Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Window dressing and Acceptability

It happens whenever I’m in the presence of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) or of a prayer for immediate healing. I quickly scan the room and do a mental recall of who is present and how this will be perceived. If I remember that we’re all friends and family, I feel safe. If I remember that someone present may not understand, I feel uncomfortable. Will this be shocking, interesting, or unacceptable? The experience is not unlike forgetting that you are half undressed and standing in front of a window. If you live on the first floor of a house along a busy street you would consciously never do that. But if you live ten floors up it’s not a big deal. Yet even high above the street, you might scan for a high powered telescope.

In the last year I’ve written quite a number of articles related to Evangelicals and Pentecostals in the media. 2006 happened to be the year to do that. It was almost as if the media had removed the roof we’d all been hiding under and stuck a 300 watt bulb and a video camera on us. There was (and is) a scramble for acceptability. Many churches feel strongly that they are under attack and so they go on the defense. Others feel confident that with God on their side, their position is invincible. What’s fascinating is that regardless of how Pentecostals and Evangelicals are pressed, they have a ready defense.

If there’s pressure on the political Right wing to change, there’s a ready Left winger available to answer questions. Mainstream Evangelicals have so much experience with Pentecostals at this point, that they are a welcome part of Evangelical heritage. Of course, it’s notable that many Evangelicals love the fact that many Pentecostals don’t speak in tongues! A historical review of Pentecostalism reveals that the movement’s acceptability and growth owe a lot to two things: demographic shifts and the openness to new forms of communication. Now it just so happens that these same things contributed to the growth of Evangelicalism!

But here’s the hard question, the elephant in the room if you will: If child-birth and radio or television waves form wave this movement-ship is sailing on, what happens when the baby grows up or when ratings change? The answer to that question should reveal that exciting new religious movements, at the end of the day, have to face the same thorny issues that every religion faces---even if they squirm and claim not to be religious! To boil it all down, these include the Nature of Discipleship and Public Relations in a changing age. Suddenly, things get a lot more complicated.

Tags: Evangelicals, pentecostals, discipleship, public relations

Another Pentecostal documentary, a new study, and more religion and politics

Three things that are interrelated. Last night I saw the 2001 movie documentary "Hell House."
It may still be airing on the Sundance channel and in reruns of This American Life. Michael and I set it up in the dining room here and many other young folks came in and out. A young lady sat on my left who had never before been exposed to a Pentecostal worship service. You may remember that I recently review Jesus Camp.

The Hell House experience is similar to Jesus Camp, but provocative in different ways. Jesus Camp is a much more politically prescient and provocative experience. The subjects of Jesus Camp are harder to watch than Hell House because they are little children. With Hell House, an AoG church attracts thousands of people into a Halloween experience that's really all about sin, culture, and a final invitation for conversion. In Jesus Camp we follow a number of families around in their subculture and then watch their Christian camp experience. Its interesting that I feel like more action is going on in Jesus Camp even though its much more internalized. Hell House is a church reaching out, Jesus Camp is really the day to day (albeit intense) workings of a church subculture among its own kids.

In other news, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has just released a 10 country 233 page survey of Pentecostalism. Bible Belt Blogger calls it "Everything you wanted to know about Pentecostalism." I just have to say that you can read up all you want on Pentecostals and still miss the fact that it is a uniquely lived experience. From the outside looking in, it could appear downright Shamanistic. Having spent a good deal of time in Assembly of God churches I would warn that that appearance is severly misleading. AoG services can be just as boring, maybe more than elsewhere at times.

Always remember too that members inside are as capable of self-criticism as the most vitriolic outside scoffer. A church worship scene from Hell House last night brought back memories of the style of preaching that smacks more of a pep rally than sermon. But I also remember the opposition to this style among professors in my AoG college. I learned well the lesson in my Pnuematology course: "The Holy Spirit's work always points to Christ. Anything other than that is really not Him." I remember that professor asking and really listening to our different youth group "horror" stories. Illicit use of the Holy Spirit's name for personal ego or monetary gain. One woman with tears recounted how she sought in vain the gift of Tongues and was made to feel sinful and unspiritual for not having recieved it in a certain time-frame. My professor expressed his sorrow and assured her that was not AoG teaching but hurtful error.

Finally, Walter Russell Mead's article God's Country? in Foreign Affairs is worthy of attention. He seems very interested in what Evangelicals can contribute to foreign policy. He writes:

"Evangelicals are likely to focus more on U.S. exceptionalism than liberals would like, and they are likely to care more about the morality of U.S. foreign policy than most realists prefer. But evangelical power is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and those concerned about U.S. foreign policy would do well to reach out."

Well this will make somebody happy. It would be very difficult for me to sit at a table with Richard Land with an open ear toward most anything he has to say on foreign policy or the environment. I went over all this with Ron Sider last year.

Tags: Hell House, Documentary, Jesus Camp, Pentecostalism, Foreign Policy, Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs, Evangelicals, Ron Sider

My beloved prof's website

Well, I'm going to take a risk and tell you who that beloved prof is who was so ambivalent about Bonhoeffer. I do this because I still appreciate his work for the Kingdom of God. Dale Brueggeman served as theology professor at Central Bible College where I attended. He began work for the Division of Foreign Missions for the Assemblies of God in 1994 and is now involved in Eurasia Education Services. Maybe he will have forgotten all of the aforementioned conversations and me in particular. Nevertheless his mission work goes on and I'm grateful for it. I also recall in that same semester that I took Philosophy, Theology 1 and 2 at the same time. So as one prof discussed whether God existed another took it on faith. As Dale assured us of God's judgment, my soteriology prof leaned on God's desire that all be saved. Talk about a ride! I remember hearing from Dale one morning that hell was God's intention and from Vernon later the same day that it was not God's desire. When I interjected in Vernon's class a point from Dale's, Vernon grabbed my desk spun me in front of the class and began erratically pointing a finger in my face to make his point. There were wounds licked and tears shed in my dark corner of the library that evening. But I got better. Vernon apologized later. Lesson from all this: don't play a Westminster doctorate and a Fuller doctorate off each other on the judgment of God. At least not in the middle of the lesson in front of the class.

Tags: Pentecostalism, Dale Brueggeman, theology, missions, Eurasia Education Services

I hear Pentecostalism is 100 this year. I've been changing a lot since I dropped out of one of the oldest and most respected Pentecostal Bible colleges. That was 1995. A lot has happened to me since then. That school taught me how to study. I've learned to think often times in reaction to the classes there. But in all honesty a lot of that learning was really important and good stuff. When I dropped out it was because of my own personal mess and practical direction rather than any serious theological divergence. When my theological interests changed it was years later and in response to American Revivalism as a whole rather than Pentecostalism in particular. Pentecostalism as a historical narrative is fascinating and if anything its' acceptance and popularity within Evangelicalism has made it less relevant. I have never personally taken variance with the doctrine of tongues being the initial physical evidence of the Spirit.
It was and is one of those things other Evangelicals want to minimize and strip from Pentecostals.

More important to me are the early social separations within Pentecostalism. They were persecuted for their insular emphasis on Spiritual ecstatic experience. Early on this put them in a great place to question the State on matters of the economy and War. Nowadays the health and wealth gospel and radical Nationalism are (to the outside world) the most identifiable traits of Pentecostalism. Pentecostals would like to say its their missionary activity. But wouldn't all Evangelicals? Maybe that old story from antiquity fits here:

When Dominic was in Rome, seeking authorization for his order from the Pope, the Pope gave him a tour of the treasures of the Vatican, and remarked complacently (referring to Acts 3:6), "Peter can no longer say, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" Dominic turned and looked straight at the Pope, and said, "No, and neither can he say, 'Rise and walk.'"

Why is the power missing from Pentecostalism that it had a century ago? Because like every other renewal movement throughout time it has emphasized the marketable passages of Scripture and left out the unmarketable. Oral Roberts (who by the way is not claimed by classic Pentecostals) talks glowingly about how when he started out as an Evangelist they didn't have a lot. But when God gave him the principle of Seed Faith he told him that he didn't intend for his children to be poor anymore. This thought, and not the initial physical evidence or Evangelism or Missions has spread like wildfire. It was the magic ingrediant that was always missing. It finally made the Post World War American church a God-blessed, Spirit filled, commercially driven enterprise. It assured its' consumers God's favor, continued security, and of course eternal fire insurance. But for me it has become the wound on Pentecostalism that has been its' undoing. And when that wound spreads to the ends of the earth as I fear it is doing, God alone can heal it.

When I attended Bible college I had a theology professor who honestly listened to the class's horror stories about churches teaching tongues and emphasizing scary unbiblical practices. He taught us that the Holy Spirit's work always points to Jesus Christ. Anything that does not point to Christ's work or even points away is just plain not Pentecostalism. I've heard preachers on television teach how to sing in tongues. I've seen Benny Hinn "heal" a man, "slay" him in the "Spirit" and then laugh at his terrible tie and tell him the Holy Spirit told him to get a better one. God in his mercy somehow sees fit to let people like this use Him wrongly. My theology professors had much less charity. I had one prof. say "If your theology is wrong you're going to hell." I instantly thought of Kenneth Copeland. I'm glad that even good theologians don't have God's power to send anyone to the hot place.

Has Pentecostalism done more harm than good in the last century? I'm inclined to say "No." No more harm than any other movements. But I'll let God alone be the Judge.

Tags: pentecostalism, Prosperity Theology, Kenneth Copeland, Bible College