Anna Ladd Bartleman

Dony Donev — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 22:00:13 +0000

At SPS this year (at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia), I presented a paper on Anna Ladd Bartleman. Anna was the wife of Azusa historian Frank Bartleman, who presents an interesting connection between Eastern European pietism and early American Pentecostalism.

The paper is over 40 pages long with another dozen pages in bibliography, so therefore not really suitable as something to post online. However, here is an introduction to a related book:

The Unforgotten: Historical and Theological Roots of Pentecostalism in Bulgaria
This book tells the story of four early Pentecostal families who brought the message of Azusa to Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, and Russia. The research has taken over a decade to complete. It started with a brief article on the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, where unfortunately many church archives were destroyed during Communism. Consecutively, the research led my wife and I on a long journey from the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, Pusey Library at Harvard, the British and Foreign Bible Society in Cambridge, and countless Bulgarian churches. We are grateful to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center for making readily available their denominational archives. Dr. Albert Wardin graciously opened the door for research in Nashville and Berkeley, where most documentation of Voronaev’s early ministry are preserved. Dr. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. of Fuller provided tremendous guidance to the life and ministry of Frank and Anna Bartleman through virtually every step of their journey and every address they occupied. We are also thankful to Dr. Oleg Bornovolokov of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kiev, who helped with various KGB/FSB documents and the NKVD dossiers from Gulag. The papers included in this book were presented at Society for Pentecostal Studies meetings between 2010 and 2021. The first part of the book appeared in vol. 30 (2010) of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine and their December, 2010 editorial. The Bulgarian Pentecostal Union published our translation and commentary of Voronaev’s correspondence in their monthly Evangel. In 2011, Dr. Vladimir Franchuk, translated our Voronaev’s papers in Russian and included them in his book Revival: from the center of Odessa to the ends of Russia just in time for the 90th anniversary of Pentecostalism in Russia. Most of the historiographical data presented in this book is being published openly for the first time.

For more about the Society for Pentecostal Studies, visit their website: sps-usa.org/

SPS at SBL 2017

Rick Wadholm — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:52:43 +0000

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).

Pentecostal scholarship continues to advance Pentecostal concerns and to engage the wider scholarly community.

The first session (Saturday, November 18) was entitled “Pentecostal Readings in the Hebrew Bible” and was presided over by Van Johnson. David Hymes presented a paper entitled “Reception History of the Book of Numbers within the Early Pentecostal Tradition.” This paper offered a sketch of early Pentecostal interpretation of the Book of Numbers describing some of the “thematic concerns” and “hermeneutical methods that were used.” Hymes is forwarding the work on Numbers among Pentecostals (where he is currently writing a commentary) through such a project. He reminded those present of the many ways that Numbers deserves a better hearing and appropriation with the Pentecostal tradition. The second paper was presented by Meghan Musy and entitled “A Pentecostal Reading of Psalm 28: Praying Through and Being Heard” Meghan Musy offers a “lyric poetic approach” to her reading of Psalm 28 as a way to hear the many voices of the Psalm. This counters the way this psalm (among others) has been forced into various genre categories that do not allow the full spectrum of voices to be heard equally. The redactive and form critical approaches offer another text that is not nearly as conducive to hearing this text in all of its variegated voices without muting some or elevating others. She offers that her “lyric poetic approach, informed by Pentecostal experience and perspective, hears the desperate plea coupled with praise” allows for the prayers, praise and pleas to move to testimony in a manner similar to Pentecostal appropriations of “praying through.” The final paper of this session was given by Lee Roy Martin on “Psalm 150 and Pentecostal Spirituality.” Lee Roy Martin offers a Pentecostal hearing of Psalm 150 via its affective dimensions and through early Pentecostal hearings of this text. He proposes the many ways this text integrates “orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthopathy” for Pentecostal expressions of worship.

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

The Pneuma Review » sps

Anna Ladd Bartleman

SPS at SBL 2017