Continuing on with discussion point #1:
The New Kind of Pentecostals are those who do not claim exclusivity of the Holy Spirit to a particular denomination or church.
Let’s talk pneumatology here. There’s no doubt that the Pentecostal movement revived a sense of charismatic pneumatology in the church. Throughout history there has always been a stream of charismatic experience running through the church. It was sometimes ignored or marginalized, but it was there. The global explosion of what we have come to label the Pentecostal movement was certainly unique. It has found expression in “classical Pentecostalism,” charismatic pentecostalism, and other waves and streams around the world that defy definition at the moment.
With the initial Pentecostal movement there was a great sense of excitement. The Spirit was doing something new! There was a new outpouring, and it looked a lot like the book of Acts. People wondered if this was a special outpouring for the “last days.” And it just wasn’t happening the same way in other denominations or traditions of Christianity.
So I think the exclusivity started with trying to make sense of this new movement of the Spirit. Because there was a way in which the Spirit was working that was different. And that made us feel special.
But somewhere along the way, we may have reduced the Spirit’s role to that of charismatic manifestations, and even more specifically, tongues. The pneumatology of Luke-Acts had been sorely neglected, and one of Pentecostalism’s gifts to the larger church has been to explicate Luke’s unique pneumatology. We should be grateful for the biblical scholarship done in this area by many brilliant Pentecostals. But Pentecostal pneumatology, as it has been expressed thus far, is by no means the be all and end all of Christian pneumatology. Believe it or not, the Spirit has been at work in the church between Constantine and Azuza Street!!
It’s time to take the pneumatology we have developed and put it in conversation with other aspects of pneumatology. We didn’t invent it. We have much to learn from many theologians of the church over time. It’s as we interact with the collective mind of the church that we can see some of the weak points in our own pneumatology and develop our own insights further. The Spirit is bigger than us, bigger than tongues, than Pentecostalism. I believe the Spirit speaks through Pentecostalism to the rest of the church, and that the Spirit also speaks TO Pentecostalism through the rest of the church.
What do you think?
In what ways has our pneumatology contributed to the larger picture of what the Spirit is up to in the world?
In what ways has it fallen short?
How can we better interact with the 1900 years of pneumatological thought that came before us?
Has anyone been reading any pneumatology lately (Pentecostal or other) that has inspired them to colour outside the traditional Pentecostal lines?
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1 comments:
Excellent questions Lindsey, but difficult ones to answer!
I think that our pneumatology has contributed a sense of the personal care of God, and the closeness of God, that was lacking in many non-sacramental churches. I think that this is a huge part of the global success of Pentecostalism. Unfortunately, this leads into several traps:
1) it emphasizes individualism, because we're very concerned with what God is doing in and through and for ME;
2) when we systematize this notion of God's closeness to us as individuals, we have a very weak response to theodicy and evil: our emphasis on God's closeness and personal care for us as individuals makes the question "why do bad things happen to good people" all the harder to answer.
3) Our corresponding emphasis on the faith required to experience miracles puts the entire blame for negative experiences on the shoulders of the victim of those evils. Health and Wealth doctrines are not possible in other traditions; our pneumatology has enabled a spiritual elitism that frequently just so happens to mirror financial elitism.
As for how to better interact with the pneumatological thought that came before us, I think that we need to better compare and distinguish the differences between modern Pentecostal pneumatology and the pneumatologies of other traditions. We have a terrible tendency to look back on charismatics throughout history and claim them as our own, when in reality they probably had very different explanations for their experiences! We need to hear them on their own terms, and to articulate our own pneumatology clearly enough that we can see the differences and explain them, even if only to ourselves. There IS much of value in Pentecostal pneumatology, but we must be able to clearly articulate it in order to have a conversation about it with other traditions.
Finally, as to what I've been reading lately, I haven't read much pneumatology per se (I have the Stronstad books glaring at me from the shelf - I'll get there someday!). However, I've been planning to write my thesis on the Powers and Principalities that appear so frequently in scripture, and there are some strong pneumatological implications that come from this topic. The writings of William Stringfellow and Walter Wink talk about the powers and principalities as social institutions, echoing earlier thoughts by Barth and, to some degree, Bonhoeffer (my favourites). If these spiritual entities are also social structures, then "spiritual warfare" and the work of the Spirit in redeeming the fallen (sanctification, if you will) take on a very physical, political element that make concrete ethical demands of us. No longer can "spiritual" things be contrasted to the physical or ethical, as if they are only inward: the Spirit of God, and the spirits that oppose Him, have concrete and visible effects on our world! This strikes me as being in line with the best of Pentecostal pneumatology, as I mentioned in response to your first question :)
Love this blog! Keep asking questions!
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