Pentecostal ecclesiology – does it exist?

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Notes

¹For a theological analysis of the first three quinquennia of the dialogue, see Kärkkäinen, Spiritus ubi vult spirat. The third quinquennium focused on ecclesiology; see the ecumenically important document ‘Perspectives on Koinonia’. For wider ecumenical implications and challenges of Pentecostalism, see further Dahling-Sander, Funkschmidt, and Mielke, Pfingstkirchen und Ökumene in Bewegung.

²Harper, ‘The Holy Spirit Acts in the Church’. For an insightful analysis of the pressure towards ‘institutionalization’, see Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads.

³A telling example comes from the early periodical Apostolic Faith (2 September 1906) in which the writer calls the new renewal movement ‘to replace dead forms and creeds and wild fanaticisms [of existing churches] with living practical Christianity’.

⁴See further my ‘Free Churches, Ecumenism, and Pentecostalism’. See also Spittler, ‘Spirituality, Pentecostal and Charismatic’.

⁵The classic study is Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. See also my ‘“Encountering Christ”’.

⁶Cited in Kärkkäinen, Spiritus ubi vult spirat, 50–1.

⁹Anderson, ‘The Pentecostal Gospel and Third World Cultures’. I have recently edited a book entitled Spirit in the World, which attempts to give voice to and facilitate dialogue between diverse Pentecostal theologies from various contexts, primarily from the Global South.

⁷For documentation, see the annual statistics lists in the January issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

⁸This typology is followed, e.g. in Burgess and van der Maas, The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements.

¹⁰For an authoritative account, see Robeck, Azusa Street. This book is the first fruit of a massive, meticulous study project on the origins of Pentecostalism in Southern California and beyond.

¹¹For a recent discussion of emerging global Pentecostalisms, see Hollenweger, Pentecostalism; Anderson and Hollenweger, Pentecostals after a Century. ‘Pentecostals are multi-cultural … if for no other reason than that they are found around the world’, argues Robeck, and therefore, among other suggestions, he recommends that we speak of Pentecostalisms rather than Pentecostalism (as a single phenomenon). Robeck, ‘Taking Stock of Pentecostalism’, 45.

¹²For a helpful beginning, see Anderson and Hollenweger, An Introduction to Pentecostalism. The main challenge faced by theological analysts of Pentecostalism is that, despite the rapid growth of academic theology and theologians in the past two or three decades, still so much of Pentecostal spirituality exists in oral or other non-discursive forms, especially from the early formative years and in traditions outside the West. The comment by Hollenweger, however, is a healthy reminder to us: ‘Taken seriously this offers a real possibility of discovering a methodology of theology in an oral culture where the medium of communication is – just as in biblical times – not the definition, but the description; not the statement, but the story; not the doctrine but the testimony. … Whoever denies that one can do proper theology in these categories will have to prove that the Bible is not a theological book. Our way of doing theology is a culturally biased form (yet necessarily so, in our culture!). There are other equally relevant forms of doing theology. Pentecostalism offers raw materials and elements for such an alternative methodology.' Hollenweger, ‘Charisma and Oikumene' 332–3.

¹³Lee, Pneumatological Ecclesiology, 15.

¹⁴Hodges, A Theology of the Church.

¹⁵A representative example is Dusing, ‘The New Testament Church’. Pentecostalism shares with the wider Evangelical movement the difficulty of defining its ecclesiology because of the lack of a unified ecclesiastical and theological tradition characteristic of traditional churches such as the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches. On the other hand, a number of Pentecostal movements can be called a ‘denomination’ in a sense that there are a number of established Pentecostal movements such as Assemblies of God that have developed a discernible ecclesiastical and theological identity. For Evangelicalism, nothing like that exists for the simple reason that Evangelicalism represents a transdenominational movement. See further, Stackhouse Jr., Evangelical Ecclesiology.

¹⁶Hocken, ‘Church, Theology of’.

¹⁷For a presentation of Pentecostals' views of the Church, see Kärkkäinen, Introduction to Ecclesiology, ch. 6.

¹⁸Chan, ‘Mother Church’, 180.

¹⁹Kuzmic and Volf, ‘Communio Sanctorum’, 2.

²⁰See further, Kärkkäinen, ‘The Church as Charismatic Fellowship’.

²¹‘Perspectives on Koinonia’, para. 10. In some European languages, e.g. German, the term Gemeinschaft catches the meaning. In my home country of Finland, Pentecostal ‘churches’ seldom, if ever, call themselves by the name ‘church’ (kirkko), because it has for them too institutionalised connotations; instead they prefer the term seurakunta, which can be translated as ‘church’ in English, but which has nothing of the meaning of institution – the Greek term ecclesia being the best translation of the word.

²²Ervin, ‘Koinonia, Church and Sacraments', 8–9.

²³Kuzmic and Volf, ‘Communio Sanctorum’, 15 (their emphasis). They refer to the idiom of their home country of (former) Yugoslavia, mentioned in n. 17, where Pentecostals frequently use the expression ‘going into fellowship’ when referring to church attendance. ‘In a sense it, of course, is incorrect to say that one goes to or into the fellowship. Christians are (or should be) a fellowship with a lively, personal communication going on between the members whether they are gathered at one place where the fellowship aspect of the church is experienced and expressed in a special way' (p. 16, their emphasis).

²⁴Ibid., 16.

²⁵Ibid.

²⁶Kärkkäinen, ‘Vapaakristillisyys, helluntailaisuus ja baptismi’, 312 (my translation): ‘The stress on experience can of course at times lead to overemphasis on emotionalism. However, it is still the case that even to begin to understand this spiritual tradition, speaking of experience is essential. … Spontaneity and openness to the leading of the Spirit characterize church life. Even where services are being planned, the focus is on being open to the leading of the Spirit. Therefore, those who come to the worship prepare themselves by praying to God for his manifestation. … Encounter with God is the central feature of Pentecostal-Charismatic spirituality. The goal of the sermon is not only to share spiritual teaching; the ultimate goal of a Pentecostal sermon, similarly to prayer and praise, is an authentic and fresh meeting with the Lord. This is of course not unrelated to the emphasis on experience. A typical Pentecostal worship meeting culminates in the altar call where people are being invited by the preacher to come forward to be prayed for in order to meet with the Lord, be it about becoming a believer, healing a sickness, or getting help with finances.’

²⁷There is obviously a connection here with the sacramental principle of traditional churches: whereas sacramental churches consider sacraments as the preferred way of securing the divine presence, along with the preached word, for Pentecostals the emphasis is on the gifts of the Spirit. There have been attempts by some Pentecostal theologians to find commonalities between Pentecostal spirituality, especially its emphasis on glossolalia, speaking in tongues, as a way of ‘securing’ the divine presence and sacraments as ‘signs’ of the divine presence. While there are some connecting points, I also think the differences are so dramatic that, at the most, one can only point to some common underlying motifs behind glossolalia and, say, the Eucharist. See further, Macchia, ‘Tongues as a Sign’.

²⁸Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 9. See also Volf, After Our Likeness, 197.