Wipf & Stock Pentecostal Theology Collection (38 vols.)
Overview
The Wipf & Stock Pentecostal Theology Collection provides resources students and scholars of the Pentecostal movement on numerous important topics. From the histories of Pentecostalism to biographies of important figures, to in-depth monographs on important theological and interpretive questions, this collection makes available thoughtful and compelling discussion of key issues and questions in Pentecostalism. Learn about the life and thought of A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance and the development of his theology over the course of his life. Gain insight into the tradition of glossololia in Pentecostalism and how it brings ascetic and contemplative dimensions of Christian living together is a meaningful way. Understand how Pentecostal ecclesiology has been shaped over the history of the movement as a ‘traditioning community.’ The Wipf & Stock Pentecostal Theology collection covers issues of biblical theology, hermeneutics, and the Trinity from a distinctly Pentecostal perspective.
Key Features
- Covers the wide range of theological topics from within the Pentecostal perspective and tradition
- Celebrates the Pentecostal tradition in its richness and theological reflection
- Provides historical insight into important moments in the history of Pentecostalism
Product Details
- Title: Wipf & Stock Pentecostal Theology Collection (38 vols.)
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Volumes: 38
- Pages: 10,100
- Christian Group: Pentecostal & Charismatic
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Theology
Individual Titles
- A Distinct Twenty-First Century Pentecostal Hermeneutic
- A Guide to Pentecostal Movements for Lutherans
- A Liberating Spirit: Pentecostals and Social Action in North America
- A. B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement
- Anticipating Heaven Below: Optimism of Grace from Wesley to the Pentecostals
- Baptism in the Spirit: Luke-Acts and the Dunn Debate
- Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions
- Bold Faith: A Closer Look at the Five Key Ideas of Charismatic Christianity
- Charisms and Charismatic Renewal: A Biblical And Theological Study
- Defining Issues in Pentecostalism
- Grassroots Unity in the Charismatic Renewal
- Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics
- Pentecostal Experience
- Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy among the Oppressed
- Pentecostal Pacifism: The Origin, Development, and Rejection of Pacific Belief among the Pentecostals
- Pentecostalism and Globalization: The Impact of Globalization on Pentecostal Theology and Ministry
- Pentecostalism in Context
- Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom
- Pentecostals and Nonviolence: Reclaiming a Heritage
- Perspectives in Pentecostal Eschatologies: World Without End
- Practical Theology: Charismatic and Empirical Perspectives
- Purity, Power, and Pentecostal Light: The Revivalist Doctrine and Means of Aaron Merritt Hills
- Remembering Jamestown: Hard Questions about Christian Mission
- Speaking in Tongues: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
- Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative
- Spirit Freedom and Power: Changes in Pentecostal Spirituality
- Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics on Trinitarian Perspective
- The Dialogical Spirit
- The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel
- The Gospel Revisited: Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Worship and Witness
- The Hermeneutical Spirit: Theological Interpretation and Scriptural Imagination for the 21st Century
- The Holy Spirit in the New Testament
- The Liberating Mission of Jesus: The Message of the Gospel of Luke
- The Missiological Spirit
- The New Pentecostal Message?
- The Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1898-1948
- The Spirit Renews the Face of the Earth
- Trinity After Pentecost
Partially includedIn the Logos edition, these volumes are enhanced by a world-class set of digital tools for research and study. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
Why another book about biblical interpretation (hermeneutics)? First, this is not just another book about hermeneutics. It deals specifically with hermeneutics as practiced by Pentecostals; rather, more accurately, as hermeneutics should be practiced by Pentecostals. The book presents a distinct Pentecostal hermeneutic that moves away from exclusive use of historical-grammatical methodology.
The hermeneutic presented here employs an eclectic methodology and a quadratic strategy. Scripture, Spirit, trained leader, and community, in the proposed hermeneutic, are shown to work together to produce an interpretation that engages both creative imagination and authorial intent. The text offers pastors, professors, and laity alike a method and approach that will allow them to interpret Scripture from a clearly Pentecostal perspective. An important addition to the book is an outline for an undergraduate course instructing students in this distinct Pentecostal hermeneutic.
I wish to commend Purdy's work to scholars and students alike. Within its pages one will find an excellent history of Pentecostal hermeneutics, and a creative proposal which offers a significant contribution towards a Pentecostal hermeneutic for the twenty-first century. Anyone interested in how Pentecostals read (or should read) the Bible will benefit from this study.
—Bradley Truman Noel, author of Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics
Harlyn Purdy is President of Pentecostal Bible College, Malawi, P.A.O.C. field director for Malawi, and coordinator for the Theological Education and Leadership Training Advisory Council (TELTAC) for the continent of Africa. He has thirty-five years of pastoral experience and has taught numerous courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
In just over a century, Pentecostalism has rocketed from its humble beginnings in an interracial congregation on Azusa Street in Los Angeles to a global movement counting more than six hundred million members. Confronted with the bewildering array of Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Neocharismatic beliefs and practices, Lutherans are often at a loss as to how to think about Pentecostals, much less how to engage them in positive ways that build up the whole body of Christ.
In this guide, Lutherans will find tools for just such an engagement. Building on a foundation of Pentecostalism's history and varieties, Wilson undertakes an in-depth survey of biblical teaching on baptism, the Holy Spirit, and spiritual gifts. The guide then brings innovative new lenses to bear on the questions at stake: the use of church history in defending denominational borders, right and wrong approaches to prosperity, the power of the Spirit and corruptions of power, and the role of experience in theological discernment. Written in a style accessible to laity and clergy alike, this guide will strengthen Lutherans' appreciation of their own tradition while enabling them to encounter Pentecostals as fellow believers in the salvation given by the triune God.
Sarah Hinlicky Wilson guides her reader to understand the Pentecostal movement particularly in relation to the Lutheran tradition. This she does with the special care of a trained Lutheran theologian, and with the warm understanding of someone who has learned to appreciate the Pentecostal tradition through various ecumenical encounters and discussions. The result is a guide not only to the two Christian traditions, but a call to a journey for deeper understanding of the other.
—Kaisamari Hintikka, Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations and Director for the Department for Theology and Public Witness, Lutheran World Federation
Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is an ordained Lutheran pastor, an Adjunct Professor of the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, and the editor of Lutheran Forum. She is the author of Woman, Women, and the Priesthood in the Trinitarian Theology of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel (2013) and of more than one hundred articles on theology in both popular and scholarly venues.
A Liberating Spirit: Pentecostals and Social Action in North America
- Editors: Michael Wilkinson and Steven M. Studebaker
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2010
- Pages: 288
The historical ambivalence among Pentecostals about their relationship to culture and society needs evaluation. How do we understand Pentecostal engagement with society, and how are Pentecostals in North America engaging issues of race, class, gender, and ecology? What theologically motivates North American Pentecostals to respond to social issues? What categories best explain Pentecostal responses to social issues in North America? How do they compare to Pentecostal responses elsewhere?
Recently, scholars of global Pentecostalism have proposed that the experience of the Spirit among Pentecostals has elicited the development of a Pentecostal "theology of liberation," which has implications for understanding Pentecostal responses to social issues. These projects primarily explore the Pentecostal response to cultural issues in areas outside of North America and especially focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
This volume assesses whether the categories of social liberation applied to non-Western Pentecostalism characterize Pentecostalism in North America. Is there evidence of a Pentecostal "theology of liberation" that explains Pentecostal engagement in North America? Do social-liberation categories fit the North American Pentecostal responses to social issues or are others more suitable? These and other important questions about the relation between liberation theology and North American Pentecostalism are thoroughly explored in this important collection of essays.
This is an important, thought-provoking, and timely collection with an array of burning issues in today's world that are seldom discussed in Pentecostal academia. It is one of those paradigm-changing publications that should be read widely.
—Allan Anderson, University of Birmingham, UK
Michael Wilkinson is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Religion in Canada Institute at Trinity Western University. His is the author of The Spirit Said Go (2006) and the editor of Canadian Pentecostalism (2009).
Steven M. Studebaker is Assistant Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at McMaster Divinity College. He is the editor of Defining Issues in Pentecostal Theology (Pickwick, 2008).
In A. B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, Charles Nienkirchen presents a semi-biographical account of the life of A. B. Simpson in the context of the larger Pentecostal Movement. Providing essential insight into the growth of the Christian Missionary Alliance and Simpson's own relationship with the larger evangelical movement, this volume contextualizes the spiritual trajectory of Simpson's life and ministry. With a profound grasp of primary sources and detailed documentation, Nienkrichen lays out the essential structure of Simpson's theology and religious thought and its growth throughout his life with a particular focus on how Simpson influenced early Pentecostalism.
Charles Nienkirchen has supplied those interested in the history and theology of American Evangelicalism, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, or the Pentecostal movement with an invaluable reference tool and an interpretive lens through which to understand them. This 'must-read' has shown its worth by remaining as relevant, informative and provocative as when it first went to press.
—Bernie A. Van De Walle, associate professor of Historical and systematic theology at Ambrose University College and Seminary, Calgary, AB
Charles W. Nienkirchen, PhD (University of Waterloo), is Professor of Christian History and Spirituality at Ambrose University College in Calgary, Canada and Visiting Professor of Christian Spirituality at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Canada. He has been a Scholar in Residence at Oxford University in England and Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem as well as Visiting Professor in Residence at Tamilnadu Theological Seminary in Madurai, South India. His teaching, research, publications and ecumenical retreat ministry have focused on the historical, theological, and formational dimensions of spiritual renewal enhanced by an awareness of current, global trends in Christian spirituality. He is also the founder and director of an award winning Down Ancient Paths Travel Study Program which explores both the oldest Christian traditions in the world and the biblical landscapes of the Middle East
Wesleyanism is a movement of hope. Wesleyans and their Holiness and Pentecostal offspring pray and work with the expectancy that the love and power of God will transform hearts and lives, renew the church, and bring compassion, healing, and justice to a suffering world. In a variety of ways, from holiness of heart and life to bodily healing to the abolition of slavery, they anticipated the life of the coming kingdom of heaven to already be breaking into the present through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Anticipating Heaven Below explores their optimism of grace, examining its pitfalls as well as its promise. Henry H. Knight seeks to enable and inspire present generations within Wesleyan, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements to proclaim with confidence the promise of heaven below, and to do so with passion and integrity.
Taking a sanctificationist approach, Knight broadens and deepens Christian aspirations for the life to come that takes seriously experiencing God in the concrete realities of human life. This book makes a compelling case for the beauty of Wesleyan theological trajectories that readily engage the challenges we face today.
—Sang-Ehil Han, Vice President for Academics, Pentecostal Theological Seminary, Tennessee
Henry H. Knight III is Donald and Pearl Wright Professor of Wesleyan Studies at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of seven books, including A Future for Truth (1997) and Is There a Future for God's Love? (2012), and editor of From Aldersgate to Azusa Street (2010).
This book is about that treasured doctrine of Pentecostalism: baptism in the Holy Spirit, understood as a work subsequent to conversion to Christ. Since James Dunn's publication of Baptism in the Holy Spirit, there has been heated response from Pentecostals in defense of the doctrine. Key players are Roger Stronstad, Howard Ervin, David Petts, James Shelton, Robert Menzies, and ex-Pentecostal Max Turner. This book reviews Pentecostal criticisms of Dunn with respect to Luke-Acts, concluding that Pentecostals are right: for Luke, receiving the Spirit was not the inception of new covenant life. It was a powerful enabling for prophecy and miracles; for the church's outward mission and its internal life. After placing Luke-Acts in a wider canonical context, the book closes with some practical lessons from Luke-Acts for today's Pentecostal churches.
In Baptism in the Spirit Atkinson tackles afresh the controversial and sometimes divisive doctrine of the same name. Deftly and with mature even-handedness the author canvasses four decades of scholarship on the subject. He is generous in giving credit where it is due and is equally forthright in giving criticism where he believes it is due. This is a must read for those informed laypersons, pastors, theological students, and scholars who are seeking a clearer understanding of the doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit.
—Roger Stronstad, biblical theology director, Summit Pacific College
William Atkinson grew up in London, England and studied medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland. After working briefly as a medical doctor, he heard God's call to church ministry and took up a position on the ministry team at Kensington Temple, London. He gained a Master's Degree in Theology from London Bible College. In 1997, William became principal of Regents Theological College. While there, he completed a PhD with Edinburgh University in 2007. In the same year, he moved back into local church ministry in southeast England. Since 2011, he has worked at the London School of Theology, where he was a vice-principal. He continues there as a senior lecturer in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies. He is on the Board of Advisers of the Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship and is a member of the European Pentecostal Theological Association. He has written several books as well as both scholarly and "popular" articles. William has been married to Alison since 1983. They have two sons: Iain and Stephen.
With scholarly rigor and intellectual acumen, Beyond the Impasse takes seriously and appreciatively the diversity of the work of the universal Spirit in the cultures and religious communities of the world. Amos Yong positions his work fully within the evangelical tradition, but is richly informed by his Pentecostal roots and context. He sets this Pentecostal-evangelical theology of religions in the center of the ongoing discussion, not only among evangelicals, but also in the whole church.
Finally, a Spirit-based theology of religions that takes the Spirit seriously! Drawing on his Pentecostal roots, Yong offers guidelines for discerning the voice of the Spirit in other traditions-a voice that may call us to unexpected christological conclusions. This is truly a pioneering work that opens new theological paths but modestly recognizes that there is still much to explore.
—Paul F. Knitter, Xavier University
Amos Yong is professor of theology and mission and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
Bill Johnson, Joyce Meyer, Heidi Baker. The fame of these names is evidence enough that, though the controversies are less intense, the Charismatic Movement is alive and well today. It continues to attract thousands of adherents who find its vision of a supernatural lifestyle uniquely compelling. Now, for the first time, all that is most theologically innovative about the movement is synthesized into five distinct and original ideas. These five brand new theologies have been created, not by theologians, but by practitioners who believed their concepts were inspired by the Spirit: Inner Healing, Shepherding, Word of Faith, Spiritual Warfare, and Signs and Wonders. Plenty of studies have been written by Pentecostal scholars about Pentecostal theology, but these tend to group the very distinct approaches of Charismatics together with Classical Pentecostals. Bold Faith aims to analyze and evaluate the ways in which practitioners within independent Charismatic networks, especially in their Anglo-American expressions, have responded to the challenges of secular modernity.
Comprehensive, readable, scholarly, and pertinent: Ben Pugh has written well about the history and theology of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements and given us the valuable viewpoint of a critical friend.
—William Kay, Honorary Professor of Pentecostal Studies, University of Chester
Ben Pugh is Lecturer in Theology at Cliff College, UK. He is the author of The Old Rugged Cross: A History of the Atonement in Christian Devotion (Cascade, forthcoming).
Charisms and Charismatic Renewal: A Biblical And Theological Study
- Author: Francis A. Sullivan, SJ
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2004
- Pages: 184
The rapid growth of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church has brought with it both controversy and confusion, and it has raised a number of important theological questions. Is it an authentic renewal movement? Exactly what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? How should we understand the gift of tongues? What is prophecy? Does God really heal by supernatural means? One by one, Francis Sullivan takes up these controversial points in one of the most thorough theological investigations yet undertaken into the Catholic charismatic renewal.
Charisms and Charismatic Renewal is a scholarly analysis of this dynamic renewal movement for those who want to know more about its history, its theological and scriptural bases, its present impact on the church, and its probable future course.
Fr. Sullivan's book comes at the right time. Indeed, I would say that it was more than time to integrate a theology of the charisms into a total, sacramental vision of the Church, and thus to give to the renewal its theological credentials.
—Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens
Rev. Francis A. Sullivan, S.J. taught ecclesiology at the Gregorian University in Rome for 35 years until 1993. Since then he has taught in the Theology Department at Boston College. His other books include Creative Fidelity, Charisms and Charismatic Renewal, The Church We Believe In (Paulist Press), and From Apostles to Bishops (Paulist Press).
Defining Issues in Pentecostalism
- Author: Steven M. Studebaker
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2008
- Pages: 222
Defining Issues in Pentecostalism brings together the papers presented at the McMaster Divinity College 2007 Pentecostal Forum: "Defining Issues in Pentecostalism: Classical and Emergent." It highlights the defining topics, past and present, of Pentecostal theology. The chapters are grouped under Pentecostal theology and biblical studies, with selections on classical and contemporary issues in each category. This book provides an introduction to the classical doctrines of Pentecostalism and key contemporary developments in Pentecostal theology in one volume. Professors desiring to introduce students to Pentecostalism will find here a concise and accessible introduction to the defining historical and contemporary issues.
Defining Issues in Pentecostalism, the inaugural issue of the McMaster Theological Studies Series, is a glimpse into the current strength of Pentecostal scholarship, offering creative and constructive proposals in Pentecostal theology and biblical studies. The authors argue for holistic and ecumenical approaches to a theology of the Spirit that has significant implications for the broader, theological world. A work of this caliber is long overdue.
—Peter Althouse, assistant professor of theology at College of Christian Ministries and Religion, Southeastern University
Steven M. Studebaker (PhD, Marquette University) is Assistant Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. He is an active member in the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and is the author of several articles on Pentecostal theology and of the forthcoming book, Jonathan Edwards' Social Augustinian Trinitarianism in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2008). He is ordained with the Assemblies of God.
This book explores the nature of grassroots unity in the British charismatic renewal in the 1970s and its significance to ecumenism. The study is based on the five international conferences of the Fountain Trust and focuses on two grassroots activities: worship in general and the celebration of the Eucharist in particular. Worship in this setting nurtured unity through charisms, but the Eucharist exposed the inadequacy of this grassroots unity because of doctrinal and ecclesiological differences.
Grassroots Unity in the Charismatic Renewal aims to suggest a way forward by searching for the complementarity of institution and charisms, and Christology and Pneumatology in a charismatic context. It argues that the two emphases of the charismatic renewal, charisms, and the Holy Spirit, complement the institutional commitments of the church and ecumenism. The concepts of Christus praesens and Spiriti praesens are considered intrinsic to the charisms, and thus Christology and Pneumatology should both be considered significant for ecumenism. The study finally discusses the complementarity of ecumenical institutions and the charismatic renewal, the convergence of ecumenical streams, and continuity in modern ecumenical history.
Connie Ho Yan Au is the Director of the Pentecostal Research Center of the Synergy Institute of Leadership (an Assemblies of God college) in Hong Kong. She is a PhD graduate in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK, and member of both the Echos Youth Commission of the World Council of Churches and of the Committee of the Ecumenical and Church Relations of the Hong Kong Christian Council.
Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics seeks to explore the relationship between Pentecostal hermeneutics and Pentecostalism's ability to connect with and evangelize North American youth. As a Postmodern ethos makes its presence increasingly felt in the Western world, no Christian movement should be better positioned to bring the message of Christ to youth and young adults eager to experience the God of miracles and wonders. Recent trends in Pentecostal hermeneutics, however, may actually make the task more difficult. No historical movement has thrived in the long term that has not carefully considered the place of youth and young adults in the vision for the future. While Pentecostalism has been at the forefront of youth ministry in the last several decades, we must also connect Pentecostal academia with evangelism efforts among youth and young adults. This work calls Pentecostal scholars to thoughtfully consider the implications of their work for future generations.
Bradley Truman Noel is the Director of Pentecostal Studies and Associate Professor of Christian Ministries at Tyndale University College and Seminary (Toronto). He is ordained with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the author of Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics (2010).
Pentecostals are known for an experiential spirituality that emphasizes immediate encounters with God through the Holy Spirit. But how should such experience be understood? Is it, in fact, quite so immediate?
Neumann argues that Pentecostal experience of God is mediated by the Spirit's work through Scripture, the Christian tradition, and the broader cultural context. Using the work of three contemporary Pentecostal theologians--Frank D. Macchia, Simon K. H. Chan, and Amos Yong--the book demonstrates that a mediated view of experience of God is forging a more mature Pentecostal theology. As further evidence of this maturation, Neumann engages these Pentecostal theologians in ecumenical dialogue with leading representatives from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.
The maturation of pentecostal theology and scholarship, Neumann's analysis shows, also brings with it the conflict of pentecostal interpretations. Welcome to the contestations!
—Amos Yong, Regent University
Peter D. Neumann (PhD, University of St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology) is the assistant academic dean and professor of theology at Master's College and Seminary, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
The Pentecostal movement has been subject to some negative external assumptions. In this enlightening and challenging book, Cheryl Bridges Johns argues that, in fact, Pentecostals employ a powerful process of formation of catechesis, which has enabled millions of believers to own and articulate the Christian story. She engages dialectically with the work of Paulo Freire, a specialist in education among the marginalized. As well as looking more broadly at the nature of all catechesis, there is also an attempt to move beyond the rationalism found in a praxis epistemology.
Cheryl Bridges Johns is professor of discipleship and Christian formation at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary.
Pentecostal Pacifism: The Origin, Development, and Rejection of Pacific Belief among the Pentecostals
- Author: Jay Beaman
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2009
- Pages: 200
At a time when the Evangelical wing of the church is beginning to show some signs of soul searching over the issues of war and peace, the Pentecostals would do well to study their own heritage. Whether they accept or reject their earlier world view, they need to interpret the motivation for their original beliefs and those which they now hold. As people of the word of God, have Pentecostals altered their pacifistic views as a result of new biblical insights or cultural accommodation?
Most Pentecostals have no idea of their pacifist heritage. In this volume, now revised and into its third decade, Jay Beaman produces a succinct synopsis of early Pentecostal responses to war. He produces not only primary evidence and superb data analysis, but also captures the pulse of a movement. Beaman implores the current generation to revisit a waning heritage by linking pacifism with their counter-cultural and prophetic worldview based upon unwavering allegiance to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
—Martin Mittelstadt, Evangel University
Jay Beaman was raised in the Assemblies of God in Southern Oregon, graduated from Northwest College in Kirkland, Washington, and North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology at Iowa State University. He has taught sociology at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas and George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He is Director of Institutional Research at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where he resides with his wife, Rockie. He is an ordained American Baptist and member of Rivergate Community Church.
Pentecostalism and Globalization: The Impact of Globalization on Pentecostal Theology and Ministry
- Editor: Steven M. Studebaker
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2010
- Pages: 258
In little over a century, the Pentecostal movement has emerged from small bands of revival seekers to become one of the largest Christian groups in the world. Primarily a movement within Western Christianity for much of its brief history, it is increasingly characterized as a global movement. Pentecostal theology and ministry in a Western context must engage global Pentecostalism and be willing to rethink its traditional patterns of thought and practice in light of the evolving nature of the movement.
The essays in this book come mainly from the McMaster Divinity College 2008 Pentecostal Forum: "The Many Faces of Pentecostalism: Pentecostalism and Globalization." The first section outlines the nature of globalization and establishes it as the context for contemporary Pentecostal theology and ministry. The other contributions explore the impact of globalization on traditional areas of Pentecostal theology, such as Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues, and twenty-first-century Pentecostal ministry.
Having attended the Forum and having listened with interest to the lectures on which this volume is based, I applaud Dr. Studebaker for now bringing this fine material to printed form. The topics covered are essential for any serious student of Pentecostalism. I will gladly recommend this book to my students in Pentecostal studies.
—Bradley Truman Noel, Director of Pentecostal Studies, Tyndale University College, Toronto
Steven M. Studebaker (PhD, Marquette University) is Assistant Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. He is an active member in the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and is the author of several articles on Pentecostal theology and of the forthcoming book, Jonathan Edwards' Social Augustinian Trinitarianism in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2008). He is ordained with the Assemblies of God.
Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies
- Editors: Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2008
- Pages: 374
Pentecostalism in Context is a collection of essays produced by Pentecostal scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia. The essays, produced in their various geographical and cultural contexts, reflect the rich diversity that characterizes the Pentecostal movement. Biblical, theological, and missiological issues relevant to the Pentecostal movement are treated. The book thus represents a valuable resource for those seeking to understand better the key intellectual currents within this dynamic and influential movement. The essays are offered in honor of William Menzies, a leading Pentecostal scholar and Chancellor of Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (Baguio City, Philippines).
Wonsuk Ma is a Korean Pentecostal minister currently serving as Executive Director of Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, United Kingdom. He established the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and the Journal of Asian Mission.
Robert Menzies (PhD, University of Aberdeen, Scotland) is an adjunct professor at Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in the Philippines and the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in the U.S. He has authored several books on the work of the Spirit, including Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience (2000), and is currently Director of Synergy, a rural outreach organization in Southwest China.
“If only we were a Christian country again!” Christians, particularly those in the West, often lament their loss of influence in modern politics and culture. It seems that everywhere one turns, Christendom in the West is dealt another blow, with Christian reactions ranging from withdrawal and entrenchment, to cries of persecution and talks of organized resistance.
Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom seeks to address these concerns via an examination of Classical North American Pentecostalism as it wrestles with the very real challenges posed by the increasing post-Christian ethos of Western culture. In addition to providing a number of concrete steps, Pentecostals may take in their efforts to better understand and connect with modern culture, this work will argue that counter-intuitively, the death of Christendom (if properly addressed), may in fact herald the arrival of the Church's finest hour.
The North American religious landscape has been changing significantly, and, like Western Europe, is becoming secular, post-Christian, and religiously diverse. Noel's well researched, culturally engaging, and theologically informed book will be a valuable guide for ministers, leaders, and theological educators who seek to assist Pentecostalism in its endeavors to navigate an increasingly post-Christian cultural landscape. Noel serves as a seasoned native guide who believes that the best years for Pentecostal mission are now.
—Kenneth J. Archer, professor of theology and Pentecostal studies, Southeastern University
Bradley Truman Noel is the Director of Pentecostal Studies and Associate Professor of Christian Ministries at Tyndale University College and Seminary (Toronto). He is ordained with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the author of Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics (2010).
Pentecostals and Nonviolence: Reclaiming a Heritage
- Author: Paul Alexander
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2012
- Pages: 400
Pentecostals and Nonviolence explores how a distinctly Pentecostal-charismatic peace witness might be reinvigorated and sustained in the twenty-first century. To do so, the book examines the nature of the early Pentecostal commitment to nonviolence and investigates the possibilities that might emerge from Pentecostals and Anabaptists entering into conversation and worship with each other. Contributors engage the arguments surrounding the heritage of Pentecostal pacifism in the United States and then move toward exploring nonviolence and peacemaking as crucial for contemporary Christianity as a whole. Ranging from theology, testimony, and pastoral ministry to interchurch relations, activism, and protest, this diverse collection of essays challenge and invite the whole church to the task of peacemaking while exploring the distinctive, and often neglected, contributions from the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition.
One name stands out when the subject of pacifism surfaces among Pentecostals today: Paul Alexander. As this book demonstrates, many early Pentecostals took their relationship to the state seriously, but made it clear that on biblical and conscience grounds they were not willing to bear arms or participate in the killing of enemy combatants. Alexander has gathered a first-rate cast of authors to address this issue that has all but disappeared from memory.
—Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., professor of church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary
Paul Alexander is Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University and Director of Public Policy at Evangelicals for Social Action in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. His books include Peace to War (2009) and Christ at the Checkpoint (2012).
During the mid-twentieth century Pentecostal theology was co-opted by fundamentalism and its dispensational brand of millennial eschatology. Fundamentalist dispensationalism not only reinterpreted the original Pentecostal vision of the latter-rain outpouring of the Spirit in the last days but undercut its raison d'etre as a people empowered by the Spirit of Pentecost to participate in the kingdom of God. Yet eschatology is much broader than twentieth-century dispensationalism, and Pentecostal eschatology is diverse, reflecting the diversity of Pentecostal and Charismatic spiritualities. There is no one Pentecostal eschatology but many Pentecostal eschatologies.
This collection of essays from established scholars and rising stars offers fresh perspectives in eschatology for the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. The fresh readings of eschatology in this volume are valuable because they demonstrate that Pentecostals no longer need to look to others to interpret their theology for them but can stand as scholars and thinkers in their own right.
Doesn't the otherworldliness of Pentecostalism result in a view of the end times reducible to the doctrine of the rapture of the church? Not according to the biblical scholars, historians, ethicists, and theologians who have contributed to this book. Those who overlook it will be 'left behind' on the breadth and depth of current Pentecostal thinking about eschatology!
—Amos Yong, Regent University
Peter Althouse is assistant professor of theology at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. He is author of Spirit of the Last Days (2003) and coeditor of Winds from the North (2010).
Robby Waddell is Associate Professor of New Testament at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. He is author of The Spirit in the Book of Revelation (2006).
Mark Cartledge's book is unique in integrating charismatic and empirical perspectives in practical theology. It exemplifies both qualitative and quantitative methods of research, and suggests a way forward for the emerging field of charismatic theology.
In part one, Cartledge offers a proposal for the development of a charismatic practical theology. He surveys the different models of the interaction of practical theology and social sciences and defends one that is consistent with charismatic spirituality. The section also explores how charismatic spirituality affects theories of truth and knowledge by making testimony an integrating center, before concluding with a clear explanation of the methods of research employed.
Part two progresses into six empirical studies on charismatic worship, glossolalia and postmodernity, women and prophetic activity, the "Toronto Blessing," healing, and socialization. Each chapter of this important book ends with a methodological reflection and suggestions from renewed theological praxis, enforcing the values of such methods of study for a clearer understanding of charismatic Christianity.
In this focused and professional study, Dr. Mark Cartledge demonstrates clearly the key contribution that can be made by empirical theology to studies in Pentecostal and Charismatic issues.
—Leslie J. Francis, professor of practical theology at the University of Wales, Bangor
Mark J. Cartledge is Director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is interested in contemporary Pentecostal theology and empirical studies of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. His most recent book is titled, Testimony in the Spirit: Rescripting Ordinary Pentecostal Theology (2010).
Around the turn of the twentieth century, revivalist Protestantism in America splintered into multiple pieces. Few persons of that era knew as many of the central figures of the splinter groups as Aaron Merritt Hills. Originally a Congregationalist who studied under Finney at Oberlin, Hills was a dyed-in-the-wool postmillennial revivalist until his death in 1935. While a Congregationalist, he befriended Reuben A. Torrey and made an enemy of Washington Gladden. In 1895 he joined the Holiness Movement after his experience of Spirit baptism. For the next forty years he founded colleges, held holiness revivals in both America and Britain, and wrote voluminously.
While Hills himself is a lesser-known figure in the story of American Christianity, because of the many embroilments of his life, his story offers a unique window into the relationship between the Holiness Movement, Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, American liberalism, and the Social Gospel Movement.
It has been some time since A. M. Hills's contribution to the Wesleyan-Holiness theological tradition has been brought forward for public review. Dr. Branstetter has filled this need with thorough research and reading ease. For the professional and layman alike, this work provides a welcome reminder of the impact Dr. Hills had on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theological development.
—Loren P. Gresham, president of Southern Nazarene University, Bethany, Oklahoma
C. J. Branstetter is Research Director of the Public Theology Institute of Daybreak: Asia in Beijing, China.
For many Americans, Christian missionary efforts have usually involved distant and exotic places. Sometimes, however, we can learn more about missions and interreligious engagement by looking in our own backyard. This collection of essays deriving from a consultation on missionary history and attitudes in colonial Jamestown, Virginia, explores long-standing assumptions related to Christian mission by listening to Native American voices. What were the ideologies and theologies that motivated early Virginia colonists? How did certain understandings of mission and church provide support and legitimacy for invasion and exploitation? What were, and are, the responses of indigenous populations, and how should Christian mission to Native Americans continue in light of this history? This book addresses these still very relevant questions and explores ways in which new understandings of Christian mission are needed in the expanding religious and cultural diversity of the twenty-first century.
This is a profoundly disturbing yet constructive book. It presents a devastating critique of the church's mission among Native Americans in the last 400 years, but offers as well a sober hope. If mission is to be engaged in at all, it must be done with profound respect, dialogue, and repentance--the true way of Jesus and his Spirit.
—Stephen Bevans, professor of mission and culture, Catholic Theological Union
Amos Yong is J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia. He has authored or edited ten books, including Hospitality and the Other (2008).
Barbara Brown Zikmund is a retired historian living in Washington, DC. She is the former chair of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches and served as President of Hartford Seminary 1990-2000.
Speaking in tongues (glossolalia) is a common spiritual phenomenon in the Pentecostal and Charismatic streams of the Christian church. Such Christians believe that when they speak in tongues they are communicating with God in a language that they have never learned--spiritual prayer language given to them by the Holy Spirit.
This innovative volume seeks to enhance our understanding and appreciation of glossolalia by examining it from a range of different angles. Christian scholars from diverse academic disciplines bring to bear the insights of their own specialist areas to shed new light on the practice of speaking in tongues. The disciplines include:
- New Testament Studies with Max Turner
- Theology with Frank D. Macchia
- History with Neil Hudson
- Philosophy with James K. A. Smith
- Linguistics with David Hilborn
- Sociology with Margaret M. Poloma
- Psychology with William K. Kay
A final chapter by Mark J. Cartledge seeks to show how all of these perspectives can work together and enrich a Christian appreciation of the gift of tongues.
Mark J. Cartledge is Director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is interested in contemporary Pentecostal theology and empirical studies of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. His most recent book is titled, Testimony in the Spirit: Rescripting Ordinary Pentecostal Theology (2010).
During the 1970s, Pentecostal seminarians who were fed a steady diet of the monographs by James D.G. Dunn and F. Dale Bruner were often co-opted by magisterial traditions. It was time for a new generation of Pentecostal scholars where Pentecostals could themselves address issues brought to the forefront of their movement. This volume became one of the first books of its kind to crest the new wave of an emerging Pentecostal scholarship.
Contemporary Pentecostal pneumatology was often regarded as a historically contributed and artificial novelty from the modern period and scores of Pentecostals were persuaded to forsake their heritage. Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative sought to ask the question if there was canonical evidence for a Charismatic dimension in the Christian pilgrimage. An answer in the affirmative inspired a scan of Christian figures through the centuries who have embraced this theological reality. The book ends with a theological synthesis that suggests an openness to various ways the Charismatic Spirit becomes a manifest reality in the lives of believers.
Since the release of Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative in 1983, much significant work has been accomplished in this field by Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal scholars alike. Yet this original groundbreaking work remains relevant as researchers around the world face for the first time theological issues that go to the heart of Pentecostal identify.
The last decades have seen a considerable development of interest in pneumatology among the established Christian denominations. In all this, what seems to be the central dogma of Classical Pentecostalism … has been much criticized, notably by F. Dale Bruner in his A Theology of the Holy Spirit. What has been missing in the discussion is a solid study from the Classical Pentecostalist side which takes these criticisms seriously and seeks to engage with the issues at a deeper level. Dr. Hunter's study is intended to fill this gap.
—Alasdair Heron, Scottish Journal of Theology
Dr. Harold D. Hunter has served in denominational executive positions and seminary teaching positions for over 30 years which have taken him to over 50 countries. Hunter co-edited All Together In One Place , The Azusa Street Revival and Its Legacy and The Suffering Body. His articles have appeared in international journals, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. A past president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, organizer of the first conference on global Pentecostalism and co-chair of the Azusa Street Revival Centennial Theology Track, Hunter engages the WCC, WARC, and the NCCCUSA Faith and Order Commission.
The Pentecostal movement emerged at the turn of the twentieth century emphasizing the need for Christians to have a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit. It advocated the return to a pristine early Spirituality in which empowerment by the Spirit was essential. Recently Pentecostal and Charismatic movements are playing down the classic expressions and moving towards more mainline approaches. As church movements develop they become more structured, less spontaneous and more routine. But is this always inevitable? The author explores a contemporary Pentecostal movement to discover whether a radical spirituality still can effectively interface with a complex twenty-first century world. This insightful research finds a Pentecostal spirituality that is flexible, adaptive and innovative and despite humble origins now is making inroads into the middle class. While tensions over charismatic freedom remain, the developing organizational structure is facilitating significant growth. Valuable lessons for Christians of all persuasions are found and some creative theological developments are suggested for church structure and for expanding traditional understandings of “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
This excellent book recognizes the inevitable institutionalization that occurs in religious movements . . . [and] suggests a way forward for twenty-first-century Pentecostalism and thus deserves careful reading and reflection by all thoughtful Christian ministers and scholars.
—Cheryl McCallum, Principal, Eastern College Australia
Angelo Ulisse Cettolin holds qualifications in law, theology, business, and a doctorate in ministry. He is a church planter, mission leader, consultant, senior lecturer in theology/ministry and dean of faculty at Eastern College Australia. He co-leads an inner-city church with his wife, Robbie. They have two adult children, a son-in-law, and a granddaughter. Angelo loves helping people follow Jesus in a changing culture. He enjoys films, walking, and good coffee.
The main thesis of Spirit-Word-Community is that Christian theological reflection in a postmodern world starts with the experience of the Holy Spirit, but is at the same time post-foundationalist in terms of being formed by the word and being adjudicated by various communities of interpretation. Yet the book's hermeneutical and methodological proposals are not merely prolegomena to theology but already involve and assume theologically substantive claims derived from a pneumatological point of view. Hence, this is a pneumatological theology which illuminates the hermeneutical process precisely by showing how the Holy Spirit engages the human imagination to empower liberative practices in a world that remains graced by her presence and activity. 'Spirit-Word-Community' is meant in each of these senses to be a contribution to the formulation of a comprehensive theology of the Third Article for the twenty-first century.
Amos Yong is a leading constructive Pentecostal theologian. In this challenging and creative work, he brings together a number of theological, hermeneutical, and philosophical perspectives to bear on a Trinitarian vision of Christian community. Both seasoned scholars and students will greatly benefit from this landmark book which expands the domain of a typical hermeneutical discussion.
—Veli-Matti Kaerkkaeinen, professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California
Amos Yong is Associate Research Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is the author and editor of six other books, including The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (2005). Spirit-Word-Community was voted the 2005 Book of the Year by the Society for Pentecostal Studies Book Committee.
Contemporary proposals for Christian theology from postliberalism to Radical Orthodoxy and beyond have espoused their own methodological paradigms. Those who have ventured into this domain of theological method, however, have usually had to stake their claims vis-a-vis trends in what may be called the contemporary "post-al" age, whether of the postmodern, post-Christendom, post-Enlightenment, post-Western, or postcolonial varieties. This volume is unique among offerings in this arena in suggesting a way forward that engages on each of these fronts, and does so from a particularistic Christian perspective without giving up on Christian theology's traditional claims to universality. This is accomplished through the articulation of a distinctive dialogical methodology informed by both pentecostalism and evangelicalism, one rooted in the Christian salvation-history narrative of incarnation and Pentecost that is yet open to the world in its many and various cultural, ethnic, religious, and disciplinary discourses. Amos Yong here engages with twelve different interlocutors representing different ecumenical, religious, and disciplinary perspectives. The Dialogical Spirit thus not only proffers a model for Christian theological method suitable for the twenty-first-century global context but also exemplifies this methodological approach through its interactions across the contemporary scholarly, academic, and theological landscape.
The Dialogical Spirit brings together some of the main theological interlocutors and strands of theological reflection that have shaped the thought of one of the most prolific and creative pentecostal theologians of our time. It offers a compelling argument for a pneumatological and dialogical theological method as particularly suited to address contemporary theological problems while remaining faithful to the core of Christian revelation.
—Catherine Cornille, editor of Criteria of Discernment in Interreligious Dialogue
Amos Yong is Associate Research Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is the author and editor of six other books, including The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (2005). Spirit-Word-Community was voted the 2005 Book of the Year by the Society for Pentecostal Studies Book Committee.
The Globalization of Pentecostalism comprises a wide range of detailed and thoughtful contributions on Pentecostal theology, hermeneutics, missiology, and the social sciences. Together, they provide students of Pentecostalism a window on contemporary Pentecostal scholarship in a manner that engages with challenging and critical issues. The editors have provided a resource that promises to stimulate further research and reflection.
Murray Dempster is professor of social ethics at Southeastern University. faculty in 2010, he served for 40 years at Vanguard University of Southern California in Costa Mesa, California, a sister Assemblies of God school to Southeastern. At Vanguard he served as professor of social ethics, as well as in a variety of administrative roles including provost and chief academic officer for five years, president for eight years, and chancellor for one year.
Byron D. Klaus is professor of Intercultural Leadership Studies at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. After serving as AGTS president for 15 years (1999-2015), Dr. Klaus continues to teach courses at AGTS and returned to ChildHope (formerly known as Latin America ChildCare, LACC), as a vice-president. Additionally, he provides consulting services to various organizations. Prior to his years of service to AGTS, he served for 20 years on the faculty and administration at Vanguard University of Southern California.
Douglas Petersen (PhD Oxford Centre for Mission Studies) is Margaret S. Smith Distinguished Professor of World Missions and Intercultural Studies at Vanguard University. He teaches courses in the graduate program in intercultural studies on subjects relating to world missions, having lived and served on the mission field for many years. He is also the founding director of CINCEL, VUSC's Costa Rica Study Center. Dr. Petersen has also coauthored a number of books, including The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel and Called and Empowered: Global Mission in Pentecostal Perspective.
The Gospel Revisited is a constructive attempt at formulating a contemporary Pentecostal theology grounded in worship and witness. The theological vision expounded here is grounded in the Pentecostal story with its emphasis upon the fivefold Gospel. The doxological confession of Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptizer, Healer, and soon coming King provide the basic organizational structure of a Pentecostal narrative theology. Each chapter takes seriously these central convictions and allows them to shape, form, and reform various theological loci. Important issues such as methodology, hermeneutics, and theology as embodied worship and witness are addressed. The result is a vibrant and integrative theology fueled by a dynamic spirituality.
These penetrating essays stem from Archer's profound conviction that the Pentecostal tradition requires a distinctive theological expression. They give that conviction robust form in well-argued proposals about the methods and character of such a theology. This book will be appreciated not only by Pentecostals but also by others who are in search of a theology rooted in the history and experience of living Christian communities. Highly recommended.
—Richard Bauckham, author of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
Kenneth J. Archer is associate professor of theology at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, Cleveland, TN. He has published essays in various journals and is the author of A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century.
In the contemporary biblical studies climate, proposals regarding the theological interpretation of Scripture are contested, particularly but not only because they privilege, encourage, and foster ecclesial or other forms of normative commitments as part and parcel of the hermeneutical horizon through which scriptural texts are read and understood. Within this context, confessional approaches have been emerging, including some from within the nascent pentecostal theological tradition. This volume builds on the author's previous work in theological method to suggest a pentecostal perspective on theological interpretation that is rooted in the conviction that all Christian reading of sacred Scripture is post-Pentecost, meaning after the Day of Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh in anticipation of the coming reign of God. In that respect, such a pentecostal interpretative perspective is not parochially for those within the modern day movement bearing that name but is arguably apostolic in following after the scriptural imagination of the earliest disciples of Jesus the messiah and therefore has ecumenical and missional purchase across space and time. The Hermeneutical Spirit thus provides close readings of various texts across the scriptural canon as a model for Christian theological interpretation of Scripture suitable for the twenty-first-century global context.
Amos Yong is one of the two or three Pentecostal theologians who ventures beyond the narrower confines of traditional Pentecostal writers. He has already written numerous books on the Holy Spirit, on hermeneutics, of Trinitarian faith, and ecumenical concerns. This volume reprints twelve earlier essays, but includes a fresh introduction and conclusion. I heartily commend his fresh thinking, his Trinitarian perspective, and hermeneutical sensitivity. This book is timely, and deserves a wide readership.
—Anthony C. Thiselton, Emeritus Professor, Christian Theology, University of Nottingham
Amos Yong is professor of theology & Mission and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
In fifteen thorough chapters David Ewert surveys the whole range of New Testament authors to discover what they have to say on the Holy Spirit and what this means for the life of the believer and for the church. The book is organized in three parts: (1) The Promise of the Spirit, considering all the passages of the Gospels that speak of the Holy Spirit; (2) The Coming of the Spirit, dealing with the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in the book of Acts and the continual "overflow" of the Spirit in the expansion of the church; and (3) The Spirit in the Life of the Believer, studying what the apostles have to say about the Holy Spirit in the epistles.
David Ewert (PhD, McGill University) was born in the former USSR and moved to Canada with his parents. He grew up on a farm in southern Alberta. In 1944 he married Lena Hamm, with whom he now has five children, twelve grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. He is professor emeritus of biblical studies at Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Liberating Mission of Jesus deals with the central message of the Gospel of Luke, provocatively arguing that the liberating mission of Jesus has two central themes: the universality of the love of God and the special love God has for the defenseless of society. Both of these pillars form the bedrock of Luke's theological vision, animate his Gospel throughout, and summarize the good news of the reign of God in subversive and radical form. This book shows how the liberating message announced by Jesus, as well as his liberating practice, is manifested throughout the Gospel and its implications for Christian life today. Through this thorough treatment, the full depth of Luke's vision of the liberating mission of Jesus is shown to be a paradigm for the personal and collective witness of believers, regardless of the social, political, cultural, or religious boundaries that try to inhibit them from giving witness to the God of life.
I am deeply grateful for Dario Lopez Rodriguez's fantastic work on the liberating mission of Jesus, for he has provided us with a crucial and persuasive biblical call to work for peace, justice, empowerment, and liberation. I will continue to require it in my classes and I highly recommend it.
—Paul Alexander, professor of Christian ethics & public policy at Palmer Theological Seminary, Eastern University
Dario Lopez Rodriguez is pastor of the Church of God of Peru, professor in different theological centers in Latin America, and author of various books on the topics of Pentecostalism and the public presence of Evangelicals. He is currently president of the National Evangelical Council of Peru and Bishop of the Lima Region of the Church of God of Peru.
The field of the theology of mission has developed variously across Christian traditions in the last century. Pentecostal scholars and missiologists also have made their share of contributions to this area. This book brings the insights of pentecostal theologian Amos Yong to the discussion. It delineates the major features of what will be argued as central to a viable vision and praxis for Christian mission in a postmodern, post-Christendom, post-Enlightenment, post-Western, and postcolonial world. What emerges will be a distinctively distinctively missiological theology informed by both pentecostalism and evangelicalism, one rooted in the Christian salvation-history narrative of Incarnation and Pentecost that is yet open to the world in its many and various cultural, ethnic, religious, and disciplinary discourses and realities. The argument unfolds through dialogical engagements with the work of others, concrete case studies, and systematic theological reflection. Yong's pneumatological and missiological imagination proffers a model for Christian theology of mission suitable for the twenty-first-century global and pluralistic context even as it exemplifies how a missiological understanding of theology itself unfolds amidst engagements with contemporary ecclesial practices and academic/theological impulses.
Combining twelve brilliant essays, Yong demonstrates the value of a pneumatological approach to mission in the world. His erudite scholarship is tempered with practical on-the-ground application, making this both a stimulating missiological treatise and a practical handbook for joining God's mission in a globalizing world of cultural complexity and religious pluralism. My anthropological heart was strangely warmed by Yong's cross-cultural sensitivity and understanding of mission in a pluralistic world.
—Darrell Whiteman, editor of Missiology
Amos Yong is Professor of Theology and Mission and the Director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author and editor of more than two dozen books, including Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices, and the Neighbor (2008). This book is a companion to his The Dialogical Spirit: Christian Reason and Theological Method in the Third Millennium (Cascade, 2014).
The prosperity movement has influenced millions of people in North America, Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa through Pentecostal, Charismatic and nondenominational preachers in some of the largest churches in the world. CNN, ABC, and Time magazine have examined the preachers and churches in this popular and controversial movement. Scholars and church leaders have studied it for more than two decades, producing dozens of books and articles on it. Considering the widespread popularity of the prosperity movement and the attention it is given by its critics, Brogdon asks, "Is prosperity preaching the new Pentecostal message?" In order to answer this question, one has to examine the prosperity movement as a Pentecostal movement instead of a Word of Faith movement that is a revised form of New Thought metaphysics and Science of Mind. Brogdon provides an introduction to the prosperity movement as a Pentecostal movement. He asks important questions in the study of the prosperity movement, such as who popularized prosperity teaching, Oral Roberts or Ken Hagin? Do all Pentecostals agree with the prosperity doctrine? Is prosperity teaching good news to the poor? Has prosperity replaced the emphasis on the Holy Spirit? The answers may surprise you.
This valiant and sympathetic overview of the Pentecostal prosperity movement will be of interest to anyone with a concern for how the gospel is preached to the poor.
—Cheryl Sanders, professor of Christian ethics, Howard University
Lewis Brogdon (PhD, Regent University) currently serves as Assistant Professor of Religion at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He has published two books: No Longer a Slave but a Brother: An African American Reading of Paul's Letter to Philemon and Hope on the Brink: Understanding the Emergence of Nihilism in Black America.
Joseph E. Campbell was one of the earliest academic scholars in the Pentecostal movement. As an active evangelist and minister, he was ever focused on missions and education. In Hong Kong, he established a church and a college. In this history of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Campbell surveys the history of a Pentecostal community in which he himself was an active participant and contributor. A classic in the history of Pentecostalism, The Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1898-1948 represents an early effort to document the history of the movement from one of its leading pentecostal theologians.
Joseph E. Campbell (b. 1903), author, world evangelist, professor, held the first accredited doctoral degree in The Pentecostal Holiness Church. An active evangelist, revivalist, and pastor, he held a longtime interest in missions. He founded the Laymen's Missionary Foundation. He traveled to Hong Kong where he established a school, college, and church. His books include What to Believe and Why, Can a Man Live above Sin?, and A Whole Gospel for the Whole Man.
This collection of essays was first presented at the 37th annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, held jointly with the Wesleyan Theological Society at Duke University in March 2008, under the conference theme, "Signs, Sighs, and Significance: Pentecostal and Wesleyan Explorations of Science and Creation." Along with a companion volume of Wesleyan essays published also by Pickwick Publications, the twelve chapters here represent both Pentecostal reflections/responses to the science-religion discussion and Pentecostal contributions to the ongoing exchange by biblical studies specialists, historians, and theologians, among those trained in other disciplines. Together the essayists model an actual dialogue in which Pentecostal scholarly reflection is impacted by science-religion discourses on the one hand, while Pentecostals reach deep into their own tradition to explore how their pre-understandings and commitments might enable them to speak with their own voice into pre-existing conversations on the other hand. This volume thus represents one of the first-hopefully the first of many-in which Pentecostals register their perspectives on a major issue of our time. In a world dominated by science, and at a time when theologies of creation that encourage and require care for creation and the environment are proliferating, The Spirit Renews the Face of the Earth provides a set of Pentecostal perspectives on these important matters.
This volume of essays is a testimony to the fact that not only has Pentecostal theology come of age, but that Pentecostals are now equipped theologically to facilitate dialogue with science and creation care. Dr. Yong, the leading Pentecostal constructive theologian, has put together an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to offer exciting reflections on distinctively Pentecostal creation theology and practice in sympathetic and critical dialogue with scientific perspectives. This is a landmark volume.
—Veli-Matti Karkkainen, professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary and Docent of Ecumenics, University of Helsinki
Amos Yong is professor of theology and mission and the director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author and editor of more than forty books, including Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices, and the Neighbor (2008). This book is a companion to his The Dialogical Spirit: Christian Reason and Theological Method in the Third Millennium
Trinity After Pentecost approaches the triune God from a Pentecostal perspective. In so doing, it offers a fresh articulation of the theology of the Trinity that starts with Pentecost and with the Spirit. It concludes that the Trinity cannot be adequately appreciated using any single model--whether social, modal, or psychological. Instead, it presents three models--relational, instrumental, and substantial--that need to be held in paradoxical tension with one another. Of these, the relational is the foremost. Pentecost offers rich potential for seeing these relations between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as a dynamic reciprocal "dance" in which each person empties self in order to exalt the other.
Atkinson's call for a pneumatological Trinitarianism is reminiscent of Basil of Caesarea, who, among the early church fathers, warned against failing to appreciate the full deity of the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. Atkinson shows that without an adequate understanding of the Holy Spirit given to the church on the day of Pentecost, one's theology of God is defective and one's worship of the triune God is diminished. This book is lucidly written and a joy to read.
—Laurence W. Wood, professor of theology and Wesley studies at Asbury Theological Seminary
William Atkinson (PhD, Edinburgh University) serves as the vice-principal at the London School of Theology. He continues there also as a senior lecturer in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies. He is on the Board of Advisers of the Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship and is a member of the European Pentecostal Theological Association.