The Greatest Faith Ever Known

Roman Catholic authors, a liberal United Methodist minister, and a teen-led prayer meeting were responsible for my involvement in the Pentecostal Movement.
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While reading Fulton and April Oursler’s The Greatest Faith Ever Known, the need for a dramatic confession of faith became inescapable. In the story of Philip and the Ethiopian financier as recounted by the Ourslers, it is clear that to qualify for baptism in water one must believe with all the heart. Deeply moved by the account, I knelt and prayed using the words of the Ethiopian money manager, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” [1]
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Not satisfied with a private expression of faith and wanting to emulate the biblical pattern, I approached the minister of our United Methodist Church and requested baptism by immersion. Fresh out of seminary, the Reverend Roberts was unorthodox in his beliefs and practice. He openly admitted to the teens who attended his weekly “rap sessions” that he did not believe in hell and was not too sure about heaven. It was not surprising when he refused the request. To him baptism was an unnecessary ritual.
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When reminded that Methodist catechetical classes taught that immersion was the prerogative of the believer, he insisted it would be too much trouble to borrow a baptistery from another church. Refusing to drop the matter, I began a search for a church that baptized by immersion.
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It was a pleasant surprise to find that the Assemblies of God church in a neighboring town not only observed believer’s baptism by immersion, but also endeavored to restore primitive Christian practices like those described in the Ourslers’ paraphrase of the Book of Acts.
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The teens at First Assembly were serious about their faith and conducted their own prayer meetings. During one of the prayer sessions, a few teens asked if they could pray for me to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I acquiesced even though the terminology and objectives were unclear. The encounter with the Holy Spirit began to transform my life even though I did not speak in tongues on that occasion. Rising from five-hours of prostrate prayer, life suddenly had a new direction.
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The next six months were a flurry of spiritual activities—unrelenting prayer at the altar, discussions with church leaders and consumption of literature on the subject of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.
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Finally, on a chilly February night, I methodically placed the various areas of my life “on the altar.” As I reached the place of total surrender, words in a language other than English (my first and only language) came into my mind. By an act of my will, I cooperated with God and spoke as He supplied the words and the ability to pronounce them properly. The more I spoke the larger the “vocabulary” became.
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Since that encounter at the altar, a day has not come when I could not pray or praise in tongues.
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[1] Oursler, Fulton and April Oursler Armstrong. The Greatest Faith Ever Known (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1953), 108. See also Acts 8:36-38.

Pentecostalism and Passionate Spirituality

From its beginnings, Pentecostal worship has been demonstrative.

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Perhaps it was the overflow of joy expressed by so many of the early participants as they experienced freedom from repressive circumstances. Perhaps it was the influence of African-American spirituality as Steven Land suggests. Whatever the reason, Pentecostal worship was participatory, emotional, and expressive.

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Handclapping, hand-raising, crying, laughing, boisterous singing, exclamations of praise, dancing, falling, “jerking,” corporate prayer, laying on of hands, “Jericho Marches,” tarrying at the altar, visions, messages in tongues, interpretation of tongues, words of prophecy, words of knowledge as well as animated preaching placed Pentecostalism in the tradition of the Camp Meeting Movement. Pentecostals considered the staid, ritualistic, liturgical, or creedal forms of worship as “unspiritual.”

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When one steps back and looks at the sweep of Christian history, it seems clear that God was orchestrating events to prepare for the “restoration” of an “apostolic” ministry—one with a passion for global missions. It seems that step-by-step God was restoring key elements to His Church—Sola Scriptura, justification by faith in the atoning work of Christ, an expectation of subsequent experiences with the Holy Spirit, a contemporary prospect for signs and wonders including divine healing, an anticipation of the imminent return of Christ, a passion for missions and a freedom to experience God personally.

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Where is the fire? Where is the fervency? Where is the passion?

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Did the pioneers of the Pentecostal Movement have something we have lost? If so, what must we do to reclaim the passion for God and His work in the world?

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Pentecostalism: A Theology of Urgency

For Pentecostals, theological reflection is not merely a “speculative enterprise; it is urgent, last-days work.” [1]
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Preachers, evangelists, and missionaries wrote and continue to write Pentecostal theology while in passenger seats on their way to deliver an urgent message to a lost and dying world at the end of the age.
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Hades: Building on the themes of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and the nineteenth century revivalists as well as the plain teachings of Scripture, early Pentecostals preached the reality of “hell.” They believed that all who had rejected God’s offer of salvation in Jesus Christ would be removed from the presence of God and placed in eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels—a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:30, 41-46). They believed all whose names were not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life would be cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). This certainty of hell filled the early Pentecostals with an urgent desire to reach and save the sad souls who were stacked up as brands ready for the burning.

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Imminent Return of Christ: Early Pentecostals also firmly believed in the imminent return of Jesus Christ and a fiery, cataclysmic end to earth (2 Peter 3:7). They believed they were living in the Last Days.

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Gary McGee writes, "Influenced by the rise of premillennialism in the late nineteenth century, Pentecostals were convinced that civilization would get worse before it got better. Hearing the incessant rumblings of war on the international scene and fascinated by the concomitant stirrings of Zionism, premillennialists became convinced the end was near." [2]
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Rapture of the Church: The Pentecostal pioneers expected Jesus to come at any moment to “rapture” His Church. They expected Christ to lead His people to a Holy City—a New Jerusalem. They believed that no one who was impure, or shameful or deceitful could enter this Holy City, only those who had made their robes white in the crimson stream of Calvary (Matthew 24:42-44; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 21:1-8).

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Some went so far as to say that only a sanctified subset of the Church would be raptured. To support this view they pointed to Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27, KJV).

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Hastening the Return: Many, following the lead of C.I. Scofield and A.B. Simpson, believed they could hasten the return of Christ by developing an aggressive strategy to evangelize every nation on earth. The basis for such a belief was their understanding of the words of Jesus: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14, KJV).

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Urgent Need for Power: These eschatological beliefs filled the Pentecostal pioneers with an urgency to be ready for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ by living holy lives and by reaching the lost while there was still time. This urgency drove them to seek for the God-given enablement to live sanctified lives and for the power to proclaim boldly the gospel to a lost and dying world.

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Gary McGee writes, "The emergence of Pentecostalism in the twentieth century is all about missiology: How could the world be evangelized in the 'last days' before the imminent return of Christ? To Pentecostals, the only successful course lay in a return to the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit which accompanied the ministry of the disciples in the book of Acts." [3]
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Baptism in the Holy Spirit: While seeking for the power that they believed Jesus promised in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8, these earnest people experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues as the Spirit gave them the ability.

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The reception of the baptism in the Holy Spirit was a further sign of the end of the age. Charles Parham, an early leader, was convinced that Christ’s premillennial return would be the culmination of a worldwide revival. Viewing glossolalia as proof of the “latter rain” outpouring of the Spirit, Parham believed the restoration of Pentecostal power would launch the expected global revival as “divinely trained” missionary workers spread the “apostolic faith” around the world.

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[1] Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 41.

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[2] Gary McGee, “Pentecostals and Their Various Strategies for Global Mission: A Historical Assessment,” in Called and Empowered: Global Mission in Pentecostal Perspective, ed. Murray A. Dempster, Byron D. Klaus and Douglas Petersen (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1991), 207.

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[3] McGee, 201.

Building on the Foundation of Spiritual Adventurers

The newer, faster computers with more memory and more user-friendly operating systems did not spring up over night. No, they are the products of innovators who labored to improve and enhance the efforts of those who had pioneered in the field of electronic processing and storage of data. The new products are built on the foundational work of earlier scientists.
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I think there is a need to pull back the curtain and explain that the Pentecostal Movement did not spontaneously appear either. Rather, it was built on the foundational work of previous spiritual adventurers. Without stifling exploration, innovation, and creativity, those who work with emerging Pentecostal leaders have the responsibility of showing them where they fit into the advance of God’s Kingdom. Will emerging Pentecostals learn from their predecessors? Can they enhance and improve on the efforts of the pioneers?
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Sola Scriptura: A commitment to the primacy of Scripture characterized the Pentecostal Movement from its beginnings. Pentecostals owe much to the Reformers who restored to the Church the principle of Sola Scriptura—the teaching that the Bible alone is the final authority for what we must believe and how we must behave. Believing the Scriptures to be the all-sufficient rule for faith and practice, Pentecostals have attempted to search the written Word of God to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing in and saying to His Church.
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Radical Conversion: Linking the activity of the Spirit with the Word in this way moved Pentecostals beyond contemplation of biblical teachings to volitional action based on Scriptural truth. It was not sufficient to possess an intellectual assent to the facts of the Gospel, an individual needed to have a “heart-warming experience” with God.
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Being born into a Christian family was not adequate. Being moral in the eyes of the world was not enough. A clear-cut decision for Christ was required. People were expected to mourn over their sins and seek Christ to receive cleansing and regeneration. For this emphasis, Pentecostals should be grateful to the nineteenth century revivalists as well as to John Wesley and the Moravians and Reformers who influenced him.
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Pursuit of Personal Holiness: Donald Dayton and others have pointed to Wesley’s theological emphasis on sanctification (“Christian perfectionism”) as the backdrop for the emphasis on a “second work of grace” within the Holiness Movement of the 1800s.
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While Wesley preferred to use descriptions such as “attaining the mind of Christ” or “total devotion to God” rather than “sinless perfection,” Phoebe Palmer and other Methodist teachers held to the possibility of attaining instantaneous and entire sanctification by “placing all on the altar.”
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Others in the Holiness Movement who were less Wesleyan pursued experiences with God subsequent to justification as part of the “deeper life” (“Higher Life” for the Keswick Teachers) that was part of progressive sanctification.
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Social Justice: It is noteworthy that the teachings of Christian perfectionism affected not just the personal arena, but tackled social and institutional concerns as well. The movement gave vitality to the antislavery enterprise.
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Baptism in the Holy Spirit: As the Holiness Movement advanced toward 1900, it increasingly used the terminology and imagery of Pentecost to describe the subsequent blessing. Charles G. Finney and Asa Mahan helped popularize the phrase “baptism with the Holy Ghost” as a description for the empowering and cleansing experience. When the Pentecostal revival began, it co-opted the Holiness terminology to describe the baptism in the Holy Spirit with its attendant speaking in other tongues.
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Divine Healing: One of the most obvious components of the Pentecostal foundation is the sincere belief in contemporary signs and wonders. Following in the footsteps of those who believed in the restoration of vital New Testament Christianity before Christ’s return, Pentecostals refused to accept the teaching that miracles ceased with the death of the last Apostle. Like A.B. Simpson, they believed that since divine healing was part of the atonement it was the will of God to heal.
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Do we still believe? Do we believe in sola Scriptura, in radical conversion, in the pursuit of personal holiness, in Christian compassion and social justice, in the infilling of the Holy Spirit, in divine healing?

An Emerging Fourth Generation of Pentecostals

Those who work with the fourth generation of Pentecostals find that for some of the emerging leaders, loyalties to Pentecostal history and traditions are slight. For them the debate over tongues as the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is not over. Members of the fourth generation are not convinced that Pentecostalism is the “restoration” longed for by the nineteenth century revivalists. The more astute ask for a clearly articulated hermeneutic and a less ambiguous theological rationale for Pentecostal distinctives.

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Those who work with “Generation Four” hear the challenges: “Show us how Pentecostal experiences make us any different from those in other churches. Demonstrate the relevance of Pentecostal teachings for a world in need.”

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Likewise, the emerging Pentecostals are blasé about the polish and panache of “spectator church” (both local and electronic church). They crave involvement. They are willing to get dirty to make a difference in the world.
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Obviously, this analysis of the Pentecostal Movement is overly simplistic. It does not take into consideration that there continue to be individuals experiencing radical conversion and “true believer” vitality. Neither does it acknowledge the global changes over the past 100 years. To understand adequately where the Movement is at, one should factor in the impact of the economic and geographical moves from an agrarian to an industrial to an information-based economy. One should analyze the sociological moves from Builders to Boomers to Busters to Generation Xers and now to Millennias.

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It is also important to contemplate the effects of the philosophical shifts from Traditionalism to Modernism to Post-Modernism to Digitality. The religious influence of the Charismatic renewal, the commingling of Evangelicals with Pentecostals, the embarrassment of prominent Pentecostals, and the political Religious Right all need contemplation. With more space, one should evaluate the significance of women’s issues, race relations, immigration, the media, and the availability of modern medicine.
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How will Pentecostal leaders respond to the current situation? Will they legislate loyalty to the institution? Will they develop a bunker mentality—hunkering down to await the assault of the “barbarian hoards” of the fourth generation? Will they compromise standards and relinquish distinctives to hang onto the bodies, budgets, and buildings that give the appearance of success? History demonstrates the ineffectiveness of institutionalism at perpetuating movements.
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Where then does the Pentecostal Movement turn? Must it adopt what Brian McLaren calls “an anarchist ecclesiology”? Must the Church be demolished and rebuilt from scratch every hundred years or so? Is there another alternative?

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Can the Church periodically sort out and cherish the non-negotiables of the faith? Can it discard, replace, or upgrade the obsolete or superfluous traditions and structures?

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Can the Church insure that all generations have the opportunity for radical conversion and for the Holy Spirit to “pour new wine into new wine bags” (Matthew 9:17, NCV)?

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Surely, with God’s help it can.

Upgrade, but Save the Core Values

I just purchased my twelfth computer in twenty years. With the advances in technology, computers frequently need upgrading or replacing. Despite the upgrades or replacements, that which was truly valuable was always saved—the data—my sermons, syllabi, class notes, and financial records.

Can the Pentecostal Movement upgrade while saving its valuable distinctives? Can it advance without damaging or losing the precepts, passion, and praxis of the pioneers?

Pentecostalism has arrived at the point when the visionary founders and early leaders (Eric Hoffer would call them “true believers.”) have died or retired and now are being replaced by an emerging generation of leaders. Some of the new leaders inherited their tenets and practices without spilling blood in the crucible of revolution.

The Pentecostal Movement has reached the organizational stage when it is facing the ecclesiastical dangers of institutionalism and anarchism. Institutionalism occurs when an organization takes action to preserve its existence, often at the expense of the purpose for which it originated. Anarchism feels little loyalty to the organization and perceives the institutional church as a hindrance to spontaneity, community, and mission. Anarchists think it is best to demolish and rebuild.

Who were the “true believers” who founded the Pentecostal Movement?

Often coming from the ranks of the deprived and disenfranchised, many Pentecostal pioneers experienced radical conversion as they responded to the “full gospel” message. The foremost doctrines of the “four square” message were: Salvation in Jesus Christ, Divine Healing through the atonement, the premillennial return of Christ, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit (or Ghost) with the initial evidence of speaking in other tongues. Some added sanctification by faith as a second definite work of grace as a fifth fundamental of the full gospel.

My former Senior Adults Pastor, John Wannenmacher of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (John died last March), used to tell me how his father Joseph (a leader in the Assemblies of God) frequently started his sermons focusing on some distinctive topic, but always worked the sermon around to expound the “four cardinal doctrines.”

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For leaders like Joseph P. Wannenmacher becoming a Pentecostal was a decisive step. They tearfully and passionately testified to the validity of the Pentecostal teachings. They boldly battled foes within and without over the distinctives. They were true believers.

Even the second generation of Pentecostals demonstrated passionate loyalty for the movement. Perhaps they personally witnessed or knew of the radical transformation that occurred in the lives of their parents.

John Wannenmacher vividly tells the story of the dramatic healing that his Hungarian, violin-playing father experienced in the “faith homes” in Zion, Illinois (started by John Alexander Dowie). Whether he is aware of it or not, John preached four point sermons—just like his father. All of Joseph and Helen Wannenmacher’s children (John, Philip, and Lois) served the Assemblies of God as ministers. Having been in such proximity to the early firebrands, the subsequent generation bore the brand of Pentecostalism.

As the beneficiaries of the “redemptive lift,” those in the third generation received better educations and held jobs that were more lucrative. They strove for acceptance and respectability in their communities. Less heavenly-minded and more earth bound, they focused on constructing bigger buildings in better neighborhoods. They participated in the political debates for which their forbearers had little time.

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For some in the third generation, religious experiences were more a matter of “socialization” (E.S. Williams’ word) than radical transformation. As the churches grew in terms of membership, finances, and community acceptance, the old participatory, lay-led worship drifted more toward a spectator, clergy-directed activity.

Seemingly, for some, loyalty to “the cause” became more a matter of maintaining the traditions handed down to them by parents and grandparents (a creedal ritualism) rather than a “fire in the belly.”

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Where are we now?

Pentecostalism at the Crossroads

Whether the Pentecostal Movement is in crisis (as some believe), it is definitely at a crossroads.

As the movement begins its second century, it faces certain issues that threaten to attenuate its vitality.

Some of these issues surfaced when a limited number of Pentecostal pastors, educators, and students training for ministry responded to my one-question survey: “What issues do you think Pentecostals face as they move into the twenty-first century?”

To prevent a biased result, no suggested answers were included with the survey.

Responses included race relations, women in ministry, styles of worship, ecumenism, universalism, the influence of the Charismatic Movement, an indistinct hermeneutic, an ambiguous theological rationale for Pentecostal distinctives, relevance of Pentecostal doctrine to the current culture, neglect of eschatology, changes in missionary strategies, the need for social action, lack of integrity among leadership, worldliness, the breakdown of the family, postmodernism, institutionalism, and the need to maintain Pentecostal distinctives.

While the survey was informal and limited to a few dozen respondents, a slight deviation in focus between the age groups was discernable. Those above 35 years of age universally mentioned the need to maintain Pentecostal distinctives. Those in the below 35 years of age category did express concern over Pentecostal distinctives, but with less frequency.

Interestingly, the younger group mentioned concerns that were not raised by those who were older—breakdown of the family, integrity of leaders, relevance of Pentecostal doctrine to the current culture, and social action.

It would require a dissertation to address all of these matters adequately.

In the next few installments, this blog will explore the areas with which I am most frequently confronted in my work with young Pentecostal ministers—the dangers of institutionalism and anarchism, the perception of theological ambiguity, and the relevance of Pentecostalism to a needy world. The other issues raised in the survey will be touched on only when they intersect one of the three foci.

Welcome to Theological Speed Bumps

This blog is devoted to the theological and praxis ponderings of Dr. David Arnett