Jan A.B. Jongeneel, Pentecost Mission and Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology, Festschrift in Honour of Professor Walter J. Hollenweger (Berlin: Peter Lang, 1992), 376 Pps.
In an essay on the Black Roots of Pentecostalism, Iain MacRobert contends that the appeal and attraction of P. to people around the world is its black, experiential roots, which provide a substratum of enduring values and themes for the bulk of the movement outside of white North America and Europe (74). Albert J. Raboteau is cited in the same article as stating that the African styles of worship, forms of ritual, systems of belief, and fundamental perspectives have remained vital have remained and were preserved b/c they were transformed, i.e. they were adapted for each indigenous context (75). Many leitmotifs of white evangelical origin then became embedded in the emerging P. community, such as the immanent parousia, an inaugurated eschatology, and an ‘Exodus’ theology which perceived freedom in political and socio-economic terms (76-77). William Seymour was in pursuit of interracial reconciliation, but knew that it would only come from above, and not below (77). Leaving the interracial Methodist Episcopal Church, he then joined the Evening Light Saints, in addition to holiness divine healing racial equality and a form of ecumenism, also the idea of a great outpouring of the Spirit prior to the end of time; as such, all the elements were in place for the P. revival. He was ordained by the ELS and by 1905, was serving a church in Jackson, MS. He then heard of Parham’s experience and teaching of speaking in tongues in a church in Texas, only to leave MS and sit-in on classes at Parham’s Bible School. He learned from Parham and then accepted a position at a Church of the Nazarene body in Los Angeles on Santa Fe St., teaching the idea of speaking in tongues, even though he had not yet experienced it. On 4/12/1906, he experienced tongues for himself, and the new body of believers soon outgrew the local home where bible studies were held, so they opened up an abandoned former African Methodist Episcopal chapel on 312 Azusa St. Attendance to the Sunday meetings soon outgrew the capacity of the building (78-79). For Seymour, Spirit Baptism was more than just glossolalia – it was the power to draw people together across racial lines, as attested to by Seymour’s Apostolic Faith newsletter in September, 2006. Within five months, 38 missionaries had departed from this mission, and within two years the movement had expanded to over 50 nations worldwide.
In 1914, the predominantly white Assemblies of God was formed, ending the notable experiment in racial reconciliation, according to Vinson Synan (HPT). Two years later, the ‘Jesus-only’ issue arose, further separating the white P.’s from the black P.’s, making the AG a ‘lily white’ denomination (Robert Mapes Anderson, “A Social History of the Early Twentieth Century Pentecostal Movement” [diss. Columbia University, 1969]). However, the more they divided, it seems, the more they grew.
Directly or indirectly, all P. groups find their heritage in Azusa St., notes Synan (HPT). Todd M. Johnson, in “Global Plans in the Pentecostal/Charismatic Tradition and the Challenges of the Unevangelized World,” (in the Jongeneel volume), notes that by 1920, three churches, the Church of God (Cleveland), the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, and the AG, had taken bold initiatives for global mission. These churches began training their own missionaries and they were deployed in China, India, and Africa (200).
Jongeneel contributes an essay entitled “Ecumenical, Evangelical, and Pentecostal/Charismatic Views on Mission as a Movement of the Holy Spirit,” wherein he draws attention to the important relation b/t the spirit and Christian mission (pneumatology and missiology, respectively). He asserts that since the original Pentecost, the church has been a missionary movement inspired by the Spirit, who sends out people who have become authentic persons to approach other people in order for them to become authentic persons (235).
Regarding the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, the Keswickian-Reformed side of P. considers it to be and enduement for service, whereas the Wesleyan-holiness side views it as a cleansing from sin (238). Jongeneel holds that anyone who limits the work of the Spirit to either individual conversion or the planting of churches as mistaken (240). Jongeneel cites Boer for support, who wri ites that “The substratum of the life of man and of nature, the vital power informing and sustaining all cosmic processes, is the Spirit of the living God. This life-giving and life-sustaining function of the Spirit forms the basis for and finds its parallel expression in the redemptive renewal of the life of man and of nature. The operations of the Spirit in creation and redemption are therefore not disparate activities” (Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions, [1962], 58). Jongeneel notes that neither the Baptism of the Spirit nor the experience of the Spirit can be left out of missionary reflection, as the spirit works universally in creation and particularly in redemption (242-243).
In his article, Suurmond suggests that the integration of the believer in the interplay of Word, Spirit, and community is best described not as a story or performance of a drama but as play.[1] For Suurmond, the Word of God provides the necessity and structure of the play, while the Spirit supplies dynamism and chance.[2] Word and Spirit at play in the world create their own order of play in which the outcome is open and everything is possible so that God’s own imagination is fulfilled.[3] From a scientific perspective, then, the Word and Spirit represent necessity and chance, respectively, invoking the words of Iranaeus, as the ‘two hands of God’
Conway, in “Helping the Ecumenical movement to Move On,” notes that the definition of ecumenism is the striving under the leading of the Holy spirit for the proper integrity of Christ’s church in her service of the proper integrity of humankind in the purposes of God (274). Palmer contends that co-existence, cooperation, commitment, and communion mark the ecumenical movement (Strangers No longer, 1990). Conway notes that in his 40 years of involvement within it, the ecumenical movement has swung toward emphasizing diversity over and above emphasizing unity. Conway summarizes his view in 5 statements: 1) any particular Christian church is called and enabled by the Spirit to grow into the fullness of Christ; 2) mutual understanding and exchange b/t groups is a prime way of growing into Christ; 3) Christians need to live amongst their neighbors, not just in regards to church activities, but in all of life; 4) we need to see ourselves as part of a larger whole, but also celebrate our diversity; and 5) we need to have a spirituality that is open to self-examination and self-critique (282-283).
Veenhof, in “The Significance of the Charismatic Renewal for Theology and Church,” notes that word and Spirit work in tandem with each other (291), and the works of each are marked by an already, but not yet aspect (295).
Peter Hocken, in “Charismatic Renewal in the Roman Catholic Churc: Recption and Challenge,” notes the reaction of the church authority to the outbreak of the charisms within the RCC was generally good. He further notes that prior to the revolutionary Decree on Ecumenism from 1964, it would have been generally unthinkable that a renewal movement from outside the RCC would be viewed as legitimate (301). The RCC generally did not doubt the legitimacy of glossolalia, unlike most Protestant bodies. The RCC, early on, recognized the Charismatic Renewal as merely a “spirituality”, noting that it was valid, but only one among many valid options. The RCC renewal was pictured as the recovery of the first spirit of Pentecost, and does/did not accept the ideology or practices of the Pentecostal movement, a US Bishops statement on Charismatic Renewal claims (303). The RCC makes a clear distinction b/t being ‘ecumenical’ and non-denominational, accepting the first, but rejecting the latter, as ecumenical renewal would respect church affiliation, but non-denominational would not (303). The Charismatic Renewal, Hocken notes, is impossible for all churches w/o an openness to a deep process of repentance and purification (304); the power of the Charismatic Renewal is bound up with its ecumenical character.
[1] Jean-Jacques Suurmond, “The Church at Play: The Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal of the Liturgy as Renewal of the World,” in Pentecost, Mission and Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology. Festschrift in Honour of Professor Walter Hollenweger, ed. Jan A. B. Jongeneel et al., Studien zur Interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums 75 (Fankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992), 247–59.
[2] Suurmond, “The Church at Play,” 248–50. See also Arthur E. Paris, Black Pentecostalism: Southern Religion in an Urban World (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1982), 45–79.
[3] Suurmond, Word and Spirit at Play, 75–83.