan’s critique of elite theologies vis-à-vis Pentecostal grassroots theologies (11). As Sadje points out, Chan argues for replacing elite theologies (not grounded on the grassroots lived realities) with the ecclesial experience (derived from the lived realities of both theologians and laity).

In chapter three, Sadje reviews Filipino Liberation theology, especially Eleazar Fernandez’s magnum opus Towards a Theology of Struggle, which offers a theological reading of the Philippines considering its colonial past and socio-political challenges (64-65). As in the previous chapter, Sadje compares Chan’s ecclesial experience with Fernandez’s hermeneutic of the underside (67-69). Interestingly, Chan and Fernandez agree that “theologizing is a community affair” (67). Fernandez, however, specifies the interlocuters of theologizing as “the poor, marginalized, and oppressed Filipino people” (69).

Finally, in chapter four, Sadje converges ideas deduced from previous chapters to offer “alternative guidelines for doing grassroots Asian theologies” (75). After explaining the challenges in doing Filipino theology, he then adopts the Critical Asian Principle (CAP) espoused by the Associate for Theological Education in Southeast Asia (ATESEA) (78). Despite criticisms against the CAP, Sadje affirms its continuing relevance in developing holistic grassroots theologies. Moreover, he offers four considerations in developing Filipino grassroots theology: the necessity of contextualization, political and economic engagement, ecological/environmental response, and ecumenical-interreligious engagement (90).

In the final analysis, Sadje points to the overlap between Liberation and Pentecostal theology, commenting that both lean toward grassroots theologizing to develop a living theology. Indeed, local theologies today generally lean towards theologizing with grounded realities in mind. For Sadje, Chan’s ecclesial experience, Ma’s Pentecostal method, Fernandez’ theology of struggle, and ATESEA’s Critical Asian Principle, when cumulatively considered, may lead to deeper theological insights in the Filipino context (90-91).

Sadje’s expositions are insightful. He does a fair job of promoting the move toward contextualization and proposing a framework for constructing theologies in the Filipino context. As a way forward, I encourage sufficient consideration of Pentecostal distinctives in his guidelines. To be considered a successful integration of Liberationist and Pentecostal systems, the inclusion of Pentecostalism’s trialectic (Spirit-Scripture-Community) in biblical interpretation can be added into the loci theologici. Sadje can delve deeper into this oft-discussed framework as he attempts to integrate both systems into a holistic grassroots method.

Despite the above notations, Sadje’s work contributes significantly to developing methodologies for Filipino theologizing. His monograph helps to fill theological lacuna in Asia and urges Filipino Pentecostals to be much more involved in public theology.

Reviewed by Lora Angeline E. Timenia

A few years ago, I was having lunch with a good friend, the editor-in-chief of a flagship evangelical magazine. I knew him well enough to raise a question: “Tell me something: Why do your articles regularly refer to ‘evangelicals and Pentecostals,’ as if they were two separate breeds? You wouldn’t print ‘evangelicals and Baptists’ or ‘evangelicals and Arminians.’ I’m a Pentecostal—and I wholeheartedly uphold the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the necessity of personal salvation, the call to spread the gospel … what else do I have to do to be considered a legitimate ‘evangelical’?”

He smiled as he granted that I had half a point. He made no commitment, however, to change his publication’s verbiage.

Granted, he had no time for speaking in tongues, which began blossoming at the Azusa Street Mission just few years before Torrey headed west in 1912 to lead the nearby Bible Institute of Los Angeles (B.I.O.L.A.). The first chapter of Menzies’ book explains why. But Torrey consistently resisted all efforts to submerge Spirit baptism into something purely internal or transactional. Three years after Torrey’s death, when Moody Bible Institute wanted to alter a section of his correspondence course on the baptism with the Holy Spirit, Menzies reports that his daughter Edith was “horrified” and said absolutely not.

In subsequent chapters Menzies draws heavily on the witness of Luke’s writings to establish Pentecostalism’s bona fides as Evangelicals (the author capitalizes the term throughout his book). He affirms that in Luke-Acts, “we find the central and distinctive message of the Pentecostal movement…. For far too long Protestant theology has highlighted Paul’s important insights into the work of the Spirit, but largely ignored Luke’s contribution.” From Jesus’ promise that his Father would “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk. 11:13) to his final instruction to “stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Lk. 24:49) … to the abundant fulfillments throughout Acts over at least a 20-year span, Luke’s works are not to be sidelined. (Most Christians don’t realize that Luke actually wrote more of the New Testament—37,932 words in Greek—than did Paul, who gave us just 32,408).

Paul’s counsel in 1 Corinthians 12-14 (and elsewhere), however, is not ignored. Menzies spends a whole chapter on the Pauline perspective, unpacking the value and place of inspired speech in the gathered assembly. His treatments of what it means to “pray in the Spirit” and even “sing in the Spirit” are thorough and clarifying.

It’s hard to find any bone to pick with this book. Perhaps, with hindsight, the author’s chapter on “Signs and Wonders” might not have criticized some translations (particularly the NIV 1984) for their renderings of Luke 17:21 (“the kingdom of God is within you,” as if to imply that the kingdom is solely inside the believer, out of sight). He apparently did not notice the NIV 2011’s update, which says instead, “the kingdom of God is in your midst”—something widely visible in the praxis of the early church.

Meanwhile (to extrapolate from 1 Corinthians 14:39), let us “forbid not” to include tongues-speaking Pentecostals as legitimate participants in the Evangelical community of faith. The book’s conclusion says it well: “This notion—that a great gulf of different worldviews separates Evangelicals and Pentecostals—rests on a caricature of both movements…. Pentecostals have a unique contribution to make to the larger Evangelical family; but, if we abandon our Evangelical values, we will lose our way and God will raise up others to make this contribution.”

Reviewed by Dean Merrill

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725267824/christ-centered/

Pastor, scholar, businessman Larry Taylor shows that there is no need to fear theology and answers that there is a great need for a Biblical theology today.

Pascal, never known for his affection for the rationalism of his day, once said that faith “is captured by the heart.”¹ He was referring to his belief that God must be experienced in ways the human mind cannot fully comprehend. Recently, a minister was heard encouraging his congregation to “let God speak your heart not to your head,” as if to echo Pascal. As catchy as these words seemed, I could not help noting how they expressed but little appreciation for the mind, even the mind transformed by God. Instead of denouncing any particular philosophy or theological system, the minister seemed to imply that the mind is an enemy. It seems that the value of the reasoning process has been widely discounted within full-gospel ranks, and that theology has been overtly condemned as a hindrance to fidelity to God.

We may laud Pascal’s condemnation of “modern rationalism,” the exaltation of abstract reasoning as the source of truth. Reasoning however, is crucial to the formulation of sound Biblical ideas. The questions addressed in this article is: Do full-gospel ministers need to do theology which, by definition, requires intellectual inquiry into, and reasonable explication of, their beliefs? Our proposed solution may be found in the following propositions: (1) that full-gospel ministers have had misconceptions about the meaning and function of theology; and (2) that theology has a practical role in communication the teachings of Scripture to the church.

I. A Lesson From History

Anyone acquainted with the efforts of men like Augustine, John Wesley, Martin Luther, or Charles G. Finney knows that these were champions of the faith. They were also men of expert learning, skilled at wielding the sword of truth against the attack of agnostic or heretical contemporaries. These men never questioned the relationship between their faith and their capacity to reason, because they believed God embraces both. They were abreast of their times, educated and, most importantly, devout students of the Word. At critical junctures in church history, they successfully guided it along a steady course.

On the other hand, other successful spiritual leaders were not known for being theologically lettered. Billy Sunday, for instance, and in the early years of the Pentecostal movement Charles Parham and William Seymour experienced tremendous evangelistic success with little emphasis upon the value of education or theology. Yet, in the founding years of the Pentecostal revival, a “full-gospel theology” was already emerging which would ultimately become a dividing factor, spawning the first Pentecostal denominations.² Paradoxically, it was theology which divided the movement but it was also theology which facilitated the effective organization of these factions, leading to further church growth in this country.

The independent bodies continued to develop their “revival doctrines,” teachings on the tabernacle, and the “mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit.” In this important aspect, all full-gospel bodies, whether denominations or independent churches, have clearly adopted particular “theologies.” For whenever there are explicit teachings on the nature of Jesus Christ, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or the church and its government, theology is present!