In case you missed it: Janet Epp Buckingham, “Ban the Mob, Not the Bible: Christians are the victims of hate in some places and the targets of hate speech laws in others. How can believers advocate for nations to address both threats in a consistent, principled way?” Christianity Today (June 6, 2024).

Dony Donev, “Theological Framework Centered on Neo-primitivism” Cup & Cross (October 25, 2025).

Mark D. Bjelland, “Charity Begins with Zoning Reforms” Christianity Today (November/December 2025).

This online article has the subtitle, “Stewarding our neighborhoods is part of Christian hospitality” and appeared in the print issue with the title, “Erasing Red Lines.”

In case you missed it: Hazel Southam, “The Quiet Revival: Gen Z leads rise in church attendance” Bible Society (April 7, 2025).

This report opens with this byline: “Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped, but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.” 50% growth in church attendance in 6 years? Yes, this is a quiet revival.

In case you missed it: “How adults are rediscovering Christianity through baptism” YouTube (September 30, 2025).

This special report from CBS Mornings about Gen Z men turning to Christianity is introduced: “In her series ‘The State of Spirituality,’ Lisa Ling looks at the rise in adult baptisms after the pandemic. At a time when many are leaving organized religion, some Americans are choosing to deepen their Christian faith.” One PneumaReview.com editor commented, “What is happening is so significant that even the secular press is taking note of it.”

David Livermore, “Which of the Six Global Leadership Types Best Describes You?” DavidLivermore.com (November 6, 2025).

Thought leader in Cultural Intelligence and PneumaReview.com author, David Livermore, introduces this article on global leader archetypes with this: “90 percent of leadership literature is biased toward one kind of leader—decisive, assertive, fast-paced, and individualistic. Yet most of the world prefers a different kind of leadership style.”

Image: Johannes Plenio

PR

When: March 1, 2018, 8 p.m.

Where:  Thin Man Brewery in Buffalo, New York.
Thin Man Brewery, 492 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, New York 14222

Can a person practice charismatic spirituality and be intellectually serious? What are the philosophical implications of an active engagement in a spiritual world?

Dr. Amos Yong is Professor of Theology and Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

Dr. Yong has authored or edited almost four dozen volumes, including In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology and Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences (with James K.A. Smith).

Amos Yong writes: “We’ll see what the Spirit has to say among the spirits present at this event! Come and join us if you can.”

Buy your ticket (meal included) at the door or online: atonement.gvtls.com

The Nickel City Forum is a monthly gathering to learn about and discuss big ideas: theology, ethics, and culture. NCF is organized under Church of the Atonement. http://www.atonementbuffalo.com

Information temporarily available at: https://www.nickelcityforum.com/this-month/

Included on the panel were Dr. Clifton Clarke (Fuller Seminary), Dr. Lisa Bowens (Princeton), Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins (Gordon-Conwell).

Left to right: Clifton Clarke, Lisa Bowens, Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, and Antipas Harris.
Image: Potters House

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.

Evan B. Howard, The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2008), 496 pages, ISBN 9781587430381.

Evan Howard has constructed a college or seminary textbook on spirituality that is thorough in its approach, wide in its scope, and deep in its content. The format that he employed benefits the reader by opening each chapter with effective introductions, outlines, and stated objectives. These are wrapped up by summary statements, study questions, and in-depth suggestions for further reading. Howard provides an application on “Practicing Christian Spirituality” that is well suited to engage the reader experientially. Sidebars and character profiles interspersed throughout help illustrate how theories of spirituality have been lived out. On a lighter note, Howard has inserted appropriate cartoons to tease the truth out of the quirkiness of the churched culture, which is a welcomed comic-relief approach to include in a college textbook. Finally, the book concludes with a glossary of the religious terms utilized by the textbook.

The strength of Howard’s textbook rests on his commitment to explain the systems of thought, theology, psychology, and sociology in the history of Christian spirituality. Not presuming on his reader’s knowledge, he has been careful to explain each step and process. For example, when discussing the concept of prayer as a dialogue with God, he first explains theories of human communication. However helpful this may be to the new learner, it becomes tedious to one who is familiar with the theories. Herein lies the tension, how can any author present the mysteries of the spirit via the means of an academic text? How much can anyone learn about spirituality from a textbook?

The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality is well suited for upperclassmen or for seminarians who have not yet laid a foundation of Christian spirituality. Howard’s textbook has the potential to augment the guidance of a spiritual mentor or director who is active in spiritual discipleship.

Reviewed by John R. Miller

Publisher’s page: http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-brazos-introduction-to-christian-spirituality/227930

Were Pharisees opposed to anything supernatural?

[Author’s Note: The following text is neither an endorsement nor a censure of Jewish mysticism as practiced today or during the biblical era. Rather, it is an attempt to present the facts of a multi-faceted and ancient religious philosophy in a short, manageable format for the Pneuma Review.]

Mysticism today connotes different things to different audiences. For some, it embodies the “New Age” movement, bordering on—if not leaping over—the edge of witchcraft. For others in more traditional forms of Christianity mysticism is ingrained into their culture, and rumored now again in the media with a crying icon or the silhouette of the Madonna “witnessed” on the side of a building or ink stain. In their faith, this expression of mysticism confirms their religion. C. S. Lewis, a committed Anglican, wrote: “The true religion gives value to its own mysticism; mysticism does not validate the religion in which it happens to occur” (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, page 65).

For our purposes, we are going to have an introductory examination of Jewish mysticism and its effect—if any—on the Christian faith. “Introductory” because with volumes of commentary on the subject spanning thousands of years, and us with only these few pages, an introduction is the best for which we can hope.

Perhaps, though, this introduction will motivate some to explore the subject further. For those I offer one piece of advice: do so prayerfully, leaning ever on the Holy Spirit so that, “He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). When examining Jewish mysticism, all that glimmers is not gold. While it may appear attractive and “spiritual,” it may or may not actually be so. Paul teaches us that a “partial hardening has happened to Israel” (Romans 11:25). Partial is not a full hardening, neither is it full spirituality. There is gold and there is fools’ gold. Use wisdom so that you are not led astray.

The heading, Spiritual Ecstasy, was not an easy title upon which to settle for this article. Today, “ecstasy” brings with it negative connotations of illegal narcotics and sensual innuendo. However, to allow modern base behaviors to hijack a word does not change the fact that in the age of the second temple in Jerusalem, what we might call spiritual expression or charismata, was in those days known among the Hebrews as “Spiritual ecstasy.” Though many today have divorced the very concept that Jewish men and women in the days before, during, and following Jesus’ atoning incarnation believed in or practiced any godly form of spirituality, the recorded history says otherwise, and the term “spiritual ecstasy” appears frequently in the ancient extra biblical texts.

Similarly, this “spiritual ecstasy” has continued in certain circles of Jewish orthodoxy today. In what might be considered a paradox, those with the most religious fervor—in the sense of strict adherence to the Pentateuch and a complex code of oral traditions—do believe in and pursue what they refer to as “Spiritual ecstasy.” From their perspective, both now as well as in the ancient observances, anything that comes into contact with the divine must somehow transcend its mundane nature—including mankind.

So it is with this intention in mind that the title Spiritual Ecstasy is employed as an attempt to maintain continuity with the understanding of some of our fellow heirs of Father Abraham—the Jewish people.

Cutting Edge 2:1 (1998)

Jeff Bailey, “Worship and Spirituality in the New World” Cutting Edge (Vol 4, No 2, Summer 2000), pages 16-18.

Jeff Bailey, co-editor of Vineyard Churches’ (USA) church planting magazine Cutting Edge, has been interviewing and conversing with a number of postmodern theologians in the last few issues. In the July 2000 issue of Cutting Edge, Bailey talks with Robert Webber about the postmodern threshold Webber sees Christianity crossing.

Webber recently took a post at Northern Baptist Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, having served as the professor of historical theology at Wheaton College for over 30 years. He is best known for extensive studies on worship including over 20 books, a monthly column in Worship Leader magazine and editing the Complete Library of Christian Worship.

Webber says that as Christianity enters post-modernism, theology must be rethought and ancient forms of worship must be reclaimed. He believes that postmoderns are looking for more visible and tangible ways of expressing faith, including symbols that touch spiritual realities. He says, “Christians in the postmodern world will succeed, not by watering down the faith, but by being a counter-cultural community that invites people to be shaped by the story of Israel and Jesus” (p. 16). However, from the excerpts given in this article, the ancient forms of worship he is suggesting reclaiming have more the flavor of early Gentile Christianity than the earliest Messianic Judaism.

Webber says that spirituality must be properly understood as turning our backs on evil and embracing Christlikeness, the essence of true humanity. One of the ways to become spiritual is then to rightly read the Bible. Too many of us have been duped into thinking that we cannot really understand what the author intended and therefore we do not read it to learn what God is saying to us. The Bible is God’s Word, it is what He intended. Therefore, we do need to do our homework on the background of the passage we are studying, but then we also need to read devotionally. For example, if we believed that out in front of where we lived was buried one billion dollars in gold, we would be making tremendous effort to locate it. We know that God’s Word is treasure, and we must go digging for the wealth it contains. Webber says, “As long as our interpretation doesn’t contradict the faith or ethics of the Church, I think we can say that we’ve heard from God” (p. 17).

Webber has some deep criticisms of modern evangelicalism. He says, “Evangelicalism is all about power: how to get it, how to use it, how to build big churches, how to have political influence … the opposite of what Jesus is all about. I often tell people, ‘Find out what church growth is telling you to do, and then do the opposite’” (p. 18). While evangelicalism may be experiencing much confusion as it transitions (or fails to transition) into a post-modern world, Webber’s definition is too biting for me. Anyone who is seeking power instead of serving in love is in the wrong. I, for one, cannot simply equate evangelicalism with power-mongering.